The Venetian Playboy’s Bride

‘They probably are,’ Guido agreed with a grin.

‘It’s time it stopped. After all the trouble I’ve taken, making sure you met every woman in society.’

‘I’m nervous with society women. They’re all after just one thing!’

‘What!’

‘My future title. Half of them never look at me properly. Their gaze is fixed on the Calvani honours.’

‘If you mean that they’re prepared to overlook your disgraceful way of life out of respect for your dignity-’

‘Dignity be blowed. Besides, maybe I don’t want a woman who’ll overlook my “disgraceful” life. It might be more fun if she was ready to join in.’

‘Marriage is not supposed to be fun!’ Francesco thundered.

‘I was afraid of that.’

‘It’s time you started acting like a man of distinction instead of spending your time with the Lucci family, fooling about in gondolas-’

‘I like rowing a gondola.’

‘The Luccis are fine hard-working people but their lives take one path and yours another-’

In a flash Guido’s face lost its good humour and hardened. ‘The Luccis are my friends, and you’ll oblige me by remembering that.’

‘You can be friends-but you can’t live Fede’s life. You’ve got to make your own way. Perhaps I shouldn’t have allowed you to see so much of them.’

‘You didn’t allow me,’ Guido said quietly. ‘I didn’t ask your permission. Nor would I. Ever. Uncle, I have the greatest respect for you, but I won’t allow you to run my life.’

When Guido spoke in that tone the merry charmer vanished, and there was something in his eyes that made even the count wary. He saw it now and fell silent. Guido was instantly contrite.

‘There’s no harm in it,’ he said gently. ‘I just like to row. It keeps me fit after my other “excesses”.’

‘If it were just rowing,’ Francesco snorted, recovering lost ground. ‘But I’ve heard you even sing “O sole mio” for tourists.’

‘They expect it. Especially the British. It’s something to do with ice cream cornets.’

‘And you pose with them for photographs.’ The count took out a snapshot showing Guido in gondoliering costume, serenading a pretty, dark-haired girl, while another gondolier, with curly hair and a baby face, sat just behind them.

‘My nephew,’ he growled, ‘the future Count Calvani, poses in a straw hat.’

‘It’s disgraceful,’ Guido agreed. ‘I’m a blot on the family name. You’ll just have to marry quickly, have a son, and cut me out. Rumour says you’re still as vigorous as ever, so it shouldn’t be-’

‘Get out of here if you know what’s good for you!’

Guido fled with relief, leaving the building and slipping away down tiny, darkened streets. As he reached the Grand Canal he saw a collection of seven gondolas, moving side by side. It was a ‘serenade’, a show put on to please the tourists. In the central boat the baby-faced young man from the photograph stood singing in a sweet tenor that drifted across the water. As the song came to an end there was applause, and the boats drifted in to their moorings.

Guido waited until his friend, Federico Lucci, had assisted his last passenger to disembark before hailing him.

‘Hey there, Fede! If the English signorina could hear you sing like that she would follow you to the ends of the earth,’ he said. ‘What’s the matter?’ for Fede had groaned. ‘Doesn’t she love you any more?’

‘Jenny loves me,’ Fede declared. ‘But her Poppa will kill me before he lets us marry. He thinks I’m only after her money, but it isn’t true. I love her. That time you met, didn’t you think she was wonderful?’

‘Wonderful,’ Guido said, diplomatically concealing his opinion that Jenny was a pretty doll who lacked spice in her character. His own taste was for a woman who could offer a challenge, lead him a merry dance and give as good as she got. But he was too kind a friend to say so.

‘You know I’ll help in any way I can,’ he said warmly.

‘You’ve already helped us so much,’ Fede said, ‘letting us meet in your apartment, covering for me on the gondola-’

‘That’s nothing. I enjoy it. Let me know when you want me to do it again.’

‘My Jenny has returned to England. She says she will reason with her Poppa, but I’m afraid she may never return.’

‘If it’s true love, she’ll come back,’ Guido insisted.

Fede gave a shout of laughter and thumped him on the shoulder. ‘What do you know about true love? With you it’s here-today-and-gone-tomorrow. If they mention marriage you dive for cover.’

‘Sssh!’ Guido looked hunted. ‘My uncle has ears everywhere. Now come on, let’s join Leo and Marco at Luigi’s, and we can all get drunk in peace.’

Two days later Dulcie flew to Venice, landing at Marco Polo Airport and waiting, with an air of aloof grandeur, while her luggage was loaded onto the Vittorio’s private motor launch.

It was early June, and as the boatman started the trip across the lagoon the sun was high in the sky and the light glinted on the water. Surrounded by so much bright beauty Dulcie briefly forgot her sadness.

To her right she could see the causeway linking Venice to the mainland. A train was making its way across. On the other side the lagoon stretched far away to the horizon.

‘There, signorina,’ the boatman said, speaking with the pride all Venetians feel in their city.

What she saw at first were shining orbs, gradually resolving themselves into golden cupolas, gleaming in the sun. The city itself, delicate and perfect, came gradually into view, taking her breath away with its beauty. She stayed motionless, not wanting to miss anything, as the motor boat slowed down.

‘We have to enter Venice gently,’ the driver explained, ‘so that we do not cause any large waves. This is the Cannaregio Canal, which will take us to the Grand Canal, and the Vittorio.’

Suddenly the brightness of the lagoon was blotted out and they were drifting in shadow between high buildings. Dulcie resumed her seat and leaned back, looking up to the narrow strip of sky overhead. After a few minutes they were in sunlight again, heading down the Grand Canal to a magnificent seventeenth-century palace. The Hotel Vittorio.

At the landing-stage hands reached down to help her up the steps and guide her into the hotel. She made a stately entrance, followed by porters bearing her luggage in procession.

‘The Empress Suite,’ declared a lofty individual on the desk.

‘The Emp-?’ she echoed, dismayed. ‘Are you sure there hasn’t been a mistake?’

But she was already being swept away to the third floor where gilded double doors opened before her and she walked into the palatial apartment. Everything about it was designed to look like the abode of an empress, including the eighteenth-century furniture. On one wall hung a portrait of the beautiful, young Empress Elisabeth of Austria, painted in the nineteenth century when Venice had been an Austrian province.

To one side was another pair of double doors, through which Dulcie found her bedroom, with a bed large enough to sleep four. She gasped, overwhelmed by such opulence. A maid appeared, ready to unpack her luggage. Just in time she remembered Roscoe’s orders to ‘splash it about a bit’ and distributed tips large enough to get herself talked about even in this place.

When everyone had gone she sat in silence, trying to come to terms with the shock of being here, alone, when she should have been here as a blissful bride.

She forced herself to confront the memory of Simon, painful though it was. He’d assumed that Lady Dulcie Maddox, daughter of Lord Maddox, must have a potful of family money hidden somewhere. He’d courted her ardently, using practised words to sweep her away in a magic balloon, to a place where everything was love and gratification.

But the balloon had fallen to earth, with her in it.

Simon had lived lavishly-all on credit, as she’d later discovered. She hadn’t cared about his money, only about his love. But the one was as illusory as the other.

He’d shown her the Hotel Vittorio’s brochure one evening when they were dining at the Ritz. ‘I’ve already made our honeymoon booking,’ he’d said, ‘in the Empress Suite.’