Seduced by Innocence by Lucy Gordon

that can give you sons. Forget about ice maidens, or keep them for your fantasies. In real life they don’t exist.”
    “Now, there you’re wrong, Mama,” Francisco said, speaking to her in the mirror. “They do exist, and I think—yes, I really think I’ve met one.”
    * * *
    Later that night, Francisco stopped outside his wife’s room. Putting his ear to the door, he listened to a muffled noise coming from within. After a moment, he quietly turned the handle and opened the door a crack. Now he could clearly hear the sound of violent sobbing coming from Elena’s bed. The hardest heart might have been touched by those sobs with their message of anguish suppressed for too long, of wretchedness hidden by a brilliant smile, of an aching, desperate loneliness.
    After listening for a moment longer, Francisco grunted, closed the door and went away.

Chapter Five
    T he Palazzo Calvani lay at the opposite end of Venice to the Midas Hotel, around the huge bend of the Grand Canal. On the first day, Maurizio escorted her onto the vaporetto, the big water bus that plied its way slowly along the canal, stopping on alternate sides.
    “You didn’t wait for me last night,” he reproached her as they stood in the boat, watching the ancient buildings slip by.
    “You were going to be hours with your guests, otherwise I’d have waited,” she said. “There was something I wanted to say.”
    “Yes?” He leaned his head close to her.
    “Why did you try to stop me from taking this marvelous job?”
    Maurizio made a wry face as if reluctantly appreciating a joke at his own expense. “Was that all you wanted to say to me?”
    “Of course.”
    He sighed. “Of course.”
    “It’s important. The contessa knew Leo. If I can be close to her day by day, I may learn something of his whereabouts.”
    “Just be careful.”
    “Careful? Of what?”
    “Say rather of whom. Francisco Calvani is—” He hesitated. “Well, anyway, be careful.”
    “You speak of him much as he speaks of you,” she said, amused. “He said you were always the winner, in play and in life.”
    “Damn his nerve!”
    “Isn’t it true?” she asked, looking up at him merrily. This morning she wanted to sing with joy for no other reason than that he was here, with her, giving her all his attention.
    Maurizio didn’t answer at first. He was looking into her face, trying to believe that this natural, laughing young woman with the breeze in her hair was the same person as the cool siren who’d driven him wild the day before. Did she know how many men’s eyes had followed her in the roulette room? Did she care? Or did she think only of her brother?
    “What—what did you say?” he asked, aware that his wits were wandering.
    “I said, is it true?”
    “Is what true?”
    “You’re not listening to a word I say.”
    No, he thought. I’m not listening to your words but I can’t take my eyes from your mouth and the delightful way it moves, especially when you smile. In another moment, I shall yield to temptation and kiss you in public. What’s happening to me? When did I go mad?
    “I said, is it true that you’re always the winner?”
    He gathered his wits. “No, that’s just what I want people to believe.”
    “He also said that no one in Venice was more ruthless or more feared. But I didn’t believe that.”
    “Why not?” he asked quickly.
    “I don’t know. I just...don’t.” She felt awkward. The conversation was suddenly too intimate and revealing.
    “I wonder who knows me best, Teresa. Francisco or you?”
    “Why does he say such things of you?”
    He shrugged. “I could say the same of him. We’re old enemies.”
    “But why?”
    “We’re Venetians. Enmity is natural. This is our landing stage.”
    He alighted with her. As they neared the palazzo Francisco was just stepping into his motorboat. He glanced up, saw them and immediately came up the steps. “What a pleasure to see you, signorina, ” he said. “My wife will be