Dark Venetian - Anne Mather Mills & Boon Modern

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few months after Emma’s mother’s death, and when he had married Celeste, Emma had had to force herself to be pleasant to her new stepmother. But she needn’t have bothered. Celeste had no time for young girls, and lost no time in persuading Emma’s father to despatch her forthwith to boarding school, despite the fact that his salary as an accountant would barely run to the fees.

      Emma had accepted school life. She had always been popular at the local school, and found no difficulty in making friends with girls at Saint Joseph’s Academy, near Aylesbury. Holidays were a different matter, and Emma was sent to various aunts and cousins until she was old enough to spend holidays at home without interfering with her stepmother’s life.

      Her father, much to her concern, seemed to deteriorate in stature every time she saw him, and she could only assume that Celeste’s constant demands for money were getting him down. In her final term at school when she was preparing for ‘A’ levels, he had died, and she had been sent for from school, never to return.

      When her father’s affairs were settled it was revealed that there was nothing left except the house they lived in, which had been left unconditionally to Celeste, who immediately told Emma that she intended to sell it, and Emma had better find herself employment and a room of her own.

      It was difficult then for Emma to adjust, and she had felt a violent anger at her stepmother for being the cause of her father’s sudden demise.

      But time healed many things, and Emma, who had seen really little of her father since her stepmother had taken charge, did not miss him as much as she might have done in different circumstances.

      Celeste she heard had gone to the States, and she had not expected to see her again. A brief notification advised her of Celeste’s second marriage, and an even briefer notification advised her of Clifford Vaughan’s death and her stepmother’s subsequent elevation in capital. Emma had been neither interested, nor envious, but rather detached, as though it was all happening to some stranger she had heard about or read about. In her absorption in her work as a student nurse in a large London hospital she had found she could forget completely Celeste’s intervention in her life and remember only things that used to be when she was a child, and dearly loved by both parents. She had realized that her father had been a rather weak-willed man and she could not entirely place the blame for her exile from her home on her stepmother, for had her father been a different type of man, Celeste would not have been able to mould him so easily to her will.

      During Celeste’s time in the United States, Emma progressed to second-year nurse and the companionship she found with her contemporaries outweighed her lack of home life, welcome as she was to visit any of the girls’ homes. She worked hard, gained commendations from her seniors, and had really thought she had found a niche for herself at last, free from any fears of upheaval.

      But six weeks ago she had developed a severe attack of influenza, which verged on the brink of pneumonia for several days, and when the crisis was past she was left weak and spent, and utterly incapable of coping, at least for several weeks, with the strenuous work of a junior nurse.

      Matron had called her into her office and asked whether there was not some relative who might be willing to have her stay with them for a while until she was completely recovered, preferably, Matron said, away from the diesel-laden air of London’s streets.

      Emma had not been able to think of anyone. Her frequent holiday visits to relatives from school, devised by Celeste, had stiffened annoyance in those relatives, most of whom had been her mother’s relations anyway, and although she had no doubt that they would take her if requested, she did not feel like sponging on them once again.

      Matron had been unable to suggest anything at that time and the problem had been left in the air, until Celeste’s air-mail letter arrived from New York. It contained an invitation for Emma to accompany her stepmother on a visit to Italy for several weeks, the actual time was not specified, and notification that Celeste was flying home to London the following day, and could Emma meet her at the airport.

      At first Emma felt affronted that after all this time Celeste should simply write and ask her to go away with her, and also issue instructions that she, Emma, should meet her at the airport.

      But knowledge of her precarious financial position, together with a trace of curiosity without which she would not have been human, urged her to comply and she had taken a bus out to the airport and returned with Celeste in a taxi, a pile of new suitcases adorning the front seat.

      Celeste’s invitation was re-issued in the lounge of a suite Celeste took at the Savoy, and Emma, in her white vinyl raincoat, and windswept hair, felt she must look more like Celeste’s maid than her stepdaughter.

      She told herself that there must be some snags, that Celeste’s greedy nature could not change overnight, and that Celeste would hardly be spending all this money on her fares and accommodation for nothing, but for the life of her she could not see the flaws. And when Celeste took it upon herself to be charming and sympathetic that Emma should have suffered such a severe dose of ‘flu, she could be entirely disarming. At any rate, Emma was prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt particularly as, as she explained, Matron had forbidden her duties at the hospital for at least six weeks.

      Celeste was triumphantly pleased at this state of affairs, and told Emma that in the circumstances there was no need for a prolonged delay. She would give Emma some money to attire herself in clothes suitable to the daughter of a wealthy woman, and after passport arrangements were made they would leave.

      It was not until they had spent two days at the Danieli, during which time Emma had been left to her own devices to explore at will, that Celeste sprung on her the news that they were leaving the hotel and going to stay at a palazzo belonging to Celeste’s godmother, the Contessa Cesare.

      And now, Emma, in the throes of restoring Celeste’s suitcases into some semblance of order, was wondering again whether she was about to discover the catch in all this. Just why had Celeste brought her? And why when she so obviously had intended visiting this Contessa had she decided she needed a companion? If it was a maid she wanted, she could have hired one far more cheaply than it was costing her to maintain her stepdaughter in a private room at the Danieli, and providing her with enough spending money so that no one might consider she was mean towards Emma.

      Emma could not fathom it all. Why in any case did Celeste want to go and stay at some stuffy, old-fashioned palazzo, when she had the comfort and liveliness of this luxurious hotel? Emma felt sure that Celeste was not going to stay with the Contessa, whom she had described to Fmma as being at least eighty, for purely altruistic reasons. Celeste was just not like that! So why was she going there? Had the Contessa a son? And if she had, was he the reason for Celeste’s excitement at the invitation? After all, Celeste had everything else now, did the idea of a title impress her? And if this was so Emma again came back to the reasons for her own inclusion in the invitation.

      The door of the suite opened, and Celeste came in, glowing and vivid, her emerald green silk sheath, clinging lovingly to the slender curves of her small, yet perfectly moulded, body.

      ‘Emma,’ she greeted her easily. ‘Have you finished packing yet?’

      Emma rose to her feet. As she was five feet eight inches tall she always felt enormous beside the delicately framed Celeste, although she was quite attractively proportioned, and had none of the bony angles sometimes evident in tall girls who veer towards thinness.

      ‘Not quite,’ said Emma. ‘I was just taking a breather. Tell me, Celeste, are you quite sure you want me to come with you to this palazzo? I mean, I could just as easily stay here, or at some smaller, less expensive pensione.’

      Celeste’s face assumed a strange expression, and Emma felt that awful foreboding in her stomach that she used to get whenever Celeste called her to her to tell Emma some new arrangement which had been settled for her. But now Celeste did not intimidate her, although she sometimes looked at Emma in this strange way, as though she was only there on sufferance.

      ‘Of course you will come with me,’ said Celeste now, firmly, her smile belying the coldness of her eyes. ‘We have both been invited,

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