Valour and Vanity (39 page)

“Not in the slightest.”

“Have I told you today how much I love you?”

“You may tell me again.”

“I love you very much.” An impish idea occurred to Jane, and she turned in Vincent’s arms to regard him with the most solemn expression she could summon. “I had nearly forgotten. There was something that I overheard Denaro and Coppa discuss on my first visit to the palazzo, while I was trapped in the parlour with them.”

“That sounds foreboding.”

“Perhaps. It might require some exploration.” Jane rose on her toes and whispered to Vincent one of the phrases that she had heard the two men use when discussing their adventures with the fairer sex. Pressed as she was against her husband, the effect of her suggestion was immediately felt. “Is that language salty enough?”

“Very much so.” Vincent’s voice was rough as he bent to lift her. His left arm slid under her knees, and he winced. Straightening, her husband looked a little abashed. “Let me take my wife’s advice to not be stupid. Lady Vincent … I may need help undressing in order to explore this theory of yours.”

“Rogue.”

“Muse.”

The closet room turned out not to be so drafty as Jane had thought.

*   *   *

They had fallen asleep
on the little bed in the corner, both utterly spent after the exertions of the past week. Jane woke to the sound of the door shutting as Vincent re-entered the room, carrying with him the aroma of fresh pastry and two packets, one of which had clearly come from a baker’s.

“Sister Aquinata will be upset that you purchased someone else’s bread.” Jane sat up, drawing the thin blanket around her.

“This is a glazed tart, not bread, so I hope she will forgive me.” Vincent sat on the bed beside her, then shook his head and set aside the largest of the packets, which was giving off the tempting aroma. “I cannot wait.”

“Is the pastry that good?”

He shook his head again and, with a smile, handed her the smaller of the two. “This is a belated anniversary present.”

With a questioning look, which he answered only by an enigmatic smile, Jane took the package and untied the string that held the paper shut. Inside, covered in delicate printed paper, were three bars of lavender soap.

“One for each year.” Then he slid off the bed to kneel in front of her. Vincent reached into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew a small gold ring. “Jane, Lady Vincent … will you do me the honour?”

As her husband slid her wedding ring back on to her finger, joy unfolded inside Jane as though the room had attained a sudden softening glamour. For the second time in her life, Jane accepted Vincent’s proposal, and knew that she would always love him, for richer, for poorer.

With and without soap.

Twenty-six

Debts Paid

All that remained after the apprehension of Spada and his gang of thieves was for Jane and Vincent to repay their debts to the merchants of Murano. Vincent’s tailor expressed his frank astonishment, but seemed quite willing to accept French coins and provide a receipt without question. He allowed Vincent to change into the clothing that he had repossessed and said he would send the remainder of the clothes to their lodgings.

Jane, likewise, found herself welcomed by the dressmaker and in short order reclothed. It was with some relief when Jane stepped onto the street with Vincent, once again in her travel pelisse and with a proper bonnet. Her husband offered his arm—his right arm—to her, and they stepped out in style. Other than his walking stick, which had some scars on the ebony shaft from where a sword had hit it, they presented a very attractive picture to those who passed.

It was remarkable how anonymous Jane felt while walking with her husband in respectable clothing, though in entirely different ways from only the day before. Was it truly only the day prior that she had felt eyes glancing past her because her mended clothing marked her as poor? Today the other passers-by saw her, but as a fitting part of Murano rather than as a bit of refuse that they would prefer not to acknowledge.

Only one merchant remained unpaid, and it was a debt that required some conversation before they settled on a solution that satisfied all their requirements. They spoke to Signor Nenci about their idea, and he approved it with a gratifying vehemence. So they turned with eager steps to Signor Querini.

At the glass factory, Vincent knocked sharply on the door using the head of his walking stick.

Querini opened the door himself. “Where—” He recognised Vincent and attempted to shut the door.

He was thwarted as Vincent shoved forward and caught the door with his left shoulder. He grunted at the impact, but kept the door from closing. “We have business with you, Signor.”

“No! I have no business with you. Not unless you have my money—and even then, I want nothing to do with you. Nothing, I tell you. Nothing.” He was sweating, though the fire in his glass oven was out.

Jane looked past him and into his empty glass factory. “We have your money.”

“You—you do?” He wet his lips and shot a furtive look to the narrow lane before opening the door wide enough for them to enter. “Mind the step.”

“Where are your apprentices, sir?”

“That is no business of yours. I told you I want nothing to do with you, only my money.” He crossed his arms over his belly and glowered at them. “Do you have it, or do you not?”

The man was odious, and Jane’s stomach twisted at the thought of giving him anything. Vincent, with his peculiar sense of honour, had argued that they had agreed to his terms, and they did, in fact, have the object that they had hired Querini to make. The fact that he was an agent in a larger imposture was a concern, but Vincent felt that the correct thing was to pay the man the sum they had agreed to, no matter how much they resented it.

He pulled out his purse and began counting coins onto Querini’s over-crowded desk. “I believe that is what we agreed to.”

“We will, of course, require a receipt.” Jane opened her reticule and removed a paper. “I have taken the liberty of drawing it up to save you some effort.”

Scowling, he took up a stained pen, dipped it into the ink, and scrawled upon the paper Jane offered. “And then I never want to see you again.”

“That is a mutual desire, I assure you.” She turned to the second page for him. “And a copy for the
capo di polizia
as well.”

With that signed, they turned to depart, taking no leave of him and sending no compliments to his family. He deserved no such attention. Only at the threshold did Jane pause to allow the part of herself that was vindictive a small measure of satisfaction. “I do hope that you enjoy the fruits of your labour.”

Vincent closed the door behind her and offered his arm. They walked down the street without conversation until they reached a corner. Signor Nenci waited there for them.

“Well?” His tone was gruff, but his eyes twinkled.

“As we had planned.” She handed him the paper Querini had signed without reading, which transferred his apprentices’ contracts to Signor Nenci. “I would feel some remorse for tricking him, but his apprentices will be better served with you.”

“Rosa’s getting them settled in now.” He folded the paper with surprising neatness.

“How long do you think it will take him to realize what has happened?” Vincent asked.

“About as long as it will take him to realize that no one local will buy glass from someone who was selling out to the French.” Signor Nenci tucked the page into his coat and gave a wicked grin. “Murano is a very small town.”

*   *   *

Even after paying off
their debts, the remainder of the gold that Vincent had taken from Spada’s vault came to more than enough to restore all of their stolen funds. By mutual agreement, the Vincents put the excess into the coffers of Santa Maria degli Angeli. The Abbess very pointedly did not ask where the funds had come from, but accepted them on behalf of the church with thanks. If any good was to come of Spada’s ill-gotten gains, then Jane could think of no better choice than the convent’s work.

The small garret where Jane and Vincent had spent the previous months no longer seemed so mean, with the addition of proper fuel for the fire and Vincent’s glamour. Though, in truth, they were barely in it during the next week, as they spent the days at work with Signor Nenci. His daughter and one of his apprentices proved to be the best on his team at learning how to embed glamours in the glass. This prompted a discussion about whether the technique required both sexes to work. Jane found this a decidedly silly idea, and she and Rosa proved it by creating a
Verre Plat
of a vase containing a tulip of such delicacy that a living butterfly tried to alight.

The advantage of working with the slab method was that they could lay in several threads of glamour before the glass cooled too much to take an impression. Vincent speculated that they might eventually be able to stack the glass to create more intricate images, but that would require a different sort of planning to mesh the images.

Its disadvantage, aside from a dependence on sunlight, was that the images were utterly devoid of motion. Their attempts to record moving glamours failed, leaving only blurred impressions in the glass.

Jane and Vincent would gladly have stayed longer to continue experimenting, but they were keenly aware of the fact that Jane’s letter was likely to have provoked serious concern in her family.

When they went to the
capo di polizia
to present their receipts for the debts owed, a small army of nuns went with them. To Jane’s surprise, Signor Nenci offered to come as well. This precaution turned out to be unnecessary, as
Gendarme
Gallo was not in that day. He had, it seemed, abruptly given notice and quit the island.

He had also apparently mislead the
capo
about the Abbess’s reason for calling. On the day that she came, he said that she had wanted to know if they had seen the convent’s goat, which he claimed had escaped. Of course, the
capo
had not seen it, since they did not have a goat, and had thus shaken his head.

With this misrepresentation cleared away and the weight of the evidence the Vincents were now able to produce, the
capo di polizia
had no difficulty in acknowledging that the Vincents were quite innocent, and apologized handsomely for detaining them in Murano. His consideration extended to walking them to the docks himself, to inform the gondoliers that they were free to go.

It was quite the procession to the docks, with the
capo di polizia,
the nuns, and the glassmaker marching with the Vincents. Some passers-by followed, simply because it seemed as though something of moment were about to happen.

At the dock, Jane exchanged many heartfelt embraces with the sisters, whom she had grown to adore quite as much as if they were blood relations.

Sister Maria Agnes bounced. “Oh yes! And in Vienna, you must absolutely go to the glamour orrery that the Franciscans did. It is a wonder, and you will love it.” She said something in German to Vincent that made him laugh and blush a little. Jane made a note to ask him about it later.

Thrusting a bread-shaped wax paper package forward, Sister Aquinata just nodded, with her eyes suspiciously bright.

“You must write to us to let us know that you have arrived safely.” The Abbess took Jane’s hands in both of hers, her wrinkles a map of smiles past and present. She opened Jane’s hand and pressed a glass rosary into it. “I know you are not Catholic, but I want you to have this to remember us by.”

Jane had to swallow back tears, but her deep gratitude showed in her voice, which she only barely controlled. “Thank you.” The beautiful green and gold beads were already warm in her fingers. “We will be back to work with Signor Nenci.”

That gentleman was speaking with much animation with Vincent. All his gruffness remained, but the act of working with the glassmaker had changed her perception of him, so that he seemed more like her husband in temperament than anything else. She deeply regretted that they had not worked with him from the beginning, more for the loss of opportunity than for the misfortunes that had ensued. The possibility of creating art, and not simply technique, charmed her.

The gondolier was ready to depart, and there was still so much to say that the only solution was to bid everyone farewell and leave much unsaid. However, Vincent looked at the assembled crowd and cocked his head. He turned to Jane and held out his walking stick. “Would you hold this a moment, Muse?”

“Of course.”

Her husband flexed his hands and reached into the ether. With remarkable speed, he wove seemingly random threads of glamour together in a flurry of colour, then pulled a slip-knot, binding them suddenly together.

A dragon soared overhead, roaring its triumph to the skies of Murano.

The nuns, Signor Nenci, the
capo di polizia,
and all the passers-by who had followed them without understanding why let out a gasp of admiration and applauded. And while they were distracted, Jane and Vincent boarded the gondola with full hearts and left Murano.

The open water in front of them was one of the most beautiful things Jane had ever seen.

*   *   *

During the entire month-long
trip through Lombardy-Venetia to Bohemia, Jane had a constant fear that her father would ride past them on his way to Venice. When they pulled into Vienna at last, it was the twenty-first of December and the snow lay piled upon the streets. The lodgings that her family and the Strattons had taken faced on to Beatrixgasse and had large windows that let in the snow-filtered light. No heroine travelling in a chaise and four could have met with the surprise that awaited Jane and Vincent when they alighted and walked into the house.

Jane braced herself for concern and the need to allay her mother’s fears. Instead, Mr. Ellsworth hurried out from the parlour and into the entrance hall with his arms spread in welcome. “Jane! Vincent! Oh, but it is good to see you. What a lovely surprise!”