Your Scandalous Ways

by Loretta Chase

  Cordier turned to her and started to pull up her bodice. She slapped his hands away and quickly covered herself.

  She smoothed her skirts and her expression. When the gondola stopped, she was ready. She let Cordier hand her out of the vessel but she pretended she had eyes only for Lurenze. She gave the prince her warmest, most intimate smile and addressed him as though only he mattered, as though the others didn’t exist.

  “What an agreeable surprise,” she said. “Or ought I not to be surprised? Had I scheduled a conversazione and forgotten it in all the recent excitement?”

  “No, madame, not at all,” said Goetz. “We are here because we did not wish to lose a minute in informing you.”

  His highness only nodded. No doubt he was gathering his wits, which her smile must have scattered.

  “A moment after you left with Mr. Cordier, I received a message,” the governor went on. “A man was captured on his way to the mainland in a stolen gondola. We have reason to believe this may be one of the men who attacked you. Mr. Cordier, we have him in custody. I must ask you to come to identify him, to spare the lady this distressing task.”

  “All is well,” Lurenze told her. “You must have no fear, madame. I remain to protect you—like the guard dog.” He shot a defiant look at Cordier.

  The defiance couldn’t quite mask the prince’s uncertainty. He had reason to be unsure, she knew. She’d rejected all of his previous efforts to protect her.

  She moved to him. “You are exceedingly kind, your highness. Thank you. I shall be very glad of your company.”

  His grey eyes lit. The corners of his beautiful mouth turned up, transforming his expression to pure, unmasked, unashamed happiness.

  How could she help smiling up into that face, at so much sweetness?

  She glanced at the governor, making it seem that she could scarcely tear her gaze away from Lurenze. “Until next we meet, Count Goetz,” she said. He bowed.

  She turned away and took Lurenze’s arm. “Addio, Mr. Cordier.” She tossed the dismissal over her shoulder and went on to the stairs with Lurenze. She didn’t look back.

  Later, at the Doge’s Palace

  James fervently hoped the Austrians had the right man in custody because he needed, very badly, to hurt somebody.

  He’d come within a gnat’s testicles of losing his wits entirely and taking Bonnard then and there, in the gondola.

  You’d think he was a schoolboy with his first tart.

  It was the great pearl, tapping against his head as he was losing himself in the silken smoothness and warm fragrance of her breasts. If that light tap hadn’t recalled him to the moment, made him remember where he was, who she was, what he was about…

  His face burned, recalling.

  Imbecille! he berated himself. Idiota!

  A fine way to play hard to get.

  She would have had him, proved her point, and tossed him aside. She had much larger fish in her nets.

  Peridots, indeed. Mere baubles to her, though the set she had in mind would no doubt send the typical younger son deep into the nets of the moneylenders, from which he might never disentangle himself.

  Still, he had managed to save himself. He had won, and she was furious. Had Goetz not turned up, with the goggle-eyed boy, James might have provoked her to extend the wager.

  I’ll give you another chance, he could have said. Then she might have invited him into the house, and—if he were clever and careful—into her confidence.

  But no. Instead, he must spend hours in officialdom, trying to extract information from a ruffian while concealing from the Austrian governor his true purpose.

  Such were James’s thoughts as he and Count Goetz made their way through the Ducal Palace. En route here, they’d discussed how they would deal with the suspect, and James had succeeded in making Goetz believe the resulting plan was Goetz’s. Now, having traversed a dark, narrow passage from the great council chamber, they stood in the State Inquisitor’s room.

  It was not a happy room. Even one whose nature was not fanciful would sense its dark history, as though the souls of all who’d suffered here haunted it.

  Fear was an old but reliable tactic, as the Austrians clearly understood. To strike terror into their prisoner’s heart, they’d lodged him in the pozzi, the “wells.” The narrow, dark, dank cells had once held great crowds of those who’d run afoul of the Venetian Republic. Nowadays, it was a lonely place.

  While James and Goetz waited for the man to be unearthed from the prison depths, the governor showed James about this part of the Ducal Palace.

  At last the prisoner entered, with guards fore and aft—an unnecessary precaution, given the heavy chains about his ankles.

  James stood in the shadows, as he and Goetz had agreed. The prisoner took note mainly of the governor, disregarding James as merely a minion. The interview proceeded in Italian.

  It did not proceed very far. For one, the southern dialect the suspect spoke was nigh impenetrable to the governor and difficult even for James. For another, the fellow—who gave his name as Piero Salerno—claimed to know nothing about any lady. He had fallen off a fishing boat, he said. He wasn’t trying to steal the gondola. He’d only climbed into it because he was tired of swimming.

  That was his story. It made no sense whatsoever and he couldn’t be made to budge from it.

  Goetz sighed and turned to James. “Sir, do you know this man?”

  The prisoner started, apparently having forgotten anybody else was there. Now he craned his neck forward and squinted into the shadows where James stood.

  Though parts of the chamber were dark, as James had advised, the place to which they’d led the prisoner was well lit. Even in poorer light, James would have known the man. He’d seen this face only briefly, but it was his business to notice and remember details.

  “This is the one,” he said.

  He stepped out of the shadows.

  Piero shrank and took a hasty step backward. One of the guards prodded him back into place with his bayonet.

  “What a pity,” James said. “I was hoping for the other one. All this one did was row the boat.”

  “He is an accessory,” said Goetz. “The penalty is the same.”

  “But if he cooperates?” James said. “Perhaps if I spoke to him alone, he would be more confiding.”

  Piero’s eyes widened. “No!” he cried.

  He had not gone far last night, then. Judging by his reaction, he’d seen what James had done to his large friend.

  James smiled at him.

  Goetz signaled to the guards. The three of them exited the room, leaving James alone with the prisoner.

  Speaking in the plainest and simplest Italian he knew, James said, “This has not been a happy night for me, Piero. I had to leave the opera before it was over—I must abandon Rossini, of all things! One woman complains to me about her man problems until my ears ache and the other woman is breaking my balls. I didn’t want to come here in the first place. I have better things to do. Lying little mounds of filth like you are sucking from me time I shall never get back. I am not in a good mood and I want to hurt someone. You’re not my first choice, but you’ll do, you ugly little pile of shit.”

  He advanced. Piero tried to back away, but he stumbled on the manacles and fell.

  James grabbed one arm and hoisted him up, pulling hard enough to make the prisoner shriek. “I can pull harder than that,” James said. “I can pull it right out of the socket. Shall I demonstrate?”

  Piero began to scream. “Help! Help! He will kill me!”

  He tried to run to the door, but stumbled again. When James reached down to pull him up, the man tried to scramble away on his backside.

  “None of them care if you scream, you reeking pustulence,” James said. “No one cares if I kill you. It will save the government the cost of a trial and execution. But I’ll give you a kind warning: After the troublesome women, this noise you make is not improving my humor.”

  Once again he
jerked the man to his feet. This time James held onto his arm, squeezing hard. Piero whimpered.

  “The way to improve my humor,” James said, “is to tell me who you are, who your friend is—or was—and why you attacked the lady. I shall give you to the count of three to begin putting me in a better frame of mind. One. Two.”

  “We do it,” the man said. “We attack the whore.”

  James squeezed harder.

  Tears started from Piero’s eyes. “The one you throw in the water is Bruno. I hide and wait for him but he never comes. Then I think you have killed him. And so I steal the gondola and try to go back.”

  “Never mind that,” James said. “Why did you come here in the first place?”

  “To steal. This is what we do, Bruno and me. We have some trouble in Verona, and so we go to Mira. The whore was there, for the summer holiday. Everyone talks of the jewels she has. But then, she moves from the villa there back to Venice. And so we come to Venice, because it is easier to follow her here than in the little village, where everyone watches everything. We come to Venice, and then we wait for the right time.”

  Once he’d begun talking, he babbled on and on. But most of the rest he had to say was irrelevant

  All the way to Venice, simply to steal? That made no sense to James. Crime was far easier elsewhere in Italy—in the Papal States, for instance, where corruption was rife. Or farther south, in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. But to come here, where the Austrians ruled? It made no sense.

  Still, Piero would not budge from his story. It was theft, mere theft, he insisted. Bruno had only decided to make some fun with a little rape. He’d choked the English woman to keep her from screaming, Piero claimed. “She’s a whore. This is what they like, as everyone—”

  James flung Piero away from him so violently that the man tripped and fell.

  This time James left him where he was.

  If he touched the swine again, he’d kill him.

  Chapter 6

  And even the wisest, do the best they can,

  Have moments, hours, and days, so unprepared,

  That you might ‘brain them with their

  lady’s fan;’

  And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard,

  And fans turn into falchions in fair hands,

  And why and wherefore no one understands.

  Lord Byron

  Don Juan, Canto the First

  James wasn’t as easily finished with the business as he was with Piero. The governor kept him at the Ducal Palace past dawn, dotting every i and crossing every t.

  James would have returned to Bonnard’s place even at that indecent hour, but he was too conscious of the combined stench of Piero’s unwashed body and whatever noxious fumes the swine had acquired from the prison, all of which clung to James’s clothes.

  He went back to the Ca’ Munetti instead. His servants being up and about by this time, he had not long to wait for a bath. After this, he gave Zeggio and Sedgewick a brief summary of his interview with Piero.

  Then James went to bed, telling himself that once his head was clear, he’d find a way through the present difficulty.

  He slept for only a short time, because of a dream. It started out splendidly, with Bonnard naked and hurtling herself at him, wrapping her arms about his neck and pressing her luscious body against his. Then Lurenze appeared, and she pushed James away and threw herself at the prince instead.

  James woke abruptly, aware he wasn’t alone.

  He hauled himself up to a sitting position. Sedgewick and Zeggio stood in the doorway, wearing matching worried expressions.

  “What?” James said. “What?”

  “You was yelling, sir,” said Sedgewick apologetically. “Which you never does, as I was telling Mr. Zeggio here. But it was in Italian, and I couldn’t make it out.”

  “I tell him, all you say is, ‘Come back here, you she-devil,’” said Zeggio. “I tell him this is no cause for alarm. It is a dream, nothing more.”

  “But you was at them posies last night, sir, and—”

  “Pozzi,” Zeggio corrected. “The prisons, very deep in the ground, like wells.”

  “It give you the heebie-jeebies is what I reckoned, sir. On account of that time you was in Paris in that hellhole—the one where them filthy frogs tortured you. Which is why I said we oughter wake you up. But you woke up on your own.”

  James had spent nearly a year recovering from the French interrogation. It was a long time ago: ten years. Pain was easy to forget but every other grim detail remained etched in his memory.

  He wasn’t the only one who’d been betrayed, but he was one of the lucky ones. Two of his associates had been tortured to death. His scars—the visible ones—had faded. His nails had grown back. And he’d gone back to work, determined to settle scores. But he’d been so much younger then. Now, it would take him years to recover—if he did recover, which was by no means certain. Now he understood, too, that the trail of betrayal was not simply tangled but endless.

  I’m getting too old for this, he thought.

  “Find me something to wear,” he told Sedgewick. “And get my shaving things.”

  He shaved and dressed quickly, as always. Lingering over his toilette was not in his style.

  He was halfway through his breakfast when Zeggio, who’d been sent to ready the gondola, reappeared with a small parcel.

  “A maid brings it,” he said. “From Signora Bonnard, she says.”

  James stared at the elegantly wrapped parcel.

  He set down his coffee, took it, and unwrapped it.

  He recognized the shape of the box.

  Grimly he opened it.

  He didn’t need to look up to be aware of Sedgewick and Zeggio, who’d crept closer. They looked down at the contents, then at his face.

  He did not throw the elegant box across the room. Peridots were not pearls, diamonds, or emeralds, true. On the other hand, good specimens did not come cheap. Royalty wore peridots, he knew, and this set, the well-cut stones bordered with brilliants, was worthy of a queen. He simply sat, staring at it, seething, though he had no reason—no sane reason—to be angry.

  This was a taunt, nothing more. The wager didn’t signify to her. The price of the peridots was laughable. That was the message he read in it. He’d been merely a diversion to her, a game to while away the journey—at the end of which she had more important prey.

  When he could control his voice, he said, “A little wager, that’s all. Mrs. Bonnard certainly pays promptly. She must have had her servant waiting at the shop door for it to open.”

  “Very fine articles, those are, sir,” said Sedgewick.

  “Indeed they are,” James said. “Most sporting of her. I must thank her. Personally. Zeggio, I thought you were readying the gondola.”

  Though he spoke calmly and quietly there was something in his tone that made Zeggio hurry from the room.

  The something made Sedgewick’s brow furrow. “Sir,” he began.

  James held up his hand. “I’ll deal with this,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” Sedgewick said.

  “At least I’ve learned one thing,” James said.

  “Yes, sir. It were a robbery, nothing to do with—”

  “I now understand why Elphick divorced her,” James said. “What I don’t understand is why he didn’t strangle her.”

  Palazzo Neroni, a short time later

  Francesca was naked.

  Or so, at least, would respectable persons describe her—for there was, they would scold, far too much of her on view.

  Not only had she failed to don a proper morning gown but she wasn’t even wearing decent night-clothes.

  Instead of the frumpy cotton nightdress virtuous women wore to bed, she’d donned a shift of exquisite pale yellow silk. Pink silk ribbons tied the deep neckline closed. A pink silk ribbon drawstring tied under her breasts. Over the nightdress she wore a silk dressing gown of a paler shade, closer to the color of cream. In contrast to the simp
le shift, this was trimmed with miles of ruffles and lace and shimmering embroidery dotted with seed pearls.

  As she entered the Putti Inferno, she regretted not having ordered breakfast served in the intimacy of the room adjoining her boudoir.

  Well, too late. She must shock the plaster and painted children.

  Ignoring them and the pudgy little fingers pointing at the great whore in the room, she directed her gaze to Lurenze, who’d risen, his face lighting up, at the sound of her footsteps. Then his eyes opened very wide, and his mouth fell open. He put his hand to his heart. He murmured something in his own language.

  “Good morning,” she said, with a small, intimate smile.

  Arnaldo was there to pull out her chair, luckily, for his highness was temporarily non compos mentis.

  After a moment’s delay and more murmuring to himself, he strung some English together. “You look like—like a—a froth,” he said. “Never have I seen anything so beautiful. In my country, the women do not dress so—so—so showing of their beauties.”

  “They don’t do it in my country, either,” she said.

  “I am glad we are not in your country or in my country,” he said.

  Francesca became aware of distant sounds, coming from the portego. Arnaldo poured her coffee and went out.

  She sipped her coffee. She nibbled on a pastry, then put it down because her hands were shaking.

  Her heart was beating hard but she went on bestowing sleepy smiles upon Lurenze while she dropped a few innuendoes that went over his golden head.

  Arnaldo returned. “Signor Cordier has arrived, signora,” he said. “Do you wish I tell him to come another time?” The servant did not so much as glance at Lurenze when he said this.

  “No, send him up,” she said. She did not add, I’ve been expecting him.

  Arnaldo went out.

  “I’ll wager…” She began. Then she paused, her smile widening. She couldn’t help it. She’d lost the wager, but Cordier would learn what sort of gamester he played with. “I daresay,” she continued, “Mr. Cordier has come to tell us what transpired last night with the man who was captured.”

  “I wondered when word would come,” said Lurenze. “So long it takes. Almost I am thinking it is time to send a servant to him for the explanation.”