Your Scandalous Ways (Fallen Women 1)

“I only want to see you happy and settled, child,” said Magny. “And I should like not to be fretted to an early grave. And that is no way to talk to your—erm—elders.”

“Then I shan’t talk at all.” She stormed out of the room.

To her dismay and displeasure, Cordier didn’t follow her out.

She made herself walk quickly down the portego but she couldn’t help listening for footsteps. None came.

She hurried down the stairs to the andron and out to her waiting gondola.

Magny looked at James. “Are you sure you want to marry her?”

“Yes.”

“She’s impossible.”

“So am I. Who can blame her for being a trifle skittish?”

Magny looked at the door through which she’d dramatically exited. “Are you not going to chase her, fall to your knees, vow undying devotion and the rest of that revolting nonsense?”

“No.”

“Well, then, would you like a drink?”

“Yes. Yes, thank you, I would.”

That evening

Francesca gazed resentfully out of the gondola window at the Ca’ Munetti, whence no devoted lover had come or even sent a note, the horrid tease.

She didn’t care, she told herself as her gondola continued on, leaving the two houses to stare at each other across the canal. She would have a wonderful time tonight.

She’d had a new gown delivered, and that was a lucky thing, for she’d lost two or was it three of her best dresses—and she’d no one but herself to blame for getting entangled with a rogue, and an overbearing one at that.

Marry him, indeed.

She recalled the delicious bit Byron had sent her, from the Third Canto of Don Juan, which he was still working on.

There’s doubtless something in domestic doings

Which forms, in fact, true love’s antithesis;

Romances paint at full length people’s wooings,

But only give a bust of marriages.

And rightly so, she thought. There was nothing like marriage to ruin a fine romance.

And nothing like a little rivalry and jealousy to bring a man to his senses.

The new gown was black crepe, trimmed in black satin with a subtle twining of silver threads. It was cut very low in front and back. Compared to other gowns, it was almost starkly plain. Which made it a perfect backdrop to set off her splendid diamond suite, whose focal point was a necklace of capped drops. The girandole earrings were among her favorites.

She saw herself against the blue backdrop of her opera box, flirting with every handsome gentleman who entered it. That would teach Cordier to take her for granted.

Of all things, to ask her impossible father for her hand in marriage—as though she were a chit from the schoolroom who couldn’t be allowed to make up her own mind and hadn’t learned all she needed to know about marriage…

A form appeared upon the fondamenta nearby, as the gondola was about to turn into the next canal. It was tall and—

And it leapt lightly onto the gondola. The vessel swayed.

Uliva swore. So did Dumini.

“What would you have me do?” came a familiar, deep voice, indisputably Italian. “When I try to speak to her in a proper place, in her father’s house, she storms away in a temper. Here she cannot get away from me.”

With that, Cordier ducked into the felze, closed the door, and sank into the seat beside her.

Francesca looked the other way, out of the window while her heart raced with anticipation.

“Very handsome diamonds,” he said, incurably English now.

“The set was made by Nitot,” she said, naming the jeweler who’d assembled gems for French royalty, from Bourbon to Bonaparte and back again. “Some of the stones belonged to King Louis XIV. It was given to me by a very handsome, amusing, and devoted marchese.”

“I know who you mean,” he said. “But my mother’s family is older and nobler than his. And my mama will give you a much warmer welcome than his would ever do. His mama is a great snob, because her family is bourgeois. My mama, on the other hand, will be delighted that I’ve found a wife with exquisite taste in jewelry. She will not fuss over trifles, such as how the jewelry was obtained. And you know I would never fuss, because I’ve obtained jewelry by more disreputable methods.”

The trouble with him was, he was honest. An honest rogue. She turned to him. He was in elegant evening garb, all black, with a dash of white at the neck and cuffs. He’d taken off his hat, the great tease, and the black curls gleamed in the cabin’s lamplight. He knew he had beautiful hair. He knew women liked to tangle their fingers in it. Oh, he was wicked.

“Cordier.”

He took her gloved hand in his. That was not very satisfying. But if she took off her gloves, she must take off his, and then—and then…

“It’s time to put the past behind us,” he said. “We’re done, both of us, with Elphick. I could never settle down while my comrades were un-avenged. Now they will be. You will be avenged, too. And when matters are finally sorted out, your father will be avenged as well, absolved of the fraud Elphick committed.”

She looked down at the gloved hand holding hers and frowned. “Are you quite, quite sure it wasn’t papa? Because, he is not altogether…reliable, you know.”

“Whatever else your father may or may not have done, that great swindle was planned and executed by your former husband.”

“Papa never let on,” she said. “It was so very clever—and had such spectacular results—that I think he was a little envious and didn’t like to admit he’d been a dupe, like everyone else.”

“Never mind,” he said. “That chapter is closed. I should like us to begin a new chapter.”

“I should, too,” she said. “I know you mean well, offering to marry me, but you don’t understand. You’re a man.”

“I know. It can’t be helped.”

“You don’t know what it’s like for women, to be respectably married. I thought that was freedom—until I moved to the Continent and gave up being respectable. Women, married women, live in a prison of rules and don’t even realize it. Respectable women can’t do this and can’t do that, and if they break the rules they must be very discreet. They must sneak about and be complete hypocrites.”

“That’s England,” he said. “This is Italy. And your father and I have drawn up a proper Italian marriage contract—”

“Did the two of you lose your hearing simultaneously?” she said. “Did I not say no? This is so typical—the arrogance of males—”

“—which specifies a cavalier servente,” he went on as though she hadn’t spoken. He let go of her hand and began to strip off his gloves. “It is unthinkable for a lady of gentle birth and breeding not to have one. One must have a husband, which is a great bore. And so, to mitigate this oppressive state of affairs, there is the devoted friend, who goes where the lady goes and does her bidding and amuses her and who may or may not be her lover.”

While he talked, his gloves came off.

She looked down at his naked hands, at the long, nimble fingers. She swallowed. “But you cannot be both my husband and my cavalier servente,” she said.

“I thought that, if I could contrive not to be a great bore, perhaps you wouldn’t require a serving cavalier—or any other supernumerary lovers to augment your happiness.”

She watched the long fingers move to her arm and slide under her shawl. Then she felt those thief ’s hands drawing her glove down to her wrist. Carefully he drew the soft kid through her bracelets.

“You say that now,” she said shakily. She believed him, though, in spite of good sense and bad experience. But a woman would believe anything with those clever hands stealing her reason away.

“Amor mio, if I cannot keep you amused and happy, I don’t deserve fidelity.” He leaned in closer and went to work on her other glove. “And if I cannot be content with one woman who is everything I could ever want—”

“Please do

n’t forget that I am everything every man could ever want,” she said.

“Believe me, I will never forget it,” he said. “If I cannot be supremely happy with you, if I cannot exert myself to make you happy, then I deserve to be cuckolded repeatedly.” The second glove came off. She watched him toss it aside, on top of the others: hers, his.

“You have a point,” she said.

“Then let me proceed to the next point,” he said. His hand crept up to the diamonds at her ear. “As I have shown to your father’s satisfaction, I may be a mere younger son but I have done well in my branch of the service.” He toyed with the diamond. “I should be able to keep you in a style—well, not exactly what you are accustomed to, but very near.” He kissed her ear.

“I am not greedy,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Very near is near enough. But you must give me back the peridots.”

He laughed against her neck, and his warm breath tickled her skin. “What, those paltry things?”