Winds of Nightsong. V. J. Banis

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      “You look ravishing, Caroline,” he said, taking her hand.

      Caroline had chosen a pale green dinner gown, fully flared in defiance of the hobble skirts that were so much a craze in America. Fashionable or not, she shunned them as she did everything else that didn’t suit her own tastes. An emerald necklace was draped around her bare throat, and small matching earrings dangled from her lobes. Emeralds were not really her favorite gems, but she knew they brought out the flashing green of her eyes.

      “Thank you, Tonio.” Her smile seemed to enchant him. “Where have you decided to take me to dinner?”

      “Vincente’s,” he said as he took her arm. He escorted her out of the hotel and into a waiting gondola. “It is a small place, but I think you will like it. It is very romantic.”

      “Everything in Venice is romantic,” she said. She let him put his arm around her shoulders and pull her against him as the gondolier poled his boat away from the landing steps.

      Vincente’s was a charming restaurant with dim candlelight and pink damask cloths. Their table was set in a little alcove that looked out over the Grand Canal. Caroline settled herself in the plush velvet-and-gilt chair and gazed out at the gondola lanterns making shimmering shadows on the surface of the water. Through the open windows the soft, lilting voices of the gondoliers’ songs drifted through the night air like lovers’ murmured sighs.

      “This is lovely, Tonio,” she said, aware that he was looking at her very seriously.

      “You are lovely, my dearest.”

      “You said you had something to ask me,” she ventured.

      “There is time. First we eat. You are hungry, yes?”

      “Starving.”

      “Good. I will order. I know the chef. You will not be disappointed.”

      She wasn’t. The food was superb. And by the time she’d finished the several courses, the wine, and the Cassata Napolitana, all she wanted to do was get out of her clothing and relish the feeling of being very stuffed.

      “I ate too much,” Caroline said, rubbing her middle.

      “That is good. I like a woman with flesh on her bones.”

      Caroline was feeling giddy from the wine and a bit reckless. “It’s supposed to curb the more sensual appetites, they say.”

      Tonio didn’t smile. He continued to look deep into her eyes. “I think it is time for me to ask what I have been wanting to ask you for several weeks now.”

      “And what is that?” She wanted to go to bed with him. She could blame it on the wine, but if she were to be truthful, she knew that she merely wanted the feel of his strong, young, masculine body, powerful and surging; wanted him to take her in his arms and drive himself deep inside her.

      “I would like very much, Caroline, if you would become my wife.”

      Caroline stared. She swallowed hard, unable to believe what she’d just heard. “Your wife?”

      “Are you surprised?”

      “To be honest, Tonio, yes I am. I’m very surprised.”

      “Surely you must know that I love you.”

      “But....”

      “I have never loved anyone as much as I love you, Caroline.”

      “But Tonio, we know nothing about one another.”

      “What is there to know? I know I love you, and I believe you care for me. You do, no?”

      Caroline floundered. “Yes, of course I care for you, Tonio, but.... Well, I never thought.... What I mean is, well, I never thought seriously about marrying anyone.”

      “Never?”

      Caroline was completely flustered. “Someday perhaps, but....”

      “You do not want to marry me?” he said, looking devastated.

      “Tonio,” she pleaded as she touched his hand. “You are a very nice man, an extremely nice man, and I am genuinely fond of you. But marriage? I just don’t—”

      “Don’t say no, Caroline,” he broke in, squeezing her hand. “Think about it. I see now that I was lax in not revealing my intentions sooner. I am not acquainted with American customs about such things. Forgive me if I have spoken clumsily.”

      “I do like you very much, Tonio,” Caroline admitted. She still wanted to go to bed with him, but she certainly didn’t want to marry him.

      “Then you will think about it?”

      Adam came back to her mind and she shrugged him away. Perhaps Tonio could remove Adam’s memory if she gave him the opportunity. “I promise you I will think about it,” she said.

      “Good. That is all I ask. Now,” he said, motioning for the check, “as long as you have promised to take me seriously I will do as the American men do and prove to you that I will make a good husband.”

      Caroline didn’t understand.

      “We will go to my apartment and I will make passionate love to you.”

      Caroline gasped, feeling the color rise in her cheeks. She didn’t know whether she was blushing out of embarrassment or anticipation.

      “You do not want me to make love to you?”

      For a moment her voice left her. Then she found herself smiling seductively. “I think I would like that very much, Count Cambruzio.”

      “Good. We will go.”

      * * * *

      Tonio’s apartment was not far from the restaurant. They walked the short distance, hand in hand. When he ushered her into the large, airy suite of rooms she had the feeling that the place had been decorated by a woman. Though the overall effect was somewhat masculine, there was something definitely feminine about the curtains, the floral arrangements, the placement of furniture and pictures.

      Tonio kissed her the moment they were inside the suite. “I do love you, Caroline.”

      She didn’t answer; she simply responded encouragingly to his kisses.

      He swooped her up in his arms and carried her into the adjoining bedroom. Here, too, a woman’s touch was evident in the color scheme, the coverlet, the fringed canopy of the four-poster. But Caroline was too intent upon the way Tonio was carefully, skillfully removing her clothing to care about anything but the burning need deep inside her. He lowered her to the bed and slowly started to strip himself of his evening clothes. He had a magnificent body, so sleek and muscular, a dark fan of hair covering his well-chiseled chest, trailing down over his abdomen in a thin thread only to bush out into a tangle of black pubic hair that crowned the base of his jutting erection.

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