Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

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About the Author

Also by Carol Kirkwood

About the Publisher

Prologue

Lombardy, October 1985

‘Pie Jesu Domine, Dona eis requiem …’

The high, sweet voice of the girl rang out across the church of the Holy Trinity, echoing from the ancient altar and drifting up to the heavens. The sound was clear and beautiful, like the voice of an angel but, out in the congregation, Maria Monti found herself distracted, Fauré’s Requiem little more than background noise to her thoughts. She was worried about her father, Alberto.

Every Sunday, Maria went to church with her parents and siblings, but this week her father had been too ill to attend. They’d left him at home, wracked with coughing and wrapped up in a blanket beside the fireplace.

Maria’s brother, Pietro, had been out that morning in the forest surrounding their house, gathering wood to burn; they were down to the last of the oil for the stove and could barely afford any more. Her father worked for one of the tanneries that provided the finest leather to the workshops in nearby Milan, but recently he’d been sick more often than he’d been well, with repeated bouts of bronchitis. The doctor said it was because of the chemicals at the tannery, but Alberto had been unable to find a position elsewhere.

The Monti family grew vegetables and kept chickens, while Silvia, Maria’s mother, took on cleaning jobs in the big houses on the shores of Lake Como, but with five children to feed, it was always a struggle to make ends meet.

When she wasn’t skivvying for her untidy siblings, Maria dreamed of escape. She didn’t want this to be her future – scratching out a living in a tiny house on the slopes of the mountains outside Milan, spending the rest of her life in the uneventful village of Cannegia. She wanted to be able to buy nice clothes and shoes, to be glamorous like the celebrities she read about in her mother’s old copies of Hello! that were cast-offs from the houses she cleaned for, but it was more than that. Maria wanted to live an extraordinary life and experience incredible things. She wanted her future to be magical, like a fairy tale, with palaces and dazzling balls where a handsome prince would sweep her off her feet.

At school, Maria had once read a book about Venice, a floating city built on dozens of islands that had barely changed for centuries. What could be more magical than that? Maria had thought breathlessly, as she pored over pictures of winding canals and pastel-coloured palazzos, ornate stone bridges and domed churches and an ancient bell tower. Even the names were evocative: Piazza San Marco, Ponte dei Sospiri, Palazzo Ducale. Maria could hardly believe that La Serenissima was little more than a hundred miles from where she lived her dull existence. It looked like a different world.

She had read about Giacomo Casanova too, a legendary libertine who was born in Venice in the eighteenth century, when it was the pleasure capital of Europe. Casanova was – amongst other pursuits – a writer, a musician, a spy, and a voracious lover. Maria thought he sounded incredibly exciting. She was fifteen years old and found herself regularly daydreaming about boys, wondering what her future husband would be like. She was excited to have her first kiss, her first boyfriend, her first caress from a lover.

A blush rose in her cheeks at the thought, and she inadvertently glanced across the aisle to see Lorenzo Mancini looking at her. Beneath his gaze, her face grew a deeper shade of crimson and she cast her eyes down, feeling heat wash over her body like a warm waterfall. When she glanced up again, Lorenzo was still watching her. Boldly, she held his stare, unconsciously biting her lip.

Lorenzo was classically handsome, with thick, dark hair, a Roman nose and tanned skin. He was twenty-two years old, the same age as her eldest brother, Renato, and he was tall and muscular with a broad back and strong arms, his biceps straining against the suit jacket he was wearing. He had deep brown eyes and full lips, and Maria found herself wondering what it would be like to kiss him—

‘Maria! Basta!’ her mother hissed under her breath. Guiltily, Maria averted her eyes, her heart racing. She stared down at the worn flagstones beneath her feet, noticing the way her black leather pumps were coming apart at the stitching, and tried to concentrate on the angelic voice singing at the front of the church.

But she was still thinking about Lorenzo.

The congregation spilled out of the Holy Trinity into a beautiful autumnal morning, gathering in pockets to chatter and gossip. It was a small community, and Maria recognized everyone as she stood beside her mother and siblings, twisting her long, dark hair round one finger and wishing she could go home. Silvia Monti loved to natter with her neighbours, or to collar old Padre Bernardi and regale him with tales of her piety. They would be there for hours, Maria groaned inwardly, as her brothers messed around with their friends, her sisters standing beside Silvia, knowing they would one day be the matriarch of their own families and hold court like this.

Maria wasn’t interested in hearing what the doctor had said about Rosa Greco’s bunions, or in the rumours that Giovanna Riccardi was pregnant out of wedlock. She was worried about her father and wanted to get back to him.