“Oh, really?” I ask. “Where do you come from?”
“Most people say I come from hell,” he replies. “Or at least that’s where they re telling me to go.”
Laura laughs indulgently. “You really are too ridiculous.”
“Hardly,” he says. “We don’t ‘do’ summer camp, true. I suppose it’s because nice little English boys and girls have been shipped off to what you Americans refer to as ‘boarding school,’ so their parents feel guilty in the summer and permit them to return home. Then these devoted parents will desert them again as they find their way to Europe or wherever they go after the season. But the children have been brought home; duty has been done.” He can’t keep a tinge of bitterness out of his voice.
“That kind of parents, eh?” I ask.
“Not my mother,” he replies, twisting his ring. It is a simple wide gold band set with a Russian alexandrite. It’s a rare, amazing stone that looks green in daylight and red in candlelight. It reminds me powerfully of Leandro’s cat’s eye, winking mockingly. “But she died when I was eight. I never got along with my brothers. I was the youngest boy, the least useful after the heir and the spare. In fact, if I tell you that we grew up hating one another, encouraged by our relatives to see one another as rivals and competitors, it would hardly be an understatement.”
I notice he hasn’t said anything about his father.
“My brother John Francis was extremely naughty,” Guy goes on. “Addicted to opium, leaving the hookahs around for the maids to trip over. He usually hid most of his stash in some lovely gold Russian snuffboxes that had belonged to Rasputin, but got into terrible trouble when he left them at Sotheby’s to be appraised for auction and forgot to take the drugs out beforehand.” He swallows his drink and leans back, crossing his legs nonchalantly. I don’t know if he’s pulling our legs or not.
“Oh Guy, you do exaggerate so,” Laura says. “To think that you expect everyone to believe the ridiculous things you say.”
He smiles wickedly. “Only the thousands of women who’ve been in love with me believe them.”
“Whatever do you mean?” she asks, laughing.
“Only this: It is no great matter of difficulty to entice a woman who thinks she’s in love to believe anything her beloved says.”
“And seducing these thousands of women is a gift of nature, one with which you have undoubtedly been prodigiously endowed,” I say sarcastically.
“Yes, of course,” he replies, tongue now firmly in cheek. Or so I hope. “Seduction is quite simple if the woman is willing. With very little difficulty, one can become rather instantly passionate and persuasive.” He gets up to pour himself another drink. “If, however, she is not willing, seduction is quite like war. I learned several indubitable lessons from the skillful maneuverings of Napoleon Bonaparte. His seductions and battle plans were some of the few history lessons I bothered studying at school. Although, unfortunately, Bonaparte had great contempt for women. Unlike myself. He ordered these lovely ladies into his tent, told them to disrobe without bothering to look up from his papers, had his merry way with them, and sent them packing.”
“But you never send them packing,” I say, “or at least not until you’ve brushed the hay away.”
“Touché,” Guy says good-naturedly. “And you’re right; I don’t send them packing. They’re usually all too happy to leave of their own volition.”
He’s joking, but there’s some weird catch in his voice. I look over at Belladonna. She hasn’t said a word, as usual, but is watching Guy intently. He knows it. I wonder for whom this conversation is intended, actually. Maybe he does want some sympathy and is trying to make Belladonna like him just a little bit. Or maybe he should just be stuffed and hung to dry in the Narcissus Room.
“That’s because Guy uses a mummified monkey hand as a paperweight,” Laura says with a shudder. “It is altogether hideous.”
“The paperweight once belonged to Swinburne, the poet,” Guy says. “He also used the hoof of his favorite horse as an inkwell, inscribed with its name and date of death.”
“How masterfully macabre,” I murmur. This conversation has gone quite far enough.
“Oh, don’t let’s talk about such things anymore. Not inkwells or Bonaparte or wretched summer hols. And certainly not the English aristocracy,” Laura says. “I married one of them, and that’s more than enough for me.”
Belladonna stands up abruptly. “Good night” is all she says, and leaves the room.
“Oh dear,” Guy says, his eyes once again following her.
That’s an understatement. Against my better judgment, I am really starting to like this Guy, although I can’t put my finger on what exactly makes him tick. At least not yet. I kick myself yet again for not telling the Pritch about him when I should have. Oh well, Guy’s not going anywhere. Not until we’ve checked the family pedigree.
Yes, Guy is definitely an interesting addition to La Fenice. I imagine he can present himself as angelic and enthralling, full of humor and wit and tenderness, and then just as quickly become a devil, full of rage and cruelty.
Like Belladonna.
“Do you know what happened when I was a little boy?” Guy asks Bryony and Susannah. They’re sitting on the veranda, the hills shimmering in the distance, eating their breakfast the next morning while he tells them stories. The girls are wide-eyed with delight. As long as they’re of the female persuasion, Guy is able to charm them. I’ll bet he could charm the shell off a tortoise.
“Well,” he is saying as he downs his fresh-squeezed orange juice. “I was ill so often with nasty colds and nasty coughs”"here he pretends to have a coughing fit, which leaves the girls helpless with laughter"”that the doctor decided that my tonsils must be removed. At once!”
“I had my tonsils out already,” Bryony announces, “when we lived in New York. In the hospital. I got to eat ice cream every day ‘cause I had a sore throat.”
Now Guy knows we lived in New York. Botheration.
“Did you have your tonsils out?” Guy asks Susannah. She shakes her head no. “You’re lucky,” he replies. “It can hurt a lot.”
“Mine hurt, but Mommy said I was very brave,” Bryony says.
“I’m sure you were,” Guy goes on, “but I don’t think I was very brave. I cried and cried because my throat hurt, and the doctor did the operation at home, where we lived in England. I didn’t get to go to the hospital where the nurses could look after me.”
“Who looked after you?” Susannah asks. “Your mommy?”
“Yes,” he replies, “and some nurses who came when my mummy wasn’t at home. But you know what happened? The doctor took out my tonsils and he put them on a plate, and one of the nurses took them down to the kitchen. And then my brother ran into the kitchen and he snatched them off the plate and he ate them!”
“Eeeuggh!” the girls say.
“He thought they were strawberries,” Guy says. “What a silly boy! I don’t think he ever forgave me.”
“I don’t ever want to eat a tonsil,” Susannah says solemnly.
“Then you never will,” Guy says.
At that moment, Susannah sees her mother, out walking with her little brothers, waving at her, and she dashes off to join them “Can you come with me, Bryony?” she calls out, flying down the hill.
“I have to ask my mommy,” Bryony replies, pouting, “but she’s still asleep.” Bryony knows better than to disturb her mother in the mornings. I choose that moment to venture out to join them.
“Can I go to Susannah’s house?” Bryony asks. “Please, can I, please?”
Guy pretends to start crying. “You mean you don’t want to stay with me?”
Bryony looks at him, then me, clearly torn between her old friend and her new one. “Why don’t you stay with Guy for a little while, and then go to Susannah’s for lunch,” I suggest “You can play with her all afternoon and then come back here together to change for the party. How’s that sound?”
“Good
,” she says.
“Then hurry and tell Susannah and come right back,” I say. “Maybe you can go for a walk with Guy and the dogs and show him the gardens. So go get the dogs, too, okay?”
“I’d like that very much,” Guy says. So would I; this way, I can call over to Tantalus House and have Winken follow them and monitor their conversation. I quickly make the call and come back to the veranda, pouring myself a glass of juice.
“She’s an amazing child,” Guy says.
“That she is,” I reply.
“May I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Where were you stationed during the war?” he asks.
“How did you know I was in the war?”
“Soldier’s instinct.”
“I see.” I sigh. “It was Italy. Near Lucca. But we weren’t stationed,” I say. “My brother and I ran off to join the partisans. Delusions of grandeur, that sort of foolishness. And you?”
“India. Ceylon. Bloody nightmare, but useful contacts afterward. I set up my business there. Tea. Import-export.”
“Explains the tan.” And the willing ladies, I’m sure, last vestiges of colonial wives swooning for him under the mosquito netting. “Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering,” he says lightly. Oh sure.
“Wondering where I met the Contessa, you mean? It’s a long story,” I say carefully. “Too long for the morning sun.” Too long for you, period. “And you’ve got a young lady who mustn’t be kept waiting.”
“Quite right,” he says. “None of my business, I might add. I shan’t ask again.”
“Quite right.”
Luckily, Bryony comes rushing out of the house with Basilico in her arms, the mastiffs lumbering after them, barking lustily. As they saunter away, I hear Guy ask Bryony if she wants to hear a silly song. She puts Basilico down, slips her hand into his, and he starts singing:
“Tallyho, tallyho, biff whack whack!
Chickens and fishes and the olde Union Jack
Tell me a story or I won’t come back
Tallyho, tallyho, biff whack whack!”
“That’s a good song,” Bryony says, giggling. “You wanna hear one that I know. It’s a song about spies.”
“Oooh, spies, yum yum. Will you teach me the words?” he asks.
“Yes, I will I will I will,” Bryony says, already starting to sing:
“Spies and spies and spies and spies and spies and spies and spies
Miles and miles and miles and miles and miles of spies
You can’t buy anything
You can’t do anything
Because there’s
Miles and miles and miles of spies and spies
Miles and miles of spies.”
Then she spins around and falls down, laughing. “You can do it about flies and pies, too, you know,” she tells Guy.
“Oh, I see,” he says. “But I like spies the best. Who taught you that song?”
“Tomasino. He was a spy. So was Uncle Jack. And Matteo. That’s Tomasino’s twin brother. He didn’t move here with us ‘cause he got married to Annabeth ‘cause he was lonely.”
“Did Tomasino tell you he was a spy?”
“He says he wasn’t, but I know he was. When he wasn’t so fat,” she says conspiratorially. “I always know when he’s lying. His pinkie starts to twitch.”
This child has been picking up some very bad habits.
“Like this?” Guy crooks his pinkie and starts to waggle it Bryony collapses in giggles. “Who is Uncle Jack?” he asks. “Is he really your uncle?”
“Un-uh. He works for Mommy and Tomasino and Matteo. He lives in New York, where we used to live, in our old house. He stayed with the dogs so they won’t be lonely.”
There is a lot of talk about loneliness in this conversation, isn’t there? Don’t think Guy hasn’t figured this out already.
“Were they your dogs?”
“They’re the house dogs, Mommy says, so they had to stay with the house.”
“I bet I can guess their names,” Guy says.
“Betcha can’t.”
“Hmm. Let me think. Missy, Prince, and Lady.”
“No, silly, those are boring names,” Bryony says. “Boring boring boring!”
“I agree. I once had a dog named Raymond. That’s rather a boring name, but he wasn’t a boring dog. He was a Jack Russell terrier, and he loved to bark.”
“What happened to him?”
“He got very old and he died in his sleep. He was a good dog and lived a good dog’s life, and now he’s up in doggy heaven chasing rabbits and butterflies.”
“Oh,” she says, her divine little face bright with consternation. “My house dogs aren’t dead. They had to stay in New York with Uncle Jack, and they’re waiting for me to go back and visit them. I have new dogs here.”
“Yes, I see,” Guy says. “What’s the little one’s name?”
“Basilico,” she says proudly. “That’s the Italian word for basil. He’s a miniature longhaired dachshund. And that’s Casseopeia, and Hector, and Drizzlepuss. They’re Neopolitan mastiffs. Come, come here!” she shouts at them, and they obey, running over to lick her face. Basilico runs around, barking wildly. He barely comes up to their ankles.
“I’ll wager you named them yourself, didn’t you?” he asks. “Those are the best names I ever heard for dogs. Much better than Missy and Prince.”
“And Lady. What’s a wager?”
“It’s like a bet,” he replies. “Were your New York dogs Neopolitan mastiffs, too?”
“Un-uh.” She shakes her head. “Irish wolfhounds.”
“Oh, I see. Did you give them nice names, too?”
“Yes I did: Froggy, Dromedee, and Tinkletime.”
Guy laughs. “I think I know how Tinkletime got his name.”
“Tinkletime is a girl, silly. Like Froggy and Dromedee.”
An Irish wolfhound named Dromedee. That name sounds rather close to Andromeda, from a child’s perspective.
“Oh, I see, I see.” Guy’s smile widens and his deep blue eyes are twinkling with pleasure. Yes, he suspected it yesterday when he was talking to Laura. The smug, perceptive bastard. He is certain he’s about to solve the world-famous mystery of the nefarious Belladonna, and all because he is best friends with a man who is having an affair with a woman who was once befriended by a vivacious Italian girl named Beatrice. The twists and turns of this saga have led him to a perfectly innocent conversation with an adorable little girl whose dogs are romping around a plantation in King Henry, Virginia.
All our planning and plotting and careful preparations undone by an innocuous conversation about tonsils, dogs, and spies. Guy has gotten the idea in his head that Dromedee is really Andromeda. Botheration. I am right to be wary of Guy. He would have been a good spy; I’m now convinced his wartime exploits in India and Ceylon were not confined to scouting locations for his tea plantations. He’s too much like Leandro and Jack, quietly persistent. And he’s too much like me, prying in such a charming manner until he gets the answers he wants.
Too much like Belladonna. Cunning and patient.
My longing for Jack deepens, to pour my heart out, to ask his advice. I can’t do it, though; it’s not fair to Jack to talk about any of my worries of another man paying attention to Belladonna. Nor could I have such a conversation on the phone. But Jack would know what to do, how to handle Guy. Jack, overloaded with honor and integrity, we can trust. He’d never have tried to pry so openly, even though he was equally desperate to know everything.
I wonder what it is that makes two men, clearly obsessed and insatiably curious about the same woman, so much alike and yet so dissimilar. I’ll bet Guy, filled with a voracious lust for life, would be willing to act out push hard for whatever he wants, while Jack could not help but repress those same desires. Perhaps that’s why Belladonna trusted Jack so much. She knew he’d never cross the line Guy has already breached.
What worries me is that she’s curiou
s about Guy in a way she’s not been curious about any man since I met her. And it isn’t only due to his odd reaction when he first saw Bryony.
You can’t do anything
Because there’s
Miles and miles and miles of spies and spies.
Guy has found out way too much in way too short a time. He certainly has to have sussed that all this information is invaluable, and he can afford to keep a stiff upper lip and wait. Then he can name his price.
I wonder what he’s going to do. All I know is what I’m not going to do.
I’m not going to tell Belladonna.
I am admiring the cut of my snow-white dinner jacket for the party tomorrow when the telephone rings, and Winken tells me it’s the Pritch. How splendid. Perhaps he has a momentous update for us. Nothing like a little bit of longed-for death to spice up a party.
“He’s finally kicked it,” Pritch says smugly.
“My heart is breaking,” I reply, trying to contain my exhilaration. At least one of them is gone. How many more are left? I call to Winken to tell the Contessa to pick up the phone. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer fella. What’s the next step?”
“There’s a funeral service at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in three days’ time. Meanwhile, we have the preliminary cleanup crew in the house. Disinfecting the sickroom, if you know what I mean.” Indeed I do. “The secondary crew is scheduled during the service itself.”
“Pritch, you are too much,” I tell him, laughing. “Not even I would have the cheek to snoop through a man’s drawers during his funeral.”
“What better time?” he asks. I can picture him shrugging. This is far too much joy for our wonderfully dedicated Pritch, looking for papers and bank accounts and diaries and letters to friends that Sir Patty forgot to burn before he left for his fateful trip to America. Why would he have thought he’d need to burn anything? “A select handful, including myself, will be amongst the mourners, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Should have an update for you soonest.”
“Hello, Harris,” Belladonna says. I realize she’s heard practically the entire conversation without my realizing she’s picked up a receiver.
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