Wicked Temptation (Nemesis Unlimited) (25 page)

What could he offer her except his services for Nemesis and the use of his body? Nothing. There wasn’t anything else to give. Even so, that ache in his chest returned.

Hours later, they finally reached Milan. He hopped down from the freight car, taking their luggage with him, then helped her down.

She glanced at the car that had been their transportation with a grimace. “Please tell me we’ll be traveling to Florence in at least third class.”

“There’s no need to travel freight anymore now that we’re in Italy.”

She sighed in relief. “Thank God. I thought my bones would never stop rattling. And I’m more sore from sleeping on the floor than our defensive practice.”

He booked them second-class tickets to Florence, and when they reached their seating carriage, they both exhaled as they sank into the upholstered benches. Once the train pulled from the station, she excused herself to wash up, leaving him alone in the carriage.

Only then did he allow himself to scrub his hands over his face in frustration. He hadn’t wanted to take on this job, but he realized that he had another reason for why he shouldn’t have been on the case. She appealed to him. He liked her. Cared about her. Far too much. All his vigilant plans were blown to pieces. It was getting too difficult to keep himself only interested in their shared physical pleasure. He was at a loss.

He, who’d faced countless assassins and stared down the barrels of numerous guns, not to mention the knives, poisons, and explosives he’d evaded. There was that cadre of assassins in Vilnius, and the alleyful of knife-wielding toughs in Spitalfields. He’d even been trained in how to avoid the honey pot—and today was the very first time he’d actually fallen for it. By a woman whose family was in
Debrett’s.
The irony wasn’t lost.

This vulnerability he felt whenever he was with her could burn him down. But he’d only let himself burn once he knew she was safe. And then, when that was done, he’d walk away. As he always did.

*   *   *

The gilded and green hills of Tuscany enfolded them as they traveled south, vineyards forming Dionysian grids that climbed those hills, and rosy farmhouses topped with terra-cotta tiles looked out agelessly, seemingly without concern that a train bisected these most ancient and revered lands. Bronwyn had loved the place the first time she’d been here, and even the grim nature of her travel now couldn’t quite dim her interest in being here again.

Apparently, Marco felt the same.

“Dio,
but I love being back.” He looked out the window, an expression as open as any she’d ever seen on his face. “Almost makes me wonder why I ever bother returning to England.”

“You could stay in Italy,” she offered.

He snorted. “God knows there’s enough injustice in Italy that could necessitate doing Nemesis’s work here.”

“What about your … other work? For the, ah, government?”

“I’ve put in my time.” He studied the cuff of his shirt, surprisingly clean given that they’d spent the night on the floor of a freight car. “Could likely retire on a decent pension, and move to Florence or Rome. No shortage of wrongdoing there.”

“Or you could leave the city,” she suggested.

He considered this. “It’s appealing—a farm of my own. But I’d get restless, and find my way back into the rotten heart of a city. Even the most beautiful towns—with their basilicas and frescoes and bridges—are populated by people, and where people live, so do vice and corruption. Darkness lurks even in sunlit piazzas.”

“Then why go back to England?” she wondered.

His brow creased in thought. “For all its incessant, infernal rain, its execrable coffee, its stiff-backed propriety, England’s still my home. Where my family is. And my friends,” he added.

“I thought I had friends in London,” she said wryly. “Funny that when my money disappeared, so did they. But I liked seeing how you and the other Nemesis agents worked together. You’d never turn away from each other.”

“The hell we would. Anyone who can’t watch the others’ backs is kicked out onto their arse.”

“They’re an assortment of eccentrics, aren’t they?” she murmured. “No wonder you fit in so well.”

“Good thing my mother insisted on good manners,” he answered, “or else I’d treat you to one of the many varieties of obscene Italian hand gestures.”

“Please continue my education.” When he hesitated, she pressed, “Go on. I’m sure your mother would forgive you—or at least not box your ears as hard—if the recipient of said hand gestures wanted to see them.”

He crossed himself. “Forgive me,
madre.
” Then he launched into a series of movements with his hands and arms that would make a stevedore blush. She eagerly copied the gestures, as much for the novelty of learning them as to see Marco actually blush.

The lesson came to an abrupt halt when the ticket collector came by and caught them both in the middle of one of the more filthy gesticulations.

With his own shocked curse, the collector slammed the door of the seating compartment, muttering in Italian, but she could guess at the meaning. Something about the utter lack of decency in this modern world. And by a
lady,
too!

Bronwyn began to laugh. A husky, rich laugh that came from deep in her belly. The first time she’d laughed like this in so long.

She almost stopped in astonishment when Marco joined her. And together they chortled like escaped bedlamites.

“They’ll likely ban Englishwomen from Italy now,” she said breathlessly.

“We’ve started an international incident,” he agreed.

She wiped her eyes. “If they try me, at least I’ll know what hand gesture to give to the judge.”

“You’d either be thrown into prison for the rest of your life, or receive a dozen proposals of marriage.”

She sobered. “Given the choice, I’ll take prison.”

He went still. “You never said your marriage was as bad as that.”

The years telescoped back, until she was a young bride again, full of curiosity and hope. And then the dimming of those feelings as reality set in. “Hugh was a cordial and kind husband. But … I don’t want cordiality anymore.” She gazed out the window at the timeless Italian countryside. “I don’t know what I want…” She searched for words for things she herself couldn’t quite understand. “Wickedness.” The stunned faces of Charles and Lydia flashed through her mind. She shook her head. “Doubtful that I could find that in the confines of marriage.”

“You could always take a lover.”

“I have,” she answered.

“After me,” he said.

Disappointment crested like a wave. She couldn’t do this. “Oh. Maybe … maybe it would be better if we didn’t. If I could find someone more … reliable.”

She waited for him to say something. That not only did he want to be her lover for a long time, but he also hated the idea of her taking another man to her bed.

But he didn’t say any of this. He kept silent, and this spoke far louder than any words.

TEN

Florence was an enchantment of a city. They reached it just as the sun had begun to set, casting the winding streets in gold light and purple shadows that painted the multistoried buildings and their window boxes of early flowers. The streets themselves were a confusion, and she readily followed Marco—who moved with purpose and direction.

Every corner they turned they stumbled across either a majestic piazza or church, or statues of gods and angels formed by long-dead masters. Yet even amid the beauty, just as Marco had said, skulked the shade of poverty. Outside magnificent churches, beggars gathered, their faces just as dirty and their clothes just as ragged as the beggars in London. Veterans of wars missing limbs. Women cradling whimpering infants.

Destitution and want were universal, even in this gemlike city of the Medicis.

They passed churches and squares, crossed the gilded storefronts that lined the Ponte Vecchio. Went past the famed palace, and wound their way up into the cypress-lined hills that crowded close to the river Arno.

“Giovanni doesn’t live in the city proper,” Marco said over his shoulder as he climbed the sloping road. He’d already taken them on an oblique route around the city, circling some piazzas, doubling back, using alleys almost no one would ever see. “Too dangerous for a man once in his line of work.”

“Where might a former”—she lowered her voice to a whisper, even though she spoke in English while everyone they passed only talked in Italian—“
spy
live?”

“There.” He nodded toward a medieval tower. “It was once part of the old fortifications. Now it guards Giovanni and his secrets.”

The tower was set apart from the other homes, surrounded by more ancient-looking cypresses. A handful of lights shone in the narrow windows. The stone exterior was worn from time, but stood strongly, a testament to the long-ago craftsmen who’d built it. Or the assiduous efforts of the current occupant to keep his home from collapsing around him.

She waited as Marco approached the heavy wooden door and knocked using the heavy iron ring mounted in the center.

The door swung open, and the man who stood there could have been a giant from a fairy tale, were it not for his modern clothing.

“Sì?”
the massive man intoned. He eyed Marco and the suitcases, and started to shut the door.

Before he could, Marco said something quickly in Italian. The giant held the door a moment, tilting his head to one side as if considering what Marco had said, then closed the door. Leaving Bronwyn and Marco out in the growing darkness.

“We came awfully far to get a door shut in our faces,” she noted.

“Too far to get impatient now,” he answered.

A moment later, the door swung open again, revealing the giant. Mutely, he stepped forward and took their bags—though she refused to relinquish her violin case—then gestured with his head for them to climb the winding staircase inside.

She gingerly stepped into the tower, looking up at the stone stairs that twisted over their heads. The entire ground floor of the tower was open, revealing it to be approximately thirty by thirty feet. She was a little disappointed to see no suits of armor, but tapestries did hang on the walls, along with a few modern paintings.

The enormous man and Marco had an exchange, which Bronwyn couldn’t follow, but at the conclusion of it, Marco said to her in English, “Giovanni’s waiting for us in the third floor parlor.”

“How many floors does this place have?” she wondered as they started up the staircase.

“Seven.”

Hopefully that was a good luck sign that their long voyage to Italy hadn’t been in vain. They climbed the stairs, with the giant continuing past them—presumably to put their luggage in a bedroom on one of the other six floors. On each landing, they passed heavy medieval furniture mixed in with modern pieces, along with more tapestries and paintings. Oil lamps, not gas, burned on the walls. She half expected torches or candelabras heavily enameled with dripped beeswax.

Reaching the third floor, they found themselves outside a set of elaborately carved double doors. Marco tapped three times before entering, and Bronwyn followed.

The chamber within had roughly circular walls, and the stones that comprised them were pitted with age. But the room itself was fitted elegantly with more of the amalgam between the old and the new. Having spent the last few days rattling around on trains, Bronwyn thought it felt good to be in a space that wasn’t moving. If anything, the tower and this chamber looked as though they could outlast time.

But her attention was quickly drawn by the man approaching them. He was middle-aged, fair-haired, and trim and handsome in the way of mature men. He stepped forward and shook Marco’s hand, then gave him a kiss on each cheek, all the while speaking quickly in Italian.

“English, please, Giovanni,” Marco said. “Mrs. Parrish isn’t familiar with the beauty of our mother tongue.”

“Forgive me, signora.” Giovanni bowed. As he did, he took her hand and kissed it in the manner of an old-fashioned courtier. “I should have known by the flaming beauty of your hair that you were from England’s shores.”

She blushed at his outrageous flattery. “There is nothing to forgive. Thank you for receiving us.”

“Ah, she is as gracious as she is lovely,” Giovanni murmured. He turned to Marco, and in that slight movement, she saw the same leashed power in the older man that she witnessed in Marco—though tempered slightly by age. For all his ornate words, this man was just as dangerous as Marco.

“I am thinking,” Giovanni continued, waving them over to the sofas, “you have befallen some exceptional luck. Why else should you and this beautiful woman arrive at my home like a knife thrown in the darkness?” As everyone sat, his eyes narrowed, and his voice was slightly edged.

“Les Grillons,” Marco answered without preamble.

Giovanni’s jaw tightened. “You have brought them to my door?” Despite Marco’s request that they speak English, the Italian man used his native language to curse. Extensively.

“We’re here and alive,” Marco answered, unfazed by the swearing.

“So that means they did not follow you? My bodyguard Niccolo is strong, but even he cannot fend off an attack by too many of those Grillons thugs.”

Marco explained quickly the ways he used to evade the syndicate, which seemed to slightly mollify Giovanni. But tension still radiated from him.

She wondered if he, too, had knives sewn into his clothing. It was entirely possible. She’d grown to recognize the look of sharp-eyed wariness that spies seemed to possess, even when secure in their homes.

“But Les Grillons keep their business in France,” Giovanni noted. “We have our own criminal organizations here in Italy. No need to import more.”

Briefly, Marco described everything that had happened since he’d first set foot in her foyer—it seemed so long ago, and also as quick as a bullet. Giovanni made sounds of shock or grim understanding as Marco’s tale unfolded. Rather, it was
their
tale, and Bronwyn helped fill in small details as the whole rather sordid history unfolded. Neither she nor Marco thought it fitting to tell Giovanni about making love on the train, but given the speculative look in the Italian man’s gaze when he glanced at her, she saw that he already understood she and Marco had been to bed together.