The Venetian Playboy's Bride

‘How did I ever buy all this?’ she murmured.

She’d gone to Feltham’s, as instructed, and found the staff already primed with Roscoe’s demands. As these would have resulted in her looking like a Christmas tree Dulcie had waved them aside and insisted on her own kind of discreet elegance. After four outfits she tried to call a halt, but the superior person assigned to assist her was horrified.

‘Mr Harrison said the bill must be at least twenty thousand,’ she’d murmured.

‘Twenty thou—? He can wear them then.’

‘He’ll be most displeased if we don’t live up to his expectations. It could cost me my job.’

Put like that, it became a duty to spend money, and by the time she’d left the luxury store she was the owner of five cocktail dresses, two glamorous evening gowns, three pairs of designer jeans, any number of designer sweaters, a mountain of silk and satin underwear, and a collection of summer dresses. Some expensive makeup and perfume, plus several items of luggage completed the list.

She surveyed her booty now, hanging in the hotel’s luxurious, air-conditioned closets, in a mood of ironic depression. This ought to have been a fun job, the chance to be Cinderella at the ball. If only it hadn’t been Venice, and if only the high life she was to lead hadn’t been so much like the life her Prince Charmless had expected of her.

Why had she accepted this assignment, in a place where every sight and sound would hurt her. Was she mad?

Then she set her chin. This was a chance to make a man pay for his crimes against women. She must never forget that.

She took so long making her choice that she was late when she finally hurried downstairs wearing a cocktail dress of pale-blue silk organza with silver filigree accessories. Her silver shoes had heels of only one inch, which was the nearest she could get to ‘sensible’.

Antonio’s was a tiny place with tables outside, sheltered by a leaf-hung trellis. It looked charming, but there was something missing. Him!

No matter, he’d be inside. She sauntered in, looking casual, but her air of indifference fell away as she saw no sign of him here either.

He’d stood her up!

It was the one thing she hadn’t thought of.

Be reasonable, she thought. He’s just a few minutes late—like you.

That’s different, replied her awkward self. He’s supposed to be trying to seduce me, and he can’t even be bothered to do it properly.

Setting her jaw she marched out and collided with a man hurtling himself through the door in the other direction.

‘Mio dio!’ Guido exploded in passionate relief. ‘I thought you’d stood me up.’

‘I—?’

‘When you didn’t come I thought you’d changed your mind. I’ve been looking for you.’

‘I was only ten minutes late,’ she protested.

‘Ten minutes, ten hours? It felt like forever. I suddenly realised that I don’t know your name. You might have vanished and how could I have found you again? But I’ve found you now.’ He took her hand. ‘Come with me.’

He was walking away, drawing her behind him, before she could stop and think that once more he’d reversed their roles, so that he was now giving orders. But she followed him, eager to see where he would lead her, and curiously content in his company.

He’d changed out of his working clothes into jeans and a shirt of such snowy whiteness that it gave him an air of elegance, and made a contrast with his lightly tanned skin.

‘You could have found me quite easily,’ she pointed out as they strolled hand in hand. ‘You know my hotel.’

‘To be sure, I could go into the Vittorio and say the lady in their best suite has given me the elbow and would they please tell me her name? Then I think I should start running before they throw me out. They’re used to dealing with dodgy characters.’

‘Are you a dodgy character?’ she asked with interest.

‘They’d certainly think so if I told them that tale. Now where shall we go?’

‘You’re the one who knows Venice.’

‘And from the depths of my expert knowledge I say that we should start with an ice cream.’

‘Yes please,’ she said at once. There was something about ice cream that made a child of her again. He picked up the echo and grinned boyishly.

‘Come on.’

He led her into a maze, where streets and canals soon blurred into one. Flagstones underfoot, alleys so narrow that the old buildings almost seemed to touch each other overhead, tiny bridges where they lingered to watch the boats drift underneath.

‘It’s all so peaceful,’ she said in wonder.

‘That’s because there are no cars.’

‘Of course.’ She looked around her. ‘I hadn’t even realised, but it’s obvious.’ She looked around her again. ‘There’s nowhere for cars to go.’

‘Right,’ he said with deep satisfaction. ‘Nowhere at all. They can leave the mainland and come out over the causeway as far as the terminal. But then people have to get out and walk. If they don’t want to walk they go by boat. But they don’t bring their smelly, stinking cars into my city.’

‘Your city? You keep saying that.’

‘Every true Venetian speaks of Venice as his city. He pretends that he owns it, to hide the fact that it owns him. It’s a possessive mother who won’t release him. Wherever he goes in the world this perfect place goes with him, holding onto him, drawing him back.’ He stopped himself with an awkward laugh. ‘Now Venice thinks we should go and eat ice cream.’

He took her to a small cafе by a little canal so quiet that the world might have forgotten it. He summoned a waiter, talking to him in a language Dulcie didn’t recognise, and making expansive gestures, while giving her a look of wicked mischief.

‘Were you speaking Italian?’ she asked when they were alone again.

‘Venetian dialect.’

‘It sounds like a different language to Italian.’

‘In effect it is.’

‘It’s a bit hard on tourists who learn a bit of Italian for their vacation, and then find you speaking Venetian.’

‘We speak Italian and English for the tourists, but amongst ourselves we speak our dialect because we are Venetian.’

‘Like a another country,’ she said thoughtfully.

‘Of course. Venice was once an independent republic, not just a province of Italy, but a state in its own right. And that’s still how we feel. That is our pride, to be Venetian first, before all other allegiances.’

As before, there was a glow on his face that told her he felt passionately about this subject. She began to watch him intently, eager to hear more, but suddenly the waiter appeared with their order, and he fell silent. She had a sense of let-down, and promised herself that she would draw him back to this subject later.

She understood her companion’s mischievous expression when two huge dishes of vanilla and chocolate ice cream were brought to the table, plus two jugs, one containing chocolate sauce and one containing cream.