The Italian’s Cinderella Bride

the windows of Pietro’s room where they jutted out slightly from the rest of the building. It was only a moment, but it was enough for Ruth to see the man standing there, his face a frozen mask of misery that mirrored her own.

She stepped back at once, but she knew he hadn’t seen her. He had no eyes for the outside world, only for some earthquake that was taking place inside him.

Ruth groaned as she realised her blunder. Wrapped in her own feelings, she had been blind to the effect on him. In her relief at breaking free of Gino she’d forgotten that Pietro was far from free of Lisetta.

Now she saw the whole conversation differently. Pietro had tried to be kind, speaking of his duty to care for her, but the truth was that he didn’t want her. Not really. Not beyond one night’s basic pleasure. He still yearned for his dead wife, and no other woman would be allowed to come between them. So he’d crushed his desire, treating it as something unworthy of notice, until tonight, when she’d forced everything out into the open.

Not forced it out, she thought, cringing at her own stupidity. More like kicked it out with hobnailed boots.

Tonight he’d had to abandon kindness and turn on her to make her get the point. And she had only herself to blame.

I’ve got to get out, she thought frantically. I mustn’t be here tomorrow. I can’t look him in the eye.

Packing was a problem. The small suitcase she’d had when she arrived was useless for all her new clothes.

‘Plastic bags,’ she muttered. ‘In the kitchen.’

She was out there in a moment scrabbling around in the drawers.

‘What are you doing?’

Pietro was standing in the doorway, frowning.

‘I’m leaving,’ she said. ‘I just need to finish packing, and I’ll be gone. You don’t have to see me again. Now if you’ll just stand aside-’

He didn’t move.

‘Put them back and go to bed,’ he said firmly. ‘You’re not leaving this house.’

‘Hey, who are you giving orders?’

His mouth quirked slightly at the corner.

‘It comes from being a count, from the oldest family in Venice,’ he said lightly, ‘surrounded by wealth and privilege. You tend to get used to people doing as they’re told. Reprehensible, but there it is.’

‘And if don’t do as I’m told?’ she challenged.

‘Well, I did tell you once I had this fantasy about tossing you into the Grand Canal.’

He was a semblance of his old self again, armoured in ironic defensiveness, even smiling. It was a relief, and yet she knew a strange sense of loss. Once more she was shut out.

‘I can’t stay,’ she repeated.

‘Why? Because I behaved badly? I give you my word it’ll never happen again.’

He was so clever, she thought bitterly, taking it all on himself, while they both knew the truth: that she had fallen in love with him, a man who could never love her.

‘You once accused me of being too ready to protect everyone,’ he said.

‘I didn’t exactly-’

‘Well, you’re right. That’s how I am, and sometimes I get a bit carried away. I convince myself that nothing can be done right unless it’s done my way, not an amiable characteristic. In fact it can verge on bullying if it’s not controlled, but it’s how I’m made. And when I’ve taken a job on I see it through to the end. Tonight-’

He stopped and she held her breath.

‘I decided to care for you until you were well, but tonight I nearly forgot that promise and drove you away by my clumsiness. Blame Venice. It has that effect on people. Even me. It’s like setting out in a gondola and finding yourself in another universe.’

‘Yes,’ she said, for that was how it had been.

They had been carried to an alternative existence where they laughed with each other, opened their hearts, rejoiced together. And she should have seen that, in the end, the gondola would reach the unfriendly shore.

‘You won’t be ready to go until you’ve seen Gino,’ Pietro was saying. ‘And I’d commit a crime if I let you go out into a hostile world before you’re ready to cope. Don’t do that to me, Ruth. I have quite enough on my conscience as it is. If you stay, I promise not to embarrass you again. You’ll be quite safe.’

And there it was, the whole disaster neatly repackaged into a shape they could live with, life and emotion stripped from it. All love quenched. Polite. Dead.

‘Come,’ he said, taking the plastic bags from her and putting them back in the drawer. ‘Let’s say it didn’t happen.’

‘It didn’t happen,’ she echoed in a voice as empty as his own.

‘Good. Now, we’ve got a busy few days in front of us, so get some sleep.’

That would be impossible, she thought. But she did manage to drop off eventually and awoke late. Pietro had already left when she went out, and Minna told her that he’d called home to ask her to take some papers to the shop.

She took the papers but found that he wasn’t at work either, although he’d left a pile of messages with Mario about things he wanted her to do. She appreciated the subtlety with which he left her alone while keeping her busy.

Halfway through the morning the boatmen came in for the money Pietro had promised them the night before. Mario was ready with the full envelopes Pietro had left in his care, and the young men opened them with whistles of appreciation that changed to significant looks as they recognised Ruth. Now she was glad Pietro wasn’t there.

She went home alone and ate supper without expecting him.

‘He’s always so busy at this time of the year,’ Minna observed. ‘He says Carnival is big business, except, of course, last year when he got out of the city for the sake of his wife.’

‘Didn’t she like Carnival?’ Ruth asked.

‘Oh, yes, but she was coming close to her time and he wanted her to be away from all the noise and bustle. They went out to the estate to let her rest, and this place was almost empty, so many of the servants were given time off to visit their families. They returned in March, and that was when she gave birth and died.’

Minna gave a big sigh. Then she added, ‘Did he say what time he’d be home tonight?’

‘I haven’t spoken to him, but Mario thought he would be late.’

She finished the evening in her room, working at her translation, trying to be oblivious to all else. If Pietro came home now he mustn’t find her waiting up for him, which would be awkward for both of them. Besides, she assured herself that she was too involved in her work to listen for his key in the door.

But that sound had not come when she put away her books, went to bed and turned out the lamp.

In the calle below a man patiently watched the light in the window. When it went out he stood a while longer before walking away and vanishing into the dark streets.

It was two days before Ruth saw Pietro again, and it was less traumatic than she’d feared because it happened in the middle of one of Serafina’s tantrums. Having transformed the palazzo as much as she could, the Baronessa set her heart on moving into it at the very start of Carnival, instead of waiting for the ball, near the end of the festivities. Shrewdly choosing a moment when Pietro was away, she arrived unannounced with a mountain of luggage, which she ordered to be taken upstairs.

Ruth immediately got on the phone to Pietro in the shop and explained what had happened.

‘I’m on my way,’ he said. ‘Try to stop them murdering each other until I get there.’

Serafina was livid to find the count and countess’s private suite locked, refusing to accept Minna’s explanation that this was according to Pietro’s orders. Another set of rooms was being prepared, and would be available in a few days. Serafina proceeded to have a hissy fit that passed in legend, Minna stoutly refused to be intimidated and Ruth tried vainly to keep the non-existent peace. It ended with Serafina being spitefully rude to her at the precise moment that Pietro appeared.

What followed was entertaining. Serafina used all her wiles on Pietro, to no effect. Politely but implacably he repeated that she would be welcome in a few days but not today, and the suite of rooms she wanted was off limits.

Franco arrived and joined in the fray. Pietro repeated himself again until Franco understood that he meant it.