It was only nine o’clock but darkness had fallen and the storm had driven everyone inside.
He moved away from the window towards another one at the corner, through which he could see both the Grand Canal and the narrow alley that ran alongside the palazzo.
The spectre in the glass moved with him, showing a tall man with a lean, face, mobile mouth and deep set eyes. It was a wry, defensive face, the eyes seeming to look out from a trapped place. He was thirty-four but his air of cautious withdrawal made him seem older.
Beside him Toni suddenly became agitated. He was big enough for his head to reach the window, and he’d seen something outside that made him scrabble to get closer and demand his master’s attention.
‘There’s nothing out there,’ Pietro told him. ‘You’re imagining things. Dio mio!’
The exclamation had been torn from him by a flash of lightning, even more blinding than the last, that had turned everything white. By its light he thought he’d seen a figure standing below in the alley.
‘Now I’m imagining things as well,’ he muttered. ‘I must stop this.’
But he stayed there, trying to see through the darkness, and at last the lightning came again, flashing on and off, showing him the figure of a young woman, drenched, her hair plastered to her head, water streaming off her. Then the night swallowed her up again.
Frowning, he opened the window and looked out into the alley, half convinced that she was an illusion. But suddenly the moon came out from behind the clouds and he saw her again.
She was perfectly still, gazing up at the window, apparently oblivious to her surroundings.
He leaned out, calling, ‘Ciao!’
She neither moved nor spoke.
‘Ciao!’ he called again. Still in Italian he yelled, ‘Wait, I’m coming down.’
He hated being disturbed but he couldn’t leave her to freeze. In a moment he was heading down the stairs to the side entrance, wrenching open the heavy door.
Pietro had expected her to hurry inside, but she was still standing where he’d left her, so he hauled her forcibly inside, not troubling to be gentle. He would rescue her but he was damned if he was going to get soaked for her.
Holding her suitcase in one hand and her arm in the other, he hurried her up the stairs to his rooms, where she collapsed on the sofa, her eyes closing as she lost consciousness.
‘Mio dio!’ he muttered again, seeing the dilemma he was in.
He must get her into dry clothes fast, but the thought of undressing her while she was unconscious appalled him. Yet he couldn’t let her get pneumonia. His housekeeper was away for the night. What he had to do must be done alone.
Hurrying into the bathroom, he seized a clean robe and a large towel. Her coat was light and soaked right through. Taking it off was easy, but then he knew he must remove her dress. He worked fast, praying that she might not awake until he was finished. To his relief she stayed dead to the world.
When she was decently swathed in the towel robe he rubbed her hair until it was no more than damp, then got some blankets, laid her on the sofa and placed them over her.
What the devil had happened to her? How had she ended up alone at night, in a thunderstorm, naked in the hands of a stranger? He’d tried not to notice details of her body, but he’d sensed that she was too thin, like someone who’d lost a lot of weight quickly.
‘Wake up,’ he pleaded.
When she didn’t move he became desperate. Taking a glass and a decanter from the cupboard, he poured a measure of brandy, hauled her up and forced it to her lips. Some was spilt, but enough went down to make her sneeze and open her eyes.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now finish drinking this.’
He gave her no choice, holding the glass to her lips until she’d drained it.
‘Who are you?’ Pietro asked in Italian. ‘How do you come to be here?’
‘Excuse me,’ she whispered in English.
He too switched to English to say, ‘Never mind. You need food and rest.’
But there was more here than simply malnutrition and weariness. She looked like someone on the edge of sanity, and he was sure of it when she began to murmur words that made no sense.
‘I shouldn’t have come—I knew it was a mistake, but there was nothing else to do—he’s the only one who can tell me—but maybe it doesn’t matter—only I have to know. I can’t bear it any longer, not knowing.’
‘Signorina—’
‘Do you know what that’s like? To wonder and wonder when there’s nobody who can help you—and you think you may spend all your life in the shadows?’
Without his realising, his hands tensed on her shoulders.
‘Yes,’ he breathed. ‘I know what that’s like.’
‘It doesn’t end, does it?’
‘No,’ he said gravely, ‘it doesn’t end.’
Pietro closed his eyes, feeling the waves of suffering engulf him again. He’d thought he’d learned to cope, but she brought it back because she was abandoned in the same desert. He could sense her there, her gaze fixed on him, one lost soul reaching out to another.
‘What can you do about it?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ve never known.’
The look she turned on him was terrible, containing a despairing acceptance of something too sad for words.
‘How did you get here?’ he urged.
She looked around. ‘Here?’
‘You’re in Venice. I found you standing in the street outside, just looking up.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Never mind, tell me later.’
He returned from the kitchen after a few minutes to find her looking down at her strange attire with dismay.
‘I had to take your clothes off,’ he said quickly. ‘You were sodden. But I swear I didn’t—well—you know—’
To his total astonishment, she smiled.
‘I know,’ she said.
‘You do believe me?’
‘Yes, I believe you. Thank you.’
‘Come and sit down at the table.’
As she came out of the shadows into the light he had a feeling that there was something familiar about her, but he couldn’t place it. He must be mistaken. He wouldn’t have forgotten this girl.
