Your Scandalous Ways (Fallen Women 1)

“This is what happens when one uses inferior tools,” she said. “I come to Venice with incompetents, with idiots. Why? Because my best men are in prison or crippled and useless. All because of that scoundrel.”

Piero waited patiently while she went into the rant he’d heard before, about the tall, handsome bastard who’d seduced her, stolen her emeralds, and maimed her best men a few months ago in Rome.

“Nothing goes right,” she said. “This stupid little city with more rats than people, and crazy streets. To go anywhere, you must go in a boat, and listen to the Venetians talking their gibberish. The last time I came here, I told myself never again. Still…” She poured herself more wine and drank. “I’ve faced worse for smaller rewards. But this time…” She scowled at Piero. “What’s she offering to make me go away? Does the bitch think a big bribe will be enough?”

“The papers,” he said. “The papers your friend in England wants.”

“That’s all?”

“They say she’ll give you the papers to make you go away.”

“I don’t believe it. I smell a trap—or is that smell only you?”

Piero lifted his shoulders again. “I don’t know. This is what they tell me. They say the English lady knows you won’t trust her. And so she asks you to pick the time and place. This is the way she can prove there’s no trick or trap. Wherever you tell her to come, whatever time you choose, she will come. But since she’s afraid of you, she will take a man with her for protection.”

“Which man?”

“Who knows? One of her lovers. The prince, probably. He’s like a puppy at her feet.”

She waved the bottle at him. “Come, have a drink while I think about this.”

Piero found a glass and poured himself a drink, then another.

After a time, she said, “I know what to do. There’s a small risk. But there always is.” She stared at him and he put his glass down on the little table. “Do you understand what those papers are worth, little man?”

“I hope they’re worth a great deal, for all the trouble they cause.”

“When my friend in England has these papers, nothing more stands in his way. He’ll be like—like a king. And he’ll reward me well, as he did before. But this time he can arrange to make me a noble lady. For—how does he say it?” She thought. “Ah, yes. For service to the Crown.” She laughed. “And the women—like the English lady—they must all bow at my feet and call me ‘your excellency.’ Oh, I’ll enjoy that very much, to see the English bitch, his wife, bow at my feet.” She refilled Piero’s glass and her own. “I think it’s even worth letting her live.” She paused. “And yet I looked forward to cutting her face a little.” She took up her knife and turned it, watching the deadly sharp blade catch the candlelight.

Piero hastily downed his drink.

She stroked the flat side of the blade with her finger. “We’ll see,” she said. “We’ll see what happens, won’t we?”

“We?” said Piero, looking about the small room.

“You and me, little one,” she said. “She will bring a man. I will bring a man: you. And if this is a trap, and you have betrayed me…” She smiled. “I’m quick. Quick on my feet and quick with my knife. Pray hard, Piero, that you have not been stupid again.”

The following night

Cordier’s job, Francesca decided, was not one she’d choose. For one thing, there was too much waiting. She wasn’t used to waiting. She wasn’t used to being at anyone’s beck and call, let alone the beck and call of thieves and murderers. She didn’t like it.

Giulietta and Lurenze had joined them for dinner but afterward the prince had a social gathering he was obliged to attend. Though Giuletta had offered to stay behind, Cordier had encouraged her to keep the prince company. “I doubt anything will happen tonight,” he’d said, “and I know the dreary diplomatic business will pass more pleasantly for his highness if you are by.”

Assured that they’d be sent for the instant the situation changed, Lurenze and Giulietta had left an hour ago.

At present, Francesca and Cordier were in the private parlor adjoining her boudoir. She was trying to write a letter to Lord Byron, but it was very difficult to concentrate with Cordier asking her questions and looking over her shoulder and breathing down her neck.

He had started out lounging on the sofa, and she’d assumed that he, accustomed to waiting, would take a nap. But the instant she commenced writing, he became deeply interested in that.

She set down her pen. “Perhaps you ought to wait at your house,” she said. “If a message comes, I can let you know in minutes.”

“As I told Lurenze, I doubt a message will come this soon. Fazi is more likely to make us wait another day or two while she makes arrangements to get away. And while she scouts Venice for the best site for a rendezvous.”

Francesca turned around in her chair. “You are so sure she’ll agree to this?” she said.

“Oh, yes. Do you write to him regularly?”

She turned the letter over and pushed it to one side of her cluttered writing desk. “Not as regularly as I would like.” She recovered the inkwell.

“Sorry.” He straightened. “But spying is what I do. Among other things.”

He smiled a smile so full of wicked meaning that she was strongly tempted to grab his neckcloth and kiss him until he fainted.

It would be a good way to pass the time. It would relieve the tension.

No, it probably wouldn’t. She was, in fact, deeply uneasy about what was to come, though she was doing her best to appear as nonchalant as he.

“You’re supposed to understand these matters better than I,” she said. “But if I were Marta Fazi, I would be making myself scarce about now. I find it hard to believe she’ll risk a noose on Elphick’s account, no matter how much he’s paying her. It’s hard to believe she can be that desperate.”

“She’s a desperado, not desperate,” he said. “They hired Fazi because they know what she’s like. She doesn’t give up. She’s tried three times to get the letters from you and failed three times. That’s not cause for surrender. Now winning is a point of pride. After all the trouble she’s gone through, I don’t see her letting an opportunity go, even if she suspects a trap.”

“She’d have to be an idiot not to suspect one.”

“She’s daring and resourceful,” he said. “She has to be. Men don’t like taking orders from a woman. But she’s always managed to get a lot of cutthroats to do her bidding.”

“Not this time, though, you said.”

“The chances are small,” he said. “The men who tried to kidnap you are in custody. Piero’s friend Bruno is incapacitated. That leaves Piero. Fazi needs more than a few hours to recruit new henchmen. She doesn’t understand Venetian. Being short of help and frustrated might make her more dangerous. On the other hand, it does make her more willing to take a risk. The sooner she responds, the less likely it is that she’ll have anyone b

ut Piero with her.”

His blue gaze became searching. “Are you getting cold feet? It’s not too late to back out. I can get Zeggio to dress up as you—as I’d planned originally.”

Oh, she was tempted. “And let the pair of you ruin another gown?” she said. “I think not.” Yes, she was frightened. But he’d invited her to—to be his partner—and to her, that was almost as good as a gift of diamonds.

Well, perhaps it was better, if one wanted to be stupidly sentimental and romantic about going out to confront a desperate—or desperado—woman.

“Speaking of gowns,” he said.

Though she’d understood she might spend this night waiting for word that didn’t come, Francesca had not dressed for an evening at home. She’d dressed at her usual time in the usual way, for an evening out. She wore a blue crepe gown, set off with a suite of pearls. Her headdress was adorned with pearls, too.

His searching blue gaze traveled down over the gown to her slippered feet then up again to the pearls encircling her neck and dangling from her ears. “That’s a little excessive, don’t you think, for a rendezvous with a killer?”

“It’s evening,” she said. “In the event I’m obliged to go out, I want to be properly dressed.”

“Improperly, you mean. If the neckline were any lower, I could see whether your navel went in or out.”

“Don’t you remember?” she said.

“In,” he said.

She remembered, too, and heat washed through her in wave after dizzying wave. But she was not a naïve girl, to be disconcerted by mere words. With her index finger she traced the décolletage.

The blue gaze smoldered. “On the other hand,” he said, “if that wicked neckline is all for my benefit…” He bent his head.

The door opened and Arnaldo walked in, silver tray in his hands. “A boy has brought this, signora,” he said.

Cordier came to attention, every evidence of lust erased, his face hard and alert.

“A dirty little ruffian,” the butler went on. “He gives it to me and runs away.”