Your Scandalous Ways (18 page)

Naturally Elphick would want to tie up loose ends, now that he'd grown so popular. He had hopes, she knew, of replacing Lord Liverpool as prime minister. Meanwhile, thanks to her letters, Elphick was aware that she traveled in high circles, among influential men. Foreigners, yes—but some foreigners had influence at Whitehall. An important foreign nobleman or royal would be heeded, where a discarded wife would not.

She remembered what Magny had told her about Cordier's parents. They'd risked their lives to save French nobles and others from Madame Guillotine. There were many foreigners with similar sympathies, who'd be happy to bring down a traitor.

Elphick had reason to be afraid now, and thus reason to act—as Magny had warned her more than once recently.

But Magny didn't trust Quentin any more than she did.

Magny trusted nobody.

She would be wise to do the same, probably.

Restless, she moved to the window. The moon, past its full but still three-quarters visible, bathed the canal in its glow. The excitement across the
way seemed to be dying down, as was the fire. Few onlookers remained on the nearby balconies.

Cordier was right, then. It hadn't been a real fire. In these ancient houses, fires were rarely doused so quickly and easily. It was ironic, wasn't it? to be in the middle of the sea, in a structure built on wooden poles in water, and watch a house burn to the ground. But she'd seen that happen during her first year here. The Doge's Palace had burned to the ground several times over the centuries, she'd been told.

Still, those had been real fires and this was a diversion, according to Cordier. And he…

I have to be you.

She saw her gondola start across the canal. A woman sat inside…wearing her red gown. The color stood out against the black, even at night, as Francesca had wanted it to do. She loved the drama of a vivid color against the black of the gondola. And what could be more dramatic than red?

She pressed her nose to the window.

I have to be you.

It was he.

He had to be her because he was the
bait.

Her heart thumped once, hard, then beat so violently that she couldn't draw her breath.

She watched the gondola make its away across the canal. It had but a short distance to travel. As it came to a stop, the water gates flew open. Several dark figures burst through and leapt onto the gondola, pushing the gondoliers into the water.

In an upraised hand, a blade gleamed in the
moonlight. The one holding it lunged toward the
felze
.

 

It was an ambush, and they'd taken no chances this time, James saw.

This time there were not merely two villains but half a dozen at least. They must have secreted themselves somewhere on the ground floor during the uproar. Now they spilled out through the gates into the gondola.

Uliva and Zeggio were expecting an attack, but not in these numbers. As he was drawing his knife, James saw the two gondoliers thrown overboard. The man coming at him, knife in hand, hesitated when James burst from the cabin and went straight at him. But James's foot caught in the hem of the gown, and down he went, sprawling face first. He felt rather than saw the man move, and rolled aside before the knife could plunge into his back. He kicked out at the ruffian's ankles, and the fellow crashed to the deck. James rolled up onto his knees and raised his own knife.

“Look out!” a female voice screamed.

He dodged, reacting instinctively, and the club
whooshed
past his head and slammed onto the deck.

“
Aiuto! Aiuto!
Help! Help! Murderers!”

The feminine screams pierced the nighttime quiet. In the distance, dogs barked and howled. The men in the boat froze briefly, eyeing their surroundings. People rushed out onto their balconies, everyone shouting.

While his assailants were looking wildly about
them, James attacked. He got the club from the one who'd tried to break his skull. Meanwhile Zeggio clambered back into the gondola and subdued the one with the knife.

The others were trying to get away, but Bonnard's servants had rushed down to the water gates. Leaving the villains to them, James turned his attention to the direction from which the screams had come. He saw her, then, clinging to a gondola mooring.

 

She could swim to the house, Francesca told him indignantly as he pulled her into the gondola. It was only a few feet, she pointed out. She was only catching her breath after screaming.

She found herself swiftly transported from the gondola to the
andron.

All of her servants were there, some with villains in tow, all of them brandishing improvised weapons: candlesticks, kitchen knives, pots, trays, and bottles. They lowered the weapons as Cordier pulled her inside.

He gave her a shake. “Don't ever.” Another shake. “Do that.” Shake. “Again.”

“I was creating a diversion,” she said.

“You're creating a diversion, all right,” he said. “You're wearing a shift that's soaked through. You might as well be wearing nothing. And everybody's looking.”

“That will never do,” she said. “I'm a harlot. They must pay to look.”

“I'm going to kill you,” he said. He turned away. “Zeggio, stop gawking, and fetch the lady's shawl before she catches her death.”

Francesca wasn't thinking about being cold. She was taking him in. He had on his shirt and waistcoat as well as her gown, which he wore backward, the bodice hanging over his bottom.

He noticed her studying it. “It didn't fit,” he said.

“I told you that.”

Zeggio approached with the shawl. Cordier snatched it from him and wrapped it about her. Then he marched her to the stairs.

Thérèse pushed her way past a pair of kitchen maids. “Oh, madame,” she said.

“I know,” Francesca said. “He's ruined my second favorite gown.”

“It isn't ruined,” Cordier said. “I took pains not to get blood on it. Did you notice that I did not jump into the canal to rescue you this time? Look.” He whirled about, so gracefully, as though he'd been wearing skirts all his life.

She giggled. She couldn't help it. He was an excellent mimic. She hadn't realized…

A mimic.

A host of images crowded into her mind: The comical Spaniard who moments later turned into someone more disturbing—the long-legged man lounging at the door of her gondola…later, the same man sweeping off his hat in the Caffè Florian and making a flourish of a bow…his black hair glued down with pomade. Countess Benzoni looking not at his hair but at his tall, strong body.
This
tall, strong body.

Another tall, strong body appeared in her mind's eye. She saw again the long, muscled legs in servant's breeches: the servant at La Fenice who
spilled wine onto Lurenze's trousers…the servant with the mouth-watering physique.

This
physique.

She remembered what he'd said a short while ago, before he'd taken her gown:
I'm going to tell you, and you're going to hate me.

“You,” she said. “That was you.”

He stilled, his playful expression fading, his eyes wary. “What was me?”

“You,” she said, searching for words, unable to find them among the images churning in her mind: the Campanile, the lovemaking, the seraglio, the lovemaking. “The servant. The Spaniard.
You
. Whoever you are.”

His expression hardened. “Thérèse, you'd better take madame upstairs,” he said.

She turned to Thérèse, snatched the tray from her, and threw it at him. He dodged and it struck the floor with a crash. “You weasel!” she cried. “
Donnola!
” She went on in Italian, the Italian of the streets, “You lying sack of excrement. I should have let them kill you. I hope they do, and you rot in hell. Come near me again and I'll cut off your balls.”

She stormed up the stairs. Thérèse hurried after her.

 

James watched her go. He cleared his throat. “That went well, I thought.”

“Yes, sir,” said Sedgewick.

“Signore, it is nothing,” said Zeggio. “Women, they always say they will cut off the balls. It is like when the man say, ‘Tomorrow, I will respect you still.' It means nothing.”

“It doesn't signify,” James said. He looked toward the servants, all of whom regarded him with the same disappointed expression. Even the villains wore that look. They all expected him to run after her and make a great scene. A lot of screaming at each other, then a lot of lovemaking.

Italians,
he thought.

Then he remembered: He was Italian, too. “
Per tutti i diavoli dell'inferno!
” By all the devils in hell!

He ran up the stairs after her.

“
Vai al diavolo!
” she shouted back. “
Vai all'inferno!
”

Go to the devil. Go to hell.

Ah, yes, the usual intelligent exchange.

“You ungrateful, impossible woman!” he shouted.

She'd reached the archway leading to the
piano nobile
. She paused and turned to him. Her exotic eyes were molten green fury. “You black-hearted, fraudulent swine!” she cried. “You are nothing but trouble, and you've done nothing but cause trouble from the day you came. I had a good life, a beautiful, peaceful life—until
you
came to Venice!” She swung round and marched damply down the
portego,
leaving wet footprints behind her.

“Your life was
merda
and you know it!” he shouted. “None of this would have happened if you'd owned a grain of sense. You started this!”

“My life was
perfect!
”

He'd caught up with her. She quickened her pace but he stayed with her. “A perfect lie,” he said.

“You're a fine one to talk. I don't go about pretending to be—”

“That's all you do!” he snapped. “Pretend and
play games and lie! Shall I call you an actress? It's a gentler word—and you'd say that acting is what your profession requires. It's the same for me.”

She turned into a doorway. Thérèse tried to close the door but he pushed through. “It's the same for me,” he said more quietly. “And can we
not
talk about this in front of the servants?”

“Why don't I stab you in front of the servants instead?” she said.

James looked at Thérèse. “
Allez-vous en
,” he said very quietly.

“Don't you dare,” her mistress said.

Thérèse darted one look at her employer and one at him, then she hurried past him, out of the room.

“Thérèse!” Bonnard started after her.

James blocked the doorway.

“I hate you,” she said.

Of course she did. He'd lied to her from the start. He'd betrayed the trust of the innocent girl-ghost in her eyes.

He looked down at himself, at the gown he'd taken without explanation, because he was afraid of what would happen after he explained. He stared at the gown he'd taken when he left her in that cowardly way…after they'd given themselves to each other in the way that lovers, true lovers, did.

He pushed the gown down over his hips, and it fell to the floor. He stepped out of it and picked it up. He held it out to her.

She snatched it from him and pressed it to her bosom, heedless of the damp shawl and the sop
ping shift clinging to her body, and the stains the wet would leave in the silk.

“I know you hate me,” he said. “I know you can't bear the sight of me. Just tell me where the letters are, Francesca, and I'll go.”

“
I
hate you,” Francesca said. She was wet and ought to be cold but she was hot with rage and humiliation. She could not believe she'd been such an utter fool. This was worse, far worse even than her stupidity about John Bonnard. Then at least she'd had the excuse of youth and innocence. What excuse had she now, at seven and twenty years old, after her brutally rude awakening five years ago—not to mention the months she'd spent learning from Fanchon Noirot how
not
to be a fool?

She'd met this man not a week ago—not counting the times she'd met him without knowing who he was—not that she knew who he was. Less than a week with him and she'd let herself…fall…in love.

She wished she might call it something else but what else was she to call it, when she'd leapt into the canal to save him? She burned with shame, recalling. For a time, for those few precious minutes before she'd realized why he was here, it had all seemed so…romantic.

“I hate you,” she said. “I hate myself more, if that's possible.”

He closed the door. “I'm sorry,” he said. “But you must tell me where the letters are. For your own safety.”

“What letters?” she said, as she had said, repeatedly, to Lord Quentin.

“Francesca.”

She looked about her. She had not been paying attention to where she was going, simply turned blindly into a doorway. Of all the doorways she might have entered, she had to pick the one opening into the Putti Inferno. Now the children were looking down and pointing their pudgy fingers and bums at, not the Great Whore, but the Great Fool.

She looked up at the ceiling. How many of those pestilential children were there? Had they multiplied since last she looked, like her troubles? “I hate them, too.”

“Francesca, we haven't time to play games,” he said.

“I'm not playing,” she said.

“The letters,” he said.

“What letters?” she said.
Whose side are you on?
she wanted to ask. But what was the point? Why should he tell her the truth? The truth didn't matter. Only the letters mattered, plague take them. Plague take
him
.

“I'm going to explain,” he said.

“I don't want your explanations,” she said. “I wish I could explain to myself why I risked my life—no, worse, my dignity—on your account.”

“I know you won't believe me but I'm going to explain anyway,” he said. “Then I'll choke the information out of you if I have to—because what's at stake is more important than you or me or whose
feelings
get hurt.”

“You bastard,” she said.

“That's how I stay alive,” he said. “That's how I do my job. By being a bastard. If it weren't for you, I shouldn't have to do my job. If it weren't for you, I might be in England now, learning how to be a human being again. I might be wooing gently bred maidens and luring some naïve fool into marriage and making babies. I might be spending my days at my club, reading the newspapers or gazing out of the window and making jokes or bets about the people passing by. I might show off my fine horse and my superior horsemanship in Hyde Park in between ogling the eligible girls and deluding their chaperons. I might be dancing at Almack's with girls in white dresses. I might be getting drunk and telling dirty jokes with the other gentlemen after the women leave the dining room. I might be among normal people living a normal life. But no.
You had to refuse to help Quentin. A handful of letters. That was all he wanted. But you refused to help a group of loyal Britons bring down a man who sold himself to our enemies. Because of you, I couldn't go back to England. I had to come here—
and hurt your bloody damned feelings!
”

Her conscience stabbed, sharply enough to make her wince. She recognized the images he conjured and she understood exactly what he was missing, what he longed for. It was the world she missed, too, sometimes, despite the happiness and freedom she'd found after leaving it. The world that she'd left—the one that had cast her out—was not the best world, but it was familiar, and it had its joys. She'd liked her life there, before everything went wrong. At any rate, she knew too well what it felt like, to be locked out of what had once been home.

“How was I to know Quentin could be trusted?” she said. “Have you any inkling how many men have lied to me? Have you any idea how many of the people I trusted turned on me? Have you any notion what it's like, to have everyone you ever knew,
every single one
, turn against you—on one man's word? How was I to know Quentin wasn't another one of the ones on Elphick's side? They all were. Every last damned one of them. Even my lawyers despised me.”

“Quentin and I are not on Elphick's side,” he said. “Ten years ago, your former husband betrayed me and five comrades to agents of Napoleon. We ended up in the Abbaye. We were tortured. For weeks.”

She shut her eyes briefly. She'd heard about the prisons in Paris. The Abbaye was infamous. Fanchon Noirot had told her of friends who'd gone there. The few who emerged went on to Madame Guillotine. She opened her eyes and found his blue gaze boring into her.

“‘And they are dead,'” he quoted from the Book of Job, “‘and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.' But why should you believe me?”

Why, indeed? All the same, she was finding it hard not to believe. His taut expression told her he'd watched or heard his comrades die—ugly deaths, she was sure. Too, she knew what Elphick was capable of—or thought she knew. Until this moment she hadn't fully grasped the implications.

She should have realized: Elphick had no conscience, no loyalty, no feeling at all. He was a monster. What he'd done to her was nothing to what he'd done to others.

She'd focused on herself and the misery she'd endured. She'd been so young, so naïve. His collusion with England's enemies—its consequences and the people who'd suffered—those were abstractions to her. Cordier had made them real. Human beings. Young men. His comrades. Himself. Tortured.

Perhaps it was all lies, but she felt sick.

She turned away and walked to the window. Across the way, the windows of the Ca' Munetti were lit. Elsewhere all was dark. The moon must have gone behind clouds or set. How fitting, the darkness. She'd thought she'd understood but she'd been stumbling in the dark.

“You're going to have to trust someone,” he said. “It must be me or them.”

“Must it?” she said. “How am I to know you're not part of it? How am I to know this isn't a great show, to make you seem a hero, so that I'll trust you?”

“What am I to say?” he said. “How do I make you believe me? Why don't I simply choke it out of you and have done with it?”

He paused, apparently to grapple with his temper, because he went on in a level voice, “Those two men who attacked you last week? The nuns from Cyprus who searched your house? The fellows who attacked your gondola tonight, thinking you were in it? Their chief is a woman named Marta Fazi. She's about your age, but I don't think you'll find her
simpatica
. When she was eight years old, she cut off the ear of a girl who insulted her. If those charming fellows tonight had captured you, they would have taken you to Marta. She would have persuaded you to tell her where the letters were. She would persuade you by cutting up your face. She likes to do that to beautiful women. If she's in a kind mood. In her less kind moods, the method of persuasion would be more unpleasant.”

Francesca's ears were ringing. She felt herself swaying. He moved toward her, his hand outstretched. She pushed him away, staggered to a chair, and sat down hard.

“We're trying to find her,” he said. “Quentin's even asked Goetz to help—though the governor doesn't know the half of it and is not to know.
Until she's caught—or until you give us the letters—you're not safe.”

She laughed. Not a pretty sound, this one, but bitter, edged with hysteria. “All that time, no one believed me,” she said. “When Elphick discovered I'd taken the letters from his desk, he wasn't concerned. He'd already ruined me. In putting me beyond the pale, he made it impossible for me to hurt him. And for all the time I couldn't hurt him, I was safe. He let me run away abroad the way duelists and debtors and other undesirables and minor criminals do. He didn't pursue me here. I would have stayed safe, would I not? had I only sunk into the gutter as he hoped. But no, I had to have nobles and royals at my feet. Now I matter. Now I have important friends. Now I'm worth killing.”

And now she was cold. She shivered. She heard Cordier move. She was aware, through her misery and the ringing in her ears, of the clink of glass. He pushed something into her hand. A glass of brandy. “I wonder if it's poisoned,” she said, and drank it down, all of it. It was liquid fire in her throat but it made the noise in her head subside.

“It's not poisoned,” he said. “This is not an opera, and I am not the villain of the piece. Would you please be sensible, Francesca, and tell me where the letters are?”

She looked up into his handsome face, into those midnight blue eyes. She supposed, fool that she was, that if she had it to do over again, she'd jump into the canal again, for him. To save him. Her gaze rose past him up the walls and on up to the ceiling. Those provoking children. “It's complicated,” she said.

“No, it isn't,” he said. “It's very simple. You tell me where…”

She waited for him to finish. It took her a moment to realize what had made him break off. His hearing was so sharp, far sharper than hers. Only now did she recognize the sounds coming from the
portego.
Footsteps—booted footsteps. Official-sounding footsteps. Several pairs of them.

The door opened. No knock. No waiting for her
“Avanti.”

But it was Arnaldo who, as usual, had found her unerringly. He must be part bloodhound. He always knew exactly what room she was in. “His excellency the governor Count Goetz,” he announced.

The Austrian governor followed close behind. After the first startled glance, he took care not to look at her.

“I beg your pardon, madame, for this sudden arrival, but you can guess the cause.”

“Our little disturbance,” she said.

“Not so little as one could wish,” he said. “I must speak to Mr. Cordier.”

“I thought you might,” Cordier said, all at ease again, his usual self—whoever that was. “I'm sure Mrs. Bonnard will excuse us. She will want to—er—dress, at any rate.”

“Madame has had a great shock,” said Goetz. “As we have all had a great shock. We will not inconvenience her. You and I shall talk, sir, at the Ducal Palace. In the meantime, as soon as madame can be made ready, I must insist upon her vacating this house.”

“Certainly not,” said Francesca.

“I must insist,” said the count. “The house must be thoroughly searched. It is possible that men or deadly devices have been hidden here. You will be safer elsewhere, with a friend. I shall send an armed escort with you.”

He was the governor of Venice. When the governor insisted, one obeyed. The Austro-Hungarian regime exercised a degree of tolerance for Venice's peculiarities and foibles but they'd no tolerance whatsoever for anything hinting at disregard of authority. To the Austrians, disrespect for authority was the first sign of insurrection—and that would be firmly—brutally, if necessary—nipped in the bud.

It was the wisest course, perhaps, after all, Francesca told herself. She did not feel safe in this house at present. She did not know whom to trust. She wasn't sure what to expect or what to do. In any case, whatever else Goetz's men found when they searched, she was confident they wouldn't find the letters.

Not that the Austrians would have any idea what to make of them if they did find them.

“As you wish, Count Goetz,” she said.

He nodded stiffly, still careful not to look at her. “You will wish to go to your friend, I believe.”

“No,” she said. “She'll be…occupied.” She couldn't help smiling, thinking of Giulietta and her prince. If only Francesca could have taken a fancy to Lurenze instead. How uncomplicated her life would be.

“I shall go to Magny,” she said. “I know I'll be welcome there, no matter what time I arrive.”

She left the room, aware of Cordier scowling after her.

 

James did not feel nearly as cooperative as he pretended to be. He was greatly disinclined to go quietly to the Ducal Palace. For one thing, he was not at all sure he wouldn't end up in the
pozzi.
This would be exceedingly inconvenient, since it might take hours—perhaps as much as a day or more—for Quentin to arrange to have him released.

Prison, James knew from experience, was not necessarily bad. Except for the time in the Abbaye, he'd found it…peaceful. While uncomfortable, depending on the surroundings, it did offer a time to gather one's wits and think, without distractions. He had a great deal of thinking to do.

At present, however, he hadn't time to indulge himself in the cool, dark, damp, solitude of a dungeon.

Goetz certainly had reason to lock him up. The governor was not a fool, and James could guess what was going through his mind.

I had a good life, a beautiful, peaceful life—until you came to Venice
, Bonnard had told him.

Goetz would be thinking along the same lines: Venice had been quite peaceful until James Cordier arrived.

There was going to be an interrogation, beyond question, and that would be tiresome. Another great waste of valuable time.

Perhaps, after all, James thought, he should have followed his first instinct and bolted as soon as he
heard the footsteps: military footsteps, a sound he'd recognize anywhere.

But he hadn't known what they—whoever they were—wanted, and it was unchivalrous to leave Francesca in the lion's den—though he would have abandoned her, he assured himself, if only she'd told him where the damned letters were.