His Rags-To-Riches Contessa

‘They were, in the beginning, but it seems Don Sarti is in thrall to something which supersedes all other loyalties. Cards.’ Luca dug his hands into the deep pockets of his coat, frowning up at the cupid-strewn ceiling. ‘When my father confronted him, he confessed to having sold a few pieces each year to play at the ridotti, the private gaming hells which operate only during Carnival, hoping each time to recoup his losses.’

‘All gamblers believe their next big win is just a turn of the cards away,’ Becky said. ‘It is what keeps them coming back to the tables.’

‘I don’t understand it.’ Luca shook his head. ‘It is one thing to play with one’s own money, but to gamble the heritage of our city—Don Sarti knew he was committing a heinous crime. At first, my father thought that everything was lost, but Don Sarti told him he had only recently sold the bulk of the treasure on the black market with the intention of playing deep at the next Carnival, hoping to win double, treble his total losses. He swore it was his intention to gift his winnings back to the city.’

Luca cursed viciously under his breath. ‘Mi scusi, it is difficult for me to talk about this without becoming enraged. The perfidy of the man! To attempt to justify his behaviour, to think that he could atone for the loss of irreplaceable artefacts. My father could not believe he had fallen so low.’

‘I think,’ Becky said tentatively, ‘that he probably believed what he said. I’ve come across men like Don Sarti. It is a madness that grips them. They will beg, steal or borrow to ensure another turn of the cards, another roll of the dice. As long as they have a stake, they will play.’ She had always tried to avoid playing against such pathetic creatures. The memory of her time at the tables in the hells was shameful, tinged as it was with the memory of how she had been persuaded to play there in the first place, but that experience was precisely what Luca was paying for. ‘I presume,’ she said to him, ‘that Don Sarti refused to surrender the money into your father’s keeping?’

‘You presume correctly. My father informed him in no uncertain terms that he would do everything in his power to stop him, going so far as to say that he would make public the story of what they had done, risking his own freedom and his reputation, if Don Sarti did not hand over his ill-gotten gains. The treasure was gone, but what money was left belonged to Venice. Whether or not he would have carried out his threat I will never know, for Don Sarti decided not to take the risk.’

‘That was why he had him killed?’ Becky whispered, appalled. ‘Oh, Luca, that’s dreadful.’

‘Si.’ He was pale, his eyes dark with pain, his hands clenched so tightly into fists that his knuckles were white. ‘Fortunately for me, unfortunately for Don Sarti, my father wrote to me in desperation as soon as he returned home from that fateful interview, urging me to return to Venice as soon as possible.’

‘So that’s how you know!’ Becky exclaimed, ‘I did wonder...’

‘But no. I didn’t receive the letter. Instead, as I told you yesterday, the summons which reached me was from my mother, informing me that my father had died. He had been dead almost two months by the time I arrived in Venice, in June. As far as I knew, my father had drowned, slipping on the steps of the palazzo in the early hours. He was the worse for wine, so the gondolier claimed, and there was a thick fog when it happened. Though the alarm was raised, help arrived too late to save him. When his body was finally pulled from the canal, he had been dead for some hours.’

‘How tragic,’ Becky said, aware of the inadequacy of her words.

Luca nodded grimly. ‘The summons my father sent finally reached me here in July, having followed in my wake from Venice to London to Plymouth to Glasgow and back. You can imagine how guilty I felt, knowing that I had arrived far too late. He had never asked me for help before, and I had failed him.’

Becky swallowed a lump in her throat. ‘But even if you had received the letter telling you of Don Sarti’s treachery...’

‘Ah, no, that letter contained no details, save to bid my urgent return. My father would not risk his post being intercepted. I was not exaggerating when I said there are spies everywhere. No, there was but one clue in that letter. My father said that he had acquired a new history of the Royal Navy, and looked forward to my thoughts on the volume. It was there, in that book in the library, that he had placed the papers relating the whole sorry affair, exactly as I have told you.’

‘What about your mother?’

‘She knew nothing, until I showed her the letter. She was almost as shocked as I. My father had been preoccupied in the weeks before he died, a delicate matter of city business, he told her, but nothing more. She didn’t even know he had summoned me home.’

Luca wandered over to the window, to gaze out at the narrow canal. Becky joined him. The houses opposite looked almost close enough to touch. ‘It’s a big leap,’ she said, ‘from learning that your father’s been betrayed by his best friend, to assuming the best friend has had him killed.’

‘It was only when I questioned the palace gondoliers and discovered that both of them had been suddenly taken ill that day, forcing my father to use a hired gondola, that I began to question events. I can find no trace of the gondolier described by Brunetti. And then there was the timing. It was, according to my major-domo, almost three in the morning when the gondolier roused the palazzo to tell them my father had fallen in, yet my father left the palazzo where he had been dining with friends at just after eleven.’

‘So you think that the gondolier waited to make certain that he was drowned?’

‘I don’t think he was one of our Venetian gondoliers at all. They are a tight-knit group of men, Becky. Hard-working and honest. If this man who brought my father back had been one of them, they would have known who he was.’

‘You think he was actually an assassin hired by Don Sarti and sent to silence your father?’

‘My father had threatened to expose him. Don Sarti would have been desperate to avoid that at all costs. Taking account of all the circumstances, I think it is almost certain, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid I do. Is there no way you can bring him to justice?’

‘If by that you mean getting the authorities involved, then no. I have no tangible proof of murder, and the only evidence that the treasure was hidden is my father’s letter which, if it was made public, would destroy his reputation. I have no option but to find some other way to hold Don Sarti to account. If my father had been less honourable, if he had not tried to prevent Don Sarti from losing everything they had tried to protect, then he would still be alive today.’ Luca took a shuddering breath. ‘If I had received that letter in time, perhaps he would be alive still.’

‘You can’t think that way,’ Becky said fervently. ‘Even if you had received the letter earlier, you still wouldn’t have returned to Venice in time to prevent your father’s murder, would you?’ Which was no doubt true, but for Luca, she understood, quite irrelevant. He would continue to torture himself with guilt until he had found a way to atone. Finally, she understood his plan. ‘You can’t bring him back,’ she said, ‘but you can prevent Don Sarti squandering Venice’s money, just as your father wished, is that it? You want me to win it back?’

‘Yes.’ Luca let out a long, heartfelt sigh. ‘That is my plan exactly. I want to reclaim the money for my city, and I want to see Don Sarti destroyed in the process. I want to use his vice against him. We will turn the tables on him, quite literally. We will indulge this passion of his until he has returned everything he took from the city. I have to do this, Becky. Per amor del cielo, I have no choice. Until it is done, my life is not my own.’

That too she could see, in the haunted look in his eyes. ‘How much do I have to win?’ Becky asked, knowing already that she didn’t want to hear the answer.

‘I don’t know for sure, but I can tell you what my father estimated.’

He did, and the sum he named made her blanch. ‘It sounds like a king’s ransom.’

‘A city’s ransom. It is a dangerous game we will play. If the stakes are too high for you, you can, as The Procurer said, return to England.’

And face the threat of the gallows? Not likely, Becky thought. ‘We have a saying back home, as well to be hung for a sheep as a lamb. One—what do you call it?—scudo, or a thousand or a million, I don’t suppose it’ll make any difference, it’s all the same to me. It’s not my money I’ll be staking, and as for the winnings—what are you planning to do with your winnings, Luca, assuming you’re not going to litter the streets of Venice with gold for people to pick up?’

‘I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Does this mean that I can rely on you?’

She knew she should consider more carefully, but what was the point! Luca desperately needed help for a very good cause. She desperately wanted to earn that fee, her ticket to freedom from a life of trickery, and to dodge the noose. It was risky, extremely risky, but there were always ways of managing risk, always ways of making fortune work in your favour. ‘If there’s a way to pull it off, I’ll find it,’ she said, ‘but you need to understand one golden rule about gambling. Even when the deck is stacked, there are no guarantees.’

‘I think I would trust you less if you tried to pretend otherwise.’ He kissed her hand. ‘You come to me under tragic circumstances, but you are a beacon of light at the end of a very dark tunnel.’ He pressed another kiss to her fingertips before releasing her. ‘I don’t know about you, but I am in dire need of some refreshment before we continue. My mother will be home soon, and we still have a great deal to discuss.’

Luca’s idea of refreshment was more strong black coffee. It arrived so promptly when he rang the bell that Becky thought they must have an endless supply on tap in the kitchen. Just a few sips, and she felt her heart begin to race.

‘Would you prefer tea?’ he asked, already on to his second cup as she set hers aside.

‘No, thank you. This stuff might be mother’s milk to you, but if I have any more I’ll have palpitations.’

‘Mother’s milk, that is what they call gin in London, isn’t it?’

‘You’re thinking of mother’s ruin. And that’s not my cup of tea either. Shall we continue?’

He nodded. ‘I have been thinking,’ he said, looking decidedly uncomfortable, ‘about your role as Cousin Rebecca. If you are to play it convincingly, it is not only a matter of wearing the right clothes.’

‘You mean manners and etiquette? How to behave in polite society. I know I need some help, but I’m a quick learner, I promise.’

‘Then you won’t be offended if I ask my mother to give you some pointers?’

‘I would be delighted,’ Becky said, heartily relieved. ‘I would have asked you myself, only I didn’t want you to think I’m not up to the role. Are you sure she’ll be willing to help me?’

‘Certainly, because by helping you she’ll be helping me.’

‘She won’t be used to mingling with the likes of me.’

Luca smiled faintly. ‘I’ve never met the likes of you. I find you a very intriguing mixture, Miss Becky Wickes.’

It didn’t sound at all like a compliment, so it was silly of her to be blushing like a school chit. ‘You make me sound like a cake batter.’

He laughed. ‘My mother will like you, I am sure of it.’

Since it wasn’t in her interests to contradict him, Becky decided to hold her tongue. ‘It’s not just a matter of how I behave when I’m Cousin Rebecca though,’ she said. ‘It’s about...’

‘The cards,’ Luca said, pre-empting her.