The Italian’s Cinderella Bride

by Lucy Gordon

  ‘I love this,’ she said suddenly. ‘When the evening began, I had no idea it would end this way. That’s the best kind of evening. Life should be unexpected.’

  Right on cue the waiter appeared with the menu so that she could look through a series of dishes that she’d never seen before.

  ‘They all look very unexpected,’ she mused.

  ‘The plain and simple ice cream is the best. My friends here make it themselves.’

  ‘You choose for me.’

  He selected a chocolate ice cream straight out of heaven, topped off with nuts, and ordered a bottle of champagne.

  ‘Are we celebrating something?’ she asked.

  ‘I feel as if we ought to be,’ he said enigmatically.

  ‘You’re right. We’ll think of something later.’

  They clinked glasses with an air of triumph.

  ‘I feel as though Carnival has started already.’ Ruth sighed happily. ‘The time when people forget common sense and go wild. Ah, well!’ She raised her champagne glass and intoned, ‘There’s always Lent to repent.’

  ‘I can’t imagine you ever repenting,’ he mused. ‘I think if you decided on something you’d go for it and accept the consequences.’

  An echo skittered through her brain. Somewhere, quite recently, she’d heard that before. But then it was gone and she had no time to brood.

  ‘I think I would,’ she agreed. ‘Whatever they were. If you don’t reach out and seize life-you’d never know, would you? And that could be the most painful thing in the world, not knowing. That could be the worst thing that might ever happen to you, to go through life, wondering-’

  So preoccupied was she with the thought that she was barely aware of him watching her from dark eyes, until he said, ‘That won’t happen, Ruth, I promise you. I’ll get him back here, and make him help you.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Gino!’ For a moment she’d completely forgotten about him.

  ‘Weren’t you talking about him?’

  ‘He’s not the only thing in life,’ she prevaricated. ‘There are other things to wonder about, things it would be sad never to know.’

  ‘Were you thinking of anything in particular?’ he asked, watching her closely.

  She thought for a moment. ‘I’m not sure.’ Then a brilliant smile illuminated her eyes. ‘Is there any more champagne?’

  CHAPTER TEN

  A S THEY left the restaurant Pietro asked, ‘Do you know where you are?’

  ‘No,’ Ruth said softly. ‘I have no idea where I am. I’m completely lost.’

  But being lost didn’t seem so very terrible just now.

  ‘Let’s walk home,’ she said. ‘I don’t care how far it is.’

  ‘But it’s no distance. A few corners and we’re there.’

  Even as he spoke she saw the top of the Rialto Bridge appear over the roofs.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, disappointed, for she had looked forward to the walk.

  ‘We just have to cross the bridge and we’re home.’

  Shops lined the bridge on both sides and by day it was a hive of activity. Now the shops were shut, the lights were dimmed and couples huddled in the doorways. Some of them looked up to inspect the newcomers, and offered a murmured greeting, for they all knew him.

  ‘You should be ashamed,’ he told them. ‘Carnival hasn’t started yet.’

  The voices floated back. ‘Just getting a little practice-We want to be ready-The honour of Venice-’

  Ruth reached up and slid an arm about his neck.

  ‘Just doing my bit for the honour of Venice,’ she murmured as she drew his mouth down to hers.

  Now she was taking charge, telling him that they would do it her way because she’d been patient long enough. But how long was that? All her life, surely. It was strange how all the mystifying questions answered themselves when you were with the right man. Or perhaps it wasn’t strange at all.

  She was consumed with a sense of having come to the right place, standing here in the heart of Venice. She’d always been headed for this bridge, with this man. And wherever the road led afterwards, that too was her true destination.

  Neither knew who made the first move, but in the next moment they were moving slowly over the bridge and into the little side street where he had first seen her.

  They made almost no noise as they slipped into the building and up the stairs. Toni looked up as they came in, then settled back to sleep, so there was nobody to watch them as they went again into each other’s arms, or to see his sudden moment of doubt.

  ‘Ruth…Ruth…I don’t know-’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t try to think.’

  As she spoke she drew her fingers gently down his face, looking up at him with eyes that loved everything she saw. She wondered if it could be the same for him, but for the moment it was enough that he held her, raining kisses on her lips, her eyes, her throat.

  She had never experienced such feelings in her life before. Even with gaps in her memory she knew that. Instinct, stronger than reason, more powerful than memory, took over, telling her this man was unique, his effect on her was once in a lifetime, and she was going to open her heart to it, or live bereft for ever.

  ‘Perhaps I ought to think,’ he murmured. ‘I’m looking after you. How can you be safe if I-?’

  ‘Who says I want to be safe? Do you want that?’

  He made an inarticulate sound that might have been a groan at his own helplessness. He tried to speak but, whatever he wanted to say, his hands had their own message, touching her feverishly, seeking her response despite the doubts that troubled him.

  ‘Isn’t this better than safety?’ she murmured against his mouth.

  ‘Yes!’

  If she’d wanted to escape him then she couldn’t have done. His arms suddenly became like chains, forbidding her to leave him, his hands were possessive, now holding her, now releasing her so that he could pull off her coat, tossing it away, then seeking her buttons, working on them, discovering the soft skin beneath.

  Her bedroom door was just close enough for her to reach behind and turn the knob. A small step back and they were gliding through almost without realising.

  Pietro guided her so that she was sitting, then lying on the bed, and he could rest his face against her exposed breasts. What was happening to him now shook him to the core. Not just desire, not just emotion, but the mystic combination of the two that was worth any sacrifice. If it had been in his power he would have made it last for ever, and counted the world well lost.

  But the world wouldn’t let itself be lost. It clung on to the edge of his consciousness, reminding him of the last time he’d come to the bed and felt her arms around him and her whisper of ‘Te voja ben,’ in his ears.

  He tensed as the unwelcome knowledge invaded him. That had been on the first night, when she’d been half-unconscious, and she’d kissed him, thinking he was Gino. She had awoken directly afterwards and hadn’t seemed to react. He’d sworn then never to let her know the truth, and until now he’d kept his vow.

  But now-

  ‘What is it?’ Ruth asked, distressed as he gave a sudden heave. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘How can you ask?’ he choked, pulling away from her, ‘Am I mad to be doing this?’

  He got to his feet, almost staggering with the violence of his revulsion for himself.

  ‘How can it be mad if it’s what you want?’ Ruth asked. ‘What we both want?’

  ‘Is that all that matters? What we want at this moment? What about later, the regrets?’

  ‘Will you regret?’ she asked quietly.

  He had himself under control now, and said, ‘I’ll regret anything I do that hurts you.’

  ‘I’m not worried about that-’

  ‘But I have to be. You’re not well, that’s why you’re here. You came to me for help and I-’

  ‘Pietro, I’m not an invalid.’

  ‘But neither are you completely well. It was only a few hours ago
that you set off for the railway station to meet Gino, thinking of nothing but him. If he’d been there-what would you have felt?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Exactly. Maybe you love him, maybe not, but you don’t know. And until you’ve had a chance to find out the answer to that, I have no right to-’ He shuddered. ‘What was I thinking of?’

  ‘Perhaps you wanted me,’ she said with a quick spurt of anger, doing up her buttons quickly. She knew now that he wouldn’t return to her.

  ‘Of course I want you. If there was nothing else standing between us I could go back to my bad old ways and take-’

  ‘Don’t you dare say it,’ she interrupted him. ‘Don’t you dare say “take advantage of me” like I was a wimp who couldn’t speak for herself.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘I think it is,’ she said fiercely.

  ‘I meant only that you’re vulnerable. We both know why. For me to take-take what you have to give,’ he amended hastily, seeing murder in her eyes, ‘would be unforgivable.’ He added in a low voice, ‘And I’ve done enough unforgivable things in my life.’

  She wanted to say, ‘Would it be unforgivable to love me?’ but she wouldn’t let herself do that. Love was the word she didn’t dare to use, although the conviction of it was growing in her own heart. He wasn’t ready to love her. He might never be ready. But she could wait.

  ‘I don’t believe you’ve ever done anything unforgivable,’ she said.

  ‘What the hell do you know about it?’

  Ruth jumped at the sound of his voice, not merely the sudden volume but at the note of ferocity. It cut through her like a razor and gave her a terrifying sensation, as though he’d turned on her the same look he’d turned on Franco.

  ‘What do you know?’ he repeated in a voice that was less harsh but still biting. ‘Do you know about my life, what my experience has been? Do you know me?’

  ‘I thought I did,’ she said softly.

  ‘You know no more of me than I do of you. We play this little game in which you’re three people, but it’s not a game. There’s a tragic reality beneath it, and what would you think of me if I betrayed your trust? Do you know how vulnerable you are here, with me?’

  ‘I never feel that way. I trust you-’

  ‘Why? What reason have I ever given you to trust me?’

  ‘All this time you’ve cared for me, and never harmed me-’

  He gave a crack of mirthless laughter.

  ‘I was biding my time, waiting to pounce at the right moment. Can you be sure that’s not the truth?’

  Dumbly she shook her head. The pain that was rising in her was too great for words.

  ‘No, you can’t because you know nothing of me.’ He leaned towards her and his eyes were cold. ‘I could treat you any way I liked and you’d have no comeback. In this city who’d listen to you against me?’

  Something in his bleak hostility caused her own temper to rise.

  ‘Of course, I should have realised,’ she snapped. ‘They’d think you were reverting to type. Casanova reborn, that’s what they used to say about you, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’ve heard the stories? Good! Maybe you’ll see sense.’

  ‘Yes. I’ve heard the stories of your flaming youth. And how! You probably made half of them up.’

  ‘I promise I didn’t need to. I behaved every bit as badly as they say, and a few more things nobody ever got to hear of, luckily.’

  ‘So, of course nobody would listen to me. They’d say I was lucky you even looked at me. Only you’re not Casanova anymore.’

  ‘You don’t know what I am,’ he said roughly. ‘If you know that much, you ought to have more sense than to be here with me now.’

  ‘I’m not a fool. You can say what you like. I think you can be trusted.’

  ‘And how would you know? Has your experience been so extensive? Did Gino teach you about trust? I don’t think so. What about before him?’

  It was cruel, it was appallingly brutal, and she reeled with shock, closing her eyes against the agony that he’d inflicted deliberately. She had no doubt of that. He saw the movement and reached out a hand to her, only to snatch it back before she could see it. When she opened her eyes it was to find him staring at her from eyes that gave nothing away.

  ‘Nothing like this will ever happen again,’ he said in a dead voice. ‘You have my word on that. Goodnight.’

  Pietro walked out, closing the door firmly behind him. A moment later Ruth heard his own door being locked.

  She clenched and unclenched her hands, filled with bitter rage at that final insult. He’d locked her out like some floozy who didn’t come up to standard. She wanted to scream and throw something against the wall.

  There was no point in even lying down, so she sat in the darkness, looking out of the window at the Grand Canal, numb with despair.

  She didn’t recognise the man who’d attacked her so coldly tonight, but she could guess what he was thinking and feeling; scorn for her lack of control in throwing herself at him, contempt at her arrogance in thinking she had the power to charm him.

  She’d once made a joke about Serafina treating her like Cinderella, but how could Cinderella be so foolish as to think she could really charm the Prince, except for five minutes? That was a fairy tale.

  She must leave, of course. As soon as she could will herself to move she would begin to pack. Anything would be better than facing him again.

  But then a water bus passed under the Rialto Bridge, its lights gleaming across the canal, briefly illuminating the windows of Pietro’s room where they jutted out slightly from the rest of the building. It was only a moment, but it was enough for Ruth to see the man standing there, his face a frozen mask of misery that mirrored her own.

  She stepped back at once, but she knew he hadn’t seen her. He had no eyes for the outside world, only for some earthquake that was taking place inside him.

  Ruth groaned as she realised her blunder. Wrapped in her own feelings, she had been blind to the effect on him. In her relief at breaking free of Gino she’d forgotten that Pietro was far from free of Lisetta.

  Now she saw the whole conversation differently. Pietro had tried to be kind, speaking of his duty to care for her, but the truth was that he didn’t want her. Not really. Not beyond one night’s basic pleasure. He still yearned for his dead wife, and no other woman would be allowed to come between them. So he’d crushed his desire, treating it as something unworthy of notice, until tonight, when she’d forced everything out into the open.

  Not forced it out, she thought, cringing at her own stupidity. More like kicked it out with hobnailed boots.

  Tonight he’d had to abandon kindness and turn on her to make her get the point. And she had only herself to blame.

  I’ve got to get out, she thought frantically. I mustn’t be here tomorrow. I can’t look him in the eye.

  Packing was a problem. The small suitcase she’d had when she arrived was useless for all her new clothes.

  ‘Plastic bags,’ she muttered. ‘In the kitchen.’

  She was out there in a moment scrabbling around in the drawers.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Pietro was standing in the doorway, frowning.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ she said. ‘I just need to finish packing, and I’ll be gone. You don’t have to see me again. Now if you’ll just stand aside-’

  He didn’t move.

  ‘Put them back and go to bed,’ he said firmly. ‘You’re not leaving this house.’

  ‘Hey, who are you giving orders?’

  His mouth quirked slightly at the corner.

  ‘It comes from being a count, from the oldest family in Venice,’ he said lightly, ‘surrounded by wealth and privilege. You tend to get used to people doing as they’re told. Reprehensible, but there it is.’

  ‘And if don’t do as I’m told?’ she challenged.

  ‘Well, I did tell you once I had this fantasy about tossing you into
the Grand Canal.’

  He was a semblance of his old self again, armoured in ironic defensiveness, even smiling. It was a relief, and yet she knew a strange sense of loss. Once more she was shut out.

  ‘I can’t stay,’ she repeated.

  ‘Why? Because I behaved badly? I give you my word it’ll never happen again.’

  He was so clever, she thought bitterly, taking it all on himself, while they both knew the truth: that she had fallen in love with him, a man who could never love her.

  ‘You once accused me of being too ready to protect everyone,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t exactly-’

  ‘Well, you’re right. That’s how I am, and sometimes I get a bit carried away. I convince myself that nothing can be done right unless it’s done my way, not an amiable characteristic. In fact it can verge on bullying if it’s not controlled, but it’s how I’m made. And when I’ve taken a job on I see it through to the end. Tonight-’

  He stopped and she held her breath.

  ‘I decided to care for you until you were well, but tonight I nearly forgot that promise and drove you away by my clumsiness. Blame Venice. It has that effect on people. Even me. It’s like setting out in a gondola and finding yourself in another universe.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, for that was how it had been.

  They had been carried to an alternative existence where they laughed with each other, opened their hearts, rejoiced together. And she should have seen that, in the end, the gondola would reach the unfriendly shore.

  ‘You won’t be ready to go until you’ve seen Gino,’ Pietro was saying. ‘And I’d commit a crime if I let you go out into a hostile world before you’re ready to cope. Don’t do that to me, Ruth. I have quite enough on my conscience as it is. If you stay, I promise not to embarrass you again. You’ll be quite safe.’

  And there it was, the whole disaster neatly repackaged into a shape they could live with, life and emotion stripped from it. All love quenched. Polite. Dead.

  ‘Come,’ he said, taking the plastic bags from her and putting them back in the drawer. ‘Let’s say it didn’t happen.’