our grandparents when we were allowed to see them. Dad did his best to isolate us, but he didn’t succeed. A life of wealth and privilege doesn’t guarantee happiness, that’s for sure. The occasion will present itself. You just have to be patient.”
“Until the timing fits in with your agenda, Corin?” There was just the tiniest hint of challenge in her tone.
“Trust me,” he urged. “Right at the moment I’m most concerned with protecting you from what could be a very unpleasant experience.”
“You feel contempt for Leila, don’t you?” she said, sadly aware this woman was her mother.
He gave a nonchalant shrug, but the expression on his handsome face had darkened. “Leila is a very destructive woman. My father can’t see it, but Leila’s whole being is centred on self. Valiant as you are, clever as you are, you’d be no match for her. You see life very differently from your mother, Miranda. You want to serve. Leila only wants to take.”
“Does she want to take you?” The instant it was out of her mouth she felt a great spasm of shock. Why had she broached such a highly dangerous and emotive subject? Could it have been acute feminine intuition at work? There was such a thing. Corin’s father was still a very handsome man. But Corin was young. He was much closer in age to Leila than his father. And Corin was blindingly sexy.
“Only you could get away with saying that.” He turned her face to him, fingers closing around her pointed chin.
“So forgive me.” She was actually appalled at herself. “But you make her sound such a rapacious woman.”
His hand dropped. “She makes my father happy. Zara and I might wish she had never come into our lives, but she did. My father is a business giant, a brilliantly clever man, but in some respects he’s completely under Leila’s domination.”
“And this is the woman who bore me?” she said, a dismal note in her voice.
“You are you,” he replied with strong emphasis. “All your admirable characteristics come from a different source.”
“Oh, I hope so,” she gasped. “My grandparents were fine people. They formed me. But then they would have done their best to form Leila. Perhaps my father, whoever he may be, made some sort of a contribution?” she suggested with some irony. “There are many mysteries in life, aren’t there? A lot of them I would think unsolved.”
His expression had turned brooding. “I agree. It’s possible that whoever your father was he didn’t know Leila was pregnant.”
“So where did she get the money to run away? My grandparents didn’t have anything. She didn’t rob a bank. Someone gave it to her.”
“Someone who might have been appalled by the whole situation. It could be a real grief, Miranda. Anyway, we won’t talk about it any more. It’s your birthday.”
“Do you think Leila will remember?” she asked with a twist of bitterness.
“If she does she won’t flail herself.” His answer was full of contempt. “Promise me you’ll put Leila out of your mind. I’m planning a long festive weekend. Promise?”
She threw up her shining head. “I promise,” she said.
“Then drink up and we’ll go to bed.”
If only! If only! If only!
Chapter Three
THERE followed the most glorious day of her life. The word dazzling should be kept for the rarest occasions, Miranda thought. A private mini-bus was waiting at Marco Polo airport to take them to their water taxi, which again had to be private, because they had it all to themselves. What it is to be rich! Miranda mused, all but mesmerised by this whirl of luxury and dream trips to fabled locations. With her particular mind set, another thought inevitably struck her. One would need to be sprightly when visiting Venice, with all the getting in and out of water craft. She had to think of the elderly, and people with back and knee problems. Mercifully, at the grand old age of twenty-one, her body was wonderfully flexible.
In a haze of unbounded pleasure and excitement she moved ahead of Corin into the cabin, and from there into the sunshine at the rear of the vaporetto. There was so much to take in. So much to capture the imagination. The triumph of Venice, a city built on water! At times like this she would have given almost anything to be an artist. She could scarcely believe she, Miranda Thornton, raised by ordinary country folk, the people who had loved her the most, yet who had kept secret from her the fact she had been abandoned by her mother as an infant, was now entering upon the most glorious street in the world. A street that had been immortalised by some of history’s truly great artists. Canaletto immediately sprang to mind. And the great English painter J. M. W. Turner. She had adored Turner’s work on her gallery trips with Zara, who was very knowledgeable about art. Turner had really spoken to her. Then there was the American John Singer Sargent, who had painted many scenes of Venice. And why not?
The sheer grandeur was breathtaking: the splendid frontages of the magnificent palaces—Venetian Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance—that lined either bank of the famous waterway with a hot sun beating down. She felt as though she was absorbing the palpable sense of history—of a city founded in the fifth century—through her pores, though it was near impossible to absorb the totality of the scene, so much splendour was on show.
The water was an indescribable blue-green. Not sparkling, like the waters of home, but with a kind of lustre like oil spreading out over the surface of the great canal, thus picking up marvellous reflections. She wondered what Venice would look like at night. And she was here! It made one have faith in miracles.
“Well?” asked Corin, studying her enchantingly pretty face. From the moment he had met her he had found her fascinating—not just her highly distinctive looks, but her manner, her speech, the sense of purpose that even at seventeen had emanated from her. He and Zara had visited Venice, a favourite city of their mother’s, many times before, but this time with Miranda, brand-new to the fabled Serenissima, he found his own pleasure expanding by the minute.
She turned to him eagerly with a spontaneous smile, turquoise eyes glittering. “It’s beyond—way beyond—my expectations. The extraordinary light!”
“The golden glow of Venice,” he said.
“The colour of the water is indescribable!”
“From a height it shimmers,” he told her. “Anyone familiar with our waters in Australia speaks about the dazzling blue sparkle, but the Grand Canal—indeed all the waters of Europe—have a different palette and a different character.” He studied her flawless white skin with the luminosity of alabaster. “Are you wearing sun block?”
She shook her head almost guiltily. “No.” She had meant to put some on. Not that she had needed it so far in London.
He tut-tutted. “And you a doctor in the making. It’s very hot, and it will get hotter as the day wears on. It’s a different heat from ours, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed. Come back inside. Don’t worry. We’ll see everything. Take a gondola ride. The gondolas can reach the narrowest and most shallow canals. It’s the best way to get around. These days it costs an arm and a leg, but you learn the city from both sides of the canal. There’s a tremendous amount to see, but we have to make the best choices
