Your Scandalous Ways (3 page)

And, this being Italy, many other people were doing neither.

As he well knew, Italian theaters were a different species from those in England. In Italy, theaters were social centers. To accommodate sociable theatergoers, the stairs and refreshment rooms were enormous. The vast foyers had been used until very recently for gambling. Now, with gambling forbidden, theatergoers were reduced to playing backgammon.

During the season, the educated classes attended the theater four or five times a week. Since this was a home away from home, the boxes were large as well, many of them furnished like drawing rooms and used in much the same way. From some, one could barely see the stage.

During the performance, people ate, drank, and talked. They played at cards, flirtation, and seduction. Servants went in and out. The opera or play provided background color and music, for the most part.

But at certain important times in the performance—the start of a favorite aria, for instance—the audience became hushed, and attended with all its might.

Such a hush was not in progress as James entered the box where Francesca Bonnard held court. Several parties on stage were screeching and bellowing something or other to which no one was paying the slightest heed.

No one paid James any heed, either. He appeared to be merely one of the several wigged and liveried servants going in and out with this or that: food, wine, a shawl. Playing a servant was easy. Those they served took little notice of them. He might stab the crown prince of Gilenia in the neck in front of a dozen witnesses, and later, not one of those witnesses would be able to identify James as the killer. No one would remember what kind of wig or livery he wore.

He was certain of this, having done away with two pieces of human slime under similar conditions.

Lurenze, however, was merely in the way. Since, given the lady's reputation, one must expect a male—or several—to be in the way, James preferred the obstacle to be young and not overly intelligent. The French count Magny, with the advantages of age and experience—which included not losing his head, literally, during the Terror or thereafter—might have proved a more serious obstacle.

James's attention shifted from the golden-haired boy to the harlot beside him. They sat at the front of the box, Lurenze in the seat of honor at her right. He'd turned in his seat to gaze worshipfully at her. She, facing the stage, pretended not to notice the adoration.

From where he stood, James had only the rear view, of a smoothly curving neck and shoulders. Her hair, piled with artful carelessness, was a deep chestnut with fiery glints where the light caught it. A few loose tendrils made her seem the slightest
degree tousled. The effect created was not of one who'd recently risen from bed but one who had a moment ago slipped out of a lover's embrace.

Subtle.

And most effective. Even James, jaded as he was, was aware of a stirring-up below the belly, a narrowing of focus, and a softening of brain.

But then, she ought to be good at stirring up men, he thought, considering her price.

His gaze drifted lower.

A sapphire and diamond necklace adorned her long, velvety neck. Matching drops hung at her shell-like ears. While Lurenze murmured something in her ear, she let her shawl slip down.

James's jaw dropped.

The dress had almost no back at all! She must have had her corset specially made to accommodate it.

Her shoulder blades were plainly visible. An oddly shaped birthmark marked the right one.

He pulled his eyes back into his head and his tongue back into his mouth.

Well, then, she was a fine piece, as well as a bold one, no question about that. Someone thought she was worth those sapphires, certainly, and that was saying something. James wasn't sure he'd ever seen their like, and he'd seen—and stolen—heaps of fine jewelry. They surpassed the emeralds he'd reclaimed from Marta Fazi not many months ago.

Bottle in hand, he advanced to fill their glasses.

Lurenze, who'd leaned in so close that his yellow curls were in danger of becoming entangled with her earrings, paused, leaned back a little, and
frowned. Then he took out his quizzing glass and studied her half-naked back. “But this is a serpent,” he said.

It is?

James, surprised, leaned toward her, too. The prince was right. It wasn't a birthmark but a
tattoo.

“You, how dare you to stare so obscene at the lady?” Lurenze said. “Impudent person! Put your eyes back in your face. And watch before you spill—”

“Oops,” James said under his breath as he let the bottle in his hand tilt downward, splashing wine on the front of his highness's trousers.

Lurenze gazed down in dismay at the dark stain spreading over his crotch.

“
Perdono, perdono,
” James said, all false contrition. “
Sono mortificato, eccellenza.
” He took the towel from his arm and dabbed awkwardly and not gently at the wet spot.

Bonnard's attention remained upon the stage, but her shoulders shook slightly. James heard a suppressed giggle to his left, from the only other female in the box. He didn't look that way but went on vigorously dabbing with the towel.

The red-faced prince pushed his hand away. “Stop! Enough! Go away! Ottar! Where is my servant?
Ottar!
”

Simultaneously, a few hundred heads swiveled their way and a few hundred voices said, in angry unison, “
Shh!
”

Ninetta's aria was about to begin.

“
Perdonatemi, perdonatemi
,” James whispered.
“
Mi dispiace, mi dispiace.
” Continuing to apologize, he backed away, the picture of servile shame and fear.

La Bonnard turned round then, and looked James full in the face.

He should have been prepared. He should have acted reflexively but for some reason he didn't. He was half a heartbeat too slow. The look caught him, and the unearthly countenance stopped him dead.

Isis
, Lord Byron had dubbed her, after the Egyptian goddess. Now James saw why: the strange, elongated green eyes…the wide mouth…the exotic lines of nose and cheek and jaw.

James felt it, too, the power of her remarkable face and form, the impact as powerful as a blow. Heat raced through him, top to bottom, bottom to top, at a speed that left him stunned.

It lasted but a heartbeat in time—he was an old hand, after all—and he averted his gaze. Yet he was aware, angrily aware, that he'd been slow.

He was aware, angrily aware, of being thrown off balance.

By a look, a mere look.

And it wasn't over yet.

She looked him up. She looked him down. Then she looked away, her gaze reverting to the stage.

But in the last instant before she turned away, James saw her mouth curve into a long, wicked smile.

T
he two women giggled like schoolgirls as their gondola made its way through the sable throng clustered at the Fenice's rear door.

“Oh, but did you see Lurenze's face when he came back, and found the Russian count in his place?” said Giulietta. “Like a little boy with his pretty blond curls. He stood, so, with his mouth hanging open.” She mimicked the prince's dismayed astonishment. “Poor boy. He was so disappointed.”

“Boy, indeed,” said Francesca. “He's like a
puppy—and I'm not sure I have the patience to train him.”

“The young ones have so much energy,” said Giulietta. “But too often they are clumsy.”

“And they're in a great hurry,” Francesca said. “Still, he's very beautiful.”

“And he is a prince. And he has a fine fortune. And a generous nature.”

“It would be a coup, I agree,” Francesca said.

“And yet you hesitate. Is this because of the comte de Magny?”

“He has no power over me,” Francesca said.

“You are not still angry with him?”

“I'm done with letting men tell me what to do—and he had the audacity to advise me about lovers. He even objected to the
marchese
.”

“Bellaci? To what can anyone object? When I think of the jewels he showered upon you, I wonder how you could leave him.”

“A year and a half in one man's keeping is long enough,” Francesca said.

The longer an affair continued, the greater the danger of becoming attached. She'd never do that again.

“You don't miss him, your handsome
marchese?
” said Giulietta.

“When men are gone, I'm always glad they're gone,” Francesca said. That included the two men in her life she'd truly loved: her father and her husband. “I will admit that Lurenze lacks their savoir faire. If a servant had spilled wine on Bellaci, for instance, he would have said something witty. Lurenze was thoroughly flummoxed.”

“He was embarrassed because it happened in front of you,” Giulietta said. “I felt sorry for him, yet I was amused, too. How precisely the servant aimed the wine! Almost I could believe he did it on purpose.”

“I had the same impression,” Francesca said. “Whose servant was it, do you know?”

“Who cares?” said Giulietta. “Did you notice his shoulders?
Buon Dio.
” Though, after the long, rainy day, the night was cool, she fanned herself. “And his legs?”

“Oh, yes,” said Francesca. “I noticed.”

She'd noticed that the servant was magnificently formed. She'd noticed his broad shoulders and long, muscled legs, well displayed in the breeches and stockings of his livery. She'd noticed the way he moved—smooth and lithe as a cat—and she'd thought,
There isn't a clumsy bone in that body.
She would have noticed more, given a chance. The chance never came.

“I wish I could have seen his face,” she said. “But it doesn't do to light the box too brightly.”

“No, no, never bright,” Giulietta said. “We must have the shadows, to encourage the intimacy, the seductive words, the naughty jokes. It is too bad he did not come back, to let us study him more. To speak for myself, I would have liked to study him with my hands—and perhaps my mouth.”

“If he turned out to be ugly, you could put the towel over his face,” Francesca said. “Ugly or not, it was inconsiderate of him to fail to return. He was a most welcome distraction from the others.”

“Why is it the aristocrats never look like that?” said Giulietta.

“Because the aristocrats don't exercise their muscles with hard work,” Francesca said.

“I would let him exercise his muscles on me,” said Giulietta. “To keep them from going soft, you know.”

Francesca's mind produced an image of naked masculine limbs tangled with hers. Heat swarmed over her skin. “You are the soul of kindness,” she said, fanning herself. “Your heart is so charitable, you should have been a nun.”

“I should have been a nun,” said Giulietta, “but the habit is so unbecoming. And all the praying is bad for the knees. No, no, it would not suit me. I was born to be a slut.”

“As was I,” said Francesca. Resolutely banishing lewd images of excessively virile servants, she waved her hand. “Look at this. Were I not a slut, I should not be in the midst of this, laughing with my dearest friend.”

After midnight, when the theaters let out and the parties began, the lights of hundreds of gondolas danced over the canals and candlelight twinkled in the windows of the palaces. Here, where no coach wheels and horses' hooves clattered over pavement, one moved in a quiet punctuated only by voices. Carried over the water, conversations ebbed and flowed around her, as though in a great drawing room.

But this was better than any drawing room, Francesca thought. One needn't play a part or make idle conversation. One might simply float upon the water, and on a clear night like this, lean out of the
felze's
open casement and look up at the
stars. One might, as she did now, hear voices singing and in the distance, the poignant notes of a violin. Even at its liveliest, Venice felt so much more peaceful than other cities.

A form hurtled toward them out of the shadows, sprang into the gondola, and folded up at the feet of Uliva, the gondolier in front.

It happened so suddenly that Francesca was too stunned at first to scream. Uliva reacted more quickly. But as he and Dumini, in the rear, stopped rowing, preparing to oust the intruder, a muffled voice cried, “Have pity, I beg you, for mercy of God.”

The form rose to its knees. It proved to be a man in a cape and a wide-brimmed hat. In the uncertain light of the gondola's lamp, Francesca could not make out much of his features beyond noting a long, thin, curling mustache and a pointy bit of a beard. He put her in mind of a seventeenth-century portrait of a nobleman she'd seen somewhere.

London? Florence? The Palazzo Manfrini? These days one rarely saw facial hair on European men, and certainly not in that curious style.

“I beg you most humbly, men of the paddles, do not betray me,” he said in thickly accented Italian. “Please, I am of no harm.” He pushed back his cape and put up his hands. “No artillery. No stiletto. No pistol.”

It was then he seemed to notice the two women staring at him.

“This is a novel way of getting our attention,” Francesca said calmly, though her heart pounded. Venice was one of the safest cities in the world. But
no place was completely safe for women, she knew. She recalled her encounter with Lord Quentin in Mira, and what had happened afterward, and her uneasiness grew.

“Oh, speaking English, thank the saints,” the stranger said, switching to that language. His version of it was as heavily accented as his barbarous Italian. “My Italian, not so good. My English less bad. A thousand pardons,
senoritas
.
Signorine
. Ladies, is my meaning. I have a little trouble, this is all.”

Looking to Uliva, he said, “Perhaps you will make the paddle move more rapid, boat person?” He moved his hands in a rowing motion. “To make the boat go far away—yes?—before any trouble happens.”

The large Uliva regarded him stonily. Behind the cabin, Dumini would be awaiting his partner's signal. Uliva could easily throw the intruder into the canal or knock him senseless with the oar. But while no one could determine the fellow's social position from his ridiculous accent, he had the unmistakable manner of the upper orders.

This didn't mean he was trustworthy. It simply made the gondoliers hesitate.

The stranger appealed to Francesca. “I know it is strange, my sudden appearing. But here is the cause: I visit the lady who has breasts of great beauty.” He pointed. “There in that house she lives. But alas, the
esposo
of the lady—how is the word for him?”

“The husband,” Giulietta supplied.

“That one,” said the stranger. “He comes home
early because he has a discord—what is it when they scream at each other?—he has a disputing with his mistress.”

“You mean a quarrel?” said Giulietta. She glanced at Francesca, her mouth twitching.

“The quarrel, yes,” the man said. “Then with
me
”—he thumped his chest—“with
me
he makes the quarrel. What have I done? Almost no time he gives me to assume my
pantaloni
. How do you call them? My breeches, which they are down on my feet, so.” He pointed to his ankles. “The
esposo
he shouts at me,” he said indignantly. “He chases me with a knife very big.”

Giulietta giggled.

Francesca couldn't help but smile. She and Giulietta had encountered his type before. Some of Lord Byron's romantic escapades were equally comical. She signaled the gondolier to proceed.

Uliva shrugged. This was Venice, after all. The vessel proceeded smoothly along the canal.

The stranger lightly tipped his hat, then kissed his hand to her. “You are so much kindness to come to my succor. So genteel. It is too shocking, what happens. My lady she is married, not a virgin. All the married ladies here, they have lovers, no?”

“A virtuous wife has only one lover,” said Giulietta. “But sometimes the husband acts crazy, as though she had twenty. This one, it seems, was in bad temper because he quarreled with his mistress. It is most unusual, I agree, for the Venetian husband to make a fuss about his wife's
amoroso
.”

“One or two lovers is normal for a married lady,” said Francesca. “A wife with twenty lovers is a little wild, though. Then people talk. You must be new to Venice.”

“Ah, yes.” He smote his forehead, tipping the curious hat askew. “Alas, my so bad manners. I am Don Carlo Frederico Manuelo da Guardia Aparicio. But
you.
” He pressed his hand to his heart. “No, do not tell me who you are. I am killed and you are angels in heaven…though I think,” he added with a frown, “I did not expect to find myself in heaven. My mama always told me I would go to the other place.”

“You'll see us there in due course, no doubt,” said Francesca. “But for the present we remain in Venice. I am Francesca Bonnard and this is my good friend Giulietta Sabbadin, and you needn't worry about our husbands chasing you with big knives, for we are
cortegiane.
”

“Ah, but of the certainty,” he said. “So stupid I am. I should have seen at once—so much the beauty, so much the elegance, so much the costly gowns of the most fashionable.” He kissed his hand to them.

“At any rate, I believe you're safe now,” said Francesca. “Where would you like to get out?”

“It makes no moment to me,” he said. He came off his knees and shifted to a sitting position as smoothly as the gondoliers' oars glided through the water.

She saw then, with shock, that he was bigger than she'd assumed. His long legs, angled to fit the small quarters, blocked the front of the
felze.
The
shoulder resting against the frame of the open door was very broad…and familiar. She tried to recall where she'd seen him before.

The trouble was, Italy contained so many good-looking men—not to mention the countless paintings and statues of magnificent males. More than likely the physique, like the curious facial hair, called to mind a portrait she'd seen in somebody's
palazzo
.

In any case, she'd nothing to fret about, she told herself. This was merely a man lounging in a boat, merely a man at her feet—where she preferred them, by the way. Yet her heart beat fast, and under its pounding she was aware of a sharp pull in the pit of her belly.

Not harmless,
she thought.
Not this one.

Leaning back and tilting his hat over his forehead, he said, “I am content to go where you go, most beautiful ones. I am the courtesan like you. You will allure the men and I will allure the women.”

 

It was true enough, James thought, as he watched them from under the brim of his hat. He'd whored before for his country and was doing it again. If he caught the clap and his pego fell off, well, too bad. He'd get no sympathy from his superiors. Men lost parts in war, didn't they, and he was a soldier, wasn't he, and better paid than any of them. That would be their attitude.

In any event, a man didn't get far in this trade if he couldn't improvise. Bonnard was clearly more cautious and mistrustful than her friend. She'd wound up as tight as a clock spring when he settled
in the cabin's doorway, but his claiming to be a whore like them seemed to calm her somewhat. Now she was watching, waiting, deciding whether to have him pitched overboard or not.

He was watching and waiting, too.

“But you are a man,” said her doe-eyed friend, Giulietta.

“Yes, thank the saints,” he said. “But this night, if I run only a little more slow, I think I would not be all the man I was before.”

“A courtesan is a
woman,
” said Giulietta.

“What word then?” he said. “My English speaking, better than my Italian speaking, but still of no perfection.”

Giulietta looked at her friend.

“The man prostitute,” he prompted, “who costs very much. What is his name in English?”

“Husband,” said Bonnard. And she laughed.

James sucked in his breath.

He'd heard about the laugh, and dismissed it as another of the myths men created to explain their stupidity about a woman.

He knew—
knew
—it was her art, yet the husky invitation in the sound caught him. It was a lover's laughter, hinting at private jokes amid tumbled sheets. It was the laughter of shared secrets, almost unbearably intimate.

It was like those sirens, calling to what's-his-name. Ulysses.

Tie me to the mast
, he thought.