Your Scandalous Ways (6 page)

He needed to get away. He wasn't happy with his performance this night. He'd had everything planned: their meeting and how he'd manage it.

He prepared to dive.

“Where are you going?” she cried. “Where's your boat? You're not going to swim, surely? Wait! I don't even know who you are.”

He turned and gazed into her white, frightened face. He remembered the arrogant sway of her backside as she'd abandoned him in the Florian. He remembered the laughter, promising sin, and the smile, the devil's own smile.

He felt a stab, as of loss, though he'd lost nothing, though he had nothing to lose. Yet he turned away from the water and, with wry resignation, toward her.

“I'm the fellow across the way,” he said.

An hour later

Francesca's neighbor was taller than she'd estimated, based on glimpses of a silhouette in a window. She could not have guessed how splendidly made he was.

At the moment, the leanly muscled body was not so plainly on display as it had been a short while ago. The recollection, however, was burned into her mind, and it made her go hot and cold again as, clean and dry and freshly clothed, he sauntered into the small parlor she reserved, usually, for her close friends.

He wore a curious combination of articles borrowed from the largest of her servants. The shirt and coat were too short in the sleeves, the waistcoat was too loose, and the breeches too baggy. The shoes were neither too large nor too small, but her discerning eye told her they did not shape properly to his feet. Yet he wore the ill-fitting hodgepodge with the same cool assurance he'd displayed as he stood in her gondola, half-naked and dripping.

Francesca could have changed into a dressing gown over one of her naughty negligees. She might have made herself more comfortable in dishabille. She was a harlot, after all, and need not play the modest lady.

Yet after a furious scrubbing to rid herself of the smell, the touch, the memory of the animal who'd assaulted her, she'd had her maid Thérèse dress her in a gown she might have worn when she had guests to tea.

Tonight—or this morning, rather—tea was laughably inadequate.

Arnaldo brought brandy. Her rescuer sipped his appreciatively as he gazed about the comfortably appointed room adjoining her boudoir.

She sat, supported by pillows, upon the sofa. “‘The fellow across the way,'” she said. She took a shaky gulp of her drink. “That is not the most enlightening introduction I've ever heard.”

It was all she'd obtained so far. He'd hustled her inside, allowing no opportunity for questions because he'd been too busy ordering her servants about as though he were lord of the place.

Whatever else he was, he was without question an aristocrat.

“The gossip claims you are a member of the Albani family,” she pressed on into the unencouraging silence. “A most distinguished family, they say. A pope or two in it, I'm told. But now you say you're English.”

Glass in hand, he moved to a large portrait of her that hung on the
portego
side of the room. It was one of several the
marchese
had commissioned in the course of their relationship. This, the largest and most recent, was the only one he'd sent her after she ended the affair.

“My father is Lord Westwood,” her guest said, his gaze still on the portrait. “My mother, his second wife, is Veronica Albani. They come to Venice from time to time. Perhaps you've met them?”

“I'm not usually invited to genteel gatherings,” she said while she tried to place Lord Westwood. Once upon a time she'd had Debrett's Peerage memorized.
Once upon a time she'd understood the intricate family connections of Great Britain's aristocracy. She'd been John Bonnard's political hostess, after all.

She had no trouble at present remembering the names of those who'd cut her after the divorce—and that was everybody. At the moment, however, Lord Westwood was a blank to her. She had no idea where he stood in the hierarchy of noblemen: duke, marquis, earl, viscount, baron.

“I should hardly call my parents genteel,” he said unhelpfully. He looked away from the portrait, studying her face, his own soberly critical. “An excellent likeness.”

Under his quiet scrutiny she felt as awkward as a schoolgirl.

That was patently ludicrous.

You're a notorious slut,
she reminded herself.
A demimondaine. A woman of the world. Act like one.

“No one seems to know your name,” she said. “It's most mysterious. What does it say on your passport, I wonder, and why does no one seem to know this simple thing?”

He shrugged. “Hardly a mystery. I've been in Venice for only a few days, and the curious can't have tried hard to find out answers. As you say, it's a simple thing, easy enough to find out. One need only ask the Austrian governor, Count Goetz, or his wife—or Mr. Hoppner, the British consul-general.” He paused. “I'm James Cordier.”

Then at last her mind made the connection. The Earl of Westwood's family name was Cordier.

“I am Francesca Bonnard,” she said.

“That much I know,” he said. “You're famous, it seems.”

“Infamous, you mean.”

His long stride brought him quickly across the small room to her. “Are you really?” he said. His eyes had widened with what seemed to be genuine surprise, and she was shocked to discover that they were not dark brown or black as she'd at first supposed, but blue, deep blue.

He sat in the chair nearest hers and leaned forward, studying her intently, rather as though she were another portrait whose quality he was assessing. “What dreadful thing have you done?”

Again she had to fight with herself not to squirm.

Scrutiny from men she was used to. What she wasn't used to was being studied as though she were an abstruse line of Armenian. She felt stiff and uneasy. She was aware of heat spreading over her cheeks.

A blush, of all things!
She,
blushing!

She was disconcerted, that was all, she told herself. He wasn't what she was used to. He was reputed to be a scholar. He was reclusive. What surprise was it, then, if he was eccentric, too?

“Perhaps you don't go out much in Society,” she said.

“English Society, do you mean?” he said. “No, I spend little time in England.”

“I'm divorced,” she said. “The former wife of Lord Elphick. It was a great scandal.”

“And does he harbor ill will, do you think?” he said. “Do you suppose he might have hired men to kill you?”

Remembering Quentin's visit, and the sudden interest in those old letters of Elphick's, she'd considered the possibility and quickly discarded it. If Elphick had her killed now, he might get into trouble he wouldn't be able to get out of. She was no longer his despised slut of a wife. Here on the Continent she was a glamorous divorcée with important friends. Her untimely demise would cause an uproar. It would be scrupulously investigated. Not to mention that Elphick couldn't be sure what arrangements she'd made about the letters, in the event of her death. No, killing her was too risky for him.

“Good grief, no,” she said. “I'm more useful alive. He looks so much nobler and more virtuous in comparison to his wicked wife. He can pose as brave and forbearing. No, killing me would spoil his fun.”

“And dying would spoil yours, I reckon,” he said.

Surprised, she laughed. She had not thought she could laugh again, so easily, so soon after a narrow escape from rape and a grisly death—but then she was resilient, wasn't she?

She became aware of an odd stillness about him that seemed to tauten the very air of the room. But she'd scarcely noticed it before it vanished.

“One's first theory is that they were robbers,” he said. “But what a curious way to go about it. It would have been so much easier to knock you unconscious and strip off the jewelry and toss about your skirts for your purse. But this was meant to cause you as much suffering as possible in a short time. I saw it happen from my balcony, and it was
plain that the assault was planned. Since violent crime is rare in Venice, one must conclude that this was deliberate, aimed at you. The motive, though…” He shrugged, in a most un-English way, drawing her attention to his big shoulders.

“You sound like a lawyer,” she said tightly. “You seem to know a great deal about criminals.”

“You sound like someone who doesn't like lawyers,” he said. “You seem to know a great deal about them.”

“I'm a divorced woman,” she said. “My father was Sir Michael Saunders, the man who, single-handedly, nearly destroyed the British economy a few years ago. Yes, Mr. Cordier, I've had a great deal of experience with lawyers. I don't particularly like them. I don't particularly hate them, either. For a woman in my position, they represent an unfortunate necessity.”

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Your position. A divorcée.”

“Divorziata e puttana,
” she said tautly. A divorcée and a whore.

He leapt from his chair as though one of Satan's imps had pricked his arse with a hot fork.

“Good heavens!” he said. “I do beg your pardon. Am I keeping you from your work?”

 

That did it, finally. She stared at James, the green eyes huge in her face, shadowed and so vulnerable. He knew it was simply the aftereffects of looking death in the eye, yet it angered him. Before this, she had been so confident, so arrogant—

Then the too-fragile expression crumbled and she laughed, heartily and long.

His heart skipped a beat and another and went on so, beating raggedly.

He couldn't help that. He couldn't help smiling, either.

She was good, very good, and at last he was beginning to understand—in his gut, not simply in his mind—why she was so deuced expensive and why the men who could afford her paid without the smallest hesitation. This was a rare beauty with a rare exuberance.

She must be great fun in bed.

Small wonder the notoriously fickle Bellaci had kept her for so long.

“Keeping me from my work,” she said, her laughter subsiding to a soft chuckle while the naughty glint returned to her green eyes. “I must tell Giulietta. She'll love that one. But no, Mr. Cordier, you are not keeping me from the streets, because I don't walk them. Besides, you may have noticed that Venice hasn't much in the way of streets. I'm the other kind of harlot. The excessively greedy kind. And I had planned to spend this night in bed—with a
book.
”

“Then it's all too strange to me—at least to the Italian side of me,” he said. “I shouldn't have imagined a woman of your quality would spend a night alone. But then, I'm still trying to imagine what would possess a man to divorce you. Was he enamored of his own sex perhaps? Or was it sheep he preferred?” He waved his hand, as though to dismiss the subject. “But it is none of my affair. I keep you from your book, and perhaps, after all, a book is preferable to a lover.”

“Sometimes,” she said, her mouth curving a little.

It was only a teasing hint of the wicked smile that sent electric shocks of anticipation straight into a man's bloodstream, to speed merrily to his reproductive organs.

The tiny smile was a devilish glimpse of things to come. It might be an invitation. It might simply be teasing.

Whatever it meant, it worked. His temperature was climbing and his brain was already turning over negotiations to his cock.

Slow down, laddie,
he told himself.
You know better.

He knew, far better than most men. He couldn't succumb. He couldn't let her have the upper hand. He'd already decided how he'd play this: hard to get.

“He divorced me for adultery,” she said.

“Shocking,” he said. “I should have thought he had a serious complaint: You'd put arsenic in his coffee or had his drawers starched or beat him at golf.”

She shook her head. “I'm afraid not,” she said. “I only thought of the arsenic after—and then it was too late.”

“It's never too late for arsenic,” he said. “What it is, is too slow. Unless you only want to make him desperately sick. Or to make sure he dies slowly and painfully. For fast work, I'd recommend prussic acid.”

“You seem to know a great deal about these matters.”

He remembered that she'd watched him kill a man—or nearly kill him. James was acutely, embarrassingly aware that he'd been too enraged to pay attention to what he was doing. He'd no idea whether the pig had been breathing or not when dropped into the canal. An unconscious man sinks more or less the same way a dead one does.

She was bound to wonder about a man who could incapacitate another with his bare hands. Clearly, she wasn't the sort who was callous enough not to wonder. He'd met far too many women who wouldn't wonder: Marta Fazi, most recently.

“I do know a great deal,” he said. “In my youth, I fell in with a very bad lot.” Absolutely true. He preferred to keep as close to the truth as possible. So much simpler that way. “The family packed me off into the army, where criminal and violent tendencies can be properly and gainfully employed.” Also true.

“Violence, yes,” she said. “But poison? I'd always heard it was a woman's tool.”

“I come from a long line of poisoners,” he said. “Mother's got some Borgia as well as Medici trickling through her veins.” As he started to set down his glass on the table next to her, he caught a whiff of a light scent. Jasmine?

He carefully placed the glass and straightened, resisting the temptation to lean in closer, to find out if the scent was in her hair or on her skin. “And you, I see, come from a long line of women, eternally curious. I should be happy to…satisfy…your curiosity, but I am obliged to report the incident to the Austrian governor—as I should
have done immediately. They are very strict, as you know, about their rules. Then I must be abroad early. The monks expect me punctually at ten. I shall send you my monograph on popular murder methods of the sixteenth century. My sisters say it makes excellent bedtime reading.”