It was almost nine o’clock before Emma made it down to breakfast. Rich and Marina were waiting for her, and appeared relieved to see her. A broad smile spread across Rich’s face.
‘Morning, boss. We were getting worried. Good night?’
Emma smiled back. ‘I had a very good night, apart from somebody trying to rob us at knifepoint.’ They both looked horrified and she hastened to explain. As she got to the end of her tale, the other two exchanged looks of astonishment.
‘So you’re saying Mark fought off two armed men?’
‘Let’s not exaggerate here. Technically only one was armed.’ Emma looked up at the sound of Mark’s voice as he approached the table. He looked even more drop-dead gorgeous than before and a wave of emotion swept over her. It must have shown on her face as Marina instantly picked up on it.
‘So you got your knight in shining armour, Emma. Lucky you.’
‘Lucky me, indeed.’
After breakfast they set off on a walking tour of Bologna. Even though it was the middle of June, there were still crowds of students everywhere. Mark told them that it was very much a university town.
‘The University of Bologna’s one of the oldest in the world, founded in 1088. Popes, princes and household names like Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarch all studied here. Give or take a Duomo or a Ponte Vecchio, Bologna rivals Florence in terms of antiquity and culture and there’s no question it would have been on the route of the Grand Tour.’ He glanced across at Emma and smiled. ‘So definitely a good choice for the movie.’
‘Perfect.’ Emma smiled back at him, reflecting that she had been doing a lot of that this morning.
She added these facts to her list and took photos as they walked through the city. They admired and photographed the twin towers, both leaning, although far less spectacularly than the one in Pisa, and walked around the main square, the Piazza Maggiore, stopping to visit the magnificent Basilica of San Petronio. Almost everywhere they went, they were shaded from the sun by miles of covered porticos lined with cafes, restaurants and shops. By mid-morning, Emma finally decided she had gathered enough for her report and they sat down for a coffee under the portico outside their hotel once more.
As they waited to be served, Mark brought up the subject of the movie.
‘Venice is the day after tomorrow, isn’t it, and that’s where the movie ends? What about now? Can I ask at what stage the characters in the movie are by the time they get here to Bologna?’
Emma glanced across at Rich and let him answer. As she listened to him, she realised it might have been less embarrassing if she had told them herself, but it was too late.
‘Bologna’s the place where Emily and Robert finally get together. This is the town where love very definitely breaks out for them.’
‘And why was he so troubled, so hard to fathom?’ Marina sounded fascinated.
‘The girl he was supposed to marry died of pneumonia a couple of years previously and he was still grieving.’
‘I see. So, she actually sleeps with him here in Bologna? I didn’t think they did that sort of thing back then.’
Rich grinned back at her. ‘They did it all right – or at least they do in my old man’s screenplay. In a lovely old hotel, bang in the centre of town. I imagine it being not dissimilar to this one.’ Emma was beginning to wonder if it was suddenly getting hotter, as her cheeks were definitely glowing. Rich caught her eye and his grin broadened. ‘Are you going to suggest they use our hotel for the movie, Emma? Do you think it’s romantic enough for our two lovers? Can you imagine two people who’ve been in close proximity for days, gradually falling in love, finally ending up in the same bed right here?’ Beside him, Marina looked as if she was going to choke.
Emma was still searching for a suitable answer – or for the pavement under her feet to open up and let her drop out of this embarrassment – when Mark stepped in.
‘I reckon it would be perfect for any lovers.’ He reached over and caught hold of Emma’s hand and kissed her fingers. ‘Absolutely perfect.’
Emma knew by now that the cat was out of the bag, so she did what she had been dying to do since starting their walk about town. She leant across and kissed him.
‘You said it. Absolutely perfect.’ She turned back towards Rich and grinned at him. ‘In fact, the first thing I did after breakfast was to talk to the manager. He was very amenable and says they’ll be only too happy to cooperate.’
* * *
The drive up the motorway to Ferrara took only just over half an hour and the city turned out to be delightful. It was much smaller than Bologna but there was a similar feel to the place. This, too, was a famous university town and there was a noticeably young population. The centre of town was dominated by a massive castle surrounded by a moat, and Mark told them that this, like so much of the town, had been built in the late Middle Ages. The architecture and the atmosphere of the city was a mixture: parts were medieval, with tortuous, narrow lanes, while other parts were filled with grander-looking Renaissance and more recent buildings. The cathedral, built of white marble, recalled the cathedral in Pisa. Emma and Mark walked around the centro storico arm in arm and she was happier than she had been in years. The others, too, joked and laughed and there was a festive air to the four of them. Emma took a lot of photos and by the time they left the city around mid-afternoon, she was feeling well pleased.
As they travelled up the motorway to Padua, she got a text message from Dexter.
Very Urgent. JM has heard that Rich has found himself an Italian girlfriend. Please can you confirm and give your confidential assessment of the girl. Hope all is well with you. Dexter.
Emma cradled her phone in her hand and did some serious thinking. JM’s bush telegraph was legendary in the company, but, even so, she wondered how he had found out. Maybe Ethan or Erasmus or even Rich himself had told his father. She decided to wait until they got to Padua to speak to him about it before replying. Needless to say, she knew she would give Marina a glowing reference, but she needed to be sure she got Rich’s go-ahead first.
They got to the hotel at just after five. It was some ten kilometres outside Padua, set among the only hills for miles. These hills, the Colli Euganei, rose from the flatlands around Venice like massive pyramids from the desert and the views were spectacular in all directions. The hotel was situated on the northern flank of the hills, overlooking Padua itself, with the backdrop of high, snow-covered mountains in the distance beyond that. Over to the right, if they screwed up their eyes, there was a pink smudge that had to be Venice. The hotel was a magnificent Palladian villa and Mark told them all about it as the car climbed up the winding road to get there.
‘All around here you’ll find Palladian villas. They’re built in the style made popular by an architect called Andrea Palladio way back in the sixteenth century, although many of the buildings you see are much more recent than that. He was very much influenced by the architecture of ancient Rome and you’ll find lots of magnificent villas around this area built in the classical style.’
Marina turned off the road into a narrow drive that led up to the hotel which emerged into view in all its glory. Unlike Mark’s Umbrian villa with its ochre-coloured walls and blue-green shutters, this was a white building with an imposing façade made up of tall Grecian columns. It looked very grand and very alluring.