Those words had her making rapid justifications in her mind now. If she chose this course, there would be no going back, but Giovanni needed her even if he didn’t know it yet and she feared she would not be able to reach him alone. The greater good would be worth it. She would not be the first woman to use that most feminine of powers for gain.
Even as she bargained with herself, she knew the real fear was that Nolan would not be the only one swept away if she committed to this path. The race of her pulse when he touched her, when he looked at her, was indication enough that she could very well become caught in her own web. That had been her mother’s downfall—not that she was a courtesan. Gianna had never faulted her mother for that, only for falling in love or what passed for it.
Nolan’s voice was low for her alone. He gave a half-smile, his fingers tracing a lingering trail at her neck. ‘You inspire a man to wickedness, Gianna. Shall I show you?’
Around them, the church had emptied quickly. There was only the two of them and the light of the votive candles in the prayer racks. Her back hit the smooth wall beside the little flames. She hadn’t realised they’d moved. ‘I thought of taking down your hair and watching it fall through my fingers.’
The pins disappeared out of her hair with alarming swiftness, the length of it pooling in the hood of her cloak. Nolan’s hands were at her temples, smoothing away her hair, his eyes dropping to her mouth. ‘After your hair was loose, my hands tangled in its length, I would put my mouth on you.’ His lips hovered above hers, her body on fire at his words, her head tilted up to his, all of her eager for his touch.
‘Where, Nolan? Where would you put your mouth?’ She breathed the question in the merest of whispers.
‘Here.’ His mouth covered hers, and she opened for him, ready for him as she’d not been quite ready last night. There was no hesitancy tonight. Tonight, she was his partner, coaxing and encouraging him to give free rein to his fantasies. His tongue teased her mouth, running over lips, teeth, even her own tongue in slow, exploratory strokes. She leaned into him, into the kiss, answering his exploration with one of her own, and it stoked the fire in her higher.
‘And here.’ Nolan’s mouth moved to her throat, pressing a kiss to the pulse point that beat at the base. His hand reached beneath the folds of her cloak to push back the shoulders of her gown, his mouth finding her skin above the lace trim of her chemise, his lips skimming the hint of bare breast that rose above the lace. She arched against the wall, arched into him, her body begging, inviting more as his hand slipped beneath the fabric. This was torture, to have his touch, but not enough of it. His mouth, his hands, it was not nearly enough. She wanted to be naked beneath him, wanted him to strip away the garments that kept his mouth from devouring all of her.
His mouth returned to hers, leaving her breast to the warm competence of his hand and the wicked caress of his thumb over the peak of her nipple. She kissed him with abandon this time, her hands in his hair, her body pressing recklessly against his. But she was not the only reckless one, his body was hard against hers, his own heart beating strong and fast in rhythm with the madness. Somewhere in the distance, bells chimed.
Midnight! The thought registered vaguely in Nolan’s heated brain, but it was enough to sound the alarm. He’d been in Catholic Italy long enough to know what midnight meant. Nolan broke from her, his voice hoarse with need unfulfilled. ‘Right yourself, we must go. The monks will be here for matins soon.’
Nolan stepped back, giving her a chance to arrange her bodice. What had he been thinking? He’d nearly ravished her in a church! If it hadn’t been for the risk of monks discovering them in flagrante delicto, he would have. He raked a hand through his hair. His father would have had a fine time with that—Oliver Gray’s son tupping women in churches would be a sin beyond imagining, worse than anything Nolan had done to date in his father’s eyes.
He’d begun this interlude with a plan in mind: Let her see that she played a dangerous game. If she wanted to flirt with him, there would be consequences and he would show her what they were. He’d not expected it to go as far as it had. He’d expected to feel the reticence of last night when her hands had slid up his thighs, not entirely certain. He’d expected to feel the hesitation of her mouth when he’d kissed her. Instead, she’d answered him with her tongue, with her body, her hands, and it had left his plan in shreds.
She’d not been frightened off by his bold sensuality. She’d embraced it and it had ratcheted up his desire to the point that he would have taken her against the wall if not for the bells. And it shamed him. Tonight, she had bested him. She’d taken his game and turned it against him. He should have been more astute.
Nolan ushered her out of the church, his steps brisk, his hand at her back propelling her towards the pier, his words coming in terse businesslike sentences. ‘The gondolier will take you to the hotel. He will see to it that you’re safe. Go directly up to the room, just in case the count has bothered to discover where you are. If there is any emergency, you can go next door and ask for Brennan Carr, my travelling companion.’
They reached the edge of the pier before Gianna staged her rebellion. She crossed her arms and faced him. ‘Where might you be going to in such a hurry? You practically dragged me out of the church.’
‘For which you should be glad. If we had stayed we might have been discovered in a most indecent position. I told you earlier, I had a card game. I still have a card game.’
‘When will you be back?’ She was furious. ‘You are always leaving me.’
Nolan took a step closer to her, keeping their conversation private, his voice a growl. ‘Do you want me to stay? After what happened in the church, there can be no doubt about where our evening is headed if I do.’ Dammit all, he didn’t want to have to spell it out for her. ‘You tempt me to sin and yet I don’t think those are sins you are ready to commit.’ The knuckles of his hand grazed her cheek in a slow stroke. He watched her eyes meet his at the contact and then drift away. He had his confirmation. ‘I do not think you understand how powerful sex can be. Men have gone to war over it.’
She would be a sensual partner in bed, when she was ready, but not yet. He did not want to take her like a battle prize, something he’d conquered.
‘Let me know when you make up your mind.’ He wanted her to come to him, and then—oh, then the things he could show her. There was nothing more seductive than choice. In the meantime, if sex was what he wanted, he knew where to find it. Louisa von Haas would be more than accommodating. He took her hand and kissed the gloved knuckles. ‘Now you see why it is best that we part ways for the evening. Get in the gondola and go.’
* * *
She’d not seen the dismissal coming! What a fool she’d been to be taken so unaware. She’d thought they were making progress in the church—well, perhaps not ‘they’, but certainly she was in her attempt to draw him close.
Gianna drew off her gloves and threw them on the small table next to the door. Apparently kissing a woman up against a church wall was all in a night’s work for Nolan Gray. Which might explain why he was capable of walking away from it without as much as a backward glance. There was another explanation, too. He had simply seen her coming, strategy and all. He’d been wary of her motives from the start.
Gianna trailed her cloak over the back of a chair, its haphazard drape ruining the perfection of the room. Someone had been here after they’d left to clear the dinner things, to turn down the lamps. In the bedroom, someone had turned down the bed and laid out the silky nightgown. Nolan Gray must indeed be paying them a fortune for the flawless service he received, proof enough that she wasn’t beggaring him with her dinner and dresses. Proof enough, too, that he didn’t need the card game in the way he suggested. But he had needed it in other ways. He’d needed the distance. If he had walked away, it hadn’t been without some effort. There was consolation in that.
She should be glad for his restraint—if that’s what it could be called. There’d been nothing restrained about the encounter until the end. What had happened in the church had affected them both. Gianna changed into the nightgown, the slide of silk against her body reminding her of other touches, of his hand on her breast, his mouth on her neck, on her mouth, and how her body had thrilled to his touch wherever it had been, she had thrilled to him in other places, too, that had gone untouched by his hands but not untouched by his words. I want to put my mouth on you, here and here and here... Even now those words could recall the thrill they had raised.
She faced herself in the mirror, her hands moving to cup her breasts, through the silk of the nightgown, lifting them, running her thumbs over the peaks, feeling them rouse a little like they had for him, but it was only a mere facsimile of the truth he’d wrung from them, from her.
That truth still seared her. She’d not wanted him to stay for the sake of her game—the game didn’t need him to stay. She already had his consent. He’d burgle the count’s house without it. He’d pledged his help in return for her leaving, not for sex, not for pleasure, not for the liberties he could take against a church wall. Staying was something she wanted for herself alone. She wanted more of what had happened against the church wall, more of his mouth, more of his hands, more of his body pressed indecently against her, his need for her evident in the bold erection he’d made no attempt to hide.
Perhaps it was her curiosity that had driven her wild as much as his mouth. Maybe she was her own worst enemy in her efforts to resist his lures or were those lures really cautions? Tonight had been meant to warn her away, but it had only served to heighten the complex pull she felt when she was with him.
He had cautioned her to make up her mind, to lay down her weapon and seek pleasure instead, and yet she felt those words suited him as well. He was not without his own conundrum. He wanted her and he wanted her to leave. He could not have both. It made her wonder what sort of plans he had? Did a real mistress await him? Was he looking forward to her leaving? She hoped he’d regret the thought of her leaving a little, otherwise her next revelation might come as an unpleasant surprise.
Gianna slid beneath the covers of the big bed. She didn’t dare think beyond tomorrow night and the masquerade. She would focus on the jewel box. Once she had it, then, and only then, would she think about the next item. She’d seen too many people tripped up by looking too far ahead. It was better to focus on the immediate future. Somewhere in the distance, a clock chimed the hour. She blew out the lamp beside the bed, leaned back against the pillows and said her prayers. They were very simple ones, ones she’d prayed every night since her mother passed away. Please let Giovanni be safe. Please let me be enough.
* * *
The clock chimed two in the morning and Count Agostino Minotto ran a hand across the chessboard, scattering the pieces in play on the floor. ‘Basta! Enough!’ He could hardly concentrate on the game, so distracted was he by Gianna’s absence. What was she doing? Was she still in the city? Had she enticed the Englishman to help her? Had she slept with the English bastard? If she’d done any of it, it was all his fault. He’d let her slip through his fingers with that wager.
His opponent, the decadently handsome, dark-haired Romano Lippi, merely laughed. ‘She’ll be back.’ Romano bent down to pick up the pieces. He set the queen back on her square. ‘The Englishman will return her when he is done with her. It’s only been a day.’
The count grunted and said nothing. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. He’d thought to frighten her into accepting his proposal. He’d imagined putting the wager to her and watching her beg him not to do it, watching her bargain anything not to be sent away, even marriage to him, which would give him everything he wanted. He was well aware she didn’t like him, didn’t trust him. But better the devil you know. Or so he’d thought. But Gianna hadn’t quivered, not once. She’d merely marched off with the Englishman.
‘You’re just upset she preferred a stranger over you.’ Romano poured each of them another drink.
Hell, yes, he was upset. He took a long swallow. He’d misjudged her. She’d called his bluff and allowed him to wager her instead of crying and begging. Even then, he hadn’t worried. He had had a good hand, one that should win. He wouldn’t really lose her. He’d only meant to scare her. Then that Englishman had laid down an unbeatable hand. Now she was gone.
He didn’t regret what he might have doomed her to. He was hardly bothered about the fact that he might have sent his ward to lie with a stranger. He was bothered that she’d slipped out of his control. For all intents and purposes, she was loose in Venice, able to cultivate an ally in the Englishman if she wished to, able to strike back at him if he didn’t strike out at her first. To be honest, it did make him nervous. There was a small fortune and jewels at stake that would see him through for some years.
If she remained free for four weeks, all of her money would be hers. He would lose every last bit of control, everything he’d worked for in the past five years. That would set a domino effect in motion. He would lose the palazzo, he would become a barnabotti—a nobleman with no funds—as he had been before Gianna’s mother had presented with him with an opportunity he couldn’t refuse.
The count fingered a pawn and set it down. She might have her freedom, but it would cost her. He’d given Gianna twenty-four hours to decide her fate: return to him or run. She had chosen to remain at large. What happened next would be on her head. Tomorrow, he would send the letter that would decide Giovanni’s fate. As long as he controlled her brother, he could still force her hand. He gave Romano a long, lingering look that Romano returned before rising and coming to massage his shoulders. Agostino sighed and let the tension go. He understood Romano, Romano was easy to please: money and attention were all he required. But women were damnably frustrating creatures.
Chapter Eleven
Nolan had not been this frustrated by a woman since his first mistress at twenty-one. Olivia Donati, an opera singer. Perhaps it was no coincidence that she, too, was Italian. Maybe it was only Italian women who were frustrating. He’d spent the early morning walking the city, thinking, and now his feet had brought him back to the hotel. Nolan took a seat out of doors at one of the cafés near the hotel and signalled for a coffee. He couldn’t go up yet to Gianna without any answers.
The coffee was rich and hot and Nolan savoured the warmth curling around his hands. It had been a cold walk and not one he’d planned to take. After cards, his body had still been far too primed to come back to the hotel. Neither had he relished the idea of sleeping in the club room again. He’d stuffed his hands deep in the pockets of his greatcoat and let the February cold of Venice before dawn work its dubious magic.
Nolan sipped the coffee and watched the Piazza San Marco come alive in slow, predictable rhythm. First would come the carters and vendors bound for the markets, then the shopkeepers and the restaurant owners who depended on the vendors to supply their businesses. Finally, long after he’d drunk his coffee, would come the daily shoppers and the tourists.
After six weeks in Venice, he still hadn’t tired of the rhythm. Venice felt good. The city suited him, as if they were made for one another. In a way, he supposed they were. Like him, Venice was a city that had accrued its power through wealth instead of landownership. He owned nothing, not yet.
Of course, that was the old Venice, the Venice of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a Venice that was long gone now. But modern Venice was like him, too. Modern Venice preferred pleasure. Venice had refashioned herself around that pleasure, lifted herself from the ashes of Napoleon much as he had lifted himself from the ashes of his family and his father’s unyielding dominance.
The city was a subdued phoenix, certainly not the pleasure capital she’d once been, but a phoenix none the less. The city and himself had decided not to tolerate their dismal s
ituations and had taken efforts to change them. There was a saying he was quite fond of: if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got. In other words, change was only possible when one changed his circumstances. The Grand Tour had been his chance to do that in the most literal of ways.
Why aren’t you doing that with Gianna, then? You know it works. The thought hit him forcefully. He was waiting for her to convince herself sex didn’t have to be only a weapon, a means to an end. But her convincing might need some help. What if she didn’t know how to convince herself? What if he changed her mind for her? The whole day lay before them, with nothing to do but wait for the masquerade. Until now. Nolan rose. He was going to seduce Gianna for her own good and what better place to do it than Venice, a city made for pleasure.
* * *
‘Get dressed, we’re going out, sleepyhead!’
Gianna threw an arm over her face against the invading light. She’d slept poorly and it seemed patently unfair that Nolan should be so freakishly cheerful. She had not pegged him as morning person. Gianna rolled over and hid her face in the pillow with a mumbled protest. ‘Whatever happened to breakfast at noon?’
‘We’ve got a lot to do today.’ She could hear Nolan moving about the room, opening drawers and wardrobes. Something soft and filmy hit her face.
‘Please stop going through my undergarments.’ She nudged the chemise aside.
‘Then get up and get them yourself.’ Nolan dropped a pile of clothes on the bed and pressed on the mattress with the full force of his hands, bouncing it.
‘You’re obnoxious, just like...’ She stopped herself. She’d nearly said my little brother. She didn’t want that to slip out, not yet. She’d tell Nolan about Giovanni when the time was right, or if the time was ever right. Perhaps, once she had the jewel case, she would be able to go after Giovanni on her own. Nolan need never know the count had her brother locked away on the mainland. Tonight was the first step in getting him back. Gianna swallowed back the lump in her throat.
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