Chapter 6
Conti, Italy
Dani
“SIGNORA CONTESSA,” THE proprietor of the hotel said, “you honor my poor establishment.”
I looked around and saw a fairly tall and very thin woman approaching our table. She carried herself somewhat rigidly and with an air of authority, was dressed rather elegantly in black, and wore a minimum of jewelry and makeup. Her silver hair was worn in a chignon, and I guessed her to be in her seventies. Her face was fairly free of the lines of old age—she must have been a striking woman in her youth. Marco and I stood as she approached our table, trailed by the priest we’d met in the church.
“You have your mother’s eyes,” she said to Marco as she extended her hand. “I am la Contessa di Conti, your grandmother.”
“Marco d’Argenzio,” he said, with a small bow, “and t
