For instance—gentlemen, whose ladies take
Leave to o’erstep the written rights of woman,
And break the—Which commandment is ’t
they break?
(I have forgot the number, and think no
man Should rashly quote, for fear of a mistake.)
Lord Byron
Don Juan, Canto the First
She’d fainted because she was not used to running, Francesca told them as they fussed over her in the gondola. It was Lurenze’s gondola, fortunately, one of the large and ornate vessels normally used for ceremonial occasions. But princes were allowed to be ceremonial whenever they felt like it, and the four of them were a degree less cramped than they would have been in her gondola.
“Have you ever run in stays?” she said to James. “Oh, why do I ask you? Of course you have. But you’re a man, and your lungs are larger.”
He was chafing her wrists. “You should not have run.”
“Don’t scold,” said Giulietta. “She takes great risks for you. Even to your former amorosa she tries to be gentle and kind.”
“Fazi is not my former amorosa,” Cordier said.
“What then?” said Francesca. “You made quite an impression on her. Something about ‘sweet lovemaking,’ as I recollect.”
“He is a man,” said Lurenze. “It is natural to wish to be sweet to the woman. What, is he a great boor—What is the word you told me, my sweet one? The word you say for these persons, ignorant and with no manners?”
“Da cafone,” Giulietta said. “This is the term you seek, I believe, your celestiality.”
“Yes, like that. The man of ignorance and low breeding is careless of the feelings of the woman. But the true gentleman is always gallant, even to the woman who is of a low position.”
“Even when she is beneath him, you mean, your supremeness?” said Giulietta.
“You know what I mean, naughty girl,” said Lurenze. But he chuckled and added, “It is a very pretty joke with words you make. Naughty but most amusing. I must remember it.”
“Fazi was business,” Cordier said, his voice oh-so-patient. “I made an impression because I stole her emeralds. Which, by the way, were not hers. They’d been stolen from their proper owner.”
“Did you make sweet love to the proper owner as well?” Francesca asked.
“No,” he said between his teeth. “I returned them to him. They happened to belong to a royal treasury, and the party who’d lost them was able to provide something of value to certain other parties with whom I was associated. And that is all I am going to say about it.”
“It is politics,” Lurenze said, nodding wisely. “I know of these things. Please do not be of too much curiosity, ladies. But Mr. Cordier, we must tell something to the governor. He will hear very soon of the disturbance at the Riva del Vin. You must advise me what to say. I do not wish to put in my mouth my feet.”
“We’d better go to the Ducal Palace,” Cordier said. “Someone will be waking Count Goetz with the news. It might as well be us. But you,” he said, reverting to Francesca, whose hand he still held in his big, warm one. “You we’re taking home first. And you must promise to go straight to bed.”
“I promise,” she said. “I haven’t the wherewithal to argue. I haven’t even the energy to make naughty innuendoes.” She looked at Giulietta. “I must leave that to you, my dear.”
“No, no.” Giulietta took her other hand and kissed it and held it against her cheek. “This is no joke to me. I know you are tired and troubled. I will stay with you tonight. The men must go and do their manly things and have their plots and conspiracies and politics. It is too boring. Me, I would like a little something to eat, a little something to drink, and then to be lazy. We put our feet up, near the fire and maybe we look up and count all the little penises on the ceiling.”
“That sounds delightful,” said Francesca.
“And tomorrow night, when we are rested and ourselves again, we go to the opera.”
“An excellent plan.”
“And perhaps the men will join us there, if they promise not to speak of boring politics and the other women whose hearts they break.”
Cordier attempted to speak. “I did not break any—”
“Say, ‘yes, we promise,’” Lurenze advised. “To agree is more simple.”
“Yes, I promise,” Cordier said.
Francesca and Giulietta spent a pleasant night together. They did not sit in the Putti Inferno counting infant organs but adjourned to Francesca’s boudoir, where they ate a little and drank a little and talked a great deal. And when at last they could no longer keep their eyes open, they climbed into Francesca’s great bed, and murmuring drowsily of this and that, finally went to sleep.
There was nothing wrong with a man in bed, as Giulietta said. In fact, there was usually a good deal right about that. But sometimes, one wanted only to be alone. And sometimes one wanted only to be with a good friend.
Being with her friend quieted the turmoil in Francesca’s mind. To Giulietta she could speak freely of Elphick and Marta Fazi and why she’d felt sorry for Marta and hated her at the same time. And she could believe Giulietta’s reassurances that Francesca had done the proper thing in offering the sapphires. She’d acted decently and generously—and it was not Francesca’s fault the other woman was too ignorant to appreciate it.
As to chasing Marta Fazi, Giulietta understood that, too.
“Me, I would like to shake her until her teeth rattle in her head,” Giulietta said. “‘How can you be so greatly stupid?’ I would say. ‘Why take the chance to be hanged or have them cut off your head—for a man? What man is worth this? Where is your brain?’ Me, if I could be in her place, do you know what I would do? I would make a pretty curtsy to you and I would say, ‘Thank you, lady. This is a very beautiful gift. And this man who is with you? Now I look more closely, I do not remember that I have ever seen him before. Good-bye.’ And then I would tell the man with me to put away his knife. ‘Venice is too wet,’ I would tell him. ‘Let us go to another place, far away, where there is less water and they speak a language I understand.’ This is what I would do.”
“But you would never be in that situation,” Francesca said, “because you have a brain and a good heart.”
“All the same, we must remember: Without the grace of God, there is where we go.”
And with such talk, and the philosophy of her friend, Francesca found herself more at peace than she’d been in a very long time. As she’d told Lurenze, it was over.
The long, demented game she’d played with Elphick was over at last. She was finished with that and she felt heart-whole, finally.
She hadn’t realized one nasty little thorn had remained in her heart for all this time. She only knew it now, because it was gone, and she breathed free, at last.
As to Cordier…
“I think this one is to keep,” was Giulietta’s considered opinion when Francesca turned to this subject. “You know—like Countess Benzoni and her devoted Rangone. This one, I think, is devoted to you.”
“We’ll see,” Francesca said drowsily. “And Lurenze?”
Giulietta gave a sleepy smile. “Oh, he is delicious. I fear he will grow bored with me long before I am bored with him. But this is the gamble I take. And I take it with my eyes open.” Then she closed her beautiful doe eyes and fell asleep.
The following afternoon found Francesca at Magny’s palazzo. He’d sent a note, demanding to know what had happened: He’d heard the most ridiculous rumors.
He was not pleased with her account. She did not expect him to be pleased. He objected to her going into deserted squares in the middle of the night to meet villainous women. He objected to her offering her sapphires to a lunatic felon. He was speechless with rage when she told him how she’d chased Marta Fazi to the canal’s edge.
“Are you quite, quite mad?” he demanded, when he found his voice again.
“I was angry,” she said.
“That does it,” he said. “From now on—”
He was unable to complete the sentence because a servant entered to announce that Mr. Cordier had arrived and sought permission to see the count.
“Of course he has permission,” Magny said irritably. When the servant went out, Magny said, “I don’t understand all this ceremony. He sent a note this morning. He had a private matter to discuss, he said.”
The so-called count rose and went to his writing desk. “There.” He held up a thick piece of expensive writing paper.
Francesca, who’d followed him, took the letter from him. It bore only a few lines. She looked at her father, her eyebrows raised. “How formal he is.”
“Something to do with my borrowed identity, I’ll wager,” he answered in a low voice. “I daresay Quentin asked awkward questions.”
“Signor Cordier.”
The servant stood aside and Mr. Cordier entered. He was even more elegant than usual, in a dark blue tailcoat over a spotted waistcoat with shawl collar. His pristine white trousers had stirrups to hold them in place over the gleaming boots.
Francesca casually dropped the letter onto the desk.
Cordier greeted her with excessive politeness. Amused, she followed his lead. After a brief exchange of banalities she said, “I know you wish to meet privately with monsieur. I’ll see you later. At La Fenice?”
She moved past him, letting her skirts brush his legs. As she passed she murmured, “Perhaps you could come in your servant disguise. That would be…exciting.”
“I might,” he said. More audibly he added, “There’s no reason for you to leave, Mrs. Bonnard. You might as well hear what I have to say to Count Magny.”
She was curious. The man pretending to be Magny expected her to tell him everything. He did not return the favor. Most blatantly, for example, he had failed to tell her he was not dead. He’d simply appeared one day in Paris, and frightened her out of her wits.
Cordier turned his attention to her provoking parent. “Sir, I won’t sicken you with maudlin speeches. Plain and simple, then: I seek your permission to marry your—er—this lady.”
Francesca felt her jaw drop.
Magny was, if anything, even more shocked. He put his hand to his heart. “You take my breath away,” he said in a low, shaky voice. “Will you really? Marry her, I mean?”
“I see no alternative,” said Cordier.
Francesca found her wits and her voice. “I do,” she said. “Marry?”
“Yes, please,” said Cordier. “I am fearfully in love with you.”
“Yes, I know you are—but marry? Have you taken leave of your senses? Why would you wish to spoil a perfectly good liaison by marrying?”
“Because I want only you, my sweet.”
“Of course you do, but I am not at all sure I want only you,” she said.
“Francesca, really,” said her father. “Here is a man, willing to make an honest woman of you, in spite of all you’ve done—”
“I don’t want to be an honest woman! When will the pair of you get it through your thick heads?”
“I only want to see you happy and settled, child,” said Magny. “And I should like not to be fretted to an early grave. And that is no way to talk to your—erm—elders.”
“Then I shan’t talk at all.” She stormed out of the room.
To her dismay and displeasure, Cordier didn’t follow her out.
She made herself walk quickly down the portego but she couldn’t help listening for footsteps. None came.
She hurried down the stairs to the andron and out to her waiting gondola.
Magny looked at James. “Are you sure you want to marry her?”
“Yes.”
“She’s impossible.”
“So am I. Who can blame her for being a trifle skittish?”
Magny looked at the door through which she’d dramatically exited. “Are you not going to chase her, fall to your knees, vow undying devotion and the rest of that revolting nonsense?”
“No.”
“Well, then, would you like a drink?”
“Yes. Yes, thank you, I would.”
That evening
Francesca gazed resentfully out of the gondola window at the Ca’ Munetti, whence no devoted lover had come or even sent a note, the horrid tease.
She didn’t care, she told herself as her gondola continued on, leaving the two houses to stare at each other across the canal. She would have a wonderful time tonight.
She’d had a new gown delivered, and that was a lucky thing, for she’d lost two or was it three of her best dresses—and she’d no one but herself to blame for getting entangled with a rogue, and an overbearing one at that.
Marry him, indeed.
She recalled the delicious bit Byron had sent her, from the Third Canto of Don Juan, which he was still working on.
There’s doubtless something in domestic doings
Which forms, in fact, true love’s antithesis;
Romances paint at full length people’s wooings,
But only give a bust of marriages.
And rightly so, she thought. There was nothing like marriage to ruin a fine romance.
And nothing like a little rivalry and jealousy to bring a man to his senses.
The new gown was black crepe, trimmed in black satin with a subtle twining of silver threads. It was cut very low in front and back. Compared to other gowns, it was almost starkly plain. Which made it a perfect backdrop to set off her splendid diamond suite, whose focal point was a necklace of capped drops. The girandole earrings were among her favorites.
She saw herself against the blue backdrop of her opera box, flirting with every handsome gentleman who entered it. That would teach Cordier to take her for granted.
Of all things, to ask her impossible father for her hand in marriage—as though she were a chit from the schoolroom who couldn’t be allowed to make up her own mind and hadn’t learned all she needed to know about marriage…
A form appeared upon the fondamenta nearby, as the gondola was about to turn into the next canal. It was tall and—
And it leapt lightly onto the gondola. The vessel swayed.
Uliva swore. So did Dumini.
“What would you have me do?” came a familiar, deep voice, indisputably Italian. “When I try to speak to her in a proper place, in her father’s house, she storms away in a temper. Here she cannot get away from me.”
With that, Cordier ducked into the felze, closed the door, and sank into the seat beside her.
Francesca looked the other way, out of the window while her heart raced with anticipation.
“Very handsome diamonds,” he said, incurably English now.
“The set was made by Nitot,” she said, naming the jeweler who’d assembled gems for French royalty, from Bourbon to Bonaparte and back again. “Some of the stones belonged to King Louis XIV. It was given to me by a very handsome, amusing, and devoted marchese.”
“I know who you mean,” he said. “But my mother’s family is older and nobler than his. And my mama will give you a much warmer welcome than his would ever do. His mama is a great snob, because her family is bourgeois. My mama, on the other hand, will be delighted that I’ve found a wife with exquisite taste in jewelry. She will not fuss over trifles, such as how the jewelry was obtained. And you know I would never fuss, because I’ve obtained jewelry by more disreputable methods.”
The trouble with him was, he was honest. An honest rogue. She turned to him. He was in elegant evening garb, all black, with a dash of white at the neck and cuffs. He’d taken off his hat, the great tease, and the black curls gleamed in the cabin’s lamplight. He knew he had beautiful hair. He knew women liked to tangle their fingers in it. Oh, he was wicked.
“Cordier.”
He took her gloved hand in his. That was not very satisfying. But if she took off her gloves, she must take off his, and then—and then…
“It’s time to put the past behind us,” he said. “We’re done, both of us, with Elphick. I could never settle down while my comrades were un-avenged. Now they will be. You will be avenged, too. And when matters are finally sorted out, your father will be avenged as well, absolved of the fraud Elphick committed.”
She looked down at the gloved hand holding hers and frowned. “Are you quite, quite sure it wasn’t papa? Because, he is not altogether…reliable, you know.”
“Whatever else your father may or may not have done, that great swindle was planned and executed by your former husband.”
“Papa never let on,” she said. “It was so very clever—and had such spectacular results—that I think he was a little envious and didn’t like to admit he’d been a dupe, like everyone else.”
“Never mind,” he said. “That chapter is closed. I should like us to begin a new chapter.”
“I should, too,” she said. “I know you mean well, offering to marry me, but you don’t understand. You’re a man.”
“I know. It can’t be helped.”
“You don’t know what it’s like for women, to be respectably married. I thought that was freedom—until I moved to the Continent and gave up being respectable. Women, married women, live in a prison of rules and don’t even realize it. Respectable women can’t do this and can’t do that, and if they break the rules they must be very discreet. They must sneak about and be complete hypocrites.”
“That’s England,” he said. “This is Italy. And your father and I have drawn up a proper Italian marriage contract—”
“Did the two of you lose your hearing simultaneously?” she said. “Did I not say no? This is so typical—the arrogance of males—”
“—which specifies a cavalier servente,” he went on as though she hadn’t spoken. He let go of her hand and began to strip off his gloves. “It is unthinkable for a lady of gentle birth and breeding not to have one. One must have a husband, which is a great bore. And so, to mitigate this oppressive state of affairs, there is the devoted friend, who goes where the lady goes and does her bidding and amuses her and who may or may not be her lover.”
While he talked, his gloves came off.
She looked down at his naked hands, at the long, nimble fingers. She swallowed. “But you cannot be both my husband and my cavalier servente,” she said.
“I thought that, if I could contrive not to be a great bore, perhaps you wouldn’t require a serving cavalier—or any other supernumerary lovers to augment your happiness.”
She watched the long fingers move to her arm and slide under her shawl. Then she felt those thief ’s hands drawing her glove down to her wrist. Carefully he drew the soft kid through her bracelets.
“You say that now,” she said shakily. She believed him, though, in spite of good sense and bad experience. But a woman would believe anything with those clever hands stealing her reason away.
“Amor mio, if I cannot keep you amused and happy, I don’t deserve fidelity.” He leaned in closer and went to work on her other glove. “And if I cannot be content with one woman who is everything I could ever want—”
“Please don’t forget that I am everything every man could ever want,” she said.
“Believe me, I will never forget it,” he said. “If I cannot be supremely happy with you, if I cannot exert myself to make you happy, then I deserve to be cuckolded repeatedly.” The second glove came off. She watched him toss it aside, on top of the others: hers, his.
“You have a point,” she said.
“Then let me proceed to the next point,” he said. His hand crept up to the diamonds at her ear. “As I have shown to your father’s satisfaction, I may be a mere younger son but I have done well in my branch of the service.” He toyed with the diamond. “I should be able to keep you in a style—well, not exactly what you are accustomed to, but very near.” He kissed her ear.
“I am not greedy,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Very near is near enough. But you must give me back the peridots.”
He laughed against her neck, and his warm breath tickled her skin. “What, those paltry things?”
“They are the first jewels you almost gave me,” she said. “I shall treasure them for sentimental reasons.”
“Very well, you may have them back. Will you have me, then, tesoro mio?” He kissed her neck, in the special place, then lower.
Her mind was turning into warm honey. How could she not have him? she thought dizzily. She’d already risked her life, more than once, for him. Could she not risk her future?
She remembered what Giulietta had said last night, before they fell asleep.
But this is the gamble I take. And I take it with my eyes open.
It was always a gamble, love was.
“I’m thinking it over,” she said.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.” He pulled her onto his lap. He bent his head and made a slow, hot trail of kisses over the skin along the edge of her neckline.
“Are you sure you won’t be sorry later, that you didn’t wed one of those maidens in white dresses?” she whispered.
He pushed down the neckline, and she gasped as his mouth slid over her breast.
“The maidens,” she said weakly. “The clubs. The dining room and the men telling dirty jokes. Hyde Park.”
“The hell with them,” he growled. His tongue grazed the taut peak of her breast. She felt the tug down low, the same she’d felt the first time she saw him, when she didn’t know who he was.
Mere lust, perhaps, for an attractive man.
Or perhaps it was the powerful pull to one’s soulmate.
She didn’t want to resist. Yet she was…afraid.
“And your family?” she said desperately. “Italian mothers. No woman is ever good enough for—”
“Trust me,” he murmured. His hands moved down to her skirt. “She’ll like you. She’ll say I got the better bargain. How can you talk of mothers at a time like this?”
She didn’t want to talk about such things. But she needed to, before she melted away completely. Her mother had died shortly after she was wed. She’d missed her very much. “I like…to be friends with women.”
His hands had slid under her dress, under her petticoat. A part of her was lost, enslaved by his hands, by desire. How long had it been since they’d made love? Yet a part of her thought of friends, so many she’d lost during that ghastly time in her life.
“Giulietta,” she murmured.
“I know,” he said. He lifted his head and gazed into her eyes. “Trust me. We’ll be happy. Close the shutters.”
She closed them, squirming as his hands slid up over her garters. She cupped his face and brought it close to hers. “You are too hasty,” she said. “Baciami.”
He laughed and kissed her and she tasted the laughter. He was a sinner, too, like her, and unrepentant, like her. He would never be quite respectable. He would never be stuffy. He didn’t care if she was a harlot and he wouldn’t care if her best friend was one, too. With this man she could be happy.
With this man she could be drunk in an instant on one hot, laughing kiss.
She reached down and unfastened his trouser front. She grasped him and he gasped at her touch. “Who’s hasty now?” he said thickly.
“We’re nearly at the theater,” she said. She let her hand stroke over the hot length of his cock but she hadn’t the patience to toy with him now. He pulled up her skirts and she moved to draw her legs up against his waist. His big, wicked hand stroked over her and “Yes,” she said. “Yes, now.” She wrapped her arms about his neck and kissed him, fiercely, as he pushed into her.
Warmth exploded through her, the warmth of pleasure and happiness and possession. She let go, gave up thinking, gave up her precious control, and let feeling take her where it would.
This one—this man—was to keep, and so she held on, as their bodies pulsed together, as their hearts beat harder and harder, together. She held on, kissing him and laughing through the mad rush to joy. She came to the peak, and then another, and one last time, as he surrendered, too. Together they crested the last wave, and together they gently floated into the quiet of pure happiness.
Outside, meanwhile, Uliva and Dumini had taken note of the fact that the shutters were closed though it was an unseasonably warm night and the few clouds passing overhead did not threaten rain.
The two Venetians merely glanced at each other, and patiently took the gondola on an extended detour.