Jay’s eyes were warm on her. ‘Then I think it’s time someone spoiled you to death.’
She looked around the square and grinned from ear to ear. ‘Somebody is.’
He took her hand. She thought he was going to squeeze it. Another of those brotherly caresses which she ought to be getting used to.
But he didn’t. Instead he raised it to his lips. It was not a real kiss, just a brush of his lips, his breath on her knuckles. It was not sexy. It was not playful. In fact it felt oddly formal, like a declaration of some sort. It felt was as if he was honouring her in some way, like a courtier paying respect to a queen he had suddenly decided was worth it.
And it was not brotherly.
Yes! thought Zoe.
CHAPTER NINE
WHEN they had finished tea, Jay gave her a rapid and informed tour, dodging tourists.
‘Venetian art was looted from everywhere in the known world,’ he said, pointing at the Basilica in a friendly way. ‘Carvings, columns and capitals courtesy of Genoa and Constantinople. Constantinople, of course, had already pinched a lot from China.’
And, when they got to the Doge’s Palace, ‘The four figures in porphyry were probably acquired after the sack of Acre. The ownership of property is provisional and strictly temporary.’
‘I suppose it is,’ said Zoe, entertained.
‘Bridge of Sighs,’ he said waving his hand at the dark little prison tunnel over the small canal. ‘Once you crossed that, you stopped caring about property, I guess.’
She shivered. ‘It’s not all joy, is it, Venice?’
‘What is? It has energy.’ He paused. ‘And that gives me an idea. I think I know how to close my speech, now. Zoe, you’re a genius.’
And he rushed her back to the hotel at top speed.
In the suite he flung himself at the laptop computer immediately. Zoe wandered around a while, self-conscious again. But he was so absorbed in what he was doing that it was impossible to remain embarrassed.
She decided to bath and wash the dust out her hair.
‘Fine,’ said Jay absently, his fingers flying, his eyes on the screen.
So much for the evil seducer, pouncing on her the moment she got her clothes off, thought Zoe with irony. Not very flattering. But somehow—right.
She sang in the bath.
When she padded out, wrapped in the hotel’s fluffy white robe with her hair in a towel, Jay was standing in the long open windows looking out at the street below. She went to stand beside him.
‘Look at that,’ he said softly.
The building opposite was arched and columned fantastically. The roofline had a carved frieze that looked as if it had been done with curling tongs. It was built of biscuit-coloured stone, with heavily carved wooden doors of treacle- brown. Zoe knew the colours because she had seen them earlier. But the sunset turned them to pure gold.
‘Oh,’ she said on long breath of wonder.
He put his arm round her and they stood looking—at the golden evening, the busy pavement, the gondoliers in their long dark gondolas. And the water, darker than anything else, unimaginably dark below the surface of brazen ripples that were conferred by the dying sun.
‘See,’ he said. ‘Energy. Mystery. Everything. God, I love this place.’
‘I can see.’
He jumped then, and looked down at her.
‘Feeling okay?’ he asked, his eyes searching.
Zoe knew he was not talking about her health, or the effects of sightseeing, or even the seductively lazy bath. He was checking to see that she did not want to back out yet. She felt totally cared for.
‘Feeling wonderful,’ she told him honestly.
Jay gave her the widest grin she had ever seen.
‘Great,’ he said with enthusiasm. ‘Then here we go for Venice by night.’
She wore soft silky trousers and a gold strappy top that looked a lot more expensive than it was. She gave up on her hair, which just turned into a waterfall of fox-brown curls as a result.
‘No jewellery?’ said Jay, emerging from the bedroom in one of his spectacular silk shirts.
‘Forgot it—sorry. I don’t have much, and wear less. Does it matter?’
‘On the contrary,’ he said with a maddeningly mysterious smile.
She decided not to challenge him. Tonight the shirt was peacock-green. It made him look like an emperor. You challenged emperors at your peril.