“Just so,” said Gervase dryly. “He’s very grateful. He knows the man because of his days in the Rookery by St. Paul’s.”
Richard took a breath. This must mean our putative assassin was an established criminal already. Unconsciously, his grip on my hand tightened.
Gervase continued. “The man who tried to shoot you is called Abel Jeffries. Do you know him?” Richard shook his head. “He’s a professional killer. That is, he kills for money. Once we had his name, it was easy to discover the rest. I went to London, collected the information from Mrs. Thompson and came here as quickly as I could.”
“Why?” Richard demanded sharply. “Is he coming here?”
Gervase shook his head again. “We don’t know. We haven’t seen or heard of him since your wedding day. The moment he surfaces they’ll inform you. Or would you prefer it if I continued to handle matters?”
“Thank you, no,” Richard answered him. “I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done, but I’d feel happier if I was kept informed myself from now on.”
Gervase’s face relaxed in a smile. “I just didn’t want to interrupt what you have here.” He took a sharp breath. “Richard, I’ve not seen you like this for a long time. When I came back from India you were so remote I hardly knew you.”
Richard didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. “Some things have come back to me this last week. Or rather, Rose has given them back to me.” Gervase nodded. “I’ll never be eighteen again, but some of the things I’d forgotten since then I’m remembering now.” He raised my hand to his lips, showing me all his love in his eyes. I coloured up, not knowing what to say.
He saw my embarrassment and turned back to the subject in hand to give me time to recover. “So the assassin could still be drawn here by the false Strangs?”
“He could,” Gervase agreed. “He knows the yacht is out of commission—”
“That reminds me,” Richard interrupted him. “Is it irreparably damaged?”
“Completely.” Gervase spread his hands in a regretful gesture. “The explosion killed two crewmen. The rest got off safely, but they left the vessel to burn itself out, there being very little else anybody could do.”
Richard sighed. “I’d hoped there might be something we could do. And if he killed two of my men, I want him brought to some kind of justice. What are the rumours? I left enough behind to be spread, did any take?”
His brother smiled. “You left plenty. At first, it was thought you were aboard the yacht, but then some people remembered you’d had most of your luggage disembarked. The surviving crewmen said you weren’t aboard before we could stop them, so that one fooled nobody. Then you left a rumour you had taken Rose, badly injured, to her brother’s house and Lord Hareton has kept that one running quite well. In fact—” He handed us a cutting from a newspaper and we read, fascinated, about my serious injury and Richard’s despair that I would never be presentable in public again. The correspondent had obviously made the most of his moment in the sun, because he had embellished the story. He enclosed the engraving of me I had seen before, the one that looked nothing like me. Someone had passed it off as me but was in fact someone else entirely.
“I’ve never read about myself before,” I said. “May I keep this?”
“By all means,” said Gervase. I folded it away and put it on the table next to the sofa.
“They also say you’ve gone away into the country. I’ve heard Venice mentioned as a possible place of retreat, but it’s only one of many places I heard of before I left. Of course,” he continued, as the door opened, “I’ve been on the road for nearly a month.”
“Breakfast is served, my lady,” came Carier’s lugubrious tones.
We went through to the dining room and continued our conversation there while we breakfasted moderately and Gervase tucked into a huge meal. “I hate inn food,” he confided. “It’s always overcooked and cold, or so hot it’s uneatable for ten minutes and then you have to get back on to the coach having eaten hardly anything.”
“You did well to get here in a month, travelling by public transport.”
Gervase reached for the jug of small beer. “I took a leaf out of your book. I travelled on horseback whenever I could and took a coach when one was available, to get some sleep.”
“Aren’t you exhausted?” I asked. “I’ve had a bedroom prepared for you, you can go there straightaway if you want to.”
He sighed in contentment, then glanced at Richard, puzzled. “I thought this apartment only had two bedrooms?”
Richard smiled. “We’re only using one.”
Gervase flushed red, the first time I had seen him at all embarrassed by anyone. “Forgive me, of course. Look, are you sure I’m not imposing on you? I’d far rather find somewhere else and leave you in peace, you know.”
“You can’t,” Richard said. “We can’t go out together until this thing is sorted out and I see your presence here as a sort of ace up our sleeves. No one saw you arrive?”
“No, I don’t think so and I stayed at an inn off the beaten track, not one of the fashionable ones.” Gervase began to attack a fresh plateful.
“And we could still pass for each other, if the viewer doesn’t know us very well, so let’s keep your presence secret for a while,” Richard continued.
I helped both brothers and myself to more coffee. “Society knows we’re here now,” I reminded Richard.
He pursed his mouth and picked up his fork, idly drawing patterns on the tablecloth. “And some of them know our direction. I had to tell them, but I have asked them to be discreet and I can trust the few people I did tell. Mostly old friends.” He turned to his brother. “Freddy Thwaite is here. He’s helping us with the false Strangs.”
“How?”
“He’s a marvel at picking up card tricks although we don’t intend to use them against professional sharpers, we just wanted to know the techniques so we could spot them in use. We’ve won at the palazzo—now we’re waiting to be invited back. They’ll want to fleece us this time.”
Gervase chewed and frowned in thought while he cleared his mouth. “How much did you let slip at the contessa’s last night?”
Richard frowned. “More than I should have, maybe. If this man is hunting for us, he knows we’re here and he could find this address if he was clever. I’m hoping the Palazzo Barbarossa distracts any enquirers.”
“Does he know what you look like?” asked his brother.
“I think so,” Richard said. “But he probably knew in any case. It’s not difficult to find an engraving. The trouble is, he may now have a good idea of what Rose looks like.”
Gervase sighed. “You couldn’t hide away here forever.” He thoughtfully speared a piece of kidney from his plate. He ate it and, his appetite seemingly satisfied at last, chased the remainder of the kidney around his plate with his fork for a while.
I poured more coffee. “It had to come. And if that’s the only result of last night, I’ll be content. Are we likely to receive visitors here now?”
Richard grimaced. “I’ve told Carier to deny most of them, but some would take offence if we didn’t see them. In fact, the Ravens have been denying all and sundry. I had to smooth a lot of ruffled feathers last night.”
I remembered one or two English peers Richard had introduced to me last night who had seemed a little stiff but might have been insulted by the Ravens. It was probably a good thing that we had gone, after all and I said so.
“I should have sent them notes, explaining our visit here was in the nature of a bride-trip. They would have understood then. The ones who took offence were the older generation, friends of our parents rather than of us. My father will not approve.”
“Since when did he ever approve of you?” Gervase demanded. “He’s washed his hands of you so many times that he’s in danger of skinning himself!”
Richard gave an unholy smile of triumph. “But he can’t, can he? He made us what we are—now he must abide by it.”
; It was as if I was no longer there. They held each other’s gaze, blue on blue, for a long time and then looked away.
I stood abruptly. “I must go and dress.” They both stood and Richard touched my hand before I left the room.
Gervase retired after he’d eaten and Signor Verdi came with Freddy shortly afterwards. I knew I could never manipulate the cards without anyone observing me, so while they practised and learned the techniques, I caught up with some overdue correspondence in the drawing room.
I wrote to James and Martha, with a separate note under the same cover for Lizzie, probably queening it over Exeter society by now while waiting for her first London season in the autumn. Then I wrote to Lord and Lady Southwood, a letter I showed to Richard later and to which he added his signature but nothing else. I’d hoped he might have added a postscript of his own, but he seemed indifferent to them. I still dared not ask him what could have caused such a deep breach, or perhaps I already knew. The most likely reason would be the way they turned Gervase away from their door when the scandal had broken. He was tainted and furthermore, no use to them to procreate their line. That task now fell to me.
During the day several invitations appeared, amongst them one asking us if we would care to visit the Palazzo Barbarossa the next day. “Striking while the iron is hot,” Richard remarked. “It’s just as well. This can’t go on much longer.”
THIS TIME THEY INVITED us for dinner. When we got there, we found the same people we had met the other night; the odious Squires and his wife, also conies the Ravens were setting up to skin. We bowed and behaved in a disgracefully sycophantic way and all through the meal, Richard tried to interest the Ravens into taking some of his wine. He’d had a case delivered earlier in the day from our cellar, confiding to me at least he would ensure the wine at the dinner was good.
The dinner was perfectly adequate, three courses, deferentially served by several footmen, among them the Thompson’s man, all in Kerre livery. Since I wasn’t yet used to liveried servants attending me, I didn’t care what they wore, but Richard felt some irritation. Once or twice, he had to stop himself relaxing into his usual poses. The stolid Locke wouldn’t have leant back in such a way, curled his long fingers around the wine glass to show them off, taken snuff in anything but a mundane way.
It was easier for me to dissimulate. I could just be what I had been before, a provincial lady. I didn’t use my fan much, as the putative Lady Strang was very fond of doing, kept my head down for the most part and kept my conversation sensible. I decided that Mrs. Locke only became garrulous under the influence of too much wine.
After dinner, it wasn’t long before Lady Strang stood and led Mrs. Squires and me into another room, for tea and conversation. The salon she took us to was much larger than we really needed. It was decorated, like the hall, with mythological figures going about their everyday life, sending thunderbolts down to kill people, lying about so lightly clad that nothing was left to the imagination, or just metamorphosing into trees or animals. There seemed to be no overall theme to the composition and when I asked Mrs. Ravens what it all meant, she waved her fan negligently and said, “I really couldn’t say, my dear Mrs. Locke. They are all just decoration to me. When you have lived amongst such things for some time, you get used to them.”
I thought of asking her where a provincial lady from Devonshire would have had the opportunity of getting used to living with such magnificence, but I would keep things comfortable for the time being. It was quite difficult trying to work out who was keeping whom happy. They were trying to lead us on, but our double game meant we were also trying to lead them on, the poor Squires caught between us. It could get quite confusing.
I asked our hostess if she would be presented and she held Mrs. Squires and I spellbound, telling us all about the gown she had ordered for the autumn. It would be frilled to within an inch of its life, laced so tightly she couldn’t breathe and worn with the inevitable diamonds. With each frill and furbelow she described, my heart sank, as I remembered I must learn to curtsey and walk backward in the largest hooped and trained gown I would probably ever wear in my life. I was not looking forward to it and I heartily wished it was the false Lady Strang who undertook that particular ordeal.
It was some time before the gentlemen joined us, longer than I thought they would be, but my husband explained, smiling widely. “His lordship has kindly done me the honour of ordering several barrels of the wine he was kind enough to accept today, and also to put in my way a most advantageous business matter.”
“His lordship is very kind.” I looked at Ravens with what I hoped would be taken as gratitude and admiration.
“Indeed,” Richard agreed, a little too enthusiastically. “A scheme has come his way to construct a canal, linking Venice with Milan, so reviving its fortunes.”
It needed saying. “But Milan is miles away!”
“It is also, dear ma’am, the centre of industry in this part of the world,” said Mr. Ravens, looking at me like an indulgent uncle. “To link it so directly with Venice will be to create an indissoluble connection which will revive the fortunes of this queen of cities.”
“It would be very expensive.” I couldn’t be seen to accept this foolish plan without some kind of hesitation.
“There are many backers to the scheme.” Mr. Ravens gestured vaguely with his arm. “Much greater than I. I cannot show everyone the other backers, but I have shown the gentlemen and they are content.”
“Mr. Squires has invested too?”
“He has done the honour of promising funds for the venture,” replied his pretend lordship. “Our profits should be manifold, for not only may we profit in the canal, we may buy some of the property along the route beforehand. It is bound to increase in value once the scheme becomes more widely known.”
I smiled trustingly at our host. “I’m sure you know best, my lord.”
The avuncular smile I received in return would have melted butter. “Shall we?” he said and ushered us to the other end of the room, where tables were set for cards.
It was piquet again, but there was no need for Richard to use his newfound skills. Our hosts were skilful enough. The stakes were higher tonight—not so high we would get suspicious, but high enough to let our debts begin to mount. We played for longer this evening, too. When we changed partners and I played with Mr. Squires for a time, I won a little, but my luck changed again. I watched my leering opponent more carefully, but he seemed to spend as much time trying to look down the modest décolleté of my gown as he did looking at his cards.
“Have you seen any of the art here yet, dear lady?” he asked me.
“Indeed, sir, it’s a very beautiful place, but I haven’t seen very much of it yet.”
He looked at me curiously, head tilted to one side. “My wife is very complimentary towards it.” He reached across the table and patted my hand, which lay at rest on top of my fan. “Call me Edward, my dear lady. Point of five.”
“Good,” I answered, referring to his bid. “The buildings on the Canal are lovely.”
He leered. I saw the line his too-tight hat had made and the beads of sweat on the fleshy forehead. “So are the beauties within.”
I got his meaning. Venice was famous for its courtesans. “I wouldn’t know, sir, I’m a respectable lady and it’s not something I have any opinion about at all.”
He looked contrite, but in a playful manner that betokened no remorse at all. In one so large, it looked grotesque. “Indeed I beg your pardon, ma’am. Since you have been married for some time I presumed your mind might be a little broader.” I couldn’t think why he should think so. “I meant no offence. Quart.”
“None taken, sir, I’m sure,” I said through gritted teeth. “Good.”
We played out the hand and he came out well ahead of me, increasing his lead to the end of the partie. I found I had no more cash and, as we had arranged, looked at Richard in distress.
Mr. Ravens joined us before Richard could leave hi
s seat. “It is of no concern. Merely use notes of hand, ma’am. I trust that is acceptable to you, sir?” Richard bowed, smiling and they went back to their game.
We had decided twenty guineas for me and thirty for Richard would be as much coin as the Lockes could put their hands on and the notes of hand we signed as well would put us nicely into Ravens’ debt. We proceeded to game away ever larger amounts of money. It would have taken Mr. Locke a year to pay back what we owed at the end of the evening’s play.
Richard drank heavily and I sipped as much as I dared. After a while I realised no skill was required of me; I was merely a pigeon for the plucking. I grew easier in my mind.
I watched Richard slump in his chair and smile more than he needed to. I had no idea if he were really drunk or if this was another sham, but if a sham, he played his part very well. He freely signed any number of notes of hand, laughing and recounting one or two stories to Mrs. Squires which, from her reactions, were on the risqué side. She laughed, struck him playfully with her fan and hid her face several times, as he leaned forward to tell her the best parts. The lady was of certain years, but she giggled more than my little sister Ruth, enjoying the attention my husband lavished on her. She was sorry when we changed partners again and she found it was her husband.
Richard and I had Mrs. and Mr. Ravens respectively. They proceeded, smiling and expert, to skin us completely. If we had been as drunk as they thought, or as indigent as they imagined, the following morning would be a disaster for us. We gaily signed away all the cash the Lockes possessed, without stopping for thought. It was only at the end of the game that they totalled the points and even then, Richard did not let us dwell on the enormity of the debt, dismissing the appalling total with an airy wave of his hand.
The party didn’t break up until one, although there was no music tonight and no suggestion of supper. We were kindly and firmly shown the door.
Once back in the gondola, on our way home, I studied Richard carefully. “My lord, how drunk are you?”
Venice Page 19