Mountains of Dawn

Count Michele di Monteturro…his father. Luigi Amedeo dreaded being reminded of him. His father's interests concerned only gambling, women, and painting, in that order. Michele's greatest passion had been for the game, any game, any time, for any reward. He had sold most of his properties to offset his gambling debts, and was left with only the family house, the vineyards in the Piedmont region, and an old mansion on the Mediterranean shores. Near the end of his life his only income came from the sales of the prestigious nebbiolo wine his family had produced for generations.

After Luigi's mother, Mafalda, died, Michele's main goal became a marriage with a wealthy woman who would pay his bills and give him enough money to satisfy his cravings. Those were his greatest desires. Secondary to them, she would take care of his two children, Cecilia Maria, twelve, and Luigi Amedeo, eleven.

Luigi Amedeo had heard the story of his father's misfortunes may times over. He had heard of splendid and desirable Carla, blessed with beauty as well as wealth.

Michele courted Carla assiduously and asked for her hand in marriage only a few weeks after their first encounter. Her parents, concerned over Carla's youth and Michele's reputation as a gambler, convinced the girl to postpone her engagement and take a cruise which had been previously planned. Carla agreed, certain the delay would make no difference in her feeling toward the aristocratic Michele.

Luigi Amedeo knew the rest of the story so well, he might as well have been on the cruise with Carla. He frowned, remembering his father's embarrassment and rage when the announcement came: Carla was to wed Henry Caldwell, a man she had just met on a cruise. And that in the fall of the same year.

And then a second blow… Henry Caldwell, a clever business man, became wealthier every year as Michele drew further into discreet poverty. And that was not the end of the sad story.

Five years later, Henry and Carla traveled back to Carla's hometown to attend the opening of an ancient castle remodeled to become a hotel with an entertainment center. It held a theater for various shows, two halls for dancing, one for traditional music, the other for modern, and rows of slot machines lining the corridors. The pride of the castle, however, was the small gambling rooms built into the cells of the castle's dungeon.

And, of course, Michele di Monteturro wandered the halls, eager for a game of any kind with any person. He saw Carla and her husband, and neared them. Surprised, Carla introduced Henry to Michele, who promptly invited Henry to join him in one of the gambling rooms in the dungeon.