Journey to love

by Barbara Cartland

  Shana remembered it had been commissioned by the order of Pope Clement XII in 1732. It was very ornate and yet it seemed to her a little surprising that it should have achieved such a world-wide reputation.

  Everyone firmly believed that the fountain brought luck to those who threw coins into its waters. What was more, not only would one’s wish be granted, but having once thrown coins into the Trevi, the visitor would inevitably return to Rome.

  There were quite a few people standing around the fountain when the Marquis and Shana walked from their carriage towards it.

  The Marquis drew two silver crowns out of his pocket and offered one to Shana.

  She shook her head.

  “No thank you – it must be my money, not yours.”

  “What are you going to wish for?”

  “That must be a secret,” Shana replied, “but I feel quite sure my wish will be granted.”

  She moved nearer to the edge of the fountain and then holding a half-crown of her own in her fingers, she closed her eyes and prayed that she and the Marquis might bring justice to the evil thieves who were causing such havoc.

  Then, almost as if a voice was telling her what to do, she prayed that she might find happiness.

  She had not really thought of anything for herself and happiness seemed a word to cover a multitude of wishes.

  Then again, as if someone was whispering to her, she knew that what she really wanted was love – the love her father and mother had known together.

  The love she had read about, the love which men and women had strived for since the beginning of time.

  She looked up at the statue of Neptune and threw her coin glistening in the sun into the sparkling water.

  She had a strong feeling as it fell that it was her last wish that went with it – the wish that concerned herself.

  The Marquis was standing beside her and now he took her arm.

  “I am taking you back to the house,” he said. “We have done enough for one day and I am trying to believe that my wish will come true.”

  “But of course it will and I believe that mine will too.”

  “Can I guess what that is?” the Marquis asked coyly.

  “No. No! I am sure that would be unlucky. It would undoubtedly annoy the Gods who listen to us before our coins touch the water.”

  “Then I devoutly hope they were listening to my wish,” the Marquis said.

  He waited for Shana to ask him what it was and felt almost absurdly disappointed because she did not seem to be interested.

  CHAPTER SIX

  They enjoyed a delicious dinner served in the Duke’s austere and rather overwhelming dining room.

  When it was over they walked down the garden to look again at the river, which was very glamorous with lights from small barges moving on the water.

  The Marquis became acutely aware he wanted to hold Shana close in his arms and kiss her.

  He was, however, sure that she must be tired as it had been a long and difficult day and he told himself that he must not rush his fences.

  When they turned back to the house Shana confirmed, as he had expected, that she was feeling weary.

  “It was not as difficult as I had feared talking to the Chief of Police and those other Officers,” she said. “At the same time I was frightened of making a mistake.”

  “I thought you were splendid and we certainly cannot tell them what we do not know.”

  “Of course not and frankly I am beginning to think that those Italians thieves are far too clever ever to be caught.”

  She gave a little sigh and walked upstairs with the Marquis to their bedrooms.

  Shana was glad to see that she was near the Marquis.

  What they had been given, she realised, was really a suite at the end of a long corridor and when they entered the suite they found themselves in a very comfortable drawing room or boudoir.

  The Marquis’s bedroom was on one side of it and hers on the other.

  “I am so glad I am looking over the river,” Shana said as they entered the suite.

  “I think I prefer to overlook the garden,” the Marquis replied. “I shall not be woken with hoots from the barges.”

  “Now you are trying to spoil my fun, so I shall just say goodnight as I expect we will have another difficult day tomorrow.”

  “I am afraid so and we told the Chief we would be with him fairly early in the morning.”

  Shana sighed and said,

  “I looked at hundreds of their drawings and photographs and I cannot believe there are many more suspects left in Italy!”

  “I do hope you are right. Goodnight, Shana, and sleep well.”

  She smiled at him and walked across to the door into her room.

  Once again the Marquis wondered what would happen if he came after her and kissed her goodnight, but resolutely he forced himself to go to his own room.

  He had deliberately told Curtis not to wait up for him as he had half hoped that he would be able to talk to Shana more intimately. Perhaps they would have been able to sit together in the drawing room for some time before they actually retired.

  ‘It is no use making plans,’ the Marquis told himself angrily. “I shall have to wait and see. Perhaps when we have left Rome it will be easier.’

  He decided that once they had completed their mission, he would persuade Shana to travel with him a little further across the Mediterranean.

  He knew that she wanted to visit Greece and perhaps it would be a temptation she could not resist.

  He kept remembering however that she wanted to be home before her father returned and that obviously might make her determined to go back to England immediately the Police no longer required their presence in Rome.

  All these thoughts surged through his mind and once again it was a long time before he fell asleep.

  *

  In the morning they breakfasted in their drawing room before setting out again for the offices of the Chief of Police.

  When they arrived he told them triumphantly that he had collected photographs and drawings of every criminal called Abramo.

  The Marquis looked surprised and the Chief explained,

  “It means Abraham, my Lord, in your language and it’s quite a common name in this part of Italy.”

  Shana was taken into the room where the photographs and drawings had been laid out.

  She inspected them closely, but thinking that whatever anyone else might think it was a waste of time. As the two Italians had been clever enough not to be captured by the Marquis and his men, it was extremely unlikely that they would have been in the hands of the Italian Police at any time.

  However, there were so many Abramos that it was nearly luncheon time before they were finally able to leave and Shana was totally unable to find even the slightest resemblance to the men she had seen.

  “You must promise, Signorina,” the Chief urged Shana as they were about to depart, “that you will continue to look around you wherever you go. I cannot believe that you have come all this way to help us and we should be so unlucky that you will leave us without any positive result.”

  “I will do my best, Signor,” Shana promised, “but I am afraid the Gods are against us.”

  “That I will not accept,” the Chief answered, “when you yourself, Signorina, look just like one of the Goddesses in the National Museum.”

  Shana thanked him for the compliment and after such a comment the Marquis insisted that the carriage take them to the National Museum. He thought there may indeed be some resemblance to Shana in a head of Venus which he had heard had been found in the Tiber.

  They entered the museum and walked down several corridors before stopping in front of the statue of the Capitoline Venus.

  It was a beautiful statue with the Goddess represented in the act of stepping into her bath and they both looked at her face to see if there was any resemblance to Shana.

  The Marquis was trying hard not to think of her nakedness and Shana at the same tim
e.

  “If you find the men the Chief is seeking,” he mused, “I am quite certain they will place a statue of you in one of the museum rooms and I cannot believe that you will not look even more beautiful than the Venus I see here.”

  Shana blushed at the Marquis’s words.

  She looked round and observed that most of the statues were of men and told him,

  “I think that we shall have to go to Greece if we want to see a really beautiful Venus or rather Aphrodite.”

  The Marquis knew this was true, but he did not say at the moment that was where he was hoping to take her.

  “I cannot think why you are so interested in the Colosseum,” the Marquis said when they arrived. “It was designed to hold 80,000 spectators watching what I should think was a most unpleasant spectacle of men and women being savaged by wild beasts and gladiators fighting each other to the death.”

  “I was not thinking of the games,” Shana chided him, “but the legend that as long as the Colosseum stands Rome will stand, but when Rome falls, so will the world.”

  “It seems to be standing up at the moment,” the Marquis remarked sardonically.

  Shana did not answer.

  She was looking down to where thousands of early Christians had been martyred.

  Impulsively she turned away.

  “You are right. It is not a happy place and I do not like to dwell on what has happened here in the past.”

  The Marquis took her to a very good restaurant for luncheon and when they had finished he suggested that they should return to the house.

  “I am going to take you out to dinner tonight to where I am told they serve the best food in the whole of Rome. So I do not want you to be tired or tell me when we get there that you are not hungry.”

  Shana laughed.

  “I am always hungry and it sounds very exciting.”

  After she had explored some of the rooms she had not seen earlier, they went up to their own drawing room and by this time it was late in the afternoon and Shana agreed that she would rest before dinner.

  “That is an excellent idea,” the Marquis said, “and as I need some fresh air I am going to walk along by the river.”

  Shana heard him close the door of the drawing room.

  She wished she was going with him and then she told herself she was sure that at times, like her father, the Marquis liked to be alone.

  Curtis arranged for her to have a bath in her bedroom and two footmen carried the hot water upstairs.

  She chose one of her prettiest evening gowns to wear for dinner with the Marquis and hoped he would think her as smart as some of the beauties he had dined with in London or in the country. She had a shawl to drape over her shoulders if it was cool in the carriage.

  When she joined the Marquis in the drawing room he thought she was lovelier than any Venus he had ever seen.

  The Duke’s comfortable carriage took them to the restaurant which was at the far end of the City.

  The Marquis had been correctly advised that it was the best food in Rome.

  Shana enjoyed it all, especially seeing the other diners. Most of the ladies were very smart with the gentlemen in evening dress.

  She noticed that she and the Marquis caused a number of whispered comments as they entered the restaurant and once they were seated several people asked the Head Waiter who they were.

  She did not think they were looking at her particularly as the Marquis was not only handsome but taller than all the other men present.

  They sat talking until the restaurant was beginning to empty and as it was now late they asked their driver to take them straight back to the Duke’s house.

  There was still quite a lot of traffic in the streets of Rome and just as they were approaching the house, the horses came to a standstill.

  Shana was looking out of the window on her side of the carriage and saw a man coming down the flight of steps of an impressive looking house.

  He had almost reached them when she gave a gasp.

  “What is it?” the Marquis enquired.

  “That man! Look at him!” Shana cried.

  Even as she spoke the man had almost reached their carriage.

  He looked directly at Shana through the open window before turning away.

  The Marquis bent over her.

  “What man?” he asked.

  “There. That man over there. I am almost sure it was the Italian in the Rose and Crown, who was better educated than his companion.”

  “Can you be certain? You cannot have seen him very clearly.”

  “The light from the carriage lamp was on his face and there is also a moon.”

  “If you are certain it is he, then we will have to tell the Chief of Police at once.”

  “We can describe the house he was leaving,” Shana suggested and the Marquis agreed.

  She knew as they drove on that the Marquis could hardly believe that the man she had just seen was actually the man who had been in the Rose and Crown.

  Now she had seen him again, Shana vaguely remembered that she had noticed at the time that one of his eyelids drooped more than the other and his nose was thin and pointed.

  ‘I am quite sure it was him,’ she said to herself.

  Because the Marquis was doubtful, she did not go on talking about him.

  At the same time she was almost certain he had recognised her. In which case, she thought, he will disappear and will certainly not be at that house tomorrow if the Chief of Police goes to arrest him.

  There seemed to be no point in discussing the encounter further, so when they went upstairs Shana told herself she would go to bed and think about it all when tomorrow came.

  The candles were lit in their drawing room and there was an oil lamp so that the room seemed quite bright, but the passages had been nearly dark and Shana suddenly felt the house was rather gloomy.

  “I am so glad,” she said to the Marquis, “that you are next door. I think it is rather creepy being in this big house all by ourselves.”

  “There are plenty of servants downstairs.”

  “Yes, but they are a long way from us.”

  The Marquis smiled.

  “I promised I would look after you,” he assured her, “and that is what I shall do. Go to bed, Shana and forget that man until tomorrow.”

  “I will try and you are just across the room – ”

  “I tell you what we will do,” the Marquis suggested, “we will leave our doors open. If you need me you have only to cry out and I shall hear you.”

  Shana nodded.

  “It sounds rather foolish, but it would make me happy.”

  “Then that is what we will do and do not forget we have a special guard in attendance. I spoke to him this afternoon and he told me he had just come on duty and there would be another man taking over from him early tomorrow morning.”

  “That sounds very grand,” Shana exclaimed.

  “Then go to bed and sleep well. And just call out if you want me.”

  She thanked him and walked into her own room.

  When the Marquis entered his room, he was frowning. He had made light of what Shana had said about seeing the Italian.

  If she was right it could mean trouble.

  He took his revolver out of the dressing table drawer where Curtis had left it on his instructions and loaded it.

  He hesitated and then walking across the room placed it under his pillow.

  *

  Shana undressed, thinking how kind the Marquis was to her and what an exciting evening it had been. There had been so much to talk about and somehow they had quite forgotten the reason they were in Rome.

  They had discussed what he might do in the future and instead of arguing with her the Marquis had listened to everything she had to say. She had thought it very complimentary that he had been so interested in all her suggestions.

  ‘It is very wonderful being with him,’ Shana thought as she blew out the lights by her bed.

  Usually she woul
d read a little before falling asleep, but tonight she wanted to think about the Marquis and everything they had talked about over dinner.

  She must have been asleep for several hours.

  Suddenly she was conscious that someone was bending over her.

  For a second she thought it might be the Marquis and then she realised it was not him and was about to scream.

  Before she could do so, something soft but firm covered her mouth and she realised she was being gagged.

  Now she began to struggle frantically.

  She was pulled forward and the gag was fastened behind her head.

  Although she fought hard against her attacker, her arms were pulled down on each side and a strong rope bound them tight.

  Next her feet were being tied together and again she tried to scream but it was impossible.

  She knew it was a man tying her up, but the room was in darkness and she could not make out his features.

  Now frantic and terrified she wanted to cry for the Marquis and as it was impossible to make a sound she could only call to him silently.

  ‘Help me! Help me! Come to me. I am being kidnapped!’

  Even as the cry went out from her as silently as a prayer, she was suddenly enveloped in what she thought must be a sheet or a rug that covered her completely. It was held in place by more strong cords like those already binding her.

  “Come to me! Come to me! Save me! Save me!”

  She fervently believed that the Marquis must be able to hear her inaudible screams.

  Then as she felt herself being picked up by a man’s strong arms she knew she was lost.

  *

  The Marquis had been unable to sleep because he was thinking of Shana.

  As he was just dozing off he suddenly sensed that she was calling to him. It was loud cry or so he thought.

  He sat up in bed.

  Then he realised there was only silence and it must have been his imagination.

  But still in some strange way he could feel that she wanted him and she was, in fact, calling for him. It was so clear that he thought he could not be imagining it.

  He climbed out of bed and pulled on his robe which Curtis had left lying over a chair.

  Taking his revolver from under the pillow, he walked through the open door into the drawing room.