‘I would like to see you try it.’ Cassandra knew she was going too far, but she couldn’t stop herself. She had tried being good and obedient and meek, and he treated her like a troublesome scrub of a boy. The knowledge that she must look like one only rubbed salt in her wounded vanity. Her hair was full of dust no brushing would remove, the fleas last night had been worse than usual and she had had no clean linen for three days.
‘When we get to the palazzo…’ Nicholas began, real displeasure in his voice.
‘Oh, be quiet.’ Cassandra was on the verge of tears and didn’t care who knew it. Abroad was dangerous and squalid, travel was boring and uncomfortable and Nicholas was a beast. Or perhaps he was just a man and they were all like that.
She sniffed loudly and cast him a darkling look, half expecting him to carry out his threat and put her across his knee. She was saved from whatever retaliation Nicholas was contemplating by the arrival of another party of travellers with a pile of baggage.
Wordlessly he handed her a large pocket handkerchief and then ignored her as they embarked for the fairy-tale city of Venice in a mood of sullen antagonism.
The burchio was a long, flat-bottomed craft with an awning of canvas over metal hoops and the passengers were a mixed bag who would have entertained Cassandra under different circumstances. Opposite her a soberly dressed lawyer, with his equally sober young family, divided their disapproving glances equally between the two loud-voiced gallants perched precariously in the stern and a gaudily dressed and painted woman who winked at all the menfolk unwise enough to catch her eye. A party of peasants complete with malodorous goat added to the general discomfort.
By mid-afternoon on the second day, Nicholas, after a look at Cassandra’s set face, began to worry that she was not sulking but sickening. ‘Cass,’ he began in a low voice, then saw her face light up for the first time in many days.
‘Oh, look.’ She pointed out under the half-moon of the awning to where the banks of the canal opened out into a vast lagoon. Across the shimmering water the towers and palaces of Venice hung like a mirage as cloud shadows chased across the water and mud made the whole scene unreal and dreamlike. ‘Nicholas, it is beautiful,’ she whispered.
‘It is rather fine,’ he remarked casually, then grinned at her fierce expression, ‘Oh, yes, you’re right, it is wonderful. A dream city.’
Their passage across the lagoons of Chioggia and Malamocco gave them different vistas every few minutes as the boatmen wove between mud banks and islets. At last they entered the Canale della Giudecca, a waterway as wide as the Thames at London, and as crowded, with craft of all sizes, from sea-going galleys with banks of oars, to the narrow black gondolas.
‘Look,’ she said, pointing, her grip on his arm making him smile. ‘Gondolas, I’ve read about those. But reading of Venice in Papa’s study gave me no idea it would be like this, so alive.’
Seeing it through her eyes added to his own perception, Nicholas realised. The noise of bargemen shouting, the bustle of constant activity between the shore and the boats, the vivid colours under the brilliant sun and the exotic shapes and colours of the buildings were almost overwhelming. At his side Cassandra seemed to have forgotten her miseries and discomforts.
‘Ouch! Cass, let go of my arm.’ The excited grip sent sharp fingernails digging in. She hadn’t even known she had hold of him, he realised as she let go and smoothed down the creased cloth of his sleeve with a penitent hand. ‘Never mind that.’ He pointed ahead. ‘There’s St Mark’s and the Campanile.’
Cassandra was trying to find the correct page in the guidebook without taking her eyes off the gorgeously exotic facade of the Doge’s Palace, its delicate pink and white walls seeming to float on the water, its walls crowned with Arabic ornaments and spikes.
No sooner had the barge drawn up alongside the crowded pavement than she had scrambled ashore and was hopping from one foot to the other with impatience, while Nicholas retrieved their luggage. ‘Come on,’ she urged, ‘we go up here to get to the Piazza.’
Nicholas had to seize her by the collar to restrain her. ‘Not now, Cass. Wait here and guard the luggage while I hire a gondola to take us to the palazzo.’
‘A palace? We’re staying in a palace?’ All thoughts of exploration had clearly fled.
‘If you hadn’t been sulking for the last sennight, I would have told you,’ he said, amused ‘It’s been hired by my friend Beckwood, but he’s been summoned to Rome by his uncle at the Embassy, so we’ll have the place to ourselves.’
And the thought of that privacy and comfort was a considerable relief. In a private lodging Cassie would have only the servants to deceive. There would be no sharp-eyed noblemen to avoid, no sharp-tongued harridans to gull. And he could relax, knowing she was in a safe, comfortable environment.
Travelling in the gondola after the heavy barge was like riding a horse after being in a carriage. The gondolier, dextrously propelling the swift craft with strokes of his oar, dodged between the shoals of boats ferrying people of all classes about their business. They made their way up the Grand Canal, under the Rialto Bridge, then turned sharply into a little side canal no more than twelve feet wide and flanked by twisting alleys and landing stages.
Their gondolier finally drew into the side of a miniature square with marble steps leading down to the water. The paving was decorated with coloured inlays and in the centre a little fountain bubbled.
Close to, the glamour was a trifle tarnished, he realised. The fine frontages were stained with water marks and the stucco was peeling to expose the stonework. Greenish water lapped at the walls and he laughed as Cassandra’s nose wrinkled at the smell. ‘The tide will not flush these little waterways as it does the main canals. Is the palace not as grand as you expected?’
‘It is wonderful,’ Cassandra protested. ‘So old and mysterious.’ She fell silent at the appearance at the door of a black-coated major domo flanked by footmen. With a gesture, he dispatched them to unload the rowing boat loaded with luggage which had followed the gondola and then advanced on Nicholas.
‘My lord.’ He bowed low. ‘Welcome to the Palazzo Lucca. Signore Beckwood is devastated that he cannot be here to greet you, but all is prepared. Pray enter.’
Nicholas rolled his eyes at Cassandra and followed the self-important little figure as it swept up the steps to the main door. Cassandra began to follow, then stopped, looking up. He followed her gaze to where her eye had been caught by a flash of colour at a window in the facade to her right.
A woman dressed in a robe of emerald green taffeta was leaning on the sill watching their arrival, idly brushing out the mass of coppery-gold curls whic
h cascaded over one bare shoulder. Nicholas knew he was staring, but he had rarely seen such a blatantly sensuous creature before. As she watched, a man’s bare arm appeared, caressing the naked shoulder, and the woman turned and disappeared into the shadowy room.
‘I thought you said there was no one else staying here,’ Cassandra hissed when she caught him up in the monumental entrance hall.
‘There isn’t.’ He turned as she tugged at his sleeve.
‘But I thought I saw someone in the window over there.’ She pointed to the wing of the palazzo.