He braced himself on an arm to look down at me. “You shall never want for anything, Hannah, not a thing. You’ll live in luxury, with everything you desire. We’ll travel, we’ll go to the opera. I’ll build you the biggest library in Venice and fill it with thousands of books.” Trailing a hand down my throat and over a breast, he said, “I want the most brilliant and beautiful woman in Europe to be mine and mine alone. On mild evenings, I want to float through the canals on a gondola with you in my arms, watching the buildings turn gold in the setting sun. ’Tis one of the most enchanting sights in the world.”
“I’m sure it is,” I said recalling how exquisite Château de la Grotte Cachée had looked when I’d first seen it, gilded by the sunset. But I wasn’t going to Venice. My plan—my vital mission, at which I mustn’t fail—was to return to England as soon as possible with the information I needed to clear my uncle’s name and save his life.
Whereupon Domenico Vitturi would realize that I’d been deceiving him from the beginning. I dreaded to think how he would react to that.
He must have misinterpreted my pensiveness, because he looked away, saying “’Tisn’t quite what you had in mind, I know. I suppose I’m not quite what you had in mind. I have no illusions about … what women see when they look at me, but—”
“Nay, I think you do.” Sitting up, I took his face in my hands and kissed him lingeringly, deeply. “You foolish man, you have no idea how women view you, how much they admire you… and desire you. The problem isn’t what they see when they look at you, Domenico, ’tis what you see when you look at yourself.”
“Accept my offer,” he said with a cagey grin, “and you shall have all the time in the world to convince me of that.”
At a loss for words, I turned away from him and dragged the basket closer. In addition to the linen-wrapped food within, there were not one but two leathern bottles of wine. You want him in his cups when you question him about Buckingham, Elle had told me as she was packing the basket. The looser his tongue, the more you’ll learn.
As I was pouring two bowls, Domenico said from behind me, “I pray thee, Hannah, think about it. Consider it seriously. Then, if you decide that you would prefer the life of a cortigiana onesta, I will still lend you my patronage. I’ll provide you with a home, a staff, clothing, jewels, a gondola… I’ll introduce you to the wealthiest, most desirable benefactors in the city. I will do all this because I’m a man of my word and I want the best for you, but make no mistake,” he said, his voice low and rough. “’Twill break my heart.”
I studied the two bowls of wine, tears shimmering in my eyes. “Make love to me again, Domenico.”
“Not so soon,” he said, wrapping his arms around me from behind. “You need time to heal.”
“Tonight, then?”
“Aye, and the next night…” He nuzzled my hair. “And the next…” He touched his lips to my cheek. “And the next, and the next, and the next,” he said, planting a trail of kisses down my throat and along my shoulder. “I shall have your things brought to my bedchamber so that you can stay there… if… that is, if you wish it.”
He never lets me kiss him, nor does he let me sleep in his bed.
“I would like that, Domenico. I would love it.”
I handed him his bowl, which he touched to mine. “To your health,” he said.
“Alla tua salute.”
“Are you trying to get me drunk?” he asked as I refilled his glass for the third time. It was late afternoon, and the sun had already dipped below the surrounding mountains. Domenico had lent me his shirt, which fell almost to my knees; he wore his breeches and unbuttoned doublet.
I stared at him with the bottle in one hand and the cork in another. “I… er…”
“Because you can have your way with me even if I’m perfectly sober, as I think should be evident by now,” he said with a woolly chuckle that indicated the wine was already going to his head. As if to confirm that, he said, “We’d better eat something, or I shall fall asleep right here and not wake up till morning.”
I laid out our dinner, and we ate, our conversation centering mainly on poetry, literature, and theater until I steered it toward affairs of state. I refilled his cup twice more, mine only once—and I barely touched it.
“Do you know anything about the Goodchild case?” I asked as I emptied the first bottle into his bowl and uncorked the second. I hated the studied nonchalance of my tone. I hated the subterfuge I was engaging in. Please let him know something useful.
“Goodchild.” Lying propped up on an elbow, he lifted the bowl to his mouth. “The fellow who’s been arrested for treason? I only know he’s in the Tower awaiting trial. Buckingham’s never mentioned him to me.”
Damn it all to Hades, I thought.
“Why do you ask?” he said.
“I don’t know.” I looked down and shrugged. “It interests me.”
“Because you’re Catholic and they’re saying that’s why he spied for Spain?”
“Perhaps. I just thought, since you and the duke are friends, he might have told you something the rest of us aren’t privy to. I suppose I’m prying into matters that are none of my affair.”
“Buckingham wouldn’t have talked to me about this. They tell me he’s been melancholic ever since he found out what the blackguard did. ’Tis a painful thing, realizing one’s lover has been betraying—”
“Lover.” I sat up straight, wine dripping from my bowl onto the blanket.
He groaned disgustedly. “Forget I said that. ’Twas all this wine. I don’t normally drink so much, especially in the after—”
“Are you saying my—that Guy Goodchild and the Duke of Buckingham…?”
“’Tis no secret in certain circles, and most members of the king’s court know about Buckingham’s proclivities, even if they aren’t quite certain who’s been sharing his bed since King James passed away.”
“King James? You mean he and Buckingham…?”
“Oh, everyone knew about that. It had been going on for years.”
“I didn’t know.” But then, it was hardly the type of thing that would have been discussed in my presence.
Domenico said, “After the king’s death, Buckingham went into genuine mourning, and then early last summer, he took up with Guy Goodchild. Shortly after that, he arranged for Goodchild’s appointment as emissary to Spain. As I understand it, Goodchild is a man of considerable refinement who’s never been married, so there had been rumors for some time that he preferred men.”
“But King James had a wife,” I said, “and so does Buckingham.”
“And so does Jonas Knowles. ’Tis done to keep up appearances and perpetuate the line, but—”
“Jonas Knowles?” I said through an incredulous chuckle. Recalling the morning I had discovered him in Lucy’s bed, I said, “Jonas Knowles does not prefer men, I can assure you of that.”
Cocking his head, Domenico said, “Do you know something I ought to… Nay, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I can assure you, however, that Knowles has spent every night in Buckingham’s bed since we left London. He’s been the duke’s gentleman of the bedchamber for almost a year, but he didn’t become his favorite—and his lover—until after Goodchild was arrested. If he’s still disporting himself with women…” Domenico shook his head as he took a sip of wine. “God help him if Buckingham finds out. He gets wildly jealous, demands fidelity. Not that he gives it in return. He does like his pretty young men, and he’ll take them where he can get them, but his favorites had better stay true or suffer his wrath.”
“That doesn’t seem quite fair.”
“He doesn’t have to be fair. He’s the Duke of Buckingham.”
“And no one minds that he beds men?” I asked. “’Tis a sin, is it not?”
“The English aren’t quite as intolerant of it as they are otherwhere. In Venice, such men risk execution if they’re found out. They’re beheaded, and their bodies burned.”
“Hence courtesans who
cut their hair short and dress in men’s clothing,” I said, recalling what Elle had said about the advantages of my small breasts.
Domenico nodded. “’Tis a good deal safer than seeking out a male for the same purpose.”
“But how satisfying can it really be?” I asked. “There are women in London who dress in breeches and doublets— churchmen are forever railing against them—but there’s never any doubt as to their true sex. A woman could never pass for a man, not really.”
“You’d be surprised how convincing a slim young woman can be, with her hair shorn and her breasts bound. Several times I’ve been in the company of such courtesans and never suspected that they weren’t young men.”
“Verily?” I said, as an idea began to take shape in my mind.
“Unless a woman has exceptionally voluptuous hips and breasts,” he said, “such a disguise can work well enough.”
Yes, of course it could, I thought. Of course.
It could actually work.
WENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER, I was sprinting across a marshy plateau after a pack of frantically barking dogs and the boar they were chasing. My lungs burned; my legs felt leaden. Try as I might, I could not keep up with the men running ahead of me—the Duke of Buckingham, master of the hunt Sir Humphrey Quade, five of the duke’s yeomen, and a sturdy young castle lacquey named Yves.
Or should I say, my fellow lacquey, for I was posing as exactly that, a young servant-of-all-work sent along to perform tasks that were too lowly even for the duke’s yeomen. It was Elle who had offered “Henri’s” services to Sir Humphrey, saying I was new and untrained and getting underfoot around the château, but perhaps I could be of some use to the duke’s evening hunting party.
My transformation into a young man had been accomplished by Elle that afternoon. To excuse me from my afternoon lessons and supper, she had reported that I had a stomach ailment for which she was nursing me in her own quarters.
“Domenico wanted to bring you a mint tonic,” she’d told me, “but I convinced him you wouldn’t want him to see you in such a state.”
I was swamped with guilt to be heaping yet another lie upon the mountain of deceit that represented, God help me, the foundation of my relationship with Domenico Vitturi. My contrition was all the sharper because of my realization, as he took me for the second time in his bed the night before, that I was in love with him. With my resolve weakening, I reminded myself what was at stake. I was my uncle’s only hope. If I didn’t stiffen my spine and do what had to be done, he would be doomed.
The first thing Elle did while I was thusly “indisposed” was to shear off my wavy hair above my shoulders—as I squeezed my eyes shut and called up memories of my Uncle Guy carrying me around as a child, reading to me, teaching me to play the lute and the harpsichord…
It would be most prudent, Elle and I agreed, to darken my distinctively reddish blond hair. Although Buckingham himself would be unlikely to recognize me with my natural color, given his disinterest in women and the distance he’d maintained from us, such would not be the case with the other men in his party. In fact, Sir Humphrey had bedded both Lucy and Bianca during our journey. The duke’s yeomen were not, of course, at liberty to approach us, but they could, and did, look their fill at every opportunity. Elle mixed up a dark brown dye using oak gall, henna, walnut shells, and a few other things— an ancient Roman recipe, she told me. I didn’t ask how she’d come by it. I hadn’t brought up the subject of incubi and so forth since the day before, nor did I intend to, given her disinclination to discuss the matter.
Elle came up with a set of laborer’s clothes—coarse tunic and pantaloons, shabby boots, and a red knitted cap—that belonged to an adolescent scullery boy. She had me practice walking and talking like a male and speaking with a provincial French accent.
“You’re supposed to be a nineteen-year-old boy,” she told me as she wrapped a length of linen around my chest to flatten my breasts, “so don’t forget to act like one. Don’t get careless. But at the same time, don’t forget to flirt with the duke.”
The idea was to make Buckingham think that I, too, fancied those of my own sex, and in particular, him. Then, when he’d taken the bait and we were alone together, I could broach the subject of Guy Goodchild.
“How does a male flirt with another male?” I asked.
“The same way a woman flirts with a man. Let him notice you staring at him, but be subtle about it. Meet his gaze, then look away. If he says something witty, laugh just a bit too hard. You’re naught but a young French peasant, if a comely one. He’s one of the most famous men in the world, and one of the handsomest. Be awed by him. Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt if you could contrive to come in physical contact with him, skin to skin, however briefly.”
So that I wouldn’t be forced to compete with Jonas Knowles for the duke’s attention, Elle had sent Master Knowles a note asking him to meet her for a tryst at four o’clock on the top floor of the southeast tower.
“When he walks into la Chambre des Voiles et des Miroirs and sees me standing there with a pair of leather cuffs in one hand and a cat-o’-nine-tails in the other,” she said, “he’ll probably spend in his breeches.”
Her plan was to keep him immobilized until Buckingham and his party, including me, had returned from the evening hunt.
“Knowles will worry about missing another hunt,” Elle had said, “so I’d best gag him, too, to keep him from yelling for help. Although if I fuck him senseless ten or twelve times, he might not fret so about the hunt, and ’twould certainly make the time pass more pleasantly for me.”
I told her I didn’t think ordinary men, meaning men who weren’t Elic, could climax that many times.
With a wily little smile, she said, “They can if they’re in the right hands.”
And thus did I take Jonas Knowles’s place in that evening’s hunting party. After some initial apprehension, I grew more comfortable with my role. I’d been charged by Sir Humphrey with carrying a bucket and a coil of rope and “keeping out of the duke’s way.” This I did, but without missing a single opportunity to catch Buckingham’s eye as Sir Humphrey tracked their prey’s feeding trails through twilit woods and meadows. I should say “the duke’s prey,” because although he had six men with him, not including Yves and me, this was indisputably the Duke of Buckingham’s hunt. The others, the dogs included, were simply there to bow and scrape, fetch and serve.
It felt most peculiar indeed to not only be in such close proximity to the reclusive duke, but to have him acknowledge my existence. He made no attempt to avoid me, as he had when I’d looked like a woman. He gave me instructions, sent me on errands, he even asked my name! And after he’d caught me gazing moonily in his direction once or twice, I began to see a heat and interest in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.
Then came the frenzied barking of the dogs, along with panicked porcine grunts, and the chase was on. Being a slower runner than the men, I caught only a fleeting glimpse of the boar, which was big and bristly and crazed, as the hounds pursued it across the field into a bog.
“Who has the duke’s spear?” Sir Humphrey yelled as I arrived at the bog, where the six dogs were holding the boar at bay, nipping and tormenting it as it screamed and screamed. “Give the duke his spear!”
One of the yeomen handed Buckingham a long boar spear, whereupon he waded into the bog, taking careful aim. He jabbed the captive animal in the shoulder, yanked out the spear, and backed away.
“Well done, Your Grace!” exclaimed Sir Humphrey as he pushed the dying, squealing beast onto its side in the water. The yeomen praised him, too, with an exuberance that struck me as bizarre, under the circumstances. After all, it was the dogs that had done all the work.
Remember why you’re here, I thought. “Félicitations, Your Grace,” I said with a smile I hoped wasn’t too coy.
He returned the smile, saying “Merci, Henri.” It didn’t escape me that I was the only one he’d thanked for congratulating him.
&n
bsp; After tying the dead pig by its hind legs, the yeomen dragged it to an oak tree next to a stream and hung it from a heavy branch. One of them took my bucket and set it on the ground, while another pulled a knife from the sheath on his belt and slit the animal’s belly open. Slippery ropes of entrails poured forth—along with half a dozen fetal piglets.
“Oh!” Clamping a hand over my mouth, I spun around. Don’t be sick, don’t be sick, don’t be sick…
The men roared with laughter at my squeamishness— until Buckingham ordered them to shut their mouths, producing instant silence. Patting my shoulder, the duke said, “Henri is young, he’s never hunted boar ere today—have you, boy?”
“I… I have not, Your Grace.”
Buckingham moved his hand along my shoulder until his fingers grazed my bare neck. Lowering his voice, he said, “Some things take a bit of getting used to, eh?”
I looked up and met his eyes. He held my gaze, his fingertips softly stroking my throat.
I swallowed. “Oui.”
“’Twill be dark anon, Your Grace,” Sir Humphrey told Buckingham. “Why don’t we have a look around whilst the boar’s being dressed, see if we can locate the herd’s bedding place before we head back to the château—matted grass, that sort of thing. Then perhaps we can come out especially early tomorrow and surprise them, eh?”
Spurred by the realization that I had to act fast if I was to get Buckingham alone, I said, “I know where they sleep, Your Grace! I can show you.”
“You know?” Sir Humphrey said. “I thought you’d never hunted boar.”
“I haven’t, but I’ve seen matted grass not far from here. I could take you there,” I told the duke. “I could show you.”
Sir Humphrey said, “Let us go, then, afore there’s no light to—”
“No need for you to come along, old man,” Buckingham told him. “The boy can show me where it is. Why don’t you stay here and make sure they get that boar properly dressed.”
Sir Humphrey’s gaze shifted from the duke to me, and back again, his expression carefully neutral. “As you will, Your Grace. I’d be quick about it, though. Night falls fast here in the mountains.”
In the Garden of Sin Page 11