The Venetian Playboy’s Bride

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SHE half expected Guido to make an excuse to leave her as soon as they were out of the door, but he walked along with her for a while. He’d recovered himself now, and was on his guard.

‘That was a terrible thing to say,’ Dulcie said at last. ‘That Roscoe did you a favour.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.’

‘Much I care about that!’ she cried. ‘That’s not what this is about! We could still have it all.’

‘If only that was possible!’ he said at last. ‘You know how much you tempt me. But it’s no use.’

‘Why are you so determined to hold out against me?’ she asked passionately.

‘Yes, I’m making a fuss about nothing, aren’t I? Why should a man care if he meets his ideal and she turns out to be deceiving him for money?’

‘Ideal?’ she whispered, not certain that she’d heard right.

‘It’s a laugh, isn’t it? I thought I was so street smart. Alive to every trick. Boy, was I kidding myself!’

‘And that’s why you hate me?’

‘I don’t hate you. Hating is a waste of time. It’s just that you don’t look the same any more, and I wish you did. The trouble with Fool’s Paradise is that it’s so beautiful, especially after you’ve been shut out. You long to find a way back in, to convince yourself that you don’t know what you do know. Believe me, I’ve spent the last few days trying to get back into Paradise, even if it’s only the Fool’s kind. Because it’s the sweetest thing that’s ever happened to me, or ever will.’

‘To me too,’ she said wistfully. ‘Is there really no way back?’

‘Do you think I wouldn’t have found it by now?’

‘It could all have been so different, if we’d met another way.’

‘The truth is,’ he said wryly, ‘that you have the soul of a Venetian. Tricky as they come. All the time we’ve known each other you’ve been wearing a mask.’

‘Not all the time,’ she urged. ‘Only at the beginning.’

‘All the time,’ he repeated. ‘When you seemed to be removing the mask you were merely changing to another. Why, you have a whole armoury of them. And who should understand that better than me?’

‘I’m not the only one. You could have told me who you were from the beginning.’

‘And I should have done, but I was looking at you, falling in love with you on the spot. What did names matter? I thought you were the most dazzling girl I’d ever seen and nothing else registered. Then it was too late. Besides, I get tired of my uncle matchmaking, introducing me to women who look past me to the title. You were looking at me, or at least I thought you were, and I couldn’t resist making it last, just while we got to know each other.’ He gave a crack of laughter. ‘It’s nauseating isn’t it, like some idiot character in a fairy tale. There was me, delighted that you weren’t a fortune hunter, and all the time you thought that I was.’

‘You made it easy for me to think the worst. When I told you I was Lady Dulcie you went strange, as though it was important.’

‘It was. I couldn’t believe my luck in meeting someone that I could love and marry without my uncle giving me grief about it. I thought you were wonderful, the one honest woman in a world of schemers.’ He sighed. ‘Well, perhaps I should apologise for being unfair to you. It was unfair to put you on a pedestal, because if I hadn’t done that I’d probably have coped better when you fell off.’

Her anger began to stir. ‘Then it’s as well I fell off now, because sooner or later I’d have disillusioned you. Your dreams weren’t real Guido. I’m an ordinary woman struggling my way through the world as best I can. I make compromises, I don’t always behave well, but mostly I just do what I have to, whether I like it or not. I’m hemmed in by circumstances, like everyone else. Except you perhaps. You’ve got more freedom than anyone I know. Two lives, and you hop back and forth between them to please yourself, so you can’t have any sympathy with ordinary mortals.’

‘You don’t expect me to believe that Lord Maddox’s daughter really has to do this for a living?’

‘Yes, I do damned well expect you to believe it,’ she flashed. ‘Every penny my father had went on the “gee-gees” as he calls them, or on the tables at Monte Carlo. The estates are mortgaged up to the hilt and the bank is getting restive about the size of the overdraft. Marry me? You’d have had to be out of your mind. Dad would have touched you for a loan in the first five minutes, and if you’d been mad enough to say yes he’d have been back for more. You’re better off without me. So we do agree on something. In fact I reckon I’ve done you a favour.’

She walked on without waiting for his reply, and he had to run to catch her up and they walked awhile in silence. Overhead the laundry hung from lines strung between buildings. Above it the moon seemed to float behind the shirts and vests. Dulcie turned aside into a dark calle, finding her way more readily now. He’d called her a Venetian and perhaps she was becoming one, sure-footed when faced with confusion. At any rate she moved under the single lamp, and then away from it into the gloom.

‘But in the end, it’s not really about money at all,’ she said, her voice sounding mysterious as it whispered to him from the darkness. ‘I really took this job because I wanted to punish all men for Simon. I told you about him the first evening.’

‘The man you loved and thought you saw? That was real?’

‘Yes, that was real. I didn’t make him up. I told you we were going to come to Venice for our honeymoon, but what I didn’t tell you was that it was going to be the Vittorio, the Empress Suite. He had it all planned, with me paying the bills. He thought I was an heiress. When he discovered the truth he vanished.’

Guido murmured something that sounded like a Venetian curse. ‘And you came here, to that hotel?’

‘Roscoe was set on it, and I thought, “What the hell?” What does anything matter?’

‘He was here with you?’ Guido asked sharply. ‘In your mind, in your heart-?’

‘All the way across the lagoon from the airport,’ she agreed. ‘All the way down the Grand Canal and right into the suite. He was there when he shouldn’t have been, reminding me that he should have been there, and he wasn’t. Always his ghost, whispering in my ear that the whole world was nothing but a great con trick, and no man was anything but a deceiver. Turning Venice into a huge, bitter joke, when it should have been so lovely-’ She broke off, overwhelmed with anguish at the thought of how lovely this man had made Venice for her, how lovely he could have made the whole world.

But she had lost him, and now she was tossing her last chance away with her own hands. It was suddenly impossible to do anything else.

Guido sensed rather than saw her emotion and took an involuntary step towards her, but she backed away, fending him off. She needed all her strength to force herself to do what was best for both of them. He stood helplessly, listening to her choked breathing in the dim light.

‘He was a pig,’ he said at last. ‘You’re well rid of him.’

She gave a high, hysterical laugh. ‘That’s just what I thought, but here’s the joke. I’ll never be rid of him. He changed me. Men don’t look the same now. I keep trying to see behind their eyes to discover what lies they’re telling. When Roscoe told me what he wanted me to do I was glad. There! You want the truth, and that’s it! Ugly, isn’t it? Like me, deep inside.’

‘I never said-’

‘I know what I’m really like. You’re only just finding out the worst. I was glad of the chance to hunt down and punish a man like Simon, a man who deceived a woman for her money and abandoned her when she had none.’

‘And you were sure I was like this, on Roscoe’s say so?’

‘I saw you through the distorting lights that Simon put there. I can’t get rid of those lights, and they make all men look suspicious. I guess they always will now. I am as I am. It’s done. I can’t change back.’

‘And these were your thoughts all the time we were together,’ he whispered in horror.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Not all the time. When you were looking after me everything became very confused.’

‘And you couldn’t tell me then?’

‘How could I? I thought you were Fede, and I began to think Jenny was lucky. And then I learned the truth and it was too late. I’d ruined everything, hadn’t I? Hadn’t I?’

He couldn’t answer.

She was shaking with anguish as she forced the truth out. ‘I’ve turned into someone you can’t love. I guess I can’t blame you for that. You loved an illusion. The real me isn’t really very loveable. She’s hard and cynical-’

He became angry. ‘Don’t say that about yourself.’

‘Why not? It’s what you’ve been saying to yourself about me these last few days. I couldn’t make you happy, I see that now.’ She gave a harsh, self-condemning laugh that fell painfully on his ears. ‘I hated Simon so much, but it was for the wrong reasons. The real injury he did me-isn’t it funny?-is to make me just like him. Do you know the saying, “Never trust a mistrustful man-or woman”? I can’t trust, and so I can’t be trusted.’

‘Dulcie,’ perversely, now that she’d turned on herself, he felt the urge to defend her. But she warded him off, driven by the need to put her thoughts into words.

‘We can’t alter anything now, and why should we try?’ she asked passionately. ‘It wouldn’t work. You’d never really feel you knew me, or could trust me, and how could we love each other like that?’

‘You tell me,’ he said, almost pleading with her. ‘Columbine is the one with all the answers.’

‘She doesn’t know the answer to this riddle. I don’t think there is one. Maybe, in the end, I’m better off without you. I’m sorry if I hurt you, Guido, but I also think you’re suffering from damaged pride.’

‘You really think it’s my pride that’s been speaking?’ he asked, his voice growing angry again.

‘A lot of the time. Underneath all those smiles you don’t forgive easily. You believe that masks are only for you. When someone else uses them your world falls in. Pride. Well, I have pride too. It’s finished. Tomorrow night belongs to Jenny and Fede, so we’ll say our goodbyes now.’

‘Oh, will we? Maybe I have something to say about that.’

‘You’ve already said all I’m prepared to listen to. You win some and you lose some. I lost but there are other games to play.’

She saw his eyes gleam. ‘Lining up your next victim, Dulcie?’

She was about to say that there could be nobody after him, but checked the impulse. That was weakness.

‘Maybe,’ she said defiantly. ‘Once I’ve left Venice it won’t matter to you what I do. But I’ll say this before I go.’

She pulled his head down to her with a swift movement that took him by surprise. She took full advantage of that surprise, putting her arms about him, drawing his body close to hers. After a moment his arms went about her, but it was still her kiss. She was the one who took it deeper, teasing him with subtle movements against his mouth, reminding him of everything he’d thrown away.

‘Dulcie…’

‘It’s over,’ she murmured against his mouth. ‘We might have had something wonderful but we lost our chance. I’ve seen myself clearly now, and I’m not the one for you.’

‘Does a woman kiss a man like this when it’s over?’ he asked hoarsely.

‘Yes, if she wants him to remember her. And I do want you to remember me.’ She drew back a fraction. In the darkness Guido couldn’t see her, but he could feel the whisper of her warm breath against his face.

‘Remember me, Guido, but only when I’m gone. Columbine always gets away-’

‘Unless Harlequin makes her stay.’

She laughed softly and it made his blood race. ‘Harlequin never managed to make her do anything. He isn’t clever enough.’

‘That’s right.’ He tried to see her face, searching for something he didn’t know how to find. ‘Whatever he thinks, the poor sap is always dancing on the end of her string, isn’t he?’ he growled. ‘Who are you? Who are you?’

‘That’s the problem, isn’t it, my darling?’ she asked, speaking huskily through her tears. ‘You’d never really know, and it would always come between us. It’s just lucky that we found out in time.’

She kissed him again, gently this time, a kiss of farewell, and slipped out of his arms. He heard her footsteps on the flagstones and at the end of the calle he saw her again as she reached the lights of a small canal. When she walked out of sight he waited, sure that she would return to him. But nothing happened and he began to run until he reached the canal. There was a small bridge, and on the other side he could just make out three ways she could have taken.

He tore over the bridge and stood straining his ears, hoping for some sound that would direct him. But she’d vanished into the night, and there was only the soft lapping of tiny waves against the stones. He touched his face. It was wet. But whether with her tears or his own, he couldn’t have said.

Next morning the Palazzo Calvani buzzed with life like a hive of bees. Every servant in the place was on duty to make that evening’s ball a success. Costumes for the family had arrived from Guido’s shop and been laid out in their rooms, in readiness.

Liza was in her element, bustling everywhere, giving directions. At last she allowed herself to sit down for five minutes in the waterfront garden, and it was here that Guido found her.

‘I want you to have this in thanks for what you did for me the other night,’ he said. ‘I should have given it to you before, but it wasn’t finished until this morning.’

It was an exquisite little diamond brooch, inscribed with her name on the back. She turned it over and over, her thin face flushed with pleasure.

‘Grazie, signore, but there was no need for any special thanks. I’m here to serve the family.’

‘This was above and beyond the call of duty. Did my uncle get mad at you for losing the key?’

‘He is never angry with me. Besides, I convinced him that he’d lost it himself, and he apologised to me.’

Guido’s face was a study. ‘I should have guessed.’

‘But did it help you?’

He sighed. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘Why don’t you tell me?’

He told her as honestly as possible, not skipping his own deception, but finally coming to the point he found most painful.

‘All that time, I was in love, but-I don’t think she was.’

‘How do you know?’

‘She was pursuing me for a purpose.’

‘No, she was pursuing Fede for a purpose and you confused her. And however it started, why couldn’t she honestly have come to love you? You’re a well-set-up young fellow, not bad looking in a poor light-’

‘Thank you.’

‘A bit crazy in the head, but women overlook that. In fact they sometimes prefer it. It doesn’t do for a man to be too intelligent. Luckily that doesn’t happen often.’

Guido’s lips twitched. ‘You think she might have found something tolerable in my unimpressive self?’

‘Well, if, as you say, you were dancing attendance on her for days, she’d be a very strange woman if she didn’t fall for that.’

He stared. ‘For that?’

‘Yes, that. Not your pretty face and your tom-fool jokes, or your money because she didn’t know you had any, but because you were kind to her. There’s something about a man’s kindness that gets women in a spin. You didn’t know that, did you, Signor Casanova?’

‘No-I mean-of course I know that they like to be treated nicely, and I do-’

‘I’m not talking about kissing their hands and buying them flowers. That’s easy. I’m talking about what you did, day after day.’

‘But she was vulnerable, she needed looking after.’

‘The hotel would have done that, and most men would have dumped her there.’

‘Leave her to strangers? No way. I wanted to know she was being cared for properly. Taking her home with me just seemed the natural thing.’

‘And undressing her and putting her in your bed.’

‘If you’re suggesting that I-Liza, don’t you dare even think-it’s monstrous!’

‘So you didn’t?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ he said firmly. ‘I didn’t even kiss her.’

‘Oh, well, that did it.’

‘Pardon?’

Liza smiled, almost to herself. ‘There are times when not being kissed is the most romantic thing in the world. Unless, of course, you didn’t want to?’

Guido groaned at the memory. ‘More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. But she trusted me. Sometimes she was unconscious. On the first night she was feverish and she put her hand out and held mine, like a child. I couldn’t have abused her trust.’

‘According to you, she abused yours.’

‘It’s not the same.’

‘Maybe she wasn’t really unconscious at all. That was just part of the pretence.’

He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘That was real.’

‘Signore, you don’t understand being poor, like her,’ Liza said firmly. ‘When have you been poor as a church mouse? When it’s a struggle to survive you do things you don’t want to do. So she did.’

‘It wasn’t just that,’ Guido admitted. ‘There was a man who treated her badly-thought she had money and dumped her when he found otherwise.’

‘Fio di trojana!’ Liza spat.

Guido stared, for the Venetian words meant ‘Son of a prostitute’. But most Venetians, himself included, would have said, ‘Fio di putana,’ which meant the same, but was slightly less vulgar. Liza had expressed her contempt in no uncertain manner.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘That’s what he was. It left her bitter and unhappy.’ Then a burst of inspiration made him take a long breath and he said quickly, ‘Her mind was clouded by misery when she first came here. She didn’t mean to deceive me. She didn’t really know what she was doing.’

He had it at last, the thing he’d been seeking through wretched days and sleepless nights: an explanation that would put Dulcie back on her pedestal.

‘That must be it. But it’s a bit late in the day to say it. My guess is that you’ve been hard on her. She’s been judged by a man who understood nothing. And that came as a shock to her, because he’d deceived her into thinking he was kind and gentle. How could she know it was just a delusion and he wasn’t really like that at all?’

‘It wasn’t a-OK, OK, I get the point.’

‘So you thought she was perfect! Are you perfect? But like all men, you say one thing and do another.’

‘When do I do that?’

‘I’ve heard you talk about women when you thought I wasn’t listening. No milksops for you, you said. You wanted a woman who’d be a challenge, you said. One who would keep you guessing, you said!’

There was a silence.

‘I didn’t exactly live up to that, did I?’ he asked wryly.

‘The first time you met a real woman with guts enough to play you at your own game you took fright.’ Liza addressed the heavens in exasperation. ‘And these are our lords and masters!’

If Guido had been less bemused he might have noticed that Liza was speaking to him with far less than her usual respect. It wouldn’t have bothered him, but he would have wondered about it. Now his attention was fully occupied trying to keep up with her.

‘She’s too good for you,’ Liza went on. ‘And she was quite right to leave you. Such a pity that she’ll come back.’

‘You think so?’ Guido asked hopefully.

‘You two are fated to get married. And serve you right.’

‘What?’

‘Oh, she’ll lead you a merry dance,’ Liza said with relish. ‘You won’t know whether it’s today or tomorrow.’

Guido gave her a strange look. ‘I won’t, will I?’

‘It’ll never be peaceful.’

‘It’ll never be dull,’ he murmured.

‘Whatever you expect her to do, she’ll do the opposite.’

‘She’ll keep me guessing.’

‘And you’ll come by your just deserts.’

‘Yes,’ he breathed. ‘I will.’ The next moment he’d leapt up, planted a huge kiss on her cheek and headed out of the garden at a run.

‘Signore, where are you going?’

‘To get my just deserts,’ he yelled over his shoulder. ‘Thanks, Liza.’

He tore down to the landing stage, yelling for the boatman, who came running. Marco and Leo were in the garden. Seeing Guido speed past they exchanged puzzled glances and immediately went after him, catching up by the water.

‘Where’s the fire?’ Marco demanded.

‘No time to explain. Claudio-’ this to the boatman ‘-the Hotel Vittorio.’

He got in and the other two joined him.

‘You’re not leaving our sight,’ Marco said. ‘You’ve dragged us into this stunt you’re pulling tonight, and you’re not vanishing, leaving us holding the baby.’

As the engine roared into life they took up position each side of him like a pair of guard dogs.

Guido slapped his back pocket. ‘I’ve left my phone behind!’

‘Use mine,’ said Marco, who was never careless about these things.

Guido hurriedly dialled the hotel and was put through to the suite, but it was Jenny who answered.

‘I need to speak to Dulcie urgently,’ he said.

‘But, Guido, she’s gone.’

‘Gone how? Where?’

‘Left Venice. Just packed her bags and went. At least, she didn’t pack all her bags because she said that stuff didn’t really belong to her.’

‘Didn’t she leave any word for me?’

‘No, she said you wouldn’t want to hear anything from her.’

‘The silly woman!’ he yelled. ‘Of course I want to hear from her. I love her.’

‘Well, don’t blame me. I’m not the one who’s been pig-headed.’

‘No, I have. But Jenny, help me put it right. What flight is she getting?’

‘She’s not. The flights were all booked so she’s going by train. Twelve o’clock.’

‘But that’s only five minutes away.’ He clapped Claudio on the shoulder. ‘The railway station, fast.’

Soon the broad steps came into sight. The boat was still a foot away when Guido leapt out. The platform for the noon train was straight ahead and he ran as though his life depended on it. He could see the train still there. Another few feet…

It began to move.

In despair he urged his legs faster and just made it onto the platform, but he couldn’t catch up.

‘Dulcie!’ he roared. It was a wonder that his lungs still had any breath, but he managed to send the sound echoing down the length of the moving train.

Somewhere in the distance a head appeared through a window of one of the carriages. He couldn’t see clearly but he would have known her at any distance.

‘I love you,’ he yelled. ‘Don’t leave me.’

But then the head withdrew. The train was gathering speed. She was going away, and he couldn’t tell if she’d heard him. Then the last carriage clattered out of sight and he was left alone on the platform, gasping and in despair.

‘Let her go,’ Marco advised, catching up with him and putting a hand on his shoulder.

‘No way,’ Guido said at once. ‘I’ve got to get her back.’

‘Phone her,’ Leo said.

‘Great idea.’

He called Dulcie’s mobile. The train’s first stop was just a few minutes away in Mestre, on the other side of the causeway. She could be back with him in half an hour.

The next moment there came the click of an answer.

‘Carissima,’ he said urgently, ‘I love you. I can’t live without you. I’ve been a pig-headed idiot but don’t hold that against me. Let me spend my life making it up to you. Get off the train in Mestre, and take the next one back to Venice. I’ll be waiting right here on the platform. Just say that you forgive me and come back. Please, please darling, come back. Ti prego mia dolcissima Dulcie.’

There was a silence.

‘Hello?’ said Jenny’s voice.

‘What?’ Guido whispered, in shock. ‘Jenny?’

‘Yes. Dulcie forgot her phone. I found it under a cushion.’

Guido managed a polite thank you, and hung up. ‘She’s gone,’ he groaned. ‘I’ve lost her. There’s got to be a flight, if not from here then from Milan-’

‘No!’ Leo and Marco spoke as one man.

‘Think of Fede and Jenny, depending on you,’ Leo pointed out.

‘Besides,’ Marco added practically, ‘the train to England takes twenty-four hours. You can do what you have to at the ball tonight, catch the first flight tomorrow, and still get there ahead of her. You can even meet her at the station.’

‘That’s right,’ Guido said, calming down. Then he clutched his head in despair. ‘But how am I going to get through the next few hours?’

‘Because we’re going to be there to make sure you do,’ Leo said firmly.