He was well aware that an Italian girl, however important her ancestry, would require, whomever she married, a large dowry.
If it was true, as the Foreign Secretary had said, that the Soginos were hard up, the sale of the necklace would undoubtedly supply enough money to ensure that the Prince’s daughter did not lack a suitor.
He did not, however, speak his thoughts aloud, but merely said,
“You said that the Prince di Gorizia’s son is unattractive. Why is that?”
“He has a reputation that is extremely unsavoury, even in Florence, which as you know allows men an unlimited freedom of lechery but insists that their women remain pure.”
“Then I am sorry for his bride.”
“As you are so interested in these two families, I am sure that you would like to meet them,” Sir Julius suggested.
“I should be delighted! But I would not wish it to appear at all obvious that I am curious.”
“There is no need for that. I was in fact considering cancelling an engagement I have tonight to attend a party at a friend’s house, where both the Princes have been invited. As there will be dancing afterwards, I am sure that, even if they are not included in the dinner party, they will arrive later, with the engaged couple.”
“I should be delighted to accompany you,” Lord Mere said simply.
Sir Julius rose and walked to his desk that stood in the window from which there was a magnificent view over the City that ever since the Renaissance had been the cultural centre of Italy.
Lord Mere looked out and over the red roofs he could see the great dome of Santa Maria del Fiore and beside it the Campanile of Giotto silhouetted against the sunlit sky.
Beyond them the Arno flowed majestically beneath the bridges that crossed it.
It was so lovely that it brought to his mind the sculptors, the craftsmen and the painters who had made Florence a treasure chest of beauty that was the envy of every other country in the world.
Sir Julius, having written a quick note, rang the bell and told a servant to have it taken immediately to the Contessa Mazara.
“You will like our hostess of this evening,” he said to Lord Mere. “She is a woman of great beauty and even greater intelligence. She was widowed five years ago and found herself Mistress of one of the finest houses in Florence and the possessor of an enormous fortune.”
His voice deepened as he went on,
“She has been pursued by suitors not only, I may say, for what she possesses but also for herself, but she has refused every one of them.”
“Why?” Lord Mere enquired.
“I think frankly she finds it more amusing to be adored by a multitude of men rather than to belong to just one. The Italians are very possessive about their women.”
Lord Mere laughed.
At the same time his thoughts went to Jennie and he knew that the Marquis was no less possessive. If he was to save her from his anger, and perhaps some dire punishment which he could not for the moment envisage, the necklace must be found and quickly.
He was thinking aloud when he said,
“I shall look forward to this evening!”
*
He dressed for dinner in silence, until at last he said to his valet,
“I have something I want you to do for me, Hicks, while we are in Florence.”
The valet, who had been slightly piqued at not being taken into his Master’s confidence sooner, now became alert like a terrier pricking up his ears.
“Are we on a job, my Lord?”
It was the sort of remark that Lord Mere expected from Hicks, who had been with him for nearly ten years and had played his part in the many and various clandestine adventures that had been received with much appreciation at the Foreign Office.
“Frankly, the answer is ‘yes!’”
“Good! That’s what I hoped, my Lord, it was!”
The way the man spoke made Lord Mere look at him curiously.
“Why do you say that, Hicks?”
“Because, my Lord, I thinks you’ve been getting’ bored this last year with nothin’ to do except run about after the Prince of Wales and be chased by all them pretty ladies, who should be at home lookin’ after their husbands!”
It was, of course. a great impertinence on Hicks’s part to speak like that, but Lord Mere laughed.
From the moment he had engaged Hicks he had known that he was different from the usual run of servants and had an intelligence he would have difficulty in finding elsewhere.
For one thing Hicks had knocked about Europe and spoke both French and Italian, not well, but well enough to understand what was being said and to make himself understood.
He was also absolutely fearless and, as Lord Mere knew from experience, was so loyal and devoted that he could trust him not only with everything he possessed, but with his life.
“I get your point, Hicks,” he replied, “but this is a different assignment from anything we have done before!”
“Does it concern her Ladyship?”
Lord Mere frowned.
“Why should you ask that?”
“Because it seemed strange, my Lord, that her Ladyship should call so early in the morning and immediately afterwards you gives me orders to pack for Florence.”
It was an intelligent guess such as Lord Mere expected from Hicks and one of the reasons why he could be so useful.
But he had no intention of telling him about Jennie’s loss and merely said,
“The Foreign Office has an interest in our visit.”
“Then let’s hope it’ll be a bit safer than the last time when your Lordship ferreted out somethin’ they wanted to know!”
Lord Mere remembered how on that occasion a bullet had passed within a hair’s breadth of his head and it was only by a miracle that he was still alive.
“This is nothing like that,” he said. “I just want to know a few facts, which I think you will be able to find out for me.”
“I’m listenin’, my Lord.”
“There are two noble families in Florence who interest me at the moment,” Lord Mere began, “the Soginos and the Gorizias. Everybody knows them and they each own a large Palace at opposite ends of the City besides, of course, huge estates that need not concern us.”
He knew that Hicks was listening intently and he went on,
“I am particularly interested in finding out, which I will very likely learn myself this evening, whether Prince Antonio di Sogino has returned here from London and where he is staying. I expect it will be in his own house, but one never knows! Most unattached young men prefer to be on their own.”
Hicks’s lips twisted in a faint smile and Lord Mere knew that he was thinking about the garçonniers to which Frenchmen took their mistresses and which were supposed to be secret hiding places unknown to everybody else.
Lord Mere let Hicks help him into his tight-fitting and exceedingly smart long-tailed coat before he added,
“I believe that the Prince di Sogino’s daughter has a necklace which is not unlike the one owned by her Ladyship. Find out anything you can about it. I am sure the servants will talk if you persuade them in the usual manner.”
As he spoke, Lord Mere put five gold sovereigns down on the dressing table in a little pile.
“If that is not enough,” he remarked, “you can always come to me for more.”
“I’ll do that, my Lord, but, as your Lordship well knows, I don’t always have to pay people to find out what you wants to know!”
There was a hint of mischief in Hicks’s eyes that reminded Lord Mere of his valet’s proven success with women.
He ‘had a way with him’, as the servants said, that ensured that if he paid for the information he extracted it was with kisses.
Lord Mere knew that Hicks’s particular methods of flattery and love-making were apparently irresistible.
He put a clean handkerchief into his pocket and, as he walked towards the door, he said,
“I am relying on you, Hicks,
but don’t get into any sort of trouble. Dark alleys in Florence can be dangerous to anybody who is not welcome.”
“I knows that, my Lord,” Hicks replied, “and you be careful too. I don’t want to find myself havin’ to drag your Lordship out of the river!”
Again it was an impertinence that Lord Mere would not have tolerated from any other servant in his employment.
But he did not reply and went down the stairs to where he knew that Sir Julius would be waiting for him.
They drank a glass of wine before a footman announced that the carriage was at the door and they walked together down passages hung with exquisite mirrors and pictures that Sir Julius had collected arduously ever since his retirement.
“Tomorrow,” Lord Mere said, “you must show me your new treasures. I am sure that you have added to them considerably since I was last here.”
“Fortunately for me,” replied Sir Julius, “a large number of the old Florentine families have been forced to sell and every time they part with something that has belonged to them for centuries they become ever more bitter against the Government.”
“I suppose that includes the Soginos,” Lord Mere remarked, thinking that this was the sort of information he should repeat to the Foreign Secretary.
“The Prince di Sogino is one of many who loathes the present administration,” Sir Julius answered, “but I doubt if he is the revolutionary type. I would not say the same, however, about Vincente di Gorizia.”
“Is that the future bridegroom?”
“Yes and after you have met him this evening you can tell me what you think of him.”
“You are making me apprehensive!” Lord Mere said jokingly.
They drove through the narrow streets of Florence, which Lord Mere had always thought had a beauty and a mystery that was different from that of any other town he knew.
When they drew up outside the Contessa’s house, there were linkmen with their lights.
The moment Lord Mere saw the great pillars outside the building and the exquisitely inlaid marble floors and painted ceilings within it, he knew that he was going to enjoy himself.
Throughout his life he had been deeply affected by beauty, although it was something that had been suppressed when he was at school and seldom talked about even to his closest friends.
It was impossible to explain to men, who were obsessed by horses and by the current toast of the Clubs, that he could find a picture or a sculpture more emotionally moving and more uplifting than what they worshipped.
He thought now a little cynically that the Contessa’s possessions would be to him more interesting than her guests.
He knew, however, that it would be a mistake to indulge himself in an ecstasy of culture before his mission was accomplished and he could find his sister’s necklace.
The Contessa was receiving her guests against a background of lilies that made her appear like a jewel in an exotic setting.
She was certainly very beautiful with dark flashing eyes and a Junoesque figure that was perfect in its symmetry.
The jewels she wore round her neck and in her hair were, Lord Mere realised at a quick glance, fabulous.
She held out both her hands to Sir Julius saying,
“My dear friend! It is always an inexpressible joy to welcome you to my house!”
“I hope I have not upset your arrangements by bringing Lord Mere with me,” Sir Julius said as he kissed her hand. “He arrived unexpectedly and I wanted you to meet each other.”
The Contessa looked at Lord Mere and he knew that the words she greeted him with were sincere.
He was too experienced not to know when a woman’s eyes lit up at the sight of him and he could feel the vibrations she sent out to him were an invitation on their own without the need for words.
He kissed her hand and as he did so her fingers tightened for a moment on his.
Then there were other guests behind them and they moved into one of the most beautiful rooms that Lord Mere had ever seen.
“Why have I never been here before?” he asked Sir Julius.
“Because only in the last year has the Contessa come to live here,” he replied. “It was closed because there was some modernisation to be done and she was also involved after her husband’s death in a Court case when one of his nephews tried to prove that it should not belong to the Conte’s widow during her lifetime, as he intended, but should go directly to the new head of the Mazara family.”
Lord Mere was aware that this was the type of lawsuit that was common between Italians.
He was, however, surprised that the Contessa had won and the Courts had not awarded it to the new Conte di Mazara.
It was a family possession that he could see was not only priceless but steeped in antiquity.
He was so entranced by the pictures and statues with which the room was decorated that he ignored the dinner guests now entering the room and who all knew Sir Julius.
He looked around him and found that everything he saw was a sheer delight.
Then a velvety voice beside him said,
“These are only a few of the things I would like to show you.”
Lord Mere turned his head to find the Contessa looking up at him.
She was taller than the average Italian woman, but even so her head only reached to a little above his shoulder.
As he smiled down at her, he thought how very attractive she was and she might have stepped out of one of the canvases that decorated the walls.
“Because tonight you are, of course, my Guest of Honour, having just arrived in Florence,” the Contessa said, “I have changed the table so that you are seated on my right and I should therefore be grateful if you would escort me into dinner.”
“I should be very honoured,” Lord Mere replied, “and I feel, because you are surrounded by such beautiful objets d’art, we already have a great deal in common.”
“That speech was not quite as pretty as I would have liked it to be.”
As the Contessa spoke, she looked at him from under her long dark eyelashes and the way her lips curved told Lord Mere exactly what she wanted him to say.
She flirted with him all through dinner with an expertise and a sophistication that he found amusing.
She was so very much a woman of the world and in her own way so cultured that everything about her was, he thought, in keeping with the pictures on the walls, the paintings on the ceiling and the exquisite sixteenth century gold goblets that decorated the table.
Only in Italy, Lord Mere told himself, could one find such a wealth of antiquity combined with good taste in how to display it.
Nothing jarred and everything was like the rhythm of music.
By the end of dinner he was beginning to forget everything but the allure of the woman beside him and his own response to her wiles.
“There will be dancing afterwards with a lot of young people and some of my friends who could not be included in the dinner party will join us,” the Contessa said quietly. “If there is an opportunity, I would like to show you my picture gallery and the very beautiful rooms that I have created for myself.”
There was no doubt of the innuendo behind the words and Lord Mere could only reply,
“I hope you will not forget.”
“How could I?” she asked.
There was again an expression in her eyes that told him very much more than her lips were saying.
A string orchestra was now playing softly in the huge drawing room where they had been received on their arrival.
Much of the furniture had been removed so that there was room for dancing.
There were windows that opened onto a terrace outside and in the garden, which Lord Mere had not noticed before, there were candle-lanterns hanging from trees and shrubs creating a strange beauty and mystery.
As usual in foreign countries, the gentlemen did not linger in the dining room but left with the ladies and, as they reached the drawing room, the Contessa said,
“Shall we op
en the ball together, my Lord? I know without being told that you dance lightly in the same way that you ride your horses.”
“That is what I hope you will think,” Lord Mere replied.
He put his arm around her as the orchestra struck up a waltz by Strauss and they swept over the polished floor, moving so smoothly that it was as if they were gliding over ice.
He felt the Contessa move a little closer to him and he knew that her eyes seeking his held an unmistakable invitation in them.
Then he heard the Major Domo announce from the door,
“Il Principe di Gorizia!”
The Contessa moved from Lord Mere’s side and hurried to greet her guests.
He heard her chattering to them in her own language and was aware that, while she was talking to the thick-set high-nosed elderly man, he was joined by a younger one.
Lord Mere was sure that this was his son, Prince Vincente di Gorizia, who was to marry the Prince di Sogino’s daughter.
After what Sir Julius had said about him, he looked so exactly as he had expected that it was almost ludicrous.
Slightly hunched even at his age, he was dark and swarthy and there were signs of debauchery about his face that were startling.
In fact, Lord Mere decided, the young Prince was repulsive and there was no other word for it.
Because he knew that it was important for him to meet him, Lord Mere walked deliberately up to the newcomers to stand just behind his hostess.
They were immediately conscious of his presence and the Contessa said,
“Allow me to introduce to Your Highness our Guest of Honour for this evening, who has just arrived to stay with my dear friend, Sir Julius. May I present Lord Mere, Il Principe di Gorizia!”
“Welcome to Florence!” the Prince said genially.
“I am delighted to be back here!” Lord Mere replied.
“You have been here before?”
“Several times. And twelve months ago I was in Rome.”
“The Eternal City to outsiders,” the Prince replied, “but which to us has become an overcrowded overwhelming seat of bureaucracy!”
He spoke scathingly and Lord Mere replied,
“It is still very beautiful!”
He thought that the Prince metaphorically shook his head and then at that moment before he could speak the Major Domo announced in stentorian tones,
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