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Except he wasn’t looking at her with derision. Didn’t look at her as if she was out of place. Instead she saw something else in his eyes. A spark. A flame. Heat.
And whatever it was low down in her belly that had flickered into life this night suddenly squeezed tight.
‘You say you made your costume yourself?’ he asked.
If she wasn’t wrong, his voice had gone down an octave.
‘Yes.’
‘Very talented. There is just one thing missing.’
‘What do you mean?’
But he already had his hands at her head. Her mask, she realised. She’d forgotten all about it. And now he smoothed it down over her hair, adjusting the crown so that it was centred before straightening the lace of her veil over her eyes.
She didn’t move a muscle to try to stop him and do it herself. She didn’t want to stop him. Because all the while the gentle brush of his fingers against her skin and the smoothing of his hands on her hair set off a chain reaction of tingles under her scalp and skin, hypnotising her into inaction.
‘There,’ he said, removing his hands from her head. She had to stop herself from swaying after them. ‘Perfection.’
‘Vittorio!’
A masculine voice rang out from the top of the stairs, saving her from having to find a response when she had none.
‘You’re here!’
‘Marcello!’ Vittorio answered, his voice booming in the space. ‘I promised you I’d be here, did I not?’
‘With you,’ the man said, jogging down the wide marble steps two by two, ‘who can tell?’
He was dressed as a Harlequin, in colours of black and gold, and the leather of his shoes slapped on the marble stairs as he descended. He and Vittorio embraced—a man hug, a back-slap—before drawing apart.
‘Vittorio,’ the Harlequin said, ‘it is good to see you.’
‘And you,’ Vittorio replied.
‘And you’ve brought someone, I see,’ he said, whipping off the mask over his eyes, his mouth curving into a smile as he held out one hand and bowed generously. ‘Welcome, fair stranger. My name is Marcello Donato.’
The man was impossibly handsome. Impossibly. Olive-skinned, with dark eyes and brows, a sexy slash of a mouth and high cheekbones over which any number of supermodels would go to war with each other. But it was the warmth of his smile that made Rosa instinctively like the man.
‘My name is Rosa.’
She took his hand and he drew her close and kissed both her cheeks.
‘I’m right in thinking we’ve never met, aren’t I?’ he said as he released her. ‘I’d be sure to remember if we had.’
‘I’ve only just met Rosa myself,’ Vittorio said, before she could answer. ‘She lost her party in the fog. I thought it unfair that she missed out on the biggest night of Carnevale.’
Marcello nodded. ‘That would be an injustice of massive proportions. Welcome, Rosa, I’m glad you found Vittorio.’ He stepped back and regarded them critically. ‘You make a good couple—the mad warrior protecting the runaway Princess.’
Vittorio snorted beside her.
‘What’s so funny?’ she said.
‘Marcello is known for his flights of fancy.’
‘What can I say?’ He beamed. ‘I’m a romantic. Unlike this hard-hearted creature beside me, whom you managed to stumble upon.’
She filed the information away for future reference. The words had been said in jest, but she wondered if there wasn’t an element of truth in them. ‘So, tell me,’ she said, ‘what is this Princess hiding from?’
‘That’s easy,’ he said. ‘An evil serpent. But don’t worry. Vittorio will protect you. There’s not a serpent in the land that’s a match for Vittorio.’
Something passed between the two men’s eyes. A look. An understanding.
‘What am I missing?’ she asked, her eyes darting from one to the other.
‘The fun,’ Marcello said, pulling his mask back on. ‘Everyone is upstairs on the second piano nobile. Come.’
Marcello was warm and welcoming, and nobody seemed to have any issues with the way she was dressed. Rosa began to relax. She’d been worrying about nothing.
Together they ascended the staircase to the piano nobile, where the principal reception rooms of the palazzo were housed one level above the waters of the canal. With its soaring ceilings, and rock crystal chandelier, Rosa could see that this level was even more breath-taking, more opulent, than the last. And the pièce de résistance was the impossibly ornate windows that spread generously across one wall.
‘Is there a view?’ she asked, tempted to look anyway. ‘I mean, when it isn’t foggy?’
‘You’ll have to come back,’ Marcello said, ignoring the crowded reception rooms either side, filled with partygoers, and the music of Vivaldi coming from the string quartet, and walking to the windows before them. ‘On a clear day you can see the Rialto Bridge to the right.’
Rosa peered through the fog, trying to make sense of the smudges of light. But if the Rialto Bridge was to the right... ‘You’re on the Grand Canal!’
Marcello shrugged and smiled. ‘Not that you can tell today. But Venice wearing its shroud of fog is still a sight to behold, so enjoy. And now please excuse me while I find you some drinks.’
‘We’re in San Polo,’ she said to Vittorio.
The hotel where she worked was in the Dorsoduro sestiere, the ball she was supposed to be attending was in the northern district of Cannaregio. Somehow she’d ended up lost between them and within a whisker of the sinuous Grand Canal, which would have hinted at her location if only she’d found it.
A smudge of light passed slowly by—a vaporetto or a motorboat carefully navigating the fog-shrouded waterway—and Rosa’s thoughts chugged with it. Vittorio had been kind, asking her to accompany him, but strictly speaking she wasn’t lost any more.
She turned to him. ‘I know where I am now.’
‘Does that matter?’
‘I mean, I’m not lost. At least, I can find my way home from here.’
He turned to her, putting his big hands on her shoulders as he looked down at her. ‘Are you looking for yet another reason to escape?’
A wry smile kicked up one side of his mouth. He was laughing at her again, and she found she didn’t mind—not when seeing his smile made her feel as if she was capturing something rare and true.
‘I’m not—’
He cocked an eyebrow. ‘Why are you so desperate to run away from me?’
He was wrong. She wasn’t desperate to run away from him. Oh, sure, there’d been that moment when she’d panicked, at the end of the path outside the side gate, but she knew better now. Vittorio was no warrior or warlord, no demon or monster. He was a man, warm and real and powerful...a man who made her blood zing.
Except the warm weight of his hands on her shoulders and the probing questions in his eyes vanquished reasoned argument. There was only strength and heat and fear that it would be Vittorio who might change his mind. And then he’d take his hands away. And then she’d miss that contact and the heat and the zing and the pure exhilaration of being in his company.
A tiny worm of a thought squeezed its way through the connections in her brain. Wasn’t that reason enough to run?
She was out of her depth with a man like him—a man who was clearly older and more worldly-wise, who moved in circles with people who owned entire palazzos and whose ancestors were amongst the doges of Venice. A man who made her feel stirrings in her belly, fizzing in her blood—things she wasn’t used to feeling.
Nothing in the village—not a teenage crush on her maths teacher nor a dalliance with Antonio from the next village, who’d worked a few months in her father’s workshop, had prepared her for meeting someone like Vittorio. She felt inadequate. Underdone.
She was dressed as a courtesan, a seductress, a temptress. But that was such a lie. She swallowed. She could hardly admit that, though.
‘You invited me to this party tonight because I was lost and you felt sorry for me, because I was upset and was going to miss my own party.’
He snorted. ‘I don’t do things because I feel sorry for people. I do things because I want to. I invited you to this party because I wanted to. And because I wanted you to be with me.’ His hands squeezed her shoulders. ‘So now, instead of trying to find all the reasons you shouldn’t be here, how about you enjoy all the reasons you should?’
What could she say to that? ‘In that case, it very much seems that I am stuck with you.’
‘You are,’ he said, with a smile that warmed her to her bones. ‘At least for as long as this night lasts.’
‘A toast.’ Marcello said, arriving back with three glasses of Aperol spritz. He handed them each a glass. ‘To Carnevale,’ he said, raising his glass in a toast.
‘To Carnevale,’ said Rosa.
‘To Carnevale,’ echoed Vittorio, lifting his glass in Rosa’s direction, ‘And to the Venetian fog that delivered us Rosa.’
And if the words he uttered in his deep voice were not enough, the way Vittorio’s piercing blue eyes looked at her above his glass made her blush all the way down to her toes. In that moment Rosa knew that this night would never last long enough, and that whatever else happened she would remember this night for ever.
* * *
She was skittish—so skittish. She was like a colt, untrained and unrehearsed, or a kitten, jumping at shadows and imaginary enemies. And it wasn’t an act. He was good at spotting an ingénue, a pretender. He was used to women who played games and who made themselves out to be something they were not.
Just for a moment Vittorio wondered if he was doing the right thing, pitting her against Sirena. Maybe he should release her from her obvious unease and awkwardness and let her go back to her own world, if that was what she really wanted, back to what was, no doubt, the drudgery of her work and the worry of losing the paltry sum of one hundred euros.
Except Vittorio was selfish enough not to want to let her go.
He saw the way her eyes widened at every new discovery, at every exquisite Murano glass lamp, every frescoed wall or gilded mirror that stretched almost to the ceiling.
She was like a breath of fresh air in Vittorio’s life. Unsophisticated and not pretending otherwise. She was a refreshing change when he had been feeling so jaded.
And she was a beautiful woman in a gown that fitted like a glove and make him ache to peel it off.
Why should he let her go?
CHAPTER FOUR (#u5ca9e776-63ed-51ba-adbe-fecfb0aae401)
IT WASN’T A party or even a ball. It was like being part of a fairy-tale.
Rosa ascended the wide staircase to the second level above the water—yet another floor with soaring ceilings and exquisite antiques and furnishings. The music from the string quartet was louder here, richer, its sweet notes filling the gaps between the sound of laughter and high-spirited conversation coming from the party rooms either side of the staircase.
And the costumes! A brightly coloured peacock strutted by as they reached the top, all feathers and flashes of brilliant colour, and Rosa couldn’t help but laugh in sheer wonderment as a couple with ice-white masks wearing elaborate gowns and suits of the deepest purple nodded regally as they strolled past arm in arm.
Rosa felt herself swept away into a different world of riches and costumes—a sumptuous world of fantasy—and only half wished that the man who had rescued her from the foggy calles wasn’t quite so popular, because then she could keep him all to herself.
Everyone seemed to recognise Vittorio and to want to throw out an exchange or a greeting. He was like a magnet to both men and women alike, but he always introduced her to them, including her in the conversation.
And, while her presence at his side wasn’t questioned, she wondered what she might see if everyone wasn’t wearing masks. Would the women’s eyes be following Vittorio’s every move because he was so compelling? Would they be looking at her in envy?
If she were in their place she would.
And suddenly the music and the costumes and the amazing sumptuousness of the palazzo bled into a heady mix that made her head spin. She was part of a Venice she’d never seen and had only ever imagined.
Suddenly there was a shriek of delight from the other wing, and a commotion as someone made their way through the crowds into the room.
‘Vittorio!’ a woman cried, bursting through the partygoers. ‘I just heard you were here. Where have you been hiding all this time?’
But not just any woman.
Cleopatra.
Her sleek black bob was adorned with golden beads, the circlet at her forehead topped with an asp. Like Vittorio, she hadn’t bothered with a mask. Her eyes were kohled, their lids painted turquoise-blue, and her dress was simply amazing. Cut low—really low—over the smooth globes of her breasts, it was constructed entirely of beads in gold and bronze and silver, its short skirt just strings of the shiny beads that shifted and flashed skin with her every movement.
It wasn’t so much a dress, Rosa thought as she took a step back to make room for the woman to reach up and kiss Vittorio on both cheeks, as an invitation. It showed the wearer’s body off to perfection.
Cleopatra left her face close to his. ‘Everyone has been waiting hours for you,’ she chided, before she stood back to take in what he was wearing.
Or maybe to give him another chance to see her spectacular costume.
She held her hands out wide. ‘But must you always look so dramatic? It’s supposed to be a costume party.’
‘I’m wearing a costume.’
‘If you say so—but can’t you for once dress out of character?’
‘Sirena,’ he said, ignoring her question as he reached for Rosa’s hand, pulling her back into his orbit. ‘I’d like you to meet a friend of mine. Rosa, this is Sirena, the daughter of one of my father’s oldest friends.’
‘Oh,’ she said, with a knowing laugh, ‘I’m far more than that.’
And then, for the first time, Sirena seemed to notice that there was someone standing next to Vittorio. She turned her head and looked Rosa up and down, letting her eyes tell Rosa what she thought about his ‘friend’.
‘Ciao,’ she said, her voice deadpan, and Rosa couldn’t be certain that she was saying hello as opposed to giving her a dismissal.
She immediately turned back to Vittorio, angling her back towards Rosa.
Definitely a dismissal.
‘Vittorio, come with me—all our friends are in the other room.’
‘I’m here with Rosa.’
