The Rich Shall Inherit (15 page)

“But Fiametta,” Aria had wailed, “that’s what she said! And she
looked
different, I’ve never seen her like this before, so … odd and nervous.”

“Your mother is never nervous,” she’d snapped, “she’s no more penniless today than she was six months ago. All it means is that now she’s decided to do something about it!”

“Do something about it?” Aria asked, puzzled. “But
what
will she do?”

The very next day, her mother had told her she was to marry Carraldo. And she’d made it clear that there was no choice.

“Marriage!” Aria had leapt to her feet, overturning her glass of water. “Whatever are you talking about, Mama? I’m only seventeen! I don’t want to get married. I’ve never even fallen in love yet.”

“Love!” Francesca had snorted derisively. “Love has nothing to do with marriage. Love is merely infatuation, it never lasts.
But money does.
You’ll have houses, fabulous jewels, couture clothes and furs; you’ll travel the world on private planes and yachts. You will be a star of the international set.”

“You mean I’ll be everything
you
would like to be!” Aria had retorted.
“Don’t you understand? I’m not like you.
I’m like Papa, I want to be an artist, I want to create great paintings that will bring pleasure for generations….”

“Very, well, Aria,” Francesca had said coldly, “why not think about your father? Remember how
he
felt about this beautiful palazzo, remember how many generations of Rinardis have called it home.
Your papa revered the history of this palazzo. He loved every stick and stone and blade of grass of the Villa d’Oro.
Your father would have done
anything
, Aria, to keep the Rinardi history and the Rinardi name alive! So don’t imagine it’s for
me
you might be
sacrificing your freedom … it’s for Papa, and all the Rinardis who served to make our name a proud one.”

Aria had sat for a long time, alone at the supper table, thinking about her father.

She could no longer remember his face clearly, but she could recall little incidents and things they had done together. And her most vivid memory was of the day he’d brought home the parrot.

It was a bleak February afternoon with a threat of snow in the yellow-gray sky over Venice, and the bird’s carnival colors had delighted her.

“His name is Luchay,” Papa had told her, “and he is much older than you or I. He was born in the depths of the Amazon jungles in a faroff country called Brazil, but I doubt he remembers that now. He used to live with your great-aunt Helena and before that he belonged to someone called Poppy Mallory. Luchay can say Poppy’s name, so don’t be surprised if you hear him.”

“Will he say my name?” she’d asked, running a tentative finger along the bird’s soft green wing. She’d pulled it back hurriedly as the parrot turned his head, watching her with his sharp little topaz eyes.

“I daresay he will, someday,” Paolo agreed, “when he knows you better and knows that you love him.”

Then, lifting Aria up, he’d shown her the precious emerald and diamond rings around Luchay’s scrawny legs, and his bejeweled stand, and his wondrous golden cage, and she’d clapped her hands laughing in delight. The parrot had suddenly mocked her laughter, and then she and Papa had laughed even more at the parrot laughing at them. From then on Luchay and she and Papa had shared a special relationship, one from which Francesca had been excluded, and to this day her mother hated the bird.

Aria clasped her hands to her aching head; the emotional pressure from her mother and the memories of her father were all too much; she simply had to get out. Snatching up a jacket from the hall, she’d run from the house.

The streetlamps had cast pale pools of light across the Campo Morosini and puffs of cotton candy mist drifted in the shadows as she’d run through the Campo San Vidal and past the church of San Stefano, threading her way through the familiar cobbled alleys until she emerged opposite the Teatro La Fenice. The strains of a symphony orchestra playing Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons
filtered from its brightly lit facade, the urgent beat of the “Summer”
music matching that of her own heart. Aria had thought of the times her father must have walked up these very steps and into the lovely old rococo theater to listen to the great opera stars. She thought of how much her father had loved music, how much he’d loved Venice, and of how much he had loved her, and she knew she couldn’t bear to let him down. Nor could she risk what might happen to her mother. She must accept her responsibilities.

Turning despairingly from the theater, she’d plunged back into the shadowy alleys. The shops were still open and people jostled busily past her, heading for the cafes and restaurants. She stared at the smiling young girls clutching the arms of their boyfriends, or out shopping in laughing, gossiping groups, and realized with a stab that she was no longer part of their world. She had been forced to grow up. Just then a woman emerged from a brightly lit beauty salon, a small dog clutched in her arms. The jaunty red bow holding back the hair from the dog’s beady-bright eyes exactly matched the bow in the woman’s own hair, making Aria smile. The optimism of youth had lifted her spirits temporarily. She might have to do as her mother asked, she’d thought, striding into the beauty salon, but she didn’t have to make it easy for her!

“Yes, we can fit you in now,” the receptionist had told her. “Giorgio will take you.”

“I want you to cut it all off,” Aria had said, her voice wobbling uncertainly.

“But Signorina, it is so beautiful,” the hairdresser had protested, running a thick silken strand through his fingers. “Just an inch, maybe, no more …”

“All of it,” she’d commanded, tears brimming again in her eyes. “Now.”

A week later, she had stopped crying and finally agreed to meet Carraldo. He was never late and Fiametta answered his knock at eight p.m. precisely. Aria had told her what was happening and she’d offered at once to give her all her life-savings. “It’s not a great deal of money, darling child,” she’d said, weeping, “but it’s enough to let you run away and begin life somewhere else. And it’s better by far than selling yourself to Carraldo!” But Aria had been resolute. “There’s really no other way, Fiametta,” she’d said loyally, “it is my duty.”

A shiver ran down her spine as Carraldo took her hand in both of his.

“The naughty girl cut off all her beautiful hair,” her mother gushed into the silence. “She looks like a street urchin. But hopefully it will have grown a little, in time for the wedding.”

“I want you to talk to me quite openly,” Carraldo said, ignoring Francesca. “Your mother has agreed to allow me to ask you to marry me, but of course only you can give me the answer. I can quite understand that this may be a shock to you, and I don’t want you to feel under any pressure. All I can say is that I genuinely loved your father, he was my dearest friend. And that I’ve loved you since the day you were born. If you say yes, then I will do everything in my power to make you happy.”

Aria felt as though she was an onlooker in a play; she seemed to be floating in limbo between her brief past and her unknown future, and though Carraldo was being gentle, she sensed it was just a crust over the surface of a volcano.

“Aria?” her mother prompted anxiously.

“I accept, Signore,” she said, lowering her eyes. Carraldo’s
hands were on her shoulders and then his lips brushed her cheek in the lightest of kisses. “Thank you, Aria,” he said.

He took a small dark blue box from its packet and flicked it open, offering it to her. Aria stared, dazzled at the immense flawless emerald inside. There were no extra decorative strips of diamonds surrounding it, because it needed none. It was just a single densely green jewel whose size and simple setting proclaimed its rarity and importance.

“It came from the treasure chest of a maharani,” Carraldo told her. “I liked its magnificent color and its lack of ostentatious decoration. I thought it might please you.”

She shrank back; the huge emerald looked to her like a symbol of bondage. “I can’t do it, I can’t wear it,” she whispered.

“Whatever is the matter with you, Aria,” Francesca cried shrilly. “Why, any girl in the world would be thrilled to wear such a ring.”

“Please, Antony,” she pleaded, “can’t we wait a while … until I’m eighteen …” Eighteen seemed like light years away, an eternity.

“As you wish,” he said quietly, “I can wait a few months. But we must marry soon after that.”

Carraldo’s eyes had looked suddenly anxious and she’d agreed hurriedly. “Yes, yes, I promise. Just give me time.”

“You’ve made me a very happy man,” he said, standing up. “My plane is waiting at Marco Polo Airport to take me to New York, there’s an important art auction tomorrow. Will you have dinner with me when I return?” She’d nodded silently, watching, as her mother saw him out. Carraldo had been gentle, he’d been charming and kind. He’d treated her as though she were some rare and precious object to be handled and admired, and somehow she’d felt that as the wife of Antony Carraldo she would be just another part of his famous collection.

For two weeks Aria had gone to bed every night filled with relief that the day had passed without Carraldo’s return, and she’d woken each morning filled with dread that he would call and demand that she keep her promise to have dinner with him. She became so tense and nervous at the prospect that when he finally did telephone, it was almost a relief.

Ignoring Francesca’s instructions to wear the slick new little Ungaro silk suit she’d made her buy, she put on a simple white skirt and a black silk knit sweater, snapping the two together
around her slender waist with a wide black leather belt. She wore flat black pumps and no stockings on her tanned legs, and Francesca was furious.

“At least put on some jewelry,” she pleaded as Aria remained adamant about her choice, “my pearl and diamond earrings perhaps?” Aria clipped an enormous pair of black-and-white-speckled ceramic earrings onto her small flat ears and stood back to examine the effect. She ran her hands through her short hair, making it stand up spikily, and Francesca groaned.

“Mama!” Aria exclaimed irritably. “Will you please stop trying to make me into something I’m not. I am who I am and I wear what I like, and if that’s what Carraldo wants, then that’s what he will get. But I’m not changing to please you—or to please him.”

They heard the roar of the launch outside and Francesca hurried to the stairs, waiting as Fiametta opened the big doors onto the Grand Canal. She returned a moment later clutching an envelope in her gnarled hand. “The Signore Carraldo has been delayed, Signora,” she called. “The boatman is waiting to take Aria to meet him now.”

Francesca snatched the envelope from Fiametta. It was addressed to Aria, but she opened it anyhow.

My darling girl
, Carraldo had written in a large, firm hand.
Forgive me for not coming for you myself especially on this—our first time together, but unfortunately I realize that I will be delayed. My boatman, Giulio, will bring you to me and I await seeing you with much pleasure.

He’d signed it simply
Antony Carraldo.

Aria’s casual appearance hid the trembling sensation she felt inside as she stepped into Carraldo’s sleek black Riva launch. His personal flag, the black raven in a gold circle, fluttered at the bow as the boatman, in a crisp white jacket and naval cap trimmed with gold braid, swung the launch into the busy canal. She’d expected to be taken directly to Carraldo’s house to wait for him there, but instead the boat picked up speed and surged, with a deep-throated roar, across the lagoon.

“Signore Carraldo asked me to take you to the airport to meet him,” the boatman told her, and Aria thought nervously that Carraldo must be impatient to see her if he wanted her to meet his plane.

A chauffeur was waiting for her at the jetty and they drove in the large black Mercedes through the airport to where a small,
powerful, black Gulfstream jet waited on the tarmac, again emblazoned with Carraldo’s raven insignia.

The waiting steward saluted her and escorted her up the flight of steps into the aircraft, and into a gray seude-padded saloon.

“The Signorina Rinardi,” he announced.

Carraldo glanced up from his auction catalogue and then leapt to his feet, smiling. “Aria. Can you forgive me for not coming to you? I sent Giulio because I knew we would be late.”

“I don’t mind if you’re late,” she replied shyly. “I’m not very punctual myself.”

“I’m afraid punctuality is one of my habits. My father was a stickler for time; I think he organized our lives on a minute-by-minute schedule.”

Aria glanced at him, surprised. Somehow she had never thought of Carraldo having a real father; perhaps he was human after all. She became aware of a noise outside as the steps were wheeled away, and the muted purr of engines. Then the doors were closed and the engines roared as they began to taxi down the runway. “But where are we going?” she cried, alarmed.

“Sit down, Aria, and fasten your seat belt,” Carraldo told her calmly, “I’m taking you home for dinner.”

“But I don’t even know where you live.” She clasped her seat belt obediently. “I thought we were having dinner here, in Venice.”

“I have many houses,” he replied, “but I suppose I must consider Milan my home, because it’s also the center of my business. It will be your principal home, too, Aria, and I thought you might like to see it.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, you’ll be back in time for bed.”

The plane was surging effortlessly into the air and suddenly all that lay below them was the blueness of the lagoon and the sea. Aria looked at Carraldo nervously; they were finally alone and Venice might have been a million miles away.

He showed her his aircraft proudly. It was the smallest of his Gulfstreams, he said, and the one he used for hopping from city to city. The other two were Gulstream IV’s with a translantic capability. One was kept at Kennedy Airport in New York and the other at Charles de Gaulle in Paris. Each was painted the same glossy black and bore the Carraldo raven emblem, and the interior of each was decorated in the same way. The walls, window shades, chairs, cabinets, mirror frames, beds, were all in the same padded steel-gray suede. Carraldo had not allowed even
a single touch of color, and he told her he found the monochrome effect restful after feasting his eyes on so many exciting canvases during the course of his work as an art dealer.