Your Scandalous Ways (Fallen Women 1)

All the men rose as well—he, absently, still watching events unfolding onstage. She resisted the childish urge to swat him with her fan—or a chair—and made her way to Lurenze. At her approach, the other men gave way, and the prince’s beautiful face lit up like the sun.

She gave him her most dazzling smile.

James found Giulietta amusing. In ordinary circumstances—for instance, had he been one of these other men—he would have preferred her uncomplicated good nature to the mysteries and moodiness of her friend.

But James was not yet permitted an ordinary life. When he had one, it would be in England. And when he chose someone cheerful and uncomplicated, he’d choose a fresh young maiden who’d brighten rather than add to the murk within him. She’d remind him that not all of life—or even most of life—was about deceit, treachery, greed, and unnatural deaths. She’d prove to him that not everyone spent his time navigating un mare di merda, as this mission was rapidly becoming.

He was still, as usual, trying not to drown in that sea. And so he couldn’t simply turn his charm upon Giulietta and look forward to a cheerful romp between the sheets.

He was obliged to play cat and mouse with her provoking friend, who was now getting Lurenze’s hopes up, not to mention other parts of his anatomy.

“You resist her but you want her,” Giulietta whispered behind her fan.

“What man doesn’t want her?” James said with a shrug. “I wonder how you can be friends with her.”

“Most of the time we do not like the same kinds of men,” she said. “For instance, for myself, I like Lurenze very much more than she does.”

“He is deemed classically handsome, I believe,” James said. He reputedly has brains the size of a squirrel’s, but he’s the prettiest squirrel-brain in town.

“He is so sweet, an unspoiled child,” said Giulietta. “That is so rare.”

“That won’t last long,” James said.

“I know,” Giulietta said wistfully.

“I collect you deem it unethical to poach on your friend’s preserve,” he said. “Even though it’s a vast preserve. I should think there were plenty of men to go around, and she wouldn’t miss one or two or ten.”

“She would not mind but he can see no one else,” Giulietta said. “His life has been too wholesome, you see. And so he finds attractive the women who look dangerous, exotic. Alas, I am cursed with a face like a child.”

“Not always a curse, surely,” James said. “Some men find a wholesome countenance appealing.” I certainly do.

“But not he,” she said. “Stupid boy! He cannot guess what fun we could have, how much I can teach him. But she will break his heart. I know, sooner or later, someone must, and she at least would not be cruel—and yet I cannot help dreaming a little, of what might be.”

“You weren’t dreaming of killing off the competition, I trust,” James said.

She looked at him, the doe eyes incredulous. “You mean Francesca? You think I would send those animals to kill my friend—because of a man?”

It was amazing how much scorn a woman could pack into the three-letter word man.

James laughed. “There’s a setdown if ever I heard one. Men are so far beneath contempt that they’re not worth killing.”

“You must not misunderstand,” she said. “Mine is not a gentle soul. I am Italian, through and through. If I learn who this was who tried to kill her, this one I would kill—man or woman. I would do it with a smile, too, upon my so sweet and innocent face. And even the Austrians would not convict me.”

“Mrs. Bonnard has no idea, it seems,” James said. “She insisted it wasn’t her husband.”

Giulietta shook her head. “I cannot believe it is he. They play a game—and to kill her is to admit he loses.”

“A game?”

Giulietta looked away, fanning herself. “That is private, between them.”

“But you know.”

“If you wish to know, ask her,” Giulietta said.

Francesca allowed herself a quick glance at the front of the box, where Mr. Cordier and Giulietta were engrossed in their tête-à-tête, their two dark heads bent together. She felt a sharp stab, too much like an emotion she hadn’t experienced in years and which she’d believed herself immune to. What she felt was mere pique, she told herself, not jealousy. Giulietta was welcome to him.

Francesca turned back to the prince. “Perhaps, after all, I am a little foolish,” she said.

“This is impossible,” he said gallantly.

She rearranged her posture to offer him a better view of her breasts. “One doesn’t wish to seem cowardly,” she said. “I’ve always believed in facing whatever trouble came my way. Still, I’ve never been in quite this situation before. It’s possible I’m not thinking logically. Perhaps there is a chance of trouble—a small one, I don’t doubt, because the Austrians are notoriously efficient.”

“Notorious, yes,” Lurenze said in an undertone. “Always marching, so stiff. So many rules. Everything must be so. I tell them jokes. They never laugh. They are too much like my father.”

“I am sure they will find these bad men very soon,” she said. “Venice is so small. No one can keep secrets here. No one can hide for very long, and the Venetian Lagoon is well patrolled. Still, they haven’t yet found the villains—or their bodies,” she added, as her mind painted a vivid image of her attacker, his thick neck caught in Mr. Cordier’s crushing grip. “Until that’s settled, perhaps it would be wiser not to invite trouble. Perhaps I should not travel without a male escort—at least for the time being.”

“Madame, we are in complete accord, in this, as in so much else. If you…” He trailed off, his smile fading as his gaze slid away from her face and traveled upward.

At the same moment she became aware of a large body behind hers, though she couldn’t see it without turning her head, which she refused to do. She felt it, though, the awareness thrumming along her nerve endings.

“Mrs. Bonnard, a word, if you please.” The deep voice behind her carried the unmistakable and un-fakeable accents of the English privileged classes.

She turned her head a very little bit, offering only her profile, and said coolly, “Only a word, Mr. Cordier? What word can that be, I wonder?”

He bent and brought his mouth close to her ear. “Andiamo.”

At the sound, so inexpressibly Italian, so intimate, tiny electric shocks danced over her skin.

She squelched the irrational thrill, reminding herself that there was nothing romantic or even intimate about a man telling a woman, Let’s go.

She turned to stare him down, no easy task when the deep blue eyes—not in the least abashed or apologetic—stared right back, and she was placed in the undignified position of tilting her h

ead back to look up.

“To put it in a nutshell,” he said. Unhurriedly he straightened. He smiled a very little, as though at a private joke.

She looked away in time to see Lurenze’s uneasy expression turn to obstinacy. He was a prince, after all, and as naïve as he was, surely he knew how to put an upstart in his place.

“The opera isn’t over, Mr. Cordier,” she said, refusing to adopt his confidential tones. They shared no secrets, would never do so. “I’m not ready to leave.”

“Madame is not ready to leave,” said Lurenze.

Cordier ignored him. “Use your head, madam,” he said. “In the crush when everyone else leaves, any villain might easily accost you and escape in the confusion. You can always see the opera at another time, if you’re wild to find out how it comes out. Or I can tell you.”

She did not tell him that she knew how it came out, having seen it more times than she could count.

“I’m not a coward and I won’t run away,” she said. “I refuse to let my life be ruled by a lot of criminals.”

“Madame does not wish to leave at this moment,” Lurenze said. “When she so wishes, I shall escort her to any place of her choosing. Count Goetz will supply the soldiers to guard.”

Cordier finally looked at him. The prince reddened under his gaze but showed no signs of backing down.

“You are exceedingly gracious to offer, your highness,” Cordier said. “But even if it were not beneath your dignity to play guard dog, I know you would not wish to endanger her inadvertently.”

Lurenze stiffened as though he’d been slapped. “Endanger? What is your meaning?”

“It is possible that the attack was the work of insurrectionists, revolutionaries,” said Cordier. “As your excellency knows, such persons choose important targets, celebrated people. You are a prince, heir to the throne of Gilenia, whereas I am of no importance whatsoever.”

“I will agree that Mr. Cordier is of no importance whatsoever,” Francesca said. “Nonetheless—”