Rose in the Bud Read Online Free PDF

gracefully on to a footstool and wrapped her arms about her knees. “How long do you propose to stay in Venice ? ”
    Cathleen looked vague.
    “I haven’t, really, any idea.”
    Bianca drew thoughtfully on her cigarette, and then waved away the sm o ke that had settled between her and the English girl.
    “It must be a little lonely staying in an hotel,” she observed. “Especially if you are travelling alone.”
    “I am.”
    Brother and sister exchanged glances, and then Bianca smiled with extraordinary sweetness and leaned impulsively forward.
    “Then why not come and stay here with us?” she suggested, causing Cathleen to feel uncertain whether she was actually hearing aright. “There is so much room in the palazzo that it is quite ridiculous you should be forced to endure an hotel, especially when there is already a link between us in the shape of your sister. If my aunt were alive she would absolutely insist that you came here.”
    Cathleen found herself stammering:
    “It’s very kind of you, signorina, but I’m perfectly comfortable in the hotel. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t be more comfortable.” She thought with a touch of cynicism that if Bianca di Rini could see the flat in the Cromwell Road, London, that she and her mother shared, and which they both disliked thoroughly after the country home they had once had when her father was rector of a Worcestershire parish, she would not be surprised that the modern Venetian hotel, run on lines of oiled efficiency, and with every luxury thrown in—if one was willing to pay!—struck her, Cathleen, as superbly comfortable.
    Bianca looked unconvinced, and she also looked as if she was willing to try persuasion.
    “Ah, but for one so young it is not an ideal thing to have to suffer the amenities of an hotel,” she protested. “And if you have no knowledge of the language—”
    “I speak a little Italian,” Cathleen said quickly.
    “Ah!” An impatient hand crashed out the cigarette in an ash-tray. “But you do not speak it fluently, and therefore you are, in a sense, vulnerable. And there is so much that Paul and I could show you if you came here. A tourist’s knowledge of Venice is always limited. We could introduce you to all the worthwhile sights, enable you to see Venice from the inside, as it were. And if you are not in any hurry to return home to England then you could stay here as long as you wish—”
    Edouard Moroc rose and came across the room to them. He spoke crisply, apologising for interrupting the conversation.
    “But I am very much afraid I have to leave,” he said, “and if Miss Brown is going to give me the pleasure of returning her to her hotel—”
    Bianca waved a still more impatient hand at him. “Edouard,” she declared, “I refuse to let you go. I have much to talk to you about, and Paul can see Miss Brown back to her hotel. In fact, he has every intention of doing so, haven’t you, Paul?” looking up at him.
    “Every intention,” he replied smoothly. He put his hand beneath Cathleen’s elbow and helped her to her feet. “Come, Miss Brown, you will not deny me the pleasure of seeing you home? And Edouard and my sister have a personal problem to discuss. Shall we go ? ”
    Cathleen looked for a moment almost appealingly at Edouard—it had never occurred to her that she would have to return to her hotel in the charge of anyone but him —but following a brief period in which she was sure he hesitated he made a slight, expressive movement with his hands, and resigned her to her fate.
    She felt the hot colour rush up into her face as if she had been rejected in favour of someone far more glamorous, and then turned away.
    “Very well,” she said, stiffly, to the Count. “If you will be so kind.”

 
    CHAPTER III
    I n the morning she awakened to find the sun streaming into her hotel bedroom. After a somewhat restless night—and this was unusual for her, since she usually fell asleep as soon as her head touched