The Vendetta (10 page)

He ruthlessly cut off the line of thought, then cursed as his hands shook when he ran a cloth under the hot water and pressed it to his face. To think about the vendetta—sweet revenge for the death of Gianfranco Carnavale—that was one thing. But to remember Papa—no, he could not. He threw down the cloth and took a breath.

A twinge of conscience formed in the back of his head. He hadn’t known he had a conscience, but the little American was bringing it out in him. She was complex and so very sexy. And intelligent and competent, too, he reminded himself. The way she’d commanded the life-and-death situation in the café had been a true testimony to her capabilities. And yet she’d cried yesterday in her grandmother’s lap, vulnerable to love and all its effects.

Ignoring his reflection and his conscience, he swept a hand through his hair and then turned to the bedroom to get dressed. Could he take advantage of such vulnerability? Hell, yes. In pursuit of the vendetta, anything was permitted.

Chapter Seven

The next morning, Lisa’s first intention was to tell Gran everything Nick had revealed in their conversation on the way from the airport. Lisa was certain her grandmother could not have bought the Rembrandt knowing it was a fake. If Gran had bought a fake on purpose, why on earth would she pay $25 million for it?

When Lisa entered her grandmother’s study, the office smelled of bergamot, the top note in Gran’s favorite perfume, but there was an underlying medicinal scent. A scent that immediately brought memories of Lisa’s mother slamming into her mind, disorienting her. No, this was Gran’s room, not Mamma’s hospital.

And Gran wasn’t here.

Lisa glanced at her watch, and then looked around with interest. She’d spent some time in this room when she’d been living with her grandmother. The layout was familiar, having changed little in the intervening years. A massive desk stood sentinel-like in the middle of the room so anyone working at it would face the door. It was strewn with papers, some handwritten, some typed.

Lisa approached with the vague idea that perhaps the provenance for the Rembrandt lay somewhere among the disorderly stacks. The disorder was new. When she had lived here before, Gran had ordered her world—including her paperwork—with the rigidity of a Prussian general. A casual glance showed no important paperwork, but a framed picture caught Lisa’s eye.

Lisa’s mother, young and smiling, peered back at her. The picture had been snapped sometime before her marriage to Lisa’s father, a fact Lisa knew because Lisa’s grandfather was in the picture too. The
principe
had died shortly before the brouhaha concerning Elisabetta’s “inappropriate” marriage to an American. Perhaps things would have turned out differently for her mother if her own father had lived.

She picked up the photograph to study it more closely. It had been taken in front of the palazzo on a sunny day. In the background of the photo, Lisa could make out the face of another man. She pulled the picture closer. The man’s face held an uncanny resemblance to Nick Carnavale.

She mentally rolled her eyes. God, she was obsessed if she was seeing Nick Carnavale in photographs that had been taken before he was born.

“What are you looking at, cara Lisa?”

Startled by her grandmother’s sudden appearance and imperious tone, Lisa quickly placed the photograph back on the desk. “Just your picture of Mamma and Grandfather. She was lovely, wasn’t she?”

Her grandmother pinned Lisa with a penetrating stare as she rolled forward in her wheelchair. “Yes, Elisabetta was lovely. She could have had any man she wanted. They literally fell at her feet. But she chose your father. Why do you think that was?”

Lisa had no idea what to say. Her grandmother had never before broached the complex issue of Elisabetta’s rebellion and subsequent marriage to an American “nobody.”

“I think…”

Her grandmother raised her eyebrows.

“He loved her, Gran. He loves her still, though we don’t speak very much anymore. Dad’s choice, not mine. And Dad never did talk much about things like that.”

Her grandmother snorted. “Love. And what would you know about love?”

The question pierced Lisa’s heart. She did know about love. She’d loved her mother dearly. And even her father, in a remote sort of way. But Gran was obviously referring to pair-bonding love. Romantic love. The kind of love that Lisa had stopped believing was for her. She made no answer to the principessa, preferring to shrug and turn the conversation to other less painful topics.

“Will you show me the Rembrandt today, Gran?”

Her grandmother studied her with that sharp gaze, but replied mildly, “I had actually planned to show you the other pieces I’m including in the display. If you would accompany me, you can take notes. Make some suggestions if you like.”

Lisa’s heart sank. If Gran wasn’t willing to show her the painting, how was she going to inquire as to its authenticity? And Nick’s honesty?

“Good morning, Donna Giovanna. Am I interrupting?” A new voice sounded as a man entered the conversation and the room. A stranger to Lisa.

“Oh, good,” said Gran. “I’m glad you’re here, Peter. I would like to introduce you to my granddaughter, Donna Annalisa Schumacher. Lisa, this is Peter Van Alstrand, my curator.”

The man was tall, thin, and well dressed. He was not young, but not as old as Gran either, and his lined face had a stretched-out look from chin to forehead. His hair was a scrap of pale yellow candyfloss atop the long stick of his head and neck. With an air of officiousness, he carried a clipboard in one hand and an expensive-looking Mont Blanc pen in the other.

“You are just in time to accompany us on our tour of the galleries, Peter. I wish to show my granddaughter the pieces I’ve selected for the showing and get her thoughts on the theme.”

Lisa turned her attention from the curator back to her grandmother. “And what is the theme, Gran?”

“Love.”

Lisa pressed her lips together, sure her grandmother was needling her in front of the curator.

Van Alstrand spoke into the silence, his voice oily and conciliatory. “I was hoping you could excuse me from your tour, Donna Giovanna. I have been cataloging the canvases in the storage room and have hit a little snag. Nothing serious, but it might take this morning to unravel it.”

The storage rooms. Lisa had explored them once, without her Gran’s permission. It had been a veritable Aladdin’s cave of paintings and other works of art.

Gran excused Van Alstrand, and his pale, watery eyes flicked Lisa a glance before he bowed his way out of the room.

“Now, Annalisa. We will go see my collection.”

Lisa pushed Gran’s wheelchair through the main salon where the showpieces of the Severino Collection took pride of place. The principessa talked about her collection, gesturing at the walls and pointing out favorite pieces in the large formal drawing rooms on the main floor, just like in the old days. Lisa’s heart warmed to see her so animated. If the theme of the upcoming gallery showing was love, then that
was
right up Lisa’s alley, no matter what Gran said. Because Lisa loved this collection. That fact sank in as she reacquainted herself with the Severino Collection.

It was true. She loved every painting, every sculpture, every objet d’art. She wheeled her grandmother through the palazzo, thinking that what she loved the most was that every piece had a story. Like the Canaletto over there. What English milord had commissioned that detailed painting of Venice’s Grand Canal in order to remember a sultry summer he had spent in the arms of an available contessa? And that bronze bust was the spitting image of a crusty old cardinal who had loved no fewer than four women and fathered eight children, saying that the church could not condemn him for loving his fellow human.

Lisa loved the sublime Bernini sculpture of a marble so white and carved to such a fine degree that the delicate leaves at the top actually chimed when you touched them, and she loved the green-tinged bronze figurines of the Foo dogs from eighteenth century China, their ugly, little snarling faces designed to scare off evil spirits and perhaps small children too. She had no need to take notes—she loved it all. She had locked the magnificence of this legacy away in her heart when she’d been forced to return to the United States, but it had been here waiting for her, and some part of her had always known she’d come back.

Her grandmother’s eyes sparkled, and she gestured extravagantly. “Is it not wonderful, Lisa? I wish I could live forever so I could enjoy it for that long.”

“What do you plan to do with your collection, Gran? After you…I mean.” Lisa bit her lip at the insensitivity of her own question. God, how had Gran lured her into that one?

The sharp look had returned to her grandmother’s faded hazel eyes. “I haven’t decided. But you will be one of the first to know when I do. In some ways, it won’t matter anymore to me. Because I will be dead.”

Lisa hadn’t meant the comment to be taken that way, but how could it have sounded any differently to someone ninety-six years old? Gran had been born during the First World War, and her experiences during the Second World War had colored the rest of her life, but Lisa had never believed that her grandmother clung to antiquated ways. Until Gran had kicked Lisa out of the palazzo six years ago.

Now, her grandmother’s previous vitality and enthusiasm faded before Lisa’s eyes. Perhaps now wouldn’t be the time to press Gran further about the Rembrandt. She looked tired and so sad. The old woman slouched down in her chair and rubbed her temple with two thin fingers. “Take me back to my room. I need to rest before dinner.”

Lisa’s heart twisted, and she pressed the heel of her hand to her chest, acknowledging, at least to herself, Gran’s frailty. And Gran thought she knew nothing of love? Where had this excruciating pain come from, then, if not from love?

* * *

Lisa came awake, certain someone had been calling her name. It was dark in her room, but moonlight peeked through the heavy curtains at the windows.

“Miss Lisa.” Katya’s voice sounded urgent through the door, though her tone was low. Someone
had
been calling her.

Lisa extracted herself from a tangle of blankets and opened the door to face Gran’s housekeeper.

“Katya, what—”

“It’s the principessa, Miss Lisa. She wished me to bring you to her.”

Lisa frowned. “Now? Is she all right?”

“Yes, miss. She wants to talk to you.”

In the middle of the night?
“All right,” Lisa said, “just let me get my robe.”

Katya nodded gravely, waiting by the bedroom door as Lisa slipped on a terry robe and beaded slippers. As soon as she was ready, Katya gestured for Lisa to follow.

The corridors were dark too, and the housekeeper held a flashlight to light their way, which struck Lisa as a bit peculiar—a feeling that increased as Katya passed Gran’s suite of rooms and continued to a back staircase, which led down to Gran’s storage basement. Though it was not particularly cold in the palazzo, Lisa pulled her robe tighter about her neck.

Once they were in the basement, Katya led her through well-organized storage areas containing unframed paintings, dust covers, frames of all sizes, and various boxes and pieces of furniture—the treasure trove Van Alstrand had been so eager to catalogue this morning. In contrast to her light-filled excursion in the palazzo’s main rooms earlier today with Gran, tonight’s venture into deep storage had a furtive, dark feel. Well, she’d wanted to find out more about the collection and the Rembrandt. She had a feeling her wish was about to be granted. They turned into a narrow hallway, and Lisa saw her grandmother, swathed in extra shawls, sitting in her wheelchair next to a door.

“I have brought her, ma’am,” said Katya.

“Yes, yes, I see.” Donna Giovanna made an impatient gesture. “You may go now, Katya. Lisa will bring me back to my room.”

Katya hesitated, then nodded, handing her flashlight to Lisa. “Yes, ma’am.”

After the housekeeper disappeared around the corner, Lisa cast a worried glance over Gran’s features. Her skin was almost translucent in the dim lighting of the corridor, but her eyes held a strange burning intensity. “Gran, maybe we should wait for morning. You seem—”

Gran cut her off with a sharp gesture, then pulled out a large key and handed it to Lisa. “Please open that door. I want to show you something.”

“All right, Gran.” She calmly took the key and turned to the door. “But this is all a bit mysterious. You sure it can’t wait till morning?”

“No.”

OK, then.
Lisa turned the key and pushed open the door. She handed the key back to her grandmother and carefully maneuvered the wheelchair over the threshold and around a stack of paintings. The room was not large, and seemed to be additional storage for the same type of items that had been in the other basement areas. But at the back of the room, a large steel door took up one entire wall.

“Over there, child. The safe.”

Lisa wheeled Gran to the wall and watched as Gran punched a code into the safe’s keypad. There was a series of electronic beeps and whirrs, and then the door popped open.

“Who else has that code?” asked Lisa. She rubbed her hands over her arms, suddenly cold.

“Only my lawyers, in a safe deposit box,” said the principessa.

“What about your curator, Van Alstrand? Or Signore Carnavale?”

Gran gave her a sharp, knowing look. “Why would I give them access to my secrets?”

Lisa felt a burn in her chest. She took a calming breath, shoving her hands into her robe’s pockets, and met the principessa’s gaze. “There are secrets in here? Why would you give me access to them?”

“You are family, Annalisa.” The principessa shrugged. “You will need the knowledge someday. Now go.” She made a flicking motion with her hand, her rings flashing in the low light.

The burn in her chest intensified. Family. Yes, she supposed she was Gran’s only family—and Gran was hers. Lisa pushed the vault door wider and walked in. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. It was an eerie feeling, entering a room that could lock behind her. Here, too, paintings stood stacked on the wall, tucked on either side of covered sculptures. Drawers, all clearly labeled, covered the whole back wall. A rush of cold air met her skin, and she shivered. The quicker she did what Gran asked, the quicker she could be out of this metal cave. “OK, Gran, what do you want me to see?”