‘I could support you, give you an allowance,’ Nolan said hastily. He’d not meant to imply she take up prostitution to support herself.
She shook her head. ‘As you would a mistress? I don’t think so, Nolan. I do not want to owe any man. It wouldn’t be freedom, not truly.’ They hit a rut in a road, and she put up a hand to grasp the leather handle and glanced outside. ‘We’re nearly there.’ She gave Nolan an apologetic smile as if to say she was sorry the conversation had to give way to other concerns.
‘This is not over,’ Nolan said firmly. ‘We will discuss this later.’ Perhaps when she had her brother and was faced with the reality of what no options meant, his options would look more appealing. Sometimes the hardest thing to do was to save someone from themselves. He needed to be patient.
The place was outside the city, a sprawling old manor, run down and falling into decay, not exactly the most hospitable of environments. Its appearance did not improve once Nolan got out of the carriage. Nolan squinted up at the windows, noting the iron bars. Was it so bad the blind would actually try to escape that way? And go where? There was nothing but empty countryside unless they managed to miraculously walk the five miles to town. ‘It looks like a prison.’
‘It is a prison, a prison for the mentally and physically disabled,’ Gianna said shortly, taking his hand and climbing down from the carriage. He noticed she did not let go.
‘We’ll get him out,’ Nolan said tersely. ‘What needs to be done?’ He made a mental calculation of the remaining cash in his coat pocket. It was enough, maybe, for small bribes if guards needed to be cajoled. He’d spent most of it on the carriage and the room.
‘We have to sign his papers of release.’ Gianna was all brisk authority now. Whatever fear she’d felt upon seeing the asylum had been effectively hidden away.
There would probably be fees, too, some legitimate, others less legitimate to expedite the process. Nolan thought about what was in his pockets, his person: his gold watch, his gold money clip, the onyx ring on his finger. Would it look odd if he offered items to cover the fees instead of cash? Would they care? The people who ran these institutions were often as morally depraved as some of the inmates. ‘Will they release him to you?’ On second thought, the whole ‘not caring as long as there was enough money on the table’ would probably work best for them. Fewer questions, more silence.
‘Not to me. Not for three more weeks and two days when I’m twenty-two.’ Gianna whipped off her cloak and began tugging at the bodice of her gown until it showed off a fair expanse of bosom. ‘But they will release him to you, if you’re the count.’ She looked up at him through dark lashes, her eyes suddenly soft. Good Lord, did she think she could flirt him into this?
He’d thought the bosom exposure was for the guards and anyone else inside who might be persuaded by more feminine charms, not for him. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Nolan raised an eyebrow. Was that bosom and those flirty eyes supposed to make up for committing fraud? ‘You want me to impersonate the count?’ This made burgling the palazzo look like child’s play—besides that, it was impossible. ‘Have they ever met the count? We don’t look anything alike beyond being tall.’
‘It’s been years.’ Gianna brushed the shoulders of his greatcoat and adjusted his cravat as if he’d already said yes. ‘I doubt the same warden is even here. It’s not exactly a post anyone wants for life.’
Nolan grabbed her hands and held them against his chest. ‘Gianna, I’m English. My clothes, my accent, will give me away.’ He took risks, but they were calculated risks and this was downright foolish. ‘Gianna, it has to be you. I’ll be the count’s man, his secretary perhaps, his proxy.’ He winked at her. ‘It seems the count has become an anglophile.’
Inside was dark and damp. Nolan stood to the side, letting Gianna make the initial case. She was brilliant with her businesslike tone, bending ever so slightly over the desk as she told the clerk she’d come to claim Giovanni Angelico, that she was his sister. It was the first time Nolan had heard her use her true last name, the first time he even knew what it was. Perhaps he should be alarmed by that, a reminder of how little he knew of her, how short a time he’d known her.
‘I am here as the count’s representative,’ she said smoothly when the clerk at the desk pulled out the papers and noted the guardianship. She smiled and played with the pearl at her throat. Nolan knew just how distracting that particular gesture could be. The clerk was not immune.
‘Let me get the warden.’ He hurried away and Nolan stepped up to the desk.
‘What cell is he in?’ Nolan scanned the documents quickly. ‘Cell thirty-four. That might be useful. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Can you handle the warden?’
Gianna paled. ‘What are you planning? Aren’t you coming with me?’
‘You go flirt with the warden. I need twenty minutes. I am going in after Giovanni. Do you have a pocket in your dress?’ He pressed the small pistol into her hand. He felt less guilty about leaving her if she was armed. The door to the warden’s office opened. ‘If you can’t flirt with him, you can always shoot him,’ Nolan murmured and stepped back, only half joking.
‘Signorina!’
The warden came out, a corpulent, unclean fellow whom Nolan could smell at a distance. Both hands were extended in welcome, his eyes immediately drawn to Gianna’s bosom. Nolan hated him on sight. If it weren’t part of the play Nolan would show the leering bastard what happened to men who ogled his woman—they lost a few teeth. Only this fellow looked to have lost a few already and definitely all of his white ones. He was rethinking the wisdom of leaving Gianna alone.
But Gianna didn’t hesitate. She took the warden’s hands and beamed as if he were the most attractive man in Italy. ‘Signor, I am here for my brother. The count could not come and now...’ Her voice trailed off the way it had that night in the gondola when she’d stuck her hand in his pocket. She gave the warden a delicate glance, all helplessness and femininity. ‘Now, it seems there is some problem with the paperwork. We’ve come all this way for nothing and after the trouble we’ve had getting here...’
She was good. She’d have tears rolling in a minute. Gianna sniffed, and the warden was undone, no match for the threat of a woman’s tears or the promise of her bosom.
‘Why don’t you come into my office? There’s tea and we can sort this out. I’m sure we can come to an arrangement.’ There was another not-so-subtle look at her bosom, and Nolan didn’t need an imagination to know what type of arrangement the warden might be angling for.
Nolan turned to the clerk. ‘While we wait, perhaps you could give me a tour of the facilities? I’d like to take back a report to the count.’ He was careful not to sound too businesslike or too smart. It was best if they thought Gianna was the brains.
‘Yes, do take him,’ the warden agreed a little too enthusiastically as Nolan had known he would. It would be far easier to ‘negotiate’ with the lady without the presence of a secretary looming outside the door.
The clerk pulled a large iron ring of keys out from behind the desk and unlocked the thick wooden door. Nolan gave a subtle flex of his arm, feeling the reassurance of his ‘friend’ in its sheath.
‘Is there anything you’d like to see in particular?’ the clerk asked, clearly thinking it was an odd request. No one wanted to see the inside of an asylum. Nolan grinned and swung an arm around the man.
‘There certainly is, I’d like to see the C wing.’ Then he laughed like a hyena. ‘Did you get the joke? See and C?’ He took out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. ‘I suppose it is only funny in English, since the Italian word for see is vedere.’
The clerk looked at him as if he should be the next candidate for admittance. Good. No one feared a silly man. The less dangerous the clerk thought he was, the better. He wanted the element of surprise on his side when he pulled out his little friend.
* * *
Gianna would have laughed if circumstances hadn’t been so dire or the stakes so high. Nolan was hysterical as the not-so-bright secretary. Part of her was thrilled. Nolan was going in after Giovanni. Giovanni would be free. It was a testament to the amount of trust she’d come to put in Nolan that she assumed he’d be successful. All she had to do was keep the warden entertained in a manner that didn’t involve taking off her clothes, which was proving rather more difficult than one might imagine.
‘The tea is delicious, very restorative.’ She smiled over the rim of the chipped tea cup.
The warden spread Giovanni’s papers out in front of him. ‘Now, tell me what the problem is?’
‘I am here to get my brother. The count would like to bring him home for a while.’ Gianna leaned over the tea tray purposely, reaching for the sugar bowl.
The warden’s eyes followed her motion. ‘It would be no trouble if it wasn’t for the unpaid fees. We can’t release anyone whose bill is in arrears.’ He met her eyes, his own gaze glinting with greed and lust. ‘You understand how easy it might be for someone to be released and never come back. We’d have no way to collect the bill.’
She smiled sympathetically as if she understood completely how the institution used their patients as collateral for extorting extravagant sums from their families. Although, she doubted families that actually cared for their family members would ever consign them to this place. ‘What is the amount, sir?’ Best not to show any shock over the bill.
That caught him off guard. He’d expected her to protest on the count’s behalf. Probably a lot of his clients didn’t simply agree to his fee. She smiled patiently. He didn’t know what to charge her. She could see his thoughts whirring behind his beady eyes. Too little and it would be a wasted opportunity. Too much and she might grow suspicious, or refuse outright, or worse, she might summon the count, which would take her out of the equation entirely. That was not what he wanted. He wanted her. She could see that, too.
‘Three hundred lire,’ he said at last.
She managed to look anxious, her hand worrying the pearl at her throat. ‘That seems reasonable, but I don’t travel with that sort of cash on me. It’s not safe, I’m sure you’d agree.’ She wet her lips. Just a few more minutes. Nolan would be out with Giovanni. And if he wasn’t? What if the clerk proved problematic? Then she’d need to play her part in earnest. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that. ‘Perhaps we might arrange some form of payment? I have this necklace. It was my mother’s.’
‘Oh, now, I don’t want to deprive you of your mother’s baubles.’ He heaved his bulk out of his chair and came around her chair, his hand going to the nape of her neck in a rough caress. ‘I might be able to do you a favour, if you do me one. It wouldn’t be much.’ His hand dropped to his trousers, undoing his flies.
‘I don’t know. The count might not approve.’ Gianna rose, feeling more in control on her feet. She smiled, fighting the urge to cringe at the smell of him, of the idea of touching him there. She backed towards the door. The warden was faster than his size seemed to indicate.
He grabbed her arm, dragging her close, no longer full of his earlier leering bonhomie. This man was big, strong and determined. ‘On the few occasions I’ve met the count he didn’t strike me as a man who minded sharing. Now, kneel. It won’t hurt you to be friendly for your brother’s sake.’ He pushed her to her knees. A wave of terror-sprinkled revulsion swept Gianna. She knew this feeling, had felt it time and again in the count’s home. How quickly she’d forgotten it after a week with Nolan. Gianna’s hand closed over the gun in her pocket.
A commotion sounded in the hallway. The warden turned his head towards the sound and she took her chance, coming to her feet, drawing her weapon. ‘Stay where you are.’ She backed towards the door, Nolan’s little gun trained on him.
‘You little bitch!’ The warden lunged for her, but this time she was ready for his speed. She raced for the door, flinging it open, calling for Nolan.
He was there in the foyer, a dirty, ragged Giovanni with him, her brother’s sightless eyes wild, his thin body coiled, ready to make his bid for freedom in the confusion. ‘Nolan!’ she cried, taking refuge behind his broad shoulders as the warden lurched from the office, trousers undone, genitals exposed.
‘What is going on here?’ The warden glanced from her to Nolan to Giovanni. ‘You, you devil’s spawn, shouldn’t be out!’
‘Neither should that.’ Nolan’s gaze dropped to the man’s exposed privates, his hand flexed around the hilt of his knife, and Gianna felt a moment’s vindication. The warden was going to be sorry. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ll be leaving.’
‘You can’t leave, you can’t take him, there’s a bill to pay,’ the warden stammered, still grappling with his surprise.
Gianna fired the little gun into the floor near his feet. ‘It looks like my secretary has settled the bill. Ciao.’
Chapter Twenty-One
‘What do you mean he’s gone?’ Agostino Minotti was going to strangle someone if Romano didn’t stab them first. They’d been up since dawn making all haste to cover the twenty-six miles to Padua, only to be met with ineptitude. ‘Giovanni Angelico is a blind man out in the middle of nowhere and locked in a room to boot. How is he simply gone?’ Agostino raged in the entrance hall of the home.
‘It was your ward.’ The clerk shot a nervous look at the warden. ‘She said you had sent her to bring him home for a visit.’
‘And you believed her?’ Agostino rounded on the trembling clerk and then thought better of it. ‘You believed her, too?’ He pointed a finger at the warden. Ultimately this was his fault, he was the man in charge.
‘She had a man with her claiming to be your secretary.’ The warden was defensive, and Agostino could smell a lie among other odours rolling off him. There was more at work here than a mere paperwork
mix-up.
‘An Englishman?’ Agostino snarled. Not that he expected the warden to notice, not when Gianna had been in the room. ‘An Englishman with a knife, perhaps?’ Agostino turned his cheek to reveal the jagged scar running down his jaw. ‘That Englishman is no secretary. He is helping her steal from me: jewels, people, money. They will stop at nothing. He did this to me.’ It hurt like the devil, too, even after Romano had done his best to stitch the wound. He’d carry a scar for the rest of his days. That was reason enough to hunt the Englishman down. Between the Englishman’s knife and Gianna’s diamonds, they would both pay when he found them.
Romano came up beside him, a calming hand on his arm. ‘What is done is done. What is important now is where they went. The longer we stand here berating these two idiots, the farther away she gets.’
Agostino nodded. Of course. Romano was right. Catching Gianna mattered more than explanations. ‘Where were they headed?’
‘West’ was all the warden had to offer. Well, yes, west. East would have been back to Venice, back into the lion’s den, and that could hardly be what Gianna wanted.
Romano grimaced. ‘They’re three hours ahead of us and there’s only the one road. We’ll catch up to them tomorrow. They’ll have to stop tonight wherever there’s an inn. Giovanni will need looking after and they’ll need a new driver. I doubt any coachman they picked up along the way will want to keep going after the contretemps today.’
* * *
They were going to need transport, preferably private. And clothes. More immediately, they needed hot food, rooms and a bath. Most of all, they needed to press on. Gianna hated the idea of stopping with an hour of daylight left. An hour meant four, maybe five more miles between them and the count. But there was no guarantee of an inn when darkness fell or of safety. Italian roads were notorious for their poor conditions and their highwaymen. Besides, Giovanni was in no shape to travel farther.
Gianna stared at her brother sitting rigidly across from
her in the coach as they waited for Nolan to make arrangements. He was here, really here, with her at last after four years apart. But, oh, what a mess he was! The smell of him filled the carriage, another reason they couldn’t go any farther. That could be fixed with a hot bath. A body could be washed. Hair could be cut, a beard could be shaved, but he was so thin. That would be the work of months to see his body restored. He would need nourishing food—a lot of it.
Where was she to find that food on the road on the run when her first priority was staying ahead of the count? How was she to protect him? Would he ever be able to truly protect himself without his sight? The enormity of what she’d taken on, of what she faced, swamped her.
‘I know, it’s awful. I’m awful.’ Giovanni managed to get the words out, as if he was remembering how to speak. She’d been so caught up in his physical appearance she hadn’t thought about the rest. What of his mind? He’d been locked away for years. No one emerged unscathed from such an experience.
Gianna reached out a hand, grasping his filthy one. ‘No, you are not awful. Nolan is in there right now arranging rooms. We’ll get you cleaned up and you will feel better.’ Now that the thrill of reunion had ebbed, she felt the full thrust of her guilt. ‘I should have come sooner.’
‘How, Gia? You were no less guarded than I, just in a different place. I should have protected us better.’
‘How?’ she asked, mirroring his words. ‘You were fourteen.’ It was ridiculous to think he could have done more. He’d done all he could.
The whisper of a smile played on his cracked lips. ‘Exactly. You were barely seventeen, a girl with no resources, no power. What more could you have done?’
‘I have power now, Giovanni. I have the diamonds and in a few weeks I’ll have the money.’ Although she had no idea how she would ever access it without giving away her location to the count. If she ever tried to draw a draft on it, he would be able to track her, but that was the least of her worries right now. ‘I can take care of us, we can live somewhere together, the two of us. We’ll be safe, I promise.’ It was a promise she wasn’t sure she could keep.
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