Epilogue

L ady Bainbridge was sorry to see her young guests leave so soon after their arrival and made them promise to pass back through before they returned to England. With a final farewell, the old woman stood in the doorway to her palazzo and watched them get into the gondola for the return trip to the train station. It had not even been two weeks since they had made this same gondola ride in the opposite direction; Melody could not believe all that had happened since then.

As she took her last look at the beauty of Venice as seen from the Grand Canal, Melody reflected on how different a person she now was from the innocent, naive young woman who had dreamed of finding love in Italy. She knew that only eleven days had passed since then, yet it felt like a lifetime ago. She found her eyes welling with tears and fought to hold them back; she would not allow Rat to see that she had any regrets about leaving Venice.

All too soon, the gondola was pulling up to the steps of the train station and Rat and Giovanni were unloading their bags. Rat went to find a porter while Mary fussed around the stacked luggage, worried they had left a bag behind.

Melody stood looking at the beautiful church on the opposite side of the canal. It was an elegant, neoclassical building with light-coloured stone and a distinctive green, copper dome. Now that she had run out of time, Melody considered that she would have liked to explore the church. She hadn't even made it into the Doge's Palace.

A voice behind her said, "It is the Church of San Simeone Piccolo. It is glorious, is it not?" That suave voice could only belong to one person.

Melody spun around. Before she could consider her words and forgetting countless years of etiquette lessons, she spat out sharply, "What are you doing here?"

If she had been angry on hearing his voice, seeing Alessandro's self-satisfied, almost mocking smile infuriated Melody. She had practised what she wanted to say to him so many times in her head, even out loud in front of the mirror at least twice. However, now he was standing in front of her, the carefully considered speech flew out of her head, and she stood there staring at him in dumb fury.

"Ah, Foscari, good timing," Rat said, returning with a porter. "I have the tickets."

"Wait. He is coming with us?" Melody demanded of Rat. Then, not waiting for a reply, she almost snarled at Alessandro, "You are coming with us to Morocco?"

"Well, if we are being punctilious, you are coming with me to Morocco. Or at least your brother is. I was unaware that you would be joining us." At this, he glanced over somewhat disapprovingly at Rat, who merely shrugged his shoulders as if to indicate his powerlessness to control his sister.

At that moment, Melody thought seriously about whether she might not just get back in the gondola and return to Lady Bainbridge's palazzo. Then, she considered what Granny would say about such cowardice and, instead, threw back her shoulders and said in a cold, haughty voice, "Please lead the way, Conte Foscari."

**

Note:

Luisa Casati was a real person. From 1910 until 1924, she lived in the building that now houses the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. She was a flamboyant character, and most of the outrageous details in this book about her are true (including having a pet cheetah and wearing live snakes in her hair.)

Many of the details I've used here I found in the book, The Unfinished Palazzo: Life, Love and Art in Venice: The Stories of Luisa Casati, Doris Castlerosse and Peggy Guggenheim by Judith Mackrell.

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Wolf and Bear, the duo you've grown to love, have a friendship and business partnership spanning over a decade. Curious about the beginning of their journey? Never fear. For this short story detailing their initial meet-cute, and more, sign up for my newsletter or find the link at sarahfnoel.com .

Here's a sneak peek at the next book in the Tabitha their visitor was Christopher Bailey, known as Kit. He had been a suspect in a previous murder inquiry, and while he had turned out not to be the killer, he was complicit in covering up the crime, which had not sat well with Tabitha and Wolf even as they had finally agreed not to reveal his part to the police.

However, this moral ambiguity was not why the flamboyant thespian's surprise visit was so fraught. During the course of that investigation, Kit quickly managed to become the dowager's nemesis by doing the most inexcusable thing in her eyes: mocking her. Even worse, the woman so renowned for her sharp tongue and acerbic wit seemed unable to come up with any rejoinder that the jovial man didn't merely laugh off. The timing of his visit couldn't be worse, Tabitha thought,

In confirmation of this, the dowager's eyes became cold and hard and her expression stony as she said in an accusing voice, "Tabitha! What would possess you to invite that man into this house? And when I am in attendance, no less."

Springing to his wife's defence, Wolf replied, "I can assure you that neither Tabitha nor I had any idea that we would be receiving a visit from Mr Bailey. I asked Talbot to take him through to my study so that you would not have to interact with the man."

Immediately, Wolf could see that he had made a tactical error; perhaps even more than being mocked, the dowager loathed being perceived as weak or lacking in any way. The idea that anyone might feel the need to coddle and protect her raised her hackles as nothing else could.

"Why would you do that, Jeremy?" she asked in the coldest of tones. "Do you believe I lack the fortitude to face that awful man?" As it happened, no one who had witnessed the dowager's interactions with Kit Bailey in Brighton was looking forward to a rematch. However, the set of her chin and her particularly erect posture with her shoulders thrown back made clear that the woman was preparing for battle.

As much as she loathed Kit Bailey, the dowager was never one to avoid a fight. While she would never have admitted it to anyone, she had long berated herself for being caught on the back foot with the man and had often thought about what she might say if she were ever given the chance for another bout. On occasion, when she could not sleep at night, the dowager considered what verbal thrust and parry she might best use to disarm the man and leave him bloodied and beaten. Now that the opportunity had suddenly presented itself, she was determined to sally forth into battle, safe in the knowledge that this would be Kit's Waterloo.