“Enough!”
She stopped and pulled so insistently on his hand that he had to turn to face her. She was breathing heavily; the long flowing skirts of her crimson silk dress had never been designed with running in mind.
“To which disreputable place are you taking me?” She demanded breathlessly.
Caleb wasn’t sure whether she was pouting or grinning behind her porcelain white masque.
They had run from the piazza hand in hand, their flight unnoticed amid the other outlandish figures hurrying to and from the Masquerade. They could have tried to sneak quietly away, but Caleb thought the best way to ensure they weren’t being followed was to plunge through the crowd and out of the piazza as quickly as possible, forcing anyone who might have been tasked with keeping an eye on Isabella to run to. As hard as it was to drag his eyes away from her, he had spotted no one pursuing them.
He had taken little care as to which direction they headed, and as was often the case with  Venice, they were now lost amongst the maze of tight little alleys threading the island. Faded, peeling plaster and weathered wooden shutters marked these as streets of artisans and modest merchants rather than the genteel palaces and mansions that Isabella was used to.
The mist that had crept in from the lagoon with the setting of the sun had thickened to something approaching a fog. A figure appeared out of the murk, and Isabella’s dark eyes flicked towards him from behind her masque, perhaps fearing some agent of her husband’s or a cutthroat with an eye for her jewellery, but the man scurried past and disappeared back into the fog without note or comment, as if expensively gowned ladies with porcelain faces and leering gold-toothed harlequins were common sights in these darkened mist-shrouded alleyways.
“Well, are you going to answer me, Signor Harlequin?” Isabella insisted.
Caleb mimicked pressing the lips of his hook-nosed masque together to remind her this harlequin could not speak before gently taking her arm and insisting she continued walking, albeit more sedately. Isabella gathered handfuls of skirts and did as he urged. The dress was expensive, costing more than most Venetians earned in a year, and its flowing skirts were designed to glide elegantly over polished marble floors rather than grubby back streets. He had been admiring it all evening, or rather the way it accentuated her figure and displayed her cleavage beneath the crimson cape she wore fastened at her neck. The dress’ skirts billowed away from Isabella, supported by an intricate rigging of hoops worn beneath. As they walked, the silk rustled against his leg.
“I really do not know why I agreed to this…” Isabella sighed.
Caleb didn’t reply but knew why she had come with him well enough. She was rich, beautiful and bored, which often led a soul into decadence and debauchery. They were playing a game, nothing more, like cards or dice. Occasionally, you needed to do something that made your heart skip a beat, or at least you did when you were wealthy enough not to worry where the next meal was coming from or had to get up before dawn to till a field for twelve hours every day. That was the difference between the rich and the poor. The poor got drunk in their meagre spare time whilst the rich played games in theirs.
Fortunately, he was fond of games and had long liked rich, beautiful, bored women.
From between two towering houses came the unmistakable lap of water; still holding her hand, he led her towards its call. He was sure no one could be following them through the misty deserted streets, but he glanced nervously back several times anyway. This was a very dangerous game, after all. She followed without hesitation or question. Time-worn steps fringed with moss led down to some backwater canal. Isabella made to speak again, but he placed a single finger upon her covered lips to quiet her.
From the gloom came the sound of a boat creaking gently through the water before a gondola's high, ornate bow emerged from the mist. The boat was empty, and the gondolier nodded his acknowledgement to Caleb’s signal before manoeuvring his vessel with brawn and pole until it was alongside the strangely dressed couple.
Caleb held Isabella’s hand and helped her aboard before whispering a destination in the gondolier’s ear. The heavy-set man nodded his understanding and pushed off once Caleb had climbed aboard and settled beside Isabella. She drew close to him, whether for warmth, comfort, protection or desire, he could not tell, but the feeling of her so close, her perfume strong upon the damp air, thrilled him beyond care. He glanced up at the gondolier, but the man’s face was as impassive as their masques; he was too focused on the water and the rolling mists. He had little concern for the rich and their games so long as they paid his fare.
Caleb slipped his arm around Isabella’s shoulders, and when she made no protest, he held her close, her cloaked head falling to his shoulder. They made the journey in silence. The brooding canal-side buildings were mostly dark, the mist consuming what lantern light there was, reducing their glow to fuzzy refracted halos. Occasionally, Caleb could make out the moon through the mist, indistinct and blurred.
Isabella shifted slightly, her hand reaching out to run gloved fingers across his leering harlequin’s masque as her dark eyes, strangely incongruous behind her porcelain skin, sought his.
“What a hideous thing,” she whispered; though the words were spoken as a tease, they were true enough.
Still, it had been enough for her to notice him.
                                                                                                                      *
It had taken a sizeable bribe for her maid to divulge details of the costume her mistress intended to wear to the masquerade, but he might as well have saved his money, for he’d recognised her immediately. None carried themselves quite like Isabella, even among all the fine ladies of Venice in their flowing gowns and elaborate disguises. Every gesture and movement carried a haughty, confident grace; every turn of the head, flick of a wrist or lingering look carried its own meaning and message.
I am beautiful, and you may not have me.
He knew well enough, however, that a body could lie just as easily as a tongue.
Once he had found her, Caleb had stood and watched transfixed, eyes only for his prize as wildly dancing couples spiralled around him, the only point of stillness in a sea of movement and gaudy colours. Musicians played somewhere beyond the throng, though the figures whirling in time to their call obscured them from his line of sight.
The man she’d danced with wore a tawny half-masque lined with golden fur above a thin, unremarkable mouth. His suit was of similar colour, lined with even more fur along the seams, collars and cuffs; he was one of many who had chosen a lion upon which to base their costumes, for the lion was the very symbol of Venice herself. Although her partner’s eyes had sparkled brightly behind his masque as they danced, little else did. Next to her, his body appeared awkward and hasty, a marionette with tangled strings.
Despite his clumsiness she still managed to bestow a rare grace upon every small movement or gesture she made; she was almost feline, almost liquid, almost... perfect.
Caleb immediately dismissed the man from his thoughts; whoever he was wasn’t her husband. He was out of Venice and his young wife was intent on enjoying that fact.
The Piazza teamed with all manner of figures and shapes, clothed in opulent garments and wild costumes, improbable designs that would have looked absurd even in Paris, but seemed almost mundane here. The light of a thousand candles vainly battled to illuminate the revellers, but against the night and a soft veil of mist that had rolled in from the lagoon, they offered only a wan shadowy light. The mist crept slyly across the square, muting the dazzling extravagant colours of the dancers, almost as if nature herself was jealous of all the pigments Venice could conjure for her citizens.
Women dressed in flowing, billowing gowns of silk and satin, velvet and lace. Hair, real and false, had been twisted and piled, teased and tormented into all manner of shapes; many were powdered white as snow and littered with jewels that occasionally glittered brightly in the stray flickering candlelight. The men were no less extravagantly attired in their suits of many colours and powdered wigs. Some figures might be of either sex, the shape of their bodies lost beneath the baggy dress of clowns, jesters and fools, knights of old or characters of myth, history or folklore, others dressed as real or mythical beasts, the stylised heads of lions, dragons, wolves, rams and bulls could all be easily seen amongst the revellers.
Whether dressed as man, woman or beast and occasionally any combination of the three, each figure wore a masque of elaborate design, carefully made to conceal identities and impress admirers and outshine rivals.  Some wore half masques above painted mouths, others full ones that revealed only sparkling suggestive eyes behind frozen lifeless expressions. The great and the good came to the Grand Masquerade Ball; their identities concealed far more carefully than their immorality.
Waiting for the music to end had been an exquisite torture; he wanted her so much, and now he was so close to finding out if he had been simply fooling himself these past months, seeing encouragements where there had been none. Part of him wanted to turn and run, no harm had been done yet and he could still have turned back. There were strumpets a plenty in Venice; bored wives and lusty daughters abounded. It would have been so easy to walk away and take his amusements from the easier game, but at that moment, he was besotted with Isabella, and when he became besotted, he found it very difficult to ever walk away, whatever the consequences.
Eventually, the music came to an end, and in the moment before the next one began, as the dancers politely clapped their appreciation, she saw him, or at least she admitted to seeing him. As her fingers slipped from her partner’s hand, she thanked him for the dance with the shallowest curtsey. The man returned the civility with a much deeper bow, words forming on his lips, some flattery or proposition Caleb had assumed, but the eyes behind the white masque had already moved on, examining the newcomer who stood and watched her so boldly.
Her eyes flitted over his costume which had cost him much, for she was a beauty that would not be captured cheaply.
She tilted her head a fraction to one side, calculating, wondering, assessing, perhaps trying to guess who this outlandish harlequin might be: a bold stranger or old lover, a pursuer she had long since grown tired of, or one that had climbed long and hard upon the ladder of her affections and was deserving of reward.
He offered her his hand, and without hesitation, she brushed past the lion man to accept it, silk-dressed fingers caressing his bare hands as the musicians took up a new tune. Caleb felt the man’s eyes glower balefully at him as his thin lips spat out words he could not hear above the music before being taken from his sight as he led his pale-faced queen through the dance, hand resting lightly and properly upon her waist despite the urge to pull her close to him.
Dark chestnut eyes examined him curiously from behind her expressionless face, trying to identify him from the eyes that stared back from the masque of the lewd, leering harlequin; there were few blue-eyed Venetians, so she would know he was probably not a local. Whether she knew yet he was an Englishman with no obvious history but some apparent wealth, who had appeared in Venice two years earlier to enjoy the debauched pleasures of the Serene City and had been pursuing her with great intent since first laying eyes upon her in the sultry heat of a July evening, was another matter entirely.
“You dance well, Signor Harlequin,” she said eventually, a few minutes into the dance, during which their eyes had never once wavered from the others. The masque muffled her voice, but he made out her words clearly enough to know it was the woman he sought. He had spoken to her rarely, but still often enough to commit her tone to memory, to imagine how she would sound as she whispered hot, breathless words into his ear while he took his pleasure from her devilishly curved body.
Oh yes, he knew who she was...
He’d lowered his head, slightly and momentarily, in deference to her compliment, but did not answer. His Italian had improved much during the two years he’d spent in Venice, but his accent was still strong enough for a native to note.
“Has a cat eaten your tongue, perhaps?” she mocked, her voice light and playful.
Caleb shrugged his shoulders sorrowfully and tossed his head to one side as he spun the young woman around.
“Alas, a tragedy,” she’d wailed, momentarily removing her hand from his to place it against her forehead in mock sorrow, “you should have been more careful where you left it, Signor Harlequin; cats are very partial to the tongue… I am led to believe.”
“Pray tell, how do you intend to entertain and amuse a lady with no tongue in your head?” she continued the tease, “you know party tricks, perhaps?”
Caleb nodded again.
“With cards and balls and coloured scarves?” she asked, her voice adopting a tone of mock boredom, “I warn you, I have seen many a man’s tricks, Signor Harlequin. I am infamously hard to please.”
This time, Caleb had shaken his head slowly from side to side.
“Coins and trinkets disappear in your hands? Pretty white doves pulled from empty hats? Sweetmeats conjured from behind my ears?”
Each suggestion was met with the same slow, deliberate shake of the head.
“Oh,, do tell!” she insisted finally, “How can you possibly entertain a lady such as I with neither tongue for wit nor tricks for amusement? You would seem to be a most poor harlequin indeed.”
Still dancing, Caleb pulled her closer, pleased that she did not resist; her dark eyes sparkled with interest at his actions. Slowly, he’d lowered his face towards hers until the point of his masque’s long grotesque nose was touching hers; then, he’d moved slowly down. Its tip slid across her masque until it found the flesh of her exposed neck. He released his grip on her hand and waist, throwing his arms to either side for balance as he bent his knees and went lower, all the time moving around her in step with the dance as she moved in a smaller circle to continue facing him. She seemed to shiver slightly as the cold point of the masque’s deformed nose moved down across her chest and into the warm folds of her cleavage...
With a stifled laugh, she stepped away as Caleb continued the downward movement until it concluded in a deep and elaborate bow. Looking up, he held her gaze boldly as she stood above him, hands upon hips as multi-hued couples whirled around them in a kaleidoscope of colours. Her masque was as expressionless as ever, but her eyes were laughing.
“You are a scoundrel, Signor Harlequin!” she cried. In truth, it wasn’t the first time he had been accused of that.
Caleb shrugged as she returned willingly to his arms, “I am intrigued to know your name. So bold and vulgar a man must surely be known to me?”
He’d shaken his head again.
“Of course,” she’d sighed, “the masquerade has no names. One may ask, but one does not need to tell.”
Caleb nodded his agreement.
“Perhaps I can guess your identity. Do you think I could?”
Although he’d shrugged nonchalantly, his mouth had gone dry, for she followed where he led far more easily than he could have hoped.
“Of course, if I am right, you will owe me a favour. A favour which will be anything of my choosing.”
Caleb made no response.
She leaned closer to him, “Do not worry, Signor Harlequin, I will not ask anything... unpleasant of you.”
Caleb raised his index finger and pointed at her; she giggled slightly in response, “Very well if you can guess my identity, I will owe you a favour... though how you can make a guess when you have no tongue, I cannot possibly imagine.”
He’d stepped away from the dance and offered her his hand; she’d nodded and wrapped silken fingers around his once more. Caleb led her through the sea of dancers with their vivid costumes and frozen expressions until they found sanctuary beneath the arches of one of the arcades facing the square. There was a conspicuous lack of candles and lanterns on one side of the piazza. With their privacy so assured, other masqueraded figures already clung to the darkest pockets of the night, couples held hands and whispered to each other through unmoving lips; propositions were being made, liaisons arranged, and pleasures discussed from the sanctuary of darkness and disguise.
Caleb had felt the thrill anew, the feeling that assured him he was alive, the sensation that only a woman could ever induce. The fire still burned within him; he was no longer a lusty youth; he should have been hankering after more comfortable things, but comfort held no appeal. Once, perhaps, but not now. Women, drink, gambling and money had been the cornerstones of his life during the long years since he had fled England; the more illicitly gained the better, for then the taste was always the sweeter.
Her perfume was rich and intoxicating, dulling every other aroma in the still mist-laden air: the stink of humanity that writhed around them, the scent of burning candles, even the rich, moist smell of Venice herself—that mix of water, stone, and corruption that flavoured every inch of the city.
Once he’d found a sufficiently shadowy spot far enough away from the other couples to ensure they would not be overheard, Caleb raised his hand and slowly extended three fingers, one by one.
“Just three guesses?” she replied, opening a fan despite the cool autumn air.
Caleb had nodded.
“And if neither of us guesses correctly?”
He’d raised a hand and wiggled all of his fingers.
“We wave goodbye... well if you insist.”
Caleb had shrugged apologetically.
“Very well, but I shall go first.”
Caleb had nodded his consent and leaned against the stonework as her eyes appraised him. Moving up and down slowly, almost wantonly, as she paced halfway around the column, her eyes never leaving him, “Are you Antonio Calleri of Genoa, that scurrilous young man with the pretty blue eyes who has pursued me so diligently this past year?”
Caleb had shaken his head after a long pause.
“Pity,” she’d sighed wistfully, “for he is almost as pretty as I am.” She had returned to stand before the harlequin, head raised to meet his inspecting eyes, her hands curled primly together before her waist.
“So, Signor Harlequin, who am I?”
Eyes never leaving hers, Caleb had crossed his legs and leaned more flamboyantly against the column. He’d scratched first his head and then his masque's bent, upturned chin.
“Come, Signor Harlequin. I fear I will miss all my favourite dances,” she chided softly, her eyes darting wistfully towards the dances in the centre of the piazza.
He lifted his index finger heavenward in apparent inspiration before patting down his costume and producing a small fold of paper from a concealed pocket. He handed the woman the paper with an elaborate bow.
“You are well prepared, I see,” she chuckled lightly as she accepted the paper.
“Daniela Asconti! That unfortunate creature is as fat as a pregnant sow and fifty if she is a day! I am most certainly not that woman,” she’d discarded the paper dismissively before smoothing down the front of her dress as Caleb threw his hands in the air in mock surprise. Daniela was neither fat nor fifty, but neither could she hold a candle to this beauty.
She’d returned to her pacing then, circling the column completely this time before announcing, her fan moving languidly before her face. “If you are in pursuit of Daniela Asconti, you must be a man of poor taste but rich purse... the Marquis de Douraine is famed for his love of ladies of unsightly appearance and easy virtues. Could you be he?”
Again, Caleb had shaken his head.
“Oh well,” she sighed, turning to look out over the crowds to the towering edifice of St Mark's cathedral looming over the far end of the piazza through the mist. I really have no need of fabulous gifts to win my affections, though...” she’d looked back over her shoulder significantly, “...they always help.” 
She’d turned to face him again, “Now let me hear your second guess; I trust it will be more flattering than the first. Who am I?” When she’d finally turned back to face him, he’d raised an empty hand, which he’d held out and waved slowly before the tip of her nose, her eyes following the movement intently until he’d clicked his fingers with a snap loud enough to make her blink and in that instant, a second piece of paper had appeared for her attention.
“You may be able to produce scraps of paper from thin air, Signor Harlequin, but can your magic conjure my name? Daintily, she plucked it from his hand between her thumb and forefinger.
“Angelina Scaratti?” she’d exclaimed. “That woman has the manners of a donkey and the dress sense to match! Not to mention an overly large and quite inappropriate arse. Your taste is not improving, Signor Harlequin,” once more, she’d let the slip fall from her hand and watched it intently as it fluttered to the pavement on the still night air.
“This is really most difficult,” she’d muttered finally, “despite my husband’s renowned temper, I have so many suitors, it is quite tiresome; I doubt I can work out who you might be in just three little guesses. Still, I will try harder as I do so enjoy a puzzle. You are a good height and build, not one of those vile little merchants who think money can make up for lack of breeding, I would wager,” she reached out and ran her hand lightly across Caleb’s chest and down his left arm, her touch making his skin tingle beneath his tunic, “you have a good build, strong arms, no pampered prince I would say; a soldier perhaps? You move gracefully and without hesitation; no callow youth are you, Signor Harlequin. Your costume is well made; you must have a goodly stock of coin to pay for such extravagance, so you are no pauper...” she’d lifted his hand and turned it palm upwards to examine, “not the coarse hands of a labourer, though you would not be here at all if that were all you were, but not so smooth that they have never seen a day’s work, you have spent time outdoors; not at all the hands of a courtier or ambassador. Nails cut neatly, but not buffed and pampered like some dandy; long sensitive fingers, like an artist’s, a musician’s or a…. lover’s?”
She’d pulled him nearer, close enough for her large breasts to press against him, her masque almost touching his own as she looked up at him. “Such beautiful eyes, the darkest blue I have ever seen, like a clear winter sky in the mountains...”
She moved to pull away, but Caleb had curled an arm around her corseted waist and held her fast. She had not resisted.
“You are most bold, Signor Harlequin; I swear you cannot have any idea who I am, for you would not act so foolishly if you did. Even the masquerade offers only limited anonymity.”
Caleb’s free hand slipped inside the hood of her cape. His finger ran gently, stroking the soft, downy ringlets of hair before moving behind her ear, down the side of her neck, and back again. She gasped slightly, but her eyes remained locked with Caleb’s.
“You are quite the scoundrel, Signor Harlequin; surely only an Englishman could be so bold or so boorish. Perhaps you are the Viscount Roxford; I understand he is both soldier and rogue?”
Caleb had once more shaken his head.
“Then you have one final guess, choose it carefully Signor, else I will have to return to the dance and chance my hand with another suitor.”
His hand had left her ear, and between his fingers, he held a third piece of paper. This one he unfolded himself, before holding it up for her to see. Her eyes had hovered over the name written there for a moment before returning to his, “You are talented after all Signor Harlequin, I am in your service... for this night at least. What favour would you ask of me?”
He pressed another note into her hand, his heart pounding with excitement, for the chase would soon be over, one way or another.
“How mysterious...” Carefully, she unfolded the piece of paper.
I ask the honour of spending this night gazing upon the face of the most beautiful woman in Venice.
“That is a more dangerous request than you realise; my husband is a most jealous man,” she’d held the note tightly to her chest and looked up through her masque with large, beguiling eyes, “although I must admit in all fairness, he does have every reason to be...”
He’d let his hand find hers, pulling her gently as he nodded towards the nearest exit from the piazza.
“You expect me to go with you? You could be anybody; you could have some dark defilement planned for me once we are away from the crowd?”
The leering harlequin’s masque had nodded slowly.
“Oh good,” she’d purred, allowing herself to be pulled serenely in his wake.