“My daughter spoke the truth when she said she knew nothing of de Luca, but I was acquainted with him.” Proietti let out a sigh. “Times were hard when Bonaparte came. The wealthy were able to invest in lands he seized from the church, but if a man did not have the money to purchase them …”
He opened one hand. “Rich men gained, and those of us who did not have as much lost investments and other income. I decided to sell de Luca a few heirlooms—a silver service that had been in my wife’s family for generations as well as an Etruscan antique I’d purchased in my youth. He was eager to buy them from me, and he gave me a fair price, I must say. I was able to recover my income somewhat once the restoration began, and I no longer had to worry about being destitute. However, when I went to de Luca to purchase our things back, he refused to sell them.”
“Did he?” The statement was at odds with the seemingly jovial man I’d met. “Perhaps he’d sold them to someone else in the meantime?”
“He had not. I saw both the service and the antiquity displayed nicely in one of his reception rooms. He simply did not want to part with them.”
I recalled Gian proudly showing Grenville an Etruscan statue, and wondered if it was the same Proietti had sold him.
“Did he give a reason?” I asked.
Proietti’s open hand closed to a fist. “De Luca said he liked them and did not wish to give them up. Once he had his fingers on something, he told me, he was loathe to release it. I explained to him how precious the silver set was to my wife, but he only laughed and said ladies had their whims.”
I was coming to realize that my first impressions of de Luca might have been very wrong. “Perhaps he was trying to keep them for your own good?” I suggested.
“Reasoning that my family needed the money more than they needed the trinkets?” Proietti shrugged. “He might have had such a thing in his mind, but I more believe he liked them and did not want to part with them. He was an odd man.”
That description I could agree with. De Luca’s house of treasures that very few saw, with only two people to help him run it, and his jumbled private room closed off to all but the privileged few, indicated such. That he let in the woman to dust at all was surprising.
“This would be your motive for murdering him?” I asked.
“I was very angry.” Proietti turned to the window and peered at the patch of gray sky over the buildings across the lane. “I shouted at him. I’m certain his man and the cook in the cellar heard me. I vowed to have my belongings back no matter what it took. When de Luca laughed at me, I wanted to throttle him.”
“When did this happen?”
“The first time I asked him for my things was a few years after the restoration began. I could afford the pieces by that time. I tried again a few weeks ago, right after Trevisan goaded Gisela into leaving us. I thought if I could not recover our daughter for my wife, I could at least recover her coffee service.”
Proietti covered his face with his hands, and I saw his shoulders shake once. My heart went out to him, and I stood in sympathetic silence while he calmed himself.
“Forgive me.” Proietti wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand and took a long sip of wine.
“If you give me your word you did not return to de Luca last week and cosh him, then I will welcome your help clearing up this mystery. Perhaps Gian will sell you your things back—he seems a reasonable man. And Trevisan is definitely up to something. I will do everything in my power to find out what, and convince your daughter he is not worth her regard.”
Proietti stared at me throughout this speech, then he shook his head. “You are an interesting man, Captain Lacey. I am happy that I stumbled into you wandering lost in my city. You have no doubts that all this will come right, do you?”
“I have been in desperate situations before and prevailed, and I do not only mean in the war. If you will act as my interpreter, we will discover what has happened, recover your things and your daughter, and my wife and I can return to the luxury of Grenville’s villa. To which I am certain he will extend an invitation to you and your family.”
I watched Proietti move from despair to disbelief to amusement with my declarations, which is what I’d intended. For myself, I had no idea how I would prove what had happened to de Luca and find the information Denis wanted, but I’d meant to cheer up Proietti, and this I think I did. I gave him a glimmer of hope, at least.
As we descended the stairs in search of Donata and Gisela, I realized that Proietti had not, in fact, given me his word that he hadn’t killed Conte de Luca. But we found the ladies quickly and I had no opportunity to ask him again.
It wasdark by the time Donata and I departed, the February evening falling early. Gisela had decided to spend the night at home, looking after her poor papa, she told us, with the air of a long-married woman tending a father in his dotage. I hoped the evening would pass for them without rancor.
I took Donata’s arm and headed through the narrow warrens, seeking the larger streets and the way to Grenville’s.
The attack came when we walked through a particularly dark patch. A man with a cudgel charged out at me, his roar of rage drowning out Donata’s scream.
Chapter17
Ifought hard, recognizing the fellow who’d attacked us in Napoli and Pompeii. He’d been joined by several hardened men, who were wading in to beat me senseless.
Donata was shouting at them, clearly promising them dire outcomes if they did not leave me be at once. No fleeing in terror or standing in the lane wringing her hands. I’d prefer it if shewouldflee, but she’d snatched up the walking stick that had fallen from my struck fist, and I heard it thud on a back or two.
These were honed fighters, and any moment one would turn on her. I did not believe they’d be gentle because she was a woman.
I punched and grappled, trying to keep to my feet. My back was to a brick wall, slick with rain, and the rough stones dug through my coat.
I knew how to fight, but so did the toughs, who were dark-haired Romans, contrasting the pale Englishman. I might have been able to best the man if we’d fought one on one, in spite of his cudgel, which is no doubt why he’d recruited help.
