The Venetian Playboy's Bride. Lucy Gordon
Harlequin Romance® presents a brand-new trilogy from bestselling author
LUCY GORDON
The Counts of Calvani
These proud Italian aristrocrats are about to propose!
The Calvani family is a prosperous, aristocratic Italian family headed by Count Francesco Calvani.
He has three nephews:
Guido—charming, easygoing and wealthy in his own right, Guido is based in Venice. He’s heir to the Calvani title, but he doesn’t want it….
Marco—aristocratic, sophisticated and very good-looking, Marco is every woman’s dream, managing the family’s banking and investments in Rome….
Leo—proud, rugged and athletic, Leo is a reluctant tycoon, running the family’s prosperous farms in Tuscany.
The pressure is mounting on all three Calvani brothers to marry and produce the next heirs in the Calvani dynasty. Each will find a wife—but will it be out of love or duty…?
Find out in this emotional, exciting and dramatic trilogy:
The Venetian Playboy’s Bride #3744
The Italian Millionaire’s Marriage #3751
The Tuscan Tycoon’s Wife #3760
Don’t miss it!
Dear Reader,
I always love the chance to write about Venice, because that city has been my second home since I married a Venetian. Perhaps that’s why I think Venetians are the most romantic of men (although all other Italians come a close second). They combine emotional intensity with lightheartedness in a way that makes them irresistible.
Guido Calvani, the hero of The Venetian Playboy’s Bride, is like that. He approaches life with a laugh and a conviction that he can make things happen the way he wants. But then, he’s never met anyone like Dulcie, a private detective who’s one step ahead, and it’s only when it’s too late that he discovers she’s tied him in knots.
Their story is played out against Venice with its dark corners and mysterious alleys. In the city on the water nothing is ever quite what it seems, including Guido and Dulcie, who start by hiding their true selves, then learn, through love, to cast their masks aside.
After Guido comes Marco from Rome, cool and self-sufficient. Then Leo, the countryman from Tuscany. And always in the background is their uncle Francesco, Count Calvani, whose colorful life hides a romantic secret that takes them all by surprise.
The Venetian Playboy’s Bride
Lucy Gordon
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER ONE
GUIDO CALVANI took another turn along the hospital corridor, trying not to think of his uncle, lying behind the closed door, desperately ill.
He was high up on the top floor. At one end of the corridor the window looked out over the heart of Venice, red roofs, canals, little bridges. At the other end was the Grand Canal. Guido stopped and regarded the flashing water, snaking its way through the heart of the little city to where it would reach the Palazzo Calvani, home of the Calvani counts for centuries. By tonight he might have inherited the title, and the thought appalled him.
His mercurial spirits weren’t often depressed. He approached life with an optimism that was reflected in his appearance. His blue eyes might have been born gleaming, and a smile seemed to be his natural expression. At thirty-two, rich, handsome, free, he had no cares, save for the one that now threatened him.
Guido was a man of warm affections. He loved his uncle. But he also loved his freedom, and within a few hours he might have lost them both.
He turned swiftly as two young men appeared from the staircase below.
‘Thank heavens!’ he said, embracing his half-brother Leo, who clasped him back unselfconsciously. With his cousin Marco he merely clapped him on the shoulder. There was a proud reserve about Marco that even the open-hearted Guido had to respect.
‘How bad is Uncle Francesco?’ Marco demanded tersely.
‘Very bad, I think. I called you last night because he’d started to have pains in his chest, but he wouldn’t be sensible and see a doctor. Then early this morning he collapsed in agony, and I sent for an ambulance. We’ve been here ever since. They’re still doing tests.’
‘It surely can’t be a heart attack,’ Leo said. ‘He’s never had one before, and the life he’s led—’
‘Was enough to give any normal man a dozen heart attacks,’ Marco supplied. ‘Women, wine, fast cars—’
‘Women!’ Guido echoed.
‘Three speedboats smashed up,’ Leo recalled.
‘Gambling!’
‘Women!’
‘Skiing!’
‘Mountaineering!’
‘Women!’ They spoke with one voice.
A footstep on the stairs reduced them all to silence as Lizabetta, the count’s housekeeper, appeared among them like doom. She was thin, sharp-faced, elderly, and they greeted her with more respect than they ever showed their uncle. This grim creature was the power in the Palazzo Calvani.
She acknowledged them with a nod that managed to combine respect for their aristocratic status with contempt for the male sex, sat down and took out her knitting.
‘I’m afraid there’s no news yet,’ Guido told her gently.
He looked up as the ward door opened and the doctor emerged. He was an elderly man and had been the count’s friend for years. His grave expression could mean only one thing, and their hearts sank.
The doctor pronounced. ‘Get the silly old fool out of here and stop wasting my time.’
‘But—his heart attack—?’ Guido protested.
‘Heart attack, my foot! Indigestion! Liza, you shouldn’t let him eat prawns in butter.’
Liza glared. ‘Much notice he takes of me,’ she snapped.
‘Can we see him now?’ Guido asked.
A roar from within answered him. In his prime Count Francesco had been known as The Lion of Venice, and now that he was in his seventies nothing much had changed.
The three young men entered their uncle’s room and stood regarding him wryly. He was sitting up in bed, his face framed by his white hair, his blue eyes gleaming.
‘Gave