her luggage was loaded onto the Vittorio’s private motor launch.
It was early June, and as the boatman started the trip across the lagoon the sun was high in the sky and the light glinted on the water. Surrounded by so much bright beauty Dulcie briefly forgot her sadness.
To her right she could see the causeway linking Venice to the mainland. A train was making its way across. On the other side the lagoon stretched far away to the horizon.
‘There, signorina,’ the boatman said, speaking with the pride all Venetians feel in their city.
What she saw at first were shining orbs, gradually resolving themselves into golden cupolas, gleaming in the sun. The city itself, delicate and perfect, came gradually into view, taking her breath away with its beauty. She stayed motionless, not wanting to miss anything, as the motor boat slowed down.
‘We have to enter Venice gently,’ the driver explained, ‘so that we do not cause any large waves. This is the Cannaregio Canal, which will take us to the Grand Canal, and the Vittorio.’
Suddenly the brightness of the lagoon was blotted out and they were drifting in shadow between high buildings. Dulcie resumed her seat and leaned back, looking up to the narrow strip of sky overhead. After a few minutes they were in sunlight again, heading down the Grand Canal to a magnificent seventeenth-century palace. The Hotel Vittorio.
At the landing-stage hands reached down to help her up the steps and guide her into the hotel. She made a stately entrance, followed by porters bearing her luggage in procession.
‘The Empress Suite,’ declared a lofty individual on the desk.
‘The Emp—?’ she echoed, dismayed. ‘Are you sure there hasn’t been a mistake?’
But she was already being swept away to the third floor where gilded double doors opened before her and she walked into the palatial apartment. Everything about it was designed to look like the abode of an empress, including the eighteenth-century furniture. On one wall hung a portrait of the beautiful, young Empress Elisabeth of Austria, painted in the nineteenth century when Venice had been an Austrian province.
To one side was another pair of double doors, through which Dulcie found her bedroom, with a bed large enough to sleep four. She gasped, overwhelmed by such opulence. A maid appeared, ready to unpack her luggage. Just in time she remembered Roscoe’s orders to ‘splash it about a bit’ and distributed tips large enough to get herself talked about even in this place.
When everyone had gone she sat in silence, trying to come to terms with the shock of being here, alone, when she should have been here as a blissful bride.
She forced herself to confront the memory of Simon, painful though it was. He’d assumed that Lady Dulcie Maddox, daughter of Lord Maddox, must have a potful of family money hidden somewhere. He’d courted her ardently, using practised words to sweep her away in a magic balloon, to a place where everything was love and gratification.
But the balloon had fallen to earth, with her in it.
Simon had lived lavishly—all on credit, as she’d later discovered. She hadn’t cared about his money, only about his love. But the one was as illusory as the other.
He’d shown her the Hotel Vittorio’s brochure one evening when they were dining at the Ritz. ‘I’ve already made our honeymoon booking,’ he’d said, ‘in the Empress Suite.’
‘But darling, the cost—’
‘So what? Money is for spending.’
She’d spoken with passionate tenderness. ‘You don’t have to spend a lot on me. Money isn’t what it’s about.’
His quizzical frown should have warned her. ‘No, sweetie, but it helps.’
Then she’d said—and the memory tormented her still— ‘You don’t think I’m marrying you for your money do you? I love you, you. I wouldn’t care if you were as poor as I am.’
She could still see the wary look that came into his eyes, and sense the chill that settled over him. ‘This is a wind up, right? As poor as Lady Dulcie Maddox.’
‘You can’t eat a title. I haven’t a penny.’
‘I heard your grandfather blew twenty grand at the races in one day.’
‘That’s right. And my father was the same. That’s why I haven’t a penny.’
‘But you lot have all got trust funds, everyone knows that.’
The truth had got through to her now, but she fought not to face it. ‘Do I live like someone with a trust fund?’
‘Go on, you’re just slumming.’
She’d finally convinced him that she wasn’t, and that was the last time she saw him. Her final memory was of him snatching a credit card statement from his pocket and tossing it at her with the bitter words, ‘Do you know how much money I’ve spent on you? And for what? Well, no more.’
Then he stormed out of the Ritz, leaving her to pay for the meal.
And that had been that.
Sitting in the quiet of the Empress Suite Dulcie knew that it was time to pull herself together. Now there was another fortune hunter, but this time he was the prey and she the pursuer, seeking him out for retribution, the avenger of all women.
She showered in a gold and marble bathroom and chose something to wear for her first outing ‘on duty’. She finally left the hotel arrayed in an orange silk dress, with a delicate pendant of pure gold. Gold earrings and dainty gilt sandals completed the ensemble. So much gold might be overdoing it, but she needed to make an impression, fast.
When she’d finished she took a final look at the picture, to make sure his face was imprinted on her mind. She dismissed the baby-faced boy at the back. There was the one she wanted, playing the mandolin, over-flowing with confidence, smiling at Jenny, no doubt serenading her with honeyed words. The rat!
Finding one gondolier among so many was a problem, but she’d come prepared. Guidebooks had told her about the vaporetto, the great water buses that transported passengers along the Grand Canal, so she headed for one of the landing stages, boarded the next boat, and took up a position in the front, armed with powerful binoculars.
For an hour the vaporetto moved along the canal, criss-crossing to landing stages on each side, while Dulcie searched for her quarry, without success. At the end of the line she turned back and started again. No luck this time either, and she was almost about to give up when suddenly she saw him.
It was only a glimpse, too brief to be sure, but there was the gondola gliding between two buildings while she frantically focused the binoculars, catching him clearly only at the last moment.
The vaporetto was about to cast off from a landing stage. Dulcie moved fast, jumping ashore just in time and looking desperately about her. The gondola had vanished. She plunged down an alley between tall buildings to a small canal at the far end. No sign of him there, but he must be somewhere to her left. She made for a tiny bridge, tore over it and into another dark alley.
At the far end was another small canal, another bridge. A gondola was heading towards her. But was it the same one? The gondolier’s face was hidden by a straw hat. She placed herself on the bridge, watching intently as the long boat neared, the oarsman standing at the far end.
‘Lift your head,’ she agonised. ‘Look up!’
He had almost reached the bridge. In a moment it would be too late. Driven by desperation she wrenched off one of her shoes and tossed it over the side. It struck his hat, knocking it off, before landing exactly at his feet.
Then he looked up, and there was the face she’d come to Venice seeking, the face of the mandolin player. Eyes of fierce, startling blue, set in a laughing face, seemed to seize her, hold her, almost hypnotise her, so that she found herself smiling back.
‘Buon giorno, bella signorina,’