The heart is like the sky, a part of heaven,
But changes night and day, too, like the sky;
Now o’er it clouds and thunder must be driven,
And darkness and destruction as on high:
But when it hath been scorch’d, and pierced,
and riven,
Its storms expire in water-drops; the eye
Pours forth at last the heart’s blood turn’d
to tears,
Which make the English climate of our years.
Lord Byron
Don Juan, Canto the Second
James was angry for a hundred reasons: She played a dangerous game with a dangerous man; she was being hunted by some of the worst villains in Italy—and that was saying something; he had been false and she’d hate him when she learned the truth; and she must learn the truth—soon—for her own protection.
There was more, a great deal more, but he was in no mood to contemplate all the nuances of his state of mind. He dealt with it as men usually deal with strong feeling, in physical action. He claimed her in a deep, impatient kiss. His impatience amused her and she laughed against his mouth. She laughed as he pushed her onto her back and pulled up her skirts, and he was aware, through the tumult of feelings, of the quality that had intrigued him from the first: the rare exuberance of her nature. He understood it better now: She felt deeply, experienced deeply, loved deeply…and she would hate him with the same ferocity.
He didn’t trouble to undress her or himself. He unbuttoned his trousers and pushed them down, as he’d done in the Campanile. He was as mindlessly impatient as any schoolboy. He didn’t care about his lack of finesse, and neither did she.
She tangled her fingers in his hair and whispered wicked words, in English and then, more arousing, in her English-accented Italian. He laughed, too. He couldn’t help it. It was heated laughter—at his impatience, his mad lust, and at the sheer joy of her, the joy of touching her, and finding her heated and ready, too, in the soft, sweet place between her legs. Her fingers touched his as he guided himself inside. The touch melted thought and quieted anger, and he was lost again, inside her. He didn’t even try for control this time. Theirs was a quick, fierce joining, a pulsing race to climax and completion.
He rolled off her, taking her with him. He held her tightly, her backside against his groin. He concentrated on the feel of her in his arms, where she fit so perfectly. He tried not to think of what the near future held. He refused to ask himself what he’d do, afterward, when she hated him.
She didn’t hate him now, though.
She’d need to know the truth…soon, too soon. He couldn’t go on playing games with her. They hadn’t time. She was in too much danger.
But she didn’t need to know the truth yet.
They had this night.
The moon had risen during their frantic coupling. Its light streamed faintly through the long window. In its glow, her skin shimmered like pearls.
He kissed the place behind her ear where she liked to be kissed, and she trembled, as she always did when he kissed her there. He kissed the nape of her neck, then drew back and began to undo the fastenings of her dress. The back slid down, revealing the shocking tattoo. He kissed the serpent.
He eased her out of the garments: the gown, petticoats, stays, and shift. She let him play lady’s maid, smiling as he turned her this way and that until she was naked. He took off his own garments, not hurrying this time.
She turned fully onto her back, her hands behind her head, and watched. That was all she had to do—let her green gaze trail over his body—to stir his cock to life.
This time, though, it must wait.
This time he went slowly, exploring and memorizing her.
This time he drank in every inch of skin he exposed and touched. This time he savored the scent of her and let it burn into his memory. This time he learned by heart every curve his fingers traced: the sweet arc of her neck, the slope of her shoulders, the soft fullness of her breasts and the way they fit his hands. He traced the perfect contours of her waist and hips, the luscious swell of her bottom. He followed the gentle turns of her long legs, sliding down to trace the shape of her feet.
He kissed her toes, her ankles, her knees. On upward he went, to the soft, sweet place. While he pleasured her with his mouth and his hands, he memorized the scent of her and the taste of her and the sound of her: sighing with pleasure…laughing a little, too…then crying out softly when she came.
He slid up, kissing her as he went, imprinting her in his mind as he went, while he made it last as long as he could. Finally, when the last thread of his control began to slip, he entered her, and they rocked together, slowly, sweetly. She kissed him, her fingers moving gently over his face and neck. Her mouth followed where her hands went; and these kisses and her touch, so loving, stabbed him to the heart a hundred times.
He kissed her in the same way. His were traitor’s kisses, but tender for all that, most unfortunately for him.
And when at last their bodies pulsed together, he surrendered with more regret than he ought to feel or wanted to feel. He let himself be swept away, on the silvery tide, for the last time.
For the second time in less than a day, Francesca slept like the dead. She might have gone on sleeping, if she hadn’t felt him stirring beside her. Then she became aware of the noise outside.
While she was still half-asleep, he was up, pulling on his trousers and moving to the window. “That bitch,” he said. “Is she mad? Or…Ah, I see.”
Francesca came fully awake. After some fumbling about, she found her shift. Pulling it over her head, she hurried to the window.
Across the canal, flames were leaping from the ground floor of the Palazzo Neroni.
“Good God!” She stared in horrified disbelief for a moment. Then she turned away and began hunting for her clothes.
“Stop it,” he said. He grasped her upper arm and drew her upright. “I was fooled, too, at first. But your house is not going to burn down. They daren’t risk that. It’s a diversion.” He led her back to the window. “Look. They’ve used some sort of incendiary device. Fireworks, perhaps. It’s meant to make a lot of show and noise. Wakes people up in the dead of night and throws them into a panic. Your servants will all be running this way and that, leaving the place unguarded, and—”
“What are you saying?” she said. “We can’t stay here. Someone could be hurt.”
“It’s a diversion,” he repeated carefully, as though to a child.
Francesca thought he meant to say something else but he paused, his gaze upon her but seeing through her or past her. Then he nodded. “It’s a trap, very possibly. The last thing you want to do is hurry over there. Someone may be waiting for exactly that.”
“For me,” she said.
“Yes.”
Simple panic about her servants and house gave way to a darker, more insidious feeling. She felt as though the ground beneath her was shifting, and she wasn’t sure where to step, where it was safe to step. “What do you mean?” she said. “Why me? What do you know of this?”
“I’m going to tell you,” he said, “and you’re going to hate me.” He released her arm.
“Cordier.” She felt sick. She’d trusted him. She wanted to trust him still. And yet she couldn’t shake off the feeling that she stood on uncertain ground. What had he to tell her? She remembered the first night, the night he’d killed a man too easily.
“But before I tell you,” he said, “I need to steal your clothes.”
“You what?”
He didn’t answer and she could only stare, trying to make sense of what made no sense. Of all the answers she’d awaited, some good, some intolerable, this was the last, the very last she could have imagined.
She stood, mouth agape, while he hurriedly gathered up her clothing from the floor. He straightened, clutching the garments to his chest. “I have to be you,” he said.
The sick dread washed away. She wasn’t sure whether she ought to laugh or cry. She knew of men who liked to dress in women’s clothes. Some were extremely virile. Even so, she was not happy.
“They won’t fit,” she said.
He hugged the garments to him. “We’ll make them fit.”
“Cordier, you’re nearly twice my size, and that’s my second favorite gown!”
He looked down at the clothing he held in the way a child might jealously guard a favorite toy. “I wasn’t worth your favorite gown?”
“My favorite gown is ruined! You threw it—with me in it—into the canal!”
“I didn’t throw you,” he said. “You threw yourself.”
“You looked as though you were going to throw me,” she said.
One side of his mouth quirked up and he looked like a boy, the wickedest boy who ever lived. He crossed to her, still clutching her garments. “God, I’ll miss you,” he said. He kissed her hard. Her body melted, and most of her mind with it. But something wasn’t right. He’d distracted her, about the dress. A diversion?
He drew away. “I’ll be back soon,” he said.
“Tell me where you’re going,” she said. “Tell me what you mean to do.”
“It will take far too much time to explain.”
“No, it won’t. I’m not an idiot, Cordier.”
But he was already through the door. She went to the threshold, and watched him stride down the portego.
“Cordier,” she said.
“Later,” he said.
She swallowed an oath but she refused to run after him in her shift, and let all his servants gawk at her…for free. Not that running after him would stop him doing whatever he meant to do.
“Don’t you dare spoil it,” she called after him.
James had donned women’s garments before. But those had been carefully selected, cut to fit large women and adapted to his height and broad shoulders.
Bonnard’s gown was far too small, smaller than he’d realized until he was down in a musty office off the andron, trying to get into it.
“We’ll have to cut it, sir,” said Sedgewick.
“You can’t cut it,” James said. “She’ll kill me. This is her second favorite gown, and I’ve already ruined her favorite one.”
Sedgewick gave Zeggio that aggravating look. “Sir, we haven’t time to unstitch it,” the valet said too patiently.
“No, no,” said Zeggio. “To remove the sewing is unnecessary. Here is what we do, signore. Very easy. We leave undone the part where she keep her breasts.”
“The bodice,” said James.
“So. Everything there we leave it open. Then I think it is possible to bring it up, so, from the floor.” He made a gesture descriptive of pulling a garment up over the hips. “Here”—he indicated his hips—“you are not so big as here.” He gestured at his chest and shoulders. “Recall, it is not needed to see all of the gown. From here is enough.” He indicated the area from his waist down. “Enough to show the color and to cover your legs, to hide the pantaloni. You put the shawl over your head, over the top of you, and no one can see that the neck of the dress is around your middle. It is night time. Even with the moon, how much can they see of you, when you are inside the felze?”
“Good point,” James said. He should have thought of it. He should have seen instantly what to do about the gown. He was used to thinking on his feet.
“You’ll be able to move easier, sir,” Sedgewick said. “Want your arms free, for when they try to kill you.”
Of course James needed his arms free. He knew that. The whole point was to trick the villains into attacking him—and the gown was bound to be spoiled anyway.
What difference would it make? She was going to hate him no matter what he did.
Ah well. For king and country. One more time.
They’d locked her in.
After she’d reentered the room, a servant brought Francesca a tray of food and drink. When he left, he closed the door behind him. She assumed he was shielding her scantily clad body from the household’s curious eyes.
Eating would give her something to do while she waited but she had no appetite. After staring at the food for a time, she went back to the door. Perhaps someone in the household knew what the master was up to. She was a seductress, she reminded herself. She could seduce the information out of somebody.
The door wouldn’t open.
She tried the other two doors. They wouldn’t open, either.
Locked up for her own good or for his convenience? He probably assumed the two were the same. Who wanted a pesky female underfoot?
She considered screaming, and quickly realized it was pointless. He’d given orders and his servants would obey him. Hell, her servants obeyed him.
She paced for a time, and realized she was rubbing her arms. He’d left her nothing to wear but the shift she’d donned. Though the night wasn’t very cold, a fire burned in the grate. All the same, she couldn’t seem to get warm. She pulled up one of the rugs and wrapped it about her. But the chill came from within, from doubt and its favorite companion…dread.
She made herself think, calmly.
He had told her that the fire and noise was a diversion and a trap. Someone was at or near the Palazzo Neroni, waiting for her, he said. She knew they weren’t after her jewelry. They wanted the letters. They’d given up trying to search for them and meant to make her reveal where she’d hidden them.
Elphick must be in a panic.
Finally, after five years.
But he’d no reason to worry previously. He’d ruined her so thoroughly that no one would believe anything she said about him. At the time, even she hadn’t been sure the letters signified what she thought they did. Yet she knew they must be important. Otherwise, why should he keep them in a locked drawer?
Quentin’s visit during the summer had erased any remaining doubts. If those letters weren’t important, he wouldn’t have asked for them, and come back, repeatedly, trying to persuade her to give them up. He’d said he and his associates had gathered other clues, parts of a puzzle they’d been trying to assemble for years.
The trouble was, knowing how devious and ruthless her former husband was, she found it all too easy to believe he’d sent Quentin.
Naturally Elphick would want to tie up loose ends, now that he’d grown so popular. He had hopes, she knew, of replacing Lord Liverpool as prime minister. Meanwhile, thanks to her letters, Elphick was aware that she traveled in high circles, among influential men. Foreigners, yes—but some foreigners had influence at Whitehall. An important foreign nobleman or royal would be heeded, where a discarded wife would not.
She remembered what Magny had told her about Cordier’s parents. They’d risked their lives to save French nobles and others from Madame Guillotine. There were many foreigners with similar sympathies, who’d be happy to bring down a traitor.
Elphick had reason to be afraid now, and thus reason to act—as Magny had warned her more than once recently.
But Magny didn’t trust Quentin any more than she did.
Magny trusted nobody.
She would be wise to do the same, probably.
Restless, she moved to the window. The moon, past its full but still three-quarters visible, bathed the canal in its glow. The excitement across the way seemed to be dying down, as was the fire. Few onlookers remained on the nearby balconies.
Cordier was right, then. It hadn’t been a real fire. In these ancient houses, fires were rarely doused so quickly and easily. It was ironic, wasn’t it? to be in the middle of the sea, in a structure built on wooden poles in water, and watch a house burn to the ground. But she’d seen that happen during her first year here. The Doge’s Palace had burned to the ground several times over the centuries, she’d been told.
Still, those had been real fires and this was a diversion, according to Cordier. And he…
I have to be you.
She saw her gondola start across the canal. A woman sat inside…wearing her red gown. The color stood out against the black, even at night, as Francesca had wanted it to do. She loved the drama of a vivid color against the black of the gondola. And what could be more dramatic than red?
She pressed her nose to the window.
I have to be you.
It was he.
He had to be her because he was the bait.
Her heart thumped once, hard, then beat so violently that she couldn’t draw her breath.
She watched the gondola make its away across the canal. It had but a short distance to travel. As it came to a stop, the water gates flew open. Several dark figures burst through and leapt onto the gondola, pushing the gondoliers into the water.
In an upraised hand, a blade gleamed in the moonlight. The one holding it lunged toward the felze.
It was an ambush, and they’d taken no chances this time, James saw.
This time there were not merely two villains but half a dozen at least. They must have secreted themselves somewhere on the ground floor during the uproar. Now they spilled out through the gates into the gondola.
Uliva and Zeggio were expecting an attack, but not in these numbers. As he was drawing his knife, James saw the two gondoliers thrown overboard. The man coming at him, knife in hand, hesitated when James burst from the cabin and went straight at him. But James’s foot caught in the hem of the gown, and down he went, sprawling face first. He felt rather than saw the man move, and rolled aside before the knife could plunge into his back. He kicked out at the ruffian’s ankles, and the fellow crashed to the deck. James rolled up onto his knees and raised his own knife.
“Look out!” a female voice screamed.
He dodged, reacting instinctively, and the club whooshed past his head and slammed onto the deck.
“Aiuto! Aiuto! Help! Help! Murderers!”
The feminine screams pierced the nighttime quiet. In the distance, dogs barked and howled. The men in the boat froze briefly, eyeing their surroundings. People rushed out onto their balconies, everyone shouting.
While his assailants were looking wildly about them, James attacked. He got the club from the one who’d tried to break his skull. Meanwhile Zeggio clambered back into the gondola and subdued the one with the knife.
The others were trying to get away, but Bonnard’s servants had rushed down to the water gates. Leaving the villains to them, James turned his attention to the direction from which the screams had come. He saw her, then, clinging to a gondola mooring.
She could swim to the house, Francesca told him indignantly as he pulled her into the gondola. It was only a few feet, she pointed out. She was only catching her breath after screaming.
She found herself swiftly transported from the gondola to the andron.
All of her servants were there, some with villains in tow, all of them brandishing improvised weapons: candlesticks, kitchen knives, pots, trays, and bottles. They lowered the weapons as Cordier pulled her inside.
He gave her a shake. “Don’t ever.” Another shake. “Do that.” Shake. “Again.”
“I was creating a diversion,” she said.
“You’re creating a diversion, all right,” he said. “You’re wearing a shift that’s soaked through. You might as well be wearing nothing. And everybody’s looking.”
“That will never do,” she said. “I’m a harlot. They must pay to look.”
“I’m going to kill you,” he said. He turned away. “Zeggio, stop gawking, and fetch the lady’s shawl before she catches her death.”
Francesca wasn’t thinking about being cold. She was taking him in. He had on his shirt and waistcoat as well as her gown, which he wore backward, the bodice hanging over his bottom.
He noticed her studying it. “It didn’t fit,” he said.
“I told you that.”
Zeggio approached with the shawl. Cordier snatched it from him and wrapped it about her. Then he marched her to the stairs.
Thérèse pushed her way past a pair of kitchen maids. “Oh, madame,” she said.
“I know,” Francesca said. “He’s ruined my second favorite gown.”
“It isn’t ruined,” Cordier said. “I took pains not to get blood on it. Did you notice that I did not jump into the canal to rescue you this time? Look.” He whirled about, so gracefully, as though he’d been wearing skirts all his life.
She giggled. She couldn’t help it. He was an excellent mimic. She hadn’t realized…
A mimic.
A host of images crowded into her mind: The comical Spaniard who moments later turned into someone more disturbing—the long-legged man lounging at the door of her gondola…later, the same man sweeping off his hat in the Caffè Florian and making a flourish of a bow…his black hair glued down with pomade. Countess Benzoni looking not at his hair but at his tall, strong body. This tall, strong body.
Another tall, strong body appeared in her mind’s eye. She saw again the long, muscled legs in servant’s breeches: the servant at La Fenice who spilled wine onto Lurenze’s trousers…the servant with the mouth-watering physique.
This physique.
She remembered what he’d said a short while ago, before he’d taken her gown: I’m going to tell you, and you’re going to hate me.
“You,” she said. “That was you.”
He stilled, his playful expression fading, his eyes wary. “What was me?”
“You,” she said, searching for words, unable to find them among the images churning in her mind: the Campanile, the lovemaking, the seraglio, the lovemaking. “The servant. The Spaniard. You. Whoever you are.”
His expression hardened. “Thérèse, you’d better take madame upstairs,” he said.
She turned to Thérèse, snatched the tray from her, and threw it at him. He dodged and it struck the floor with a crash. “You weasel!” she cried. “Donnola!” She went on in Italian, the Italian of the streets, “You lying sack of excrement. I should have let them kill you. I hope they do, and you rot in hell. Come near me again and I’ll cut off your balls.”
She stormed up the stairs. Thérèse hurried after her.
James watched her go. He cleared his throat. “That went well, I thought.”
“Yes, sir,” said Sedgewick.
“Signore, it is nothing,” said Zeggio. “Women, they always say they will cut off the balls. It is like when the man say, ‘Tomorrow, I will respect you still.’ It means nothing.”
“It doesn’t signify,” James said. He looked toward the servants, all of whom regarded him with the same disappointed expression. Even the villains wore that look. They all expected him to run after her and make a great scene. A lot of screaming at each other, then a lot of lovemaking.
Italians, he thought.
Then he remembered: He was Italian, too. “Per tutti i diavoli dell’inferno!” By all the devils in hell!
He ran up the stairs after her.
“Vai al diavolo!” she shouted back. “Vai all’inferno!”
Go to the devil. Go to hell.
Ah, yes, the usual intelligent exchange.
“You ungrateful, impossible woman!” he shouted.
She’d reached the archway leading to the piano nobile. She paused and turned to him. Her exotic eyes were molten green fury. “You black-hearted, fraudulent swine!” she cried. “You are nothing but trouble, and you’ve done nothing but cause trouble from the day you came. I had a good life, a beautiful, peaceful life—until you came to Venice!” She swung round and marched damply down the portego, leaving wet footprints behind her.
“Your life was merda and you know it!” he shouted. “None of this would have happened if you’d owned a grain of sense. You started this!”
“My life was perfect!”
He’d caught up with her. She quickened her pace but he stayed with her. “A perfect lie,” he said.
“You’re a fine one to talk. I don’t go about pretending to be—”
“That’s all you do!” he snapped. “Pretend and play games and lie! Shall I call you an actress? It’s a gentler word—and you’d say that acting is what your profession requires. It’s the same for me.”
She turned into a doorway. Thérèse tried to close the door but he pushed through. “It’s the same for me,” he said more quietly. “And can we not talk about this in front of the servants?”
“Why don’t I stab you in front of the servants instead?” she said.
James looked at Thérèse. “Allez-vous en,” he said very quietly.
“Don’t you dare,” her mistress said.
Thérèse darted one look at her employer and one at him, then she hurried past him, out of the room.
“Thérèse!” Bonnard started after her.
James blocked the doorway.
“I hate you,” she said.
Of course she did. He’d lied to her from the start. He’d betrayed the trust of the innocent girl-ghost in her eyes.
He looked down at himself, at the gown he’d taken without explanation, because he was afraid of what would happen after he explained. He stared at the gown he’d taken when he left her in that cowardly way…after they’d given themselves to each other in the way that lovers, true lovers, did.
He pushed the gown down over his hips, and it fell to the floor. He stepped out of it and picked it up. He held it out to her.
She snatched it from him and pressed it to her bosom, heedless of the damp shawl and the sopping shift clinging to her body, and the stains the wet would leave in the silk.
“I know you hate me,” he said. “I know you can’t bear the sight of me. Just tell me where the letters are, Francesca, and I’ll go.”