Read Rose in the Bud for Free Online

her mother always called her in the family circle—had written glowingly of all three members of the di Rini family while she was employed by the Contessa as a companion, and had practically insisted that she was about to be married, Paul di Rini quite as much as his sister seemed to dislike discussing her, and from that quarter it was fairly obvious to Cathleen she would receive little help in tracing her sister.
    She was puzzled as to the reason why Bianca had so persuasively invited her to stay with them, but since she had no intention of becoming a guest at the palazzo she did not even dwell on the invitation as she reviewed the events of the day before. The one person she had met for the first time the day before she found it difficult to forget—at any rate, once she was awake —was Edouard Moroc, and as he was quite unlike any man she had ever met before in the whole of her life, and almost any young woman on meeting him would be inclined to register some positive reaction about him, this was perhaps not so surprising.
    After breakfast, and while she was still completing her toilet for the morning, the roses were brought to the door. She had never seen roses like them ... deep red, heavily scented roses, lying in a large florist’s box, but without any card to indicate who was the donor. At first she thought there must be a mistake, but the chambermaid, who had intercepted a page in the corridor and relieved him of the box, was quite definite that there was no mistake. Despite the absence of a card the label on the outside of the box was quite clearly Miss Cathleen Brown.
    Miss Cathleen Brown ... not Signorina Brown.
    Cathleen counted the roses and discovered there were two dozen. Two dozen red roses from someone who preferred to remain anonymous was an unbelievable thing to happen to her on her second day in Venice. She put them in water with the help of the chambermaid, who produced an extra vase for the pu r pose, and by that time the scent of the roses was filling the room.
    The chambermaid chattered volubly in Italian, and from her arch look Cathleen gathered that she was quite certain she had an admirer. Cathleen, who was equally certain that she had no such thing, would have corrected this false impression if she had had enough Italian to make the effort worth while, but not having enough Italian she merely looked slightly embarrassed and kept shaking her head in bewilderment.
    She decided to spend the morning behaving as if she was an ordinary tourist, and St. Mark’s Square was the first place where she lingered. She had had her first glimpse of it the day before, and had determined to sit at one of the pavement tables outside one of the intriguing-looking cafes at the very first opportunity, and drink a cup of coffee or a cool drink while the pigeons crowded about her feet. The pigeons were always being fed by tourists and they were both plump and bold. St. Mark’s Cathedral, with its fantastic Byzantine front, cast a great shadow across the square —which, in point of fact, is not a square at all, but a vast irregular space in which visitors spend whole hours at a time, either parading up and down and exclaiming at the architecture, or sitting at one of the little tables—and it was like a solid bulwark rising against the vivid blue of the sky. Cathleen, who was not accustomed to the intense heat at such an early hour of the day, was glad to put on sun-glasses while she sipped her drink and watched the crowds on the other side of the square, but that did not prevent her being recognised by a man who very quickly took his place on the opposite side of her table, after bowing as he stood above her and politely enquiring whether she had any objection.
    Cathleen felt the revealing colour rush into her cheeks as she looked up at him.
    “Mr. Moroc!”
    He protested at once.
    “Do we really have to be so formal?” He was immaculately dressed in a light grey suit, collar and tie, although most of the