Keep Reading …
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.
Maria adored her papà. She was the baby of the family, and Alberto always called her his piccola bambina. He never spoke down to her or got angry with her like her mother and siblings did.
Maria’s best friend, Elisabetta, once told her that the reason her sisters were so mean to her was because they were jealous that she was cleverer and more beautiful than them, her dark hair glossier, her green eyes brighter, her waist slimmer and her breasts larger. Maria didn’t know if that was true, but the boys at school had begun to look at her in a different way and made comments as she passed them. When she walked home one night, Luca Sterpone had shouted out at her, asking for a kiss, ‘Sei bellissima – baciami!’, and the others had burst out laughing.
As Maria heard her mother launch into an oft-repeated anecdote about one of the chickens getting loose and flying all the way up to the roof of the house, her mind was made up. She nudged her sister and said, ‘Beatrice, tell Mamma I’m going on ahead. I’ll see you back at home.’
‘But Maria—’ Beatrice began angrily.
Maria didn’t stop to listen, skipping out of the gate and making her way through the narrow lanes of the village of Cannegia. She could take the main road, which wound slowly up the mountain, but Maria knew it was much quicker to take the steep, rocky path through the woods.
She set off at a brisk pace, enjoying the relative cool of the morning before it grew hotter, her lungs pumping, her breath quickening. She passed into the forest where it was shady and quiet, her feet crunching softly on the fallen leaves. She heard the tapping of a woodpecker in the distance, the noise echoing through the trees, then spotted the white flash of a deer’s tail as it turned in fright and hurried silently away.
As the trail wound higher, the route growing more hazardous, Maria’s thoughts turned to Lorenzo, daydreaming about his handsome face and perfectly chiselled body. There’d been a definite look of interest in those arrogant, wolfish eyes, smouldering beneath thick brows, as he fixed her with his intense gaze. Lorenzo wasn’t like the boys in her class at school; he was tall and strong and muscular. He was a man.
She jumped as she heard a twig snap close behind her, whirling round in alarm. Almost as though she’d summoned him, Lorenzo Mancini was standing there. He smiled when he saw her.
‘Lorenzo! You gave me a fright!’ Maria’s heart was thumping, and she was both surprised and puzzled to see him.
‘I called your name but you didn’t hear me. Were you daydreaming?’ he teased, and Maria blushed. ‘What about?’ Lorenzo asked, then laughed as though he knew that she’d been thinking about him.
‘Why are you going this way? You don’t live up here,’ Maria frowned.
‘Can’t you guess?’ His smile grew wider, as Maria’s heart skipped a beat.
‘You followed me?’ she stammered, hardly daring to believe it.
Lorenzo stepped closer. He was over a head taller than her, and she had to tilt her face back to look at him. ‘You’re so beautiful, Maria,’ Lorenzo murmured.
Maria felt as though she were dreaming. Lorenzo Mancini thought she was beautiful? Impossibile! She didn’t even realize he knew her name.
Bashfully, she bowed her head, but Lorenzo reached out and placed one finger under her chin, forcing her gaze upwards. She shivered beneath his touch; the gesture felt so intimate.
‘Look at me,’ Lorenzo murmured.
Maria did as he commanded, as though she were under his spell. His eyes were dark, the pupils large. There was something intense in his expression, and it frightened her a little.
‘Lorenzo,’ she breathed, but he took her words away with a kiss, his mouth closing on hers. Maria thought she might faint, her legs threatening to buckle beneath her – she was kissing Lorenzo Mancini!
His mouth was pressed down on hers, but it was harder than she expected, uncomfortable almost. She tried to pull away, but he held her tightly, pushing his tongue inside her mouth. This wasn’t loving or tender – it was forceful and rough.
