Jessica stared down at the handsome man lying on her table. She wished she had the courage to enfold him in her arms and kiss away the hundred hurts that had been inflicted in his youth. Instead she took his right hand between hers and began to gently stretch the long fingers. A man with such a hand as his possessed both a great heart and a great pride to go with it. He would disdain any show of pity. Perhaps his loneliness was why he had sought the solace of the church—if he was a priest, that is.
Pressing his lips together in a hard line, Francis turned his head to one side away from her. Jessica knew that he had revealed as much as he could bear. She worked the muscles of his chest—his very broad chest. What would it be like to pillow one’s weary head on his shoulder, even the injured one? Jessica allowed her hand to caress the smooth skin at the base of his collarbone. She bit her lower lip. Very unprofessional, she chided herself. He would think that she was one of Venice’s infamous strumpets—until he saw her face, of course. She worked her thumb deep into his scar tissue.
Lord Bardolph grunted with surprise. “Hold, madonna! I am not a quintain to tilt at.”
Jessica lightened the pressure. “Your pardon, messere,” she murmured. “I think you have tilted at quintains many times,” she added.
A wry smile tinged his lips below the blindfold. “Too many,” he replied. “My…my mentor was determined to make me into a proper knight.”
“From the looks of your body, I would say he succeeded,” she observed lightly, though her mouth was dry. This handsome man was the very devil come to tempt her virtue—or to send her to the stake.
“I joust more with my head, than with my arm. My grandfather taught me the wisdom of that,” he added softly.
Jessica covered him with the blanket and laid her hands over his heart to speed the healing force through him. “A most wise man,” she observed. “No wonder you mourn him.”
He sighed. “Though my mother was not honest in her virtue, my grandfather was indeed true of heart. He treated me as one of his sons and I…I loved him for it.”
Jessica rocked his body with a gentle motion to balance his humors. “You are most fortunate indeed.”
He pursed his lips. “How so, madonna? Fortunate is not a word I would use to describe myself.”
Laying her palm on his forehead, she murmured a prayer to Saint Luke, patron saint of physicians, for the efficacy of her work. Then she observed, “Such a man as your grandfather comes only once in a person’s lifetime. You are fortunate to have recognized his greatness.”
The Englishman turned down his mouth. “I never told him that I loved him.”
Jessica trailed the backs of her fingers down his cheek. “He knows that now, messere.”
A hot ache burned in her throat. She turned to her sideboard and covered her pots of ointments. The desire to kiss those enticing lips had become too strong. What had happened to her sense of decorum? No other man had ever affected her in this way. It must be his sorrow that appealed to her maternal heart.
Jessica wiped her hands on her apron. “I have done for today, my lord,” she said, backing toward the door. “Please dress and rejoin your friend. I will be with you anon.”
She slipped through the welcome portal with Gobbo right behind her. Once safely in the back hall, Jessica sagged with relief.
Gobbo touched her elbow. “Are you unwell, madonna? I thought for a moment in there that you might faint.”
Jessica patted her flushed face with her hands. “It is nothing, dear friend. The room was too warm. I worked too hard. In faith, the English lord will be quite sore by tomorrow morning’s light and speak most ill of me.”
Gobbo cast her an arched look. “I think not, child. That man will bless your name at morning Mass.” Leaving that observation nestled in her ear, he walked down the narrow hall with his lute under his arm.
Jessica leaned against the cool plaster wall for a few minutes until her quickened pulse subsided. Closing her eyes, she inhaled a few deep breaths. What had come over her in there? Why should that handsome stranger cause her mind to flutter and her skin to burn? She again wondered if she were coming down with some dread fever.
Common sense warned her to have little to do with the enigmatic Lord Bardolph. Intriguing rogue! Though she was more sympathetic to the melancholy that he bore in his heart, she still did not trust the man’s motives toward her. They say the devil has a handsome face and speaks with a honeyed tongue. She harbored no further doubt that his garish clothing and outward manner of a pleasure-bent gentleman was nothing but a sham—as much a disguise as the mask she wore to face the world.
On the other hand, she wondered if he was indeed a priest—he seemed far too much a man of the world for that role. She massaged her temples. Yet Venice teamed with clerics who overate, overdrank, slept through confessions, missed Mass and disported with lewd women. If the messere was not a priest, he could still be in the pay of the Holy Office. The mere thought of the Inquisition filled her with icy dread. She had been weaned on the tales her parents had told her of the horrors they had endured before they fled from Spain. Late last year, the pope had sent the Holy Office to Venice with its dreaded instruments of torture.
Jessica shivered. She was a good Catholic girl. She attended Mass nearly every day, fasted and prayed at the appropriate times and led a chaste life. And yet that might not be enough to save her from the flames. In recent weeks, spies of the Inquisition had made it their special business to observe the activities of the marranos like her parents—Spanish Jews who had converted to Catholicism in order to save their lives. By one false look or word, Jessica knew she could be the downfall of her family who lived close to their friends inside the Jewish Ghetto.
No, the somber Englishman in the gaudy clothes was a man to be watched but never trusted—not with her family secrets and certainly not with her heart. She heard Lord Bardolph reenter her antechamber. With a sigh, she slipped on her mask and then opened the door just as Sophia hopped off her chair and planted herself squarely in front of the Englishman.
“You are looking better, messere,” the little woman observed. “Pray do not forget to pay the fee for such good health. We have to eat in this house, you know.” She shot a wry glance at Jobe. “Indeed, your giant has consumed enough provender for a week!”
Before Lord Bardolph could reply to this brazen speech, Jessica intervened. “Hush, Sophia! You insult these gentlemen to the quick with your blunt words.” Do not ruffle their feathers, she silently begged her friend. They could do great damage to us in return.
Instead of growing angry, the Englishman threw back his handsome head and laughed with real mirth. The sound and sight of such a surprising display rendered Jessica speechless. Opening his money pouch, he smiled with added brilliance at her. Her knees weakened.
“Fear me not, little Jessica. The good service you have done for me this day is worth a Turk’s ransom!” He took her cold hand in his and counted out ten ducats into her palm.
She trembled at his touch and at the sight of the pile of money.
He closed her fingers around the coins. “Take these paltry pieces of gold, madonna. You have lightened my heart, so I shall lighten my purse.”
She backed against the door. The coins shivered against each other in her hand. “You are too generous, messere, but I cannot keep such a fortune.” It was blood money! She would rue it later when she would be forced to confess to the Inquisition that she had received a great deal of gold from this man for…for…She couldn’t think what but she knew the Inquisition would turn this outrageous gift to their own hideous purposes.
Sophia tottered on her tiptoes to see the sum that Jessica held. “Do not be overhasty, madonna,” she cautioned. “Gentlemen enjoy being generous.”
The African chuckled in the back of his throat. “My wives know the truth of that.”
Jessica shook her head. She handed back nine of the ducats. “My fee is only one, my lord. To accept any more would be wrong.”
Sophia muttered something under her breath. The great Jobe chuckled again.
With a show of regret, Lord Bardolph pocketed his rejected gold. Then he held out his hand to her with another one of those heart-stopping smiles. “If you will not allow me to pay you for making me into a new man, come walk with Jobe and me to the Rialto where I can purchase you a frippery of your choice.”
Jessica shook her head, though the pleading in his eyes nearly melted her resolve. This could be a trap. The officers of the Inquisition could be waiting for her in the marketplace.
She swallowed hard before she replied. “I am greatly honored by your offer, messere, but I cannot. I rarely go abroad in the daylight.” She touched her mask.
He did not lower his hand. “It is carnival time, madonna. Everyone in Venice wears a mask these days. In fact, Jobe and I must purchase masks of our own so that people will not gawk and point at us. We desire your expert advice on this matter.”
“Most excellent idea!” Jobe agreed.
Jessica refused to listen to the pleading of her heart. She must remain firm in this matter. The sooner the Englishman left her home, the better. “I am sorry, my lord. I pray that you pardon me, but I cannot accompany you. I am unworthy of the honor and—” She hurried her speech before he could object again. “I am expecting another patient within this hour.” Thank heavens her mask covered the blush that her lie had brought to her cheeks!
The gentleman dropped his hand to his side. “Of course! In my gratitude for your healing art, I had forgotten that mine is not the only body or soul whom you solace. I envy your next patient, madonna, for he will enjoy the company that we will lack. When shall I come again?”
Jessica tried not to look at him. He was too charming by half. “In two days, messere,” she replied. Her voice shook a little. “At ten in the morning?”
He again took her hand in his. She trembled at his touch.
“I shall be on your doorstep by the tenth stroke of yon church bells.” He pressed his lips against the backs of her fingers.
Her flesh prickled at his gentle touch. The shock of the brief contact ran through her body, making her flushed and chilled at the same time. A fluttering arose at the base of her throat.
“Pray, excuse me, messere,” she murmured, snatching her hand away. “I feel suddenly—” She pushed open the door and fled to the gloom of the hallway. She sank in a heap on the cool floor tiles.
¡Madre del Dio! I have a fever in truth!
Jobe settled himself against the gondola’s plump red cushions. “Methinks the little healer has bewitched you,” he remarked in English. “How came these sudden merry spirits of yours?”
Francis turned his face toward the winter sun’s rays and basked in their golden gleam. “Tis a puzzlement, I trow. I know not why or how but while the sweet Jessica plied my shoulder with her balm and healing fingers, she also touched my soul.”
He glanced down the canal behind them in time to see their ever-present shadow descend into a gondola. Francis almost felt sorry for Cosma’s hireling.
Jobe cocked his shaven head. “How now? By what magic did she coax away your melancholy?”
Francis stretched out his long legs. Gondolas were eminently practical boats for long-limbed men such as Jobe and himself. “She asked me about my parents—and, God help me, I told her.”
The African knotted his dark brows. “Everything?” he asked, casting a quick look at the impassive gondolier.
Francis chuckled then lowered his voice. “Nay, I have not lost all my wits. She still believes that I am a noble gentleman. But in the brief telling of my tattered background, I felt as if a great weight was lifted from my chest—a weight that I didn’t even realize had been there until it vanished. Is that not truly remarkable?”
A slow grin spread across Jobe’s face. “Not at all, meo amigo. You are indeed a true Cavendish.”
With a frown, Francis pushed his bonnet further back on his head. “Explain yourself, Jobe. I am not in the mood for your riddling answers. My brains are too light today for heavy thoughts.”
The African laughed. “I mean to say that tis no surprise you have finally discovered the hot blood of your heritage. Tis been a long time coming.”
Francis refused to allow Jobe’s darts to puncture his good mood. “Posh! I have always had a passionate nature. Ask any maid in Rome, in Pisa, in Florence!”
His friend snorted. “I do not speak of mere lust. That is commonplace.”
Francis crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. “What else is there?”
“Love,” Jobe replied.
Francis did not open his eyes. Love? How little he understood of that foreign emotion! Only yesterday he had realized too late how much he had loved his grandfather. Love a woman? Francis snorted. Brandon and Guy had been most fortunate to find the pearls of their wives amid all the chaff those two had reportedly enjoyed during their salad days.
On the other hand, Francis’s youth had been spent inside Oxford’s great library. The women he had known were good for a dalliance or witty discourse but not for something more permanent. He had learned that with rare exceptions, a man couldn’t trust the species. Just look at the example of his own mother!
Yet he had trusted Jessica with a quick look into his closely guarded past and the experience rewarded him with a lighter heart. There must be something in that. Francis refused to mull over the matter. Not today.
A gentle thump jostled him from further musing. “The Rialto, my lords,” announced the gondolier.
The day’s pleasant weather had attracted many citizens to the great marketplace in the quayside and nearby campo that was the center of commerce for the Republic. Francis and Jobe strolled amid the late morning’s crush of people. A babel of a dozen languages filled their ears. The aroma from the hundreds of cheeses, fresh fish, fruits and spices assailed their nostrils. Colorful garb of the Venetian dandies and their paramours, the Arab traders, the visitors from Paris and Utrecht mixed with the red shoulder sashes and pom-poms on the hats of the city’s senators.
Francis clapped Jobe on his back between his massive shoulder blades. “Truly tis a gladsome day, my friend.”
Before the African could respond, Francis spied a wooden booth sagging under a load of glistening dark dates.
“Fresh yesterday from the Holy Land, messere,” the fawning vendor assured him.
Jobe and Francis each took a fruit, split it open and tasted the sweet pulp. “You speak the truth,” Francis nodded.
Jessica would like these, he thought. She missed too much of the sweetness that life offered by hiding in that little house of hers on a watery backstreet. She needed a taste of the sun in the middle of winter. Francis snapped his fingers to one of the ferret-quick young boys that lounged about the marketplace.
“Is this one a trusty soul?” he asked Jobe while pointing to the eager lad.
Jobe gave the youth a penetrating look into his eyes. “Aye, meo amigo, if sufficient silver crosses his palm.”
Francis dug into his purse. Both the vendor and the boy wet their lips with anticipation. Francis sprinkled scudos into their outstretched hands. “Take up the best basket of this delectable fruit, my boy, and be like winged Mercury. Fly hence to number sixteen Fondementa di San Felice—do you know the area?”
The youth nodded with a wide grin.
“For such a fortune, methinks your messenger would say ‘aye’ even if he didn’t,” Jobe observed behind his hand.
Francis laughed aloud. The sound pleased his ear. “Deliver these dates to Signorina Jessica Leonardo. Now be off with you!” He waved the boy away.
The lad gripped the brimming two-handled basket. “Whom shall I say sends this gift?”
Francis grinned down at the reed-thin youth. “Tell the madonna it is from one whom she has lately saved.”
The boy repeated the message under his breath, then raced away in the direction of the Rialto Bridge. Francis clapped his hands together with satisfaction. “Tis little enough, Jobe,” he explained. “Indeed, the fair Jessica has eased my heart wondrous much. Mere thanks is not enough. Ah! Look there!”
He pointed to a nearby purveyor of sweetmeats. “Sugared almonds! She will need to replenish her store after your gorging, Jobe. A scudo’s worth, do you think?”
Jobe whistled through his teeth. “Tis four times the amount I ate,” he protested with a grin.
“Good!” Francis replied, again pulling out his purse. Jessica must have almonds to accompany the dates. Sweets for the sweet!
A small pushcart stood nearby filled to overflowing with the first flowers of the year—deep purple violets. Francis needed no second thought. Jessica struck him as the type who loved flowers. He chose the largest bunch.
No sooner had he dispatched his third gift clutched in the hands of another eager messenger, than his attention was attracted by a table laid with colorful ribbons and laces. Scarlet, emerald green, deep butter yellow—how beautiful such colors would look entwined amid Jessica’s raven tresses! She needed color in her sheltered life. She must have ribbons woven from the rainbow.
A fourth messenger quickly followed after the other three, bearing a wealth of ribbons and a fine piece of lace to trim her gown. Jobe only smiled wider as the spending fever ensnared Francis. They roamed through stalls of perfumery, drapers and goldsmiths—all of whom Francis rejected with a sigh.
“Twould be unseemly to give the maid such costly gifts upon so short an acquaintance,” he told Jobe as he tore himself away from a tray of colorful glass bead necklaces. “She would think I sought…um, unholy favors.”
Jobe lifted one of his dark brows with amusement. “What about one of those for Donna Jessica?” He pointed to a swarthy man who held a number of red leather leashes in his hands. At the end of each one, a tiny long-tailed monkey gamboled on the paving stones. “There is a merry creature to make her smile.”
Francis eyed the playful pack. “God shield the fair Jessica! I seek her golden opinion of me, not to raise her ire.”
Jobe squatted and picked up the nearest monkey. It wound itself around his neck. “Women like silly furry things. Twill give her many hours of delight.”
Francis cocked an eyebrow at the brown monkey. “That frolicsome beast would turn Jessica’s ordered household into a fur-flying chaos. Nay, put down the creature, Jobe, and think upon a more proper gift.”
Francis cast a look around the marketplace for a better alternative. He smiled when he saw it. “Ah! The very thing! Beeswax candles to banish winter’s dark hours.” He picked up a thick taper for closer inspection. It had a faint scent of jasmine. “¡La perfezione! The perfect thing! She likes to surround herself in perfume. I’ll send her two.” He tossed a ducat at the pleased candle-seller.
Jobe held his tongue until a fifth young messenger was despatched to number sixteen on the Fondementa di San Felice. Then he rumbled, “I liked the monkey more better.”
Francis glanced at Cosma’s henchman huddling over a nut-seller’s brazier. He chuckled as a wicked idea formed in his mind. “Very well, Jobe, you have prevailed upon me. We will indeed buy one of those hairy creatures—and send it to Donna Cosma. I should not forget my dear mistress amidst my sudden generosity.”
A wide smile wreathed Jobe’s lips. “Most excellent sport!”