'Excellent. Then you won't know which one is me. I think I'll enjoy that.'
'You'll drive me too far.'
'I probably will in the end, but we aren't nearly there yet.' Her eyes dared him. 'It's going to be a fascinating journey.'
'Julia-'
'I think people are arriving. You'd better go and greet them.'
'What about you? This is as much your night as mine.'
'I'll be there.'
From the first moment the evening was a triumph. The knowledge that the Palazzo Montese was to live again had aroused interest all over Venice, throughout the hotel industry, and among those who passed their lives in one hotel after another.
Julia left the spotlight to Vincenzo, while she worked in the corner she had set apart for restoration, answering a stream of fascinated questions. She was dressed quietly and simply in velvet trousers and silk shirt.
Rosa was having the time of her life, but at last she came and fetched Julia determinedly, taking her hand and drawing her upstairs. Gemma was there, and the two of them helped her to dress.
'Time to go,' she said at last. 'This way.'
Brooking no argument, Rosa took her hand and led her down as far as the top of the main staircase.
'Darling, I don't think-'
'Go and stand in front of that picture, the one of Annina.'
Too dazed to do anything but obey, Julia went down to stand before the picture. Something drew her eyes up to the wild face of the woman who had once seemed so like herself in her misfortunes.
Not any more. It was time to do what Annina had never been able to do, to seize her fate and wrest it to her own will. An excitement was growing in her. She knew now why Rosa had done this.
Behind her she could hear the buzz of the crowd fall silent. Slowly she turned.
Vincenzo was standing at the foot of the steps, looking up at her. As she had always known he would be. As Rosa had always known he would be.
Slowly Julia began to descend, a vision in shimmering white, her face covered by a white lace mask. After a few steps she removed it, looking down on the man who never took his eyes from her.
His hand moved up to his own mask, seized it, tossed it away. Now she had a clear view of his face, and it was brilliant with love and happiness. It was the look she had longed to see.
He didn't take his eyes from her as she approached closer and closer. The masks were gone. Now there was only truth.
'Who-are you?' he asked uncertainly.
She was standing before him. Slowly she kissed him, then drew back at once.
'That's who I am,' she said. 'The woman who loves you.'
Once more she laid her lips on his, and kept them there while his hands settled on her waist, lifting her into the air, while not letting his mouth part from hers.
The crowd broke into applause, although none of them was really sure why. Somebody must have started it, but it could have been anyone. It might even have been a little girl, watching gleefully from above, determined to make this turn out right. A good organiser. Her mother's daughter.
There were still formalities to be gone through, guests to be greeted, smiles to give. But everything that happened now seemed part of a dream, and the only reality came at the end of the evening when Rosa led them to the side entrance, where a gondolier was waiting.
As they pulled away Vincenzo blew her a grateful kiss, before leaning back against the cushions, drawing Julia into his arms.
'I think it's all been taken out of our hands,' he said.
'Perhaps it's the only way it could happen,' she agreed. 'Why did everything suddenly become so hard?'
'A thousand times I came to the edge of telling you how much I love you, and want to marry you. But I became afraid in case you thought I was seizing you for fear of what I'd lose. I wanted you to trust me and I didn't think you ever would.'
'If you'd told me that you loved me, I'd have trusted and believed you,' she said fervently. 'And I could have said that I love you.'
'I wasn't sure that you did. You tried so often to warn me that you couldn't love me.'
'That was foolish of me. I love you with all my heart.'
'If you say that, I have nothing else to want. I know now that I was wrong. Not everyone leaves. I'm not going to let you leave me.'
He kissed her fiercely, letting his passion make the argument for him, feeling her response give him the answer that said more than speech.
'Are you sure it isn't a risk?' she murmured.
'Maybe. My risk.'
'Our risk.'
He nodded. 'Our risk. But love is always a risk, and I'll take it if you will.'
The gondola was leaving the centre of the city behind, leaving the music, the dancing and the wild figures, drifting into the semi darkness, where the little canals were illuminated only by tiny lamps and silence waited around every corner.
He took her hand in his, holding it tightly.
'If there is any safety in the world,' he said, looking at their clasped hands, 'it's here. But perhaps we shouldn't ask for safety, just a light showing the way to the next canal, and perhaps the one after that.'
She didn't answer in words, but when he released her hand and laid his lips on hers she gave herself up to him completely. All turmoil stilled. All questions answered.
Behind them the gondolier rowed silently, taking them towards the light that showed the way to the next canal, and the one after that, and then onward to wherever the future led.
Lucy Gordon
