The Echoes of Love (14 page)

After the heartfelt potency of his kiss, the flippancy of Paolo's tone jarred upon Venetia. It was as if he didn't know on which foot to dance with her. Besides, she was no storyteller and liked to think of herself as a down-to-earth young woman. It was a way of being that she had forged out of necessity. Over the years, she had taught herself not to waste time on empty dreams, a tendency that had been difficult to curb and with which she still struggled sometimes. With Judd, their brief love had been the poetry of two souls in complete accord and she had dreamt of a perfect ending; but she'd learnt the hard way that some poems don't rhyme. She found Paolo's idiosyncrasies, his mercurial presence in her life – his ability to blow hot and cold almost in the same breath – disturbing, and she felt threatened.

Looking up at him, Venetia managed a short laugh. ‘I'm too pragmatic for that sort of talk.'

Paolo stopped and stared down at her upturned face in the dimness. He lifted his hand and brushed away a tendril of silky hair from her forehead, his features taut. ‘Maybe envisioning things in an ideal form is preparing for disappointment, but don't you ever have a longing for something other than down-to-earth reality, Venetia?'

She coloured. His playfulness was gone again. He had uttered those words as though they had been torn from him. There was a fierce light in his blue eyes that she had never seen before. Her heart misgave her, turning weak and soft in spite of herself. When he spoke like that, when he looked like that…

No words were said and they began to walk again until they came to the Piazza San Marco.

‘We're going to take a gondola,' Paolo announced as he steered them towards the Bacino Orseolo, where dozens were bouncing gently in the water.

‘Sounds great! I've been living in Venice for over three years, and I've never taken one,' she remarked with a bashful laugh.

‘Then we must immediately remedy this considerable oversight on the part of your previous boyfriends.'

Venetia noticed the humorous lift at the corners of Paolo's mouth. She chose not to answer – it would just encourage a conversation that she knew he would leap into with both feet, and which she wanted to avoid at all costs.
Things are already going too quickly,
a voice at the back of her mind nagged.
Do you know what you're getting yourself into?

Paolo approached a group of gondoliers in striped shirts who were standing around laughing and swapping stories: a habitual event in the evening after they had parked their craft in this wide spot of the canal, cupped by the curving yellow walls of a hotel with red awnings.

Venetia managed to step down into the swaying black cockleshell boat without faltering, and without Paolo's help. The night was unusually warm and balmy and they reclined upon the inviting plush velvet cushions that lay on the two seats at the far end of the gondola.

‘We're going to a small restaurant,
La Lanterna. It's one of the best-kept secrets in Venice. I've not been there for a long time, but I think that you'll like it. Tonight,
cara
, I will show you a face of Venice that you'll never forget.' He sounded excited, like a child about to show off his new toys.

Turning her head, Venetia met Paolo's burning gaze and turned swiftly away again. That familiar feeling of confusion stole into her mind once more, as the little voice inside her head started whispering its warnings to pull back from him. And yet she couldn't help herself. His exhilaration was infectious, and he was disturbingly close. She felt the thudding increase of her heartbeat; if she leaned back a fraction she would be resting her head on his arm, which he had stretched out behind her.

The sleek black, slightly crooked boat headed out of the parking lot into the lagoon. There was a kind of breathtaking mystery to the scenery contemplated from this lazily moving romantic boat, differing completely from the experience of watching it from a
vaporetto
or a motorboat. The Grand Canal was floodlit, throwing a dramatic greenish glow over the ancient buildings, making it look like a theatre stage with
palazzi
standing transfixed in the limelight. And as they glided on the glistening canal, neither time nor place held any meaning for Venetia. The romance of the setting, the hour, and the aura of the man sitting beside her all contributed to a wonderful dream, a tremulous, glittering, fragile dream from which she had no desire to awaken. Something opened with a sigh inside her; an obscure chord in her mind was touched and she felt a choking sensation, as though she wanted to cry because of the sheer beauty of it.

‘Is anything wrong? You're very quiet,
cara
,' Paolo remarked, leaning his head towards her.

Venetia caught her breath. ‘I'm moved by the scenery of your beautiful country. It's the most marvellous sight in the world! It's strange, but looking at the same view from a gondola gives a totally different perspective.'

‘The gondola is very special to the Venetians. There are many legends about it.'

Venetia looked up, her amber eyes sparkling with gentle mischief. ‘And you're dying to tell me one, aren't you?' she teased.

Paolo threw back his head and burst out laughing. ‘
Sì, sì cara, stai cominciando a conoscermi
, you're starting to get to know me.'

He looked happy and carefree now. His shifts of mood would never cease to amaze her. Venetia did not understand him, but then she supposed she could hardly expect to do so on such short acquaintance.

She raised her eyebrows expectantly. ‘Well? What are you waiting for? I'm all ears.'

‘I wouldn't like to bore you.'

‘One thing you could never be, Paolo, is boring.'

He hesitated, and then smiled; he looked rather pleased. ‘Very well then! The legend says that a crescent moon plunged into the sea to provide a shield of darkness for two young lovers to be alone together. That is the reason for the black colour of the gondola, caused by the abrupt immersion of the phosphorescent body in cold water, and the reason for the silvery lustre of the prow and the stern, which remained out of the water.'

‘Wonderful! Our Nordic legends talk about druids, mostly catastrophes. Greek legends are full of revenge of the gods, and death. But Italian legends are always about lovers.' She laughed. ‘Italy is definitely the most romantic country in the world.'

Paolo smiled at the look of delight on Venetia's face and stroked her cheek tenderly with the back of his fingers as she gazed out over the dark water.

‘I love the rippling sound of the oars, that mysterious music,' she continued. ‘It's so soothing. You don't have that when you're roaring along the canal in a motorboat.'

‘You're right, there's no sound more peaceful than the sob of oars in the silence, especially at night.'

‘But oars don't sob, Paolo. They tickle the water and make it laugh.' Venetia glanced up at him, laughing herself, her whole face illuminated with inner joy. She felt light-hearted and carefree.

He surprised her by answering gravely. ‘Only people who grow old in heart hear the oars' sob as they float down the river of years. You must keep your heart young,
tesoro del mio cuore
, and then you'll hear laughter all the way.' Paolo scanned Venetia's face, his eyes blazing with an intensity that looked almost painful for him, and with a muffled oath he pulled her into his arms.

His mouth on hers this time was savage and unrestrained. Like the bursting of a dam too long under pressure, the power of his passion erupted and Venetia gave a small gasp against his lips, allowing his tongue access and feeling it claim her possessively. She was captured, engulfed and drowned by the currents of pleasure that surged through her. She didn't care that their intimacy was in full view of the gondolier and other passing boats; she was in Italy, the land of love.

Venetia was alive to the heat radiating from Paolo, the thunder of his heart beating against her breast. His unintentionally cruel grip caused her rapturous pain, which melted into tenderness as he controlled his initial powerful deluge, turning it into a delicious stream of whispered endearments, caresses and featherlike kisses.

Now he touched her with mesmerising softness, running his fingertips over her eyes, her cheeks and her throat, stirring a range of sensations that flooded Venetia in rippling waves, filling her limbs with a luscious warmth that spread through her whole body.

She smiled dreamily up at him. ‘Did you know your hands are like trained magic on me?' she breathed against his mouth.

Paolo stared down at her, eyes glimmering. ‘You are the magic that has happened to me,
tesoro mio.
You make me dizzy. And you've given me an ache that has driven me mad since I met you. Beautiful, beautiful Venetia,' he whispered huskily, his hand squeezing her gently against him.

‘La Lanterna,' announced the powerful voice of the gondolier who had stood perched at the stern behind them, silently and splendidly like a Florentine statue, moving the craft with skilled ease over the water.

They blinked up at each other, the spell almost broken, still trembling with the power of their emotions. Paolo released Venetia, but the pad of his thumb moved slowly across her full lips, his smouldering eyes fastened to her face; and then reluctantly his hand fell to his side. They sat a short moment in mutual silence, and then Paolo stood up.

‘Andiamo,'
he murmured, reaching a hand down to her. Venetia took it and let him pull her up, reacting instantly again to his touch on her wrist, feeling darts of heat all over her.

Paolo thanked the gondolier, and Venetia noticed he had given him a large tip.

Eyes still bright and faces flushed, the pair went up the elaborately sculpted stone steps to La Lanterna's entrance. A doorman let them into the garden that, except for a cluster of giant sentinel trees, was artfully concealed like a discreet and mysterious jewel, sheltered by high walls and looking out on to the Grand Canal through wrought-iron gates.

The restaurant itself, poised at the centre of its own garden, was much more conspicuous. It was built around a very tall, thick-trunked tree, a pumpkin-shaped building of glass, lit up like a glowing beacon in the night, suspended forty feet above the ground as though floating in the air.

‘A restaurant in the clouds,' Venetia breathed. ‘How amazing!'

‘It's the creation of Mario De Luca's dream, a Venetian young architect who died a couple of years ago at the age of thirty-two – a great loss to the Italian art world. You'll see the interior… it's just as,
come si dice
, fantastic, extravagant,
magnifico
.'

Venetia's eyes clouded. ‘Yes, what a terrible waste. I had a friend who died young, not so long ago. He was a brilliant restorer of mosaics. It's frightening when a life is cut off in its prime – it makes you wonder at your own mortality.'

‘Indeed,' Paolo murmured, without looking at her.

Hands snugly clasped, they made their way up to the restaurant through an arched loggia walkway, sloping lengthily upwards and overflowing with heavy clusters of wisteria. The delicious fragrance of the purple flowers mingled with the smell of sea breeze. Every now and then, Paolo squeezed Venetia's fingers. ‘Just to prove to myself that you're real and not a spirit,' he whispered in that deeply mellow tone which told her he was still emotional.

The dining area was a window on to Venice, a circular room that could seat sixty guests. Here fantasy and reality blended, creating art that, far from being detached from life, was an essential ingredient. With surrounding walls of reinforced glass, the sole décor of the place became the panoramic views over the restaurant's garden, and the life on the Grand Canal and beyond.

Though the restaurant was full, Paolo managed to secure a table next to the window, affording them a breathtaking view over Venice, with the islands of Murano and Burano glowing like brilliant gems in the distance. A further surprise was in store for Venetia as the light in the room switched from calm powder blue to almost dazzling white; she gasped and gave Paolo a puzzled look.

‘Didn't I tell you,
cara
, that you'd be just as fascinated by the interior of La Lanterna as you were by the exterior? The lights in the ceiling change every five minutes so that the setting and the mood are continuously different.'

They ordered two Bellinis, which arrived with the menus before Venetia had time to blink. She looked around her while sipping her cocktail. The clientele was elegant, every one of them Venetian. The women were dressed in the latest fashion and the men looked as if they were direct descendants of the Doges. Venetia felt distinctly under-dressed, even though that morning she had put on a black Valentino suit, offset by a chunky gold Cartier brooch and a pair of matching earrings. She had dressed more formally than usual that morning, having been asked to fill in for Giovanna at an important meeting with an American tycoon who had just bought a large panel with a mural of The Last Supper taken from a palazzo that was being pulled down, and had wanted Bianchi e Lombardi's opinion on the matter.

As they studied the menu, the lighting changed again to mellow gold, creating a bubble of intimacy that enhanced the romance of the place. The warm glow gilded Paolo's olive skin and Venetia was conscious, more than ever, of the rugged, darkly charismatic man sitting across from her. Those hawkish, lapis-blue eyes… that full, smooth mouth with its top lip outlined so sensuously. Paolo was a very sexy man to say the least. He was exotic, as were his mannerisms and his accent. Like most Italians, he cared for his appearance – always immaculately turned out; his hair, clean-shaven face and manicured hands were perfectly groomed. The sight of those strong, sun-kissed hands alone was enough to make Venetia go weak at the knees, and she found herself wondering how many women had felt their sensuous touch on their skin.