The Venetian Playboy’s Bride

by Lucy Gordon

  ‘No way,’ Guido said at once. ‘I’ve got to get her back.’

  ‘Phone her,’ Leo said.

  ‘Great idea.’

  He called Dulcie’s mobile. The train’s first stop was just a few minutes away in Mestre, on the other side of the causeway. She could be back with him in half an hour.

  The next moment there came the click of an answer.

  ‘Carissima,’ he said urgently, ‘I love you. I can’t live without you. I’ve been a pig-headed idiot but don’t hold that against me. Let me spend my life making it up to you. Get off the train in Mestre, and take the next one back to Venice. I’ll be waiting right here on the platform. Just say that you forgive me and come back. Please, please darling, come back. Ti prego mia dolcissima Dulcie.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Hello?’ said Jenny’s voice.

  ‘What?’ Guido whispered, in shock. ‘Jenny?’

  ‘Yes. Dulcie forgot her phone. I found it under a cushion.’

  Guido managed a polite thank you, and hung up. ‘She’s gone,’ he groaned. ‘I’ve lost her. There’s got to be a flight, if not from here then from Milan-’

  ‘No!’ Leo and Marco spoke as one man.

  ‘Think of Fede and Jenny, depending on you,’ Leo pointed out.

  ‘Besides,’ Marco added practically, ‘the train to England takes twenty-four hours. You can do what you have to at the ball tonight, catch the first flight tomorrow, and still get there ahead of her. You can even meet her at the station.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Guido said, calming down. Then he clutched his head in despair. ‘But how am I going to get through the next few hours?’

  ‘Because we’re going to be there to make sure you do,’ Leo said firmly.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A S ALWAYS Count Calvani made sure nobody outshone him at his own ball. His long flowing robes glittered with gold thread, and on his head he wore the distinctive cap, plain at the front, raised at the rear, that said he was a Doge, one of the great men who had ruled Venice in the old days. His mask was an elaborate creation in scarlet satin, sporting tiny red and gold feathers.

  He made a grand entrance into Guido’s room, where his three nephews had congregated, and stood, tall and splendid, for them to admire him. When they had done so to his satisfaction he gave his opinion of their attire.

  ‘Why are you all Harlequins?’ he complained. ‘The place will be crawling with Harlequins. Do you want to be mistaken for other men?’

  They presented a handsome sight in their identical skin-tight costumes of coloured diamond shapes, alternating with white. Only a young man with a flat stomach and taut muscles could risk the revealing garb, and while Marco might be a fraction taller, and Leo slightly heavier, what would really distinguish them from other Harlequins was their ability to dress like this without looking ridiculous.

  The costume was topped off by a small white ruff around the neck. On his head each wore a black tricorne hat, and beneath it the mask, the eyebrows raised to give a quizzical look. Francesco snorted.

  ‘I suppose you’re planning something disgraceful, like making inroads among the female guests and leaving them wondering which one of you it was.’ He then spoiled his righteous indignation by adding, ‘That’s what we did in my day.’

  ‘I don’t think our chaste ears are ready to hear about your youth, Uncle,’ Leo said, grinning.

  ‘You’d get a few surprises,’ Francesco agreed. ‘But now I’m a reformed character. Guido, you’ll be glad to hear that I’m going to do what you’ve always wanted.’

  ‘Get married?’ Guido gasped.

  Marco coughed. ‘But Uncle, isn’t it a little late for you to be thinking-I mean-’

  ‘I’m in my prime,’ the count declared firmly.

  ‘Of course he is,’ Guido said. ‘The nursery will be full in no time.’ An agreeable vista of freedom was opening before him. ‘Will we meet her tonight, Uncle?’

  ‘No, she won’t be at the ball.’

  ‘But surely-?’

  ‘Any more than Lady Dulcie will be at the ball,’ Francesco said, glaring at him. By now he knew that they’d met, but Guido hadn’t burdened him with too many precise details. ‘I won’t ask what you’ve done to offend her, but I’m sure it’s something unforgivable.’

  ‘She seems to think so,’ Guido grunted. ‘I aim to put it right soon, but now that my marriage will no longer matter to the family line, since you’re marrying yourself, I’d rather discuss it no further.’

  When Guido spoke in that firm tone nobody argued with him. A few minutes later they were all on their way downstairs to meet the torchlit procession that was coming along the Grand Canal. Gondola after gondola approached the landing stage to be greeted by their hosts, and a stream of masked figures passed into the glittering palazzo.

  Music was already playing. Lights shone from every door and window. A line of footmen stood bearing trays on which stood glasses of the finest crystal, filled with the best champagne.

  ‘If only they’d show a little originality,’ Francesco growled as he stood waiting, a smile fixed on his face. ‘So many Columbines, Pantelones, Pulcinellas.’

  ‘They can’t all be the Doge of Venice,’ Guido muttered. ‘Not many men could carry it off.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Francesco agreed, mollified.

  ‘And if you want something unusual,’ Leo said, ‘how about Henry VIII?’

  The Vittorio motor launch was just drawing up, with Roscoe standing in the rear.

  ‘Roscoe Harrison,’ Guido said. ‘You are delighted to see him.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘For my sake, yes. The Columbine in the back is his daughter Jenny.’

  ‘Another Columbine! How many is that?’

  Guido need not have feared. The count gloried in his skills as a host, and the next few minutes went smoothly. Francesco bowed low over Jenny’s hand murmuring, ‘How charming!’ and he and Roscoe eyed each other’s attire with respect.

  Guido took charge of the new arrivals, feeling Jenny cling nervously to his arm, and led them into the house. He would have been glad to skip this evening which was going to be so different from his hopes. Dulcie should have been around, helping him out, and then, while they were working together-here his invention failed, but surely something would have happened. He scowled. When Harlequin ran out of ideas Columbine was supposed to come to his rescue.

  He’d managed to get a seat on an early flight next morning. In the meantime he had work to do. He studied Jenny, noting with approval that she’d dressed to his instructions, with a black silk cap concealing her hair, a small black tricorne hat and a crimson satin mask, so heavily trimmed with lace that it covered most of the lower part of her face as well.

  Her dress was a mass of white tulle, with a tight waist, puff sleeves and a huge ballerina skirt that ended just below the knee. She looked delicate and enchanting.

  ‘Fede won’t be able to resist you,’ he said when he’d swept her away into the dance.

  ‘Oh, Guido, is he really here? I’m so nervous.’

  ‘He’s outside in the boathouse. We’ll wait until it’s a bit more crowded and your Poppa can’t see you so well, and then my brother Leo will ask you to dance. Your father will think it’s me, but I’ll be dancing with another Columbine and so we’ll keep him confused.’ His gaze fell on a detail that troubled him. ‘I wish you weren’t wearing that diamond necklace. It looks like it cost a fortune.’

  ‘Ten thousand,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Dad insisted on giving it to me just before we came out. He said it was to “console me” for losing Fede.’

  ‘That figures. But you can bet he’ll keep his eyes on it, and it’ll complicate the switch over to the other Columbine. I’ve persuaded one of the maids to help out.’

  ‘It was supposed to be Dulcie, wasn’t it? She’s really gone then?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m going to get her back. Jenny, I simply must talk to you about her.’

  ‘We
will, I promise. But I see Dad waving to me. I’ll be back later.’

  She slipped away and Guido lost her in the crowd. He spent the next half hour on hot coals, doing duty dances, watching the time pass, wondering how soon he could get away to England.

  Roscoe was enjoying himself. He and the count had squared up to each other, and he hadn’t backed down. And those diamonds of Jenny’s! Anyone could see that they’d cost a pretty penny. It never hurt to show people you had money, and Roscoe had big plans for his daughter.

  He looked around and frowned when he couldn’t see her. She’d been there just a moment ago, dancing with Guido. Then she’d vanished in the crush.

  No, there she was again, a pretty Columbine, threading her way through the crowd, her diamonds sparkling magnificently.

  ‘They look wonderful on you, darling,’ he growled.

  But Columbine didn’t seem happy. She made a gesture as if to remove the diamonds, but he stopped her.

  ‘You keep them on. Guido was looking at them. Keep working on him, and you’ll be a countess yet.’

  Columbine sighed and began to thread her way back through the crowd to where Harlequin was looking around him.

  ‘There you are,’ he said with relief.

  ‘You wanted to talk about Dulcie.’

  ‘I’m going to follow her to England.’

  Columbine put her head on one side, teasing him. ‘And when you see her, what will you say?’

  He groaned. ‘I don’t know. Just ask her to forgive me for being a pompous jerk, I suppose. Who knows what she’s thinking now? I don’t even know if she heard me calling to her down the platform. She didn’t telephone you?’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to Dulcie,’ Columbine said truthfully. ‘And even if I had, I doubt she’d tell me much. Once she’s made up her mind, that’s it!’

  Through his mask Guido’s eyes widened with alarm. ‘You don’t mean that she’d never forgive me? I don’t believe that.’

  ‘Dulcie’s stubborn. When she’s decided against somebody-’ she gave an eloquent shrug.

  ‘But you don’t really know her well.’

  ‘Neither do you after just a few days-’

  ‘A few days is enough when you’ve met your ideal. Or a few minutes. I knew at once, when she tossed that sandal down into my gondola-’

  ‘But you didn’t know she threw it,’ Columbine reminded him. ‘You thought it was fate but actually it was her. I think she was dreadful, deceiving you like that.’

  ‘But she didn’t deceive me,’ Guido said earnestly. ‘Not if you look at it the right way. Dulcie and I were always destined to be together, so when she threw that sandal she was only doing what fate demanded. And when I let her think I was Fede, that was fate too, because that way she saw me. Not a Calvani with a palace and a title at his back, but just a man falling in love with her.’

  He wondered if Columbine would speak, but she danced in his arms, gazing intently at him, as if she were waiting for something. He was several inches taller, and from this angle he could see little of her lower face, because the lace of the mask blocked his vision. But he could see her green eyes, and a strange feeling began to creep over him.

  ‘I’ll make her listen to me,’ he said. ‘I’ll remind her what it was like during those days we spent together, because that’s when we were most truly ourselves. She was so-’ he hunted for the word, not easy for him, a man not used to analysing ‘-so surprised. As though nobody had ever taken care of her before.’

  ‘That’s very clever of you,’ Columbine said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think anyone ever really has. The rest of her family were so irresponsible that she couldn’t afford to be. She had to grow up too fast and she’s been lonely all her life, but people don’t see it.’

  ‘I once told her that masks could make people free to be their real selves,’ Guido said. ‘Now I think maybe your real self can come as a surprise. I’m not who I thought I was.’

  ‘Who are you, Guido?’ Columbine asked earnestly. ‘Do you know now? And do you know who she is?’

  ‘I’m the man who loves her, come what may,’ he said.

  ‘But is she the woman who loves you? Suppose she doesn’t?’

  ‘She must, even if I have to spend the rest of my life convincing her.’

  Columbine smiled as though she’d discovered a secret treasure. But instead of answering him directly she said, ‘Someone’s trying to attract your attention.’

  Guido saw two Harlequin figures beckoning him from the window that led into the garden. He murmured something to Columbine and followed to where Leo and Marco were waiting for him.

  ‘It all went like clockwork,’ Leo said from behind his mask. ‘We delivered Jenny to the church, Fede was waiting for her with his family, and they’re probably married by now.’

  ‘But Jenny’s still here,’ Guido said thoughtfully. The strange, haunted feeling was back. ‘I was just dancing with her.’

  ‘Jenny was with us.’

  ‘Then who-?’ He remembered now. Jenny’s eyes were blue.

  Dazed, he returned to the ballroom, looking this way and that, searching for Columbine. But, like an elusive ghost, she’d vanished.

  Suddenly there seemed to be a thousand Columbines, and none of them was the right one.

  What he was thinking couldn’t be true, he told himself. It was a mental aberration. But while his head might be muddled his heart had never been more clear. He knew everything now. Or at least, Harlequin knew what Columbine thought it was good for him to know.

  He spotted her at last, drinking champagne and talking to Leo, who’d removed his mask. Suddenly inspired, he made sure his own mask was in place, and bore down on them.

  ‘You’d better keep out of Guido’s way,’ he said, clapping his brother on the shoulder. ‘That little revelation has put him on the warpath.’

  ‘So I saw,’ Leo said, studying him cautiously. ‘Marco?’

  ‘Sure, I’m Marco, and I’m about to ask this lady to dance.’ He slipped his arm firmly around Columbine’s waist, and glided with her onto the floor. Her eyes were on his face, laughing, not fooled one little bit.

  ‘So Guido’s annoyed?’ she asked provocatively. ‘Serve him right!’

  ‘Don’t be so hard on him,’ Guido said. ‘He’s not a bad fellow.’

  ‘He’s a clown and someone should take him in hand and reform him.’

  ‘You can do that when you’re married.’

  ‘Me? Marry him?’ Columbine sounded shocked. ‘Never!’

  ‘You’ve got to marry him,’ Harlequin said urgently. ‘You can’t leave him running amok the way he is. Think of the family reputation. Besides, he’s madly in love with you. I know he hasn’t been clever about it, but you can be clever for both of you. After all, you’re really in love with him too, aren’t you? Otherwise you wouldn’t abuse him so much.’

  ‘Never mind about Guido,’ Columbine said, looking at her partner’s mouth and thinking how badly she wanted to kiss it. ‘After all, he isn’t very interesting.’

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘I’ve never thought so,’ she said with a fair assumption of indifference. ‘But I played along to keep him happy.’

  Their eyes met through the slits in their masks, each understanding the other perfectly.

  ‘You-’ he breathed, ‘you-I’ve a good mind to-’

  ‘To do what?’ she asked with interest.

  ‘To do this!’

  Swiftly he removed his mask, then hers, and pulled her into his arms for a long, breathless kiss, while the crowd cheered and applauded.

  ‘It was you all the time,’ he said when he could speak.

  ‘I fooled you for a while, didn’t I?’ Dulcie teased.

  ‘Only a very short while,’ he growled, interrupting himself with another kiss. ‘How did you get here?’ he asked breathlessly after a while. ‘You were leaving.’

  ‘I left the train at Mestre and caught the next one back. Not just because you came after
me. I was going to do it anyway. I stormed off because I was furious, but I wouldn’t really have let Jenny and Fede down.’

  ‘I see. You only came back for them?’

  She chuckled. ‘Of course not. There was another reason.’

  He held her tightly. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I had to retrieve my mobile phone,’ she teased.

  ‘Cara, you’ll drive me too far-’ he broke off. She was laughing at him and it was like music.

  ‘I would always have come back,’ she said, ‘because I wasn’t going to give up on us just like that.’

  He kissed her again and again, while the music played and they swayed in its rhythm.

  ‘So,’ she resumed as he whirled her about the floor, ‘at Mestre I telephoned Jenny, and she told me about your calls, and the very interesting things you’d said.’

  ‘But why not call me?’ he demanded. ‘You knew I loved you. I should think the whole world knew after I shouted it the length of the platform.’

  ‘I did call you, but Marco answered. You’d all just got back from chasing me to the station. Leo was there too, and they told me one or two things-’

  ‘Like that I was going out of my mind. Just tell me how big a fool you’ve all made of me.’

  ‘I came back, Leo met me at the station and brought me here. Then I just slipped into the role you’d always meant me to play, wearing the costume you supplied. Roscoe complicated things by giving Jenny that necklace, but in a way it actually made things easier. Jenny gave it to me just before she left, and while I wore it nobody doubted that I was her.’

  ‘And you made the switch-when? When Jenny saw Roscoe waving to her. She left me-’

  ‘Slipped into a side room, where Leo and Marco were waiting, gave me the necklace, and told me you wanted to speak to her about me. They left. I went out to speak to Roscoe-’

  ‘And he didn’t know his own daughter?’

  ‘He knew his diamonds, which were all he was looking at. I came back to you and took up the cue she’d given me, about you wanting to talk about Dulcie.’

  ‘But why couldn’t you simply have told me?’

  She chuckled, and the sound went through him pleasurably. ‘I wouldn’t have missed the last hour for anything. I’ve discovered things I couldn’t have learned any other way.’