by Lucy Gordon
‘You bet he pays me. I’m very good at my job. I don’t come cheap.’
‘Well, I guess you found your right place. You always did have a way with horses. Look what you managed to do with Elliot. Nobody else could have done as well with him.’
‘Oh, Ben, don’t. The one thing that isn’t perfect was that I just abandoned Elliot.’
‘I thought he was being cared for by that Hanworth fellow who’s coming this afternoon.’
‘He is. He’ll have the best of everything, but I just know he’s wondering why I don’t come back. Talking of coming back, where is everyone? Leo should have brought them home by now.’
As the day wore on Selena had the feeling that everyone was in on a secret from which only she was excluded. Maids giggled in doorways and vanished at her approach. Once Gina asked if Leo had given her a wedding present yet.
‘Not yet,’ Selena said, bewildered.
‘Perhaps you get it today,’ Gina observed, and went away smiling.
Hours passed. She began to feel nervous. Surely they should have been home by now?
In the late afternoon Gina came to find her.
‘Signorina, I think you should look out of the window. There is something there for you to see.’
Puzzled, Selena went to look down the road that led to the village. A little group of people were walking slowly up to her. She recognised Barton, Delia and the rest of the family. But she also recognised a figure that she hadn’t dared hope to see again.
‘Elliot!’ she shrieked and flew out of the house.
Leo was leading the way up the road, holding Elliot’s bridle, grinning as he saw her. All the others were smiling too as she arrived in a rush and threw her arms about the old horse’s neck.
‘You-’ she whirled on the Hanworth family. ‘You brought him over with you?’
‘Sure did,’ Barton said, beaming. ‘Me and Leo stitched it all up, and he swore he wouldn’t let you get wind of it.’
Selena had remembered her manners and embraced Delia, Barton, then the girls. She would have hugged Jack too but he warned her off with a boyish glare.
‘Elliot, Elliot-’ Tears poured down her face.
‘That’s why we’ve been so long,’ Leo said. ‘It took time to get him off the plane and clear him for entry. Never seen so much paperwork, but in the end they passed him. By the way, that offer on Jeepers is still open.’
‘Better take it,’ Selena agreed. ‘He’s a racer, he needs to do his stuff. Elliot-’ she kissed his nose again “-just needs to rest and be loved.’
The Calvanis arrived next day, and they and the Hanworths immediately took to each other. In the rowdy party that followed Selena saw Liza looking a little overwhelmed and took her up to bed.
‘Thank you. Thank you for everything.’
When they had hugged she said, ‘You really think I can do it-be a contessa?’
‘Not in the old way,’ Liza said. ‘That belonged to another age. You will do it your own way, and that is right. Things must change if they are to live.’
Selena considered this. ‘A cowgirl contessa?’
‘I like that,’ Liza said at once. ‘I admired you so much at the rodeo. It’s such a shame that I’m too old to learn to ride.’ They laughed, then she became serious again. ‘Only one thing makes you a contessa, and that is the love of a count. Never forget that.’
Downstairs Selena found the brothers arguing about money. Guido didn’t want to take any from Leo, know that the raising of it might damage the farm.
‘And who wants to live in the palace once you’ve sold off everything?’ he demanded.
‘I don’t want to live in it at all,’ Leo retorted. ‘Uncle, please arrange to live a very long time so that this will remain academic.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ the count agreed imperturbably, ‘but when I’m not there this problem will be there. Still. You should settle it now.’
‘I don’t want to live in the palace,’ Leo said stubbornly.
‘Then we needn’t,’ Selena said. ‘Guido can stay there.’
Everyone turned to look at her.
‘Guido, have I got this right?’ Selena asked him. ‘You don’t want the title and all the stuff that goes with it. But you love Venice, and you love the palace.’
‘Right.’
‘And it’s a great backdrop for your business.’ She turned to Leo. ‘So he stays there. We just have to turn up for special occasions. You work out the rent and discount it against the compensation. That way the palace isn’t standing empty, and the money worries are sorted. Everyone’s happy.’
In the silence the brothers looked at each other.
‘She’s a brilliant lady you’re marrying,’ Guido said with a grin.
‘What did I tell you?’ the count roared. ‘I said the Calvanis always get the best wives,’ he swung Selena around in a dance, ‘and we’ve done it again.’
The wedding was a true family occasion, with the family being the whole village. When Leo walked Selena out of the church and three times around the duck pond-because they always did that in Morenza-he started up the hill, followed by everyone in the village who could walk, and every tenant they had.
At the gate of the farmhouse the crowd gave them a rousing cheer before going back to the public hall where a spread was laid out for them. Leo would gladly have invited them all inside, but the house would have burst at the seams.
The sight of herself in bridal white with a flowing veil had taken Selena’s breath away. She didn’t look like the person she knew at all, but perhaps that was the way to start a new life. She wasn’t sure who this person was, but she belonged to Leo body, heart and soul, because he had given her the same, and given it first.
She wondered what would have happened if Guido hadn’t brought her back to Italy by subterfuge. As the party quietened down, she felt moved to remind her husband, ‘I guess we owe a lot to Guido. If he hadn’t been able to cook up a good story, none of us would be here.’
Leo raised his glass to his brother. ‘I guess that’s true.’
‘It’s in the blood of the Venetians,’ Guido said cheerfully. He’d had a little too much champagne, or he would never have said the next words. ‘We all have those little skills, inventing, forgery-’
There was a sudden silence, in which his last words seemed to echo.
‘Forgery?’ Leo repeated. ‘What do you mean-forgery?’
The silence had taken on a stunned quality as the implications sank in. Everyone was looking at Guido.
Guido, who had discovered the evidence that made Leo legitimate. Guido, who had sworn he would escape the title, no matter what he had to do.
Guido-the master of tricks and spells, the man of masks and illusions, the Venetian.
‘Oh, no!’ Leo groaned. ‘You wouldn’t do that to me! Tell me you wouldn’t.’
Guido looked at him, bland and innocent. ‘Who me?’
‘Yes, you, brother! You sneaky, tricky, unscrupulous-’
He set down his glass and began to advance on Guido, who backed off cautiously.
‘Now, Leo, don’t do anything you’ll regret-’
‘I won’t regret anything I do to you.’
But he was checked by the last sound anyone there had expected to hear. Selena burst into peals of laughter. The others relaxed and began to smile as her mirth echoed around the room.
‘Selena, carissima-’
‘Oh, my goodness!’ she choked. ‘This will be the death of me! I haven’t heard anything as good as this in years.’
‘Well, I’m glad you find it funny-’
‘It’s your face that’s funny, my darling.’ She put her hands on either side of his head and kissed him, still laughing.
Her mirth was infectious. He couldn’t help himself laughing with her, even through his dismay.
‘But don’t you realise what Guido’s done to us?’ he demanded. ‘He forged that evidence.’
‘Has he? Are you sure of that? He hasn’t admitted it.’
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‘And he’ll never tell you, one way or the other,’ Marco observed, eyeing Guido judicially. ‘But I’m betting he’s innocent, although it pains me to find him innocent of anything.’
Guido ran a finger around his collar.
‘What I think happened is this,’ Marco continued. ‘He got wind of the Vinelli marriage in England, and he employed an army of private investigators to hunt it down. After all, we have a P.I. in the family.’ His amused eyes rested on Dulcie. ‘I dare say she put him in touch with a few?’
Guido seized his wife’s hand and muttered, ‘Say nothing.’
‘Very wise,’ Marco continued. ‘Well, that’s my theory for what it’s worth.’
‘You think it’s real?’ Leo asked him. ‘Not a forgery.’
‘I doubt he forged anything, although he’ll let you think he did, just to tease a rise out of you.’
‘I’ll break every bone in his body,’ Leo said.
Guido hopped nimbly out of range. ‘No violence,’ he said. ‘Remember I’m an expectant father.’
Marco said in Leo’s ear, ‘And that’s where you’ll get your revenge.’
‘What do you mean?’ the brothers demanded with one voice.
‘Children tend to take the opposite tack to their fathers. It would serve Guido right if his son wanted all the things he was so glad to give up. When that day comes, he may have some explaining to do.’
‘But you just said-he didn’t forge it,’ Leo reminded him.
‘Well, I don’t think even Guido would go that far.’
‘But how can we be sure?’ Leo groaned.
‘Easy,’ Marco said, ‘you check the English register offices. I think you’ll find it there.’
‘But let’s not do that,’ Selena said. ‘Let’s not know. Then it’s not boring and predictable any more.’
‘Will I ever understand you?’ Leo asked tenderly.
‘You do,’ she said simply. ‘You’ve always understood me, when I never understood myself.’
She touched his face.
‘I had the prize,’ she said softly, ‘and I nearly let it go. But I’ll never let it go again. All my life, for ever and ever.’
Lucy Gordon
***
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