Mediterranean Nights by Dennis Wheatley

of luck, but why the deuce didn’t you ask her here with your other guests—you’ve got dozens of women among your married friends who would be willing enough to play the complaisant chaperone. I’ve heard you say that you’ve often done that sort of thing before.’
    â€˜Yes, yes,’ he protested, ‘but this is different,’ and then he went on a little awkwardly, ‘You see, she is French—and she is well, how shall we say—a little highly coloured, perhaps—and she has a temper—oh, you do not know! She would make me scenes—terrible scenes. Also—well, I think it would be awkward for my other guests. Things will be different when she is my wife.’
    â€˜Your wife!’ I gasped.
    â€˜Why not?’ he said with a surly glance. ‘As Contessa Neroni she will be received everywhere, no matter what has gone before. Is it her fault that men have been brutal to her, poor child? As for that husband of hers—if I could lay my hands on him I would thrash him until he was dead!’
    â€˜So she is married into the bargain?’
    â€˜Yes, and what she has suffered! To think of it fills me with black, black boiling rage.’
    â€˜Now, look here, Nero’—I turned and faced him as he stood there, dark and handsome, with genuine tears welling up into his brown eyes. ‘As I understand it, you’ve run across a good-looking Frenchwoman with a husband and a past, whom you dare not introduce to your friends—and now you talk of marrying her—is that the case?’
    â€˜No, no,’ he spread out his hands in a quick gesture of denial, ‘she is of great
chic
and charm—as my wife she will take Rome by storm next winter.’
    â€˜What about this husband of hers?’ I inquired.
    â€˜That brute! She will divorce him—proceedings have begun already, and I shall adopt the child.’
    â€˜Good God! So she’d got a child as well,’ I exclaimed. ‘But look here—you’re a Catholic, aren’t you—how can you marry a divorced woman, anyway?’
    â€˜The holy Father will give me a dispensation. I am a Papal Chamberlain, and have friends in Rome who can adjust such matters.’
    I nodded. ‘And in the meantime you are living with her in Verona, I suppose.’
    â€˜Ahhh!’ was all he said, but the way he raised his dark eyes to heaven was more expressive than any verbal admission could have been.
    â€˜Then why the deuce not carry on that way?’ I argued.
    â€˜No, no,’ he protested quickly. ‘I will make up to her for all she has suffered in the past. I have wronged many women—here at least I will make amends. Besides, each day in Verona it becomes more difficult—it is so small a town; already people are beginning to talk. When you have gone I shall bring her to the Castello Neroni—as my wife.’
    â€˜What—before you’ve even married her?’
    â€˜Yes—why not? I wish to be with her every hour of the day—every hour of the night.’
    After dinner that night he begged my forgiveness again and again for the inconvenience which he had caused me, but made no secret of his impatience to get away—back to the arms of the Circe in Verona; and so we parted.
    I spent the rest of the evening re-planning my broken holiday. Ten days, I thought, of doing the tourist round inNorthern Italy would be as much as I could stand at a stretch—fond as I am of things old and beautiful. Afterwards I would cross the Gulf of Genoa by local boat from Leghorn to Nice, and run down to the little
Sturmer
Hotel at Cavalàire. A fortnight of real rest, lazing in the sunshine on the shelving rocks, would do me a power of good.
    The next morning I arrived in Verona, and I purposely avoided the best hotel as I felt certain that Nero and the French houri would be staying there, so I thought it rather queer when, after lunch, the head