“But I do not find it at all warm, my dear. It is your English summers that are intolerable. All that fog and damp. If you will but look more closely at all those people, Giana, you will see that many of them are your countrymen, here on holiday. The railroad is making Rome too crowded for everyone.”
“Can you blame them? Rome is so very romantic. I wish that Ran—” She bit her tongue, and looked at him from the corner of her eye.
But Daniele only smiled, a tolerant smile that made Giana grit her teeth. He had seen Randall Bennett, had gone out of his way to have the young man pointed out to him. He had wanted, if possible, to assure himself that Aurora was indeed correct about his character, or lack thereof. To his delight, he had managed to engage the young man in a friendly conversation, indeed, had shared a glass of sherry with him at Boodle’s on St. James Street, the result being that he itched to remove Giana as quickly as possible from London and Randall Bennett’s influence. Conceited, arrogant puppy. As to his being as ruthless as Aurora had painted him, Daniele wasn’t certain, but during the last two weeks he had spent in Giana’s company, he had become more than impressed at how well the young man had succeeded in his duplicity, and to suspect that more was at stake here than just saving a young girl from a disastrous marriage. The young man had bragged, with Daniele’s gentle guidance, of his noble connections and his forthcoming marriage to the daughter of a wealthy family. Which wealthy family? Daniele had inquired. Actually, Randall had confided, there was but a mother, a raving bitch of a woman who tried to deal in the business world with men. Daniele had allowed an incredulous expression, and Randall had sneered his disdain, assuring the foreign gentleman that he would soon have the lady well in hand.
In an effort to keep the smile on his face, Daniele shaded his eyes and gazed toward the
Castel Sant’Angelo, the ancient ruin, once the Emperor Hadrian’s mausoleum, that stood stark and gray on a cliff overlooking the Tiber. It was a sight that never failed to make him thankful he was a Roman, and not a cold-blooded Englishman.
“So you still enjoy Roma, Giana? I recall that three years ago, I nearly succumbed to exhaustion squiring you about.”
For a moment, she looked uncertain, wondering if she had demanded too much of him during her visit to Rome.
He leaned over and patted her gloved hand. “ Perhaps, my dear, we will have time for you to return to Hadrian’s Villa and frolic as you did so charmingly then, amongst the olive groves and cypresses.”
Giana was silent for a long moment. She stared at the rows of colorful flower stalls along the Campo dei Fiori, scarcely aware of the bawling of the street vendors, the loud voices of haggling customers, and the racket of the traffic. Her Uncle Daniele had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember; he had always warmed her with his attention. But now she was with him at her mother’s behest, not her own, and she felt dreadfully uncertain, even frightened, about what would happen to her.
Daniele watched her, in some part understanding her feelings. She was too young, he thought, and too caught up in her own little drama to understand what was in his mind. He had come to know Giana again during their journey to Rome, had learned that she had her mother’s great stubbornness and singleness of mind, but none of her tempering wisdom. To think that what he had planned for Giana would in any way sway her. And she was still a child, without an adult’s capacity to understand dissimulation and guile, a child who believed that Randall Bennett would provide her with love and security. He had been just as much a fool as Aurora. Meeting prostitutes would probably provide her only with naughty enjoyment and a stock of deliciously wicked memories, nothing more. No, Giana must experience the hypocrisy directly, must feel for herself the humiliation many men of her class forced upon women.
It had taken him two weeks to resolve the unease he felt at throwing Giana into the situations he envisioned now. He glanced at her sideways, her lovely face open and filled with pleasure at her surroundings. He wondered if she would grow old hating him for what he was planning to do. He knew he had the guile and art of persuasion to convince her, if he wished, without even telling her mother.
“Giana,” he said, drawing her eyes to his face. “I truly wish that we could spend another holiday together like we did then. But it cannot be. I will tell you again that I agree with your mother about your Mr. Bennett. You are giving us no choice, Giana, but to give you a strong dose of life during this short summer. I am afraid you have to grow up, and much more quickly than I would like.”
“I am grown up, Uncle,” Giana said. “It is only you and Mother who refuse to believe that my love for Randall will survive a summer.”
“Perhaps, my child. But you must allow me the hope that it will not last. There are grim realities in this world, Giana, and I fear that Randall Bennett is one of them.”
“You are wrong, Uncle, quite wrong.”
“Well, in any case, the both of us have said what we feel. Your mother told you, my dear, that you would be seeing all sides of life, not only the married ladies of your own class, but also women of the other side of the coin.”
“Yes, Uncle. Prostitutes.”
Her voice was light, almost insultingly so. It is all a wicked game to her, he thought. “Your mother,” Daniele said with careful condescension, “has been much protected during her life. I doubt if she would recognize a prostitute if she saw one.”
“Yes, Mother is quite the lady, in that respect.”
“But you, on the other hand, wish to taste life, do you not, Giana? To understand and experience life so that you may more fully appreciate your position in it?”
“Of course,” she said. “I have no wish to hide my head in the sand like some people do.”
“Ah. Do I take it, my dear, that actually dealing with, say, prostitutes, not just meeting them for a little chat over tea, would appeal to your sense of adventure, your thirst to understand this life we live?”
Giana stared at him, her blue eyes darkening in interest nearly to black. “What are you saying, Uncle?”
Daniele started to speak, then shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing, my dear. I had thought that perhaps you would wish to prove to me and to yourself, but no—it is too much to ask of one so young and innocent.”
“Dash it, Uncle. In September I shall marry. As a married lady, I shall do just as I wish.”
He looked still hesitant, even as she tugged at his sleeve. “No,” he said finally. “Young ladies of your stamp and upbringing could not survive a taste of the world as it really is. It was foolish of me to even raise the issue.”
“Uncle,” Giana said impatiently, “I do not know what you mean by my stamp, but I am certainly capable of seeing your so-called world.”
“In all its sordid splendor?”
She made a disdainful gesture with her hand. “You jest, Uncle. There is nothing you could make me see that would make me succumb to die-away airs.” She added, a gleam of understanding in her eyes, “And there is nothing, Uncle, that would make me give up Randall.”
“You are so certain, my dear,” he murmured, “for one so young, so untried, so sublimely ignorant. You have no more notion of life than a—well, it is not in my mind to insult you.” He watched a myriad of emotions play over her expressive face before it settled into anger at his condescension.