The Duke's Governess Bride (16 page)

‘I do not know, Jane,’ he said curtly. ‘But damnation, when I return and find you with that—’

‘You cannot believe that I bid Signor di Rossi there!’ she cried, shocked. ‘That I would send you away to invite him to me in your stead! That you would believe such shameless duplicity of me, and that you would dare to believe—’

‘I don’t know what I believe,’ he said. He sighed, almost a groan. ‘What I saw was that fellow forcing himself on you, and such dread on your sweet face that I was ready to throttle him on the spot. Yet when you spoke, it was as if you were asking us both to a dish of tea. What was I to make of that, Jane? What was I to think?’

‘What you must think is the truth,’ she said fervently. ‘I’d thought the
signor
was an acquaintance, even a friend, after the kindness he has shown me. But no friend would ever treat me as he did this night. I have never been so happy to see you as I was when you returned, and save me from—oh, Heaven deliver me, I’ve no notion of what wickedness he’d plotted.’

‘Then why didn’t you tell me?’ Richard demanded. ‘I would have taken the bastard’s own sword and run him straight through!’

‘Oh, Richard, that is exactly why I didn’t,’ she said softly, finally reaching for his hand. ‘I didn’t want swords or pistols on my behalf. I know your temper well, and know that you will often act from justness and noble intents, rather than from common sense. Italian gentlemen who wear swords are likewise eager for an excuse to draw and use them, and I couldn’t bear to have you risk harm for me, not for a moment.’

‘Do you doubt my skill, Jane?’ he asked, squaring his shoulders and his jaw, ready for any combatants, even in the gondola. ‘I’ll have you know that I’m still regarded as a swordsman of the first order, as I’ll defy any Italian popinjay to discover at his own hazard.’

‘I don’t doubt your skill in anything,’ Jane said quickly. ‘But what would it have achieved, I ask you? The di Rossis are a powerful, ancient family in Venice, and for you to challenge one so publicly would have brought us both nothing but ill fortune.’

‘Di Rossis, hah,’ Richard scoffed, bristling with bravado. ‘The Farrens are double their match! I’d like to show them what English steel can do.’

‘Richard, that’s exactly why I said nothing to you,’ she said.
‘Exactly.’

Without thinking, she’d slipped into her governess’s voice, but she couldn’t help it. Perhaps that was what Richard needed to hear, anyway, and she plunged on ahead.

‘It wouldn’t matter if the Farrens are ten times the men the di Rossis are, Richard,’ she said. ‘You are English. You’re foreigners to them, and they’ll always take their own side over yours.’

His dark brows came together, a rebellious glower in the night. ‘You’re English, too, if you recall.’

‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she said. ‘But I’m not being traitorous, Richard. It would be the same for any Venetian who dared cause trouble in London. I’ve heard that the Doge’s prison is so cruel and fearsome that it can make a Turk shudder, and I’ve no wish for either of us to learn for certain. What must I say to make you understand that, Richard? What must I
do
?’

‘Don’t leave me,’ he said, his bluster gone and his voice turning raw with emotion. ‘When I saw you with di Rossi, I thought I’d lost you.’

‘Richard.’ To her own surprise, she felt tears sting her eyes, the same tears she’d kept back earlier and now, with no reason to keep back any longer, began to slip down her cheeks. Embarrassed, she fumbled beneath her cloak for her pocket and her handkerchief inside. ‘I won’t leave you, not for the
signor
—I vow I’ll never see him again—nor any other man, and you are the—the greatest ninny in the world if you dare believe otherwise.’

‘There now, don’t cry.’ He slipped his arm around her shoulders, and she let herself curl against his chest. ‘Nothing gained by that.’

‘No.’ She tried to snuffle back the tears with a shuddering sigh, and miraculously he produced a handkerchief of his own: clean, pressed, and smelling dearly of him. ‘No.’

She shook the handkerchief open, the flutter of white linen enough to startle a small flock of pigeons nesting beneath the curving eaves of a nearby house. With a flurry of silvery wings, the birds flapped and wheeled over their heads in the night sky, and together Jane and Richard looked up to watch.

‘My mother died of smallpox when I was away at school,’ he said softly, as if speaking more to the pigeons than to Jane. ‘I was blessed with my wife for scarce five years, and now my daughters have left me as well, off to lives and husbands of their own. I’m always the one left behind. I’ve no reason to make any claim on you, Jane, none at all, yet somehow I’ve come to believe you’d be the one who stayed. Hah, there’s your great ninny for you, isn’t it?’

‘I’ll stay,’ she said, letting her tears fall where they pleased as she slipped her arms into his coat and around his waist. ‘If you’re to be a ninny, then I’ll be one at your side, the ninniest ninnies in all of Venice.’

‘Then you are a ninny,’ he said solemnly as he tipped her face up to kiss. ‘What a pair we make, eh?’

Oh, aye, what a pair, thought Jane as he kissed her, as fine a pair as could be found in Venice.

Yet still their days together were slipping away, and in her heart she knew there was no way to stop them.

‘Miss Wood received my gift?’ Di Rossi looked down at the small package sitting alone and unwanted in the middle of the salver in the footman’s hand. Since his unfortunate meeting with Jane Wood at the theatre three nights ago, he had sent a package like this one—an elegantly worded apology, full of charm and contrition, and a small but costly token. A perfectly contrived offering, truly, and yet all of them had been treated like this one, and returned unopened. ‘Are you certain it was delivered directly to her?’

‘Yes,
signor,
’ the servant answered. ‘The messenger delivered it and waited for the reply, as you wished. The woman of the house took it away to Miss Wood, and brought it back almost at once. She said it was Miss Wood’s wish that it be returned directly to you,
signor.
’

For a moment, di Rossi remained silent, his expression unchanging while he considered how best to respond.

How to respond: oh, yes, that was a quandary. He’d admit that he’d erred with Jane Wood, that he’d frightened her with his display of passionate regard. He’d underestimated her pathetically English sense of decorum, and that, too, was his own fault.

And yet, in the curious way of desire, that same decorum had made him want her all the more. Clearly she and her buffoonish duke had been engaged in amorous play when he’d had them interrupted and the duke sent away. Di Rossi had seen it at once in her face: the dreaminess of her eyes, the flush of her cheek, the reddened fullness of her lips were all signs of arousal that he recognised, even if she did not. She’d wanted to be possessed; he’d seen that in her eyes, too. If he’d had only a minute more alone with her, he felt certain he would have had her. The little fool—didn’t she realise yet that he was the one destined for her maidenhead?

Of course in time he’d make her see her errors, and punish her accordingly. That would be pleasurable, too. Seduction, correction, complete conquest and subjection. How much he’d enjoy educating his little governess, and his lips twitched with anticipation. But before he could begin his delicious course, he needed to remove her from the influence of that fool of a duke. The time for subtleties and wooing gifts was done. Di Rossi knew now he must act decisively, even boldly.

And then, at last, she would be his.

‘Shall I put this with the others,
signor?
’ the waiting footman asked. ‘Shall I—?’

‘Insolent.’ He swiftly struck the footman, hitting his cheek so hard with his fist that the man staggered backwards. The salver flew from his hands and clanked across the floor, the little package flying. At once the footman scrambled back to his feet and retrieved the package and the salver.

‘Yes,
signor,
’ he said, as if nothing had happened, as if the angry red handprint on his face meant nothing, too. ‘Forgive me my insolence,
signor.
’

Slowly di Rossi smiled. He had trained his staff with such careful discipline, and how beautifully they responded to him now.

And soon, very soon, his little English governess would do so as well.

Chapter Seventeen

F
or the next five days, Jane and Richard behaved as any other affluent English visitors to Venice. They dutifully viewed the paintings they were supposed to view, and marvelled at the galleries and churches and palaces at which one came to Venice to marvel. For Jane, the paintings and gold-flecked mosaics were a rare joy, especially as she saw them all with her hand linked through Richard’s substantial arm. She tried her best to interest him in the paintings, too, and to make his eyes see the same wondrous glory that her own did.

But though Richard never begrudged her their time in the galleries, it was clear that his pleasure was only in hers. Jane recognised the signs all too well, having had her share of uninterested pupils in her schoolroom. The expression that never changed, the slightly parted lips, the gaze that remained as blank as a fresh-washed slate—each told her that no matter how manfully Richard resolved for her sake to be edified and enlightened by the great art works before him, he was more truthfully being bored.

Yet still her heart swelled because she realised how hard he was trying to please her, no matter that the pleasing went against all his own wishes. For years she’d been a part of his household, where everything was done to keep the duke happy, and now here she was, with that self-same duke doing his best on her behalf, and, truly, she could scarce believe it. What else could she do but try to be as agreeable to him? If he wanted to devote their mornings to sites of Jane’s choosing, then she in turn would make certain that the afternoons were given over to Richard’s.

Besides, the entertainments Richard found for them were fun, more fun, if she were honest, than most of the ancient palazzos and churches. On the first afternoon, they watched a regatta from a bridge, and waved little flags like the children around them. And like the children, too, they cheered their favourites, especially when the competition between the gondoliers become so fierce that several indignantly knocked one another into the chilly water of the canals.

Afterwards they sat close together on a nearby bench and ate
frittole,
the sweet puffs of dough fried freshly to order in special pans set on tripods over open fires. As insubstantial as a breeze, the
frittole
were dusted with clouds of fine sugar from a polished canister, and heaped with spoonfuls of the bright green pine nuts. To educate Richard in this delicacy, she drew off her gloves and fed the nuts to him with her fingers, one kernel at a time, and laughed with delight as he’d licked the powdered sugar from her fingertips.

To Jane’s amazement and more than a little dismay, Richard had also developed a ghoulish fascination with the saintly relics that were so revered in Venice. They traipsed past the holy remains of Santa Lucia and San Zaccheria, of Santi Cosma and Damiano, as well as the foot of Santa Maria of Egypt, the thigh bones of Santa Ursula, and the arms of Santa Cecelia. What interest could be found in the mummified bodies of poor martyred saints was beyond Jane, even if they were housed in beautifully crafted and gilded reliquaries. She still shivered when she thought of what lay within, while Richard taxed the limits of his Italian by asking gory details of the ageing priests who served as guides.

Far more cheerful were the amusements connected to Carnevale. At the suggestion of Signora della Battista, Jane and Richard explored the entertainments set up for Carnivale along the Riva degli Schiavoni. To Jane it was much like the travelling circus that stopped in Aston each summer before harvest—except, of course, everything was strung along the canal beneath a brilliant Mediterranean sky.

There were performers of every kind, to please every audience, from shivering small hounds in ruffled petticoats and collars who danced on their hind legs, to rope dancers in bright satins who skipped with ease on the swaying rope stretched between houses. There were mandolin players and ballad singers, jugglers and mountebanks, games of skill and games of chance, and even a fortune teller who promised to tell their future, whispering it like a precious secret down a long silver tube.

‘Your fortune, kind sir, pretty lady, your fortune for a
soldi!
’ the old woman called. ‘Will you prosper, sir? Will your lot be sorrow or joy? I hide nothing, kind sir, the truth as I see it!’

‘Don’t you wish to hear your fortune, Janie?’ Richard asked, pausing before the striped awning that sheltered the fortune teller. ‘Draw off your glove and show her your hand, and learn when a long-lost pirate uncle will leave you a chest full of gold and pearls.’

‘Thank you, no,’ Jane said, hanging back. The old woman made her strangely uneasy; with a scarlet Turkish turban on her head, she sat on a small stool with her gnarled hands flat on her knees, swaying back and forth as if the blown by the awful knowledge she claimed to see.

‘It’s a lark,’ Richard said without any of Jane’s reluctance. ‘You know it’s rubbish and invention. Likely she tells the same tale to everyone.’

‘Then what is the purpose?’ Jane asked. ‘For all the truth that will come of it, you might as well toss your coins into the canal.’

‘Only truth, kind sir, only truth!’ the fortune teller called, sensing Richard’s interest. ‘Will your ventures succeed? Will your health flourish, sir, or are your best days done? Surely a fine, brave, strong sir needs to know! How many more handsome sons will you sire with your pretty lady-wife, sir? That is the proof of a man’s mettle, his fire! How many more boys will come to bring glory to your name and your house, sir? How many?’

Jane caught her breath, and looked sharply up to Richard. He was smiling still, but his smile was now fixed and joyless, and the bright good humour seemed to have drained from his eyes.

She understood, for she felt much the same. To be mistaken for his wife, his perfect duchess, to be taunted about the sons that Fate would never grant her the joy of bearing—oh, it was too cruel, and made miserably worse for being so unthinking.

‘I told you it was all rubbish,’ she said, tugging on his arm to lead him away. ‘Nothing but emptiness and lies.’

‘Rubbish, aye,’ he said, and as he turned his back on the fortune teller, he forced himself to laugh. ‘We’ve no need to hear any more of that, Jane, do we?’

‘None,’ she said as firmly as she could, and they moved along to a booth where a pair of marionette donkeys were cavorting for a crowd of laughing children.

But Richard’s earlier delight in the Carnevale amusements was gone, and by now Jane understood that no amount of cajoling by her would alter his humour. Only time seemed to do that, and it was best if she simply let him make peace with himself however he needed to. That was a fine line for anyone to tread, to realise the difference between sympathetic concern and meddlesome prying, and just like the rope dancers over their heads, Jane had always aimed for the steadying balance.

‘Perhaps it’s time to return to the Ca’ Battista,’ she said, leaning her head against his shoulder. ‘I’m weary of so much Carnevale, and likely so are you.’

‘Soon,’ he said, glancing down the next narrow street. ‘There’s a
malvasie
shop, sweet. Let’s stop for a glass, and then we’ll head back to our lodgings.’

Jane nodded and followed him. On his first day in Venice, Richard had discovered
malvasia,
a sweet, delicate wine made from tiny Greek grapes, and though it seemed completely at odds with his usual plain and sturdy tastes, he now made sure they stopped by a
malvasie
shop whenever they were out. Like a native, he’d tried and considered all the varieties—
cipro, malaga, eleatico, scopulo, samos
—before he’d finally settled on
garba,
with its hint of almonds and herbs, as his favourite.

If a small glass of
garba
would make Richard feel better, than Jane would happily join him, even if most
malvasie
shops were a bit too close to low English rum shops for a lady. This one was much like all the others they’d visited: a single narrow room with whitewashed walls, rough benches and small tables, and sailors and gondoliers far outnumbering the gentlemen. In London, she’d never venture into such a place, but this was Venice, the familiar rules of propriety didn’t seem to count, and besides, she was with Richard.

The shop’s keeper instantly recognised Richard as a foreign gentleman of importance, and found them two seats at a table near the window. Just as quickly came the round tray with two small glasses, filled with the golden liquor.

‘To the King,’ Richard said solemnly as he raised the little glass, dwarfed in his fingers. ‘To the King, and Carnevale.’

‘To the King,’ Jane echoed. She sipped from her glass, while Richard emptied his in a single long swallow. At once the keeper himself refilled the glass, but Richard didn’t drink it, instead holding it up to the window to let the sunlight pass through. He studied it like that, twisting and turning the glass in his hand.

‘Your
garba
could be any strong water, couldn’t it?’ Jane said softly. ‘Brandy, or Madeira, or Scottish whisky, even a common ale. To glance at the glass like this, one would never know how special it is.’

‘Now that would be a pity,’ he said, ‘and a waste as well. You can never judge any wine by sight alone. Only an abstemious fool would do that.’

‘True enough,’ she said softly. ‘Just as that fortune teller could tell nothing of you or your love for your daughters by her casual appraisal alone. She couldn’t know of her Grace, or your loss.’

‘My loyal Janie.’ His smile was lopsided and bitter-sweet. ‘I’ve long ago made my peace with the notion that God saw fit to grant me daughters, not sons. My brother’s boy is a good lad, and will make a fine duke after I’m gone.’

She rested her hand on his arm, all the affection she’d dare show in so public a place as the
malvasie.
‘I’m glad of that, for your sake.’

He sighed, still studying the glass in his hand. ‘No, Jane, I’m the fool. That woman on the street only made me see it, whether I wished to or not. I’ve felt like a young man here in Venice, Jane, a cub without a care in the world. It took that woman to clear my eyes. I didn’t have to give her a penny, yet she told me the truth.’

‘That’s nonsense, Richard,’ Jane said quickly. ‘What the fortune teller said hadn’t a grain of truth in it. Most likely she says the same nonsense to every man who passes by. Her prattle is only idle flattery, or so she believes it to be.’

But Richard shook his head, unconvinced. ‘No, pet, she was right. My best days are behind me. I’ve outlived my wife, and my daughters are wed and making a grandfather of me. I’ve made a righteous old ass of myself by traipsing about with you, as if a pretty young woman on my arm will drag me from my dotage.’

‘But you are not old, Richard, not at all!’ she exclaimed, scandalised. ‘What made you think such a thing, even for a moment?’

He looked away from her, out the window, as if he were being noble and resigned, instead of simply self-indulgent and wounded. ‘Don’t coddle me any longer, Jane. I know I’m at least ten years your senior.’

‘What does that matter?’ she cried. ‘At least it doesn’t matter to
me!
’

‘How can it not?’ He waved his hand impatiently through the air. ‘Be reasonable, Jane. You are still a young woman, while I am—’

‘No more, Richard,’ she said fiercely. ‘Not a word more!’

And before he could say another ridiculous word, she slid from her chair and took his face in her hands and kissed him, kissed him to stop the foolishness that he was saying, kissed him to make him believe the truth, kissed him long and well and without regard for all the other men in the room who’d stopped their talk to turn and gape and grin.

It worked, or at least so far as she’d managed to stop his morose self-pity. Instead, when they finally ended the kiss, he looked at her with a kind of dazed content, his smile spreading slowly over his face.

‘Why, Janie,’ he said, ‘that I did not expect.’

‘You should,’ she said promptly. ‘Leastways you should have if you weren’t occupied with feeling so woefully sorry for yourself.’

‘No, sweet, tell me,’ he said, his voice low an urgent. ‘Did you mean that? Are you sure?’

She gave a quick little nod to her head, smoothing out her skirts. ‘I meant it, yes. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.’

Slowly his mouth curved into a grin. ‘My own Jane.’

She smiled, too happy to say more. But now she was also aware of how her impulsiveness had made them the centre of attraction in the
malvasie
shop, how all around them were men craning their necks for more and grinning like a pack of wolfish hounds. It was unsettling, that much attention, and she felt her face grow hot with self-consciousness. Men never looked at her like that. Most times, men never so much as noticed she was in the room, she was that invisible.

But Richard—oh, Richard could look at her like this for the rest of her life, and she wouldn’t mind in the least.

‘Jane, Jane,’ he said again, raising her hand to kiss it. ‘My own sweet Jane. Are you taking notice of how I’m not feeling sorry for myself now?’

‘Everyone else certainly has,’ she said with a shy shrug of her shoulders. ‘But I must say that I’ve noticed, too.’

‘Well, now, that’s a good thing,’ he said, and winked wickedly. ‘A fine thing for us both, eh?’