But she’d had no illusions, either. She knew she was hard and rough, not smooth and silky. She knew only too well that her skin was brown and weathered, not soft and pink like rose petals.
She’d had no illusions about her looks, but still—she’d had dreams she never told anyone, just cherished to herself, and played over in the theater in her head when she was halfway between waking and sleeping. Someday, some handsome fellow would drop into her life—she’d rescue him from a flood, or from footpads, or he’d hire her boat to visit some worthless, heartless bitch who would throw him over. He’d look at her, and see something in her that no one else ever had—he’d take off her cap, pull all her hair down around her face, and say, “Maria—you’re beautiful!” in tones of moonstruck surprise. And he’d love her forever, and it would turn out that he was the long-lost heir to one of the Old Houses—
Oh, stupid dreams, and she would never, ever have admitted to anyone that she had them. She would never, ever have believed them, either.
Except that . . . one night they came true.
She’d been tied up for the night under a bridge to get out of the rain, when she heard the sounds that no Venetian—boater, canalside dweller, or high-and-mighty—ever wanted to hear. A scuffle. The sounds of a blow. Then the sound of two men carrying something heavy up to the top of the bridge.
It was a dark night on top of the miserable rain, what with the moon hidden by the clouds, but she knew she didn’t dare move or make a sound. She huddled under the roof of what she grandly called the “cabin” of her little boat, and hoped that the men up there wouldn’t notice that she was tied up in the shadows underneath. She might be able to fight off one or even two, but from the sounds there had been more than that.
A grunt, and a heave, and something dark and heavy drooped over the edge of the bridge. It hung up on the railing for a moment, and before it dropped, there were footsteps running away. Then, as she strained her eyes against the dark and the rain in horrified fascination, the thing tore loose from the coping and tumbled down.
Into her boat.
It had been a fairly low bridge; getting hung up had slowed the object’s fall. Otherwise it probably would have overset the boat, or even driven a hole right through it. When it—the body, for that was clear what it was—had landed, it had done so on its feet, crumpling, or else it would have bashed in its skull (if it wasn’t already bashed) or broken its neck (if it wasn’t already broken). Probably the stone tied to its ankles had helped out there.
And all she could think of was—get it off my boat!
She’d scrambled out of the cabin, and Fate or God or something had undone all of her good sense and intentions.
For just as she reached the body, it gave out a groan and turned face-up. And just as it did so, the clouds parted for a moment, and a ray of moonlight shone down on what must have been the most beautiful man she had ever seen apart from Father Raphael, who was in any case a full priest and out of the running so far as romance went.
And that was how Caesare-the-handsome, Caesare-the-dangerous, Caesare-the-all-too-persuasive-damn-him ended up in her shack, in her blankets, and in her care.
And it was just like one of her daydreams, from start to finish. She moved Caesare into her little shack near the canals, where there would be no spying eyes and ears. She nursed him and kept him warm and fed him from a spoon for days—and then, suddenly, one day he looked up at her with sense in his eyes, and said “Who are you? Where am I?” and she answered him. And then, like he’d been watching the same dreams, he reached up, and pulled off her cap and her hair came tumbling down and he said, “My God, you saved my life, and you’re beautiful!”