“Open your eyes.”
He didn’t dare to disobey; felt himself flush, then pale. The blue eyes that bored into his weren’t the dangerous, cold eyes he’d seen before—but they were not happy eyes.
“Not good, I’d judge.”
“So what’s that mean?” Maria asked harshly.
“Mostly that it’s his turn to be put to bed, and he isn’t going to be moving from there for a while. You—”
Caesare was speaking to him now, and Marco wanted to die at the gentle tone of his voice.
“—have caused us a great deal of trouble, young man.”
“I—I didn’t mean to—I just—I just wanted—” He felt, and fought down, a lump of shamed tears. No, no he would not cry! “—I made such a mess out of things, I figured you were better off if I went away somewhere. I didn’t mean to bring you more trouble! I tried to find some way I could get you out of it, and get out from under your feet, and when that didn’t work I just tried to do what was right—”
“If I had thought differently,” Aldanto said, slowly, deliberately, “you’d be out there entertaining the locos right now. There are more than a few things I want to have out with you, but it’s nothing that can’t wait.”
Then he got up, and took a second oar to help Maria, ignoring Marco’s presence on the bottom slats.
But that wasn’t the end of his humiliation—every few feet along the canals, it seemed, they were hailed, either from other boats or from the canalside.
“Si, he’s okay,” Maria called back, cheerfully, “Si, we got ‘im—”
Apparently everybody in town knew what a fool he’d made of himself. There were calls of “Hooo—so that’s the loverboy? Eh, throw him back, Maria, he’s just a piddly one!” With every passing minute, Marco felt worse. Finally he just shut his eyes and huddled in the blanket, ignoring the catcalls and concentrating on his aching head.
Because, as if that humiliation wasn’t enough, there were more than a few of those on canalside who didn’t shout—shadowy figures whom Caesare simply nodded to in a peculiar way. And Marco recognized one or two as being Giaccomo’s.
Giaccomo—that meant money—
—a lot of money. Out of Caesare’s pocket.
Marco wanted to die.
The ribald and rude comments were coming thick and fast now, as they headed into the Grand Canal. Maria was beginning to enjoy herself, from the sound of her voice. Aldanto, however, remained ominously silent. Marco opened his eyes once or twice, but couldn’t bear the sunlight—or the sight of that marble-still profile.
* * *
The third time he looked up, his eyes met something altogether unexpected. Aldanto had shifted forward, and instead of his benefactor, Marco found himself staring across the water at another gondola.
There was a girl in that elderly nondescript vessel, rowing it with consummate ease. From under the hood curled carroty-red hair. She had a generous mouth, a tip-tilted nose—merry eyes, wonderful hazel eyes—
She wasn’t beautiful, like Angelina Dorma. But those eyes held a quick intelligence worth more and promising more than mere beauty.
Those eyes met his across the Grand Canal, and the grin on that face softened to a smile of genuine sympathy, and then into a look of utter dumbfounded amazement.
Which was maybe not surprising, if she felt the shock of recognition that Marco was feeling. Because even if he’d never seen her before, he knew her; knew how the corners of her eyes would crinkle when she laughed, knew how she’d twist a lock of hair around one finger when she was thinking hard, knew how her hand would feel, warm and strong, and calloused with work, in his.
In that moment he forgot Angelina Dorma, forgot his aching head, forgot his humiliation. He stretched out his hand without realizing he’d done so—saw she was doing the same, like an image in a mirror.
And then his eyes blurred, and vision deserted him. When his eyes cleared, she was gone, and there was no sign that she’d ever even been there. And he was left staring at the crowded canal, not even knowing who she could be.