Your Scandalous Ways (20 page)

Francesca looked up at Neptune, then further along the great hall to Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom, standing guard over another portal. Could a woman ever be truly wise, when it came to men? Probably not, else the species would not survive.

“You are so aggravating,” she said. “After all this time, I'd finally decided to get rid of those dratted letters. Now I'm wild to get them off my hands, and you won't take them.”

“I will, but not today,” he said. “Until I get matters sorted out, they're safer where they are.”

“And I am supposed to fold my hands and wait patiently for you to carry out your cunning plan? I am to wait about, not knowing how or when that Fazi creature will strike next?”

“She needs to regroup,” he said. “She needs reinforcements. That gives us as much as a week. But I promise not to make you wait that long. A day or two, no more.”

What choice did she have? “Very well. Sort matters out. In the meantime, I'm going home. I have had as much as I can bear of my—of Magny. And you, if you are wise, will keep out of my way until you've something worthwhile to bother me about.”

 

The next day found James at the Ducal Palace, facing a still-suspicious Count Goetz.

“We have questioned the man Piero again and again,” he told James. “Naturally, it occurred to me
that he had lied, even to you, about his motives. He is from the south, it appears. That abominable dialect. This Fazi woman is from the south, I am informed. For the two of them to come to Venice at the same time is no coincidence. But he claims he has never heard of her. He holds to the same story, like a dog with a bone. I know he is lying. What shall I do? Hang him by his thumbs? Then someone will complain of our brutality and make inflammatory speeches in one of the squares. The next we know, they make an insurrection. They are very obstinate, these people, and of a quick temper.”

“I don't think he's obstinate,” James said, “so much as terrified.”

Goetz stared at him for a moment. “What difference does it make? Either way, he tells us nothing.”

And even if Piero did tell them, they wouldn't understand one word in twenty. If that.

“I wonder if you might let me have a go,” James said.

“No,” said Goetz.

 

Two hours later, James returned to the Ducal Palace, this time with Prince Lurenze.

Though he cast an unamiable eye upon James, Goetz was all gracious welcome this time, eager to know what he could do for his highness.

There were certain advantages to being royalty.

“Please to explain,” said the Prince of Gilenia, “why Mr. Cordier is not permitted to try where you have failed, to obtain information which may prevent harm coming to Mrs. Bonnard.”

Goetz began to recite certain rules about prisoners and foreign visitors.

Lurenze held up his hand. “Please to explain,” he said, “where is the rule to endanger a lady instead of doing all that is possible to protect her and capture dangerous persons?”

Goetz gazed down at his immaculate desk. His jaw set.

It wasn't difficult to guess what he was thinking.

People spoke of the Austrians as rulers of northern Italy but of course it was Austro-Hungarian rule. Goetz knew as well as James did that a certain Hungarian lady of high birth had been proposed as Prince Lurenze's consort.

The governor of Venice would be most unwise to risk offending the crown prince of Gilenia, especially over such a small matter: merely giving one of the prince's English friends a few minutes alone with a prisoner.

The count, upon further consideration, decided he was not sure he'd interpreted the rule correctly. “You may try your luck with him, Mr. Cordier,” he said. “But you will give me your word as a gentleman to tell me everything he tells you.”

“Certainly,” James said. Gentleman or not, he'd lied before and would do it again. Not that he necessarily needed to lie. After all, Goetz had not specified
when
he must be told.

 

James had been through the Ducal Palace before. On his previous tour, when the governor had felt more kindly toward him, he'd been given a tour. They
had not gone as far as the prisons, however. On the last visit, Goetz had had Piero brought to them.

This time, James deemed it best to go to Piero.

Lurenze insisted on going with him, in case anyone made difficulties, he said.

“I am not happy with the behavior of the governor to you,” he said after they left a deeply annoyed Goetz. “His look is unfriendly. If I am by, he will not make up some foolish rule to put you in prison, too.”

Ah, well, at least someone trusted him, James thought. Ironic that it was a rival. Or perhaps not—or not so much of a rival as previously.

James had chased all over Venice looking for Lurenze, and finally run him to ground—or water, rather—en route to Magny's
palazzo.
In the gondola with his highness was Giulietta. They had seemed quite cozy, though Giulietta persisted in addressing his highness in the most ridiculous terms: “your celestiality,” “your luminescence,” “your magnificence,” and the like, all of which Lurenze bore with a straight face.

His absurdly handsome face was solemn now, as they followed the guard assigned to take them to Piero.

The route from the Ducal Palace to the prisons was not calculated to lift the spirits. They traversed a narrow, uneven, and dark passage that led to the Bridge of Sighs. From the outside, the arched bridge was quite beautiful. Within, all was gloom, proving how it had earned its title. A pair of corridors ran its length. Two heavy grated windows dimly lit
the way. The guard, bearing a lighted candle, led Lurenze and James through narrow passages and down the stairs to the nether regions, to the dungeons known as the
pozzi
, the wells.

The guard, clearly accustomed to the role of guide—and probably in the habit of conveying tourists through the place, was cheerfully talkative. He told them there were eighteen cells built in tiers. The cells were about ten or twelve feet long and six or seven feet wide, he said. They were arched at top, with a small opening in front. The lower group were level with the water in the canal.

He pointed to little niches in the stones on the wall. These, he informed them, were made to hold bars on which convicts were hanged or strangled to death. He called their attention to other niches, black with smoke. Here the executioners used to set their lamps, to allow them to see what they were doing. With relish, he explained certain holes in the pavement. When criminals were quartered, he explained, the blood drained off through the holes and into the canal. He indicated a door, from which the corpses were thrown into boats and taken away to be disposed of.

“I was told these were the modern prisons,” said Lurenze. “Prigioni Nuove is the name. The New Prisons.”

“They were modern two hundred years ago, when they were built,” James said.

“This is barbaric,” said Lurenze.

“I've seen worse,” said James. He'd been confined in worse.

They arrived, finally, at the cell in which Piero had been left to ponder his sins and the advisability of telling his captors what they wanted to know. He had been left in the dark. When the door was unlocked, the stench wafting out into the passage was nigh overpowering.

It seemed to overpower Lurenze, who staggered back from the door.

“This is abominable,” he said.

“You needn't come in,” James said. “It's going to be very close in there.”

“No, I come,” said Lurenze. “A moment is all I need.” He squared his shoulders. “There. I am ready.”

A prince, perhaps, and pampered, but he had some solid stuff to him.

Still, this had better not take long, James thought. Brave or not, the lad wasn't used to it, and was all too likely to faint or cast up his accounts. That was no way to awaken fear and respect in the prisoner.

“Very well, your highness,” James said. He lowered his voice and reverted to English. “First, I advise you to stay near the door. You'll get a bit of air—such as it is—from the passage through the little window. Second, you must give me your word you will not speak until spoken to, and then you will follow my lead. This is most important, excellency. A matter of life and death.”

“Yes, of course,” said Lurenze.

James told the guard they were ready. The man lit the lamp in the passage and gave James
the candle. James entered the cell, Lurenze following.

The door clanged shut behind them.

 

Piero was sullen. His week in the cell had turned him into a lump. Even the sight of James could not rouse him to emotion beyond a grimace. He squatted in a corner, staring at his bare and unspeakably filthy feet.

Lurenze dutifully took up his position by the door. James wondered how long he'd remain upright. The stench was beyond anything.

No time to waste
, James thought.

He came directly to the point. In slow, simple Italian, he said, “We are looking for Marta Fazi.” Piero's dialect might be all but incomprehensible but he understood the language of the educated—or enough to get by, at any rate.

“Never heard of her,” said Piero.

“That's a pity,” said James, “because I have something the lady wants. Something the English lady had. Not jewels. Some papers.”

Piero did not respond, but his posture stiffened.

“I know Marta Fazi wants these papers,” James said. “I can sell them to her or I can sell them to the other side.”

“It's nothing to me,” said Piero.

“I think it is,” James said. “If I can't find her, I will sell them to someone else. When she learns you had a chance to help her get these papers and you did nothing…”

Piero shifted uncomfortably.

“If she learns you failed her, she will not be pleased with you,” James said.

Still no response.

“I'm not sure you'll be safe from her, even here.”

No answer, but something changed. The man's fear was palpable. James pressed his point. “Ah, well. You say you know nothing. Perhaps you don't know her, as you say. In that case, it's unfair to keep you here. I had better arrange for your release.”

He heard Lurenze's gasp and glanced that way, as Piero did. But the prince, to his credit, said nothing. Or maybe he dared not open his mouth for fear of vomiting.

Piero's gaze came back to James. The sullen expression was gone, and the fear was plain on his grimy face. “They won't let me out,” he said.

“Of course they will,” James said cheerfully. “Don't you fret about it. I'll simply tell them that, when I looked at you again, more closely, I realized I made a mistake, and you are not the man who attacked the English lady.”

“I tell you nothing. I know nothing.”

He was afraid of Marta, clearly. Still too afraid of her to tell what he knew.

“This is annoying,” James said. “I am tired of this stinking hole and tired of you. I have tried to be reasonable but you won't be reasonable. So this is what I'll do. I shall spread a rumor that you've betrayed Marta Fazi, and as a reward for betraying her, you are to be released.” He looked once more at Lurenze. It was hard to be sure in the dim light, but he seemed to be turning green.

“Your excellency,” James said. “Would you be willing to use your influence to arrange this man's release?”

“Assuredly,” the prince said, gagging on the syllables.

“I say nothing,” Piero said doggedly. “I know nothing.” But his voice was less sullen now, the pitch a degree higher.

“Rumors travel so quickly in Venice,” James went on. “If Marta Fazi is here, she'll hear the news by this time tomorrow if not before then. I should be able to have you released in two or three days' time. Maybe you'll be able to get away before she finds you. Or maybe she'll be waiting for you when you come out of this place. Or maybe some friendly men will offer to take you for a drink. Or maybe they will not be friendly. Maybe they will take you somewhere, and not for a drink, eh, my friend?”

“You are the devil,” Piero said. “But the name you say—she is a devil, too.”

“I only want you to take a message to her.”

A silence while Piero considered. “This, maybe I will do,” he said. “But send that one away before he pukes on me.”

I
n response to James's message—not long after his interview with Piero—Mrs. Bonnard agreed to meet with him the following morning, Friday, at ten o'clock.

The first thing he noticed as he entered the
putti
-infested drawing room was her pallor. She did not look as though she'd had enough sleep. Or perhaps it was the frock that made her seem so pale. It was high-necked and plain white, adorned with only a bit of pale green embroidery. She wore no jewelry. She had some sort of scarf arrangement wrapped about her head. Other women wore caps with morning dress but Francesca Bonnard in a cap—however lacy and beribboned—was out of the question.

Still, the frock seemed out of the question, too. It might have belonged to an innocent schoolgirl.
Certainly it offered a striking contrast to the woman wearing it: the exotic eyes, the mouth promising sin, and the sinfully voluptuous figure. The effect was startling…and enticing as well.

“I thought you didn't rise before noon,” James said, not bothering with polite greetings.

“I don't,” she said. “But I am frantic to get this over with.”

“My dear girl.” He crossed the room to her and took her hands in his. “I'm a beast. I should have sent word yesterday and at least let you know what I was about. But I'm not accustomed to—to—”

“To accounting to a woman for your whereabouts?” She smiled, and there seemed to be genuine amusement in it. Perhaps he was on his way to forgiveness?

“Not since mama demanded to know what I'd been up to,” he said.

“When you were eight?”

“Eighteen,” he said. “Twenty-eight. Whenever she sees me, she expects a complete accounting.”

She cocked her head to one side, studying his face. “I daresay she gets it.”

“I'm afraid of my mother,” he said. “As a fellow ought to be.”

“Horrid man,” she said. “You are determined to charm me, even when I can scarcely keep my eyes open and I'm cross at having to keep them open. What an inhuman hour to be up and about!”

“We could go back to bed,” he said.

“Dream on,” she said. “You'll want a great deal more than charm to accomplish that.” She slid her hands from his and moved away. It was only then,
watching her walk away, that he finally noticed the oddity in the room.

It was not as though it was hard to miss: a tall ladder in one of the corners on the side opposite the windows. He'd missed it because he'd come in looking for her and all he'd seen was her.

Now he watched her take up a narrow object from the console table near the ladder. James joined her. And stared at the thing in her hand. “A paper knife?”

“You have correctly identified it,” she said.

He looked at the knife, then at the ladder, then up, at the
putti
-encrusted ceiling. Then his gaze came back to her amused green one.

“I looked there,” he said. “I thought the children were hiding them. And it was no small chore, looking. There are so many plaster figures, not only here, but throughout the house. I thought you might have put the letters between the legs of one of the buxom ladies holding up the plaster draperies in the corners. That would be your idea of a good joke. But I couldn't find them there or anywhere else.”

“I know,” she said. “I knew you'd look. And I knew you wouldn't find them. But you're not far wrong. Here, hold the ladder for me.”

“Hold the ladder? Are you mad? You're not going up there.”

She turned fully toward him and regarded him with the level look a woman tended to employ instead of punching a man in the head as he richly deserved.

“Once, only once,” she said with exaggerated
patience, “I should like to do something without having to argue with you about it.”

“You do exactly as you please all the time,” he said. “You do it before anyone has a chance to argue with you. Jumping into canals, for instance.”

“I am not going to jump off the ladder,” she said. “The only way that would be fun would be if I fell on you and broke your thick head, and I suspect it's too thick to break. Are you going to hold the ladder for me or not?”

“Who held it for you originally?”

“Nobody. The last thing I wanted was witnesses. I did it one night while most of the servants were away at one of the festivals. I dragged a few of the heavier tables over here to support the ladder. I should have done that today but I thought you'd want to look up under my dress.”

The ceilings were high, the ladder alarmingly tall. Still, she was stubborn and he was a man. “Well, if you put it that way…”

 

James manfully resisted the urge to lick her beautiful ankles as they passed his line of vision, and settled for looking. He admired as much of her calves as he could—not nearly enough, for the dress and petticoat clung to her legs in the most provoking manner.

But she was soon at her work, and then he became engrossed in watching her insert the knife into a seam of plaster. As she'd said, he had judged her well—her sense of humor, certainly. She hadn't hidden the parcel between the legs of the buxom lady in the corner but nearby, where a little boy's
legs and bottom stuck out from under the plaster draperies.

As bits of plaster fell on his head, he wondered why he'd never thought of that: tuck the packet of letters into a convenient crevice and plaster the lot over. It wanted only a thin coat of plaster and a little skill to make it blend in. An artist—the one who'd done the work in the first place, would have noticed. But even a sharp eye like James's could easily miss it. The packet would appear to be another fold in the drapery—and he'd been looking for letters, paper.

“You needn't fear they're damaged,” she said as she went on with her cautious work. “I took care. I wrapped them in oilcloth to protect them from the wet plaster, then I wrapped a rough cloth over that, so the plaster would stick properly. It worked out well. It made the packet more rounded, so it resembled a fold of the drapery.”

“I had read that the great courtesans of Venice were extremely well educated and multitalented,” he said. “But I never heard of their learning plasterwork.”

“They were blondes; did you know that?” she said. “I think a reddish blond was the fashionable hair color. The ones who didn't come by it naturally used a rather ghastly bleaching process.”

“I like your hair exactly as it is,” he said. “But did these beauties work in plaster?”

“They might have done,” she said. “Lots of ladies do in England, certainly. We learn in the schoolroom. Artistic pursuits. Sticking shells and such on the walls of playrooms, decorating
man-made—or woman-made grottoes. Making plaster casts of our hands. Masks.”

More chips fluttered down. She reached behind the boy's bottom and took out a rounded packet. Then she quickly climbed down. Her eyes sparkled and her face was flushed.

He moved out of the way back as she stepped off the last rung onto the floor.

She set down her knife. “There,” she said. She held out the packet. Bits of plaster still stuck to the outside. He took it.

He stared at the thing in his hand. After all this time, after all the trouble, here it was. If he'd had to search again, he still wouldn't have found it.

He looked up at the ceiling, at the little bottom and legs, where only a few chips in the plaster offered any hint of something extra having been there. Even then, who'd know? The plasterwork was more than a century old, cracked here and there, patched here and there.

“The only thing that truly worried me was the house burning down,” she said. “That was why I panicked the other night.”

He nodded.

“What?” she said. “Are you dumbstruck at last?”

His gaze drifted down to meet hers. He saw the triumph in her eyes, and laughter, too…and the ghost.

“Only you would make a little boy's bum your hiding place,” he said. “What fun you are.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I am.” She backed away and gave a little wave of her hand. “Well, run along now and do whatever it is you have to do.”

He remained where he was, gazing at the packet in his hand, then at her, in her schoolgirl dress, which she contrived somehow to make exotic and seductive.

He thought of how clever she'd been, how she'd outwitted her devious spouse and England's best agents. He thought of how brave she was—stupidly brave, as one needed to be at times. He thought of the shame and misery she'd undergone and how she'd turned disgrace into triumph.

He thought of what he'd felt like when he first came to Venice: utterly weary, in body and soul, and utterly disgusted. He didn't even know who that man was anymore.

Because of her.

Because he'd fallen in love, stupidly, hopelessly, incurably in love.

But if he said so she wouldn't believe him and he couldn't blame her for not believing him.

And so, instead, he said, “This thing I have to do…I wonder if you'd like to do it with me?”

She studied his face for a moment. “Is that an innuendo? Forgive me if I didn't quite understand but it's wretchedly early in the morning.”

“Not an innuendo,” he said. “I told you I had a plan. I didn't tell you much about it. Would you like to be my accomplice?”

Her face came alight then, the way it had done the first time he'd spoken to her, when he'd been Don Carlo and she'd started to talk of Byron. “Cordier, that is the first sign of true intelligence you've shown this morning.”

“I take it that's a yes?” he said.

She threw herself at him so hard that he dropped the packet. He didn't care. She pulled his head down and kissed him hard, too. He didn't mind that, either. He wrapped his arms about her and kissed her back with the same energy, and hoped he had not just offered to make the gravest mistake of his life.

That night

It was not hard to hide in Venice if one were clever, knew where to go, and made friends easily. This was not the case for Piero, unfortunately.

He would not have ended up in the
pozzi
had he not tried to steal a gondola. He had not realized how much skill it required to maneuver them. He had not realized how possessive gondoliers were about their ridiculous boats.

Marta Fazi should have told him. Unlike him, she'd traveled a great deal, especially during the war, and she'd been to Venice before. She had money, and a comfortable room in a house in the neighborhood of the Rialto Bridge.

When Piero appeared at her door, she welcomed him as one might a long-lost son.

While not the world's deepest thinker, he knew better than to believe she was so very happy to see him. Still, he knew, too, that she was desperately short of men, because all the ones who'd gone after the Englishwoman the other night had been captured. Unless Marta took one of her fits, he ought to be safe from her knife.

She sat at a small table in a comfortable little room. Two other chairs stood at the table. Under it lay a rug. A fire burned in the little fireplace. He knew she was used to grander surroundings these days. Yet once upon a time, she'd lived on the streets. She could make herself at home anywhere.

At present, she sipped wine from a pretty glass. He had known her to drink straight from the bottle. She offered him none. But she didn't take up the knife that lay on the table next to the bottle. She listened patiently while he explained why the governor had let him go.

“It's because of the English lady,” he said. “She's afraid of you.”

“Why? She doesn't know me. You wouldn't be such a fool as to tell her or anyone else about me.”

He shook his head. “They said your name to me—one of the foreigners did, the first night. Then the governor said your name. But every time, I said I'd never heard of you. Only tonight, when they say what they want me to do, I tell them I will try to take a message to you.”

She glanced at the knife, which gleamed in the lamplight. “Piero, I hope you haven't been an idiot again.”

“One tried to follow me,” he said. “I lost him in a crowd near a theater.” He didn't add that he'd got lost several times before and after that.

“And the crowd didn't scatter when you came?” she said. “You stink like a fish ten days dead.”

“I'm sorry for the smell,” he said. “There was no time to wash. I came as fast as I could. When I tell you how it is, you can judge if I was wrong.”

She waited.

“I know you want papers from this English lady,” he said. “One of the foreigners knew about those papers, too.”

She nodded. “If they didn't know, my friend in England would not have asked me to perform this little service for him.”

“The two men who came to me tonight did not want to give the papers to you,” Piero said. “But the English lady is afraid you will hunt her wherever she goes. She makes her friends do as she says. The prince—the one with the yellow curls—he's one of her friends.”

“Oh, yes. I've seen him. Very pretty.”

“He's the one who made them set me free,” said Piero. “He argued with the other one—a bigger man, dark. That one's obnoxious. To make the time pass, I dream of ways to kill him.”

“Poor Piero! The time goes slow in prison, I know.”

She would have let him rot there or be hanged or have his head cut off on that devil's device, the guillotine. But Piero would have done the same if she had ended up in the
pozzi.
One had to look out for oneself.

“The prince doesn't care what anyone else wants. The lady is more important, he says. He wants no more trouble for her. He wants you to go away. He says you're a nuisance.”

Marta gave a short laugh. “A nuisance? It's true. But I wouldn't be this great nuisance if my men did as I told them. We should have had those papers the first night we came here. But no, you and Bruno
had to play with the whore.” She lifted her glass and eyed him over the rim.