managed to maintain the air of a grand duchess, and no one who came into contact with her could fail to be intimidated by her sometimes forbidding manner. And yet, to those to whom she took a liking, she could prove to be a good friend, and although her grandson caused her many hours of concern, he was still the most important person so far as she was concerned, and his happiness, and the necessity of providing the Cesare family with an heir were always uppermost in her mind.
She was dressed today in a pale mauve silk two-piece, with several strings of pearls about her rather sinewy throat. Small, and slender, until one saw her eyes one would not consider her at all formidable, but those pale blue orbs revealed the flame within, and could wither one with a glance.
As Count Cesare entered the room, she moved round in her chair to look at him, her eyes bright and piercing in their scrutiny.
‘Well, Cesare,’ she said bleakly. ‘So you have decided to honour us with your presence at last!’
Count Cesare shrugged his broad shoulders and reached for a cigarette before replying. ‘As always, Grandmother, you attempt to intimidate. What can be so urgent that I must be aroused from my bed at this hour of the morning?’
As he had anticipated, his provocative remarks infuriated the old lady. ‘It is almost lunchtime,’ she exclaimed angrily. ‘If you did not spend all your nights wasting your time in some nightclub or casino or other you would not need to lie in bed until this time! Your way of life appals me, Cesare, and I dare not think what might happen if I should die leaving you to manage your own affairs….’
‘I manage my affairs very well, thank you,’ remarked Count Cesare indifferently, and flung himself into a low armchair, lifting a copy of the daily paper.
‘Cesare! Listen to me!’ The Contessa clenched her fists angrily. ‘Have you no conception of the honour of your family? Have you no decency? Don’t you care for me at all?’
Count Cesare flung aside the paper. ‘Very well, Contessa, what is it you have to say?’
The Contessa rose to her feet, drawing herself up to her full five feet two inches. Folding her hands, she said:
‘We are to have visitors at the Palazzo.’
‘What!’ At last she had aroused his interest. Count Cesare’s eyes were narrowed, and he looked not at all pleased.
‘Yes, Cesare, visitors.’ The Contessa looked rather smug now. She had taken his attention completely, and ever the dramatist, she intended to hold the stage for just a little longer. ‘You will not perhaps recall Joanna Dawnay. She and I attended school in Paris together many, many years ago. We were great friends, and even after our schooldays were over we corresponded regularly. Then, when I married your grandfather, Joanna was one of my attendants.’
Count Cesare began to look a little bored. ‘So? This woman … she is coming to stay here?’
‘Ah, no. Joanna I am afraid died, some fifteen years ago.’
‘Then get to the point,’ said Count Cesare impatiently.
The Contessa smiled. ‘I will, Cesare, I will.’ She linked her fingers together thoughtfully. ‘Joanna did not marry until quite late in life, and the man she married was not by any means a rich man. Her parents had had a little money, but that had died with them, so naturally Joanna had to marry someone, in order to survive.’
‘She could have got a job,’ remarked Cesare dryly, unable as yet to see any point in all this story.
‘Ah, not almost forty years ago. Girls of Joanna’s upbringing did not “get jobs”, they married someone. So Joanna married Henry Bernard, an English parson, and went to live somewhere in the south of England. And some five years later she produced a daughter, Celeste, to whom I acted as godparent. Is my story becoming a little clearer?’
‘No.’ Cesare was blunt.
‘Ah, well, it will soon. Celeste was an adorable child, although I saw little of her after her eighteenth birthday. Joanna died, as I have already told you, and Henry Bernard had little time for anyone with money. So contact was temporarily severed, but occasionally Celeste wrote to me, and I replied, and from her letters I have gathered a little of her life story. When she was only twenty years of age she married a man already in his forties, a widower with one child, a girl of perhaps seven years of age. Unfortunately, this husband of hers was killed in a road accident when they had been married for only ten years, and Celeste was left with a seventeen-year-old stepdaughter and no money of any consequence.’
‘Money is not everybody’s yardstick,’ remarked Cesare idly. ‘Some people are extremely happy without any at all.’
‘Tch!’ The Contessa was scornful. ‘I have not noticed that you share that view. You seem to run through your money without any visible signs of a struggle.’
Cesare smiled. ‘That is my concern,’ he said softly, and only his grandmother was aware of the slender veneer of patience he was controlling.
‘Very well. In any event, it is not important now. Let me continue with my story; Celeste is not a woman to be dashed by circumstances. No, instead of falling into a rut, she gained an invitation for herself and her stepdaughter to visit a distant cousin in the United States of America, and there she married again, this time a rich industrialist. Unfortunately, however, this man, Clifford Vaughan, was quite elderly when she married him, and he died only two years after their marriage leaving Celeste a wealthy woman at last.’
‘How convenient,’ said Cesare dryly. ‘And I suppose she loved him very much!’
The Contessa shrugged. ‘I doubt it; it is not important. If she married him for his money knowing full well he would not live very long, who am I to judge her? I admire her. She is a woman after my own heart.’
‘Heart!’ Cesare shook his head. ‘And how much heart have you if you can countenance a marriage for mercenary gains only?’
The Contessa smiled. ‘My dear Cesare, that is the only kind of marriage you are likely to make, is it not? So pray do not criticize me!’ Cesare rose negligently to his feet. ‘That is a little different. I do not intend marrying some old hag, not even for a fortune.’
‘No. And it is right that you should not. Old hags could not bear you strong sons, sons to carry on the name of Cesare.’ She fingered her pearls thoughtfully. ‘No, Cesare, you should marry Celeste Vaughan!’
Cesare stared incredulously at the Contessa. At last her schemes were revealed, the reason for the comprehensive life story he had just listened to with complete disinterest. She had introduced him to girls before, but this time every circumstance had been weighed and found perfect. The woman was young, but not too young; charming, or so the Contessa believed; and rich, which to the Contessa Francesca Maria Sophia Cesare, was the most important thing of all. Her life-long desire was to restore the Palazzo, and to actually see it happening before she died was all she asked of what remained of her life; that and a great-grandson.
Count Cesare shook his head. For a moment, the completely unexpected statement had thrown him off balance; momentarily he thought only of his own feelings in the matter. But now realization of what this might mean came flooding back to him, and he was necessarily more abrupt than he had intended.
‘It is ludicrous!’ he said coldly. ‘And if our visitors are to be this woman, and her stepdaughter, then I suggest you quickly contact the postal services
