Your Scandalous Ways (Fallen Women 1)

She didn’t want to understand the men who’d degraded and humiliated her. But she hadn’t considered the context. It didn’t make them any the less hateful to her, but it made their behavior a degree more comprehensible.

“I’m not stopping them making amends,” she said. “If you are who you claim to be, if you are one of the good ones—”

“Not if,” he said. “I want you to know, without the slightest doubt. Not in six months or twelve or whenever we get it all sorted out but now. I want to prove it to you.” He paused. “And I have an idea how to do it.”

Francesca looked up at Neptune, then further along the great hall to Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom, standing guard over another portal. Could a woman ever be truly wise, when it came to men? Probably not, else the species would not survive.

“You are so aggravating,” she said. “After all this time, I’d finally decided to get rid of those dratted letters. Now I’m wild to get them off my hands, and you won’t take them.”

“I will, but not today,” he said. “Until I get matters sorted out, they’re safer where they are.”

“And I am supposed to fold my hands and wait patiently for you to carry out your cunning plan? I am to wait about, not knowing how or when that Fazi creature will strike next?”

“She needs to regroup,” he said. “She needs reinforcements. That gives us as much as a week. But I promise not to make you wait that long. A day or two, no more.”

What choice did she have? “Very well. Sort matters out. In the meantime, I’m going home. I have had as much as I can bear of my—of Magny. And you, if you are wise, will keep out of my way until you’ve something worthwhile to bother me about.”

The next day found James at the Ducal Palace, facing a still-suspicious Count Goetz.

“We have questioned the man Piero again and again,” he told James. “Naturally, it occurred to me that he had lied, even to you, about his motives. He is from the south, it appears. That abominable dialect. This Fazi woman is from the south, I am informed. For the two of them to come to Venice at the same time is no coincidence. But he claims he has never heard of her. He holds to the same story, like a dog with a bone. I know he is lying. What shall I do? Hang him by his thumbs? Then someone will complain of our brutality and make inflammatory speeches in one of the squares. The next we know, they make an insurrection. They are very obstinate, these people, and of a quick temper.”

“I don’t think he’s obstinate,” James said, “so much as terrified.”

Goetz stared at him for a moment. “What difference does it make? Either way, he tells us nothing.”

And even if Piero did tell them, they wouldn’t understand one word in twenty. If that.

“I wonder if you might let me have a go,” James said.

“No,” said Goetz.

Two hours later, James returned to the Ducal Palace, this time with Prince Lurenze.

Though he cast an unamiable eye upon James, Goetz was all gracious welcome this time, eager to know what he could do for his highness.

There were certain advantages to being royalty.

“Please to explain,” said the Prince of Gilenia, “why Mr. Cordier is not permitted to try where you have failed, to obtain information which may prevent harm coming to Mrs. Bonnard.”

Goetz began to recite certain rules about prisoners and foreign visitors.

Lurenze held up his hand. “Please to explain,” he said, “where is the rule to endanger a lady instead of doing all that is possible to protect her and capture dangerous persons?”

Goetz gazed down at his immaculate desk. His jaw set.

It wasn’t difficult to guess what he was thinking.

People spoke of the Austrians as rulers of northern Italy but of course it was Austro-Hungarian rule. Goetz knew as well as James did that a certain Hungarian lady of high birth had been proposed as Prince Lurenze’s consort.

The governor of Venice would be most unwise to risk offending the crown prince of Gilenia, especially over such a small matter: merely giving one of the prince’s English friends a few minutes alone with a prisoner.

The count, upon further consideration, decided he was not sure he’d interpreted the rule correctly. “You may try your luck with him, Mr. Cordier,” he said. “But you will give me your word as a gentleman to tell me everything he tells you.”

“Certainly,” James said. Gentleman or not, he’d lied before and would do it again. Not that he necessarily needed to lie. After all, Goetz had not specified when he must be told.

James had been through the Ducal Palace before. On his previous tour, when the governor had felt more kindly toward him, he’d been given a tour. They had not gone as far as the prisons, however. On the last visit, Goetz had had Piero brought to them.

This time, James deemed it best to go to Piero.

Lurenze insisted on going with him, in case anyone made difficulties, he said.

“I am not happy with the behavior of the governor to you,” he said after they left a deeply annoyed Goetz. “His look is unfriendly. If I am by, he will not make up some foolish rule to put you in prison, too.”

Ah, well, at least someone trusted him, James thought. Ironic that it was a rival. Or perhaps not—or not so much of a rival as previously.

James had chased all over Venice looking for Lurenze, and finally run him to ground—or water, rather—en route to Magny’s palazzo. In the gondola with his highness was Giulietta. They had seemed quite cozy, though Giulietta persisted in addressing his highness in the most ridiculous terms: “your celestiality,” “your luminescence,” “your magnificence,” and the like, all of which Lurenze bore with a straight face.

His absurdly handsome face was solemn now, as they followed the guard assigned to take them to Piero.

The route from the Ducal Palace to the prisons was not calculated to lift the spirits. They traversed a narrow, uneven, and dark passage that led to the Bridge of Sighs. From the outside, the arched bridge was quite beautiful. Within, all was gloom, proving how it had earned its title. A pair of corridors ran its length. Two heavy grated windows dimly lit the way. The guard, bearing a lighted candle, led Lurenze and James through narrow passages and down the stairs to the nether regions, to the dungeons known as the pozzi, the wells.

The guard, clearly accustomed to the role of guide—and probably in the habit of conveying tourists through the place, was cheerfully talkative. He told them there were eighteen cells built in tiers. The cells were about ten or twelve feet long and six or seven feet wide, he said. They were arched at top, with a small opening in front. The lower group were level with the water in the canal.

He pointed to little niches in the stones on the wall. These, he informed them, were made to hold bars on which convicts were hanged or strangled to death. He called their attention to other niches, black with smoke. Here the executioners used to set their lamps, to allow them to see what they were doing. With relish, he explained certain holes in the pavement. When criminals were quartered, he explained, the blood drained off through the holes and into the canal. He indicated a door, from which the corpses were thrown into boats and taken away to be disposed of.

“I was told these were the modern prisons,” said Lurenze. “Prigioni Nuove is the name. The New Prisons.”

“They were modern two hundred years ago, when they were built,” James said.

“This is barbaric,” said Lurenze.

“I’ve seen worse,” said James. He’d been confined in worse.

They arrived, finally, at the cell in which Piero had been left to ponder his sins and the advisability of telling his captors what they wanted to know. He had been left in the dark. When the door was unlocked, the stench wafting out into the passage was nigh overpowering.

It seemed to overpower Lurenze, who staggered back from the door.

“This is abominable,” he said.

“You needn’t come in,” James said. “It’s going to be very close in there.”

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; “No, I come,” said Lurenze. “A moment is all I need.” He squared his shoulders. “There. I am ready.”

A prince, perhaps, and pampered, but he had some solid stuff to him.

Still, this had better not take long, James thought. Brave or not, the lad wasn’t used to it, and was all too likely to faint or cast up his accounts. That was no way to awaken fear and respect in the prisoner.

“Very well, your highness,” James said. He lowered his voice and reverted to English. “First, I advise you to stay near the door. You’ll get a bit of air—such as it is—from the passage through the little window. Second, you must give me your word you will not speak until spoken to, and then you will follow my lead. This is most important, excellency. A matter of life and death.”

“Yes, of course,” said Lurenze.

James told the guard they were ready. The man lit the lamp in the passage and gave James the candle. James entered the cell, Lurenze following.

The door clanged shut behind them.

Piero was sullen. His week in the cell had turned him into a lump. Even the sight of James could not rouse him to emotion beyond a grimace. He squatted in a corner, staring at his bare and unspeakably filthy feet.

Lurenze dutifully took up his position by the door. James wondered how long he’d remain upright. The stench was beyond anything.

No time to waste, James thought.

He came directly to the point. In slow, simple Italian, he said, “We are looking for Marta Fazi.” Piero’s dialect might be all but incomprehensible but he understood the language of the educated—or enough to get by, at any rate.

“Never heard of her,” said Piero.

“That’s a pity,” said James, “because I have something the lady wants. Something the English lady had. Not jewels. Some papers.”