‘But you said you knew him,’ Roscoe hollered.

‘I said no such thing. I said my family knew his, way back. He could have been anybody for all I knew. I’ve been glad to make contact with the count, who once knew Lady Harriet, but apart from that the whole thing has been a waste of time, for which I hold you entirely to blame.’

‘OK, OK, maybe I got it a bit wrong,’ Roscoe said in a placating voice, ‘but it hasn’t been a total waste of time. We’ve established that he-’ indicating Fede ‘-is no aristo.’

‘Since he never claimed to be, that’s hardly surprising,’ Dulcie said briskly. ‘Can we drop this nonsense now? I’ve established that the man your daughter loves isn’t trying to beguile her with false claims, which is surely what really matters.’

Roscoe was uncharacteristically hesitant. His slow-moving wits had taken in that Guido was a real ‘aristo’ and therefore to be cultivated, and that Fede was his friend. To have repeated his suspicions of Fede without offending Guido would have taken social skills Roscoe didn’t possess. He fell silent, fuming. Guido divined what was going through his mind, and stepped into the breach, all charm.

‘I know that my uncle would be anxious to extend to you his hospitality,’ he said smoothly. ‘He’s giving a fancy-dress masked ball next week, and your presence, with your daughter, would make it complete.’

Roscoe’s snobbery warred with his desire to hasten Jenny back to England. Snobbery won.

‘That’s generous of you,’ he bawled. ‘We’d like that, wouldn’t we, pet? That’s very-well, I must say-’

Under cover of his noisy pleasure, Guido murmured to Dulcie, ‘Brava! Columbine has worked her magic. You knew just how to deal with him.’

‘He was getting on my wick,’ Dulcie said crisply.

Roscoe had recovered himself and was wringing Guido’s hand. ‘Tell your uncle I’ll come to see him right away. Men of substance should stick together-’

‘My uncle is away just now,’ Guido improvised hastily, ‘but he will have the pleasure of your acquaintance at the ball.’ He turned swiftly to Dulcie before Roscoe could think of any more tortures for him. ‘I understand that you will be there, signorina. It will be delightful to see you. Fede, let us leave.’

‘But I-’ the hapless Fede started to say.

‘Not now,’ Guido said through gritted teeth, urging him out with more vigour than gentleness. ‘For pity’s sake, my friend, quit while you’re ahead.’

CHAPTER TEN

GUIDO had prevented Roscoe taking Jenny away, thus buying the lovers some time, but the strain of the ensuing days nearly turned Dulcie’s hair white.

He moved into the suite, taking over the second bedroom so that Jenny and Dulcie had to share the first. He spent his time exploring the city, dragging his daughter along, and proud to bursting point of having Lady Dulcie as his guide.

He demanded a full account of her dinner at the palazzo, with diversions regarding the social niceties to be observed at a count’s residence.

‘Just because I’m a self-made man it doesn’t follow that I’m an ignoramus,’ he declared belligerently. ‘And I don’t want any mistakes in that direction.’

Dulcie assured him that nobody could possibly make any mistakes.

Guido telephoned her once, explaining coolly that the best masquerade outfits were to be found at a shop in the Calle Morento. She should take Jenny there and make sure she chose a Columbine costume.

‘Shouldn’t that be me?’ she asked wryly.

‘On no account. They have a wide choice and I’m sure you’ll find something suitable, but definitely not Columbine. But please tell Jenny that if all goes well she’ll be with Fede from then on.’

‘You’re planning for them to run away that night?’

‘I’m planning a little more than that, but everything has to be done just right.’

‘Do I have any part to play?’

‘Yes, and I’m sure you’ll play it superbly when the time comes.’

But you don’t trust me enough to tell me now, she thought.

‘A lot depends on your following my instructions exactly,’ Guido continued. ‘Put yourself in the assistant’s hands, she knows your requirements.’

‘I suppose you have a connection with the shop?’

‘I own it,’ he said with some surprise.

‘Of course.’

That was her only contact with him. There wasn’t another word, and she was too proud to seek him out again. Although he wanted her to stay, he hadn’t relented. She would be useful in his plan to help Jenny and Fede. That was all.

It was hard to believe that the magical web that had been spun between them during those few precious days could have been wrecked so easily: harder still to realise that the gentle jester who’d nursed and protected her was also the austere man who judged her harshly.

And unreasonably, she reminded herself. Her deception might have been greater than his, but he could have sorted it all out in a moment. Instead he’d let her mistake pass because-because of what? Something he couldn’t bear to tell her. She might guess, but it was better not to, because then the ache of ‘might-have-been’ started all over again.

She’d thought that Simon had left her unhappy, but now she could see that misery in proportion. He’d been a skunk all the time and she was well rid of him. She’d known that even while she suffered. But Guido was different. She’d fallen deeply in love with him during those few precious days alone, and now that he’d changed towards her she couldn’t dismiss it as a lucky escape. He was the one. Unlikely as it seemed there had been truth between them, concealed, perhaps, by masks, but he himself had said, ‘when people’s faces are hidden they are free to become their true selves.’

If only things had been different, how they could have enjoyed discovering their own and each other’s true selves. It could have been the work of a lifetime.

Now there was nothing, and a fearful blank facing her. She couldn’t persuade this man because she didn’t know him. And the new Guido, curt, withdrawn, unreachable, was an alarming man.

As he wanted she took Jenny to the hire shop. Roscoe insisted on accompanying them, and chose a lavishly bejewelled Henry VIII costume for himself. Dulcie beat off his efforts to dress her as Anne Boleyn, but then he insisted on Cleopatra, which she felt was almost as bad.

Jenny went through this in a dream, following Guido’s instructions as relayed by Dulcie, but without conviction. With her father’s arrival her confidence seemed to have drained away. Despite her brave words about being of age and pleasing herself she reacted to Roscoe like a rabbit trapped in headlamps. Sometimes she managed to telephone Fede, but the conversations were always hurried affairs and she usually had to hang up quickly.

‘Stand up to your father,’ Dulcie insisted one evening. ‘Tell him you’re going to marry Fede and that’s it. Or just walk out.’

‘You make it sound so easy,’ Jenny sighed.

‘It is easy.’

‘It would be for you. You’re not afraid of anyone or anything.’

I’m afraid of my future, Dulcie thought. It’s looking bleak and lonely right now.

‘Dulcie, what am I going to do? You say Guido’s going to make everything right, but how? If it doesn’t work, Dad’s going to haul me off home. I can’t see Fede, I can only call him for a minute at a time. Dad watches me like a hawk.’

‘Write Fede a letter,’ Dulcie said at once. ‘I’ll take it to him.’

‘You’d do that for me? Oh, thank you.’

‘Write it now. Will Fede be rowing tonight?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jenny said, scribbling hurriedly. ‘But I’ll give you his family’s address.’

In a couple of minutes the letter was being sealed in an envelope, and Dulcie was hurrying out, hoping to avoid Roscoe, but failing.

‘Where are you going?’ he boomed. ‘It’s time to go out to dinner.’

‘I’ll join you later. I’ve got something to do first.’

‘Don’t be late.’

She had to consult a map to find the tiny Calle Marcello, well away from the tourist haunts. Darkness was falling, lights blazed from the grocery shops that were still open, and from the rooms overhead.

She found the little alley and almost walked past no: 36. The door was dark and easy to miss. She hesitated before knocking, suddenly shy. From inside she could hear sounds of movement, cheerful voices, laughter. She knocked.

The door was opened by Guido.

For a moment they stared at each other. Dulcie found no softening in his face, only a dismay as great as her own.

‘I came to see Fede,’ she said at last. ‘Is he here?’

‘Sure,’ he said briefly, and stood aside for her to pass.

‘Who’s that?’ came a hearty female voice from deep in the house.

The next moment its owner came into view. She was large, middle-aged and had a ruddy, smiling face, flushed from cooking.

‘Ciao!’ she boomed.

‘This lady is English, Maria,’ Guido said. ‘She wants to see Fede.’

‘Aha! You know my son?’

‘A little,’ Dulcie said hastily. ‘I have a letter for him, from Jenny.’

Maria screamed with delight. ‘You are a good friend. I am Maria Lucci.’

‘I’m Dulcie,’ she gasped, swallowed up in the woman’s embrace.

‘Si. I know. Lady Dulcie.’

‘No,’ she said hastily. ‘Just Dulcie.’

Maria bawled, ‘Fede!’ and urged Dulcie towards an inner door. ‘You go through there. We just start eating. You eat with us.’

‘Oh, no, I don’t want to intrude,’ she said hastily. It was unnerving to have Guido standing there in silence. ‘I’ll just give him the letter and go.’

‘No, no, you eat with us,’ Maria insisted. She stomped away, bawling something in dialect that Dulcie guessed was a demand for an extra chair.

‘You have to stay,’ Guido said quietly. ‘When a Venetian family asks you into their home it’s an honour. We’re not like the English who just go through the forms.’

‘But you don’t want me to stay, do you?’ she challenged.

‘That means nothing. This isn’t my home.’

‘No, you never honoured me with an invitation to your home.’

‘But I did. I took you to my real home, the home of my heart. There I thought I began to know your heart, which only proves what a fool I am.’

Dulcie was in despair. Where was the man she’d found so easy to love? Vanished, replaced by someone with a steely core. But he must always have been there, beneath the bright surface. It had taken herself to bring him out.

Fede appeared in a rush. ‘Mama says you have a message for me.’

Dulcie gave it to him. He read it in a blaze of joy, and kissed the paper. Then he kissed Dulcie.

‘Grazie, grazie, carissima Dulcie.’ He glanced quickly at Guido, ‘I kiss her like a brother-you don’t mind-’

‘Not a bit,’ Guido said with a grin that would have fooled anyone but Dulcie. Now she was alive to his every nuance, and knew that his charming manners were one of the masks with which he protected himself.

‘Come and eat,’ Maria yelled from down the passage.

‘I can’t,’ Dulcie protested.

‘Maria will be hurt if you don’t,’ he said.

‘But Mr Harrison wants me back-’

It was the wrong thing to say. Guido’s mouth twisted in a mirthless grin.

‘The man with money snaps his fingers and you go running. Yes sir, no sir, shall I break another life for you today, sir?’

‘I haven’t broken any lives.’

‘How would you know?’ he flashed in a voice that startled her with its bitterness, and for a moment she caught a glimpse of real pain beneath his anger. She gazed at him in the dim light, shocked to realise just how much she had hurt him. A broken life? This rich playboy who pleased himself? What could possibly touch him?

‘Guido-’

She reached out her hand and in another moment she would have touched him, but then Maria yelled from the garden and he called back, ‘She’s just coming.’

His hand was on Dulcie’s arm, gentle but insistent, and again she had the sensation of steel. He wasn’t asking her, he was telling her.

The way out led to a small garden with two long tables in the centre, decorated with flowers. It was dusk, and small glasses containing candles were laid along the tables, so that on each side the faces of the Lucci clan glowed. Dulcie tried to keep up as she was introduced to Poppa, his two brothers, his three elder sons, his daughter, her husband, and various children. By that time she’d lost track.

To her embarrassment she was greeted as a heroine by everyone: Fede’s friend, doing all she could to bring him together with Jenny. Since there was no way of explaining what had really happened she was forced to endure it in silence.

Fede was sitting at the end of the table. Eagerly he grasped Dulcie’s hand and took her to a seat at right angles to his own. Guido seated himself facing her.