Magical Weddings (28 page)

“I’m afraid the masks have me at a disadvantage, sir.”

His smile held a hint of amusement. “Indeed?” He waited a heartbeat, then, with his voice deepening to a richness that held her enthralled, he added, “You do not see the man behind the mask?”

Caterina’s pulse strummed heavy at her wrists as the man took an impossible step towards her, breaking all sorts of rules and without even touching her made her feel enveloped in shockingly exciting intimacy.

“Perhaps if you were to look closer?” he teased.

She stared at his strong, determined jaw, with its dark, dangerous stubble, and as her gaze drifted over his sensual mouth, she found herself licking her lips. Every man in Venice seemed to have dark hair and a beard, but she could not recall any of them making her feel so hungry for more of that voice.

She needed to see the colour of his eyes to be certain who he was, but the combination of his mask and the flickering light in the ballroom made it too difficult. The mask he was wearing was tied at the back with black velvet ribbon and painted black and gold to match the brocade of his cape and suit. She had worked with fabric long enough to know that the velvet and silk was not as good quality as some of the other guests’ costumes but the man wore his clothes with an air of confidence that easily disguised the fact.

Caterina floundered. Everything this night was so out of context. But for the dropping of her mother’s lace earlier, she would not be here this evening. It was almost as if down had become up, and up, down. Even in her borrowed gown and mask, and with her hair done with strings of pretty pearls and navy satin ribbons, she must surely look as out of her depth as she felt?

“Perhaps it is you who mistakes me for someone, sir?” she ventured.

“I don’t believe so,” he replied with conviction and then gestured with his hand to her hair, “Once a person sets eyes on this glorious mane swinging down your back in a single plait, it is impossible to forget.”

Caterina’s mouth dropped open in shock. This stranger knew how she usually wore her hair. Knew then that under normal circumstances she would never be attending a ball at the palazzo.

“If you truly know me, you must be wondering what I am doing here tonight,” she whispered.

“Perhaps we are both imposters,” he declared.

The thought of a shared solidarity intrigued her. She cast her gaze about the room. Maria, thankfully, still appeared to be happy and Caterina turned her gaze back on the stranger before her.

“If you too are an imposter,” she asked, “you must have a reason for coming here?”

She could feel him staring at her and wished again that she could see his eyes clearly in order to read him.

“Gatherings like this make it easy to meet influential people,” he eventually said with a casual shrug of his broad shoulders. “It could be that I sneaked in, eager to make business contacts and further my career. Or,” He leaned closer and whispered in her ear, “It could be that I was issued with an invitation to watch over you tonight and could not resist.”

Oh.

As his words teased, she realised that once her father had received word of where she would be this evening, he had obviously sent for Guido to accompany her. Looking once again at the man stood before her, Caterina was not sure what to think. Shaking her head slightly she hesitated.

Could this truly be her fiancé standing before her, closer than he had ever stood before, and she had not recognised him?

Was it that the brocade on his winter cape had his shoulders appearing broader? Could the mask he had donned really allow a new layer of confidence to his personality, lifting it to mysterious levels? His voice was so different disguised deeper. Was this masquerade he was entering into all for her?

“Gui-,”

His fingertips against her lips halted the word on her tongue and at the same time sent fire coursing through her.

“No names tonight,” he said and this time his voice had a husk to it she found exciting. “Two imposters as we are, let us use our masks to heighten the magic of the evening.”

He
was
carrying out this masquerade just for her. Caterina wanted to tell him she appreciated his game of intrigue, so different to how he usually behaved with her. She wanted to thank him for coming here to help her feel at ease. Ostensibly he was here to help her celebrate all her hard work but secretly she allowed herself to feel protected against what might go wrong.

With his undivided attention—something she had not been on the receiving end of before—he had strengthened her spirit. She would not spoil his sport. Instead she would show him that she too was willing to make this one night out of time.

It would be even more special now because he would be in all the memories she made from this night. She would laugh and dance and live and afterwards she would never again think about magic. Her mother would pass her the secret but she did not have to ever use the gift.

“I believe at a ball it is customary to dance,” her hero said, smiling down at her.

She smiled back. “We will have to watch a while to pick up the steps.”

“Or, in each other’s arms, we could work them out together.”

Caterina could not believe this man she had known for months could, with a few special words and a disguise, make her blush more than the total of all the time she had known him for.

As he reached out to take her in his arms and steer her through the crowd to the dance-floor Caterina felt happy and alive and more adventurous than ever before and as he deposited her away from him to stand in a line with the other women, she decided she liked this new Guido very much.

While the dancing lines were set up, she looked about the room. Maria was laughing with the woman next to her in the row and staring coyly at the man opposite her. Caterina smiled and looked to the musicians as they organised their sheet music and took up their lutes to start playing.

Her heart was singing in her chest. She, Caterina Rosso, was about to start dancing with a man pretending to be a stranger at a masked ball.

Dare she risk indulging and savouring the sensation of playing along?

Her gaze lifted to her dance partner as he stood opposite her, a smile playing at his lips.

Yes, she thought boldly as the music started and she copied the other women in the line and curtseyed for the man in front of her.

With this man, for this man, she dared

On the crowded dance-floor, Caterina felt as if she was taking part in a thrilling and delicious dance of courtship.

From behind her mask, she had eyes only for him and with the occasional tightening of his jaw and the pressure of his hand, she knew she was not alone in enjoying the intricate movements that brought them within tempting touching distance of each other, before the dance demanded they spin away from each other again. For every time that they circled each other, for every brush of their bodies against each other and with every joining of their hands, Caterina felt sparks. Even when the formal dance rules called for them to switch partners, she could feel his attention directed solely at her.

She had never felt this connected to him and as he led her out of the dance and across the room to refreshment, the thought struck her that this might be how other bride-to-be’s might feel.

“Here,” he said, pausing by a table and lifting a glass of punch out to her, “you must be thirsty.”

She took the proffered glass but immediately glanced down at her gown and was reminded of why she was really at the ball. With a worried frown she looked up and checked the room for Maria. For a second she could not locate her and panic flared in her breast.

“What is it?” her hero asked, scanning the crowd as well. “Who is it you look for?”

Caterina took a cautious sip of her punch and kept quiet.

“I know you seek someone,” he insisted. “It is only when I have your complete attention that you do not cast your gaze about nervously. Caterina?”

Her name on his lips flustered her. Made her want to confess and yet what if she did? Suddenly she did not want this new magic developing between them to fade.

“I-,” she stopped. What would he say if she admitted that she was here this evening not as a reward for all her hard work, but because she had brought magic to the palazzo?

What would he think of her if he knew that she had made a mask out of the magic and that it was being used by the Doge and Dogaressa’s daughter this very moment?

Which version of him would react if she admitted she had wanted to understand the magic in order to use it to get out of marrying him? This man before her, who looked so much like Guido and yet…

“You said no names tonight,” she reminded him, stalling for time.

“Caterina,” he repeated as if to deliberately impress upon her that there was harmless game-playing and then there was honesty if you were in danger. “If there is someone here tonight that you are fearful of-,”

Shame washed over her. She must not drag him into this. “I do not seek anyone specific,” she said determinedly. Maria’s mask of magic had lasted this far into the evening. Midnight was only an hour away.

“I simply want to remember every second of the evening,” she said holding her ground, “looking around helps me record everything accurately.”

For a moment she thought that he was going to pursue the conversation and insist on knowing who it was she seemed to be watching over while he was watching over her. She took another sip of punch to ease the dryness in her throat.

“All right,” he finally said. “You should not feel embarrassed in wanting to take as much from one experience as possible, but you should use all the senses, yes? Sight,” he said indicating the crowded room before them and with a simple sweep of his arm somehow made Caterina feel as if they were the only two in the room.

 “Sound,” he added, dropping his voice so that she instinctively moved in closer to hear him, drawn like a moth to a flame.

“Smell,” he said, reaching out and snapping a pure white winter rose from the standard shrub beside them and holding it gently under her nose so that when she inhaled she felt intoxicated by the sweet scent. Seduced.

“And lastly,” he said, his voice at its lowest, “touch.”

Mesmerised, Caterina watched as he slowly trailed his fingers down the length of her forearm to rest against her hand as it held the wand of her mask against the folds of her gown.

Caterina shivered visibly at the sensual contact.

“Combine all of those elements,” he said boldly, stroking a thumb over the pulse-point at her wrist before releasing her hand and taking a small step back, “and I confess that capturing and recording every exquisite detail of an experience is not a taxing responsibility at all.”

Steeped in sensation Caterina could not speak. She could barely breathe. Why wasn’t he like this all the time? Why had she never even suspected he could be this romantic? This bold?

This masterful at seduction?

She wanted to touch him in return. But she was afraid that if she did, it would somehow break the magic he was weaving—that he would somehow feel her underlying confusion and realise she had not always thought of him this way. Instead she reached out and stroked her fingers over the lace overlay she had made.

“This is the lace you have been working on all this time?” he asked and when she nodded and smiled up at him, he added, “You should be very pleased.”

She took the pride in his voice deep into her as she looked along the row of banquet tables covered with the lace she had spent so many months working on. The sparkly, cobweb-like material added a very fine base to the silver and gold platters of food and the mirrored bowls filled with punch. At equal intervals along the tables, huge crystal vases had been placed, filled to the brim with winter-white rose petals, somehow holding secure the arrangements of silver birch branches festooned with embroidered and jewelled birds and butterflies.

She had been in denial about her mother’s excited talk of decorating the church and house for the wedding. But now as her gaze drifted once more to the lace overlays she had helped create she knew the one thing she wanted at her wedding.

She wanted lace.

Tonight she would ask her mother if they could add lace panels to her wedding gown. Then, when he saw her on their wedding day, he would remember this night.

“You are lost in thought,” he teased and when she looked up at him it must have been with some of the excitement showing on his face because he added, “at least you are not looking nervous or fearful anymore. Another dance?”

As much as she wanted to be in his arms again, what she really yearned for was to build on this newness between them, to forge the framework that would take them up to the wedding and into marriage.

“I think,” she said, pointing to the glass doors that led to the balconied area, “that what I would really like is your company and some air.”

For a moment he looked as if he considered being alone in the moonlight with her too dangerous, but then he inclined his head and gestured for her to precede him.

The winter breeze, carried along the canal, hit them immediately, making him draw off his cape and drape it around her shoulders.

At the balcony’s edge they leant against the stone balustrade. Caterina stared out at the moonbeam as it danced silvery-white on the inky water of the canal. Entranced, she gave a happy sigh.

He turned to stare at her briefly and when he turned back to see what she was watching he said gently, “It is beautiful, yes?”

“It is a path to adventure,” she said without thinking.

She expected him to tease and when he did not she confessed, “When I was a young girl I did not realise that the moon was at the end of the beam. I used to think it was a path shining out into the ocean and that if I stepped out onto it, it would be solid and lead me to new worlds.”

Silence.

Caterina shivered beneath the warmth of the cape. The first opportunity to create a deeper bond and she had ruined it by saying too much, too soon.

“So you have always romanced travel, then?” he asked quietly.