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He’d ruined everything. He was supposed to make her chase him. Instead, he’d given in to the impulse of the moment—No, it was worse than that: He’d given in to the little brain between his legs. He’d given her what he wanted and what she wanted—and that was all she wanted, obviously—and now she was done with him.
Ciao, cretino. I’m off to drive a French count mad. And a Gilenian prince. And perhaps some Russians and Bavarians, and maybe I’ll have a gondolier for dessert.
“So what does that make me?” he muttered. “The hors d’oeuvre?”
He stomped down the stairs, down the ramp, out of the Campanile, and along the same route she had taken. All the way he cursed himself, under his breath, in Italian, in English, and now and again, for a change of pace, in French, German, Russian, and Greek.
When he reached his gondola, Zeggio reported that he and Sedgewick had seen the signora. She’d ordered her boatmen to take her to her friend’s.
Perfect, James thought. She and Giulietta would compare their experiences. Giggling.
“Sir?”
James looked up.
Sedgewick and Zeggio were exchanging that look again.
“Where to, signore?” Zeggio said.
James climbed into the gondola. “San Lazzaro,” he said. “The monastery. This time I’m joining up.”
It was an inhuman hour of the morning, but Francesca was too desperate to think of that.
She had second thoughts when she reached Giulietta’s house and saw the large, familiar gondola moored there. However, before she could tell Uliva to set out for home instead, a gentleman stepped into the boat. It promptly pulled away from the water gates.
Moments later, the gondola passed hers. She made herself give a cheerful wave. The man inside turned a brilliant shade of red but doffed his hat with princely aplomb. The early morning sunlight turned Lurenze’s curls to a pale, sparkling gold.
Not many minutes thereafter, Francesca was shown in to Giulietta’s boudoir. She sat at a little table by the fire, stirring a spoon round and round her coffee cup. At Francesca’s entrance, her faraway look vanished.
“Well, I can see you had your fun,” Francesca said as she entered. “His highness was leaving as I arrived.”
Giulietta shrugged. “I made him buy the cundum. I had to show him how to use it.” She ordered more coffee and bade Francesca sit down and have something to eat.
Francesca sat down, and promptly burst into tears.
Giulietta bounced up from her chair and moved to put her arms about her friend. “But what? What is wrong? Did you not want to be with Cordier?”
Francesca pulled out her damp handkerchief and stared at it. A lot of useless decoration. Why hadn’t she taken Cordier’s when he offered? She could have taken it home with her and kept it as a souvenir.
The thought made her sob afresh.
Giulietta stuffed a napkin into her hand. “What?” she said. “What is wrong? You never weep. Are you pregnant?”
“N-n-no.” Francesca wiped her eyes and nose on the square of linen.
“You cannot be weeping about the prince,” Giulietta said. “Please tell me this is not so. I thought you wished to go with the other one. You looked—”
“That’s why you took that sudden temper fit and stormed away?” Francesca said. “What if Cordier had come after you instead?”
“But why should he? He was not the one who hurt my so-delicate feelings. It is Lurenze who calls me a child and so it is he who must chase me, and when at last I let him catch me, he says he is so very sorry. At first I am haughty and angry but by degrees I let him melt me, and then I say sweet things to him. And then…but you know how it is done.”
“Not so well as some people, it seems,” Francesca said. “Cordier was positive you wanted Lurenze to pursue you, and decided to help. Well, you and Cordier are mighty considerate of each other.”
Giulietta returned to her chair. “But you know I want Lurenze,” she said. “And I know you do not care about him. You want Cordier.”
“But he’s a nobody!”
“Why is it wrong to take a nobody for a lover once in a while?” Giulietta said. “Especially this one. He is not the waiter in the café or the handsome fisherman or flower seller. He is the son of an English nobleman. His mother comes from an old and very great Italian family. Everyone knows them.”
“But in England Cordier is merely a younger son,” Francesca said. “Younger sons never have any money to speak of—not real money. He can’t afford to buy me treasures that will make Elphick gnash his teeth.”
The coffee arrived then.
After the servant had gone and after she’d made Francesca eat half a breakfast pastry and drink some coffee, Giulietta said, “I understand the vendetta. In your place, I would have killed the brute of a husband. Or better, I would arrange for others to take him to a place where he is made to die slowly and in terrible pain. But your way is more inventive and more fun for you. Now, though, the fun is not there. It is stupid to hurt yourself to hurt a man far away on a cold little island. If you want Cordier, have him—and to the devil with Lord Elphick!”
Francesca gulped coffee. “I had him,” she said.
Giulietta’s face lit. She grinned. “Ah, now I see. It was good?”
“It was in the belfry of the Campanile San Marco,” Francesca said.
“The belfry,” Giulietta echoed softly. “Ah!”
Normally, Francesca would describe her experience in minute detail. This time she could not think what to say. She could not find the words to describe what had happened. The magic. The surge of feeling like that made her feel as music could make her feel. But more so.
She said, “It was very romantic.”
“Ah, yes.”
“And silly. But romantic.” She told about the bells ringing and the sun coming up.
“Yes. He makes you laugh,” Giulietta said.
“He makes me cry, too. He makes me…” Francesca hesitated. But she always told Giulietta everything. “When I’m with him, I remember who I used to be,” she went on. “Everything comes back.” Over her heart, she made a churning motion with her hand. “Feelings. Too many. I don’t know what to do. I cry. I’m angry. I’m sick, heartsick. I want to put my head on his chest and—and I want him to put his arms around me and hold me and say he understands…and I want to trust him.” She swallowed. “Is that not mad? I met him only five days ago.”
“But he saved your life,” said Giulietta. “That is how you met him—when he risked his life to save yours. What could be more stirring of the emotions than this? And what is the better way for a man to earn the trust of a woman? What is the better way for anyone, man or woman, to show what words by themselves cannot prove?”
“Magny doesn’t trust him,” Francesca said.
“Magny is very wise,” Giulietta said. “But he is not all-knowing.”
“No, he isn’t,” Francesca said. “Yet I can’t help feeling he sees more clearly than I.”
The servant re-entered. One of Signora Bonnard’s servants was here, he said. He was sorry to interrupt the ladies, but the matter was most important.
James had calmed down enough to realize he needed a bath and a change of clothes and breakfast, all of which meant returning to the Ca’ Munetti. He needed sleep, too, but he could do that in the gondola on the way to San Lazzaro.
He was finishing breakfast when Sedgewick came in, frowning.
“Sir,” he said, “something’s happened across the way.”
“Nuns?” Francesca said incredulously. “Are you sure?” She stood in the Putti Inferno, looking about her.
This time she didn’t need Magny to point out the signs. This lot had tried to be careful, too, but they weren’t as good at it as the ones who’d come to Mira.
Her servants had noticed odds and ends out of order. They’d put this together with the fact that all of them had fallen mysteriously ill during the night—a few hours after supping with three nuns.
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“They come a little while after you go to the theater,” said Arnaldo. “They are from Cyprus, they tell us. They are lost. They have wandered for hours. They have little money. They are hungry.” He lifted his shoulders. “What can I do? Holy sisters. How can I send them away? And so we share with them our supper.”
A short time later, all those who’d shared in the supper—which was all the servants who lived in—became ill.
“At one moment, they are taking care of us,” Arnaldo said. “This much I remember. I think, ‘Why are the nuns not sick?’ But then my head is so heavy and I must lie down. I sleep. I wake only a little while ago, and they are gone. Before too long I discover that all of the servants were the same. No one was well enough to watch the house. And soon we see that someone has been searching. Who else but these nuns? We think nothing of value is missing but we are not sure. This is why I send servants to find you. Do you wish for me to send one of the men to tell the governor what has happened?”
“No!” The last thing Francesca wanted was the Austrian governor poking his nose into this. “Send to the comte de Magny.”
Arnaldo tried to put James off. “The signora is not receiving visitors.”
James was not in the most patient or rational frame of mind. What he saw was not a butler doing his duty but an obstacle in his path. What he wanted to do was pick up the obstacle and throw it aside.
