‘We’ll return together.’

He held out his hand and she placed hers in it so that he could lead her up the stairs into the corridor. The music, closer now, seemed to enclose them.

He stopped to listen, then put out his hand, sliding it determinedly about her waist, drawing her close into a waltz.

‘A man must take his chances while he can,’ he murmured provocatively.

She laughed, and felt him tense as her breath brushed his face. They were close now, as they had been on the night they had so nearly made love, before he had rejected her. But this time they were not themselves, although neither could have said with certainty who they were.

Who knows what the truth will be? he had said.

Moving dream-like in his arms, Ruth felt that only one truth could ever matter again.

But there was danger in that. The world would intrude. Even now she heard it from the far end of the corridor. Doors were flung open, revellers poured out, laughing and singing, shattering the dream. She must escape.

Pietro, forced back to being a good host, hailed the other guests as politely as he could manage, and saw them go scurrying away, seeking dark corners where they could be alone. With a sigh of relief he turned back to Ruth.

But she had gone. He was alone in the dark corridor, wondering if it had all been a dream.

When he returned to the ball she was dancing with another man.

The festivities went on into the small hours, and to him every moment was interminable. Serafina dragged out the goodbyes for ever, but finally the last guest was gone, and even she fell silent, eyeing Franco balefully. For once his attention wasn’t on her, but on ‘the mystery woman’ who’d vanished but lingered in his thoughts.

‘I just wish I knew who she was,’ he sighed.

‘It was Ruth,’ Pietro informed him coldly. ‘The wig and the mask concealed her identity very well.’

‘Ruth?’ Serafina echoed in disgust. ‘But she’s only a-’

With Pietro’s eyes on her she was suddenly afraid.

‘Pure Carnival,’ Franco said ecstatically.

A mystery woman, Pietro mused. That was exactly what she was, and it was driving him mad.

Smiling determinedly, he escorted Franco and Serafina upstairs to their rooms, pretended not to hear their hints about staying a few more days, bid them goodnight and returned thankfully to his own little corner.

To his relief he found Ruth there, having discarded the glorious dress and donned shirt and trousers to eat a prosaic dish of pasta. She bore no resemblance to the vision in satin brocade who had tormented him, and for a moment he even wondered. But only for a moment.

‘Where did you vanish to?’ he demanded.

‘Oh, here and there. You saw me around.’ She sighed happily. ‘I wouldn’t have thought there were so many attractive men in the world. At least, I think they were attractive. Once the mask came off-who knows?’

Her shrug was eloquent.

‘I believe a few masks were removed at the end of the evening,’ he said.

‘It might be better if they hadn’t been. Better to enjoy the dream than face the reality.’

He turned on her swiftly. ‘Do you really mean that?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. How should I know what I mean after an evening like that? It’s Carnival, and, like a good Venetian, I’m making the most of it, because it’ll be my last.’

She cleared away her dish, taking it into the kitchen. When she returned Pietro had removed the elegant black coat and the long waistcoat that went beneath it.

‘You don’t know it’ll be your last,’ he said.

‘Yes, I do. I’ve been making plans, and it’s time I was leaving.’

There was a businesslike note in her voice that was unfamiliar to him.

‘What about Gino?’ he asked curiously.

‘He’s not coming back. It’s time I banished him from my life and managed without him. There’s got to be a new life somewhere, away from him-away from you.’

She said the last words softly and he gave her a sharp look.

‘You’re going now?’ He filled the last word with meaning. ‘After tonight?’

‘Tonight didn’t really happen.’

‘Are you still blaming me for the other evening?’ he demanded.

‘When you wouldn’t make love to me? It’s not blame. It’s just that I’ve finally started to see things straight. The dream was lovely, but the reality has to be faced. I’m sorry I gave you so much trouble about that, Pietro.’

‘I don’t quite understand you.’

‘Don’t you? It’s plain enough. I did something stupid. I fell in love with you. There, I’ve admitted it. I’m free of Gino. He only matters for the things he can tell me. The one I love is you. Couldn’t you tell-tonight?’

‘Then that really was you?’ he said with a touch of relief. ‘For a moment-’

‘Yes, it was me-one of me. All the others are being very sensible because they have to be, now. Don’t be embarrassed. I know I must leave. I won’t intrude on your marriage.’

‘Since my wife is dead, what marriage?’

‘The marriage that still fills your life because she’s the only one you can love. It’s all right, I’ve finally faced that. All you want is to shut yourself up in this mausoleum with Lisetta, because that way you can pretend she isn’t dead.’

‘You know nothing about it.’

‘I know you’re dying inside, and you’re letting it happen. You’re glad for it to happen because you think you can be with her again. But you can’t, Pietro, you can’t. She’s dead and you can’t bring her back.’

His eyes seemed to burn in their sockets. ‘I don’t need to bring her back,’ he raged. ‘She isn’t dead. She’s here, everywhere, all the time. Every door I open, I know she’s on the other side. She’s in every room I enter. When I dream, she’s there. When I awake, she’s there. In my last moment, as I fall asleep, she whispers that she’s there.’

‘And you can’t wait to find her,’ she challenged.

‘I don’t have to find her, she finds me. She always will.’

‘Was she there tonight?’ she flashed, and had her answer in the tension in his face.

‘Yes,’ he said hoarsely.

‘But must you always give in to it?’ she cried. ‘Is there nothing for us?’

His face softened. ‘There could have been everything for us-if things had been different. Do you want me to say that I love you? Is that what you’re waiting for, to hear the words?’

‘Can you say them?’ she asked, hardly breathing.

‘I-’ For a long moment he stood there, his face distraught, his whole being on the edge of words that tortured him, while she watched, knowing that her life depended on the next few moments. Then-

‘No!’ The word burst from him almost as an explosion. ‘No, I don’t love you.’

But suddenly her heart leapt and she looked at him with shining eyes. He loved her. By the very vehemence of his denial she knew the truth.

‘I think you do,’ she said simply. ‘Is it so hard to say it?’

‘It’s impossible. It can’t be true. It mustn’t be true.’

‘But she’s dead. You’re free now.’

‘Free?’ The word was like a knife. ‘I’ll never be free, and do you know why? Because she’s dead. Because I killed her. There’s no escape from that prison, and nor should there be. Why should I escape? I killed her.’

The words shocked her to silence. Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t this.

‘But that can’t be true,’ she choked at last. ‘She died in childbirth.’

‘She died bearing a child, a child she should never have been asked to bear. She wasn’t strong enough, but she pretended that she was, and I pretended to believe her. I wanted that child. The terrible truth is that I wanted it more than I wanted her, and she knew it.

‘She never considered herself for a moment. Everything was for me. There was nothing she wouldn’t have done to please me, because she knew-’ He paused and shuddered so violently that Ruth could feel it. ‘She knew that I didn’t love her.’

His voice was full of bleak despair as he said the final words, and then a deadly silence fell, as though the end of the world had come, and there was nothing left.

‘Surely you must have loved her a little,’ she said. ‘You married her.’

‘I had a kind of fondness for her. She was sweet and gentle and I’d known her most of my life. I showed you the pictures of us as children.’

‘The dice game,’ she said. ‘Yes, I remember.’

‘When she grew up I danced with her, always feeling like her brother because I’d known her for so long. It never occurred to me that she-’

He broke off awkwardly.

Ruth didn’t need to hear him say all the words to be able to follow the progress. It had started with childish hero-worship, turned into a teenage crush, and then into womanly love. And he, with fairly typical male blindness, had been aware of it only distantly without seeing the implications or the danger.

‘When I started to notice girls in a big way, I went a little mad,’ Pietro resumed. ‘I was the son of Count Bagnelli. I could indulge myself with any girl I liked. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that aristocracy doesn’t matter in the modern world. It counts as much as it ever did.’

Ruth thought of Franco and Serafina, and knew he was right.

‘A title, or just the prospect of one, gives you a freedom no other man has,’ Pietro continued. ‘I won’t go into details about how badly I behaved. Let’s just say that I took what was offered, accepting it as my right. I’m not proud of that.’

She remembered Jessica saying, ‘He only slept with the best, very stylish ladies. But they had to be outstanding, not just beautiful, but with a certain “something extra”, to make him proud.’

And even Mario had wistfully implied that Pietro could take his pick.

But while Pietro connected his sexual success with his title she knew that his personal attractions must have played a big part. The title was a bonus, but it was the man himself who would make a woman’s heart beat faster.