The Venetian Playboy’s Bride

by Lucy Gordon

‘There’s no harm in it,’ he said gently. ‘I just like to row. It keeps me fit after my other “excesses”.’

  ‘If it were just rowing,’ Francesco snorted, recovering lost ground. ‘But I’ve heard you even sing “O sole mio” for tourists.’

  ‘They expect it. Especially the British. It’s something to do with ice cream cornets.’

  ‘And you pose with them for photographs.’ The count took out a snapshot showing Guido in gondoliering costume, serenading a pretty, dark-haired girl, while another gondolier, with curly hair and a baby face, sat just behind them.

  ‘My nephew,’ he growled, ‘the future Count Calvani, poses in a straw hat.’

  ‘It’s disgraceful,’ Guido agreed. ‘I’m a blot on the family name. You’ll just have to marry quickly, have a son, and cut me out. Rumour says you’re still as vigorous as ever, so it shouldn’t be-’

  ‘Get out of here if you know what’s good for you!’

  Guido fled with relief, leaving the building and slipping away down tiny, darkened streets. As he reached the Grand Canal he saw a collection of seven gondolas, moving side by side. It was a ‘serenade’, a show put on to please the tourists. In the central boat the baby-faced young man from the photograph stood singing in a sweet tenor that drifted across the water. As the song came to an end there was applause, and the boats drifted in to their moorings.

  Guido waited until his friend, Federico Lucci, had assisted his last passenger to disembark before hailing him.

  ‘Hey there, Fede! If the English signorina could hear you sing like that she would follow you to the ends of the earth,’ he said. ‘What’s the matter?’ for Fede had groaned. ‘Doesn’t she love you any more?’

  ‘Jenny loves me,’ Fede declared. ‘But her Poppa will kill me before he lets us marry. He thinks I’m only after her money, but it isn’t true. I love her. That time you met, didn’t you think she was wonderful?’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Guido said, diplomatically concealing his opinion that Jenny was a pretty doll who lacked spice in her character. His own taste was for a woman who could offer a challenge, lead him a merry dance and give as good as she got. But he was too kind a friend to say so.

  ‘You know I’ll help in any way I can,’ he said warmly.

  ‘You’ve already helped us so much,’ Fede said, ‘letting us meet in your apartment, covering for me on the gondola-’

  ‘That’s nothing. I enjoy it. Let me know when you want me to do it again.’

  ‘My Jenny has returned to England. She says she will reason with her Poppa, but I’m afraid she may never return.’

  ‘If it’s true love, she’ll come back,’ Guido insisted.

  Fede gave a shout of laughter and thumped him on the shoulder. ‘What do you know about true love? With you it’s here-today-and-gone-tomorrow. If they mention marriage you dive for cover.’

  ‘Sssh!’ Guido looked hunted. ‘My uncle has ears everywhere. Now come on, let’s join Leo and Marco at Luigi’s, and we can all get drunk in peace.’

  Two days later Dulcie flew to Venice, landing at Marco Polo Airport and waiting, with an air of aloof grandeur, while her luggage was loaded onto the Vittorio’s private motor launch.

  It was early June, and as the boatman started the trip across the lagoon the sun was high in the sky and the light glinted on the water. Surrounded by so much bright beauty Dulcie briefly forgot her sadness.

  To her right she could see the causeway linking Venice to the mainland. A train was making its way across. On the other side the lagoon stretched far away to the horizon.

  ‘There, signorina,’ the boatman said, speaking with the pride all Venetians feel in their city.

  What she saw at first were shining orbs, gradually resolving themselves into golden cupolas, gleaming in the sun. The city itself, delicate and perfect, came gradually into view, taking her breath away with its beauty. She stayed motionless, not wanting to miss anything, as the motor boat slowed down.

  ‘We have to enter Venice gently,’ the driver explained, ‘so that we do not cause any large waves. This is the Cannaregio Canal, which will take us to the Grand Canal, and the Vittorio.’

  Suddenly the brightness of the lagoon was blotted out and they were drifting in shadow between high buildings. Dulcie resumed her seat and leaned back, looking up to the narrow strip of sky overhead. After a few minutes they were in sunlight again, heading down the Grand Canal to a magnificent seventeenth-century palace. The Hotel Vittorio.

  At the landing-stage hands reached down to help her up the steps and guide her into the hotel. She made a stately entrance, followed by porters bearing her luggage in procession.

  ‘The Empress Suite,’ declared a lofty individual on the desk.

  ‘The Emp-?’ she echoed, dismayed. ‘Are you sure there hasn’t been a mistake?’

  But she was already being swept away to the third floor where gilded double doors opened before her and she walked into the palatial apartment. Everything about it was designed to look like the abode of an empress, including the eighteenth-century furniture. On one wall hung a portrait of the beautiful, young Empress Elisabeth of Austria, painted in the nineteenth century when Venice had been an Austrian province.

  To one side was another pair of double doors, through which Dulcie found her bedroom, with a bed large enough to sleep four. She gasped, overwhelmed by such opulence. A maid appeared, ready to unpack her luggage. Just in time she remembered Roscoe’s orders to ‘splash it about a bit’ and distributed tips large enough to get herself talked about even in this place.

  When everyone had gone she sat in silence, trying to come to terms with the shock of being here, alone, when she should have been here as a blissful bride.

  She forced herself to confront the memory of Simon, painful though it was. He’d assumed that Lady Dulcie Maddox, daughter of Lord Maddox, must have a potful of family money hidden somewhere. He’d courted her ardently, using practised words to sweep her away in a magic balloon, to a place where everything was love and gratification.

  But the balloon had fallen to earth, with her in it.

  Simon had lived lavishly-all on credit, as she’d later discovered. She hadn’t cared about his money, only about his love. But the one was as illusory as the other.

  He’d shown her the Hotel Vittorio’s brochure one evening when they were dining at the Ritz. ‘I’ve already made our honeymoon booking,’ he’d said, ‘in the Empress Suite.’

  ‘But darling, the cost-’

  ‘So what? Money is for spending.’

  She’d spoken with passionate tenderness. ‘You don’t have to spend a lot on me. Money isn’t what it’s about.’

  His quizzical frown should have warned her. ‘No, sweetie, but it helps.’

  Then she’d said-and the memory tormented her still- ‘You don’t think I’m marrying you for your money do you? I love you, you. I wouldn’t care if you were as poor as I am.’

  She could still see the wary look that came into his eyes, and sense the chill that settled over him. ‘This is a wind up, right? As poor as Lady Dulcie Maddox.’

  ‘You can’t eat a title. I haven’t a penny.’

  ‘I heard your grandfather blew twenty grand at the races in one day.’

  ‘That’s right. And my father was the same. That’s why I haven’t a penny.’

  ‘But you lot have all got trust funds, everyone knows that.’

  The truth had got through to her now, but she fought not to face it. ‘Do I live like someone with a trust fund?’

  ‘Go on, you’re just slumming.’

  She’d finally convinced him that she wasn’t, and that was the last time she saw him. Her final memory was of him snatching a credit card statement from his pocket and tossing it at her with the bitter words, ‘Do you know how much money I’ve spent on you? And for what? Well, no more.’

  Then he stormed out of the Ritz, leaving her to pay for the meal.

  And that had been that.

  Sitting in the quiet of the
Empress Suite Dulcie knew that it was time to pull herself together. Now there was another fortune hunter, but this time he was the prey and she the pursuer, seeking him out for retribution, the avenger of all women.

  She showered in a gold and marble bathroom and chose something to wear for her first outing ‘on duty’. She finally left the hotel arrayed in an orange silk dress, with a delicate pendant of pure gold. Gold earrings and dainty gilt sandals completed the ensemble. So much gold might be overdoing it, but she needed to make an impression, fast.

  When she’d finished she took a final look at the picture, to make sure his face was imprinted on her mind. She dismissed the baby-faced boy at the back. There was the one she wanted, playing the mandolin, over-flowing with confidence, smiling at Jenny, no doubt serenading her with honeyed words. The rat!

  Finding one gondolier among so many was a problem, but she’d come prepared. Guidebooks had told her about the vaporetto, the great water buses that transported passengers along the Grand Canal, so she headed for one of the landing stages, boarded the next boat, and took up a position in the front, armed with powerful binoculars.

  For an hour the vaporetto moved along the canal, criss-crossing to landing stages on each side, while Dulcie searched for her quarry, without success. At the end of the line she turned back and started again. No luck this time either, and she was almost about to give up when suddenly she saw him.

  It was only a glimpse, too brief to be sure, but there was the gondola gliding between two buildings while she frantically focused the binoculars, catching him clearly only at the last moment.

  The vaporetto was about to cast off from a landing stage. Dulcie moved fast, jumping ashore just in time and looking desperately about her. The gondola had vanished. She plunged down an alley between tall buildings to a small canal at the far end. No sign of him there, but he must be somewhere to her left. She made for a tiny bridge, tore over it and into another dark alley.

  At the far end was another small canal, another bridge. A gondola was heading towards her. But was it the same one? The gondolier’s face was hidden by a straw hat. She placed herself on the bridge, watching intently as the long boat neared, the oarsman standing at the far end.

  ‘Lift your head,’ she agonised. ‘Look up!’

  He had almost reached the bridge. In a moment it would be too late. Driven by desperation she wrenched off one of her shoes and tossed it over the side. It struck his hat, knocking it off, before landing exactly at his feet.

  Then he looked up, and there was the face she’d come to Venice seeking, the face of the mandolin player. Eyes of fierce, startling blue, set in a laughing face, seemed to seize her, hold her, almost hypnotise her, so that she found herself smiling back.

  ‘Buon giorno, bella signorina,’ said Guido Calvani.

  CHAPTER TWO

  N O SOONER were the words out of his mouth than he’d vanished under the bridge. Dulcie dashed to the other side as he emerged and began to negotiate his way to the shore. She took a quick look at the picture to make sure she had the right man. Yes, there he was, smiling at Jenny, playing the mandolin.

  Thank goodness he didn’t have a passenger, she thought as she hobbled off the bridge and along to where he’d pulled in.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she called. ‘I just turned my foot and the shoe slid off and went right over the side of the bridge before I could grab it. And then it hit you on the head. I’ll never forgive myself if you’re hurt.’

  He grinned, holding up the dainty gilt sandal with its absurdly high heel.

  ‘But I am hurt, very badly. Not in my head but-’ he bowed gallantly with his hand over his heart.

  This was what she’d expected. Practised charm. Right! She was ready for him.

  He’d pulled in by a short flight of steps that ran down into the water.

  ‘If you will sit down, I’ll return this to you in the proper fashion,’ he said.

  She sat on the top step and felt her ankle grasped in strong, warm fingers as he slid the shoe back onto her foot, adjusting it precisely.

  ‘Thank you-Federico.’

  He gave a little start. ‘Fed-?’

  ‘It’s written there.’ Dulcie pointed to a label stitched near his collar, bearing the name Federico.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ Guido said hurriedly. He’d forgotten Fede’s mother’s habit of sewing nametapes on the gondolier shirts of her husband, two brothers and three sons. No matter. He would simply tell her his real name. But he became distracted by the feel of her dainty ankle in his palm, and when he looked up he found her watching him with a quizzical look that drove everything else out of his mind. What did names matter?

  ‘And you are new to Venice?’ he asked.

  ‘I arrived only today.’

  ‘Then you must accept my apologies for your rough introduction to my city. But let me say also that the stones of Venice will not be kind to those shoes.’

  ‘It wasn’t very bright of me to wear such high heels, was it?’ she asked, looking shamefaced. ‘But I didn’t know, you see. Venice is so different to anywhere else in the world, and there’s nobody to tell me anything.’ She managed to sound a little forlorn.

  ‘That’s terrible,’ he said sympathetically. ‘For a beautiful young lady to be alone is always a shame, but to be alone in Venice is a crime against nature.’

  He said it so delightfully, she thought. Lucky for her she was armed in advance.

  ‘I’d better go back to my hotel and change into sensible shoes before I have another accident.’ She became aware that his fingers were still clasped about her ankle. ‘Would you mind?’

  ‘Forgive me.’ He snatched back his hand. ‘May I take you to your hotel?’

  ‘But I thought gondoliers didn’t do that. Surely you only do round trips?’

  ‘It’s true that we don’t act like taxis. But in your case I would like to make an exception. Please-’ He was holding out his hand. She placed her own hand in it and rose to her feet, then let him help her down the steps to the water.

  ‘Steady,’ he said, helping her into the well of the gondola, which rocked, forcing her to clutch him for safety.

  ‘You sit here,’ he said, settling into the rear-facing seats, an arrangement that would enable him to see her face. ‘It’s better if you don’t face the front,’ he hurriedly improvised. ‘At this hour people get the setting sun in their eyes. And you might get seasick,’ he added for good measure.

  ‘I’ll do just as you say,’ she agreed demurely. She supposed she could be blinded by the setting sun from either direction, depending on which route he took, but she appreciated his strategy.

  It suited her, too, to be able to lean back and stretch out her long, silk-clad legs before his gaze. True, she was supposed to be tempting him with the prospect of money, but there was no harm in using the weapons nature had bestowed.

  He cast off, and for a while they went gently through narrow canals, where buildings rose sheer out of the water. They glided under a bridge and as it slid away she saw that it seemed to emerge direct from one building, over the water and straight into another. Dulcie watched in wonder, beginning to understand how this city was truly different from all others.

  He was a clever man, she thought. He knew better than to spoil it by talking. Only the soft splash of his oar broke the silence, and gradually a languor came over her. Already Venice was casting its spell, bidding her forget everything but itself, and give herself up to floating through beauty.

  ‘It’s another world,’ she murmured. ‘Like something that fell to earth from a different planet.’

  An arrested look came into his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly it.’

  They seemed to drift for ages, one beauty crowding on the last, too many impressions for her to sort them out. Vaguely she remembered that this wasn’t why she was here. Her job was to work on the man standing there, guiding twenty-two feet of heavy, curved wood as though it was the easiest thing in the world.

 
; She considered him, and found that she understood why a naïve, sheltered girl like Jenny found him irresistible. He was tall, not heavily built but with a wiry strength that she’d already felt when he’d helped her into the boat. Just a light gesture, but the steel had been there, unmistakable, exciting. He handled the heavy oar as though it weighed nothing, moving with it, lithe and graceful, as though they were dancing partners.

  They passed into a wider canal, and suddenly the sun was on him. Dulcie looked up, shading her eyes against the glare, and at once he removed his straw boater and tossed it to her.

  ‘You wear it,’ he called. ‘The sun is hot.’

  She rammed it onto her head and leaned back, taking pleasure in the way the light illuminated his throat and the strong column of his neck, and touched off a hint of red in his hair. How intensely blue his eyes were, she thought, and how naturally they crinkled at the corners when he smiled. And he smiled easily. He was doing so now, his head on one side as though inviting her to share a joke, so that she couldn’t help joining in with his laughter.

  ‘Are we nearly there?’ she asked.

  ‘There?’ he asked with beguiling innocence. ‘Where?’

  ‘At my hotel.’

  ‘But you didn’t tell me which hotel.’

  ‘And you didn’t ask me. So how do we know we’re going in the right direction?’

  His shrug was a masterpiece, asking if it really mattered. And it didn’t.

  Dulcie pulled herself together. She was supposed to toss the hotel name at him, advertising her ‘wealth’. Instead she’d revelled in the magic of his company for-good heavens, an hour?

  ‘The Hotel Vittorio,’ she said firmly.

  He didn’t react, but of course, he wouldn’t, she reasoned. A practised seducer would know better than to seem impressed.

  ‘It’s an excellent hotel, signorina,’ he said. ‘I hope you are enjoying it.’

  ‘Well, the Empress Suite is a little overwhelming,’ she said casually, just to drive the point home.

  ‘And very sad, for a lady alone,’ he pointed out. ‘But perhaps you have friends who’ll soon move into the second bedroom.’