The Italian's Cinderella Bride

CHAPTER TWO

PIETRO was in pyjamas and his hair was tousled. He switched on the small bedside light and watched as the joy died out of her eyes.

‘I heard you calling,’ he said. ‘You sounded desperate.’

‘I had such dreams,’ she whispered. ‘Gino—’

He wondered if she knew that she’d kissed him, thinking he was Gino, and cried out; ‘Te voja ben,’ the Venetian for ‘I love you.’ With all his soul he hoped not.

‘Talk to me about Gino,’ he said.

‘Our last evening together—I have that dream so often, but then it fades—he vanishes, but I don’t know where—and it’s too late to find out because it was so long ago. I’m sorry if I awoke you. I promise to be quiet now.’

‘You can’t help a dream.’

She suddenly put her hands together over her chest, but there was nothing seductive about her appearance. Like him, she was in pyjamas. They were sedate and functional, buttoning high in the front.

‘I didn’t mean to stare at you,’ he assured her.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said simply. ‘I’m used to it.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I warned you last night that I was a bit mad.’

‘Don’t talk like that,’ he said quickly.

‘Why not? It’s true—well, a little bit. For the last year I’ve been officially diagnosed as “disturbed”. I’m a lot better than I was, but I’m not all the way there yet.’

‘But what happened? Can you tell me?’

‘Gino came to England. We went out to dinner and—’ She stopped, smiling. ‘We talked about how I was going back to Venice with him, to meet his family, and discuss the wedding. It was the most marvellous night of my life, until—until—’

‘Don’t force yourself if it’s too painful.’

‘I have to, or I’ll never escape.’

‘All right,’ he said quietly. ‘Tell me what happened.’

At last Ruth began to speak.

‘When we’d finished eating we went out to the car park, and found some lads there, trying to break into the car. They attacked us. I was knocked out, and woke up in the hospital. My mind was a blank. I didn’t know what had happened, or who I was. I didn’t even recognise Gino. I only knew there was a young man sitting beside the bed, but to me he was a stranger. Everything in my mind was blank, including myself.

‘But seeing him again afterwards, didn’t that help you to remember?’

‘I don’t remembering him coming back—but he may have done. I kept blacking out. When I awoke properly it was some time later and he wasn’t there. I never saw him again. Perhaps he couldn’t bear my not recognising him any longer. I can’t blame him for leaving.’

Pietro was getting a very bad feeling about this. Gino’s story that he’d been jilted had always sounded unlikely. In truth, he seemed to have deserted her when she most needed him.

‘And you had nobody to help you? No family? Nothing?’

‘After my parents died I was raised by my mother’s sister, who didn’t really want me. She died while I was away at college. Then I discovered that she’d known for months that she was dying, but never told me. It was like the final slamming of a door.

‘So there was nobody who’d known me in the past. I had blinding headaches. There was a lot of pressure on my brain because I’d been beaten so badly about the head. They had to operate to relieve it. I was better after that.’

‘But—alone,’ he murmured, stunned by the horror of it.

She gave a little wry smile.

‘I looked awful. I was rather glad there was nobody to see me.’

Pietro was speechless. Perhaps, he thought, it was a good thing Gino wasn’t present right now. He might have said or done something he would later regret.

‘All my hair was shaved off,’ she recalled. ‘I looked like a malignant elf.’

Something in her self-mocking tone inspired him to say absurdly, ‘Why malignant? I always thought elves were nice.’

‘Not this one. I even scared myself. My memory started to return in bits. It was odd, I’m a language teacher and I found I still knew the languages, but not my own identity.

‘I was able to get some official records, and the people I knew at work could tell me a few things that I’d told them about myself. But effectively my life started when I awoke in the hospital.’

‘How long were you there?’ he asked.

‘Three or four months. Then I was moved into sheltered accommodation. I was too full of nerves to go back to teaching in a school, but I managed to get some translation work to do at home. That made me feel better, and my mind seemed to open up a little more every day.

‘At last I remembered who I was, and Gino—how much we loved each other—it all came back in a rush, while I was asleep. I went back to the hospital to see if anyone there could remember seeing him, but of course it was in the past, and most of the staff had changed.

‘So in the end I decided to come back to Venice. I hoped to find him but if—if not, I can go back to the places where we were together, and see if anything more comes back to me.’

‘What are you hoping for?’ he asked. ‘That you’ll rediscover your love?’

‘I’m not really sure. But there are so many gaps that only he can fill in. I can’t even remember much of the attack. The lads were never caught. It was a year ago, but to me it was yesterday.’

Which means that it was yesterday she’d sat in the restaurant with Gino, exchanging words of love. Part of her, at least, was still in love with him. Pietro was sick at heart.

‘I suppose he might be married by now,’ she said softly. ‘I can’t hope that he still loves me just because I—’ She broke off.

‘No, he isn’t married,’ Pietro said heavily.

‘But for him it’s been a long time. I know.’ She suddenly gave him a delightful smile. ‘Don’t worry. I haven’t come to make trouble. I just want him to help me move forward.’

Ruth seemed to become self-conscious. ‘Perhaps you should go away now. I don’t want to make trouble for you either—I mean your wife. Gino told me about her, and the baby you were expecting. I hope I haven’t disturbed either of them.’

‘No, you haven’t disturbed them,’ Pietro said abruptly. ‘They’re both dead. Goodnight.’

He left quickly.

Back in his own room he tried to sleep, but now it was impossible. The trouble with letting a ghost into his home was that she had brought other ghosts with her. He spent his life trying to avoid those gentle phantoms, and now they were here, making him feel their sadness.

Not that Lisetta had ever reproached him. She’d loved him too well for that. More than life, she’d often said. And proved it. And the baby, dead after only a few hours, now sleeping peacefully in his mother’s arms, a reminder of what might have been.

‘Go away,’ he cried desperately. ‘Haven’t I been punished enough?’

It was an hour before he fell into an exhausted sleep, and when he awoke it was broad daylight, and he could hear Minna, his housekeeper, moving about outside. He wondered if the two women had met. But when he went out there was only Minna, large, middle-aged, the epitome of solid reassurance.

‘About that lady,’ he said when they had greeted each other.

‘What lady, signore?’

‘Haven’t you seen her? She stayed the night here because of the storm. Perhaps she’s still in her room.’

But the room was empty. The bed had been stripped and the bedclothes folded neatly. Ruth’s suitcase was gone.

‘There’s a letter for you on the table,’ Minna said.

With a sense of foreboding he snatched it up and found his worst fears realised.

‘I’m really sorry to have bothered you,’ it said. ‘I had no idea about your wife. Please forgive me. Thank you for all you did. Ruth.’

‘Stupid woman!’ he growled, crushing the letter.

‘Signore?’

‘Not you, Minna. Her. What does she think she’s playing at? You didn’t catch a glimpse of her leaving?’

‘No, signore. There was nobody here when I came in. Just the letter on the table. What has this woman done?’

What had she done? he wondered. Only invaded his life, destroyed his peace, turned everything upside down, made him feel responsible for her welfare and then vanished into thin air. Nothing, really.

‘I’m sorry, signore.’

‘What for? It’s not your fault. It’s just that when I find her I’m going to strangle her.’

‘Have some breakfast first.’

‘No time. I don’t know how long she’s been gone.’

He vanished out of the door as he spoke, hurrying down the narrow calle that ran alongside the palazzo. It ended in a small square where there were a few shops, at one of which a man was arranging groceries outside.

‘Enrico, have you seen a young woman come out of here?’ Pietro described her.

‘Yes, about an hour ago. She went down that turning.’

‘Thank you,’ he called over his shoulder.

Luck was with him. It was January and Venice was almost free of tourists, plus, in that tiny city, he knew almost every other resident, so he was able to consult many kindly friends, and managed to build up a picture of Ruth’s movements, even down to half an hour she spent drinking coffee in a small café.

In no other city but Venice could he have done this. The word began to spread ahead of him. People telephoned each other to ask if Ruth had passed that way, then they began waiting for him in the squares and alleyways, and one was even able to describe the new coat she’d just bought. It was dark red wool, very stylish, he assured Pietro, and a great improvement on the light coat she’d been wearing, which was damp.

It was a help. Now he was able to look for the coat, and finally he spotted her in the Garibaldi Gardens, at the extreme end of Venice, where the land tailed off into the lagoon.

He almost didn’t see her at first. By now, it was late afternoon, the light was fading fast and she was sitting quite still on a stone bench. Her elbows were resting on her knees and her arms were crossed as if to protect herself, but she didn’t, as he’d feared, have the look of despair he’d seen last night. She merely seemed calm and collected.

After the frazzled day he’d had, the sight had an unfortunate effect on his temper. He planted himself in front of her.

‘I’ve spent all day looking for you,’ were his first cross words.

‘But didn’t you get my letter?’

‘Yes, I got it, for what good you thought it did. The state you were in—Just running off—Of all the daft—’ He exploded into a stream of Venetian curses while she waited for him to be finished.

‘But can’t you see that I had to do it?’ Ruth asked when she could get a word in.

‘No, I can’t,’ he snapped.

‘I just felt so embarrassed about dumping myself on you like that.’

‘You didn’t. I hauled you in. That was my first mistake.’

‘You wish you’d left me there?’

‘I wish I’d chucked you in the Grand Canal. But I didn’t. I invited you into my home, where you collapsed.’

‘But if I’d known about your wife—’

‘Why should you? Leave that.’

There was a silence, then she said awkwardly, ‘And now you’re angry with me.’

Remembering her frail condition, he knew he should utter comforting words, designed to make her feel better. But something had got hold of him and the words poured out in a stream of ill temper.

‘Why should you think that? I only dashed out without any breakfast and spent the day wandering the streets looking for the most awkward, difficult woman I’ve ever met. I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m cold, and it was all completely unnecessary. Why the devil should I be angry with you?’

Instead of bursting into tears she regarded him thoughtfully before saying, ‘I expect you feel a lot better now you’ve lost your temper.’

‘Yes!’

It was true. All his life he’d been even-tempered. That had changed in the last year, when rage would sometimes overcome him without warning, but he’d put his mind to controlling these outbursts, and succeeded up to a point. But these days self-control had a heavy price, and now the relief of allowing himself an explosion was considerable.

‘Can I buy you a drink?’ she asked.

‘You can buy me two,’ he growled. ‘Come on, let’s go, it’s getting dark.’

Pietro grasped her hand firmly, so as not to lose her again, and reached for her suitcase. But she tried to hold on to it, protesting, ‘I’m quite capable of—’

‘Quit arguing and let go!’

He took her to a small café overlooking the lagoon, and they sat at the window, watching lights on the water. She bought him a large brandy, which he drained in one gulp, at which she ordered another.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘So you ought to be. Of all the stupid, stupid—’

‘OK, I get the point. I’m stupid.’

‘Yes, no! I didn’t mean it like that.’ With horror he realised how his careless words might sound after what she’d been through. ‘I don’t want you to think—just because your head was injured—’

Then he saw that she was giving him a quizzical half-smile.

‘It’s all right,’ she said kindly. ‘You don’t have to tread on eggshells. Let’s leave it that I’m crazy but I’m not stupid.’

‘Stop that talk! You’re not crazy.’

‘How do you know?’ she demanded indignantly.

‘Why are you suddenly different? Last night you were half out of it, and today you’re ready to fight the world.’

‘Isn’t fighting better than giving in?’

‘Sure, if you fight the right person. But why me?’ he demanded, exasperated. ‘Why am I getting all your aggro dumped on me?’

‘You’re handy.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘I’d had a bad time yesterday, what with the flight and getting soaking wet. There’s nothing like half drowning for making you depressed. But I’ve sorted myself out a bit now. Why are you glaring at me? What have I done wrong now?’

‘All day I’ve had nightmares about you wandering Venice alone, confused, miserable. I was sorry for you, worried about you—and now you’re fine.’

‘Well, I’m sorry about that. Last night the pressure made me slip back to my bad time, but I’ve pulled myself together.’

He wasn’t totally convinced. Her smile was too bright, not quite covering an air of strain, and he guessed that part of this was presented for his benefit. But certainly she was mentally stronger than he had feared.

‘I’m glad you’re better,’ he said, ‘but you’re still not ready to go wandering off among strangers. Whatever you may have thought, I didn’t want you to go.’

‘Of course you did—’

‘Woman, what will it take to stop you arguing every time I open my mouth?’

‘I don’t know. If I think of something I’ll make sure you never find out.’

‘I’ll bet you will.’

‘I was just so embarrassed when I found out about your wife and child.’

‘You needn’t be,’ he said, pale but speaking normally. ‘They died nearly a year ago. I’ve come to terms with it by now.’ Abruptly he changed the subject. ‘I’m ready for something to eat, on me this time.’

She knew he wasn’t telling the truth. He was far from coming to terms with his tragedy. His eyes spoke of a hundred sleepless night, and days that were even worse. He looked like a man who could be destroyed by his feelings, and, strangely, it made her feel calmer, as though in some mysterious way they were alike; equals in suffering, in need.

‘As long as you know that I’m sorry,’ she said slowly.

‘You’ve nothing to feel bad about. You’ve even done me a favour, giving me something to think about apart from myself.’

‘Oh, yes!’ she said fervently.

He gave a faint smile. ‘You too?’

‘I’ll say. After a while you get so bored with yourself.’

He ordered a meal, and while they waited he took out his cell phone and called Minna.

‘It’s all right, I’ve found her,’ he said. ‘If you’d just make up her bed—oh, you have. Thank you. Then I shan’t need you again today. Have an early night.’

‘That was my housekeeper,’ he explained, shutting off the phone.

‘And she’s already made my bed up?’

‘She never doubted that I’d bring you back.’

‘Now I remember. Gino once said that none of your servants ever doubted that you could do everything you said you would. It’s an article of faith, and practically heresy to doubt il conte.’

He made a wry face.

‘It sounds devoted but actually it’s just a way of controlling me.’

‘I suppose people’s expectations can be like handcuffs.’

‘Exactly. It’s one of the reasons I’ve always tried to keep my head down and not be il conte any more than I have to. But it doesn’t work. I’ve got the name hanging around my neck, and that great palace. How can any man live a normal life in a place like that?’

‘It must be grim if you’re there alone.’

‘I’m not exactly alone. Minna lives there, and Celia, a maid. And Toni.’

‘I love Toni,’ she said at once. ‘He’s so big and shambling. I’m not sure why but he looks terribly vulnerable.’

‘I got him from a rescue centre. Nobody else wanted him because he’s epileptic, and I suppose they thought it might make him aggressive. It doesn’t. Quite the reverse. When he has a fit he just lies there and shakes.’

‘Poor soul,’ she said, shocked. ‘So you gave him a home because he had nowhere else to go.’

‘Well, if I did he’s repaid me a thousand times. He’s the best friend a man ever had.’

But still, Ruth thought, shivering as she recalled that great empty building, it must make for a lonely life, with only his memories for company. She wondered about his wife, and how much he must have loved her to have been reduced to such bleakness by her loss. And she shivered again.

‘Where did you go when you slipped out this morning?’ Pietro asked.

‘Looking for places I’d been before, but I didn’t do so well. It’s all so different in winter. I went to a little café where we’d been together. We sat outside, and I remember the sun shining on his hair, but today I stayed inside because it was drizzling. I can’t do it on my own. I’ll have to wait until he returns. Or maybe I could go to see him.’

‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘It has to be here, where you were together.’

Pietro knew he must keep her with him at least until he’d spoken to Gino. Earlier that day he’d sat by the lagoon and put through a call on his cell phone. A female voice had answered. Pietro had left a message for Gino to call him, but nothing had happened.

He’d sent a text, stressing the urgency but not mentioning Ruth’s name. Now, hours later, while Ruth was drinking her wine he did a hasty check under the table, but found nothing.

‘How did you find me?’ she asked.

‘With the help of a few hundred friends. Venice counts as a great city because it’s unique, but in size it’s little more than a village. We all know each other. Sooner or later I found someone who’d seen you, and could point me in the right direction. I even knew what your new coat looked like.’

‘So I’ve been under surveillance?’

‘In a nice way. You can’t hide anything from your neighbours in Venice, but it can be comforting to have so many people look out for you.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Most of them said something about how I shouldn’t be out so early in the cold, and I should be careful not to get lost.’ She gave a sigh of pleasure. ‘It was like being protected by a huge family.’

‘We do that,’ he agreed. ‘Venetians are so different from the rest of the world. We try to look after the others.’

Except Gino, who had simply deserted her, he thought. He wondered if she were thinking the same, but she gave no sign.

‘Go on telling me about your day,’ he urged.

‘Oh, you’d have laughed if you could have seen me. I had all sorts of impractical ideas, take a gondola ride, feed the pigeons in St Mark’s Square, go to look at the Bridge of Sighs. Something really did come back to me there—the first time I got cross with him and we ended up bickering.’

‘About the Bridge of Sighs?’

‘Yes. Gino spun me the whole romantic story, how it had been named after the sighs of lovers. I thought that was lovely until I bought a guide book and discovered that the bridge connects the prison to the Doge’s Palace, where trials were held. So the sighs came from prisoners taking their last look at the sky before going to the dungeons.’

Pietro began to laugh. ‘You quarrelled about that?’

‘Not quarrelled, squabbled. I like to have the truth.’

‘Rather than a romantic fantasy? Shame on you.’

‘I don’t trust fantasies. They lay traps.’

‘But so does the truth sometimes,’ he pointed out quietly.

She didn’t answer in words, but she nodded.

‘I got very lofty and humourless,’ she said after a while. ‘I told Gino sternly that he had no right to tell lies just to make things sound romantic when they weren’t. D’you know what he said?’

Pietro shook his head.

‘He said, “But, cara, one of the prisoners was Casanova, the greatest lover in the history of the world. You can’t get more romantic than that.”’

He had to laugh at her droll manner. ‘Did you forgive him?’

‘Of course. You have to forgive Gino his funny little ways.’

He noted her use of the present tense, as though Gino were still a presence in her life. Was this how she explained his desertion to herself? Gino’s funny little ways?

Ruth went on talking about her day, putting a light-hearted gloss on it, while he watched her with a heavy heart. A stranger would never have known the anguish that lay behind her flippant manner. But he saw it, because it was like looking at himself.

CHAPTER THREE

‘THE trouble with you,’ Pietro said at last, ‘is that you’re not organised. You need to do this properly, with someone who knows Venice and who can keep an eye on you to stop you doing something daft.’

‘Well, I’m interviewing applicants for the position,’ Ruth said promptly. ‘There’s no salary, unpredictable hours and it needs to be someone who can put up with me.’