The Venetian Playboy’s Bride

CHAPTER NINE

‘WHAT did you say?’ Guido asked quietly.

It took all her courage to say, ‘I’m the private detective.’

‘You?’ he sounded as though he didn’t know what the words meant.

‘But Dulcie is on our side now,’ Fede said eagerly, ‘so it’s all right. She’s going to help us.’

‘I don’t know if Roscoe will listen to me,’ Dulcie said, ‘but I’ll do everything I can.’

Guido was gazing at her curiously, but his manner was still calm. He hadn’t quite understood yet. Or maybe he didn’t want to.

‘You’re-a private detective?’ he repeated slowly, still in that strange way, as though he was trying to decipher meaningless sounds.

‘Yes.’

‘And you came here to-?’

‘Roscoe’s worried about Jenny. He got the wrong end of the stick. He thought Fede was claiming to be you.’

‘Can you imagine that?’ Fede chuckled. ‘Me, related to a count! So he sent Dulcie to find me and tempt me away from my Jenny. As though anyone could do that. Only-here’s the joke-she thought you were me!’

‘And so she targeted me instead,’ Guido said lightly. ‘Yes, it’s an excellent joke.’ A light had gone out of him, not just from his eyes but from his whole being. ‘So that’s what it was all about.’

Jenny made a slight restless movement at an intonation she heard in Guido’s voice. Fede, an innocent, was merely trying to put Guido in the picture without realising the implications. Jenny tried to attract his attention but he was in full flight.

‘There aren’t many who fool you, Guido,’ he observed cheekily.

‘Until today I’d have said none at all,’ Guido responded at once. He raised Dulcie’s hand to his lips. ‘My congratulations, signorina. A wonderful masquerade, played out to the finish with utter conviction.’

‘You got the better of him, Dulcie,’ Fede said. ‘Someone should give you a medal.’

‘That will be my privilege,’ Guido said quietly.

There was no anger or condemnation in his eyes. Just a puzzled look, as though he were wondering how the world could have changed in a moment. Dulcie ground her nails into her palm. If only she could have told him in her own words. Now he’d heard in the worst possible way.

‘Perhaps,’ she said carefully, ‘you should wait until you know the whole story. There’s so much you don’t know-that I must explain-’

‘A man never knows the whole of it,’ he agreed. ‘But enough to matter. Enough to cast a strange light over what he thought was true, and show it in very ugly colours.’

It was hard for her to answer, but before she could even try he’d given Jenny a friendly, reassuring smile, saying, ‘So we have a problem. We have to solve it. That’s all. At least you can tell your Poppa that Fede has made no false claims. That should please him.’

‘You don’t know my father,’ Jenny said. ‘When he takes “agin” someone, that’s it.’

‘And it’s my poverty that really offends him,’ Fede said gloomily. ‘When he knows the truth he’ll want Jenny to marry you, and be a countess.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Guido said lightly. ‘I shall tell him I’m going to become a monk. Love is too complicated for me.’ He turned to Dulcie. ‘So you were sent here to delude us. Are you going to tell us your real name?’

‘I’ve been using my real name,’ she said, adding softly, ‘unlike some people.’

He had the grace to redden, but recovered himself. ‘But what’s in a name?’ he asked her. ‘That isn’t always where the truth lies.’

‘Yes, there’s also the work people do, and pretending to live one kind of life while actually living another.’

His eyebrows rose. ‘You talk to me about a “pretend” life?’

That silenced her.

‘Have you thought of anything yet?’ Fede asked anxiously.

‘Patience,’ Guido adjured him. ‘I’ve only just discovered how things really stand.’ A tremor went through him, although his face still smiled. ‘Even a genius like me can only think so fast.’

‘It’s hopeless,’ Fede said, immediately plunged into gloom. ‘Nothing can be done.’

‘Why don’t we ask Dulcie?’ Guido suggested. ‘After all, intrigue is her profession, and she does it surpassingly well.’

‘No,’ she said hastily. ‘This is a Venetian intrigue, and my talents don’t stretch to it.’

‘You do yourself an injustice, signorina,’ Guido assured her quietly. ‘You have the Venetian gift for dodging around corners, looking at one fact, seeing another, and believing a third. It’s a great skill and most outsiders never acquire it. You, I believe were born with it.’

‘On the contrary, signore,’ she said, meeting his eyes defiantly. She’d found her second wind now, and if this was the game he wanted to play, then he would find she could give as good as she got. ‘You forget that I’ve recently been taking lessons from a master.’

‘And I,’ he murmured so softly that only she could hear, ‘I, who thought I had nothing left to learn, have found differently.’

‘Life is full of unexpected lessons,’ she murmured back. ‘People may be more innocent than they seem.’

‘People may certainly be very different to how they seem,’ he said, subtly twisting her words.

She nodded. ‘For instance, you shouldn’t trust someone who plays games.’

He shrugged. ‘You could say that about everyone.’

‘No, some of us have a living to earn.’

‘Ah, yes,’ he seemed much struck. ‘When it’s done for money it’s so much more virtuous, is it not?’

Her eyes met his and found in them something unexpected. He was angry but he was also hurt and confused. This situation had caught him off balance, and he wasn’t coping as smoothly as he tried to make out.

A moment later he rose, kissed Jenny’s cheek, shook Fede’s hand and said with a flourish, ‘Bless you. I’m happy for you. And don’t worry, I’ll think of something. And you, signorina-’ he turned to Dulcie ‘-it was a pleasure talking to you but now I must be going. I’ve been unaccountably neglecting my work recently and now there’s a mountain of it awaiting me, that will occupy me for some time.’

He was gone without waiting for a reply, but she had none to make. What could she say to a man who so clearly wanted to get away from her?

At Guido’s souvenir factory on the island of Murano his employees were becoming concerned. For several days their employer had been absent without warning. Once a day he’d called them, but then switched his phone off and was impossible to contact.

His return caused general relief, which soon turned to surprise. Guido had always run an efficient business, but he’d done so with good humour, teasing, and the occasional semi-flirtatious coaxing. No more. His orders were still given with courtesy, but coolly, crisply, like a man with no time to spare. When someone cracked a joke in his presence he looked blank, as though wondering what a joke was.

It took Dulcie a day to track him down, and as she walked into the factory she had a horrible suspicion that everyone there knew who she was and why she was here. But the young man in the entrance directed her upstairs without fuss.

On the top floor she found Guido’s office, and through the windows that formed the walls she could see him there at his desk, talking to a middle-aged man. The man saw her and nudged Guido, making him look up.

His face startled her. It was tired and worn, as if he hadn’t slept for an age and had forgotten how to smile. He glanced in her direction, then away, and for a dreadful moment she thought he would refuse to see her. But then he nodded and indicated for her to be shown in.

The inside of his office reminded her how little she really knew him. The computer, the multiple phone lines, the stacks of files, the walls covered in plans and diagrams, all these told her that this was a man who took his business seriously.

‘Is this the real you?’ she asked lightly.

‘One of me,’ he answered briefly. ‘I’m surprised to find you still in Venice. I thought you’d have gone yesterday.’

‘You know I didn’t because you heard me knocking on your door last night.’ She added quietly, ‘I knocked for a long time before I went away.’

‘It wasn’t a good moment,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have known what to say, especially in that place.’ His eyes challenged her with memories of the few happy days they’d spent in the little apartment. Then he looked away and began to pace his office, never getting too close to her. ‘But I’m glad you came to see me.’

‘You are?’ she asked hopefully.

‘Yes, it’s right that we should say goodbye properly.’

His coolly dismissive tone annoyed her. ‘I’ll say goodbye when I’m good’n ready, not when you tell me to. There’s a lot more to be said first.’ In a softer tone she added, ‘I listened to you when you were making your excuses yesterday.’ She added, ‘And that’s not all I listened to you saying.’

She regretted the words at once. If his face wasn’t closed against her before it was now. She’d reminded him of what he didn’t want to remember.

‘It wasn’t kind of you to bring that up,’ he said. ‘You should have laughed over your victory in private, not to my face.’

‘Laugh over-? What are you saying? I’m not laughing. I never meant any of this to happen.’

‘You never meant? Excuse me, I understood that you came to Venice deliberately, for a purpose.’

‘But it had nothing to do with you,’ she cried.

‘Ah, yes, I’d forgotten. You came to deceive and ruin my friend, not me, which of course makes everything all right.’

‘I came to protect Jenny from a fortune hunter.’

‘And how could you be so sure he was a fortune hunter? Your information was hardly brilliant since you confused him with me.’

‘The information was lousy,’ she admitted. ‘It came from Roscoe. But the idea was to find out if he was right.’

‘He’d made up his mind before you started.’

‘He had, I hadn’t.’

He stopped pacing and spoke angrily, ‘For pity’s sake, what kind of woman does this? Is it how you get your kicks?’

‘No, I do it to eat. I’ve got nothing. Roscoe paid for everything.’

He regarded her with what might almost have been a smile. ‘Like a theatrical performance, really. Set and costumes courtesy of Roscoe Harrison, and script by-who? Did you cook it up between you?’

‘It wasn’t like that-’

‘Answer me,’ he said sternly. There was no trace in him now of the light-hearted young man who’d enchanted her. There was something grim in his manner that she wouldn’t have believed without seeing it. ‘Answer me,’ he commanded again. ‘How much of what happened between us was planned?’

‘I came to seek out Federico. I thought it was you because of the picture.’ She showed him the snapshot. ‘Yes, I was looking for your face, but when I found you, you were wearing his shirt, with his name on it-’

‘And how did you happen to find me?’

‘I was searching for you,’ she admitted.

He raised his eyebrows sardonically. ‘So our very meeting wasn’t the accident I thought. And that touching moment when your sandal fell at my feet in the gondola?’

The moment he’d called Fate, with shining eyes, full of love.

‘I threw it,’ she admitted in despair. ‘I stood on the bridge hoping you’d look up, and when you didn’t I tossed my sandal.’

She flinched, watching him. She no longer knew how this man would react to anything.

For the moment there was no reaction at all. Then abruptly he broke into laughter, that filled her with relief, until she heard the disturbing edge to the sound, not like real amusement at all.

‘That’s hilarious,’ he said at last. ‘You calculated the whole thing, down to the last detail, and the poor sap fell for it, hook, line and sinker. He even burbled something stupid about it being Fate. Or did he? Remind me. No, on second thoughts, don’t remind me. There are some mistakes a man should be able to forget in peace.’

‘But it wasn’t just me, was it?’ she said indignantly. ‘When I saw the name on your shirt you could have said, “I’m not Fede, just a rich playboy, fooling about in a boat”. Why didn’t you?’

‘I forget,’ he said stonily.

‘I don’t think that’s a truthful answer. You could have stopped everything right there and then. Why didn’t you?’

‘I’ve forgotten,’ he repeated. ‘All right, maybe I’ve only forgotten because I want to. Believe what you like, but most of all believe that it’s best if you go away from here and never come back.’

‘I’m not ready to give up and go yet.’

‘That’s a pity because I don’t think Venice is big enough to hold both of us.’

The door was thrown open abruptly by a middle-aged woman, full of excitement, who gabbled something Dulcie didn’t understand. Guido gave her a brief smile and replied tersely. The next moment she surged into the room, followed by two young girls, their arms filled with masks.

‘No,’ Guido started to say, but his protest was lost in the hubbub. He shrugged and gave up. ‘Our new line,’ he said to Dulcie, sounding harassed. ‘We’ve been waiting for them, but this isn’t the moment-oh, be damned to it!’

The masks were magnificent, not merely painted cardboard like the ones on his walls, but covered in satin and sequins, many with gorgeous feathers.

Guido admired them and spoke kindly to his employees, but managed to shoo them out of the room fairly quickly.

‘Harlequin,’ Dulcie said, holding up a creation in scarlet satin with multi-coloured feathers on top. ‘And this one-’ she lifted a long-nosed mask in purple satin, ‘Pantalone, the merchant. I remember what you told me.’

‘But there were other things I didn’t have time to tell you,’ Guido mused. ‘About Columbine, for instance.’

‘You said she was sensible, but sharp and witty, and could see the funny side of life.’

‘I also said she’s a deceiver. She teases and beguiles Harlequin, leads him into her traps, while all the while laughing up her sleeve because he’s fool enough to believe in her. He, poor clown, ends up wondering what’s hit him.’

He spoke lightly but she had a sensation of his pain that was almost tangible. She guessed that he wasn’t used to unhappiness, his life had contained so little of it. Now he was floundering. She longed to reach out to him, but didn’t dare.

‘You told me I wasn’t like Columbine,’ she reminded him.

He smiled sadly. ‘I was wrong. You think I’m unfair because we both deceived each other, but your deception was planned before you ever came here. That’s what I can’t get past. Mine was an impulse that I yielded to-stupidly perhaps, but on the spur of the moment because-well, no matter.’

‘Tell me,’ she begged. It was suddenly terribly important.

But he shook his head. ‘It doesn’t make any difference now. I wish it did. Go away, Dulcie. There’s nothing so dead as a dead love.’ His face contracted suddenly. ‘For pity’s sake, go,’ he said harshly.

If she could have thought of any way of moving him she would have tried, even then, but there was about him a kind of wintry stubbornness that she couldn’t fight. He’d grown older since yesterday.

His phone shrilled and he made a grab for it with a mutter of impatience. Dulcie turned to go, wondering if the end could really come like this. But she turned as Guido barked, ‘Fede!’

‘What is it?’ she asked with a feeling of foreboding.

He was talking in Venetian. Dulcie caught the word ‘Jenny,’ then Fede’s name repeated several times as though Guido was trying to calm him down. Dulcie could just make out the tinny sound of a voice from the phone, and it sounded as though Fede was in a rare panic.

‘What is it?’ she said as Guido hung up.

He was snatching his jacket down from a hook. ‘Come on,’ he said, grasping her arm. ‘We’ve got to hurry.’

They were out of the factory and by the waterside before she had breath enough to ask, ‘What’s happened?’

A motor boat was waiting with a man at the wheel. Guido helped her down into it and then they were roaring away across the lagoon, feeling the spray in their faces. He had to shout above the noise of the engine.

‘Your employer has arrived.’

‘My-you mean Roscoe?’

‘Right. Jenny’s Poppa. She managed to call Fede and he called me. We have to do something fast to stop him taking her back to England.’

‘You promised Fede you’d think up a plan.’

‘I’m thinking of one now. First we have to walk into the hotel together.’

‘And say what?’

‘I’m trying to work that out,’ he said tensely. ‘We must put this man straight about the facts, and for that I need you there.’

‘So sometimes Harlequin needs Columbine’s help?’

‘Sometimes he can’t do without her, even if he doesn’t like it. It’s time to make up your mind whose side you’re on.’

‘I’m on Jenny’s side. You heard me tell them I’ll help.’

Instead of answering he yelled something to the boatman, and their speed increased, so that further talk became impossible. Soon they’d reached the Grand Canal, and had to slow down dramatically.

‘Can’t we go any faster?’ Dulcie asked.

‘No, it’s the law. There’s the hotel.’ As he handed her out of the boat he said, ‘We’re going to have to put on a rare performance.’

‘But what’s the script?’ she asked frantically.

‘Play it by ear.’ He was sweeping her through the lobby to the lift.

‘But suppose we’re using different ears?’ she demanded as they reached the top floor.

‘You’re the one that’s good at this.’

‘Don’t give me that. I’m an amateur. You could give me lessons.’

‘All right, how’s this? You know this man and I don’t. You lead, I’ll follow. Do it for Jenny. Do it for Fede whose life you tried to ruin.’

There was no time to answer. The lift door was opening. Ahead were the double doors of the suite, and from behind them came the sound of voices, Jenny’s distraught, Fede’s frantic.

Guido was looking at her expectantly.

‘Here we go,’ she said, throwing open the doors.

As entrances went, it was splendid. The three inside stared at them. Then Jenny rushed to her in appeal, Fede rushed to shake Guido’s hand, babbling in Venetian. Dulcie fixed her eyes on Roscoe, who was red-faced and shouting, ‘I don’t know who this man is-’ jabbing a finger at Fede.

‘It’s Fede,’ Jenny protested.

‘The hell he is!’ Roscoe snapped.

‘The hell he isn’t!’ This, from Guido.

‘You-’ Roscoe swung around to him ‘-you’re the one who’s caused all this trouble.’

For the first minute Dulcie’s mind had been a blank, but now suddenly the clouds parted. She pulled herself together and spoke with apparent confidence.

‘Mr Harrison,’ she said, ‘allow me to introduce Signor Guido Calvani, nephew of Count Calvani, a family that I’ve now discovered was once well acquainted with my own.’

The mention of Dulcie’s family made Roscoe pause, as she’d hoped. It gave her time to rush on, ‘It was only after I arrived here that I realised the significance of the name Calvani. It turns out that my great-aunt, Lady Harriet, knew Guido’s uncle very well, if you know what I mean,’ she managed a coy simper, ‘and the count welcomed me most warmly when I visited his palazzo yesterday.’

She was laying it on with a trowel, stressing the words that would send signals to Roscoe’s snobbery, and every one of them was hitting the bull’s eye, she was glad to see.

True to his promise to follow her lead Guido wrung Roscoe’s hand and said all the right things at length. Then he said them again at even greater length. Roscoe managed a reasonably civilised reply, but then became himself again.

‘But you’re in that picture making up to my daughter.’

‘But only under the eye of her true love,’ Guido said quickly, drawing Fede forward. ‘I gather you’ve already met my friend, Federico Lucci, who’s been fortunate enough to win Jenny’s affection.’

‘Now wait,’ Roscoe blustered, ‘what were you doing in that outfit? That’s why I thought you were Fede-’

‘He’s Fede,’ Guido said. ‘I’m Guido.’

‘Count Guido?’

‘Not while my uncle lives, which hopefully will be many years yet.’

‘But you-’ Roscoe looked from Guido to Fede and from Fede to Dulcie ‘-you-no, wait-’

Then inspiration came to Dulcie in a blinding flash.

‘Mr Harrison, pretty soon you and I need to discuss this fiasco,’ she said, sounding slightly truculent. ‘How am I supposed to do a decent job of work when your briefing to me was so inaccurate?’

He gaped. ‘I-’

‘Look at this picture.’ She produced the snapshot. ‘You assured me that the man with the mandolin was Federico Lucci. On that basis I allocated you a portion of my time which, let me remind you, doesn’t come cheap. And after a week when I’ve given you my best efforts, I discover that “Fede” was really the other man, and I’ve been on a wild-goose chase.’

‘But you said you knew him,’ Roscoe hollered.

‘I said no such thing. I said my family knew his, way back. He could have been anybody for all I knew. I’ve been glad to make contact with the count, who once knew Lady Harriet, but apart from that the whole thing has been a waste of time, for which I hold you entirely to blame.’

‘OK, OK, maybe I got it a bit wrong,’ Roscoe said in a placating voice, ‘but it hasn’t been a total waste of time. We’ve established that he-’ indicating Fede ‘-is no aristo.’

‘Since he never claimed to be, that’s hardly surprising,’ Dulcie said briskly. ‘Can we drop this nonsense now? I’ve established that the man your daughter loves isn’t trying to beguile her with false claims, which is surely what really matters.’

Roscoe was uncharacteristically hesitant. His slow-moving wits had taken in that Guido was a real ‘aristo’ and therefore to be cultivated, and that Fede was his friend. To have repeated his suspicions of Fede without offending Guido would have taken social skills Roscoe didn’t possess. He fell silent, fuming. Guido divined what was going through his mind, and stepped into the breach, all charm.

‘I know that my uncle would be anxious to extend to you his hospitality,’ he said smoothly. ‘He’s giving a fancy-dress masked ball next week, and your presence, with your daughter, would make it complete.’

Roscoe’s snobbery warred with his desire to hasten Jenny back to England. Snobbery won.

‘That’s generous of you,’ he bawled. ‘We’d like that, wouldn’t we, pet? That’s very-well, I must say-’

Under cover of his noisy pleasure, Guido murmured to Dulcie, ‘Brava! Columbine has worked her magic. You knew just how to deal with him.’

‘He was getting on my wick,’ Dulcie said crisply.

Roscoe had recovered himself and was wringing Guido’s hand. ‘Tell your uncle I’ll come to see him right away. Men of substance should stick together-’

‘My uncle is away just now,’ Guido improvised hastily, ‘but he will have the pleasure of your acquaintance at the ball.’ He turned swiftly to Dulcie before Roscoe could think of any more tortures for him. ‘I understand that you will be there, signorina. It will be delightful to see you. Fede, let us leave.’

‘But I-’ the hapless Fede started to say.

‘Not now,’ Guido said through gritted teeth, urging him out with more vigour than gentleness. ‘For pity’s sake, my friend, quit while you’re ahead.’