Your Scandalous Ways (9 page)

She could smell him. Man smell. The tang of shaving soap and starch and freshly laundered linen. The damp Venetian air clinging to the wool of his coat. All of it mixed with the scent of his skin.

She could feel him: the big, warm, powerful body under the civilized trappings. She could feel the tension in his powerful thighs. She was aware of the heat beneath her, of his arousal.

Something kicked, low in her belly, and heat uncoiled there, serpentlike.

Her hands slid up, to grasp his shoulders, then up again to find the thick black curls, where they tangled. She held him thus, as he held her, and kissed him back, as stubborn and angry as he.

Stubborn and angry and hot and wanting.

His tongue pushed for entry and she gave way, and the taste of him was dark and wicked and exactly what she wanted. He tasted like every sin she'd ever been warned against and committed, every rule she'd learned and broken.

She was distantly aware of sound, a drumming, but there was drumming within, and she didn't know, didn't care, which was which.

She cared about his hands, the long fingers moving down her neck, sliding over the pearls, and over her skin and down to the place where she'd silently invited him a moment ago. He pushed the bodice down and cupped her breast. He broke the kiss and bent his
head. She arched back, to give him room. He kissed her once, long and hard, upon the breast he'd bared, then again, long and hard upon the other.

Then he lifted his head and looked at her, his blue-black eyes glittering in the lamplight.

“You're a very bad girl,” he said hoarsely.

He lifted her up and dropped her back into her seat. Not gently.

Hot need bubbled into rage. She almost bounced up from the seat and wrapped her hands around his throat…

A modicum of sense remained, though, pointing out that he was too big for her, and the attempt would only make her look more ridiculous than she felt already.

She became aware once more of the drumming. Her heart was pounding with balked lust, with fury, but that wasn't what she heard.

It was rain, beating on the cabin roof.

He opened the blinds and peered out.

“Home,” he said, his voice thick. “You lose,
cara
.”

Home? Already?

She yanked open the blinds.

Her house.

She blinked in disbelief.

She looked at him, but he was still gazing out of the window.

“Maledizione
,” he said.

She leaned forward to see.

A large, ostentatious gondola waited at the open water gate, lamps ablaze, as were all the lamps in the
andron.

She could see, within, Prince Lurenze standing near the gates. With him stood Count Goetz.

Cordier turned to her and started to pull up her bodice. She slapped his hands away and quickly covered herself.

She smoothed her skirts and her expression. When the gondola stopped, she was ready. She let Cordier hand her out of the vessel but she pretended she had eyes only for Lurenze. She gave the prince her warmest, most intimate smile and addressed him as though only he mattered, as though the others didn't exist.

“What an agreeable surprise,” she said. “Or ought I not to be surprised? Had I scheduled a
conversazione
and forgotten it in all the recent excitement?”

“No, madame, not at all,” said Goetz. “We are here because we did not wish to lose a minute in informing you.”

His highness only nodded. No doubt he was gathering his wits, which her smile must have scattered.

“A moment after you left with Mr. Cordier, I received a message,” the governor went on. “A man was captured on his way to the mainland in a stolen gondola. We have reason to believe this may be one of the men who attacked you. Mr. Cordier, we have him in custody. I must ask you to come to identify him, to spare the lady this distressing task.”

“All is well,” Lurenze told her. “You must have no fear, madame. I remain to protect you—like the guard dog.” He shot a defiant look at Cordier.

The defiance couldn't quite mask the prince's uncertainty. He had reason to be unsure, she knew.
She'd rejected all of his previous efforts to protect her.

She moved to him. “You are exceedingly kind, your highness. Thank you. I shall be very glad of your company.”

His grey eyes lit. The corners of his beautiful mouth turned up, transforming his expression to pure, unmasked, unashamed happiness.

How could she help smiling up into that face, at so much sweetness?

She glanced at the governor, making it seem that she could scarcely tear her gaze away from Lurenze. “Until next we meet, Count Goetz,” she said. He bowed.

She turned away and took Lurenze's arm. “
Addio
, Mr. Cordier.” She tossed the dismissal over her shoulder and went on to the stairs with Lurenze. She didn't look back.

Later, at the Doge's Palace

James fervently hoped the Austrians had the right man in custody because he needed, very badly, to hurt somebody.

He'd come within a gnat's testicles of losing his wits entirely and taking Bonnard then and there, in the gondola.

You'd think he was a schoolboy with his first tart.

It was the great pearl, tapping against his head as he was losing himself in the silken smoothness and warm fragrance of her breasts. If that light tap hadn't recalled him to the moment, made him re
member where he was, who she was, what he was about…

His face burned, recalling.

Imbecille!
he berated himself.
Idiota!

A fine way to play hard to get.

She would have had him, proved her point, and tossed him aside. She had much larger fish in her nets.

Peridots, indeed. Mere baubles to her, though the set she had in mind would no doubt send the typical younger son deep into the nets of the moneylenders, from which he might never disentangle himself.

Still, he had managed to save himself. He had won, and she was furious. Had Goetz not turned up, with the goggle-eyed boy, James might have provoked her to extend the wager.

I'll give you another chance,
he could have said. Then she might have invited him into the house, and—if he were clever and careful—into her confidence.

But no. Instead, he must spend hours in officialdom, trying to extract information from a ruffian while concealing from the Austrian governor his true purpose.

Such were James's thoughts as he and Count Goetz made their way through the Ducal Palace. En route here, they'd discussed how they would deal with the suspect, and James had succeeded in making Goetz believe the resulting plan was Goetz's. Now, having traversed a dark, narrow passage from the great council chamber, they stood in the State Inquisitor's room.

It was not a happy room. Even one whose na
ture was not fanciful would sense its dark history, as though the souls of all who'd suffered here haunted it.

Fear was an old but reliable tactic, as the Austrians clearly understood. To strike terror into their prisoner's heart, they'd lodged him in the
pozzi
, the “wells.” The narrow, dark, dank cells had once held great crowds of those who'd run afoul of the Venetian Republic. Nowadays, it was a lonely place.

While James and Goetz waited for the man to be unearthed from the prison depths, the governor showed James about this part of the Ducal Palace.

At last the prisoner entered, with guards fore and aft—an unnecessary precaution, given the heavy chains about his ankles.

James stood in the shadows, as he and Goetz had agreed. The prisoner took note mainly of the governor, disregarding James as merely a minion. The interview proceeded in Italian.

It did not proceed very far. For one, the southern dialect the suspect spoke was nigh impenetrable to the governor and difficult even for James. For another, the fellow—who gave his name as Piero Salerno—claimed to know nothing about any lady. He had fallen off a fishing boat, he said. He wasn't trying to steal the gondola. He'd only climbed into it because he was tired of swimming.

That was his story. It made no sense whatsoever and he couldn't be made to budge from it.

Goetz sighed and turned to James. “Sir, do you know this man?”

The prisoner started, apparently having forgotten anybody else was there. Now he craned his
neck forward and squinted into the shadows where James stood.

Though parts of the chamber were dark, as James had advised, the place to which they'd led the prisoner was well lit. Even in poorer light, James would have known the man. He'd seen this face only briefly, but it was his business to notice and remember details.

“This is the one,” he said.

He stepped out of the shadows.

Piero shrank and took a hasty step backward. One of the guards prodded him back into place with his bayonet.

“What a pity,” James said. “I was hoping for the other one. All this one did was row the boat.”

“He is an accessory,” said Goetz. “The penalty is the same.”

“But if he cooperates?” James said. “Perhaps if I spoke to him alone, he would be more confiding.”

Piero's eyes widened. “No!” he cried.

He had not gone far last night, then. Judging by his reaction, he'd seen what James had done to his large friend.

James smiled at him.

Goetz signaled to the guards. The three of them exited the room, leaving James alone with the prisoner.

Speaking in the plainest and simplest Italian he knew, James said, “This has not been a happy night for me, Piero. I had to leave the opera before it was over—I must abandon
Rossini
, of all things! One woman complains to me about her man problems until my ears ache and the other woman is breaking
my balls. I didn't want to come here in the first place. I have better things to do. Lying little mounds of filth like you are sucking from me time I shall never get back. I am not in a good mood and I want to hurt someone. You're not my first choice, but you'll do, you ugly little pile of shit.”

He advanced. Piero tried to back away, but he stumbled on the manacles and fell.

James grabbed one arm and hoisted him up, pulling hard enough to make the prisoner shriek. “I can pull harder than that,” James said. “I can pull it right out of the socket. Shall I demonstrate?”

Piero began to scream. “Help! Help! He will kill me!”

He tried to run to the door, but stumbled again. When James reached down to pull him up, the man tried to scramble away on his backside.

“None of them care if you scream, you reeking pustulence,” James said. “No one cares if I kill you. It will save the government the cost of a trial and execution. But I'll give you a kind warning: After the troublesome women, this noise you make is not improving my humor.”

Once again he jerked the man to his feet. This time James held onto his arm, squeezing hard. Piero whimpered.

“The way to improve my humor,” James said, “is to tell me who you are, who your friend is—or was—and why you attacked the lady. I shall give you to the count of three to begin putting me in a better frame of mind. One. Two.”

“We do it,” the man said. “We attack the whore.”

James squeezed harder.

Tears started from Piero's eyes. “The one you throw in the water is Bruno. I hide and wait for him but he never comes. Then I think you have killed him. And so I steal the gondola and try to go back.”

“Never mind that,” James said. “Why did you come here in the first place?”

“To steal. This is what we do, Bruno and me. We have some trouble in Verona, and so we go to Mira. The whore was there, for the summer holiday. Everyone talks of the jewels she has. But then, she moves from the villa there back to Venice. And so we come to Venice, because it is easier to follow her here than in the little village, where everyone watches everything. We come to Venice, and then we wait for the right time.”

Once he'd begun talking, he babbled on and on. But most of the rest he had to say was irrelevant

All the way to Venice, simply to steal? That made no sense to James. Crime was far easier elsewhere in Italy—in the Papal States, for instance, where corruption was rife. Or farther south, in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. But to come here, where the Austrians ruled? It made no sense.

Still, Piero would not budge from his story. It was theft, mere theft, he insisted. Bruno had only decided to make some fun with a little rape. He'd choked the English woman to keep her from screaming, Piero claimed. “She's a whore. This is what they like, as everyone—”

James flung Piero away from him so violently that the man tripped and fell.

This time James left him where he was.

If he touched the swine again, he'd kill him.

J
ames wasn't as easily finished with the business as he was with Piero. The governor kept him at the Ducal Palace past dawn, dotting every
i
and crossing every
t.

James would have returned to Bonnard's place even at that indecent hour, but he was too conscious of the combined stench of Piero's unwashed body and whatever noxious fumes the swine had acquired from the prison, all of which clung to James's clothes.

He went back to the Ca' Munetti instead. His
servants being up and about by this time, he had not long to wait for a bath. After this, he gave Zeggio and Sedgewick a brief summary of his interview with Piero.

Then James went to bed, telling himself that once his head was clear, he'd find a way through the present difficulty.

He slept for only a short time, because of a dream. It started out splendidly, with Bonnard naked and hurtling herself at him, wrapping her arms about his neck and pressing her luscious body against his. Then Lurenze appeared, and she pushed James away and threw herself at the prince instead.

James woke abruptly, aware he wasn't alone.

He hauled himself up to a sitting position. Sedgewick and Zeggio stood in the doorway, wearing matching worried expressions.

“What?” James said. “What?”

“You was yelling, sir,” said Sedgewick apologetically. “Which you never does, as I was telling Mr. Zeggio here. But it was in Italian, and I couldn't make it out.”

“I tell him, all you say is, ‘Come back here, you she-devil,'” said Zeggio. “I tell him this is no cause for alarm. It is a dream, nothing more.”

“But you was at them posies last night, sir, and—”

“
Pozzi,
” Zeggio corrected. “The prisons, very deep in the ground, like wells.”

“It give you the heebie-jeebies is what I reckoned, sir. On account of that time you was in Paris in that hellhole—the one where them filthy frogs tortured
you. Which is why I said we oughter wake you up. But you woke up on your own.”

James had spent nearly a year recovering from the French interrogation. It was a long time ago: ten years. Pain was easy to forget but every other grim detail remained etched in his memory.

He wasn't the only one who'd been betrayed, but he was one of the lucky ones. Two of his associates had been tortured to death. His scars—the visible ones—had faded. His nails had grown back. And he'd gone back to work, determined to settle scores. But he'd been so much younger then. Now, it would take him years to recover—if he did recover, which was by no means certain. Now he understood, too, that the trail of betrayal was not simply tangled but endless.

I'm getting too old for this,
he thought.

“Find me something to wear,” he told Sedgewick. “And get my shaving things.”

He shaved and dressed quickly, as always. Lingering over his toilette was not in his style.

He was halfway through his breakfast when Zeggio, who'd been sent to ready the gondola, reappeared with a small parcel.

“A maid brings it,” he said. “From Signora Bonnard, she says.”

James stared at the elegantly wrapped parcel.

He set down his coffee, took it, and unwrapped it.

He recognized the shape of the box.

Grimly he opened it.

He didn't need to look up to be aware of Sedgewick and Zeggio, who'd crept closer. They looked down at the contents, then at his face.

He did not throw the elegant box across the room. Peridots were not pearls, diamonds, or emeralds, true. On the other hand, good specimens did not come cheap. Royalty wore peridots, he knew, and this set, the well-cut stones bordered with brilliants, was worthy of a queen. He simply sat, staring at it, seething, though he had no reason—no sane reason—to be angry.

This was a taunt, nothing more. The wager didn't signify to her. The price of the peridots was laughable. That was the message he read in it. He'd been merely a diversion to her, a game to while away the journey—at the end of which she had more important prey.

When he could control his voice, he said, “A little wager, that's all. Mrs. Bonnard certainly pays promptly. She must have had her servant waiting at the shop door for it to open.”

“Very fine articles, those are, sir,” said Sedgewick.

“Indeed they are,” James said. “Most sporting of her. I must thank her. Personally. Zeggio, I thought you were readying the gondola.”

Though he spoke calmly and quietly there was something in his tone that made Zeggio hurry from the room.

The something made Sedgewick's brow furrow. “Sir,” he began.

James held up his hand. “I'll deal with this,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Sedgewick said.

“At least I've learned one thing,” James said.

“Yes, sir. It were a robbery, nothing to do with—”

“I now understand why Elphick divorced her,” James said. “What I don't understand is why he didn't strangle her.”

Palazzo Neroni, a short time later

Francesca was naked.

Or so, at least, would respectable persons describe her—for there was, they would scold, far too much of her on view.

Not only had she failed to don a proper morning gown but she wasn't even wearing decent night-clothes.

Instead of the frumpy cotton nightdress virtuous women wore to bed, she'd donned a shift of exquisite pale yellow silk. Pink silk ribbons tied the deep neckline closed. A pink silk ribbon drawstring tied under her breasts. Over the nightdress she wore a silk dressing gown of a paler shade, closer to the color of cream. In contrast to the simple shift, this was trimmed with miles of ruffles and lace and shimmering embroidery dotted with seed pearls.

As she entered the Putti Inferno, she regretted not having ordered breakfast served in the intimacy of the room adjoining her boudoir.

Well, too late. She must shock the plaster and painted children.

Ignoring them and the pudgy little fingers pointing at the great whore in the room, she directed her gaze to Lurenze, who'd risen, his face lighting up, at the sound of her footsteps. Then his eyes opened very wide, and his mouth fell open. He put his
hand to his heart. He murmured something in his own language.

“Good morning,” she said, with a small, intimate smile.

Arnaldo was there to pull out her chair, luckily, for his highness was temporarily
non compos mentis.

After a moment's delay and more murmuring to himself, he strung some English together. “You look like—like a—a froth,” he said. “Never have I seen anything so beautiful. In my country, the women do not dress so—so—so showing of their beauties.”

“They don't do it in my country, either,” she said.

“I am glad we are not in your country or in my country,” he said.

Francesca became aware of distant sounds, coming from the
portego.
Arnaldo poured her coffee and went out.

She sipped her coffee. She nibbled on a pastry, then put it down because her hands were shaking.

Her heart was beating hard but she went on bestowing sleepy smiles upon Lurenze while she dropped a few innuendoes that went over his golden head.

Arnaldo returned. “Signor Cordier has arrived, signora,” he said. “Do you wish I tell him to come another time?” The servant did not so much as glance at Lurenze when he said this.

“No, send him up,” she said. She did not add,
I've been expecting him.

Arnaldo went out.

“I'll wager…” She began. Then she paused, her smile widening. She couldn't help it. She'd lost the wager, but Cordier would learn what sort of gamester he played with. “I daresay,” she continued, “Mr. Cordier has come to tell us what transpired last night with the man who was captured.”

“I wondered when word would come,” said Lurenze. “So long it takes. Almost I am thinking it is time to send a servant to him for the explanation.”

“Legal matters always take a ridiculous amount of time,” she said. “Rules and regulations. Papers to sign.”

“So true it is,” said Lurenze. “Sometimes, the signing of the papers makes me like a wild man. So many rules. Then all the protocols, to talk to this one, that one. To listen while this one complains and another one wishes to make me do this or that. But when I rule Gilenia, only worse it becomes. I must study madame, who is so patient and gracious.”

“You bring out the best in me,” she said.

He flushed with pleasure.

How easy it was to please him!

She reached across the little table and laid her hand over his. “You are so good,” she said. “I don't know how you came to be that way, but please don't change.”

“Good?” he said with a laugh. “But I did not come to Venice to be good.”

“You came to be naughty,” she said. “I quite understand. But one might be naughty and still”—she stroked his hand—“keep goodness in one's heart.”

Arnaldo came in. “Signor Cordier,” he said.

Close behind, like a great, ominous shadow, loomed Lord Westwood's troublesome son. He strode in, carrying the parcel she'd sent.

A dangerous glitter came into his blue eyes as his gaze went from her to Lurenze's flushed and happy face, then to her hand, resting on the prince's.

 

She's a professional
, James reminded himself while he said the polite thing and she said the polite thing and the ecstatic Lurenze was all princely cordiality.

You're a professional, Jemmy
, he told himself.
Act like one
.

And so the question naturally arose, What would be the most professional way to kill Lurenze?

Slowly Bonnard withdrew her hand from the prince's. “We've only started breakfast, Mr. Cordier. Won't you join us?”

It must be noon at least, probably past it. James had not bothered to consult a clock before he left his house, but the sun told him it was midday. He told himself not to imagine what they'd been doing since he left them…not to imagine how they'd spent the night…not to picture the pair of them, tangled among the bedclothes, lazing in bed as the morning sun poured through the windows.

It was hard not to imagine, given the fluffy lot of nothing she was wearing.

Arnaldo brought a chair to the small, intimate table…set for two. He set another place.

James sat.

Bonnard gave Lurenze a sultry smile. The prince smiled back at her, thoroughly pleased with himself.

And why shouldn't he be? Last night, James had done all the hard work of getting her heated up. All his highness had to do was finish the job.

James became aware of his fingers tightly clutching the parcel in his hand. He laid it on the table.

Lurenze stared at it. “You bring a gift for madame, I see.”

“Not exactly,” James said.

“What's wrong, Mr. Cordier?” she said. “Is it not what you asked for: the perfect gift for your betrothed?”

“You are betrothed?” Lurenze said. “I congratulate you!”

“I am not betrothed,” James said.

“Not yet,” said Bonnard. “But he wishes to be prepared.”

Lurenze nodded. “For me, all is prepared. Soon I shall be betrothed. The girl is not yet decided. One of my cousins, perhaps. Or else a girl of a great family of Italy or Russia or Hungary or one of those places. Half the world they want the alliance with my country, but the Russians plague me most. I wish they would leave me in peace but it cannot be. Alas, the man of my position cannot marry where is his heart.”

He gazed soulfully at Bonnard.

She gazed soulfully back at him.

Excuse me while I vomit
, James thought. He rose.

“Well, then, good-bye,” he said.

The Cleopatra eyes widened.

Ah, she wasn't prepared for that. She thought she could torment him for as long as she liked.

Sorry
, cara.
I've been tortured by experts.

“But you haven't touched your breakfast,” she said.

“But what of the man who is captured?” said Lurenze. “Did you not come to report of this, to put madame's mind at the ease, I hope?”

Damnation. James had forgotten about Piero. He'd forgotten everything he was supposed to remember.

It all went out of his head at the sight of Lurenze's classically handsome, beaming countenance…those guileless grey eyes, which had scarcely seen the world, let alone beheld any of its treacheries and horrors…his pure happiness at having the woman he wanted…his pleasure, untouched by doubt or painful experiences, by betrayals…

And she, stroking his hand, encouraging his delusions…

No excuses, Jemmy. You're letting your cock do your thinking for you.

“I didn't want to spoil your breakfast with unpleasant subjects,” he said.

“On the contrary,” she said. “My appetite is bound to improve, if any progress has been made in this matter.”

She gestured for him to sit down.

James remained standing. He would not stay a minute longer than necessary. He needed to get away and repair his brain.

“The man in custody is the one who rowed the boat,” he said. “He confessed. They were after your jewelry. But the other one, apparently, thought
it would be fun to rape you as well. His accomplice claims he was not trying to strangle you, only to keep you quiet.”

Her hand went to her throat, involuntarily, he could tell. It was as instinctive a reaction as the color washing out of her face.

James's reaction was instinctive, too. He caught her as she began to slump. He lifted her from the chair and carried her to the sofa.

Lurenze, startled, took a moment to react. But before he could shout for servants, James said, “Excellency, pray dip a napkin in water.”

The prince quickly did as he was told and hurried to the sofa, where James sat, his hip against hers. He took the wet cloth and dabbed her forehead, her temples, her cheeks.