His Rags-To-Riches Contessa. Marguerite Kaye

a noble act born of patriotism. He preserved what belonged to Venice for Venice.’

      Becky was about to point out that, whatever his motives, he had stolen the artefacts, but thought better of it. The man, in his son’s eyes at least, was obviously some sort of saint. ‘What was he planning on doing with all this treasure,’ she asked, ‘presuming he didn’t plan on keeping it buried for ever?’

      ‘They thought, my father and Don Sarti, that the Republic would be quickly restored, at which point they would return the treasures to the city. Sadly, they were mistaken. France gave Venice to Austria. Austria handed Venice back to France. Now, thanks to Wellington, we have lasting peace in Europe, and it looks like Venice will remain as it is, in the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, part of the Austrian empire once more.

      ‘Bear with me, Becky,’ Luca added with a sympathetic smile, ‘I can see you are wondering what this has to do with your presence here. All is about to become clear. You see, earlier this year my father came to the conclusion that the political situation was now stable enough to negotiate with the authorities for the restoration of the treasures on a no-questions-asked basis.’

      Becky frowned. ‘Wouldn’t that be risky? Since he had committed treason, according to the law, I mean. Not that I meant to imply...’

      ‘No, you are right,’ Luca agreed. ‘It was a risk, but one worth taking, my father believed. For those who rule Venice now, it would be a very popular move, to have a hand in restoring what everyone believed lost. But it had been more than twenty years since the treasure had been hidden. Before he broached the idea with the powers that be, my father visited the hiding place, thinking to make a full inventory, only to find it gone. Stolen by the only other person who knew of its existence,’ Luca said grimly. ‘Don Sarti, his co-conspirator and best friend!’

      ‘Good heavens! But why? If Don Sarti’s motives were as noble as your father’s...’

      ‘They were, in the beginning, but it seems Don Sarti is in thrall to something which supersedes all other loyalties. Cards.’ Luca dug his hands into the deep pockets of his coat, frowning up at the cupid-strewn ceiling. ‘When my father confronted him, he confessed to having sold a few pieces each year to play at the ridotti, the private gaming hells which operate only during Carnival, hoping each time to recoup his losses.’

      ‘All gamblers believe their next big win is just a turn of the cards away,’ Becky said. ‘It is what keeps them coming back to the tables.’

      ‘I don’t understand it.’ Luca shook his head. ‘It is one thing to play with one’s own money, but to gamble the heritage of our city—Don Sarti knew he was committing a heinous crime. At first, my father thought that everything was lost, but Don Sarti told him he had only recently sold the bulk of the treasure on the black market with the intention of playing deep at the next Carnival, hoping to win double, treble his total losses. He swore it was his intention to gift his winnings back to the city.’

      Luca cursed viciously under his breath. ‘Mi scusi, it is difficult for me to talk about this without becoming enraged. The perfidy of the man! To attempt to justify his behaviour, to think that he could atone for the loss of irreplaceable artefacts. My father could not believe he had fallen so low.’

      ‘I think,’ Becky said tentatively, ‘that he probably believed what he said. I’ve come across men like Don Sarti. It is a madness that grips them. They will beg, steal or borrow to ensure another turn of the cards, another roll of the dice. As long as they have a stake, they will play.’ She had always tried to avoid playing against such pathetic creatures. The memory of her time at the tables in the hells was shameful, tinged as it was with the memory of how she had been persuaded to play there in the first place, but that experience was precisely what Luca was paying for. ‘I presume,’ she said to him, ‘that Don Sarti refused to surrender the money into your father’s keeping?’

      ‘You presume correctly. My father informed him in no uncertain terms that he would do everything in his power to stop him, going so far as to say that he would make public the story of what they had done, risking his own freedom and his reputation, if Don Sarti did not hand over his ill-gotten gains. The treasure was gone, but what money was left belonged to Venice. Whether or not he would have carried out his threat I will never know, for Don Sarti decided not to take the risk.’

      ‘That was why he had him killed?’ Becky whispered, appalled. ‘Oh, Luca, that’s dreadful.’

      ‘Si.’ He was pale, his eyes dark with pain, his hands clenched so tightly into fists that his knuckles were white. ‘Fortunately for me, unfortunately for Don Sarti, my father wrote to me in desperation as soon as he returned home from that fateful interview, urging me to return to Venice as soon as possible.’

      ‘So that’s how you know!’ Becky exclaimed, ‘I did wonder...’

      ‘But no. I didn’t receive the letter. Instead, as I told you yesterday, the summons which reached me was from my mother, informing me that my father had died. He had been dead almost two months by the time I arrived in Venice, in June. As far as I knew, my father had drowned, slipping on the steps of the palazzo in the early hours. He was the worse for wine, so the gondolier claimed, and there was a thick fog when it happened. Though the alarm was raised, help arrived too late to save him. When his body was finally pulled from the canal, he had been dead for some hours.’

      ‘How tragic,’ Becky said, aware of the inadequacy of her words.

      Luca nodded grimly. ‘The summons my father sent finally reached me here in July, having followed in my wake from Venice to London to Plymouth to Glasgow and back. You can imagine how guilty I felt, knowing that I had arrived far too late. He had never asked me for help before, and I had failed him.’

      Becky swallowed a lump in her throat. ‘But even if you had received the letter telling you of Don Sarti’s treachery...’

      ‘Ah, no, that letter contained no details, save to bid my urgent return. My father would not risk his post being intercepted. I was not exaggerating when I said there are spies everywhere. No, there was but one clue in that letter. My father said that he had acquired a new history of the Royal Navy, and looked forward to my thoughts on the volume. It was there, in that book in the library, that he had placed the papers relating the whole sorry affair, exactly as I have told you.’

      ‘What about your mother?’

      ‘She knew nothing, until I showed her the letter. She was almost as shocked as I. My father had been preoccupied in the weeks before he died, a delicate matter of city business, he told her, but nothing more. She didn’t even know he had summoned me home.’

      Luca wandered over to the window, to gaze out at the narrow canal. Becky joined him. The houses opposite looked almost close enough to touch. ‘It’s a big leap,’ she said, ‘from learning that your father’s been betrayed by his best friend, to assuming the best friend has had him killed.’

      ‘It was only when I questioned the palace gondoliers and discovered that both of them had been suddenly taken ill that day, forcing my father to use a hired gondola, that I began to question events. I can find no trace of the gondolier described by Brunetti. And then there was the timing. It was, according to my major-domo, almost three in the morning when the gondolier roused the palazzo to tell them my father had fallen in, yet my father left the palazzo where he had been dining with friends at just after eleven.’

      ‘So you think that the gondolier waited to make certain that he was drowned?’

      ‘I don’t think he was one of our Venetian gondoliers at all. They are a tight-knit group of men, Becky. Hard-working and honest. If this man who brought my father back had been one of them, they would have known who he was.’

      ‘You think he was actually an assassin hired by Don Sarti and sent to silence your father?’

      ‘My father had threatened to expose him. Don Sarti would have been desperate to avoid that at all costs. Taking account of all the circumstances, I think it is almost certain, don’t you?’

      ‘Yes,