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Now that I was rich and unemployed, maybe I should have found time to take it up. I made mental note, which I would probably forget.
“As I mentioned before, Giustiniana Wynne lived here for quite some time in the eighteenth century. Her husband was an ambassador from Austria, and occasionally they would host lavish parties to showcase the breadth of his culture. Can you guess why your husband keeps a piano in here, Ms. Scaife?”
I shook my head. I knew practically nothing about European history beyond how Marie Antoinette selected her clothes.
“They once held a concert by a then-unknown composer. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.” Vivian lifted her chin proudly. “In this very room.”
“No!” I didn’t know shit about history, but I knew who that was, for sure.
“It was, in fact, why Mr. Elwood purchased the property,” Vivian went on. “He must be quite the fan of classical music.”
I had never in my life heard Neil listen to anything other than classic or alternative rock, to my recollection.
Ah, fuck. Elizabeth probably had loved all that harpsichord bullshit.
I wasn’t going to hold his sense of romance against him, now that I was the recipient. So, he’d bought Elizabeth a place in Venice. He hadn’t let her keep it. And he’d given me a seaside palace with private sanctuary to specifically celebrate our sex life. It didn’t make sense to envy the women who’d come before.
The chairs and sofas arranged at one end of the room would have made a handy place to have an audience for a modern-day performance. I wondered if it would be weird to hire Lana Del Rey to serenade me while I draped myself over a couch and sighed dreamily as I contemplated her.
“The master bedroom is on the mezzanine level,” Vivian began, heading toward one of the doorways beside the fireplace.
El-Mudad stopped her. “I’m sure we’ll find it. Show us the view.”
“Of course.” Vivian led us through another sitting room, this one far less intimidating, where a row of amazing, triple arch windows gave us a view of the Grand Canal and the gorgeous, ancient buildings across it. We turned and took a detour through yet another sitting room, then out a windowed door onto a balcony.
“With the weather as it is, I doubt we’ll spend much time out here,” El-Mudad said with a laugh. “Will we have a nice view for New Year’s Eve?”
“Most definitely,” Vivian confirmed. “Generally, if you can see the sky, you can see the fireworks. They’re everywhere. But you do plan to immerse yourself in some of the festivities?”
The thought of falling into a freezing canal while trying to navigate busy sidewalks and bridges made me recoil internally. Still, it did seem silly to come all this way and stay shut up in the apartment the whole time.
Even if it was a great apartment.
“Look there,” El-Mudad told me, pointing to a bridge in the distance. “That’s the Ponte di Rialto.”
“Oh. Is that a big deal?” I asked, feeling less than well-traveled. I should have picked up a guidebook.
“It’s a must-see for most tourists.” Vivian’s tone indicated that she would agree with my guidebook assessment. “I would be happy to arrange for a private tour around the city for the two of you—“
“No, thank you,” El-Mudad said with a wave of his hand. He seemed pretty eager to get rid of our overly-solicitous new acquaintance. “You mentioned housekeeping staff?”
“Yes, one moment.” She flipped open the cover of her tablet and scrolled the screen with one perfectly French-manicured fingertip. “A small cleaning staff will come by in the mornings to tidy up, and your chef will arrive at around dinner time tonight. Unless, you’d prefer to dine out?”
“Is the chef Italian?” El-Mudad asked. “And is his specialty Italian cuisine?”
Vivian nodded. “I believe so.”
“Wonderful. We’d rather eat in, then.” He turned to me. “If that’s all right with you?”
“Do you have a particular menu in mind?” Vivian asked, whipping out a stylus.
El-Mudad gave me a questioning look and I raised my hands. “Hey, you’re the expert here. I’ve never even set foot in Italy.”
He considered a moment. “Sarde in saor, for a starter, I think. And then, whatever he considers his best dish.”
“Very good.” She jotted it down. “Would you like me to show the bedrooms or—“
“No, thank you,” El-Mudad said, clearing his throat. “You’ve been very helpful. If you could leave your number, we’ll contact you if the need arises.”
“We probably won’t,” I warned her. “We’re pretty low maintenance people.”
Well, that wasn’t strictly true. But it certainly sounded more polite than, “we’ll probably be too busy having sex to leave the house.”
We went back inside and El-Mudad walked Vivian to the door while I wandered around the smallest of the sitting rooms that we’d seen. The walls were covered in frescoes that I refused to believe were original because there was no way something so old could survive for centuries. Delicate, antique furniture that probably could have been here when Mozart had his recital surrounded me, all in shades of muted mauve and washed-out green. I was too afraid to sit on anything.
