The Italian’s Cinderella Bride

in addition to the other fortune that he’s spending on the rest of the party.’

‘Are you going?’

Pietro shuddered.

‘Definitely not. I’ve given him as much advice as I can, which was only fair considering what a profit I’ve made from the tickets. But all that noisy jollity isn’t for me. I guess I’m getting old.’

He looked anything but old. He was dressed as he had been the morning she’d watched him lifting the box from the boat, and seen him simply as a man. And, viewed dispassionately, he was a man to take the shine out of other men, at the height of his strength and masculine beauty, yet seemingly oblivious. Nobody could be more careless where his own attractions were concerned, and that was almost the greatest attraction of all.

Yet it was only half the story, she knew. No woman could live as close to him as she did and not see that inside him everything was different. The ‘other’ Pietro shunned the world, because only in that way could he find peace, albeit a bleak, arid peace. And she thought the contrast between his two selves explained why he sometimes gave the impression of living on the edge of a volcano.

CHAPTER SIX

FOR the next few days Pietro was mostly silent, and then one afternoon he paused in the shop doorway and said, ‘I’ve just got to run an errand across town.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Ruth said. ‘I need a walk.’

‘Not this time,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m leaving right now.’

‘I’m ready now.’

‘I said no. I’ll see you later.’

He left quickly, before she could reply, and it took a moment for her to realise that she had been snubbed.

‘Don’t mind too much,’ Mario said. ‘I think he must be going to San Michele. That’s a little island in the lagoon, and it’s the Venetian cemetery. His wife and child are buried there. He goes over every month. He never says anything but I always know because he’s very quiet on those days.’

‘Oh, goodness!’ Ruth groaned. ‘I’m so clumsy.’

‘No, how could you have known?’

‘You started to tell me about his wife once, but we were interrupted. Did you ever meet her?’

‘Oh, yes, several times. Her name was Lisetta Allucci. She and Pietro had grown up together, She used to come in here a lot, a very nice lady. Everyone was happy for them when they got engaged, and then she became pregnant at once, which was wonderful because he would have an heir.’

‘Do people still think like that nowadays?’

‘They do if they have a title. The count must have an heir. They were married in St Mark’s, and all Venice was there. You never saw such a happy couple, how proudly they walked down the aisle. But they hardly had any time together, just two years. She lost the baby, but soon she was pregnant again. This time the child was born, but she died the same day, and the baby died within a few hours. They were buried together, the child lying in his mother’s arms.’

Horror held Ruth silent. She had known that Pietro was a man haunted by tragedy, but it was a shock to hear the cruel details spelt out. She saw him, living almost alone in that great echoing palazzo, shunning human company to be alone with his memories.

‘And I barged in,’ she murmured. ‘Just like I tried to barge in just now. How does he put up with me?’

Now she remembered how grimly he reacted to any mention of those he’d lost, walking away as though unable to bear the reminder.

She was ready for him to be in a bad mood when he reached home that evening, but the hours passed with no sign of him.

‘I suppose I ought to go to bed,’ she mused to Toni, who eyed her without comment.

‘But I expect you’d like a walk, wouldn’t you?’ she suggested. ‘Come on, we’ll take a little stroll.’

They would just drift quietly around the local calles, she told herself. There was no need to go far, in case she got lost. And if she happened to see Pietro along the way, that would just be a coincidence.

But he was nowhere to be seen, and at last the two of them wandered back to the empty house, and let themselves quietly in. Pietro still wasn’t home, so she put some fresh water down for Toni and went to bed.

Where had he gone when he’d left his wife’s grave? Had he walked around the city, revisiting the places they had been together, just as she did with her memories of Gino? Only in his case the impressions would be more vivid because the reality had been fulfilment, even though it had ended in tragedy.

Lying there, listening to the echoing silence, Ruth knew that Lisetta’s real tomb was this house. Its very emptiness was a shrine to her memory, an outward symbol of the desolation within, his way of telling the world that she had been the love of his life, and there would never be another.

She listened long and hard, but never hearing the sound of his key, until at last she slept, and awoke next morning to find him still missing. Nor did he appear at the shop all day. He was there when she went home, but he only nodded briefly and shut himself into his room, from where she heard the click of his computer.

She thought of knocking on his door later to ask if he wanted some coffee, but backed off, lacking the courage.

The next day he was back to his usual self. He never mentioned his dark mood, and nor did she.

A few afternoons later, when darkness had fallen early, as it did in January, she found Mario gazing up into the sky where the moon glimmered. Interpreting this as romantic yearning, she said kindly, ‘It’s a beautiful moon, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he sighed. ‘And it will be a full moon any day now, unfortunately.’

‘Unfortunately? Isn’t a full moon beautiful?’

‘Not when it brings aqua alta,’ Mario said promptly.

‘That’s high water, isn’t it? Flooding.’

‘That’s right. Venice is flooded about four times a year, and sometimes it happens at full moon, because of the tides. We might be in for it soon.’ He shivered.

‘Not nice?’ she hazarded.

‘Everywhere you go you have to walk on planks over the water, and it’s always crowded, so that you fall off and get your feet wet. Brr!’

So much for romantic yearning, she thought, with wry amusement. That would teach her to jump to conclusions. But then Mario added wistfully, ‘Don’t worry, you won’t get pushed off. Everyone will make way for you.’

Since her transformation he’d made no effort to hide his admiration. Nor did other men. Wherever she went she received the homage of lingering looks, except from Pietro. True, he studied her appearance, but only to tell her gruffly to keep warm.

The incident sharpened her eyes, and as she walked home that night she realised that the city was full of people studying the sky. Pietro too halted as they were crossing a tiny bridge over a narrow ‘backstreet’ canal, and looked up.

‘Do you think we’re going to have aqua alta?’ she asked him.

‘So you’re learning to be a Venetian?’

‘Mario was telling me about how it’s connected to full moon.’

‘Or new moon. It can be either. This one was new about ten days ago. The water didn’t rise then, but there’s been a lot of rain recently. It’ll be a relief when full moon is over.’

‘Does it worry you very much?’ she asked as they walked on. ‘I suppose it damages the buildings?’

‘It can if they’re not properly cared for. I’ve had all the floors at ground level inside the palazzo raised, and we’re well supplied with sandbags, but some people are surprisingly careless.’

‘But do you have time to put in sandbags?’

‘Yes, because sirens start blaring out a few hours before, so we get some warning.’

When they reached home he showed her the raised floors and she realised that she’d always been vaguely