Your Scandalous Ways (Fallen Women 1)

“You’re doing this on purpose,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

“To punish me,” he said.

“Yes.”

“You knew I’d come.”

“Yes.”

“That’s why you sent the peridots.”

“Yes.”

“And you bedded him for spite.”

She turned her head then, and looked at him. “Oh, no,” she said. “I never bed anyone for spite. I’m a businesswoman.”

“He doesn’t know that! He’s over head and ears in love with you!”

“Ah, yes. First love. There’s nothing quite like it. What does Byron say? ‘But sweeter still than this, than these, than all,/Is first and passionate love—it stands alone,/Like Adam’s recollection of his fall;/The tree of knowledge has been pluck’d—all’s known—’”

“‘And life yields nothing further to recall,’” he continued, “‘Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown,/No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven/Fire which Prometheus filch’d for us from heaven.’”

While he quoted the lines from Don Juan, her expression changed, and the color came and went in her cheeks.

“Is that how it was with you the first time you loved?” he said. “Sweet? And because you had a rude awakening are you compelled to pass the favor—and the poison—on to the next innocent?”

“How tender your heart’s become on his account,” she said. “Your brain must be tender, too, if you take me for an idiot. You don’t give a damn about him. You’re only vexed because you tried to play games with me and lost. I know games you never dreamed of, Cordier. And I always play to win. I tossed the bait and you chased it, the way a dog chases a stick.”

In an angry swirl of ruffles, she swung away from the window and strode to the table. She picked up the jewelry box and threw it at him. Reflexively he caught it.

“But now I’m bored with this game,” she said. “Go home, little dog, and take your toys with you.”

He looked down at the box in his hand. He looked up at her haughty face.

Francesca held her breath.

She’d gone too far. He’d throw her through the window. He was strong enough to do it.

And she wasn’t sure she could blame him.

She braced herself for she knew not what: if not strangulation or a trip through the window into the canal, then another flaying from that cold, cutting tongue of his.

He couldn’t know how deeply he’d cut with his remarks about her first love. Or perhaps he did know.

Very slowly, he set down the jewelry box on the table.

She thought of edging toward the bell, to summon help.

He started toward her.

She froze.

“You,” he said. “You.” Then he stopped, and put his hand to his head. His shoulders began to shake.

He let out a great crack of laughter, sudden and sharp as a pistol shot.

She jumped.

He laughed, turning away from her.

She only stood where she was, staring.

“Diavolo,” he said. He shook his head. “I’m going now.” He walked to the portego door, still shaking his head. “Addio,” he said.

And out he went, taking the jewelry box with him, and leaving her still staring after him.

She stood for a moment, clenching and unclenching her hands. Then, “You conceited, arrogant beast,” she said. She marched to the door and through it into the portego.

She’d had enough. This was the last time he’d turn his back on her, the last time he’d walk out on her.

She knew ways to stop men in their tracks, and he—

She stopped in her tracks.

Two men stood not twenty paces away. At the sound of her angry footfall, both turned and looked at her.

One was Cordier.

The other was a few inches shorter, and about three decades older.

“Madame,” came a voice to her right. Belatedly she noticed Arnaldo. She must have walked straight past him as he was coming to announce the new visitor. He cleared his throat. “The comte de Magny,” he announced.

“Ma foi, Francesca,” said the count. “Have you taken leave of your senses, child, to run about these drafty corridors naked? Go put some clothes on.”

“Monsieur,” she began.

“Run along, run along.” He waved his hand. “I will entertain your friend.”

Chapter 7

Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it,

For jealousy dislikes the world to know it.

Lord Byron

Don Juan, Canto the First

Monsieur de Magny was not the feeble old man James had envisioned. The count stood only a trifle under six feet tall, and the gold-knobbed cane he carried was merely a fashion accessory. Deep lines marked his patrician countenance, mainly at his eyes and mouth and above the bridge of his long nose. His wavy brown hair was streaked with silver. His brown eyes held a gleam—of humor, cunning, or cruelty, James couldn’t be sure.

He could be sure that monsieur spent a good deal of time and money on his appearance. He was elegantly turned out, his linen starched within an inch of its life. A gay profusion of chains, fobs, seals, and medals adorned his waistcoat.

“You are not obliged to entertain my caller, monsieur,” Bonnard said. “Mr. Cordier was leaving.”

“Cordier?” said Magny. “I know this name.”

Who didn’t? James wondered. His family, on both sides, was old and extensive. His father and mother were well known in Europe’s courtly circles. Lord and Lady Westwood had always spent a great deal of time abroad. Even in wartime, they’d refused to remain safely at home.

“The name is French but you are not,” Magny said.

“Not our branch,” James said. “Not for some centuries. My father is the thirtieth Earl of Westwood.”

The count nodded. “A family of Normandy.”

“A very large family,” Bonnard said. “Mr. Cordier is one of several children of the second marriage.”

Merely one of those extraneous younger sons, hardly worth knowing, her tone said.

The count gave her a look James couldn’t read.

“And he’s leaving,” she said.

“Not quite yet,” James said. He patted his coat as though looking for something. “I seem to have left

my pocket notebook in your bedroom.”

Cold green murder glittered in her exotic eyes. “That’s impossible,” she said. “You were never—”

“There’s no need to summon a servant,” he said. “I can find it myself.”

“You don’t know the way,” she said.

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “I wasn’t that drunk last night, mia cara. I’m sure I can find my way…back.” He moved to her. “But since you’re going to get dressed anyway…” He offered his arm. He smiled down at her.

She smiled up at him. He remembered the serpent on her back, a cobra. Had she owned fangs, she’d have bared them. She took his arm, though.

“Cordier,” she said in an undertone, “I’m going to make you very, very sorry for this.”

“Oh, good,” he said, not troubling to lower his voice. “That sounds like fun.”

Her bedroom, James discovered, comprised a set of apartments on the other side of the portego at the courtyard end of the house. The parlor in which she’d first tried to seduce him opened into a sitting room or boudoir. This in turn gave way to another set of rooms. Her bed stood within an alcove. Curtained, arched doorways on either side led to other, smaller rooms, one clearly a dressing room.

Like the parlor, these rooms were modestly decorated by Venetian standards. The color scheme was lighter: soft pinks and greens, gold, and white. There was not a putto in sight. Instead, several choice landscape paintings adorned the walls and small circular scenes of mythical beings, framed in swirling gilt, appeared on the ceilings.

He saw no portraits of anybody, including her, but numerous other signs of her. A stack of books stood on the stand by the bed. Her toiletries were tumbled about a delicately carved writing desk in the boudoir. There, too, the pearls—those magnificent pearls!—lay as well, spilled carelessly among combs and jars and bottles.

As was the case with the beds in his palazzo, hers was not curtained. Nothing concealed the rumpled bedclothes from view. This wasn’t the only evidence of what had passed last night. Her clothes were strewn about the room. A sea green silk slipper lay on its side near the bed. Another lay upside down under the desk chair.