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Yet after a furious scrubbing to rid herself of the smell, the touch, the memory of the animal who’d assaulted her, she’d had her maid Thérèse dress her in a gown she might have worn when she had guests to tea.
Tonight—or this morning, rather—tea was laughably inadequate.
Arnaldo brought brandy. Her rescuer sipped his appreciatively as he gazed about the comfortably appointed room adjoining her boudoir.
She sat, supported by pillows, upon the sofa. “‘The fellow across the way,’” she said. She took a shaky gulp of her drink. “That is not the most enlightening introduction I’ve ever heard.”
It was all she’d obtained so far. He’d hustled her inside, allowing no opportunity for questions because he’d been too busy ordering her servants about as though he were lord of the place.
Whatever else he was, he was without question an aristocrat.
“The gossip claims you are a member of the Albani family,” she pressed on into the unencouraging silence. “A most distinguished family, they say. A pope or two in it, I’m told. But now you say you’re English.”
Glass in hand, he moved to a large portrait of her that hung on the portego side of the room. It was one of several the marchese had commissioned in the course of their relationship. This, the largest and most recent, was the only one he’d sent her after she ended the affair.
“My father is Lord Westwood,” her guest said, his gaze still on the portrait. “My mother, his second wife, is Veronica Albani. They come to Venice from time to time. Perhaps you’ve met them?”
“I’m not usually invited to genteel gatherings,” she said while she tried to place Lord Westwood. Once upon a time she’d had Debrett’s Peerage memorized. Once upon a time she’d understood the intricate family connections of Great Britain’s aristocracy. She’d been John Bonnard’s political hostess, after all.
She had no trouble at present remembering the names of those who’d cut her after the divorce—and that was everybody. At the moment, however, Lord Westwood was a blank to her. She had no idea where he stood in the hierarchy of noblemen: duke, marquis, earl, viscount, baron.
“I should hardly call my parents genteel,” he said unhelpfully. He looked away from the portrait, studying her face, his own soberly critical. “An excellent likeness.”
Under his quiet scrutiny she felt as awkward as a schoolgirl.
That was patently ludicrous.
You’re a notorious slut, she reminded herself. A demimondaine. A woman of the world. Act like one.
“No one seems to know your name,” she said. “It’s most mysterious. What does it say on your passport, I wonder, and why does no one seem to know this simple thing?”
He shrugged. “Hardly a mystery. I’ve been in Venice for only a few days, and the curious can’t have tried hard to find out answers. As you say, it’s a simple thing, easy enough to find out. One need only ask the Austrian governor, Count Goetz, or his wife—or Mr. Hoppner, the British consul-general.” He paused. “I’m James Cordier.”
Then at last her mind made the connection. The Earl of Westwood’s family name was Cordier.
“I am Francesca Bonnard,” she said.
“That much I know,” he said. “You’re famous, it seems.”
“Infamous, you mean.”
His long stride brought him quickly across the small room to her. “Are you really?” he said. His eyes had widened with what seemed to be genuine surprise, and she was shocked to discover that they were not dark brown or black as she’d at first supposed, but blue, deep blue.
He sat in the chair nearest hers and leaned forward, studying her intently, rather as though she were another portrait whose quality he was assessing. “What dreadful thing have you done?”
Again she had to fight with herself not to squirm.
Scrutiny from men she was used to. What she wasn’t used to was being studied as though she were an abstruse line of Armenian. She felt stiff and uneasy. She was aware of heat spreading over her cheeks.
A blush, of all things! She, blushing!
She was disconcerted, that was all, she told herself. He wasn’t what she was used to. He was reputed to be a scholar. He was reclusive. What surprise was it, then, if he was eccentric, too?
“Perhaps you don’t go out much in Society,” she said.
“English Society, do you mean?” he said. “No, I spend little time in England.”
“I’m divorced,” she said. “The former wife of Lord Elphick. It was a great scandal.”
“And does he harbor ill will, do you think?” he said. “Do you suppose he might have hired men to kill you?”
Remembering Quentin’s visit, and the sudden interest in those old letters of Elphick’s, she’d considered the possibility and quickly discarded it. If Elphick had her killed now, he might get into trouble he wouldn’t be able to get out of. She was no longer his despised slut of a wife. Here on the Continent she was a glamorous divorcée with important friends. Her untimely demise would cause an uproar. It would be scrupulously investigated. Not to mention that Elphick couldn’t be sure what arrangements she’d made about the letters, in the event of her death. No, killing her was too risky for him.
“Good grief, no,” she said. “I’m more useful alive. He looks so much nobler and more virtuous in comparison to his wicked wife. He can pose as brave and forbearing. No, killing me would spoil his fun.”
“And dying would spoil yours, I reckon,” he said.
Surprised, she laughed. She had not thought she could laugh again, so easily, so soon after a narrow escape from rape and a grisly death—but then she was resilient, wasn’t she?
She became aware of an odd stillness about him that seemed to tauten the very air of the room. But she’d scarcely noticed it before it vanished.
“One’s first theory is that they were robbers,” he said. “But what a curious way to go about it. It would have been so much easier to knock you unconscious and strip off the jewelry and toss about your skirts for your purse. But this was meant to cause you as much suffering as possible in a short time. I saw it happen from my balcony, and it was plain that the assault was planned. Since violent crime is rare in Venice, one must conclude that this was deliberate, aimed at you. The motive, though…” He shrugged, in a most un-English way, drawing her attention to his big shoulders.
“You sound like a lawyer,” she said tightly. “You seem to know a great deal about criminals.”
“You sound like someone who doesn’t like lawyers,” he said. “You seem to know a great deal about them.”
“I’m a divorced woman,” she said. “My father was Sir Michael Saunders, the man who, single-handedly, nearly destroyed the British economy a few years ago. Yes, Mr. Cordier, I’ve had a great deal of experience with lawyers. I don’t particularly like them. I don’t particularly hate them, either. For a woman in my position, they represent an unfortunate necessity.”
“Ah, yes,” he said. “Your position. A divorcée.”
“Divorziata e puttana,” she said tautly. A divorcée and a whore.
He leapt from his chair as though one of Satan’s imps had pricked his arse with a hot fork.
“Good heavens!” he said. “I do beg your pardon. Am I keeping you from your work?”
That did it, finally. She stared at James, the green eyes huge in her face, shadowed and so vulnerable. He knew it was simply the aftereffects of looking death in the eye, yet it angered him. Before this, she had been so confident, so arrogant—
Then the too-fragile expression crumbled and she laughed, heartily and long.
His heart skipped a beat and another and went on so, beating raggedly.
He couldn’t help that. He couldn’t help smiling, either.
She was good, very good, and at last he was beginning to understand—in his gut, not simply in his mind—why she was so deuced expensive and why the men who could afford her paid without the smallest hesitation. This was a rare beauty with a rare exuberance.
&nbs
p; She must be great fun in bed.
Small wonder the notoriously fickle Bellaci had kept her for so long.
“Keeping me from my work,” she said, her laughter subsiding to a soft chuckle while the naughty glint returned to her green eyes. “I must tell Giulietta. She’ll love that one. But no, Mr. Cordier, you are not keeping me from the streets, because I don’t walk them. Besides, you may have noticed that Venice hasn’t much in the way of streets. I’m the other kind of harlot. The excessively greedy kind. And I had planned to spend this night in bed—with a book.”
“Then it’s all too strange to me—at least to the Italian side of me,” he said. “I shouldn’t have imagined a woman of your quality would spend a night alone. But then, I’m still trying to imagine what would possess a man to divorce you. Was he enamored of his own sex perhaps? Or was it sheep he preferred?” He waved his hand, as though to dismiss the subject. “But it is none of my affair. I keep you from your book, and perhaps, after all, a book is preferable to a lover.”
“Sometimes,” she said, her mouth curving a little.
It was only a teasing hint of the wicked smile that sent electric shocks of anticipation straight into a man’s bloodstream, to speed merrily to his reproductive organs.
The tiny smile was a devilish glimpse of things to come. It might be an invitation. It might simply be teasing.
Whatever it meant, it worked. His temperature was climbing and his brain was already turning over negotiations to his cock.
Slow down, laddie, he told himself. You know better.
