078 The Phantom Of Venice Read Online Free PDF Page A

grinned and shrugged, “but this is the first time I ever meant it.”
    “From the way you acted at your sister’s, I thought you’d fallen in love at first sight with Tara Egan,” Nancy said tartly.
    Gianni chuckled. “Do not worry, cara. You have no need to be jealous.”
    “Jealous!” Nancy gasped with indignation. “What on earth makes you think I’d be jealous of anyone you flirt with?”
    “It was you who brought up the subject, my dear Nancy. Anyway, I assure you there is no reason at all to feel so. What I say or do with your little friend Tara means nothing. She is like a homeless puppy, grateful to anyone who shows her the least bit of attention or affection. The poor child does not even realize yet that she is a woman. She is ready to give her heart to any halfway attractive man who shows interest in her. Do you really think that I, Gianni Spinelli, could fall in love with such a poverina?”
    He spoke with such smugness and preening vanity that Nancy was almost grateful to him. His words had just shocked her out of her fantasy and into her senses like a cold shower of reality, chilling her confused, romantic feelings. In a flash, they reawakened the mistrust she had felt back at Angela’s apartment.
    She thought of the warm adoring glances he had bestowed on Tara Egan, and the caressing way he hadstroked her arm and shoulder. Yet now, when Tara was not around, he talked about her in a contemptuous, patronizing way! There was no longer any doubt in Nancy’s mind that Gianni Spinelli was just a calculating playboy whose only interest in the opposite sex was to gratify his own vanity. He would use girls for whatever he could get out of them.
    His next words, breaking in on Nancy’s thoughts, threatened to undo all her cool, logical reasoning. “With you, it is quite different, cara. You are an exciting, lovely woman who knows she is a woman and is not to be taken in by flattery or mere hand-kissing. To win your heart would be the proudest boast any man could hope to make!”
    It was so cornily operatic a line that Nancy felt like laughing. The trouble was that when spoken by a hunk like Gianni, with those melting dark eyes, she found herself idiotically wanting to believe him, in spite of all her common sense!
    By now they had reached the Grand Canal. Nancy was thankful that at that moment a gondola came steering up to the quay in response to her wave.
    To her annoyance, Gianni stepped aboard with her.
    “Where do you think you’re going?” she asked bluntly.
    “With you, Signorina Drew, if you permit,” Gianni replied with a courtly air. (So now she was “Signorina Drew” again, instead of “Nancy” or “cara”!) “I wishonly to make sure you reach your destination safely. And on the way, perhaps you will allow me to act as your tour guide.”
    Nancy found it impossible to order him out of the gondola. It didn’t seem worth making a scene about it in public so, with a shrug, she turned her back on him and gave directions to the gondolier.
    As they glided out into the stream of water traffic, Nancy settled back on the cushioned passenger seat. For the first time since her arrival, she prepared to absorb and enjoy all the sights and sounds—and smells—of Venice.
    Yes, the smell was certainly there—a dank, pervasive odor of canal water and distant salt air from the outlying marshes, faintly tainted with sewage—not too unpleasant, really. Like all tourists, Nancy quickly forgot such a trifling inconvenience when surrounded by the overwhelming charm of Venice herself.
    The gondola was like a black swan, gliding gracefully along under the strokes of the gondolier in his striped jersey, sailor pants and black-ribboned straw hat. On either bank rose a fascinating array of architecture—domed churches, palaces, public buildings, and ancient dwelling houses.
    In the bright summer sunshine under a cloudless blue sky, the brick and marble facades presented a rainbow of faded