Your Scandalous Ways (Fallen Women 1)

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.

Chapter 2

And up and down the long canals they go,

And under the Rialto shoot along,

By night and day, all paces, swift or slow;

And round the theatres, a sable throng,

They wait in their dusk livery of woe,—

But not to them do woful things belong,

For sometimes they contain a deal of fun,

Like mourning coaches when the

funeral’s done.

Lord Byron, Beppo

The 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. Uli

va 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.