The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy (24 page)

“Harry, how dare you say such a thing!”

“A very beautiful woman, I dare say, but Venus herself on the wall isn't half so satisfying as a stirring beauty in the flesh. Talking of which,” he said, rising, “I'm off for a pleasant hour or so with Cecilia. Come with me this evening to a masked ball; the company will be amusing, and you are certain to run into some old acquaintances.”

“A ball? I think not, my dancing days are behind me. And why a masked ball at this time of year? I thought the Venetians worked that out of their system at carnival time; is that not in February or March?”

“How stuffy you are become. It is a masked ball because the Venetians love to dress up.”

“Well, I don't.”

“I tell you what it is, Titus. You're bored, you've got no outlet for that damned energy of yours. It's a pity you ever sold out, or that there isn't another war where you could fight yourself out of your fidgets.”

“Never pray for another war,” Titus said sombrely. “We've had enough of war and bloodshed these last years, more than enough.”

“Even so, you need some purpose in life, even if it's merely slaying your fellow men.” Harry lifted a slender hand. “No, no, do not frown at me, I know your distaste for the battlefield, and after Waterloo, who can blame you? Go back into politics, bloody a few noses in the House, for God's sake. Or take up a cause, anything to direct your attention in a more active way. This sniffing about after an old picture is not the way to spend your life. A passion for collecting, such as your governor had, why, that's a different matter.”

“Leave me alone, Harry. I've done with war, I've done with politics, and all I want is to thwart the king's lust to possess my Titian.”

“There's no reasoning with a man who has a maggot in his head.”

“Besides, I have no mask.”

 

Lights, colour, smells from the canal mingling with candle wax and the scents of humanity, perfumed and powdered humanity. Titus, resplendent in a dark green coat and silk breeches and taller by a head than most of the men present, stared out over the restless throng of guests. He took a glass of wine from a passing servant and lingered by a deep window overlooking the canal. It was still busy, even at this time in the evening, when shadows had fallen over the city and torches flared by the steps of the palaces and houses lining the sides of the canal.

He felt a light touch on his arm, and turned to find a woman, not young, by the look of her neck, but with amused, ageless eyes glinting through a velvet mask. “Mr. Manningtree, alone, in Venice? How is this possible?”

Titus made his bow. “Your servant, ma'am.” He'd have known that voice anywhere. How well Lady Hermione Wytton was looking. She must be well past fifty, no, nearer sixty, but her eyes still held the sparkle that had made her, so his father had told him, the toast of the town when she was a young married woman in London. The Wyttons were Titus's closest neighbours in Herefordshire. He had known Lady Hermione all his life, was her godson, and had been somewhat afraid of her ever since he was in short clothes.

“Harry Hellifield told me you were here. Tell me why you are in Venice. Have you run away from London on account of Emily's marriage? I was astounded when I heard about it, and of course the polite world is, or pretends to be, shocked, yet I think it will answer very well. Emily is not the kind of woman to dwindle into comfortable widowhood. I dare say you might have married her, but that would be too much excitement in her life; she will be better with a more even-tempered husband.”

There it was again, first Harry, now Lady Hermione passing remarks on his temper. He took it amiss, he really did.

“No, never look so darkly at me, for if I can't say these things to you, who can? Now, whom may I introduce you to? Let us find you an enchanting companion to ease the ache in your heart.”

“I assure you, there is no ache.”

“So much the better, then you can flirt desperately with all the prettiest women. How did you leave your brother?”

“He was well when last I saw him, which I admit was a while ago.”

“It is such a pity that he married such a poor creature as Christabel, and it's a miracle that the boys are turning out so well.”

“She is a good mother, I believe.”

“Scheming woman. I dare say she is, though.” While she spoke, Lady Hermione's eyes were darting about the room. “There is Lady Mesurier, you must know her, in the cat's-face mask, what a good choice. Or can I introduce you to Valentina Heybrook, she of the feathers and beak? She is a charmer, only her husband is inclined to be jealous, and you are looking so handsome this evening, it might not be wise.”

“As to charm…” Titus said, his face breaking into the smile that wiped all trace of severity from it and caused several ladies in the vicinity to flutter their fans and widen their eyes at him. Lady Hermione had more charm than any woman of his acquaintance, that rare gift of the gods that outlasted beauty and rank and defied any ravages that age might bring.

Despite himself, despite his wrath at Warren's underhandedness and Delancourt's two-facedness, Titus found he was enjoying the occasion. There was a vitality here that he hadn't expected, for his view of Venice was a jaundiced one. He saw it as a gorgeous but dying city, whose attractions had faded with her power; he could see no future for Venice, once the greatest maritime power of her day, in a world torn asunder by revolution. The palace where centuries of doges had ruled was left bare-walled and empty-ceilinged by the rapacious greed of the invaders; the great chambers where powerful men had held court and sat in judgement and schemed and planned and plotted were deserted now, nothing there but the ghosts of red-robed figures who had once held an empire in their hands.

Yet here was life and movement and laughter, music and graceful figures, a moment captured out of time, perhaps, a reflection of a happier and more glorious age.

“So pensive, Titus?” said a soft Italian voice at his elbow.

“Paolo, by all that's wonderful,” Titus said, shaking a mask of comedy warmly by the hand. “What are you doing here? I thought you were settled in Vienna for the duration. How is diplomacy?”

The man swung his mask, which he carried on a stick, aside from his face. “As tedious as ever, and your handshake is the same formidable one I remember. Pray do me a favour, and greet me with a bow when next we meet. It is not enough that you tower over me, but you have to crush the life from my bones as well.”

Titus looked down at the slight man, who had a face like a wicked faun, with great benevolence. “I was reflecting on Venice.”

“Alas, she is somewhat bedraggled, a woman past her prime, still clinging to vestiges of beauty. I am not a Venetian, so I can regard this without emotion. For me, there is altogether too much water around Venice. I do not care for the sea, and these canals are depressing to the spirits. And the Venetians! They are a subtle race, intrigue is in their blood; one can never get a straight answer from a Venetian.”

“Diplomats do not generally deal in straight answers, I believe.”

“Ah, we live behind masks much more effective in their disguises than these we see tonight. What brings you to Venice, Titus?”

“A woman.”

The faun's eyebrows rose. “A woman? This is not like you. Last time we met—it was in London, at a rout, such a crush, such bad food, I left early—you were in company with Emily Thruxton.”

“She was widowed and has remarried. An Italian.”

“So now you come to Italy in search of an Italian of your own? Or is it a fellow countrywoman who is the object of your pursuit?”

“She is a Venetian.”

“Present now?” said Paolo, interested.

“I'm afraid not.”

A thought had struck Titus. “Paolo, have you encountered a Mr. Darcy in Vienna? Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy?”

“Oh, that one; what a man, how formidable, the kind of controlled and clever Englishman that frightens us on this side of the Channel. So reserved, so keen-witted. With a delightful wife. Yes, he is attached to the legation for some months. We shall all be happier when he departs for his native shores and is replaced by a more stupid man.”

Paolo was about to add something, when his attention was caught by a slim, elegant creature in a golden half-mask, who put a hand through the Italian's arm and whispered into his ear. He vanished into the crowd, and Titus was drawn into the dance that was just starting by the ruthless tactics of his hostess, a woman he had exchanged bows with on his arrival, who showed herself to be as bossy as any of the patronesses at Almacks as she presented a young woman with flaming hair and a beribboned mask to him as his partner.

He took it in good part, not least because while his partner's face might be covered, her white bosom was mostly exposed, and he dwelt on her plump form with satisfaction and appreciation.

“Look, but don't touch,” Harry murmured into his ear as they passed one another in the dance. “She's a Pisani, and the families in the Golden Book guard their womenfolk jealously.”

Titus's private opinion was that the Signorina Pisani was more than a match for any fathers or brothers who might try to control her. Immurement in a convent might restrain her, but not any masculine moral disapproval, he felt sure. She was lively, conversable in delightful broken English as well as in Italian, flirtatious, and more than capable of arousing Titus's ardour, menfolk or no menfolk.

Disappointment, as she was swept away at the end of the dance by an Italian nobleman with flashing eyes and a rakish smile, whose company she clearly intended to enjoy.

“Cut out by another Italian,” Titus said to Harry.

Harry laughed. “The night is young, and also hot. If you have had enough of dancing, I propose a stroll, to calm the fevered brow and spirits.”

Titus looked around at the jostling, murmuring, brilliantly coloured throng of dancers and onlookers. “A moment, while I find Lady Hermione.”

“There you are out of luck. I observed her leaving some thirty minutes since.”

“I can call on her tomorrow, I suppose.”

“Today,” Harry said, taking his friend's arm and guiding him from the ballroom, nodding and bowing to his numerous acquaintances as he went. “It is past three.”

“Is it really?” said Titus as they came out of the stuffy rooms into air that was hardly less hot. “There is no coolness in the air.”

“We are in for a thunderstorm, so the fishermen say, but not yet.”

Moonlight gleamed and danced in the water, the moon riding so high and clear in the sky that its beams reached even the darkest and most shadowy of the canals they crossed in a meandering walk across the quiet city.

“Only whores and malefactors abroad at this hour,” said Harry. “And revellers such as ourselves. The citizens of Venice dine and retire early.”

Whores there certainly were, standing in doorways and advancing to accost the two of them. Coaxing suggestions of unrivalled pleasures to be had, offers of reduced rates for the pair of them, and curses when they walked on, unmoved, rent the air. The Rialto bridge was astir with gaudily attired women, flashing bosoms and legs at passers-by, and equally so with slim, beautiful youths in tight breeches, showing rippling muscles beneath smooth skin.

“All tastes catered for,” Harry said. “I would not advise you to keep company with any of these, however. Should your ardour be high, let me recommend one of the better
casini,
where the women are prettier and cleverer in conversation as well as the arts of love.”

Titus scowled. “I don't want to lie with a whore.”

“No, you want to lie with Emily, but you cannot, and I do not suppose you intend to embark on a lifetime's celibacy on account of that.”

“Androgyny is a strange thing,” Titus remarked as a slender figure stepped out in front of them. “Put that youth in a fine dress and mask, and you would take him for a woman. Or it may be that he is in fact a she, a woman pretending to be a man to attract a man who likes men but who is only satisfied with a woman. How close the sexes sometimes come to one another. It is as much a matter of behaviour and the sphere in which they move that separates the masculine part of humanity from the feminine.”

“What nonsense,” said Harry. “Are you saying that you cannot distinguish a man from a woman?”

“I'm saying that besides women who are always unmistakably women, there are others just as female in their nature and desires who may pass for a man while they are young. Just as that effeminate youth we passed a few paces back could, as I said, dress up and pass as a woman in any light.”

Harry shook his head. “You have drunk too much wine, your judgement is warped.”

“I have known such a case,” Titus said, “of a young woman passing herself off as a man, with complete success.”

“She deceived you?”

“Not I, for I knew her as a girl.”

“You haven't taken up cradle-snatching, have you, Titus? I never thought you were one for those child whores who infest the streets of London.”