Your Scandalous Ways (14 page)

But she stopped short, got as stiff as a poker, and said, “I am not receiving visitors.”

“I heard you've had a visit from burglars,” he said.

Her jaw dropped.

“Word travels quickly across a canal,” he said. “My gondolier had it from one of the market boats who had it from your cook.”

He looked about him. “Not amateurs, clearly,” he said. But of course they weren't. Amateurs would never have made it past the porters. “What made you suspect?”

“It was the servants who were suspicious,” she said. “I arrived only a short time ago. Not that it's any of your affair.”

Arnaldo, who'd followed James into the room, said, “We see that some objects and some furniture are not in the proper place, signore.”

She threw up her hands. “Does everyone cater to you?”

“It's my charm,” James said. “Irresistible.”

She turned away and threw herself into a chair. She waved at Arnaldo. “Go ahead, then. Tell him.”

In rapid Venetian—which James could barely follow—and in considerable detail, Arnaldo told him.

“Nuns?” James said. A cold knot formed in his solar plexus. “From Cyprus?”

He knew that Venice had once been the center of a vast trading empire. People came from every corner of the globe, even in these unhappy days. The Armenians had their own church. So did the Greeks. The Jews had several synagogues.

Nuns from Cyprus would be nothing out of the ordinary.

The trouble was, he was aware that so-called nuns from Cyprus had been responsible for several spectacular thefts in southern Italy in the last year. It was one of these thefts that had brought James to Rome, and his encounter with Marta Fazi—the ringleader…who was mad for emeralds. If she hadn't been mad and thus indiscreet, flaunting them in very public, if low, places, they might have gone missing forever.

But Marta was supposed to be in prison. Her gang had been broken up. Was this the work of an imitator? A coincidence?

Arnaldo must have finally noticed the baffled expression his listeners wore, because he reverted to Italian when he answered, “Everyone knows this accent. In Venice we hear it almost every day.”

James recalled the trace of foreign accent in Marta Fazi's speech. She'd been born in Cyprus.

Anyone could claim to be from Cyprus. But the accent was distinctive, to Arnaldo at least.

The chances of this being a coincidence or the work of imitators were shrinking by the moment.

Someone could have got Marta out. She'd been imprisoned in Rome, and the Papal States were notoriously corrupt. Powerful friends with money could have arranged her release.

All while James's mind was scrambling through details and arranging them and making its way to the logical conclusion, he maintained his calm, casual pose.

“Your jewelry?” he said to Bonnard. “Gone, I daresay?”

She blinked at him. “
My jewelry?
”

“That's what Piero said they were after the last time,” he reminded her. He'd doubted the story then, both logic and instincts telling him there was more to it than Piero told. Now a pattern was emerging. It wasn't pretty. “Your jewelry's become famous among the thief community, it seems.”

She bolted up from the chair and hurried from the room.

James followed her.

 

Francesca's private quarters were not so neatly searched as the other rooms. She felt chilled as she took it in: The mattresses hung partly on, partly off the bed. The bric-a-brac of her dressing table was tumbled about, and some of it had fallen to the floor beneath.

This was nothing like what had happened at Mira. Then the intruders had left very little trace of their doings.

This was…disturbing.

Thérèse stood on the threshold of the dressing room. She was weeping.

Francesca had never before seen her maid shed tears. It had not occurred to her that the haughty, self-sufficient lady's maid was capable of weeping.

“Thérèse?” Francesca said, and went to the maid and put her arms about her shoulders. “Are you all right?”

“Oh, madame.” The maid turned and pressed her forehead against Francesca's upper arm and sobbed.

“It's all right,” Francesca said. “Everyone was sick but no one was hurt.”

Thérèse lifted her head, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and said in rapid, angry French, “It is despicable. Filthy brutes. To dare to touch your beautiful gowns, your jewels—”

“Gone?” came a masculine voice from behind them.

For a moment, shocked at seeing Thérèse in tears, Francesca had forgotten Cordier was there.

Tearful or not, Thérèse ignored him, as she always ignored the men in Francesca's life. “They throw everything everywhere,” she said. “They empty your jewel box on the floor.” She nodded at the dressing room's interior.

Everything was on the floor. Including her jewelry.

“That's interesting,” Cordier said. His voice
came from much nearer behind her. He was looking over the maid's head into the dressing room. “They didn't take the jewelry. What on earth could they have wanted, then? Those memoirs you mentioned? Had you started writing them already?”

This had nothing to do with the memoirs Francesca doubted she'd ever write. It had nothing to do with simple robbery, either. Ordinary robbers did not throw expensive jewelry on the floor and leave it there. They—whoever they were—were after something far more valuable: the letters.

Francesca shook her head. She spoke lightly while her heart beat too hard. “Perhaps someone simply dislikes me. Perhaps it's a prank.”

“An elaborate prank,” he said. “Dressing up like nuns and poisoning your servants.”

“It's very strange they didn't take the jewelry,” she said. “Perhaps they truly were nuns. Who else could exercise so much restraint, and leave my pearls and sapphires behind?”

There they were, glinting up at her from among heaps of dresses, petticoats, corsets, chemises, gloves, and stockings.

Like a taunt. She'd taunted Elphick with reports of her jewels, her conquests. He'd taunted her, too, with his achievements, his conquests. A game, not very mature, perhaps.

Now it had turned ugly.

“Perhaps the nuns did this as a warning to me to mend the error of my ways,” she said. “Or to tell me that all is vanity or some such sanctimonious rubbish.”

“Your letters,” the maid said, moving into the dressing room. “The box where you keep them is there, on the floor, madame, but I see no letters, no papers of any kind.”

 

It was impossible, James told himself. Had she kept Elphick's incriminating letters in so obvious a place, Quentin's men would have found them when they searched her various residences.

They had searched the obvious places and the not-obvious places. Agents had obtained access to all the banks with which she did business. In the vaults they'd found jewelry—saved against the rainy day that often came to harlots as age took its toll—and her will and various financial and legal papers, but not the letters.

If it had been as simple as opening a portable writing desk or looking for secret pockets in her clothing or the bed curtains or hidden compartments in the furniture and such, they would not have needed James Cordier.

Yet he heard her sharp intake of breath and was aware of how she struggled to maintain her composure. She knew she was in trouble. The trick would be getting her to admit it.

“This grows more absurd by the minute,” she said. “It's impossible to try to determine what's gone and why in this chaos. Summon some maids to help you restore order here, Thérèse. Then you can make a list of what, if anything, is missing. Whatever these naughty nuns were up to, I shall be much amazed if they left without taking a single piece of jewelry.”

The maid went out.

“Maybe someone believed you'd started writing your memoirs,” he said.

“That makes no sense,” she said. She swung away from the doorway and moved to the mangled bed. “I've been at this for less than five years. My affairs are not secret. Far from it. I am not only a magnificent whore but a flamboyant one. No back doors or back stairs for me. Anyone who wants to know about my lovers might read about them in the newspapers. In fifteen or twenty years the participants might find the revelations embarrassing. At present, however, they are more likely to consider a liaison with Francesca Bonnard a badge of honor. You see, though you do not appreciate me properly, others do.”

“I appreciate you,” he said. “I thought I proved that a very short time ago. In the Campanile. Or have you forgotten already?”

The green eyes flashed up at him. “Cordier, you are an utter blockhead.”

“I know,” he said. “I should not have let you run away.”

A shadow came into her eyes, then, and he thought he saw the girl again, the girl who could believe, who could trust. But she vanished in the next instant. “I did not run away,” she said. “I was done with you. I left.”

“I'm not done,” he said.

“I don't care,” she said.

How do I make you care?
he wanted to ask.

“I do,” he said. “I'm worried about you. A few days ago, someone tried to kill you.”

“To rob me,” she said.

“A few days ago you were assaulted,” he said patiently. “Last night, your house was ransacked.”

“Searched,” she said. “So far, all that seems to be missing is some correspondence.” She smiled thinly. “And very amusing reading it will prove to be, to whomever has it.”

“Love letters?” he said.

“Oh, no,” she said. “They're from my husband.”

The bedroom door flew open and Magny stalked in, followed closely by a protesting Thérèse.

“Madame, I have told him you are engaged,” Thérèse said.

“
Allez-vous en,
” Magny told the maid.

She did not so much as look at him.

“Do proceed, Thérèse,” said madame. “I know you wish to put everything in order.”

Nose aloft, Thérèse walked past monsieur into the dressing room.

“Your servants are abominably insolent,” Magny said.

“My servants are loyal,” Bonnard said.

“If you did not want to see me, why the devil did you send for me?” he said, throwing a glare in James's direction.

“I did want to see you,” she said. “I do not want you ordering my servants about. That is the trouble. That is always the trouble. I should have remembered. What the devil was I thinking of, to seek your advice?”

“What were you thinking, indeed? Here is Monsieur Cordier to—” Magny made a dismissive gesture. “To do whatever it is he's here to do.”

“I'm not sure there's anything I can do,” James said. “For some mad reason, a lot of nuns made off with her husband's not-love letters.”

“Letters?” Magny said. “But that—” He broke off, walked to the door of the dressing room, and glared at the maid. She turned her back to him and went on folding garments.

He came away from the door. “I have seen enough, Francesca. You're moving out of this place and coming to live with me.”

“We tried that,” she said. “Twice. It was disastrous both times.”

“What else could it be?” said James.

Magny glowered at him.

James ignored it. “Come live with me, then.”

Magny stared at him. So did she.

And it seemed for an instant, as though they wore exactly the same expression. Then the ghost came into her eyes. “Why?” she said.

“Because I'm worried about you,” James said. “And because it's a much shorter way to go—merely across the canal. And because…” He paused. “Because I'm infatuated.”

“I am going to be sick,” Magny said. He threw up his hands and left the room.

Bonnard watched him go. “He isn't romantic,” she said.

“Neither am I,” James said. “If I could devise a less sickening reason, you may be sure I'd use it. But the fact is, I want to knock him down.”

“A great many people feel that way,” she said. “Including me.”

“In my case, it seems to be jealousy,” he said.

She turned away and moved to the dressing table. She righted a toppled jar. “You do understand that jealousy is absurd in my case? I don't belong to any man. That's the trouble with living with a man. When a woman takes up residence under his roof, he assumes she's one of his possessions. I'm nobody's possession.”

“Very well,” he said. “We can discuss terms, if you wish.”

“There are no terms,” she said. “I am not coming to live with you.”

“Then I'm moving in here,” he said.

She paused in her fussing over the bottles and jars—the fussing that rightly was Thérèse's province—and turned. She set her hands on the dressing table and braced herself on her arms. She smiled. “No, you're not.”

“Madame.”

Thérèse emerged from the dressing room, a velvet box in her hand. “The emeralds are gone,” she said.

J
ames was putting puzzle pieces together. He didn't like the looks of any of them.

Letters had been stolen.

And emeralds.

The robbers had taken the wrong letters, apparently. Bonnard would not be so amused—and he was sure she hadn't feigned that—if they'd taken the right ones. But what was in the wrong ones, to amuse her so?

Or was she simply amused at the error?

He wasn't.

Someone who did not read very well in the first place and who understood very little English in the second, might easily make the mistake.

That someone needn't be Marta Fazi. Who else, though, besides Marta, was demented enough to take emeralds and leave diamonds, rubies, pearls, and sapphires behind?

The logical conclusion was, someone had sent Marta to retrieve the letters. The someone had overestimated her intelligence and underestimated Bonnard's.

Her former husband?

They play a game,
Giulietta had said of Bonnard and her former spouse,
and to kill her is to admit he loses.

The trouble was, bringing crazy Marta Fazi into the business indicated a willingness to kill. James tried to remember if he'd heard of any connection between Fazi and Elphick. Nothing came to mind.

Was he completely wrong? Was there something he ought to see that he couldn't? If so, it was not surprising. He was stumbling in the dark because he didn't understand the game Bonnard played with Elphick. And he'd keep on stumbling until he put an end to the game she played with James Cordier.

He turned to Thérèse and gave orders in the French he'd perfected decades ago, the impeccable accents that had spared him decapitation on more than one occasion.

“Madame requires a bath,” he said. “While that
is in preparation, have servants repair her bed. While they do this, you will restore order to the dressing room and carry out the inventory madame ordered. She will expect you to list every missing item, no matter how unimportant. After madame has bathed and rested and is properly supplied with correct information, she will decide how to proceed.”

Thérèse bowed her head. “
Oui, monsieur,
” she said. She hurried from the room.

Bonnard stared after her. Then she stared at James. “Who
are
you?” she said. “A long-lost Bourbon? She won't heed even Magny, yet she heeds you.”

“It's my charm,” James said. “Irresistible.”

Her beautiful eyes narrowed.

“I told her to do precisely what she wanted to do,” he said. “She's too worried about you to pay proper attention to your belongings. Once you've bathed and rested, she'll be able to concentrate on her work. Likewise, you can't be expected to think clearly until you've had time to recover.”

“From staying out all night?” she said. “I'm used to that.”

“From the shock.”

“It's true I'm still reeling at the idea of nuns as burglars.”

“Those weren't real nuns,” he said. “And it wasn't a simple robbery. What is this about, Bonnard?”

She shrugged, and picked up a bottle from the floor.

He moved to her. “How stupid do you think I am?” he said. “I know something is going on here.
What are you hiding? How can I help you if you won't tell me anything?”

“Where did you get the idea I needed help?”

“A pair of nasty brutes assaulted you last week, supposedly for your jewelry—”

“Supposedly? Aren't you sure? You told me that the one who was captured said it was an attempted robbery.”

“A few days after that attack, your house is searched,” he said. “How much more evidence do you need that something is wrong? Why should someone make off with your husband's letters?”

“And my emeralds,” she said. “Maybe something alarmed the naughty nuns when they were ransacking my dressing room, and they simply snatched up what was at hand. They might have mistaken the letters for bank notes.” Maybe they thought they were passionate love letters and they could sell them to the scandal sheets. If so, they're in for a disappointment. They've stolen a lot of boring boasting and name-dropping—”

“Francesca.”

“It's none of your affair!” she snapped. “I don't want your help!”

“You're behaving like an idiot,” he said. “Are you pregnant?”

The bottle shot toward his head. He ducked. It struck the back of a chair, and toppled to the floor, unbroken. It must be a heavy little bottle. If he hadn't ducked, it might have cracked his skull open.

“Pregnant?” she cried. “Pregnant? Why not ask if it's coming to that time of the month?”

“Well, is it?” he said.

“You stupid, stupid man! I'm not pregnant. It's not coming to that time of month. I'm tired and dirty and I want a bath. And some sleep. And I want you out of my house.
Va via!
” She flung up her hand in that provoking backhanded gesture of dismissal.

He shook his head and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and its cavorting mythological beings. Hadn't he told her, a moment ago, that she needed a bath and rest?

He strode to her, and scooped her up in his arms.

“Put me down,” she said.

“I'm going to give you a bath,” he said. “I'm going to throw you into the canal.”

 

Francesca did struggle but it was pointless. The brute who'd tried to strangle her was three times her size, and he'd struggled with this man to no avail.

She remembered how easily Cordier had subdued him, how effortlessly he'd tossed him into the canal.

“You wouldn't,” she said.

He didn't answer, only strode out of the bedroom and down the
portego
toward the canal-facing windows. With their balconies. Directly over the canal.

“Can you swim?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Then you've nothing to worry about, have you?”

“Cordier,” she said.

“The water is cool and refreshing at this time of year,” he said. “Exactly the sort of thing you need to clear your addled little head.”

She was addled, she knew, and she'd been an utter bitch as well.

She laid her head on his shoulder. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm…emotional, I know.”

“No, you're insane,” he said.

“I don't want to care for you,” she said.

He kept on walking. “Honeyed words will not work,” he said. “I wasn't born yesterday.”

“Oh, very well, then,” she said. “Drown me. It'll be a relief.”

“No, it won't. You know how to swim, you said. Besides, you're beautiful. A romantic Venetian is sure to fish you out before the tide carries you out to sea.”

She tightened her arms about his neck. “I'm sorry,” she said. “Don't be angry with me.” She felt the tears trickling from her eyes. Again. This was horrible, worse than she'd supposed—and she'd thought she'd supposed the worst.

She was afraid of losing him. She must be mad. She hoped she was. The alternative was too ghastly to contemplate. Five days! She'd met him only five days ago!

“I'm immune to tears,” he said. “I'm doing this for your own good.”

“I'm g-going to s-scream for help,” she said. “The s-servants will c-come to my r-rescue.”

“They'll have to be deuced qu-quick,” he said mockingly.

They'd reached the
portego
windows.

“Cordier.”

The arm under her knees shifted slightly, and he put his hand on the window handle.

“You won't do it,” she said.

“Watch me,” he said.

She was aware of heads popping out of doorways. “The servants won't let you,” she said.

“Yes, they will,” he said. “They're Italian. They'll understand perfectly.”

He opened the tall window and carried her through it. The balcony was narrow. It wanted only a step to carry her to the edge. He set her down on the wide stone railing.

She locked her hands behind his neck. “If I go down, you're going with me,” she said.

He reached for her hands.

He'd have no trouble getting free of her.

And that was the trouble.

She let go of him and quickly, before she could think twice, turned.

And jumped.

“
Merda,
” she heard him say.

 

It did not take very long. Merely a lifetime while James's heart stopped and he blinked in disbelief, while he uttered the one word and pulled off his shoes. Merely a lifetime passed while he plunged in after her.

He caught hold of her before she could swim away—or attempt it: a considerable challenge, given the impediments of skirts and petticoats and stays. He dragged her the few feet to the water
gates, wrenched them open, dragged her inside, rose, hauled her upright, and shook her.

“Don't ever.” Shake. “Do that.” Shake. “Again.”

She stood, dripping, looking up at him, her green eyes so soft, filled with the ghost.

“Don't look at me that way,” he said.

“I'm not,” she said.

He pulled her into his arms. He kissed her wet forehead, her nose, her cheeks. He dragged his hands through her sopping hair while he waited for his heart rate to return to normal. It wouldn't, just kept thudding unevenly, with panic and anger and he didn't know what else. He didn't know how to stop it. He didn't know how to feel in control again.

Then his mouth came at last to hers and he kissed her, like the drowning man he was. It was deep and hot and ungentle, and she kissed him back in the same ferocious way.

She was bold and unafraid and shameless—the exact opposite of what he wanted. Nonetheless he wanted her, and the fierce kiss left him weak in the knees.

Yet all the while he was still himself, still aware of where they were. He knew he couldn't let his brain go weak as well. Not now. For her sake he must keep his wits about him.

Oh, yes, and for king and country, too.

The last thought was as bracing as a slap in the face.

He drew away. “I should have stayed where I was and waved good-bye,” he said. “
‘Ciao,'
I should have said. I should have waved and thought,
good
riddance.
That's what I should have done. You are nothing but trouble.”

She flung her arms around his waist and held him tightly.

Then he was done for, king or not, country or not.

“You smell like canal,” he said. “You really need a bath.”

“So do you,” came her muffled voice from his waterlogged coat.

“How big is your bathtub?” he said.

“I'm a great whore,” she said. “What do you think?”

 

It was only a short distance to the bathing room, which Francesca had created from one of the cozy rooms on the mezzanine, between the
andron
and the
piano nobile.
The tub was very large, as befitted a courtesan, but she had not yet entertained a man here while bathing.

A small window let in light from the courtyard. Even when the sun was at the best angle this room was one of the darker ones in the house. A servant was lighting candles as they entered. He'd already lit the fire in the fireplace.

The light flickered over what she thought of as a most luxurious cave.

The tub stood to one side of the fireplace. A Roman-style couch stood on the other. Soft towels, neatly folded, stood in heaps on tables nearby.

She'd furnished the room in the style she'd seen on mosaics from Roman times, to go with the frescoes. Instead of the
putti
and saints and martyrs
prevalent elsewhere, the flickering candlelight here revealed gods and goddesses, nymphs and satyrs, food and wine, dancing and lovemaking. Incense burned in the braziers, as it had done in the old days of the Republic.

This room was private, a refuge. She never brought company here.

The servants had already prepared it for her, though. In the circumstances, it was irrational as well as inconsiderate to make them labor again, this time hauling water all the way up to the
piano nobile.
She was cold and wet. Cordier was cold and wet…and what did it matter if she let him into her sanctuary? What was the point of trying to keep him out of any corner of her life?

“You're full of surprises,” he said, looking about him. “I'd expected to see a tub wheeled into your boudoir or bedroom.”

“There's a smaller tub upstairs,” she said. “It's mainly for the benefit of gentlemen who might wish to watch me bathe. But this room is for me.”

The servant went out and Thérèse hurried in, carrying a basket of soaps, creams, and perfumes. Over one arm hung a dressing gown. She looked hard at Francesca, glanced at Cordier, and compressed her lips. “Madame will take cold,” she said.

“I'll see that she doesn't,” Cordier said. He took the basket and dressing gown from her. “Madame pleases to drive me mad—”

“Monsieur pleases to provide me the same service,” Francesca said.

“Nonetheless, I shall see that she comes to no
harm,” Cordier said. “You may go now. She'll scream if she needs you.”

Thérèse looked to Francesca. “You may go,” Francesca said.

The maid went out.

“Every member of the household knows what happened,” he said. “It will be all over Venice in five minutes.”

“You upset me,” she said.

“The feeling is mutual,” he said.

“I don't like to be upset,” she said.

“Who does?”

“I have spent the last five years arranging my life to keep that from happening,” she said.

He inspected the jars and bottles and soaps in the basket and removed one bottle before setting down the basket on the table close by the tub. He unstopped the bottle, sniffed it, then sprinkled a few drops into the tub. “I'm beginning to understand,” he said.