The Venetian Playboy’s Bride

CHAPTER TWELVE

AS ALWAYS Count Calvani made sure nobody outshone him at his own ball. His long flowing robes glittered with gold thread, and on his head he wore the distinctive cap, plain at the front, raised at the rear, that said he was a Doge, one of the great men who had ruled Venice in the old days. His mask was an elaborate creation in scarlet satin, sporting tiny red and gold feathers.

He made a grand entrance into Guido’s room, where his three nephews had congregated, and stood, tall and splendid, for them to admire him. When they had done so to his satisfaction he gave his opinion of their attire.

‘Why are you all Harlequins?’ he complained. ‘The place will be crawling with Harlequins. Do you want to be mistaken for other men?’

They presented a handsome sight in their identical skin-tight costumes of coloured diamond shapes, alternating with white. Only a young man with a flat stomach and taut muscles could risk the revealing garb, and while Marco might be a fraction taller, and Leo slightly heavier, what would really distinguish them from other Harlequins was their ability to dress like this without looking ridiculous.

The costume was topped off by a small white ruff around the neck. On his head each wore a black tricorne hat, and beneath it the mask, the eyebrows raised to give a quizzical look. Francesco snorted.

‘I suppose you’re planning something disgraceful, like making inroads among the female guests and leaving them wondering which one of you it was.’ He then spoiled his righteous indignation by adding, ‘That’s what we did in my day.’

‘I don’t think our chaste ears are ready to hear about your youth, Uncle,’ Leo said, grinning.

‘You’d get a few surprises,’ Francesco agreed. ‘But now I’m a reformed character. Guido, you’ll be glad to hear that I’m going to do what you’ve always wanted.’

‘Get married?’ Guido gasped.

Marco coughed. ‘But Uncle, isn’t it a little late for you to be thinking-I mean-’

‘I’m in my prime,’ the count declared firmly.

‘Of course he is,’ Guido said. ‘The nursery will be full in no time.’ An agreeable vista of freedom was opening before him. ‘Will we meet her tonight, Uncle?’

‘No, she won’t be at the ball.’

‘But surely-?’

‘Any more than Lady Dulcie will be at the ball,’ Francesco said, glaring at him. By now he knew that they’d met, but Guido hadn’t burdened him with too many precise details. ‘I won’t ask what you’ve done to offend her, but I’m sure it’s something unforgivable.’

‘She seems to think so,’ Guido grunted. ‘I aim to put it right soon, but now that my marriage will no longer matter to the family line, since you’re marrying yourself, I’d rather discuss it no further.’

When Guido spoke in that firm tone nobody argued with him. A few minutes later they were all on their way downstairs to meet the torchlit procession that was coming along the Grand Canal. Gondola after gondola approached the landing stage to be greeted by their hosts, and a stream of masked figures passed into the glittering palazzo.

Music was already playing. Lights shone from every door and window. A line of footmen stood bearing trays on which stood glasses of the finest crystal, filled with the best champagne.

‘If only they’d show a little originality,’ Francesco growled as he stood waiting, a smile fixed on his face. ‘So many Columbines, Pantelones, Pulcinellas.’

‘They can’t all be the Doge of Venice,’ Guido muttered. ‘Not many men could carry it off.’

‘That’s true,’ Francesco agreed, mollified.

‘And if you want something unusual,’ Leo said, ‘how about Henry VIII?’

The Vittorio motor launch was just drawing up, with Roscoe standing in the rear.

‘Roscoe Harrison,’ Guido said. ‘You are delighted to see him.’

‘Am I?’

‘For my sake, yes. The Columbine in the back is his daughter Jenny.’

‘Another Columbine! How many is that?’

Guido need not have feared. The count gloried in his skills as a host, and the next few minutes went smoothly. Francesco bowed low over Jenny’s hand murmuring, ‘How charming!’ and he and Roscoe eyed each other’s attire with respect.

Guido took charge of the new arrivals, feeling Jenny cling nervously to his arm, and led them into the house. He would have been glad to skip this evening which was going to be so different from his hopes. Dulcie should have been around, helping him out, and then, while they were working together-here his invention failed, but surely something would have happened. He scowled. When Harlequin ran out of ideas Columbine was supposed to come to his rescue.

He’d managed to get a seat on an early flight next morning. In the meantime he had work to do. He studied Jenny, noting with approval that she’d dressed to his instructions, with a black silk cap concealing her hair, a small black tricorne hat and a crimson satin mask, so heavily trimmed with lace that it covered most of the lower part of her face as well.

Her dress was a mass of white tulle, with a tight waist, puff sleeves and a huge ballerina skirt that ended just below the knee. She looked delicate and enchanting.

‘Fede won’t be able to resist you,’ he said when he’d swept her away into the dance.

‘Oh, Guido, is he really here? I’m so nervous.’

‘He’s outside in the boathouse. We’ll wait until it’s a bit more crowded and your Poppa can’t see you so well, and then my brother Leo will ask you to dance. Your father will think it’s me, but I’ll be dancing with another Columbine and so we’ll keep him confused.’ His gaze fell on a detail that troubled him. ‘I wish you weren’t wearing that diamond necklace. It looks like it cost a fortune.’

‘Ten thousand,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Dad insisted on giving it to me just before we came out. He said it was to “console me” for losing Fede.’

‘That figures. But you can bet he’ll keep his eyes on it, and it’ll complicate the switch over to the other Columbine. I’ve persuaded one of the maids to help out.’

‘It was supposed to be Dulcie, wasn’t it? She’s really gone then?’

‘Yes, but I’m going to get her back. Jenny, I simply must talk to you about her.’

‘We will, I promise. But I see Dad waving to me. I’ll be back later.’

She slipped away and Guido lost her in the crowd. He spent the next half hour on hot coals, doing duty dances, watching the time pass, wondering how soon he could get away to England.

Roscoe was enjoying himself. He and the count had squared up to each other, and he hadn’t backed down. And those diamonds of Jenny’s! Anyone could see that they’d cost a pretty penny. It never hurt to show people you had money, and Roscoe had big plans for his daughter.

He looked around and frowned when he couldn’t see her. She’d been there just a moment ago, dancing with Guido. Then she’d vanished in the crush.

No, there she was again, a pretty Columbine, threading her way through the crowd, her diamonds sparkling magnificently.

‘They look wonderful on you, darling,’ he growled.

But Columbine didn’t seem happy. She made a gesture as if to remove the diamonds, but he stopped her.

‘You keep them on. Guido was looking at them. Keep working on him, and you’ll be a countess yet.’

Columbine sighed and began to thread her way back through the crowd to where Harlequin was looking around him.

‘There you are,’ he said with relief.

‘You wanted to talk about Dulcie.’

‘I’m going to follow her to England.’

Columbine put her head on one side, teasing him. ‘And when you see her, what will you say?’

He groaned. ‘I don’t know. Just ask her to forgive me for being a pompous jerk, I suppose. Who knows what she’s thinking now? I don’t even know if she heard me calling to her down the platform. She didn’t telephone you?’

‘I haven’t spoken to Dulcie,’ Columbine said truthfully. ‘And even if I had, I doubt she’d tell me much. Once she’s made up her mind, that’s it!’

Through his mask Guido’s eyes widened with alarm. ‘You don’t mean that she’d never forgive me? I don’t believe that.’

‘Dulcie’s stubborn. When she’s decided against somebody-’ she gave an eloquent shrug.

‘But you don’t really know her well.’

‘Neither do you after just a few days-’

‘A few days is enough when you’ve met your ideal. Or a few minutes. I knew at once, when she tossed that sandal down into my gondola-’

‘But you didn’t know she threw it,’ Columbine reminded him. ‘You thought it was fate but actually it was her. I think she was dreadful, deceiving you like that.’

‘But she didn’t deceive me,’ Guido said earnestly. ‘Not if you look at it the right way. Dulcie and I were always destined to be together, so when she threw that sandal she was only doing what fate demanded. And when I let her think I was Fede, that was fate too, because that way she saw me. Not a Calvani with a palace and a title at his back, but just a man falling in love with her.’

He wondered if Columbine would speak, but she danced in his arms, gazing intently at him, as if she were waiting for something. He was several inches taller, and from this angle he could see little of her lower face, because the lace of the mask blocked his vision. But he could see her green eyes, and a strange feeling began to creep over him.

‘I’ll make her listen to me,’ he said. ‘I’ll remind her what it was like during those days we spent together, because that’s when we were most truly ourselves. She was so-’ he hunted for the word, not easy for him, a man not used to analysing ‘-so surprised. As though nobody had ever taken care of her before.’

‘That’s very clever of you,’ Columbine said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think anyone ever really has. The rest of her family were so irresponsible that she couldn’t afford to be. She had to grow up too fast and she’s been lonely all her life, but people don’t see it.’

‘I once told her that masks could make people free to be their real selves,’ Guido said. ‘Now I think maybe your real self can come as a surprise. I’m not who I thought I was.’

‘Who are you, Guido?’ Columbine asked earnestly. ‘Do you know now? And do you know who she is?’

‘I’m the man who loves her, come what may,’ he said.

‘But is she the woman who loves you? Suppose she doesn’t?’

‘She must, even if I have to spend the rest of my life convincing her.’

Columbine smiled as though she’d discovered a secret treasure. But instead of answering him directly she said, ‘Someone’s trying to attract your attention.’

Guido saw two Harlequin figures beckoning him from the window that led into the garden. He murmured something to Columbine and followed to where Leo and Marco were waiting for him.

‘It all went like clockwork,’ Leo said from behind his mask. ‘We delivered Jenny to the church, Fede was waiting for her with his family, and they’re probably married by now.’

‘But Jenny’s still here,’ Guido said thoughtfully. The strange, haunted feeling was back. ‘I was just dancing with her.’

‘Jenny was with us.’

‘Then who-?’ He remembered now. Jenny’s eyes were blue.

Dazed, he returned to the ballroom, looking this way and that, searching for Columbine. But, like an elusive ghost, she’d vanished.

Suddenly there seemed to be a thousand Columbines, and none of them was the right one.

What he was thinking couldn’t be true, he told himself. It was a mental aberration. But while his head might be muddled his heart had never been more clear. He knew everything now. Or at least, Harlequin knew what Columbine thought it was good for him to know.

He spotted her at last, drinking champagne and talking to Leo, who’d removed his mask. Suddenly inspired, he made sure his own mask was in place, and bore down on them.

‘You’d better keep out of Guido’s way,’ he said, clapping his brother on the shoulder. ‘That little revelation has put him on the warpath.’

‘So I saw,’ Leo said, studying him cautiously. ‘Marco?’

‘Sure, I’m Marco, and I’m about to ask this lady to dance.’ He slipped his arm firmly around Columbine’s waist, and glided with her onto the floor. Her eyes were on his face, laughing, not fooled one little bit.

‘So Guido’s annoyed?’ she asked provocatively. ‘Serve him right!’

‘Don’t be so hard on him,’ Guido said. ‘He’s not a bad fellow.’

‘He’s a clown and someone should take him in hand and reform him.’

‘You can do that when you’re married.’

‘Me? Marry him?’ Columbine sounded shocked. ‘Never!’

‘You’ve got to marry him,’ Harlequin said urgently. ‘You can’t leave him running amok the way he is. Think of the family reputation. Besides, he’s madly in love with you. I know he hasn’t been clever about it, but you can be clever for both of you. After all, you’re really in love with him too, aren’t you? Otherwise you wouldn’t abuse him so much.’

‘Never mind about Guido,’ Columbine said, looking at her partner’s mouth and thinking how badly she wanted to kiss it. ‘After all, he isn’t very interesting.’

‘You don’t think so?’

‘I’ve never thought so,’ she said with a fair assumption of indifference. ‘But I played along to keep him happy.’

Their eyes met through the slits in their masks, each understanding the other perfectly.

‘You-’ he breathed, ‘you-I’ve a good mind to-’

‘To do what?’ she asked with interest.

‘To do this!’

Swiftly he removed his mask, then hers, and pulled her into his arms for a long, breathless kiss, while the crowd cheered and applauded.

‘It was you all the time,’ he said when he could speak.

‘I fooled you for a while, didn’t I?’ Dulcie teased.

‘Only a very short while,’ he growled, interrupting himself with another kiss. ‘How did you get here?’ he asked breathlessly after a while. ‘You were leaving.’

‘I left the train at Mestre and caught the next one back. Not just because you came after me. I was going to do it anyway. I stormed off because I was furious, but I wouldn’t really have let Jenny and Fede down.’

‘I see. You only came back for them?’

She chuckled. ‘Of course not. There was another reason.’

He held her tightly. ‘Tell me.’

‘I had to retrieve my mobile phone,’ she teased.

‘Cara, you’ll drive me too far-’ he broke off. She was laughing at him and it was like music.

‘I would always have come back,’ she said, ‘because I wasn’t going to give up on us just like that.’

He kissed her again and again, while the music played and they swayed in its rhythm.

‘So,’ she resumed as he whirled her about the floor, ‘at Mestre I telephoned Jenny, and she told me about your calls, and the very interesting things you’d said.’

‘But why not call me?’ he demanded. ‘You knew I loved you. I should think the whole world knew after I shouted it the length of the platform.’

‘I did call you, but Marco answered. You’d all just got back from chasing me to the station. Leo was there too, and they told me one or two things-’

‘Like that I was going out of my mind. Just tell me how big a fool you’ve all made of me.’

‘I came back, Leo met me at the station and brought me here. Then I just slipped into the role you’d always meant me to play, wearing the costume you supplied. Roscoe complicated things by giving Jenny that necklace, but in a way it actually made things easier. Jenny gave it to me just before she left, and while I wore it nobody doubted that I was her.’

‘And you made the switch-when? When Jenny saw Roscoe waving to her. She left me-’

‘Slipped into a side room, where Leo and Marco were waiting, gave me the necklace, and told me you wanted to speak to her about me. They left. I went out to speak to Roscoe-’

‘And he didn’t know his own daughter?’

‘He knew his diamonds, which were all he was looking at. I came back to you and took up the cue she’d given me, about you wanting to talk about Dulcie.’

‘But why couldn’t you simply have told me?’

She chuckled, and the sound went through him pleasurably. ‘I wouldn’t have missed the last hour for anything. I’ve discovered things I couldn’t have learned any other way.’

‘And of course you’ve enjoyed setting me up.’

She tilted her head. ‘That’s Columbine’s nature, I’m afraid. Harlequin will just have to learn to cope with her.’

‘Will she always be with him?’

‘Always in his hair,’ she assured him.

‘Always in his life, in his heart?’

‘Wherever he wants me.’

He kissed her again. When she opened her eyes they were dancing past Roscoe, whose eyes were popping at the sight of her. It would soon be time for explanations, but just now she wanted to talk to nobody but Guido.

‘When did you know?’ she asked.

‘It was your green eyes. Jenny’s are blue. And then Marco and Leo told me Jenny had left, so I couldn’t have been dancing with her.’

‘Did the plan work?’

‘Like a dream apparently. They took her to a little church where a priest was waiting. By the time Roscoe sees them again they’ll be married. And talking of marriage, I have a confession. I can’t make you a countess. Uncle Francesco is going to get married and have a son, to cut me out. He’s promised.’

‘Don’t be silly! As though I cared about being a countess.’

‘Then there’s nothing standing in the way of our marriage.’

‘I didn’t say-’

‘You have to marry me, after all those things you said to Marco.’

‘I haven’t spoken to Marco since the ball started.’

‘You started this dance with him.’

‘Yes, but that was you.’ She eyed him with suspicion. ‘And what am I supposed to have said?’

‘You said you couldn’t live without me, and you’d die if I didn’t propose.’

‘In your dreams!’ she said wrathfully.

‘But you already fill my dreams, carissima, and you always will. What’s a poor fool to do?’

She couldn’t help laughing at his serpentine way with the facts. She was dealing with a master of deception. But not all deceptions were bad.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m quite prepared to marry you to save you from going into a decline. Don’t do that! I’m ticklish!’

‘That’ll teach you to get funny with me,’ she murmured into his ear, so that the soft whisper of her breath sent him into a whirl.

‘Darling,’ he said ecstatically, ‘am I going to be a hen-pecked husband?’

‘Definitely.’

‘You’ll teach me how to say, “Yes, dear”, “No, dear”?’

‘Can’t start too soon. And if you’re out late I’ll be waiting for you with a rolling pin.’

‘I adore you!’

‘I hate to break up the happy dream,’ Marco said, appearing beside them, ‘but Signor Harrison is getting agitated.’

He and Leo stationed themselves protectively as Roscoe approached. Dulcie removed the diamond necklace and handed it to him.

‘I promised Jenny I’d see this safely returned,’ she said. ‘She didn’t feel she could accept it since she was doing something that you wouldn’t like.’

‘And just what does that mean? Where the devil is she?’

‘Signora Lucci is just leaving for her honeymoon with Fede,’ Guido announced. ‘The bride and groom are very happy.’

Roscoe’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you talking about? Where’s my Jenny? If she thinks she can defy me-’

‘She’s already done it,’ Dulcie said. ‘She’s married the man she loves. Please Roscoe, try to be happy for her.’

‘Happy? You did this. I trusted you, and I ran up bills to keep you here. Well, you can pay for all those posh clothes Lady Dulcie, and see how you like that!’

Guido stepped forward. ‘As Dulcie’s future husband let me say that I’ll be glad to refund you every penny you spent on her clothes-and then dump the lot in the lagoon. And if you dare speak to her like that again, you’ll follow them. Do I make myself plain?’

Roscoe squared up to him, but there was something about Guido at the moment that made his courage fail. He took a step back, covering his retreat with sharp fire.

‘I’m done with the lot of you. And you can tell that precious pair that they’ll never get a penny of my money. Not a penny.’

‘Good,’ Guido said. ‘Stick to that. They’ll be a lot happier.’

Roscoe gaped. He just didn’t understand.

‘He won’t stick to it,’ Dulcie said when Roscoe had stormed off. ‘Like she said, he doesn’t have anyone else.’

‘My boy!’

Francesco bore down on them in grandeur. He kissed Dulcie, wrung Guido’s hand and flung his arms out as if to say that he’d brought the whole thing about.

After that there were toasts and then more toasts, and the ball went on into the early hours. A light was already appearing on the water as the gondola procession wended its way back, and the family was left alone. Francesco embraced Dulcie again.

‘I knew as soon as I met you that you were the only woman who could keep him in order,’ he declared.

‘And what about you, Uncle?’ Leo demanded with a grin. ‘Guido says you’re making plans too. One wedding begets another.’

The count raised his hand for silence.

‘This is true. I have finally managed to persuade the only woman I have ever truly loved to become my wife.’

While his nephews looked at each other in bafflement he went to the door, opened it, and reached out to somebody outside. In a gentler voice than they had ever heard him use, he said, ‘Come, my darling.’

There was a tension-filled pause, then Count Calvani’s future bride appeared, and everybody stared with astonishment.

‘Liza!’ Guido gasped.

‘I have loved her for years,’ Francesco said simply. ‘Many times I’ve begged her to marry me, but she always refused. She said I would be marrying beneath me, which is nonsense, for she is the greatest lady in the world.’

Liza smiled at him, and for a moment they could all see her as Francesco did, as the sweet-faced girl who’d come to work there nearly fifty years ago, and won the young count’s heart on the first day. She was arthritic, elderly, and she was the greatest lady in the world. For a moment Dulcie’s eyes misted over.

Guido was the first to embrace Liza and call her ‘Aunt’. Marco and Leo followed.

‘There’s no escape for you after all,’ Marco told Guido with a touch of malicious relish. ‘You’ll have to put up with being the count.’

‘Get lost,’ Guido growled.

‘Do you mind very much?’ Dulcie asked gently.

‘Are you still going to marry me?’

‘Of course I am.’

‘Then I don’t mind anything else.’ He took her hand possessively, drawing her away from the others and leading her out to the peace of the garden.

There they faced each other with truth between them at last.

‘No masks now,’ she whispered.

‘No, masks, carissima. Never again. Not between us.’

He took her face between his hands, searching it, as if for the first time; seeing there everything he wanted in life, wondering how he could ever have been so blind.

‘Say my name,’ he begged. ‘Mine, not Fede’s.’

‘Guido,’ she said softly.

In response he spoke her own name, over and over, making it music.

‘How could I have misunderstood you?’ he asked. ‘I knew from the start that there was only truth and honour in you. The rest was an illusion.’

‘Darling, it wasn’t,’ she began to protest.

‘Yes it was,’ he said quickly. ‘I saw it clearly today. You were so unhappy that you weren’t yourself. It coloured everything you did, as though someone else was doing it. Now the real you has come back, the woman I couldn’t help loving.’

‘You’re saying dangerous things,’ she said, swiftly laying her fingertips across his mouth. ‘I can’t live on a pedestal. I’m human. I’ll disappoint you and fall off.’

‘Ah, but you can’t,’ he said eagerly. ‘Because I’m going to make sure you’re never, ever unhappy again. So that solves the problem, don’t you see? It’s easy.’

She made one last effort. ‘Don’t think me better than I am.’

‘I shall think of you what I please,’ he said, smiling and stubborn.

He was incorrigible, she thought. And he always would be.

She had told him that she was as she was, but the same was true of him. It was buried deep in his nature, this need, not merely to love but to idolise. He’d tried being angry with her, and hated the feeling so much that in future, if disillusion threatened, he would tap-dance his way around awkward facts, so that his precious image of her would remain undisturbed. And so, throughout all their years together, she would be incapable of doing wrong in his eyes.

It was wonderful, but it was an awesome responsibility. For a moment she almost quailed under it, but his eyes were upon her, full of warmth and passionate adoration. He’d laid a heavy burden of trust on her, but his love would always be there to bear her up.

He drew her close and kissed her. It was nothing like the tormenting kisses they’d given each other last night, after the dinner with the Luccis: nor the exuberant embrace of the ballroom. This one was quiet and full of many promises. One journey had brought them safely home into each other’s arms. Another journey was about to begin.

‘Now you’re mine,’ he said quietly. ‘And I shall never, never let you go.’

Three months later there were two weddings at St Mark’s Basilica. It wasn’t a double wedding because Liza dreaded being the centre of a large crowd and Francesco, after loving her so long, would do anything she wanted.

So they married quietly in a small chapel, with only the Calvani family present, and as soon as the wedding was over the new countess insisted on busying herself with the final preparations for the second wedding next day, to which most of Italian and English society had been invited.

At the reception and dance afterwards the two bridal couples took the floor, amid applause. And there was another couple, drawing curious eyes as they danced in each other’s arms.

‘Marco and his fiancée seem very happy,’ Guido observed as they paused for champagne.

‘You sound surprised,’ Dulcie said. ‘I thought you liked Harriet when we went to their party in Rome a few weeks ago.’

‘I did. I do. It’s just that there’s something about that engagement that I don’t understand.’

‘Well, it certainly came about very suddenly,’ Dulcie agreed. ‘Harriet just appeared out of nowhere, and suddenly they were engaged.’

‘Are they in love, do you think?’

Dulcie regarded Marco and his fiancée, Harriet d’Estino, gliding gracefully by. ‘I don’t know,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘But you’ve got to admit that what happened at that engagement party was very strange.’

‘Strangest thing I ever saw,’ Leo observed over her shoulder. ‘Marco was a lot more upset than he allowed to appear. You know how he keeps his feelings to himself. And he wouldn’t tell the world he was in love, either.’

‘More fool Marco,’ Guido said, his loving eyes on his bride.

The wedding was a lavish extravaganza, which neither of them had wanted, but also which neither of them noticed. Today they were the centre of a performance, wearing the glamorous masks that the world expected, playing their parts to perfection. Tonight all masks would fall away, and so now they could be patient, waiting for their moment.

Nobody knew the honeymoon destination. Several were mentioned-New York, the Bahamas, the south of France-but never confirmed. Only Liza knew that when, late in the evening, they slipped away from the reception, they headed, not to the airport, but to the landing stage where a gondola awaited, with a familiar gondolier keeping it safe.

‘Fede!’ Guido shook his friend’s hand warmly, and Dulcie kissed him.

‘Here it is,’ Fede said, indicating his gondola. ‘Jenny asked me to say sorry she left the reception early. She was feeling a bit queasy, and Roscoe got rather over-protective.’

‘How is the future grandfather?’ Dulcie asked.

‘Trying to take over, but we’re resisting. He’s almost as hard-going now as when he was hostile, but Jenny’s happy, and that’s all that matters.’

He helped to settle Dulcie in the boat, handed the oar to Guido, and retreated, waving.

Dulcie sat facing Guido, her bridal veil billowing around her. ‘Let’s go home,’ she said. ‘Our real home.’

He began to ply the oar. ‘You’re sure you want to have our honeymoon there? We could still fly away if you like. Anywhere in the world.’

‘But we have the world waiting for us,’ she said softly.

He headed out into the Grand Canal, then turned the gondola into the small canals for the short journey home.

The palace and its turmoil slid away from them. The glitter faded into the distance. Music floated faintly across the water. Under the stars Harlequin and Columbine drifted in an endless dream.