“It cannot be too soon as far as I am concerned,” the Contessa replied. “Then we can go home and go on with what we were doing before all this happened.”
She spoke rather sharply as if the whole situation was very annoying.
At the same time she was looking round the room with interest and Paola was sure that she was taking in the beauty of it and the high quality of the pictures and the porcelain.
The Contessa rose to her feet.
“I believe the maids are unpacking your clothes in another room,” she said. “I think that you should get dressed and then we can go downstairs and find out what the Marchese is doing to catch these villains.”
She made a gesture with her hands and added,
“I simply cannot believe that all this has happened in Lucca. There is so very little crime here, and I am quite certain that no one will believe the story of the Marchese’s diamond when they hear about it.”
The Contessa suddenly stopped.
“Now I think about it,” she said, “it’s very strange that the robbers expected to find it on the Marchese. Where was it? Where had he put it? Surely he would not take anything so valuable with him to Church.”
“I think they just – expected him to – tell them where it – was,” Paola said quickly, “and as he would not do that – they locked us both up until they could force him to tell them.”
“Oh, yes, I see,” the Contessa said. “And now that they have come all this way, they will not wish to return to India without it.”
“I am sure – they will – try again,” Paola said, “unless they are caught and arrested.”
She tried to speak impersonally, but her voice trembled.
She knew that she was very frightened.
They had not yet escaped from the Big Man and the Indians who obeyed his orders.
CHAPTER SIX
Paola went down to dinner in one of the simplest gowns she had brought to Lucca with her.
She would have liked to wear one of the pretty new gowns her mother had bought for her, but she thought it would be a mistake.
The chandeliers had now been lit and glittered from the ceilings like stars.
When Paola saw the Marchese in his evening clothes, she thought that no man could look more handsome and, to be truthful, more raffish.
The dining room, as they found when they went into dinner, was very grand and impressive and the candle-lit table, decorated with gold ornaments and orchids, made Paola’s eyes shine.
‘This is just the way,’ she thought, ‘that aristocrats should live.’
And who could look more aristocratic than the Marchese sitting in a high-backed chair on which was carved his Coat-of-Arms.
The Contessa was on his right and Paola on his left.
He obviously put himself out to make the evening pleasant for them and told them stories of his travels all over the world.
These included the tale of how he had saved the life of the Nizam of Hyderabad.
He made it sound amusing, but Paola was sure that it had been a very dangerous episode. Not only was the Nizam lucky to be alive but so was the Marchese.
Every course brought to the table was more delicious than the last, yet it was difficult to even think of food when Paola was listening to the Marchese and laughing at almost everything he said.
When the Contessa led the way into the drawing room, the Marchese, in French fashion, came with them.
“Now,” he said, “I want to show you some of my treasures and especially my collection of snuffboxes.”
The Contessa was entranced and so was Paola.
The Marchese had found a great number of the boxes in Russia. Many were ornamented with precious stones with exquisitely painted miniatures of Royalty on the lid of each box.
“I really feel this house should be opened as a museum,” the Contessa remarked. “It’s somehow unfair that so few people can see the marvellous objets d’art you have here.”
“I see them and my friends see them,” the Marchese replied, “and that I can assure you is quite enough.”
“You are a very lucky man,” the Contessa said, “but, of course, you must always be careful of burglars.”
What she was saying made Paola think once more of the Big Man and his Indians. She had almost forgotten them in the delight of listening to the Marchese at dinner.
He saw the fear in her eyes and urged,
“Don’t worry! We are well protected at the moment and will be until those miscreants are arrested and sent to prison. We have a number of specially selected Policemen at both the back and the front of the villa. I can guarantee to you ladies that you will sleep peacefully without fretting until the morning comes.”
He was addressing them in the plural, but he was looking at Paola.
He was thinking that it was impossible for any young woman to look so lovely. Or, and this was strange, so different from anyone else he had seen before.
Being a connoisseur, he was trying to explain to himself the difference between Paola and the other women he had admired over the years.
There had been a great number of them and of many different nationalities.
It was not, he decided finally, her outward looks, but what came from within and he could almost feel her vibrations touching his.
Because he was gazing at her in a strange way Paola blushed and felt shy.
As she looked away from him, the Marchese said,
“I feel, as this is your first visit to Lucca, I should give a ball for you or at least arrange some festivity which would introduce you to the more attractive of our citizens.”
For a moment Paola’s face was radiant and then she remembered that secretly she was in mourning.
“No! No!” she replied quickly. “I am quite happy as I am. There is so much to see in Lucca. I am sure that I shall only have explored half the City before it’s time to go home.”
“When will that be?” the Marchese asked.
“Not for several months,” the Contessa interrupted. “Paola is right. There is a great deal for her to learn in Lucca besides all I want her to do for me.”
“You are puzzling me,” the Marchese said. “I cannot understand why anyone so young and beautiful should refuse to be given a ball.”
Paola thought that he was being too perceptive and she said,
“It is something that I would love some time, but not just now. I have so many other things to do first.”
“And what are they?” the Marchese asked.
“To see Lucca and its glorious treasures,” Paola answered him.
“That is exactly what I am offering you,” he answered. “Tomorrow you shall see my Picture Gallery of which I am indeed very proud.”
Paola clasped her hands together.
“I should love to see it and I have already noticed the pictures here in the drawing room which are magnificent. I want to learn who painted them and why.”
“That is something I shall enjoy telling you,” the Marchese said.
The Contessa now felt that the conversation was becoming too intimate and that it was a mistake for Paola to talk to her host more than was absolutely necessary.
She rose to her feet.
“I know it’s early to go to bed,” she suggested, “but I think, after the terrible experience that Paola has been through today, she should have a good night’s rest.”
“Yes, of course,” the Marchese said. “I am selfish in wanting to keep her here.”
There was something in the way he said it that gave Paola a strange feeling.
She was sure that he was only being polite, but at the same time, if he did want her to, she would have liked to stay with him.
The Contessa, however, walked resolutely towards the door.
The Marchese opened it for her and, when she said goodnight, he bent over her hand.
“Thank you for a delicious dinner and your hospitality,” the Contessa said. “Paola and I are very grateful to you.”
&
nbsp; “Thank – you! Thank you – very much,” Paola echoed.
She held out her hand and the Marchese took it in both of his.
“I have not yet had the chance,” he said, “to thank you properly for what you have done. I can only say you were utterly and completely magnificent.”
He was speaking in a low voice and the Contessa by this time was crossing the hall to the staircase.
“I am – so very – very glad we are – saved,” Paola murmured.
“I will tell you how glad I am another time,” the Marchese replied.
He was still holding her hand in both of his and now he said, almost as if he was speaking to himself,
“You are very lovely, Paola. So lovely that I am half afraid that when tomorrow comes you will have flown up into the sky.”
“I shall – still be here,” Paola smiled.
She wanted to take her hand away as she spoke, but the Marchese did not let it go.
Instead he held it even tighter in his and they looked into each other’s eyes.
It seemed to Paola as if the whole world faded away and she could only see the Marchese.
Then, as they stood without moving, the Contessa called out sharply,
“Paola!”
It was a cry that made Paola feel as if she had fallen back onto the earth.
She took her hand from the Marchese’s and ran to the foot of the stairs where the Contessa was waiting for her.
As they started to climb, she glanced back.
The Marchese was not watching them go. The drawing room door was open but he had disappeared.
She felt suddenly as if she had lost him.
When they reached Paola’s bedroom, the Contessa came in and kissed her goodnight.
“Sleep well, dear child,” she said. “Tomorrow I will speak to the Chief of Police to see if we can be guarded at home in my villa. I think it could be a mistake to stay here too long!”
“I-I think – the Marchese likes – having us!” Paola said hesitatingly.
The Contessa gave a little laugh.
“He makes every woman he meets feel indispensable to him. You must, my dear, not be so naïve as to believe him.”
She left the bedroom as she spoke and a maid came in to help Paola undress.
When she was lying in bed Paola, found herself thinking of the Marchese.
How amusing he had been at dinner and how he had held her hand just now in the drawing room.
He had given her a strange feeling that she had not known before.
‘I expect every woman feels like that when she is with him,’ she told herself.
But somehow she was gazing again into his dark eyes and everything else was slipping away.
*
Paola must have been asleep for nearly two hours.
She was dreaming of the treasures she had seen downstairs and felt that the Marchese was describing them to her.
Then suddenly with a start she realised that someone was putting something over her mouth.
For a moment she could not realise what was happening.
Then she was aware that a gag had been tied tightly behind her head.
At the same time her ankles were being bound together with a rope.
She tried to struggle and scream, but it was impossible.
Almost before she was conscious enough to work out exactly what was happening, she was bundled in a blanket.
Someone was lifting her out of the bed and she knew with a feeling of terror who it must be.
Again she tried to scream and struggle.
The arms that held her were like a vice and the gag over her mouth prevented her from making the slightest sound.
Then her head was covered with another blanket.
She was being carried across the room and to her horror was pushed roughly out through the window.
Strong ropes had been wrapped round her body, her neck and her feet.
She felt herself being let down very slowly and silently from the first floor to the ground.
There were hands to remove the ropes and two men carried her swiftly away from the villa.
By now she realised that she was being kidnapped and once again she was the prisoner of the Big Man and the Indians.
She was so frightened that it was hard to think.
What was even more frightening was the complete silence in which everything was done. It was almost as if the men around her were invisible.
She could hardly even hear them move and it was only because they were carrying her that she was aware that they were actually there.
She wondered where they would take her.
It was unlikely that it would be back to the Cathedral and they would, she feared, have some hiding place where no one could find her.
Perhaps they intended to kill her!
The idea was terrifying. But she made a superhuman effort to keep her head and try to work out where they were going.
She thought, although she was not sure, that they were moving amongst trees in the garden.
Then they went through a gate of some sort and now she was lifted into a carriage.
The back seat she was laid down on was hard.
She was sure there were two men in the carriage with her, in which case the other two must have climbed up on the box with the driver.
As they drove off quite swiftly, she could hear that it was drawn by only one horse.
She tried to puzzle out which direction they were taking.
She had the idea that she had been taken out of the garden by a small gate that faced in the same direction as the main gate, which she had run through to hand the gardener the note to the Marchese.
Now they were turning away from the villa and she was sure that they were going East and not West towards the Cathedral.
If this was so, her heart sank.
She had learnt from the Contessa that the East side of the City was the poorest part and that all the grand villas like hers and the Marchese’s were in the West.
Paola thought that she might be hidden in some small cottage or in the cellar of an unknown house.
It could take weeks, if not months to search for her. In fact it would be quite impossible for the Marchese to find her.
Because she was so frightened she began to pray.
Praying fervently to God and St. Francis and every other Saint she loved to help her.
‘Help me! Help me!’ she said over and over again.
Somehow she found herself praying to the Marchese as well.
He would learn that her bed was empty the following morning and would perhaps believe that his prophecy had come true.
She had flown back into the sky!
‘Save me! Save – me!’
The words repeated and repeated themselves to the rumble of the wheels as they drove over cobbled streets and she was quite sure that these were part of the very poorest part of the City.
At last the carriage came to a stop.
Paola was lifted out by the same invisible hands and carried into a building.
The floor was rough and the men walked for some way and then up steep stairs before they finally set her down.
Now she was sitting on a chair and the blanket that covered her head was pulled away.
As she expected, the first face she saw was that of the Big Man.
Ugly and evil, he was even more revolting than when she had last seen him in the Cathedral.
“We meet again!” he trumpeted in his common coarse voice. “You see I have my own source of information in the Villa Lucca! This time, you’ll not escape.”
As he spoke, Paola looked up at him and then knew where she was.
She was in the ramparts!
There was no mistaking the heavily arched ceiling, the great thick walls of hewn stone, undecorated and ominous in their strength.
One of the Indians at a signal from the Big Man undid the gag that had covered Paola’s mouth.
It had been very tight and painful
and then she was glad when the rope that was round her body was released and she could raise her fingers to her lips.
She was then aware that she was sitting on a hard chair and beside her was a rough wooden table.
At another signal from the Big Man, one of the Indians brought a blotter and on it there was a piece of white writing paper and an inkpot in which stood a quill pen.
Paola looked at it and the Big Man growled,
“Now you’re going to write what I tell you.”
As he spoke, he drew a long sharp knife from his pocket.
As Paola winced away from him in terror, he bent forward and seized a piece of her hair, which was falling over her shoulders.
He hacked it away with his knife and threw it down on the table.
“What are you – doing?” Paola cried out. “Why are – you cutting – my hair?”
She had a terrified feeling he was going to cut it all off.
The Big Man merely retorted,
“Write what I tell you!”
Then, almost as if she was being inspired by St. Francis himself, Paola had an idea.
If she was to write to the Marchese, as she was sure the Big Man intended, asking him to exchange her for the ring, she must try to tell him where she was.
It would be very difficult.
But she felt that he would look in her letter for some word that would give him the clue he needed.
With an effort, because her mouth was so dry that it was hard to speak, she said,
“If you want me to – write, I – cannot write what – you tell me – in Italian.”
“Why not?” the Big Man asked sharply.
“Because I am – English. Although I can – speak a little Italian, I can – only write in my – own language.”
The Big Man frowned and she could see that this was an obstacle he had not expected.
Then he said,
“Write in English, but Ali can understand English and if you try to betray to the Marchese where you are I will kill you.”
Paola gave a little shiver and then bravely, because she knew that this was her only chance, she said,
“You tell me – what to – say and I will – write it in – English.”
There was a little pause and she sensed that the Big Man disliked giving in to her.
In Love In Lucca Page 8