Your Scandalous Ways (4 page)

He recalled the look she'd given him at the theater, the smile as she turned away. It was the kind
of smile Helen must have given Paris, the kind Cleopatra must have bestowed on Mark Antony.

Damn but she was good.

A challenge, then, and wasn't that what he wanted? Hadn't he balked at this mission at first because—among other grievances—he'd believed it a waste of his time? Hadn't he told his employers that any tyro could relieve a female of a packet of letters?

“Husband?” he said, pretending to be baffled. “But no, not to marry, you see, but only so.” He made a hand gesture universally understood to indicate the carnal act. “To make happy the more old woman, who sometimes she is ugly, but very, very beautiful in the purse.”

“Francesca teases you,” said Giulietta. “She is speaking of
English
husbands. The English are crazy. She is English but she is only a little crazy.” She looked to her friend. “Is there an English word? I cannot think of one. A hundred words for bad girls like us, but what is a man courtesan?”

“A penniless aristocrat,” said Bonnard.

James suppressed a smile. Wit, of course. The best whores had it. The famous harlot Harriette Wilson had nothing remarkable in the way of looks apart from her fine bosom. Her great assets were her lively personality and her sense of humor.

So far, so good, then. If Bonnard had relaxed enough to ply her wit, he'd made progress.

“This is so true,” he said gravely. “I have many brothers and sisters and I am one of the younger ones.” That bit was fact, at any rate. “There is not
enough money for everyone. And so I make my way in the world, you see.”

“If you want to make your way in Venice,” said Giulietta, “I will give you some good advice. Keep away from Elena da Mosta. She has the clap. She gave it to Lord Byron. This is why Francesca would not have him, though he was so charming to her and very sweet.”

“He was charming and sweet to every woman he found attractive—and that meant nearly every young woman who crossed his path,” said Bonnard. “How he could tell which one among the multitudes gave him gonorrhea is beyond my comprehension.”

“But he loved Francesca very much,” Giulietta said. “He wrote poems to her.”

“He writes poems to everybody,” said Bonnard. “That is how he converses with the world. That is how he experiences the world. Have you read his new poems?” she asked James, starting forward in her seat, her otherworldly face lighting up. “Are they not remarkable, so different from the others?”

The abrupt appeal, the sudden openness, took him unawares.

Why, yes, they are,
he was about to say.

She made an impatient gesture. “But no, how could you have read them?” she said. “They've been published only in English.” She sank back into the seat once more.

James swore silently. He'd come within a breath of betraying himself.

He'd read those new poems, and he'd been
amazed. They were so immediate, so conversational, and so completely different, he thought, from what he deemed the overwrought romanticism of
Childe Harold.
But he had no one with whom he could discuss them. In London, it would be different. In London one might easily find a group of gentlemen, a club, a salon, where people talked of poetry, music, plays, and books.

A man didn't find such people—or have time for literary discussions with them if he did—as he dashed from city to city, country to country, saving the world.

“She reads the poems to me, else I would not understand them at all,” said Giulietta. “I speak English well, and practice with her all the time. But to read it hurts my head. The way the English spell: Where is the logic? Nowhere can I find it. They spell like madmen.”

James nodded. “More easy it is to read Greek.”

Bonnard had turned away. She leaned out of the open casement and looked up at the night sky.

Giulietta was chattering on amiably. James listened with a part of his mind. The rest was on her companion. Bonnard had put up her guard again and distanced herself from him. He could feel it, as palpably as if she'd thrust him away with her hand.

Very possibly, had she possessed the strength to throw him off the gondola, she'd do it. He was not sure what had happened, what had made her withdraw. All he knew was that he felt her mistrust humming in the air between them.

This was going to be a good deal trickier than he'd imagined.

This wasn't another Marta Fazi. This one was complicated. She had a brain and something more, though he wasn't sure yet what the
more
was.

He had no doubt now, though, that Francesca Bonnard was going to be a considerable challenge. He hadn't had a true challenge in a long time.

His heart went a little faster.

Perhaps this would be fun, after all.

 

Francesca finally got rid of their new friend at the Caffè Florian.

After the theaters emptied, the attendees often spent two or three hours at the coffeehouses. The Florian in the Piazza San Marco was the most popular with Venetians and visitors sympathetic to their cause. The Austrian soldiers and their friends preferred the Quadri, across the way. Like other social centers, the Florian offered the usual Venetian mix of classes and degrees of respectability.

Among other patrons this evening was the Countess Marina Querini Benzoni. Age might have withered her—she was sixty if she was a day—but it had not sapped her animal spirits or diminished her eyesight when it came to attractive, virile young men.

Three years ago, she'd attempted to captivate Lord Byron.

This night she pounced on Don Carlo.

Once the countess had the “alluring” Spaniard firmly in her clutches, Francesca told Giulietta it was time to leave.

As soon as they were out of the door Giulietta broke into giggles. “Oh, you are wicked,” she said.

“He said he wanted to make an older woman happy,” Francesca said as they started across the Piazza. “How lucky for him. He found what he was looking for without even trying.”

“He would not have found her if you had not pushed into the crowd near her table,” said Giulietta. “What is it? Did you not like him? I found him so entertaining. I like a man who makes me laugh.”

“You like men,” said Francesca, “generally speaking.”

“And, generally speaking, you do not,” said Giulietta.

“You know I'd rather have a dog,” said Francesca. “But a dog won't support me in the style to which I've chosen to become accustomed.”

“I thought Don Carlo was sweet,” Giulietta said.

Francesca pointed to her head. “Too much pomade. When he took off his hat, I thought at first his hair was carved and painted on his head. What does he use, I wonder? Lard? His valet must apply it with a trowel.”

That had given her a jolt: When he took off his hat in the coffeehouse, she saw thick black hair, plastered to his skull and gleaming greasily in the candlelight. The sight hadn't turned the Countess Benzoni's stomach, though. She probably hadn't noticed his head. His lower body was of far more interest.

“Madame.”

Francesca turned. “Drat,” she muttered.

The golden-haired prince of Gilenia strode toward
them, smiling. “At the last, I find you,” he said. “Everywhere am I looking. I had the great hope of us to meet again at the Florian.”

Losing his place to the Russian count had not dampened his ardor for long, it seemed.

Even in the uncertain light near the Campanile, the bell tower of St. Mark's Square, Francesca had no trouble discerning the happy sparkle in his eyes. Once upon a time, John Bonnard had looked at her in that way, and made her heart flutter. The moth to the flame. The old story. The old cliché.

Now she experienced an irrational urge to weep. John Bonnard was a treacherous man. This man was utterly guileless. She hated to disappoint him. It was like kicking a puppy.

But she wasn't sure she wanted him, and pity was not the way to commence an affair. In any case, she knew very well that if she made it too easy, he'd quickly lose interest.

“The café was so crowded and hot,” she said. “And I'm fatigued.”

Instantly his beautiful face was all concern. “But of course,” he said. “This weather so strange in this place. One day so hot and the air like the soup. The next day, cold, with rain and wind. And everywhere madame goes, a crowd happens, to admire her. But please, you will allow me the honor so great, to escort you to your house?”

“Thank you, your highness, but not this night,” she said gently. “Another time.”

“I worry for you,” he said. “These are times of too much danger. Everywhere is revolt, the
insurrection. Only a short time ago is the Duke du Berri murdered.”

“You are kind to worry,” she said. “And you flatter me, putting me in the same category as the heir to the French throne.” Lightly she patted his sleeve. His face lit at the touch.

Her conscience screeched.

“But please be assured,” she went on, “I am in excellent hands. My gondoliers can deal with any would-be brigands or revolutionaries. Good night, your excellency.”

She made her deepest curtsy, offering him a splendid view of her bosom. Giulietta did likewise. Then, while he was still blinking, dazzled by the display, she took Giulietta's arm, and walked on.

They soon passed the Campanile and turned into the Piazzetta San Marco, the smaller square between the Doge's Palace and the Zecca, the city mint. The area was far from deserted at this time of night. Now and again she nodded to acquaintances as they passed, walking to and from the landing place.

She was aware of Giulietta, unusually silent beside her, as they made their way to the gondola waiting at the water's edge.

Only when they were settled aboard the boat and gliding past the palaces bordering the Grand Canal did Giulietta speak. “Poor boy,” she said.

“What would you have me do? Bed him out of pity?”

“I would.”

“I can't,” Francesca said. “I need a lover, a formal arrangement, not a night's amusement.”

“I know. It is not good for one's reputation to take to bed every pretty boy—or man—who appears. Too easy, too cheap, we lose position. One becomes common, a mere whore,
una puttana.
”

Francesca looked out at the boats passing, weaving in and out among their fellows, the lights of their lamps bobbing in the darkness. “Men are investments,” she said. “One must choose carefully, and think of the future.”

“You think Lurenze will lose interest as soon as he has bedded you?” Giulietta said. “I do not think so.”

Francesca shrugged. “I'm not sure what I want at the moment. He isn't the only candidate.”

“You seemed to enjoy his company before,” Giulietta said.

Francesca looked at her.

“Before you saw the servant at La Fenice. He gave you ideas, I think.”

“Of course he did,” Francesca said easily. “As an amusing fantasy, yes. As a lover—impossible. Unless he's a jewel thief.” She grinned. “A very
good
jewel thief.”

Giulietta grinned back at her. Jewelry was a powerful form of financial security. Better yet, unlike bank notes, it was security one might display to the world. Francesca knew—and Giulietta understood—that Lord Elphick gnashed his teeth every time his wife sent him word of one of her acquisitions. It was one delicious form of revenge.

Thinking of him, she laughed, and Giulietta, knowing what she was thinking, laughed with her.

A few hours later

While Zeggio watched, fascinated, James stood at the mirror, carefully removing the thin mustache and beard.

“I've always found simplest disguises the most effective,” James explained. “People sort strangers into categories—servant, foreigner, and so on. Remember, too, that they notice only what's unusual: a scar, a curious mustache, a flamboyant hat. The Florian was well lighted, and being indoors, I was obliged to take off my hat and keep it off. But Bonnard found my hair so revolting, she took no notice of my facial features. The next time she sees me, she won't know me.”

Zeggio nodded. “She remembers the pomade, and the hair flat upon the skull. She does not know it curls.”

Curl it did, in thick, crow-black ringlets. But at the moment, no one would guess that.

“What do you reckon about my hair, Sedgewick?” James said. “Strong soap, or do you want to try scraping it off first?”

“I reckon I wished you'd decided on a wig instead, sir,” Sedgewick said.

“Too easy to lose in a tussle,” James said. “I had no way to be sure her gondoliers wouldn't heave me overboard first and ask questions later. I think she's hired the biggest gondoliers in Venice. That Uliva? Hands the size of hams. Water wouldn't damage this, though.”

“She must expect trouble, signore,” Zeggio said. “The house is protected very well. Two porters.
One on the canal side and one on the land side. We have tried to get into it, but for us this is impossible. Even if we could get in, we do not know what to look for and where to look. How will you do it?”

“I won't,” said James.

Zeggio's dark eyes widened. “No?”

James laughed. “She thought she was so clever, leaving me in Countess Benzoni's clutches. I could have escaped and followed La Bonnard—but to what purpose? When she wants to be rid of a man, she gets rid of him. She'd had enough of me. There was nothing to be gained by plaguing her. There was a great deal to be gained, though, by listening to what people said of her after she left.”

“Prince Lurenze went after her,” Sedgewick told Zeggio. “Where did it get him?”

James had not followed her but Sedgewick and Zeggio had. They blended in easily among the gondoliers and servants idling about St. Mark's.

“I took advantage of the opportunity she offered me,” James said. “The Countess Benzoni is charming, lively, and most informative. I found out more from her in half an hour than I should have learned from Bonnard in a week. This, combined with my own observations, tells me what to do.”