Curl it did, in thick, crow-black ringlets. But at the moment, no one would guess that.
“What do you reckon about my hair, Sedgewick?” James said. “Strong soap, or do you want to try scraping it off first?”
“I reckon I wished you’d decided on a wig instead, sir,” Sedgewick said.
“Too easy to lose in a tussle,” James said. “I had no way to be sure her gondoliers wouldn’t heave me overboard first and ask questions later. I think she’s hired the biggest gondoliers in Venice. That Uliva? Hands the size of hams. Water wouldn’t damage this, though.”
“She must expect trouble, signore,” Zeggio said. “The house is protected very well. Two porters. One on the canal side and one on the land side. We have tried to get into it, but for us this is impossible. Even if we could get in, we do not know what to look for and where to look. How will you do it?”
“I won’t,” said James.
Zeggio’s dark eyes widened. “No?”
James laughed. “She thought she was so clever, leaving me in Countess Benzoni’s clutches. I could have escaped and followed La Bonnard—but to what purpose? When she wants to be rid of a man, she gets rid of him. She’d had enough of me. There was nothing to be gained by plaguing her. There was a great deal to be gained, though, by listening to what people said of her after she left.”
“Prince Lurenze went after her,” Sedgewick told Zeggio. “Where did it get him?”
James had not followed her but Sedgewick and Zeggio had. They blended in easily among the gondoliers and servants idling about St. Mark’s.
“I took advantage of the opportunity she offered me,” James said. “The Countess Benzoni is charming, lively, and most informative. I found out more from her in half an hour than I should have learned from Bonnard in a week. This, combined with my own observations, tells me what to do.”
He looked up from the mirror into Zeggio’s eager face.
Once I felt the same zest for adventure, the same zest for the hunt, James thought. Where did it go? When did it go?
“Everyone chases her,” James said. “She knows how to deal with that. So she’s going to chase me.” He smiled grimly. “Until I catch her.”
Chapter 3
I’m fond myself of solitude or so,
But then, I beg it may be understood,
By solitude I mean a sultan’s not
A hermit’s, with a haram for a grot.
Lord Byron
Don Juan, Canto the First
Two nights later
On nights like this Francesca truly appreciated her freedom. She had gone first to the theater, then to the Caffè Florian, and now—Giulietta having parted from her for an assignation—she was going home, where she might sit up for a time, reading.
She would not have to make conversation or stifle yawns. She would not have to be clever or amusing or enticing or even agreeable.
Tonight she need please only herself.
She sat in the gondola, her chin resting on her hand, watching the familiar line of palazzi near her house float past. It was delicious, sometimes, not to have to talk or even think, to simply savor the moment and her surroundings: the beautiful houses, which had stood here for centuries; the quiet of the canal, the same quiet it had known for centuries, too; the peace of this strange city.
None of the cities she’d visited since she’d left England had soothed her as Venice did. She had no trouble understanding why Lord Byron had been, in a sense, reborn here.
At present, she lacked nothing in her life, she thought. She was financially secure. She was free—in ways she couldn’t have dreamed of in her old life. She had a friend in whom she could confide.
She needed nothing—except perhaps a lover who would give her a few hours’ pleasure and go away and leave her in peace. Or perhaps a dog would be better, she thought with a smile. In lieu of carnal pleasure, a canine would offer unquestioning love and devotion.
But dogs could not buy her diamonds. Or rubies, emeralds, sapphires, pearls, peridots, amethysts, or any of their fellows.
She’d have to make do with a lover. She laughed softly at the thought.
As the gondola neared her house, she looked up toward the Ca’ Munetti. Arnaldo had told her that the new tenant was hiring more servants. Several boats had arrived with supplies for the house. Of the tenant himself Arnaldo had learned little more. The gondolier Zeggio had claimed his master wished for privacy. He’d come to study with the monks and to concentrate on his work, whatever that was. He might go to the theater on occasion, or visit a church or a palazzo, to view the works of art. But he did not wish to attend the conversazioni—Venice’s salons, or what was left of them—or go to parties or to the hotels to dine with friends.
He was reclusive, then, but not precisely a hermit, she decided. He was, her sources said, about Lord Byron’s age but “perhaps more handsome.” The shadowy form she’d glimpsed from time to time in the Ca’ Munetti’s windows was that of a tall man.
The rest was left to her imagination. And in imagining him, she lost awareness of her surroundings.
She heard the faint plash of oars but thought nothing of it.
The night was dark, and the gondoliers didn’t see the danger, either, until a minute too late.
It happened so quickly.
A noise, the gondola rocking.
She looked to the front of the felze in time to see the man heave over the gondola’s side, leap up at Uliva, and push him into the water. It happened in the blink of an eye. She tried to scream, but only a squeak came out. Her throat was tight and her heart beat so fast, she couldn’t breathe properly, couldn’t find the wind to cry for help.
She was aware of movement, more rocking. A thunk, then a splash. She scrambled up from her seat, but the attacker shoved her back into the cabin and fell upon her.
She punched and kicked but he was too big, a great barrel of a brute. The stench of unwashed body clogged her nostrils.
His hands went round her throat. She clawed at them, struggled and squirmed, but it was like trying to move an elephant. She tried to thrust her knee in his groin, as she’d been taught to do. He was too heavy. She couldn’t move her legs. He muttered an obscenity while his hands tightened round her neck.
James had come home half an hour earlier. He’d stripped down to shirt and trousers and donned his dressing gown. A glass of wine in his hand, he was standing at the darkened window next to Zeggio when it happened.
Zeggio had been watching the small boat—one house down from theirs—since midnight, he explained.
“I do not like it,” he told James. “But I do not like to make trouble and call attention to us. What do you think, signore?”
“I don’t like it, either,” James said.
He’d scarcely uttered the words when her gondola swam into view. It was mere yards from the water gate of the Palazzo Neroni when the small boat moved out from the shadows.
James made out two figures in the rowboat.
It moved swiftly toward the gondola.
And swiftly attacked, taking the gondoliers unawares.
The man rowing the small boat reached over and grabbed the side of the gondola. He spread his legs to hold the rowboat steady while his accomplice climbed onto the gondola and made straight for the front gondolier. He pushed Uliva into the water and without the slightest pause, turned, hurtled over the cabin, and attacked the other gondolier, knocking him into the water.
Then he went for her.
It all took less than a minute.
But in less than a minute James was moving, throwing off the dressing gown and kicking off his slippers. He flung open the window, stepped onto the balcony, and jumped off.
Francesca’s accoster grunted, relaxed his grip slightly, and began grinding his pelvis against hers. Despite the layers of clothes between them—her pelisse, gown, petticoat, and shift, and his filthy rags—she was all too aware of his erection…and how small a chance she had of stopping him from doing what he
meant to do.
She was too afraid to be sickened, too busy gasping for breath and trying not to lose consciousness. He lay atop her, a great, stinking ox. His breath was foul, hot on her face.
She was dimly aware of sounds outside but her mind couldn’t sort them out. She clawed with one hand at the thick fingers on her neck while with the other she tried to find something—a weapon of some kind, any kind.
James hit the water next to the rowboat. As soon as he came up, he caught hold of the side and heaved, throwing all his weight into it. The little boat tipped over, and the rower went over, too, with a curse and a shriek.
James pulled himself onto the gondola, and charged into the felze. The brute attacking her jerked up his head in surprise. James shoved his forearm across his throat and squeezed, trapping him tight in the crook of his arm. The villain was big, and he thrashed madly, but not for long. A few last, feeble twitches, and he went limp.
James dragged him out of the cabin and pushed him into the canal and watched the dark form sink beneath the water.
He returned to her. She sprawled half in the seat, half on the floor, her skirts bunched up above her garters, her stockings sagging. She was panting, one hand at her throat.
He reached to help her up. She recoiled from his outstretched hand. She rolled to one side, grabbing a bottle. She threw it at him. He ducked, and the bottle sailed harmlessly into the canal.
Relief coursed through him, as cool as the water streaming down his body. The black, consuming rage ebbed.
He set his fists on his hips and laughed. He had to. It was all too absurd, and he most absurd of all, in his shirtsleeves, dripping wet.
“Ma amo solo te, dolcezza mia,” he said.
But I love only you, my sweet.