That Winter in Venice

by Ciji Ware

  She was kept so busy solving various glitches that came up during the subsequent five hours that she didn’t have time to search for Corlis or King in their carnival finery, or even try to catch a glimpse of Jack consigned to his floor-length velvet caftan. And besides, someone forgot to count the photographers, so there were many more than thirty members of the media milling about, all similarly dressed and masked. Figuring out which one he was would waste her precious time and energy. And for what?

  She moved with as much speed as she could muster upstairs to the top floor where the caterers were headquartered to see about getting a case of champagne sent to the Cupid Room when she suddenly had a thought. She was certain that Corlis would have described to Jack the distinctive, one-of-a-kind gown Serena was wearing?

  Surely, he wasn’t trying to avoid her entirely?

  Jack had hardly been able to eat a bite of the food supplied to members of the media in a room off the massive piano nobili at the right of the stairs. His itchy mask with its long, papier-mâché nose was created in a style worn centuries earlier by Venetian doctors hoping to keep their distance from plague victims they attempted to treat. Its uncomfortable contours were driving him absolutely crazy, to say nothing of the difficulty he’d been having seeing through the eye slits.

  Not only that, he was roasting in the full-length, velvet journalist’s caftan that had been assigned him. All evening, he’d been searching for Serena, but he’d had to shift his head, not just his eyes, in order to spy anything other than what lay straight ahead of him.

  A voice beside him chortled, “Trying to spot that magnificent creature in the sea-green gown?”

  Jack recognized King’s voice before he was able to swivel his head to see him face-to-face and he knew he was being royally ribbed.

  “If you must know, yes.”

  Corlis, standing next to her husband, volunteered, “How can you have missed her?” That ‘Seas of Venice’ costume is tight as a second skin. I have no idea how she can do her work in it, but she sure looks fabulous, don’t you think?” she added, pointing her organza-clad arm toward a far corner in the gilt and frescoed ballroom.

  Jack painfully shifted his gaze once again and was rewarded with a view of a stunningly beautiful, dark-haired woman in a gown that looked like shimmering sea foam. Her lush curves and small waist, along with the sparkling gems she wore in her upswept hair, on her earlobes, and around her neck literally left him speechless. That is, until he saw a tall, masked figure that had to be Stefano Fabrini, hovering at her side.

  “Oh, sh—”

  Corlis quickly intervened.

  “No expletives allowed, Jack,” she joked, having also caught sight of the familiar figure buzzing around Serena as she turned away from Fabrini to have a word with a livery-clad headwaiter. “I don’t think she’s paying that Italian Romeo a bit of attention, do you, King?”

  “I’m not so sure,” King replied and Jack could tell he was grinning behind his mask. “Better go check it out, Durand, and pronto, if I were you. The night isn’t getting any younger.” To Corlis he said, “The dancing is starting downstairs in the disco, can you hear? Want to give it a whirl?”

  Serena returned to the post where Allegra had assigned her following dinner: the spot where the performers made their exits. By the time the show had reached its conclusion, she almost chuckled out loud to see where Stefano had drifted off to—the same man who had rarely left her side all evening despite her terse, repeated explanations that she had work to do.

  Clad in tight-fitting breeches and sporting a bulging codpiece at the apex of his groin, he was currently leaning with one hand braced against a gilded window frame and whispering into the ear of a buxom lady with a loud Texas accent. If he was trying to make Serena pay more attention to him, his actions were laughable. Even so, they did remind her—as if she needed any more evidence—that, charming and good-looking as he was, he was what they called in Las Vegas ‘a serious player,” and of absolutely no romantic interest to her.

  And where was Jack? Here she was, surrounded by more beauty than she’d ever experienced in her life and the man she yearned to be with on Valentine’s Day was...

  Right in front of her!

  “Serena...?”

  Standing in her path was a tall, dark-haired figure in a regimental journalist’s caftan, his face obscured by a mask with a monstrously long nose.

  “Jack?” she ventured. “I... I wondered if... well, I wondered if you were even here.”

  “I can understand why. Every damn media person at the ball was given the same ridiculous get-up I’m wearing!”

  Serena suppressed a giggle.

  “It’s a tradition around here,” she explained. She peered at his disguise, adding, “I don’t think your maschera nera dal lungo naso a becco does you justice.”

  “My what?”

  “Your maschera... mask with the long nose. Lungo becco... it means ‘long nose... long ‘beak,’ if you will.’“

  Jack fingered the proboscis that extended at least eight inches from his face.

  “No kidding,” he said sourly.

  “But your costume must be much more comfortable than this dress,” Serena assured him.

  “About that dress...” he said reverently, moving closer.

  “You like it? On me, I mean? It was originally made for Allegra a few years back.”

  “I like it on you... off you. Yes,” he said, his voice sounding slightly hoarse under his mask, “I like it a whole lot.”

  “Well, thank you,” she said, and realized how prim she must sound. Her heart had begun to race and she was doing her level best to appear calm, cool, and collected. Which she wasn’t. “I’m glad you came back to Venice so you could see me in it.”

  “The dress is beautiful, but I came back to see you.”

  She cast him a doubtful look and replied, “You had a strange way of showing it when you arrived yesterday.”

  “I know. I didn’t know how to get you alone with all those people in the conference room, and then you seemed awfully busy.”

  Serene nodded. What was the point of feigning disinterest in front of Jack? She heaved a sigh and admitted, “I wanted to look busy because I didn’t know if you ... whether you were here just because of your story for the T-P, or... for some other reason.”

  “The story is the passport that got me here, after some heavy persuasion exerted on my editor. But I’m here because of you.”

  “And... well... what about Lauren? Did you... sort it out with her?”

  Serena suddenly felt like a jealous ninny even to ask the question, but she had to know.

  “That’s why I wangled a trip over here. I wanted to tell you in person that I spoke with Lauren as soon as I could. That chapter is closed, and I—”

  He seized her hand and pulled her into an alcove formed by a set of deep-set windows that overlooked the Grand Canal. Their surroundings were cast in darkness, now, except for shafts of light beaming from the ancient buildings across the water.

  Hidden somewhat by the twenty-foot drapes cascading to the floor on either side of the alcove, Jack removed his mask and leaned forward within inches of her face.

  “I might as well admit it, Serena. I now know what it feels like to pine for someone else—-and I don’t like the feeling very much.”

  “I don’t either,” she murmured, her gaze locked on his.

  “And I hated the way we were at the Danieli that night. It was even worse on the phone when you called New Orleans. I had to see you again... talk to you... touch you, and—”

  Without warning, he maneuvered them both deeper into the recessed space framed by the partially closed curtains and clasped her hard against his chest. Before she knew it, he’d stripped off her silver and green mask, tossing it along with his own onto the brocade window seat nearby. A second later, he bent down to kiss her fiercely, as if he thought she might flee the ball like Cinderella.

  “Oh, God, I wanted to do this from the mom
ent I saw you in Allegra’s office!”

  “Liar,” she whispered, staring into his eyes. “You didn’t even look at me.”.

  “That was because I was afraid you’d never speak to me again, let alone let me...”

  His lips marked a molten trail from her ear lobe to the base of her neck. Behind her closed lids, Serena reveled in the pure sensation of his broad hands on her back.

  “I felt so awful after I walked out of the Danieli,” she confessed, against his cheek. “It was just one, big achy feeling of misery from that second, until... just now.”

  “Well what about Fabrini?” he demanded, pulling away from her. “I saw the way he was sniffing around you all night! You two obviously know each other better than you did when I left.”

  “I love it that you sound jealous,” she laughed, “but trust me, Stefano is Casanova, reincarnated. Not my type at all.”

  “How long did it take you to find that out?” he retorted, and Serena knew he wanted to know if they’d slept together.

  “One night,” she answered truthfully. “At his place. He took me there to get out of the snow.”

  Jack’s expression turned from shock to a look that almost scared her. She placed her hand on his arm.

  “Trust me, I was practically on death’s door with a cold. He gave me his version of an Italian hot toddy and I fell asleep on his couch. I left the next morning, still sick as a dog, but unsullied,” she said, suppressing a smile. “But given the way you’d been behaving, believe me, I was almost of a mind to succumb to his persistent invitations. Lucky for you, I didn’t give in to temptation.”

  Jack pursed his lips, mildly mollified by this, but then asked tersely, “Well, tell me this: why did you call King for help with the palazzo, instead of me, and then practically hang up on me when we spoke that night?”

  Serena inhaled deeply and gazed directly into his eyes.

  “Because I felt you hadn’t played it straight with me right before you left Venice. I knew... or at least I sensed... there was something else besides having to officially end your relationship with Lauren that was troubling when you announced you suddenly had to go back to New Orleans. Something you refused to tell me. Something you still haven’t told me. It gave me pause. I guess I’d have to say that I stopped trusting you.”

  Jack hesitated a long moment and Serena could see he was once again forming his words too carefully to give her much comfort.

  “I hope you’ll trust me now when I say that I had—and have—nothing but your best interests at heart. Both of our best interests, in fact.”

  “But...?” she filled in for him.

  “There was... there is something,” he amended. “It has to do with writing this story about the parallels between Venice and New Orleans. The rising waters, the architectural beauty... the corporate and governmental corruption.”

  “So? I know all that already,” she replied, unable to hide her exasperation.

  “My editor has decided to publish the palazzo story separately and make the rest of what I’ve learned here and in New Orleans into a big deal—maybe even a three-parter to run during the week of the tenth year anniversary of Katrina.”

  “Well, that’s wonderful! But what does it have to do with us?”

  Again, he hesitated.

  “Jack!” she insisted.

  “There are a lot of pieces to the reporting that I can’t talk about at all—with you or with anyone else except my bosses—until it’s published. I’m dealing with a lot of questions that haven’t been answered in the ten years since the storm. And there are aspects to the story I have to investigate over the next seven months that might upset a lot of people in our town. Some of what I’ve uncovered is pretty explosive stuff and I have a duty to protect my sources.”

  “I understand that, Jack,” she said evenly. “But that can’t be what made you suddenly distance yourself from me right before you left last time.”

  Jack seized her hands tightly, as if willing her to understand his words by osmosis.

  “Because of the sensitive nature of what I’m going to be writing about, it’s highly likely that both the paper and I will be soundly ridiculed in high places. That doesn’t bother me, since God knows I’m used to it, but what I end up including in this story might even upset you... or your family...” he said, gazing at her with a peculiar intensity. “You know... the death of your brother and his wife and—all that stuff... is bound to be stirred up again.”

  “Something tells me you’re dreading stirring it all up again.”

  Jack looked down at their conjoined hands and nodded.

  “You are one, perceptive lady,” he mumbled.

  “If you think rehashing everything is going to upset me, maybe I just won’t read it,” she ventured softly, “though it would be hard to ignore something you’d worked so hard on for half a year.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him softly on his cheek, pulling back to seek his glance again. “Look, Jack... I understand that you have a job to do, and you can’t share every aspect of it with me. And you probably have your own wounds to heal, despite your conviction that being an ‘observer’ somehow made you immune from the post-traumatic stress so many experienced. And are still experiencing,” she amended, “like my mother.”

  Jack heaved an audible sigh.

  “The deeper I dig into the events of ten years ago, the more I’m beginning to think you might be right to a degree I haven’t... been able to acknowledge or accept.”

  “Hey...” she said, reaching up to brush a strand of dark hair off his forehead, “each of us has to make our peace with the past and reconcile on our own what happened to us individually as a result of Katrina.”

  “That’s true, I suppose,” Jack replied, not sounding convinced about something. “But maybe there are some things that can never be reconciled, and what do we do then?”

  Just then, over Jack’s shoulder, Serena caught a glimpse of Allegra who appeared to be a woman on a mission.

  “Oh, glory... there’s my boss,” she said hurriedly. “She needs help with something. I’ve got to go.”

  “Where can I find you later?” he demanded as Serena lifted the long skirts of her ball gown and prepared to depart.

  “How about right here, behind the curtains?” she said, with a come-hither smile.

  “Even better, King’s booked a water taxi to pick us up on the dock outside the front entrance at six a.m.”

  “I’ll be there if I can,” she assured him. “Did you get anything to eat? If you go up the stairs and through the door on the right at the far end of the room, you can grab one of the plates of food that never made it into one of the dining rooms. There are some comfortable chairs in the corner, back there, where you could even grab a nap.”

  “Can’t you go with me?” he urged. “It’s three o’clock in the morning!”

  Serena regretfully pointed toward Allegra who was conferring with one of her many assistants.

  “Still on duty,” she said hurriedly, “and you’ve got to put your mask back on,” she reminded him.

  Jack leaned down and retrieved their masks from the window seat cushion, handing hers to her and retying his own around the back of his head.

  “You mean I have to wear this blasted thing a couple of more hours?” he groused.

  “Tradition,” she said with mock solemnity, “but buck up, signor... if you play your cards right, I might make it worth your while.”

  “Is that a guarantee?” he challenged, cocking his head to one side, a lascivious grin broadening below the lip of the mask.

  Serena knew, for certain, now, that Jack was every bit as glad to see her as she was to see him. Even so, there was still a missing piece to the puzzle of his abrupt departure from Venice. But did that matter, really, she asked herself as she sped across the room in Allegra’s direction? She was bound to learn what it was in good time. The main thing was, he’d come back to Venice to see her and tell her in person that he’d officially broken it off with L
auren Hilbert. Even better, there was no doubt in her mind that he’d missed her as much as she’d missed him.

  CHAPTER 16

  Only a handful of costumed guests, along with the musicians and Allegra’s staff, remained in the palazzo as dawn broke sullenly across the choppy waters of the canal under a canopy of still-gray skies.

  “My darling, indispensible Serena,” Allegra said with a weary smile. “I now proclaim you officially off-duty.” She then turned and seized a microphone from the bandstand to make a general announcement in Italian to the assembled.

  “Thank you, thank you, everyone! Pack up what you need to at the moment, and the rest of you, get a bit of sleep. Be back here by noon and we will start the load out. As most of you know, there’s a big corporate event scheduled for here the day after tomorrow, so we only have eight hours to remove what we’ve brought in.”

  When Allegra returned to her side, Serena asked, “Are you sure you don’t need me, still?” She was certain that their leader wouldn’t leave the palazzo until the last team member was out of the building.

  “Sometime after midnight, I caught a glimpse of you in the window alcove, cara,” she replied with a wink. “I think it is your obligation to be extremely hospitable to our saviors, don’t you? Especially Signor Durand, who has come all this way to see you again.”

  Serena could feel her cheeks grow warm under her bejeweled mask that, mercifully, still disguised the upper part of her face.

  “That is so kind of you to say,” she murmured. “The Duvallons have hired a water taxi for six a.m., so...”

  “By all means... go, go!” Allegra urged, pointing to an enormous mahogany clock standing against a brocaded wall nearby that showed it was nearing the hour. “I will see you back here at noon. And Serena?”

  “Yes?”

  “Mille, mille grazie! I don’t think I could have managed this year without you. Between the snow, the flooding, and everyone getting sick, plus the problems with the building officials... you were a rescuing angel, and so were your friends.”

  “Oh, Allegra, no.”