Suddenly outside there was shouting, and her gondola was bumped several times by another craft. Francesca peered through the windows to see what was happening. A number of large barges filled with cargo had cut off her vessel from her grandfather’s gondola. And it seemed she was surrounded on all sides.How inconvenient, Francesca thought, irritated. She didn’t want to be late for her wedding. And then the velvet curtain shielding the opening to the cabin was roughly pulled aside by a bald-headed, black-bearded man with one gold earring in his nose and another in his left ear. Reaching in, he caught her lace-gloved hand and yanked her forward.
Francesca screamed, pulling back. “What are you doing?” she demanded of him. “Let me go! Let me go!” She attempted to pull her hand from his, to no avail.
The villain ignored her demands and instead yanked harder, unseating Francesca, which caused her to lose her balance entirely. Pulling her from the cabin, her attacker tossed her over his broad shoulder as if she were a sack of meal. He leapt from the bridal gondola into a smaller gondola hidden between her vessel and the barges. To those watching, it was an amazing feat of balance. He could have just as easily fallen into the water with his burden, but the large man was light on his feet.
Roughly pushing his captive down into the boat, he pulled a dark cloth over her head. Francesca was still screaming for help that didn’t come. The truth was her voice wasn’t even heard over the shouting of the bargemen, Alessandro Venier’s servants, and her own gondoliers, now splashing about in the waters of the canal where they had been tossed. What was happening to her? Who was this man dragging her from the wonderful life she had planned? Francesca began to cry. She was suddenly very frightened, finding it difficult to breathe, and her belly was roiling in her cramped, overheated position. Without warning, she fainted.
When she opened her eyes again she found herself suspended in the air between the little gondola below and a larger vessel above. Beneath her, she saw the oars of a galley. Francesca shrieked as her body, still sheathed in the wedding gown, swayed. She was being winched up, she realized, as a ship’s rail appeared just beneath her. Several men ran to bring her on board, gently swinging her over the rail, lowering her to the deck, and unfastening her from the device that had held her. Freed, Francesca found her legs were somehow managing to keep her upright despite her terror.
“Beloved!” A tall, handsome man hurried forward. He was dressed in full white pants sashed in dark green and a white shirt open at the neckline, which displayed in part a bronzed chest. His face was clean-shaven but for a well-barbered dark goatee, and his eyes were a gorgeous shade of dark blue. “Did I not say I would come for you, Bianca?” He lifted the veil covering her face, looked at her, and stepped back in surprise. “Who in Allah’s name are you?” he demanded. He whirled about, roaring, “You have taken the wrong woman, you fools!”
Francesca began to laugh as her fears evaporated with the knowledge of who this man must be. “No, no,signore, do not berate them. My sister and I exchanged places this morning, for I love Enzo Ziani and she insisted her prince would come.” Then without warning her belly rebelled and she vomited all over the toes of his dark boots.
“Who are you?” he asked her, signaling a seaman to clean the mess up with a bucket of seawater. “Let us walk the deck,” he said to the bride, “and you will tell me.”
“I am Francesca Pietro d’Angelo,signore, Bianca’s younger sister. I have been living with my grandfather here in Venice since I turned twelve a year and a half ago. I was being prepared for a Venetian marriage. Then our parents sent Bianca here, andNonnodecided that Bianca was to wed my Enzo.” Francesca went on to explain the whole plot to him.
Amir ibn Jem could not help but laugh when she had finished. His clever Bianca had been fortunate in having this younger sister who was willing, nay, eager to help her.
“Where is she now?” he asked Francesca.
“Hiding atNonno’s palazzo,” the girl answered him. “If you wish to rescue her, you don’t have a great deal of time,signore. And you must escape Venice as well, for they will know it is you who has taken her. She has insisted for months to any and all who would listen that you would not fail her. Where are we now?”
“Anchored in the middle of the lagoon between the island of San Giorgio Maggiore and the Lido,” Amir replied. “How far is that from your grandfather’s palazzo, Francesca?”
“The little canal to his palazzo is towards the end of the Grand Canal just past Santa Maria della Salute. I can show you, for you will have to get me back.”
“I apologize for spoiling your wedding day,” Amir said.
“It wasn’t really mine,” Francesca responded. “I will marry Enzo one day, but when I do he will know it is me, and that I love him. I was foolish to believe otherwise. I think everyone is correct. I am too young to marry right now. But had you not kidnapped me,signore, I should not have had the time to realize it. There is a great deal more to marriage than just a beautiful gown and a flower-bedecked gondola, I am told. But we must hurry now or you will lose the opportunity to regain your own love.”
“I told my bargemen to keep everyone busy until my ship had a chance to make the open sea. They will do their best to delay the search for the stolen bride, but you are correct in that we must hurry,” Amir told the young girl.
He gave orders in a language that Francesca didn’t understand, and then she found herself being lowered once again into the small gondola. Amir swung himself down beside her, and then they were being poled away from the prince’s ship. The gondolier rowed very quickly across the lagoon and into the Grand Canal. Francesca directed him to the little side canal where her grandfather’s palazzo was located.
“The servants will all be busy preparing for the wedding feast, and drinkingNonno’s wine while he is not there to catch them,” the girl told the prince. “If we are careful and quick we can slip into the house easily.”
And they did, hurrying up the wide marble staircase and going down the hall to the apartment that the two sisters shared. Agata jumped with surprise when Francesca came into the room, but then seeing the familiar figure of Prince Amir she gave a little cry, which caused Bianca to come forth from her bedchamber.
Seeing her sister, she gasped with surprise, but then she saw Amir. Her aquamarine eyes widened, and then filled with tears.“You came!”she said, and the tears spilled down her pale cheeks.
He stepped forward, enfolding Bianca into his arms. “I came,” he agreed. “Did I not promise you that I would?”
“It seems as if it has been forever,” Bianca told him.
“We have not much time in which to make our escape, beloved,” he told her.
“Agata, come and help me get the dark color out of my hair,” Francesca said.
“Do not be long,” the prince warned the servingwoman. Then, taking Bianca aside, he explained to her the farce that had transpired as he kidnapped the bride and had her brought to his ship.
Bianca found the whole thing very funny, and laughed as she had not in many months. But then realizing that they were still in danger, she stood up. “What shall I take?” she asked him.
“Nothing but Agata, if she would come,” he said. “I have the proper garments for you both upon my ship, beloved. Your Venetian finery would not be at all suitable for the life you are to lead. Are you still certain you would come with me, Bianca?”
“Yes! And yes a thousand times, Amir ibn Jem, heart of my heart,” she told him.
“Agata, come! We have to go now or we risk being caught.”
