Wedding in Venice Read online

  No, she couldn't put these things into words.

  But then, looking at Riccardo's face, she knew she didn't have to. He understood everything. He'd seen into her soul with eyes of love and seen the turmoil of rage, bitterness and misery that was insidiously driving out everything else, until the best had all gone.

  "He wanted a child," she said abruptly. "I didn't. Not then, anyway. Who am I to be a parent? So we started to quarrel. One day – one day, I realized that the quarrels were destroying us."

  "So you quarreled harder, to drive him away," Riccardo said. "You reckoned that would be less painful than waiting for the breakup to occur naturally."

  She stared. "How did you know that?"

  "It's not magic. Attack sometimes seems the best form of defense. But it leaves you with nothing."

  "I can cope with nothing," she said desperately. "It's what I'm used to. What I can't take is believing in something and then learning all over again that it's an illusion."

  "I know," he said gently, tightening his arms and drawing her against him.

  In the comfort of his embrace it was easy to fall asleep again. When she awoke it was night, and they were speeding back across the lagoon.

  "Where are we going now?" she asked, coming to stand beside him at the wheel.

  "Home," he said.

  She didn't ask where he meant. A few minutes later they had stopped in the small canal that ran by the hotel, and were climbing up to the stars.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The dawn came softly and quickly, ushered in by the bell of St Mark's campanile. Justine stood on the balcony on top of Riccardo's apartment, and marveled at the beauty of the morning.

  She had spent the night in his arms, not making love, but enclosed in safety. Instinctively he had known what she needed, and had given it to her. A generous man, loving generously.

  He came up through the trapdoor, bearing a cup of hot tea.

  "You're a magician," she said. "I'm just ready to murder for a cup of tea."

  She sipped blissfully, looking around her and down into the narrow alleys. Then she stiffened.

  "What's that? It looks like water in the streets."

  "It is," Riccardo sighed. "It's high tide and the lagoon has flooded. It used to only happen in winter. Now it can be at any time."

  The photographer in her spoke at once. "I must get my camera."

  He grinned ruefully. "How did I know you were going to say that? Come on, I'll take you home."

  Outside she found the whole aspect of Venice transformed. Wherever she looked the narrow streets seemed to be lakes, and although the water was only four inches deep the effect was still staggering.

  Running like children, hand in hand, they splashed their way back to the palazzo and secured all her equipment.

  "First we go to St. Mark's Square," he said. "It's an astonishing sight when this happens, and it won't last long because the tide will turn."

  It was like that all day. He acted as her caddy and her advisor, telling her where to find the best shots.

  "I love this city," she said as they finally sat together at Florian's, drinking chocolate.

  He was clever enough to say nothing, letting her work out the implications for herself.

  When they came out, the water had gone, and they strolled contentedly back to the hotel. While he saw to some business in the hotel she went up to the apartment and took a shower.

  He arrived upstairs later to find her swathed in one of his towel dressing gowns, drinking tea. He held out his hand and led her to bed.

  His loving was like himself, generous, skillful, unpredictable. Relaxed at last, Justine responded wholeheartedly, and discovered that she too was unpredictable. It was like finding that you'd turned into a new person.

  Dozing in his arms afterward she found her mind traveling along new paths of discovery. Much of her business involved traveling abroad. She could run it as well from Venice as from England.

  She woke to find him planting soft kisses on her face.

  "Stay with me always," he begged.

  It would be so easy to say yes, to believe in the bright dream. She closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of him. Now the last leap seemed not only possible but easy, inevitable.

  But before she could speak her cell phone shrilled.

  "Answer it," he said. "There's time enough for what we have to say to each other."

  It was Dulcie, calling from her honeymoon hideout.

  "Blissful," she said in answer to Justine's question. "I can recommend marriage."

  Justine laughed. "That's very interesting."

  "But something sad has happened. Harriet has left Marco."

  "What? But they were setting the date," Justine protested.

  "I know. Now it's all over."

  When the call ended Justine slowly replaced the receiver, feeling stunned.

  "What has happened?" Riccardo asked, with foreboding.

  "Harriet and Marco have broken up. Two days after it was going to last forever."

  In a daze she saw the bright dream disintegrate and fall with tinkling shivers around her feet. So much for love eternal! What had she been thinking of to believe in such stuff?

  She began to laugh, falling back on the bed, contorted with mirth.

  "Is it funny?" Riccardo asked.

  "Of course it is, don't you see? Oh, what an idiot I've been!"

  "Justine, this has nothing to do with us."

  "The hell it hasn't! It has to do with everyone who buys into that pretty fantasy. And I came so close – but not anymore. I got confused, but I've seen the light now, and I'm going home before I make a bigger fool of myself than I already have. Don't try to stop me Riccardo."

  She waited for him to argue, but there was only silence. It seemed he had accepted her decision and, illogically, she knew a little ache of desolation. If he would only speak a word to dissuade her -

  "I'll take you home," he said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Justine's flight was at noon the next day. At ten, while she was finishing packing, Liza looked into her room to say, "The boat is here for you."

  The old woman bid her an affectionate goodbye, not hiding her disappointment that Justine was leaving Riccardo. The count also embraced her exuberantly, and escorted her out to the landing stage, where his staff had already piled Justine's bags into the motorboat.

  She gave them both a last kiss and, turning, put out her hand for the boatman to help her aboard.

  "Buon giorno!" Riccardo said.

  "You?"

  She felt a flash of dismay. They'd said their goodbyes last night, devastated and defeated on her side, quiet and strangely resigned on his. Why couldn't he leave it there?

  But in the same moment she knew she hadn't wanted him to do that, and the greater pain would be to leave without seeing him again.

  His hand tightened over hers and he drew her into the boat. When he had seen her seated he swung away down the Grand Canal, then across the lagoon to the airport, reversing the journey of the first day.

  But something was different this time. Suddenly the engine spluttered and died.

  "We seem to have a problem," Riccardo said.

  "I don't believe it," Justine said, jumping up and coming to stand beside him. "There's nothing wrong with that engine."

  He shrugged. "Let's just say there are things I want to say before you leave. You may ignore them. You probably will. But I can't let you go without saying them."

  Before he could say more, a large wave made the boat rock, knocking her off balance so that she had to cling to him. He was as steady as a rock.

  "You see?" he said. "The boat lurches but we don't fall because we cling to each other."

  "Pretty words, but only words," she said desperately. "You were right when you said that I don't trust love. How can you trust something that's built on such shifting foundations?"

  Riccardo's answer astonished her.

  "What's wrong with shifting foun
dations?"

  She stared. "Everything's wrong with them. You can't use them to build something that will last."

  "You can say that after what you saw yesterday, when we had to wade through high tide? You're wrong, and Venice is the proof that you're wrong. No city was ever built on shakier foundations than this one.

  "A thousand years ago our ancestors fled into the tiny islands of the lagoon to escape the barbarians. Here they thrust wooden stakes down into the mud and built a city on top of those stakes that has been the glory of the world.

  "You've heard that Venice is sinking, and yesterday you saw it for yourself. She's been sinking for centuries, but she's still here. Why? Because those of us who love her fight and struggle to keep her afloat.

  "Does the lagoon flood? We'll build barriers. Does the humid air rot the pictures? We'll restore them. We never stop patching the old girl up, and she's still with us."

  "But love isn't like that -"

  "Love is exactly like that. People change all the time, because life alters them. The man and woman who fall in love are not the same people they will be when their first child is born, then their first grandchild.

  "If the love lasts it's because they've struggled and adjusted to the endless changes. When the foundations move, they move with them, and so the love survives. It alters. After many years it looks different, but it's still there, and it's still love. Don't you see?"

  "Yes," she said sadly. "I do see. And you're right."

  "Well then -"

  "My darling, please try to understand. I see everything you want me to see. But I can't do it."

  Silence. Only the lapping of the water against the boat. His face was sadder than any human being's she had ever seen.

  At last he released her and started the engine again. Soon they were skimming across the water. Gradually the airport came into sight, growing larger every moment, until he slowed and eased into the jetty.

  In a few minutes she would be gone, and everything would be over. Her heart was breaking, but she had no idea how to stop what was happening.

  Chapter Twenty

  Riccardo carried her bags from the boat to the airport buildings and piled them onto a trolley.

  "I'll say goodbye now," he said briefly.

  "Won't you come with me to the check-in?"

  "There's no need."

  "You can't wait to get away from me."

  "I thought it was you going away from me."

  Justine made a helpless gesture. She was beyond speech.

  "Listen, amor mio," he said, taking gentle hold of her shoulders. "I thought there was still a chance for us, but there's something in you that I can't get past – fear or stubbornness, or just that you don't really love me -"

  "Don't say that," she cried passionately. "You know I love you."

  "But it isn't enough, is it? Too many ghosts haunt you, and I can't dispel them. I wish I could, because now I, too, have a ghost that will haunt me all my life."

  "Venice is a city of ghosts," she reminded him. "You taught me that."

  "Yes, but I didn't want you to be a ghost. I wanted you to be my reality. Instead, you'll be a 'might-have-been,' and that's the worst kind of ghost there is."

  She nodded. She couldn't deny it. But neither could she stop what was happening. It was like being carried on by the irresistible tide that flowed through the lagoon.

  "So," he went on, "I won't come any further. I won't watch you get onto the plane, and wave as it vanishes into the sky, because I couldn't bear to."

  "It isn't that I don't love you," she said huskily. "Please believe me. It's just that I can't take any more risks."

  "What do you mean 'any more'?" he asked with sudden anger. "You've never taken a risk in your life. Even your marriage was hedged around with safety barriers, and they were what destroyed it.

  "Do you remember my saying that if you jumped into my boat a third time you'd have to marry me? Do it now. Risk it. Take that third leap, and find my arms outstretched to catch you. Because they always will be."

  "I know," she choked. "But it's how I am. I can't help it."

  "Then there's no hope for us?"

  She shook her head.

  "Goodbye, amor mio," he said softly. "I shall never forget you."

  He took her face between his hands and kissed her with a tenderness that broke her heart.

  "Goodbye, goodbye," he whispered.

  She clung to him, wanting to prolong the moment forever, but unable to change her mind.

  He walked away from her toward the jetty. She waited for him to look back, telling herself that until he did that, it wasn't over.

  But he didn't look back, and she realized that he wouldn't do so. He wasn't sentimental, just a man with a powerful, loving heart that she had rejected.

  She began to push the trolley toward the check-in, but every step seemed forced.

  She had made her decision and must stick with it.

  Even if the rest of her life was desolate. And it would be.

  That wasn't a risk. It was a certainty.

  "Defense is the best form of attack, but it leaves you with nothing."

  "I can cope with nothing."

  Not anymore.

  In a few moments he would be gone forever. It only needed a little courage and a lot of faith.

  "Take that third leap, and find my arms outstretched…"

  She looked around wildly. It was almost too late. She began to run. Outside she could see the water and the queues waiting for motor taxis.

  He was there, just getting into the motorboat, starting it up.

  "Riccardo!" she screamed. "Riccardo, wait for me."

  But he couldn't hear her. The noise of his engine drowned her out. She began to run, frantic as she saw the precious chance slipping away.

  The boat was drawing away, but at the last moment something made him look back. Justine saw his face, alight with love and joy as he realized what she meant to do.

  "Wait for me, my love. I'm coming. I'm coming!"

  The onlookers parted to let her through. She sped the last few feet and took a flying leap off the jetty, soaring high into the air before falling into the arms that were outstretched to receive her forever.

  Lucy Gordon

  ***

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