Chapter Forty-Seven
Fire was still coursing through his veins as Edward straightened from the severed rope.
He had meant only to give two desperate young lovers a chance at freedom. That the plan had actually worked—that the balloon now drifted, astonishingly, over the lagoon—felt like something from the pages he translated rather than real life.
Then rough fingers closed about his wrist and yanked his arm high.
Edward braced for a blow, for Rizzi’s shackles, for Morosini’s roar of triumph.
Instead, the old man in the velvet coat—Marchese Valenti—was staring at him, not with fury, but with eyes luminous with something so fierce that Edward scarcely recognized it as joy.
“Guardate!” the marchese cried to the crowd before dropping into English, his voice shaking.
“Here it is. The ring. My ring. And on the hand of—” His gaze searched Edward’s face, traveling from brow to jaw, lingering on his eyes.
“You are Isabella’s son. I see her in you.
And I see the child I held before I was swept from your lives. ” His breath hitched. “My son.”
The words fell slowly into Edward’s mind like stones into deep water, sending out widening rings of disbelief.
My son?
He had spent so long flinching from that question. Whose son? Whose shame? Now, under the pitiless Venetian sun, the answer was being shouted in front of half the city.
The marchese’s arms closed around him in a fierce, shaking embrace. Edward stood rigid for a heartbeat, then something inside him simply… gave. His own hands lifted—awkward, astonished—and gripped the old man’s shoulders.
Over the marchese’s velvet-clad shoulder he saw Venetia pushing through the ring of onlookers, her face alight. No trace of doubt, no caution. Only radiant certainty.
“It’s true, Edward,” she said breathlessly, coming to his side as the marchese released him.
“I saw the ring on Isabella Monteverdi’s hand in the portrait at La Serafina’s.
And when we visited the marchese’s island last night, I saw it again.
The same crest, the same design—only hers with the extra star. ”
The Marchese turned to her, blinking as if remembering his surroundings.
“You,” he said slowly. “The little English signorina in my library. Yes. You came with the other lady. You spoke of Isabella as if you… knew her. And you know this young man?” His gaze darted between them, wonder softening the harsh lines of his face.
“You suspected? You knew he was my son?”
Venetia blushed as she lifted her chin. “I suspected,” she admitted. “When I heard the Venice gossip and remembered what Mr. Rothbury had told me—of his mother, and why he had come here. It seemed… more than chance.”
“Why did you say nothing last night?” the marchese demanded.
“Because why should you have believed me?” Venetia replied. “A stranger with a fanciful tale in your library? That would never have done. It had to be your own heart that recognized him.”
Edward caught her hand, almost without knowing he’d moved. He brought her fingers to his lips, needing the anchor of her touch. “You did this,” he said hoarsely, “for me?”
“And for me,” she said, her eyes bright with unshed tears and triumph.
She curled her fingers firmly about his.
“You insisted you were not worthy of me—that you were the bastard son of some nameless Italian. But I knew your worth, even if your name and estate were never restored. You are my Ivanhoe in spirit and in truth, Edward. No ring could change that. It only… makes the rest of the world see what I already knew.”
Something hot and fierce rose in his chest—joy, sharp as pain. For so long he had carried his birth as a brand of shame, the secret that barred him from the future he most desired. Now the weight of it slid away so that he almost staggered.
Illegitimate. Unworthy. Fortune hunter.
All the ugly words seemed to shrivel in the light of the marchese’s open pride, and Venetia’s unwavering gaze.
Around them, the crowd murmured, shocked and avid. Morosini glowered. Miss Bentley fluttered her handkerchief as if she might faint from sheer romance. Thornton and Eugenia stood side by side, faces alight with a satisfaction they were doing a valiant job of concealing.
Edward no longer cared who watched.
With no thought for propriety, he drew Venetia into his arms and kissed her—deeply, gratefully, as a man who had finally, unexpectedly, been handed back his future.