The Venetian Playboy’s Bride

by Lucy Gordon

  ‘You know the Empress Suite?’

  ‘I’ve seen the inside,’ Guido said vaguely. It was true. His friends from America regularly stayed there, and he’d downed many a convivial glass in those luxurious surroundings.

  I’ll bet you’ve seen the inside, Dulcie thought, getting her cynicism back safely into place.

  ‘When your friends arrive you’ll feel better,’ he said.

  ‘There are no friends. I’m spending this vacation on my own.’ They were pulling in to the Vittorio’s landing stage, and he reached out to help her onto land. ‘How much do I owe you?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘But of course I must pay you. I’ve had an hour of your time.’

  ‘Nothing,’ he repeated, and she felt his hand tighten on her wrist. ‘Please don’t insult me with money.’ His eyes were very blue, holding hers, commanding her to do what he wished.

  ‘I didn’t mean to insult you,’ she said slowly. ‘It’s just that-’

  ‘It’s just that money pays for everything,’ he finished. ‘But only if it is for sale.’ He spoke with sudden intensity. ‘Don’t be alone in Venice. That’s bad.’

  ‘I don’t have a choice.’

  ‘But you do. Let me show you my city.’

  ‘Your city?’

  ‘Mine because I love it and know its ways as no stranger can. I would like you to love it too.’

  It was on the tip of her tongue to make one of the flirtatious replies she’d been practising for just this moment, but the words wouldn’t come. She had a sense of being at the point of no return. To go on was risky and there would be no way back. But to withdraw was to spend a lifetime wondering ‘what if?’

  ‘I don’t think-’ she said slowly. ‘I don’t think I should.’

  ‘I think you should,’ he said urgently.

  ‘But-’

  His hand tightened on hers. ‘You must. Don’t you know that you must?’

  The glow of his eyes was almost fierce in its intensity. She drew a sharp breath. She didn’t come from a long line of gamblers for nothing.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I must.’

  ‘I’ll meet you at seven o’clock at Antonio’s. It’s just around the corner. And wear walking shoes.’

  She watched as he glided away, then hurried up to her suite, glad of the time alone to gather her thoughts.

  It wasn’t easy. In a few blazing moments he’d taken her ideas and tossed them into the air, so that they’d fallen about her in disorder. It took some stern concentration to reclaim her mind from his influence, but at last she felt she’d managed it.

  Stage one completed successfully. Quarry identified, contact made. Ground laid for stage two. Professional detachment. Never forget that.

  Guido got away from the hotel as fast as he could before he was spotted by someone who knew his true identity. In a few minutes he’d left the city centre behind and was heading for the little back ‘streets’ in the northern part of town, where the gondolier families lived, and their boatyards flourished.

  At the Lucci house he found Federico at home watching a football match on television. Without a word he took a beer from the fridge and joined him, neither speaking until half time. Then, as he always did, Guido put the money he’d earned on the table, nearly doubling it with extra from his own pocket.

  ‘I had a good day, didn’t I?’ Fede said appreciatively, pocketing the money with a yawn.

  ‘Excellent. You’re an example to us all.’

  ‘At this rate I think I’ve earned a holiday.’

  ‘I know I have.’ Guido rubbed his arms, which were aching.

  ‘Perhaps it’s time you got back to the souvenir trade.’

  Guido had established his independence of the Calvani family by setting up his own business, catering to tourists. He owned two factories on the outlying island of Murano, one of which made glass, and the other trinkets and souvenirs.

  ‘I suppose it is,’ he said now, unenthusiastically. ‘It’s just that-Fede, have you ever found yourself doing something you never meant to do-just a word, a choice to be made in a split second? And suddenly your whole life has changed?’

  ‘Sure. When I met my Jenny.’

  ‘And you don’t know how it’s all going to end, but you do know that you have to go on and find out?’

  Fede nodded. ‘That’s just how it is.’

  ‘So what do I do?’

  ‘My friend, you’ve already supplied the answer. I don’t know what’s happened, but I do know it’s too late for you to turn back.’

  An important decision demanded long, serious deliberation, so when Dulcie opened the palatial wardrobe to select something suitable for the coming evening she went through the multitude of dresses with great care.

  ‘How did I ever buy all this?’ she murmured.

  She’d gone to Feltham’s, as instructed, and found the staff already primed with Roscoe’s demands. As these would have resulted in her looking like a Christmas tree Dulcie had waved them aside and insisted on her own kind of discreet elegance. After four outfits she tried to call a halt, but the superior person assigned to assist her was horrified.

  ‘Mr Harrison said the bill must be at least twenty thousand,’ she’d murmured.

  ‘Twenty thou-? He can wear them then.’

  ‘He’ll be most displeased if we don’t live up to his expectations. It could cost me my job.’

  Put like that, it became a duty to spend money, and by the time she’d left the luxury store she was the owner of five cocktail dresses, two glamorous evening gowns, three pairs of designer jeans, any number of designer sweaters, a mountain of silk and satin underwear, and a collection of summer dresses. Some expensive makeup and perfume, plus several items of luggage completed the list.

  She surveyed her booty now, hanging in the hotel’s luxurious, air-conditioned closets, in a mood of ironic depression. This ought to have been a fun job, the chance to be Cinderella at the ball. If only it hadn’t been Venice, and if only the high life she was to lead hadn’t been so much like the life her Prince Charmless had expected of her.

  Why had she accepted this assignment, in a place where every sight and sound would hurt her. Was she mad?

  Then she set her chin. This was a chance to make a man pay for his crimes against women. She must never forget that.

  She took so long making her choice that she was late when she finally hurried downstairs wearing a cocktail dress of pale-blue silk organza with silver filigree accessories. Her silver shoes had heels of only one inch, which was the nearest she could get to ‘sensible’.

  Antonio’s was a tiny place with tables outside, sheltered by a leaf-hung trellis. It looked charming, but there was something missing. Him!

  No matter, he’d be inside. She sauntered in, looking casual, but her air of indifference fell away as she saw no sign of him here either.

  He’d stood her up!

  It was the one thing she hadn’t thought of.

  Be reasonable, she thought. He’s just a few minutes late-like you.

  That’s different, replied her awkward self. He’s supposed to be trying to seduce me, and he can’t even be bothered to do it properly.

  Setting her jaw she marched out and collided with a man hurtling himself through the door in the other direction.

  ‘Mio dio!’ Guido exploded in passionate relief. ‘I thought you’d stood me up.’

  ‘I-?’

  ‘When you didn’t come I thought you’d changed your mind. I’ve been looking for you.’

  ‘I was only ten minutes late,’ she protested.

  ‘Ten minutes, ten hours? It felt like forever. I suddenly realised that I don’t know your name. You might have vanished and how could I have found you again? But I’ve found you now.’ He took her hand. ‘Come with me.’

  He was walking away, drawing her behind him, before she could stop and think that once more he’d reversed their roles, so that he was now giving orders. But she followed him, eager to
see where he would lead her, and curiously content in his company.

  He’d changed out of his working clothes into jeans and a shirt of such snowy whiteness that it gave him an air of elegance, and made a contrast with his lightly tanned skin.

  ‘You could have found me quite easily,’ she pointed out as they strolled hand in hand. ‘You know my hotel.’

  ‘To be sure, I could go into the Vittorio and say the lady in their best suite has given me the elbow and would they please tell me her name? Then I think I should start running before they throw me out. They’re used to dealing with dodgy characters.’

  ‘Are you a dodgy character?’ she asked with interest.

  ‘They’d certainly think so if I told them that tale. Now where shall we go?’

  ‘You’re the one who knows Venice.’

  ‘And from the depths of my expert knowledge I say that we should start with an ice cream.’

  ‘Yes please,’ she said at once. There was something about ice cream that made a child of her again. He picked up the echo and grinned boyishly.

  ‘Come on.’

  He led her into a maze, where streets and canals soon blurred into one. Flagstones underfoot, alleys so narrow that the old buildings almost seemed to touch each other overhead, tiny bridges where they lingered to watch the boats drift underneath.

  ‘It’s all so peaceful,’ she said in wonder.

  ‘That’s because there are no cars.’

  ‘Of course.’ She looked around her. ‘I hadn’t even realised, but it’s obvious.’ She looked around her again. ‘There’s nowhere for cars to go.’

  ‘Right,’ he said with deep satisfaction. ‘Nowhere at all. They can leave the mainland and come out over the causeway as far as the terminal. But then people have to get out and walk. If they don’t want to walk they go by boat. But they don’t bring their smelly, stinking cars into my city.’

  ‘Your city? You keep saying that.’

  ‘Every true Venetian speaks of Venice as his city. He pretends that he owns it, to hide the fact that it owns him. It’s a possessive mother who won’t release him. Wherever he goes in the world this perfect place goes with him, holding onto him, drawing him back.’ He stopped himself with an awkward laugh. ‘Now Venice thinks we should go and eat ice cream.’

  He took her to a small café by a little canal so quiet that the world might have forgotten it. He summoned a waiter, talking to him in a language Dulcie didn’t recognise, and making expansive gestures, while giving her a look of wicked mischief.

  ‘Were you speaking Italian?’ she asked when they were alone again.

  ‘Venetian dialect.’

  ‘It sounds like a different language to Italian.’

  ‘In effect it is.’

  ‘It’s a bit hard on tourists who learn a bit of Italian for their vacation, and then find you speaking Venetian.’

  ‘We speak Italian and English for the tourists, but amongst ourselves we speak our dialect because we are Venetian.’

  ‘Like a another country,’ she said thoughtfully.

  ‘Of course. Venice was once an independent republic, not just a province of Italy, but a state in its own right. And that’s still how we feel. That is our pride, to be Venetian first, before all other allegiances.’

  As before, there was a glow on his face that told her he felt passionately about this subject. She began to watch him intently, eager to hear more, but suddenly the waiter appeared with their order, and he fell silent. She had a sense of let-down, and promised herself that she would draw him back to this subject later.

  She understood her companion’s mischievous expression when two huge dishes of vanilla and chocolate ice cream were brought to the table, plus two jugs, one containing chocolate sauce and one containing cream.

  ‘I ordered chocolate because it’s my favourite,’ he explained.

  ‘Suppose it isn’t mine?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll finish it for you.’

  She gave an involuntary choke of laughter, and bit it back, remembering the aloof role she was supposed to be playing. But she made the mistake of meeting his eyes, daring her not to laugh, so that she had to give in.

  ‘Now tell me your name,’ he insisted.

  ‘It’s-Dulcie.’ She was mysteriously reluctant to say the rest.

  ‘Only Dulcie?’

  ‘Lady Dulcie Maddox.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘An aristocrat?’

  ‘A very minor one.’

  ‘But you have a title?’

  ‘My father has the title. He’s an earl. In Italy he would be a count.’

  A strange look came over his face. ‘A-count?’ he echoed slowly. ‘You are the daughter of a count?’

  ‘Of an earl. Does it matter?’

  She had the odd impression that he pulled himself together. ‘Of course you didn’t want to tell me that. I understand.’

  ‘What do you understand?’ she demanded, nettled.

  He shrugged. ‘Dulcie can do as she pleases, but Lady Dulcie can’t let a gondolier think he picked her up.’

  ‘You didn’t pick me up,’ she said, feeling uneasy, since she could hardly admit that she’d come here to pick him up. ‘I don’t care how we got to know each other. I’m just glad that we did.’

  ‘So am I because-because I have many things I want to say to you. But I can’t say them now. It’s too soon.’

  ‘It’s too soon for you to know you want to say them.’

  He shook his head. ‘Oh, no,’ he said quietly, ‘It’s not too soon for that.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘Y OU must forgive me if I talk too much about Venice,’ he said. ‘I forget that everyone must feel the same about their own home town.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I can’t imagine feeling like that about London.’

  ‘That’s where you live?’

  ‘It is now, but I was raised on my father’s estate-’

  ‘Ah yes, Poppa the earl. And he has huge ancestral acres, yes?’

  ‘Huge,’ she agreed, mentally editing out the mortgages.

  ‘So you were raised in the country?’ he encouraged her.

  ‘Yes, and I remember how peaceful it was there too. I used to sit by my bedroom window at dawn and watch the trees creeping out of the mist. I’d pretend they were friendly giants who could only visit me in the half-light, and I’d write stories in my head about the things they did-’ she stopped and shrugged, embarrassed to have been lured into self-revelation.

  But he was looking at her with interest. ‘Go on,’ he said.

  She began to talk about her home, the childhood she’d spent there, and the imaginary friends she’d created, for her only sibling was a brother too much older than herself to be any fun. Soon she forgot all else except the pleasure of talking to someone who appeared absorbed in what she had to say. None of her family had the remotest sympathy with her ‘dreaming’, and at last she’d given it up in favour of good sense. Or so she’d told herself. Now she began to wonder if this side of herself had merely gone underground, to be brought back to life with the perfect listener on the perfect evening.

  At some point he paid for the ice cream and took her arm to lead her out, murmuring about eating the next part of the meal elsewhere. But he did it without taking his attention from her, or interrupting the flow, and when she found herself crossing a bridge a few minutes later she wasn’t quite sure how she’d arrived there.

  He found another restaurant and ordered without asking her. That was how she discovered ‘Venetian oysters’, the shells stuffed with caviar with pepper and lemon juice, served on ice with brown bread and butter. It was ten times as good as the splendid meal served in Roscoe’s house, prepared by his expensive chef. Her companion read her face, and grinned.

  ‘We do the best cooking in the world,’ he asserted without a trace of modesty.

  ‘I believe you, I believe you,’ she said fervently. ‘This is pure heaven.’

  ‘You don�
��t mind my ordering for you?’

  She shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t know what to ask for anyway.’

  ‘Then you place yourself totally in my hands. Bene!’

  ‘I didn’t exactly say that,’ she protested. ‘I said you could choose the food.’

  ‘Since we’re eating, that’s the same thing.’

  ‘Well, I’m on my guard. I’ve heard about gondoliers,’ she teased.

  ‘And what exactly have you heard?’ he was teasing her back.

  ‘That you’re a bunch of Romeos-’

  ‘Not Romeos, Casanovas,’ he corrected her seriously.

  ‘Does it make a difference?’ she asked, wondering if it was ever possible to disconcert this madman.

  ‘Of course. This is Casanova’s city. In the Piazza San Marco you can still see Florian’s, the coffee-house where he used to go. Also he was imprisoned in Venice. So, you were saying-’

  ‘You mean I can finish now?’

  He placed a finger over his mouth. ‘Not another word.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. Where was I?’

  ‘We’re all Casanovas-’

  ‘Who count the girls as they come off the planes.’

  ‘But of course we do,’ he agreed shamelessly. ‘Because we’re always looking for the one perfect one.’

  ‘Phooey! Who cares about perfection if it’s only for a few days?’

  ‘I always care about perfection. It matters.’

  He wasn’t joking any more and she was impelled to reply seriously. ‘But everything can’t be perfect. The world is full of imperfection.’

  ‘Of course. That’s why perfection matters. But you must know how to seek it in the little things as well as the great. Look out there.’

  He pointed through the window to where the sun was setting exactly between two high buildings, looking like a stream of gold descending into the earth.

  ‘Do you think the architect knew he was achieving exactly that perfect effect when he created those buildings?’ he asked her. ‘It seems fantastic, but I like to believe that he did. Perfection is where you find it.’

  ‘Or where you think you’ve found it. Sometimes you must discover that you’re wrong.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment. ‘And then nothing looks quite the same again.’ Then his laughter broke out again. ‘Why are we being so serious? That comes later.’