The Venetian Playboy’s Bride

‘It’s over,’ she murmured against his mouth. ‘We might have had something wonderful but we lost our chance. I’ve seen myself clearly now, and I’m not the one for you.’

‘Does a woman kiss a man like this when it’s over?’ he asked hoarsely.

‘Yes, if she wants him to remember her. And I do want you to remember me.’ She drew back a fraction. In the darkness Guido couldn’t see her, but he could feel the whisper of her warm breath against his face.

‘Remember me, Guido, but only when I’m gone. Columbine always gets away-’

‘Unless Harlequin makes her stay.’

She laughed softly and it made his blood race. ‘Harlequin never managed to make her do anything. He isn’t clever enough.’

‘That’s right.’ He tried to see her face, searching for something he didn’t know how to find. ‘Whatever he thinks, the poor sap is always dancing on the end of her string, isn’t he?’ he growled. ‘Who are you? Who are you?’

‘That’s the problem, isn’t it, my darling?’ she asked, speaking huskily through her tears. ‘You’d never really know, and it would always come between us. It’s just lucky that we found out in time.’

She kissed him again, gently this time, a kiss of farewell, and slipped out of his arms. He heard her footsteps on the flagstones and at the end of the calle he saw her again as she reached the lights of a small canal. When she walked out of sight he waited, sure that she would return to him. But nothing happened and he began to run until he reached the canal. There was a small bridge, and on the other side he could just make out three ways she could have taken.

He tore over the bridge and stood straining his ears, hoping for some sound that would direct him. But she’d vanished into the night, and there was only the soft lapping of tiny waves against the stones. He touched his face. It was wet. But whether with her tears or his own, he couldn’t have said.

Next morning the Palazzo Calvani buzzed with life like a hive of bees. Every servant in the place was on duty to make that evening’s ball a success. Costumes for the family had arrived from Guido’s shop and been laid out in their rooms, in readiness.

Liza was in her element, bustling everywhere, giving directions. At last she allowed herself to sit down for five minutes in the waterfront garden, and it was here that Guido found her.

‘I want you to have this in thanks for what you did for me the other night,’ he said. ‘I should have given it to you before, but it wasn’t finished until this morning.’

It was an exquisite little diamond brooch, inscribed with her name on the back. She turned it over and over, her thin face flushed with pleasure.

‘Grazie, signore, but there was no need for any special thanks. I’m here to serve the family.’

‘This was above and beyond the call of duty. Did my uncle get mad at you for losing the key?’

‘He is never angry with me. Besides, I convinced him that he’d lost it himself, and he apologised to me.’

Guido’s face was a study. ‘I should have guessed.’

‘But did it help you?’

He sighed. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘Why don’t you tell me?’

He told her as honestly as possible, not skipping his own deception, but finally coming to the point he found most painful.

‘All that time, I was in love, but-I don’t think she was.’

‘How do you know?’

‘She was pursuing me for a purpose.’

‘No, she was pursuing Fede for a purpose and you confused her. And however it started, why couldn’t she honestly have come to love you? You’re a well-set-up young fellow, not bad looking in a poor light-’

‘Thank you.’

‘A bit crazy in the head, but women overlook that. In fact they sometimes prefer it. It doesn’t do for a man to be too intelligent. Luckily that doesn’t happen often.’

Guido’s lips twitched. ‘You think she might have found something tolerable in my unimpressive self?’

‘Well, if, as you say, you were dancing attendance on her for days, she’d be a very strange woman if she didn’t fall for that.’

He stared. ‘For that?’

‘Yes, that. Not your pretty face and your tom-fool jokes, or your money because she didn’t know you had any, but because you were kind to her. There’s something about a man’s kindness that gets women in a spin. You didn’t know that, did you, Signor Casanova?’

‘No-I mean-of course I know that they like to be treated nicely, and I do-’

‘I’m not talking about kissing their hands and buying them flowers. That’s easy. I’m talking about what you did, day after day.’

‘But she was vulnerable, she needed looking after.’

‘The hotel would have done that, and most men would have dumped her there.’

‘Leave her to strangers? No way. I wanted to know she was being cared for properly. Taking her home with me just seemed the natural thing.’

‘And undressing her and putting her in your bed.’

‘If you’re suggesting that I-Liza, don’t you dare even think-it’s monstrous!’

‘So you didn’t?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ he said firmly. ‘I didn’t even kiss her.’

‘Oh, well, that did it.’

‘Pardon?’

Liza smiled, almost to herself. ‘There are times when not being kissed is the most romantic thing in the world. Unless, of course, you didn’t want to?’

Guido groaned at the memory. ‘More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. But she trusted me. Sometimes she was unconscious. On the first night she was feverish and she put her hand out and held mine, like a child. I couldn’t have abused her trust.’

‘According to you, she abused yours.’

‘It’s not the same.’

‘Maybe she wasn’t really unconscious at all. That was just part of the pretence.’

He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘That was real.’

‘Signore, you don’t understand being poor, like her,’ Liza said firmly. ‘When have you been poor as a church mouse? When it’s a struggle to survive you do things you don’t want to do. So she did.’

‘It wasn’t just that,’ Guido admitted. ‘There was a man who treated her badly-thought she had money and dumped her when he found otherwise.’

‘Fio di trojana!’ Liza spat.

Guido stared, for the Venetian words meant ‘Son of a prostitute’. But most Venetians, himself included, would have said, ‘Fio di putana,’ which meant the same, but was slightly less vulgar. Liza had expressed her contempt in no uncertain manner.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘That’s what he was. It left her bitter and unhappy.’ Then a burst of inspiration made him take a long breath and he said quickly, ‘Her mind was clouded by misery when she first came here. She didn’t mean to deceive me. She didn’t really know what she was doing.’

He had it at last, the thing he’d been seeking through wretched days and sleepless nights: an explanation that would put Dulcie back on her pedestal.

‘That must be it. But it’s a bit late in the day to say it. My guess is that you’ve been hard on her. She’s been judged by a man who understood nothing. And that came as a shock to her, because he’d deceived her into thinking he was kind and gentle. How could she know it was just a delusion and he wasn’t really like that at all?’

‘It wasn’t a-OK, OK, I get the point.’

‘So you thought she was perfect! Are you perfect? But like all men, you say one thing and do another.’

‘When do I do that?’

‘I’ve heard you talk about women when you thought I wasn’t listening. No milksops for you, you said. You wanted a woman who’d be a challenge, you said. One who would keep you guessing, you