The Venetian Playboy’s Bride

‘Sure,’ he said briefly, and stood aside for her to pass.

‘Who’s that?’ came a hearty female voice from deep in the house.

The next moment its owner came into view. She was large, middle-aged and had a ruddy, smiling face, flushed from cooking.

‘Ciao!’ she boomed.

‘This lady is English, Maria,’ Guido said. ‘She wants to see Fede.’

‘Aha! You know my son?’

‘A little,’ Dulcie said hastily. ‘I have a letter for him, from Jenny.’

Maria screamed with delight. ‘You are a good friend. I am Maria Lucci.’

‘I’m Dulcie,’ she gasped, swallowed up in the woman’s embrace.

‘Si. I know. Lady Dulcie.’

‘No,’ she said hastily. ‘Just Dulcie.’

Maria bawled, ‘Fede!’ and urged Dulcie towards an inner door. ‘You go through there. We just start eating. You eat with us.’

‘Oh, no, I don’t want to intrude,’ she said hastily. It was unnerving to have Guido standing there in silence. ‘I’ll just give him the letter and go.’

‘No, no, you eat with us,’ Maria insisted. She stomped away, bawling something in dialect that Dulcie guessed was a demand for an extra chair.

‘You have to stay,’ Guido said quietly. ‘When a Venetian family asks you into their home it’s an honour. We’re not like the English who just go through the forms.’

‘But you don’t want me to stay, do you?’ she challenged.

‘That means nothing. This isn’t my home.’

‘No, you never honoured me with an invitation to your home.’

‘But I did. I took you to my real home, the home of my heart. There I thought I began to know your heart, which only proves what a fool I am.’

Dulcie was in despair. Where was the man she’d found so easy to love? Vanished, replaced by someone with a steely core. But he must always have been there, beneath the bright surface. It had taken herself to bring him out.

Fede appeared in a rush. ‘Mama says you have a message for me.’

Dulcie gave it to him. He read it in a blaze of joy, and kissed the paper. Then he kissed Dulcie.

‘Grazie, grazie, carissima Dulcie.’ He glanced quickly at Guido, ‘I kiss her like a brother-you don’t mind-’

‘Not a bit,’ Guido said with a grin that would have fooled anyone but Dulcie. Now she was alive to his every nuance, and knew that his charming manners were one of the masks with which he protected himself.

‘Come and eat,’ Maria yelled from down the passage.

‘I can’t,’ Dulcie protested.

‘Maria will be hurt if you don’t,’ he said.

‘But Mr Harrison wants me back-’

It was the wrong thing to say. Guido’s mouth twisted in a mirthless grin.

‘The man with money snaps his fingers and you go running. Yes sir, no sir, shall I break another life for you today, sir?’

‘I haven’t broken any lives.’

‘How would you know?’ he flashed in a voice that startled her with its bitterness, and for a moment she caught a glimpse of real pain beneath his anger. She gazed at him in the dim light, shocked to realise just how much she had hurt him. A broken life? This rich playboy who pleased himself? What could possibly touch him?

‘Guido-’

She reached out her hand and in another moment she would have touched him, but then Maria yelled from the garden and he called back, ‘She’s just coming.’

His hand was on Dulcie’s arm, gentle but insistent, and again she had the sensation of steel. He wasn’t asking her, he was telling her.

The way out led to a small garden with two long tables in the centre, decorated with flowers. It was dusk, and small glasses containing candles were laid along the tables, so that on each side the faces of the Lucci clan glowed. Dulcie tried to keep up as she was introduced to Poppa, his two brothers, his three elder sons, his daughter, her husband, and various children. By that time she’d lost track.

To her embarrassment she was greeted as a heroine by everyone: Fede’s friend, doing all she could to bring him together with Jenny. Since there was no way of explaining what had really happened she was forced to endure it in silence.

Fede was sitting at the end of the table. Eagerly he grasped Dulcie’s hand and took her to a seat at right angles to his own. Guido seated himself facing her.

‘Tell me how Jenny is,’ Fede begged. ‘Does she miss me? Is she as unhappy apart as I am?’

She told him as much as she could, stressing how much Jenny loved him.

‘Grazie,’ he said fervently. ‘While we have friends like you and Guido I know there is still hope.’

‘Be careful, Fede,’ Guido said sharply. ‘Have you forgotten that Dulcie came here to ruin you?’

‘It wasn’t like that-’ she protested.

‘Of course it wasn’t,’ Fede said at once. ‘You were deluded by the Poppa, and you are our friend now, that’s all that matters.’ He clapped Guido on the shoulders. ‘Forget it.’

‘Not everyone is as generous and forgiving as you, Fede,’ Dulcie said impulsively. ‘Jenny’s very lucky to have such an understanding man.’

‘No, no, it’s I who am lucky.’ Suddenly he clasped her hands. ‘Dulcie, you don’t believe that I’m a fortune hunter, do you?’

‘Of course I don’t,’ she said warmly, clasping his hands back and smiling into his face with as much reassurance as she could. ‘I know everything’s going to work out for you, because when two people really love each other, it has to. It can’t just end. It can’t.’

She wondered if Guido was listening, and hearing the message she was trying to send him. Glancing up, she saw him watching her from across the table, but the glow from the candles masked his eyes.

There seemed an endless line of dishes; pasta, followed by fish, followed by veal, followed by sweet cakes. Dulcie ate heartily, which won the approval of everyone there, even Guido.

‘Will you tell Jenny that I shall be waiting for her tomorrow night?’ Fede begged.

‘Are you going to be at the ball?’ she asked.

‘Not officially,’ Guido said. ‘But he’ll be there.’

‘Guido has promised to make all well, with your help,’ Fede said. ‘By this time tomorrow all our problems will be over.’

He bounced up out of his seat and went to help his mother at the far end.

‘What mad promises have you made?’ Dulcie said to Guido across the table.

He slid round into Fede’s seat. ‘Not mad promises at all. What I say I do, I’ll do.’

‘You’ve filled those two up with false hopes, but remember, Harlequin isn’t as clever as he thinks. He’ll overreach himself and fall flat on his face.’

‘Not with Columbine’s help. She always picks him up and remembers the things he’s forgotten.’

‘Don’t count on Jenny.’

‘I didn’t mean Jenny.’

‘But I’m going to be Cleopatra, didn’t your shop assistant tell you?’

‘Yes. A good choice. Very eye catching. Roscoe will never know that it isn’t you in the costume any more.’

‘And what will I be doing?’

‘I’d have thought you could have worked it out by now. You slip away and change into another Columbine costume.’

‘It’s mad,’ she breathed.

‘Just mad enough to work.’