In the Garden of Sin (16 page)

So this is what it feels like to be possessed
, I thought when he was finally buried deep inside me. Despite the discomfort, I wanted to stay that way forever.

I could feel the strain in his body as he made love to me, every muscle quivering. I realize now that he was trying to hold himself in check so as not to hurt me. His undoing came when I wrapped my legs around him and raised my hips to meet his, as I had seen Sibylla do with Elic in the bathhouse.

“Dio mio.”
He thrust harder, his hands tangled in my hair, then stilled. A grinding sound rose from his throat. I felt goose bumps rise up all along his spine, and then his sex jerked inside me over and over again, the pulses gradually diminishing until he sank upon me, heavy and spent.

“Don’t become a courtesan.”

I had just nodded off in Domenico’s arms, the two of us curled up naked in the afternoon sun, when his soft-spoken entreaty brought me fully awake.

I lifted my head to meet his eyes.

Stroking a tendril of hair off my face, he said, “I can’t bear the thought of you entertaining a different benefactor every night of the week. I only want you to be with me.”

I rolled onto my back, an arm across my eyes to shield them from the sun.
Dear God, please don’t let this hurt him as much as it’s going to hurt me
.

He braced himself on an arm to look down at me. “You shall never want for anything, Hannah, not a thing. You’ll live in luxury, with everything you desire. We’ll travel, we’ll go to the opera. I’ll build you the biggest library in Venice and fill it with thousands of books.” Trailing a hand down my throat and over a breast, he said, “I want the most brilliant and beautiful woman in Europe to be mine and mine alone. On mild
evenings, I want to float through the canals on a gondola with you in my arms, watching the buildings turn gold in the setting sun. ’Tis one of the most enchanting sights in the world.”

“I’m sure it is,” I said recalling how exquisite Château de la Grotte Cachée had looked when I’d first seen it, gilded by the sunset. But I wasn’t going to Venice. My plan—my vital mission, at which I mustn’t fail—was to return to England as soon as possible with the information I needed to clear my uncle’s name and save his life.

Whereupon Domenico Vitturi would realize that I’d been deceiving him from the beginning. I dreaded to think how he would react to that.

He must have misinterpreted my pensiveness, because he looked away, saying “’Tisn’t quite what you had in mind, I know. I suppose
I’m
not quite what you had in mind. I have no illusions about … what women see when they look at me, but—”

“Nay, I think you do.” Sitting up, I took his face in my hands and kissed him lingeringly, deeply. “You foolish man, you have no idea how women view you, how much they admire you… and desire you. The problem isn’t what they see when they look at you, Domenico, ’tis what you see when you look at yourself.”

“Accept my offer,” he said with a cagey grin, “and you shall have all the time in the world to convince me of that.”

At a loss for words, I turned away from him and dragged the basket closer. In addition to the linen-wrapped food within, there were not one but two leathern bottles of wine.
You want him in his cups when you question him about Buckingham
, Elle had told me as she was packing the basket.
The looser his tongue, the more you’ll learn
.

As I was pouring two bowls, Domenico said from behind me, “I pray thee, Hannah, think about it. Consider it seriously.
Then, if you decide that you would prefer the life of a
cortigiana onesta
, I will still lend you my patronage. I’ll provide you with a home, a staff, clothing, jewels, a gondola… I’ll introduce you to the wealthiest, most desirable benefactors in the city. I will do all this because I’m a man of my word and I want the best for you, but make no mistake,” he said, his voice low and rough. “’Twill break my heart.”

I studied the two bowls of wine, tears shimmering in my eyes. “Make love to me again, Domenico.”

“Not so soon,” he said, wrapping his arms around me from behind. “You need time to heal.”

“Tonight, then?”

“Aye, and the next night…” He nuzzled my hair. “And the next…” He touched his lips to my cheek. “And the next, and the next, and the next,” he said, planting a trail of kisses down my throat and along my shoulder. “I shall have your things brought to my bedchamber so that you can stay there… if… that is, if you wish it.”

He never lets me kiss him, nor does he let me sleep in his bed
.

“I would like that, Domenico. I would love it.”

I handed him his bowl, which he touched to mine. “To your health,” he said.

“Alla tua salute.”

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” he asked as I refilled his glass for the third time. It was late afternoon, and the sun had already dipped below the surrounding mountains. Domenico had lent me his shirt, which fell almost to my knees; he wore his breeches and unbuttoned doublet.

I stared at him with the bottle in one hand and the cork in another. “I… er…”

“Because you can have your way with me even if I’m perfectly sober, as I think should be evident by now,” he said with a woolly chuckle that indicated the wine was already going to his head. As if to confirm that, he said, “We’d better eat something, or I shall fall asleep right here and not wake up till morning.”

I laid out our dinner, and we ate, our conversation centering mainly on poetry, literature, and theater until I steered it toward affairs of state. I refilled his cup twice more, mine only once—and I barely touched it.

“Do you know anything about the Goodchild case?” I asked as I emptied the first bottle into his bowl and uncorked the second. I hated the studied nonchalance of my tone. I hated the subterfuge I was engaging in.
Please let him know something useful
.

“Goodchild.” Lying propped up on an elbow, he lifted the bowl to his mouth. “The fellow who’s been arrested for treason? I only know he’s in the Tower awaiting trial. Buckingham’s never mentioned him to me.”

Damn it all to Hades
, I thought.

“Why do you ask?” he said.

“I don’t know.” I looked down and shrugged. “It interests me.”

“Because you’re Catholic and they’re saying that’s why he spied for Spain?”

“Perhaps. I just thought, since you and the duke are friends, he might have told you something the rest of us aren’t privy to. I suppose I’m prying into matters that are none of my affair.”

“Buckingham wouldn’t have talked to me about this. They tell me he’s been melancholic ever since he found out what the blackguard did. ’Tis a painful thing, realizing one’s lover has been betraying—”

“Lover.”
I sat up straight, wine dripping from my bowl onto the blanket.

He groaned disgustedly. “Forget I said that. ’Twas all this wine. I don’t normally drink so much, especially in the after—”

“Are you saying my—that Guy Goodchild and the Duke of Buckingham…?”

“’Tis no secret in certain circles, and most members of the king’s court know about Buckingham’s proclivities, even if they aren’t quite certain who’s been sharing his bed since King James passed away.”

“King James?
You mean he and Buckingham…?”

“Oh, everyone knew about that. It had been going on for years.”

“I didn’t know.” But then, it was hardly the type of thing that would have been discussed in my presence.

Domenico said, “After the king’s death, Buckingham went into genuine mourning, and then early last summer, he took up with Guy Goodchild. Shortly after that, he arranged for Goodchild’s appointment as emissary to Spain. As I understand it, Goodchild is a man of considerable refinement who’s never been married, so there had been rumors for some time that he preferred men.”

“But King James had a wife,” I said, “and so does Buckingham.”

“And so does Jonas Knowles. ’Tis done to keep up appearances and perpetuate the line, but—”

“Jonas Knowles?” I said through an incredulous chuckle. Recalling the morning I had discovered him in Lucy’s bed, I said, “Jonas Knowles does not prefer men, I can assure you of that.”

Cocking his head, Domenico said, “Do you know something
I ought to… Nay, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I can assure you, however, that Knowles has spent every night in Buckingham’s bed since we left London. He’s been the duke’s gentleman of the bedchamber for almost a year, but he didn’t become his favorite—and his lover—until after Goodchild was arrested. If he’s still disporting himself with women…” Domenico shook his head as he took a sip of wine. “God help him if Buckingham finds out. He gets wildly jealous, demands fidelity. Not that he gives it in return. He does like his pretty young men, and he’ll take them where he can get them, but his favorites had better stay true or suffer his wrath.”

“That doesn’t seem quite fair.”

“He doesn’t have to be fair. He’s the Duke of Buckingham.”

“And no one minds that he beds men?” I asked. “’Tis a sin, is it not?”

“The English aren’t quite as intolerant of it as they are otherwhere. In Venice, such men risk execution if they’re found out. They’re beheaded, and their bodies burned.”

“Hence courtesans who cut their hair short and dress in men’s clothing,” I said, recalling what Elle had said about the advantages of my small breasts.

Domenico nodded. “’Tis a good deal safer than seeking out a male for the same purpose.”

“But how satisfying can it really be?” I asked. “There are women in London who dress in breeches and doublets— churchmen are forever railing against them—but there’s never any doubt as to their true sex. A woman could never pass for a man, not really.”

“You’d be surprised how convincing a slim young woman can be, with her hair shorn and her breasts bound. Several times I’ve been in the company of such courtesans and never suspected that they weren’t young men.”

“Verily?” I said, as an idea began to take shape in my mind.

“Unless a woman has exceptionally voluptuous hips and breasts,” he said, “such a disguise can work well enough.”

Yes, of course it could, I thought. Of course.

It could actually work.

WENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER, I was sprinting across a marshy plateau after a pack of frantically barking dogs and the boar they were chasing. My lungs burned; my legs felt leaden. Try as I might, I could not keep up with the men running ahead of me—the Duke of Buckingham, master of the hunt Sir Humphrey Quade, five of the duke’s yeomen, and a sturdy young castle lacquey named Yves.