The Venetian Playboy’s Bride

he’d done so with good humour, teasing, and the occasional semi-flirtatious coaxing. No more. His orders were still given with courtesy, but coolly, crisply, like a man with no time to spare. When someone cracked a joke in his presence he looked blank, as though wondering what a joke was.

It took Dulcie a day to track him down, and as she walked into the factory she had a horrible suspicion that everyone there knew who she was and why she was here. But the young man in the entrance directed her upstairs without fuss.

On the top floor she found Guido’s office, and through the windows that formed the walls she could see him there at his desk, talking to a middle-aged man. The man saw her and nudged Guido, making him look up.

His face startled her. It was tired and worn, as if he hadn’t slept for an age and had forgotten how to smile. He glanced in her direction, then away, and for a dreadful moment she thought he would refuse to see her. But then he nodded and indicated for her to be shown in.

The inside of his office reminded her how little she really knew him. The computer, the multiple phone lines, the stacks of files, the walls covered in plans and diagrams, all these told her that this was a man who took his business seriously.

‘Is this the real you?’ she asked lightly.

‘One of me,’ he answered briefly. ‘I’m surprised to find you still in Venice. I thought you’d have gone yesterday.’

‘You know I didn’t because you heard me knocking on your door last night.’ She added quietly, ‘I knocked for a long time before I went away.’

‘It wasn’t a good moment,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have known what to say, especially in that place.’ His eyes challenged her with memories of the few happy days they’d spent in the little apartment. Then he looked away and began to pace his office, never getting too close to her. ‘But I’m glad you came to see me.’

‘You are?’ she asked hopefully.

‘Yes, it’s right that we should say goodbye properly.’

His coolly dismissive tone annoyed her. ‘I’ll say goodbye when I’m good’n ready, not when you tell me to. There’s a lot more to be said first.’ In a softer tone she added, ‘I listened to you when you were making your excuses yesterday.’ She added, ‘And that’s not all I listened to you saying.’

She regretted the words at once. If his face wasn’t closed against her before it was now. She’d reminded him of what he didn’t want to remember.

‘It wasn’t kind of you to bring that up,’ he said. ‘You should have laughed over your victory in private, not to my face.’

‘Laugh over-? What are you saying? I’m not laughing. I never meant any of this to happen.’

‘You never meant? Excuse me, I understood that you came to Venice deliberately, for a purpose.’

‘But it had nothing to do with you,’ she cried.

‘Ah, yes, I’d forgotten. You came to deceive and ruin my friend, not me, which of course makes everything all right.’

‘I came to protect Jenny from a fortune hunter.’

‘And how could you be so sure he was a fortune hunter? Your information was hardly brilliant since you confused him with me.’

‘The information was lousy,’ she admitted. ‘It came from Roscoe. But the idea was to find out if he was right.’

‘He’d made up his mind before you started.’

‘He had, I hadn’t.’

He stopped pacing and spoke angrily, ‘For pity’s sake, what kind of woman does this? Is it how you get your kicks?’

‘No, I do it to eat. I’ve got nothing. Roscoe paid for everything.’

He regarded her with what might almost have been a smile. ‘Like a theatrical performance, really. Set and costumes courtesy of Roscoe Harrison, and script by-who? Did you cook it up between you?’

‘It wasn’t like that-’

‘Answer me,’ he said sternly. There was no trace in him now of the light-hearted young man who’d enchanted her. There was something grim in his manner that she wouldn’t have believed without seeing it. ‘Answer me,’ he commanded again. ‘How much of what happened between us was planned?’

‘I came to seek out Federico. I thought it was you because of the picture.’ She showed him the snapshot. ‘Yes, I was looking for your face, but when I found you, you were wearing his shirt, with his name on it-’

‘And how did you happen to find me?’

‘I was searching for you,’ she admitted.

He raised his eyebrows sardonically. ‘So our very meeting wasn’t the accident I thought. And that touching moment when your sandal fell at my feet in the gondola?’

The moment he’d called Fate, with shining eyes, full of love.

‘I threw it,’ she admitted in despair. ‘I stood on the bridge hoping you’d look up, and when you didn’t I tossed my sandal.’

She flinched, watching him. She no longer knew how this man would react to anything.

For the moment there was no reaction at all. Then abruptly he broke into laughter, that filled her with relief, until she heard the disturbing edge to the sound, not like real amusement at all.

‘That’s hilarious,’ he said at last. ‘You calculated the whole thing, down to the last detail, and the poor sap fell for it, hook, line and sinker. He even burbled something stupid about it being Fate. Or did he? Remind me. No, on second thoughts, don’t remind me. There are some mistakes a man should be able to forget in peace.’

‘But it wasn’t just me, was it?’ she said indignantly. ‘When I saw the name on your shirt you could have said, “I’m not Fede, just a rich playboy, fooling about in a boat”. Why didn’t you?’

‘I forget,’ he said stonily.

‘I don’t think that’s a truthful answer. You could have stopped everything right there and then. Why didn’t you?’

‘I’ve forgotten,’ he repeated. ‘All right, maybe I’ve only forgotten because I want to. Believe what you like, but most of all believe that it’s best if you go away from here and never come back.’

‘I’m not ready to give up and go yet.’

‘That’s a pity because I don’t think Venice is big enough to hold both of us.’

The door was thrown open abruptly by a middle-aged woman, full of excitement, who gabbled something Dulcie didn’t understand. Guido gave her a brief smile and replied tersely. The next moment she surged into the room, followed by two young girls, their arms filled with masks.

‘No,’ Guido started to say, but his protest was lost in the hubbub. He shrugged and gave up. ‘Our new line,’ he said to Dulcie, sounding harassed. ‘We’ve been waiting for them, but this isn’t the moment-oh, be damned to it!’

The masks were magnificent, not merely painted cardboard like the ones on his walls, but covered in satin and sequins, many with gorgeous feathers.

Guido admired them and spoke kindly to his employees, but managed to shoo them out of the room fairly quickly.

‘Harlequin,’ Dulcie said, holding up a creation in scarlet satin with multi-coloured feathers on top. ‘And this one-’ she lifted a long-nosed mask in purple satin, ‘Pantalone, the merchant. I remember what you told me.’

‘But there were other things I didn’t have time to tell you,’ Guido mused. ‘About Columbine, for instance.’

‘You said she was sensible, but sharp and witty, and could see the funny side of life.’

‘I also said she’s a deceiver. She teases and beguiles Harlequin, leads him into her traps, while all the while laughing up her sleeve because he’s fool enough to believe in her. He, poor clown, ends up wondering what’s hit him.’

He spoke lightly but she had a sensation of his pain that was almost tangible. She guessed that he wasn’t used to unhappiness, his life had contained so little of it. Now he was floundering. She longed to reach out to him, but didn’t dare.

‘You told me I wasn’t like Columbine,’ she reminded him.

He smiled sadly. ‘I was wrong. You think I’m unfair because we both deceived each other, but your deception