Your Scandalous Ways (Fallen Women 1)

The maid went out.

“Maybe someone believed you’d started writing your memoirs,” he said.

“That makes no sense,” she said. She swung away from the doorway and moved to the mangled bed. “I’ve been at this for less than five years. My affairs are not secret. Far from it. I am not only a magnificent whore but a flamboyant one. No back doors or back stairs for me. Anyone who wants to know about my lovers might read about them in the newspapers. In fifteen or twenty years the participants might find the revelations embarrassing. At present, however, they are more likely to consider a liaison with Francesca Bonnard a badge of honor. You see, though you do not appreciate me properly, others do.”

“I appreciate you,” he said. “I thought I proved that a very short time ago. In the Campanile. Or have you forgotten already?”

The green eyes flashed up at him. “Cordier, you are an utter blockhead.”

“I know,” he said. “I should not have let you run away.”

A shadow came into her eyes, then, and he thought he saw the girl again, the girl who could believe, who could trust. But she vanished in the next instant. “I did not run away,” she said. “I was done with you. I left.”

“I’m not done,” he said.

“I don’t care,” she said.

How do I make you care? he wanted to ask.

“I do,” he said. “I’m worried about you. A few days ago, someone tried to kill you.”

“To rob me,” she said.

“A few days ago you were assaulted,” he said patiently. “Last night, your house was ransacked.”

“Searched,” she said. “So far, all that seems to be missing is some correspondence.” She smiled thinly. “And very amusing reading it will prove to be, to whomever has it.”

“Love letters?” he said.

“Oh, no,” she said. “They’re from my husband.”

The bedroom door flew open and Magny stalked in, followed closely by a protesting Thérèse.

“Madame, I have told him you are engaged,” Thérèse said.

“Allez-vous en,” Magny told the maid.

She did not so much as look at him.

“Do proceed, Thérèse,” said madame. “I know you wish to put everything in order.”

Nose aloft, Thérèse walked past monsieur into the dressing room.

“Your servants are abominably insolent,” Magny said.

“My servants are loyal,” Bonnard said.

“If you did not want to see me, why the devil did you send for me?” he said, throwing a glare in James’s direction.

“I did want to see you,” she said. “I do not want you ordering my servants about. That is the trouble. That is always the trouble. I should have remembered. What the devil was I thinking of, to seek your advice?”

“What were you thinking, indeed? Here is Monsieur Cordier to—” Magny made a dismissive gesture. “To do whatever it is he’s here to do.”

“I’m not sure there’s anything I can do,” James said. “For some mad reason, a lot of nuns made off with her husband’s not-love letters.”

“Letters?” Magny said. “But that—” He broke off, walked to the door of the dressing room, and glared at the maid. She turned her back to him and went on folding garments.

He came away from the door. “I have seen enough, Francesca. You’re moving out of this place and coming to live with me.”

“We tried that,” she said. “Twice. It was disastrous both times.”

“What else could it be?” said James.

Magny glowered at him.

James ignored it. “Come live with me, then.”

Magny stared at him. So did she.

And it seemed for an instant, as though they wore exactly the same expression. Then the ghost came into her eyes. “Why?” she said.

“Because I’m worried about you,” James said. “And because it’s a much shorter way to go—merely across the canal. And because…” He paused. “Because I’m infatuated.”

“I am going to be sick,” Magny said. He threw up his hands and left the room.

Bonnard watched him go. “He isn’t romantic,” she said.

“Neither am I,” James said. “If I could devise a less sickening reason, you may be sure I’d use it. But the fact is, I want to knock him down.”

“A great many people feel that way,” she said. “Including me.”

“In my case, it seems to be jealousy,” he said.

She turned away and moved to the dressing table. She righted a toppled jar. “You do understand that jealousy is absurd in my case? I don’t belong to any man. That’s the trouble with living with a man. When a woman takes up residence under his roof, he assumes she’s one of his possessions. I’m nobody’s possession.”

“Very well,” he said. “We can discuss terms, if you wish.”

“There are no terms,” she said. “I am not coming to live with you.”

“Then I’m moving in here,” he said.

She paused in her fussing over the bottles and jars—the fussing that rightly was Thérèse’s province—and turned. She set her hands on the dressing table and braced herself on her arms. She smiled. “No, you’re not.”

“Madame.”

Thérèse emerged from the dressing room, a velvet box in her hand. “The emeralds are gone,” she said.

Chapter 11

A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth, and love,

And beauty, all concentrating like rays

Into one focus, kindled from above;

Such kisses as belong to early days,

Where heart, and soul, and sense,

in concert move,

And the blood’s lava, and the pulse a blaze,

Each kiss a heart-quake,—for a kiss’s strength,

I think, it must be reckon’d by its length.

Lord Byron

Don Juan, Canto the First

James was putting puzzle pieces together. He didn’t like the looks of any of them.

Letters had been stolen.

And emeralds.

The robbers had taken the wrong letters, apparently. Bonnard would not be so amused—and he was sure she hadn’t feigned that—if they’d taken the right ones. But what was in the wrong ones, to amuse her so?

Or was she simply amused at the error?

He wasn’t.

Someone who did not read very well in the first place and who understood very little English in the second, might easily make the mistake.

That someone needn’t be Marta Fazi. Who else, though, besides Marta, was demented enough to take emeralds and leave diamonds, rubies, pearls, and sapphires behind?

The logical conclusion was, someone had sent Marta to retrieve the letters. The someone had overestimated her intelligence and underestimated Bonnard’s.

Her former husband?

They play a game, Giulietta had said of Bonnard and her former spouse, and to kill her is to admit he loses.

The trouble was, bringing crazy Marta Fazi into the business indicated a willingness to kill. James tried to remember if he’d heard of any connection between Fazi and Elphick. Nothing came to mind.

Was he completely wrong? Was there something he ought to see that he couldn’t? If so, it was not surprising. He was stumbling in the dark because he didn’t understand the game Bonnard played with Elphick. And he’d keep on stumbling until he put an end to the game she played with James Cordier.

He turned to Thérèse and gave orders in the French he’d perfected decades ago, the impeccable accents that had spared him decapitation on more than one occasion.

“Madame requires a bath,” he said. “While that is in preparation, have servants repair her bed. While they do this, you will restore order to the dressing room and carry out the inventory madame ordered. She will expect you to list every missing item, no matter how unimportant. After madame has bathed and rested and is properly supplied with correct information, she will decide how to proceed.”

&nb

sp; Thérèse bowed her head. “Oui, monsieur,” she said. She hurried from the room.

Bonnard stared after her. Then she stared at James. “Who are you?” she said. “A long-lost Bourbon? She won’t heed even Magny, yet she heeds you.”

“It’s my charm,” James said. “Irresistible.”

Her beautiful eyes narrowed.

“I told her to do precisely what she wanted to do,” he said. “She’s too worried about you to pay proper attention to your belongings. Once you’ve bathed and rested, she’ll be able to concentrate on her work. Likewise, you can’t be expected to think clearly until you’ve had time to recover.”

“From staying out all night?” she said. “I’m used to that.”

“From the shock.”