Proietti sprang to his feet and stared at Grenville, mouth agape. As we rose with him, he began a stream of anguished words in Italian, then switched to English. “I am devastated. Please forgive me, Captain, for ensnaring you in my troubles and bringing you grief. Why did they believe you had anything to do with it?”
Grenville answered before I could. “Conte Trevisan must have decided Lacey was a good scapegoat. Another friend of ours convinced the police that they had no grounds to detain him.”
I noted that Grenville did not state Conte de Luca’s name, perhaps not wishing to bring the man into it.
“Thank God for that.” Proietti let out a breath of relief. “I again apologize to you profoundly, sir.” His remorse was so profound that I regretted disturbing him.
I shrugged, trying to make light of it. “I’m certain he sent the police to me because I am a foreigner here. Easy to have an Englishman arrested and perhaps shipped back to London, as a warning to you, and others.”
“Or perhaps because he thought Lacey might be a threat to him,” Grenville suggested. “You, sir, Trevisan feels he can deal with, but Lacey and Brewster are another thing entirely.”
“He could not know who you were, could he?” Proietti asked me in bewilderment. “Likely he believed you were one of my colleagues left over from the wars, and decided as you say, to punish you for my brashness.”
“He must have discovered some information about Lacey,” Grenville said. “As he had the police follow us to one of my friend’s homes and lie in wait for us outside.”
“Ah.” Proietti sank to his chair, head in his hands. “Again, I am so very sorry.”
My reassurances to him were interrupted by the arrival of the meal. The man who’d answered the door—he seemed to be the only servant in the house at this time—entered bearing a large, covered platter. Brewster followed with smaller dishes of steaming food, which he thunked to the table without ceremony.
The manservant gently laid the platter on the table and then fetched plates from the sideboard. Proietti lifted the cover to release an aroma of sautéed meat in a savory sauce. The plates Brewster had borne held potatoes and a mound of bright greens.
“May we forget our troubles and partake?” Proietti asked. “My cook is quite good.”
Brewster cast a quick glance around the room, as though making certain we three were truly in no danger, and he followed the manservant back out again. I was surprised he’d let himself be recruited for servant duty but perhaps he’d wanted to assure himself I was safe here. Or else he’d felt compassion for the single servant having to lug everything upstairs by himself. An amalgam of both, I imagined.
Proietti himself served us meat from the platter before refilling his own plate. I bit into beef so tender it nearly fell from my fork, the juices holding a rich bite. Carrots and onions, also tender, rested in the sauce, which was excellent on the potatoes and greens. I hadn’t eaten so well in a while, despite Grenville’s expensive chef.
“My cook is an amazing woman,” Proietti said as we praised the dishes. “Only do not try to enter the kitchen to tell her so. She is quick to raise a carving knife, and only my daughter can soften her.”
His eyes filled with sudden tears, and he quickly bent over his meal.
I exchanged a glance with Grenville. “I know the subject causes pain,” I said. “But can you tell us more about the situation? How can Conte Trevisan marry your daughter if he is already married himself?”
“Because he is a snake.” Proietti’s decisive words rang through the room. “As cold as one and as wily. His wife is from Venice. Daughter of a family who produced many Doges before the republic ended. They had a great amount of wealth and influence. Trevisan married that wealth and took his wife to Milan, but she bore him no sons. A daughter only, I believe, who is no longer living. His wife has retreated to Venice, from what I understand. I have no idea why Trevisan decided to come to Rome, but perhaps his wife’s family is making the north too hot to hold him. He met my daughter, Gisela, and she claims he has fallen in love with her. Pah. I do not believe he knows the meaning of the word.”
As Proietti savagely attacked his beefsteak, Grenville asked quietly, “Your daughter perhaps has been taken in by his wealth?”
Proietti shook his head. “Not Gisela. She has no use for it. Trevisan can certainly be charming when he wishes. They attend church together, which is where he first met her. My only comfort is that he is continuing the sham of his virtue and has not laid a finger on her. I would have bodily brought her home at once if he had.”
“Trevisan’s mother truly lives in the house?” I asked.
“The contessa, yes. She adores her son, will do anything for him, but she is as iron-willed as he. She will let no scandal touch him, or Gisela, if my daughter is to marry him.”
“And you believe he will marry her, once he is free?” I continued.
Proietti’s sigh came from the depths of his soul. “I am by no means certain. And even if they do marry—what happens in a few years when the bloom is gone from my daughter’s cheek? If she likewise does not bear sons? Will Trevisan tire of her and turn to yet another woman, one younger than she? Breaking Gisela’s heart?”
If Trevisan was in the habit of putting aside wives who’d displeased him after he’d wrung everything he could from them, I understood Proietti’s anxiousness.
“There is one advantage to marriage,” Grenville said as he swirled his meat in its juices. “I am not familiar with all the laws of the Papal States or of Milan, but marriage settlements and legal issues can be made iron clad. You can ensure that if Trevisan ever tries to put your daughter aside, she will receive handsome compensation.”
“Possibly.” Proietti did not appear cheered by this. “But I do not believe Trevisan would agree to these things. His men of business are powerful. I’ve already had letters from them advising me not to interfere.”
“He is powerful in Milan,” I pointed out. “Can you insist they marry here in Rome? Where your own men of business can draw up the contracts?”
“I will certainly try, if it comes to that.” Proietti drained his cup and reached for the jug. “You might think it odd, gentlemen, that I do not wish my Gisela to marry a man so apparently prosperous and well-connected. She would be a contessa, live in a grand mansion, command the admiration of many. She will become a wonderful hostess no matter whom she marries—she has the gift of making anyone feel welcome and well-regarded.” His eyes grew moist, gleaming in the candlelight. “But I do wish she’d never set eyes on the man.”
“I comprehend,” I said with feeling. “I would prefer my daughter to be happy instead of stuck in a loveless marriage, no matter how wealthy her husband.”
“I have a daughter myself,” Grenville put in. “Her choices have not been the best. I unfortunately was not there to prevent them.”
Proietti refilled his cup and ours as well. “It is a perilous thing, having daughters. Especially when that daughter is your only child.”
“Indeed.” Grenville’s answer was soft. His melancholy note made me wonder—would he and Marianne try for children? Marianne had a son, who was simple, poor lad, and Grenville had already declared he’d raise David as though he were his own. But they might want children together.
“I have a second daughter,” I said. “All of a year old. Already I have begun to fear for her future.”
“It is a father’s lot,” Proietti agreed. He raised his glass. “To fathers of daughters, and the treacherous roads they travel.”
We drank. The wine flowed after this, supper ended, and Grenville and I, despite our departure from Rome the next day, commiserated with Proietti to the small hours of the morning.
When I rose from my bed at dawn’s light, my head pounded, and my tongue felt thick. I tried to quench my thirst with the clear water my valet, Bartholomew, provided, but it did little for me this morning.
Grenville, likewise, had red-rimmed eyes and pallid cheeks as we attempted breakfast. Bartholomew and Gautier recommended various remedies but nothing, I knew, would suffice except time and rest.
Brewster, heartlessly, was fresh and lively, his booming voice grating through my head.
“What happens when you drink too much of the grape instead of the grain,” he informed us. “Me old dad used to say that. He weren’t good for much else, but he were wise about drink. No gin, and definitely no wine, and you’ll not suffer for it.”
His cheerfulness made me growl. Grenville, whose motion sickness could render him immobile, eyed the carriage he’d hired to take us to Napoli with misgivings.
He had altered the interior so that one seat folded down into a bed. This was the only way he could endure the rocking of a coach, though I imagined we’d halt many a time while he either rested or heaved the contents of his stomach out on the side of the road.
Brewster helped load the bags into the carriage and took a seat on the rear, to ensure no footpad nabbed our belongings. Bartholomew and Gautier would follow in a smaller carriage with more baggage for setting up the house in Napoli.
The carriage wound its way south through the city, heading for the road that more or less followed the ancient Appian Way to Campania and places south.
Mist filmed the streets, making the ruins we passed slide, ghostlike, around us. We creaked by a depression of weed-choked grasses that stretched a long way beside the road—the Circus Maximus. When we returned, I’d climb down into it and walk the path where charioteers had driven horses in a mad rush centuries before. Gladiators’ games had been held here as well, as the Circus had existed long before the Flavian emperors built the grand amphitheatre in the heart of Rome.
The road took us along the ancient route, lined with tombs buried in weeds and mud. Several times I spied men in greatcoats plying shovels through the earth. Historians and treasure hunters, searching for loot and knowledge.
As the road meandered south, the fog burned off and an azure sky appeared. An aqueduct, many of its ancient arches still standing, marched across a green field.
I was entranced by the juxtaposition of today and yesterday, but Grenville soon lay himself flat on his seat and closed his eyes. He was a man who loved travel but suffered much for it.
We moved slowly, ending up at a wayside inn for the night. The road was not easy, and several times I found it more convenient to walk ahead of the carriage until my knee grew too sore, and I had to climb back inside. I wished I’d had a horse—I could have covered the distance between Rome and Napoli much faster.
Grenville recovered enough at the inn to have a meal in the taproom with me. We drank a jug of wine that didn’t match what Proietti had served us, yet was surprisingly tasty.
“Vineyards are everywhere in this part of the country.” Grenville waved a vague hand at the dark window. “It is not surprising that vintners turn out delicious drink.”
I’d observed plenty of bare vines marching down hills as we went. “The volcanic soil, I have heard, is good for the plants.” I spoke confidently, as though I were an expert grape grower.
“The north of Italy is best known for its wines,” Grenville said, studying the red liquid in his ceramic cup. “But I must say, those of Campania and even farther south in Sicily are worth noting.” As Grenville had long been a connoisseur, I bowed to his expertise.
I slept heavily that night, and in the morning, we resumed the journey.
The second day of our travels was as uneventful as the first, except that Rome was well behind us, and more vineyards climbed hills, the plants waiting for the first blush of spring. Another inn housed us that night, this one smoky and filled with travelers. We supped in the private rooms Grenville had hired, slept another night, and woke for the final day of our journey to Napoli.
We bumped through that city, which was a mix of splendid tall houses and industrial docks, until the chaise finally halted on a hill overlooking the bay.
I exited the carriage, unbending my stiff limbs, and gazed about in wonder. The homes of Napoli hugged the curve of the harbor, buildings climbing from the water to the hills. Our abode was among these villas at the top, with the brilliant blue water of the bay stretching under a cloudless sky. The squat, square Castel dell’Ovo stuck out into the water—I itched to explore it.
The house Grenville had hired lay on the south end of the city. From there it would be a short journey to the ruins, which we’d set off for the next day.
I eagerly faced that direction. The tall mountain of Vesuvius, which I’d read of since boyhood, rose before me, its distinctive double peaks misty on the horizon.
“Plenty of time to explore tomorrow.” Grenville stepped down from the coach, drawing in a relieved breath that the journey had ended. “But it is beautiful, I agree.”
“I could stay here forever,” I declared.
“I’d advise you to speak with your wife before you entrench yourself. She’ll miss her friends.” Grenville’s eyes twinkled, he knowing Donata well.
The house Grenville’s agents had chosen was not overly large but opulent to my eyes. A gate led from the street to a small courtyard where a fountain delicately sprayed. Statuary graced the fountain’s corners, greenery in urns and troughs lining the space. An elegant balcony with a stone balustrade ran around the courtyard on the second floor, with French windows leading into rooms above.
The courtyard was paved in travertine, that pale tile prevalent throughout the land. The walls cut the cold winter breeze and the stone absorbed the warmth of the sun, making it a pleasant place to linger.
A door at the far end of the courtyard led to the interior, where a staircase bent upward to the rooms above. A reception room to the right of the staircase had windows overlooking the bay. I stepped into the chamber and stood at the windows, unmovable for a time, admiring the glory before me.
Donata might agree that such a place was worth staying in. Though hers was a restless soul, loving the social whirl, I’d also observed her at her father’s home in Oxfordshire, where she’d sit in the sunny garden and simply be.
“The Romans called it Campania Felix,” I said to Grenville as he stood beside me. “Even they enjoyed its beauty.”
“As a change from tramping over the world in their large boots and stealing the best bits for themselves.” Grenville chuckled. “I agree, it is lovely. I knew my man would choose well for us.” He yawned, rumpling his hair.
“I am happy for you to desert me while you recover,” I told him. “I will take a walk.”
“Have Brewster accompany you,” Grenville said, his smile leaving him. “There are plenty who might believe a lone Englishman easy pickings.”
“I tramp about plenty in London, which is as dangerous a city as any. But I will have a care.”
Grenville sent me a look of misgiving, though he did not pursue the topic. Before he could make for the staircase and find his chamber, Bartholomew came charging through the courtyard and inside to the anteroom.
“Visitor for you, Captain. An Italian man.” His creased face indicated that he did not approve of visitors pouncing on us immediately upon our arrival. “His bloke gave me his card.”
Bartholomew thrust a pale rectangle at me. I took it in curiosity, then regarded it in astonishment.
“Conte Vittorio Trevisan,” I read in a stunned voice.