‘Yes, there’s also the work people do, and pretending to live one kind of life while actually living another.’

His eyebrows rose. ‘You talk to me about a “pretend” life?’

That silenced her.

‘Have you thought of anything yet?’ Fede asked anxiously.

‘Patience,’ Guido adjured him. ‘I’ve only just discovered how things really stand.’ A tremor went through him, although his face still smiled. ‘Even a genius like me can only think so fast.’

‘It’s hopeless,’ Fede said, immediately plunged into gloom. ‘Nothing can be done.’

‘Why don’t we ask Dulcie?’ Guido suggested. ‘After all, intrigue is her profession, and she does it surpassingly well.’

‘No,’ she said hastily. ‘This is a Venetian intrigue, and my talents don’t stretch to it.’

‘You do yourself an injustice, signorina,’ Guido assured her quietly. ‘You have the Venetian gift for dodging around corners, looking at one fact, seeing another, and believing a third. It’s a great skill and most outsiders never acquire it. You, I believe were born with it.’

‘On the contrary, signore,’ she said, meeting his eyes defiantly. She’d found her second wind now, and if this was the game he wanted to play, then he would find she could give as good as she got. ‘You forget that I’ve recently been taking lessons from a master.’

‘And I,’ he murmured so softly that only she could hear, ‘I, who thought I had nothing left to learn, have found differently.’

‘Life is full of unexpected lessons,’ she murmured back. ‘People may be more innocent than they seem.’

‘People may certainly be very different to how they seem,’ he said, subtly twisting her words.

She nodded. ‘For instance, you shouldn’t trust someone who plays games.’

He shrugged. ‘You could say that about everyone.’

‘No, some of us have a living to earn.’

‘Ah, yes,’ he seemed much struck. ‘When it’s done for money it’s so much more virtuous, is it not?’

Her eyes met his and found in them something unexpected. He was angry but he was also hurt and confused. This situation had caught him off balance, and he wasn’t coping as smoothly as he tried to make out.

A moment later he rose, kissed Jenny’s cheek, shook Fede’s hand and said with a flourish, ‘Bless you. I’m happy for you. And don’t worry, I’ll think of something. And you, signorina-’ he turned to Dulcie ‘-it was a pleasure talking to you but now I must be going. I’ve been unaccountably neglecting my work recently and now there’s a mountain of it awaiting me, that will occupy me for some time.’

He was gone without waiting for a reply, but she had none to make. What could she say to a man who so clearly wanted to get away from her?

At Guido’s souvenir factory on the island of Murano his employees were becoming concerned. For several days their employer had been absent without warning. Once a day he’d called them, but then switched his phone off and was impossible to contact.

His return caused general relief, which soon turned to surprise. Guido had always run an efficient business, but he’d done so with good humour, teasing, and the occasional semi-flirtatious coaxing. No more. His orders were still given with courtesy, but coolly, crisply, like a man with no time to spare. When someone cracked a joke in his presence he looked blank, as though wondering what a joke was.

It took Dulcie a day to track him down, and as she walked into the factory she had a horrible suspicion that everyone there knew who she was and why she was here. But the young man in the entrance directed her upstairs without fuss.

On the top floor she found Guido’s office, and through the windows that formed the walls she could see him there at his desk, talking to a middle-aged man. The man saw her and nudged Guido, making him look up.

His face startled her. It was tired and worn, as if he hadn’t slept for an age and had forgotten how to smile. He glanced in her direction, then away, and for a dreadful moment she thought he would refuse to see her. But then he nodded and indicated for her to be shown in.

The inside of his office reminded her how little she really knew him. The computer, the multiple phone lines, the stacks of files, the walls covered in plans and diagrams, all these told her that this was a man who took his business seriously.

‘Is this the real you?’ she asked lightly.

‘One of me,’ he answered briefly. ‘I’m surprised to find you still in Venice. I thought you’d have gone yesterday.’

‘You know I didn’t because you heard me knocking on your door last night.’ She added quietly, ‘I knocked for a long time before I went away.’

‘It wasn’t a good moment,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have known what to say, especially in that place.’ His eyes challenged her with memories of the few happy days they’d spent in the little apartment. Then he looked away and began to pace his office, never getting too close to her. ‘But I’m glad you came to see me.’

‘You are?’ she asked hopefully.

‘Yes, it’s right that we should say goodbye properly.’

His coolly dismissive tone annoyed her. ‘I’ll say goodbye when I’m good’n ready, not when you tell me to. There’s a lot more to be said first.’ In a softer tone she added, ‘I listened to you when you were making your excuses yesterday.’ She added, ‘And that’s not all I listened to you saying.’

She regretted the words at once. If his face wasn’t closed against her before it was now. She’d reminded him of what he didn’t want to remember.

‘It wasn’t kind of you to bring that up,’ he said. ‘You should have laughed over your victory in private, not to my face.’

‘Laugh over-? What are you saying? I’m not laughing. I never meant any of this to happen.’

‘You never meant? Excuse me, I understood that you came to Venice deliberately, for a purpose.’

‘But it had nothing to do with you,’ she cried.

‘Ah, yes, I’d forgotten. You came to deceive and ruin my friend, not me, which of course makes everything all right.’

‘I came to protect Jenny from a fortune hunter.’

‘And how could you be so sure he was a fortune hunter? Your information was hardly brilliant since you confused him with me.’

‘The information was lousy,’ she admitted. ‘It came from Roscoe. But the idea was to find out if he was right.’

‘He’d made up his mind before you started.’

‘He had, I hadn’t.’

He stopped pacing and spoke angrily, ‘For pity’s sake, what kind of woman does this? Is it how you get your kicks?’

‘No, I do it to eat. I’ve got nothing. Roscoe paid for everything.’

He regarded her with what might almost have been a smile. ‘Like a theatrical performance, really. Set and costumes courtesy of Roscoe Harrison, and script by-who? Did you cook it up between you?’

‘It wasn’t like that-’

‘Answer me,’ he said sternly. There was no trace in him now of the light-hearted young man who’d enchanted her. There was something grim in his manner that she wouldn’t have believed without seeing it. ‘Answer me,’ he commanded again. ‘How much of what happened between us was planned?’

‘I came to seek out Federico. I thought it was you because of the picture.’ She showed him the snapshot. ‘Yes, I was looking for your face, but when I found you, you were wearing his shirt, with his name on it-’

‘And how did you happen to find me?’

‘I was searching for you,’ she admitted.

He raised his eyebrows sardonically. ‘So our very meeting wasn’t the accident I thought. And that touching moment when your sandal fell at my feet in the gondola?’

The moment he’d called Fate, with shining eyes, full of love.

‘I threw it,’ she admitted in despair. ‘I stood on the bridge hoping you’d look up, and when you didn’t I tossed my sandal.’

She flinched, watching him. She no longer knew how this man would react to anything.

For the moment there was no reaction at all. Then abruptly he broke into laughter, that filled her with relief, until she heard the disturbing edge to the sound, not like real amusement at all.

‘That’s hilarious,’ he said at last. ‘You calculated the whole thing, down to the last detail, and the poor sap fell for it, hook, line and sinker. He even burbled something stupid about it being Fate. Or did he? Remind me. No, on second thoughts, don’t remind me. There are some mistakes a man should be able to forget in peace.’

‘But it wasn’t just me, was it?’ she said indignantly. ‘When I saw the name on your shirt you could have said, “I’m not Fede, just a rich playboy, fooling about in a boat”. Why didn’t you?’

‘I forget,’ he said stonily.

‘I don’t think that’s a truthful answer. You could have stopped everything right there and then. Why didn’t you?’

‘I’ve forgotten,’ he repeated. ‘All right, maybe I’ve only forgotten because I want to. Believe what you like, but most of all believe that it’s best if you go away from here and never come back.’

‘I’m not ready to give up and go yet.’

‘That’s a pity because I don’t think Venice is big enough to hold both of us.’

The door was thrown open abruptly by a middle-aged woman, full of excitement, who gabbled something Dulcie didn’t understand. Guido gave her a brief smile and replied tersely. The next moment she surged into the room, followed by two young girls, their arms filled with masks.

‘No,’ Guido started to say, but his protest was lost in the hubbub. He shrugged and gave up. ‘Our new line,’ he said to Dulcie, sounding harassed. ‘We’ve been waiting for them, but this isn’t the moment-oh, be damned to it!’

The masks were magnificent, not merely painted cardboard like the ones on his walls, but covered in satin and sequins, many with gorgeous feathers.

Guido admired them and spoke kindly to his employees, but managed to shoo them out of the room fairly quickly.