‘Just listen.’ The command held no patience for questions. ‘I banished Antonio from our lives. No one in the family was to even speak his name. Because of him, my Isabella died. He killed his mother, not deliberately, but he gave her the designer drug that led to her death. It was his fault and I couldn’t forgive him.’
Dante’s mind reeled with shock. It took him several moments to attach some current significance to the revelations of this traumatic family history. Had his exiled uncle resurfaced? Was this the problem?
‘He was the youngest of our four children. Your father, Alessandro—’ his grandfather sighed, shaking his head, still grieved by the loss of his eldest son ‘—he was my boy in every way. As you are, Dante.’
Yes, Dante thought. Even in looks, both he and his father had inherited Marco’s thick wavy hair, his deeply set dark-chocolate eyes, strong Roman nose, and the slight cleft centring their squarish chins.
‘Roberto…he was softer,’ his grandfather went on in a tone of rueful reminiscence. ‘It was obvious from early on he would not be a competitor like Alessandro, but he does well enough with his artistic talent. And Sophia, our first girl…we spoilt her, gave her too much, indulged her every whim. I cannot really blame her for the behaviour I now have to pay for. Then came Antonio…’
His eyes closed, as though the memory of his youngest son was still cloaked in darkness. It took a visible effort to speak of him. ‘He was a very bright child, mischievous, merry, given to creating amusing mayhem. He made us laugh. Isabella adored him. Of our four children, he looked most like her. He was…her joy.’
Dante heard the pain in every word and knew that Marco had shared his wife’s joy in the boy.
‘School was too easy for him. He wasn’t challenged enough. He looked for other excitement, adventures, parties, physical thrills, experimenting with drugs. I didn’t know about the drugs, but Isabella did. She kept it from me. When she died, Antonio confessed that she had been trying to make him stop and he had urged her to try the drug, to see for herself how marvellous it would make her feel and how completely harmless it was.’
His eyes opened and black derision flashed from them as he bitterly repeated, ‘Harmless…’
‘Tragic,’ Dante murmured, imagining the horror of discovering how his wife’s death had occurred, and the double grief his grandfather had suffered.
‘Antonio should have died, not my Isabella. So I made him dead as far as my world was concerned.’
Dante nodded sympathetic understanding. None of this had touched his life and he still felt somewhat stunned that so much had been kept totally suppressed by the family. No doubt it was a measure of his grandfather’s dominating and singularly ruthless power that not one word of the mother/son drug connection had leaked out, not privately nor publicly.
A mirthless little laugh gravelled from his grandfather’s throat. His eyes seemed to mock himself as he said, ‘I thought I might make peace with him. It’s bad enough for any man to have one son die before him. Losing Alessandro was…but at least I had you, my son’s son, filling that gap. Antonio was completely lost. And is completely lost. There can be no making peace with him.’
Dante frowned. ‘Do you mean…?’
‘I hired a firm of private investigators to find him, bring me news of the life he’d made for himself, information that would tell me if it was viable to set up a meeting between us. The owner of the firm called on me yesterday. Antonio and his wife died in a plane crash two years ago—a small private plane he was flying himself. Bad weather, pilot error…’
‘I’m sorry, Nonno.’
‘Too late for making peace,’ he muttered. ‘But he did leave a daughter, Dante. A daughter whom he named Isabella, after his mother, and I want you to fly to Australia and bring her here to me.’ His eyes suddenly blazed with a concentration of life. ‘I want you to do it, Dante, because I know you’ll do everything in your power to make her come with you. And there is so little time…’
‘Of course I’ll do it for you, Nonno. Do you know where she is?’
‘Sydney.’ His mouth twisted with irony. ‘She even works in the Venetian Forum we built there. You will have no trouble finding her.’ He leaned over, picked up a manila folder which was lying on the low table beside his chaise. ‘All the information you need is in here.’
He held it out and Dante took it.
‘Isabella Rossini…’ The name rolled off his grandfather’s tongue in a tone of deep longing. ‘BringAntonio’s daughter home to me, Dante. My Isabella would have wished it. Bring our grand-daughter home.…’
CHAPTER THREE
SATURDAY was always the best day for Jenny at the Venetian Forum. It had a carnival atmosphere with weekend crowds flocking to the morning markets set up on either side of the canal, staying on for lunch at the many restaurants bordering the main square. In their stroll around the stalls, people invariably paused to watch her drawing her charcoal portraits, many tempted to get one done of themselves or their children. She made enough money on Saturday to live on the entire week.
It was even better when it was sunny like today. Although it was only the beginning of September—the start of spring—it almost felt like summer, no clouds in the brilliant blue sky, no chilly wind, just lovely mild warmth that everyone could bask in while they looked at the marvellous array of Venetian masks, original jewellery, hand-painted scarves, individually blown-glass works of art—so many beautiful things to buy. The photographer was busy, too, taking shots of people on the Bridge of Sighs, or on their gondola rides. He wasn’t in competition with her. Hand-drawn portraits were different.
She finished one of a little boy, pocketed her fee from the pleased parents, then set herself up for the next subject in line, a giggly teenage girl who was pushed onto the posing chair by a couple of equally giggly girlfriends.
A really striking man stood to one side of them. Was he waiting his turn in the chair? Jenny hoped so. He had such a handsome face, framed by a luxuriant head of hair, many shades of brown—from caramel to dark chocolate—running through its gleaming thickness, and perfectly cut to show off its natural waves. It was a pity she couldn’t capture the colours in a charcoal portrait, but his face alone presented a fascinating challenge; the sharply angled arch of his eyebrows, the deeply set eyes, the strong lines of his nose and jaw with the intriguing contrast of rather full, sensual lips and a soft dimple centred at the base of his chin.
She kept sneaking glances at him as she sketched the girl’s portrait. He didn’t move away, apparently content to linger and observe her working. A very masculine man, she thought, taller than most and with a physique that seemed to radiate power.
He was dressed in expensive clothes, a good quality white shirt with a thin fawn stripe and well-cut fawn slacks. The fawn leather loafers on his feet looked like Italian designer shoes. A brown suede jacket was casually slung over one shoulder. She guessed his age at about thirty, mature enough to have made his mark in some successful business, and carrying the confidence of being able to achieve anything he wanted.
Definitely a class act, Jenny decided, and wondered if he was idling away some time before a luncheon date, probably at the most expensive restaurant in the forum. It was almost noon. She half-expected some beautiful woman to appear and pluck him away. Which would be disappointing, but people like him weren’t usually interested in posing for a street artist.
Gradually it sank in that he was studying her, not how she worked. It was weird, being made to feel an object of personal interest to this man. She caught his gaze roving around the chaotic volume of her dark curly hair, assessing the features of her face, which to her mind were totally unremarkable, skating down her loose black tunic and slacks to the shabby but comfortable black walking shoes she’d been wearing since breaking her ankle.
Hardly a bundle of