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“There’s a smaller tub upstairs,” she said. “It’s mainly for the benefit of gentlemen who might wish to watch me bathe. But this room is for me.”
The servant went out and Thérèse hurried in, carrying a basket of soaps, creams, and perfumes. Over one arm hung a dressing gown. She looked hard at Francesca, glanced at Cordier, and compressed her lips. “Madame will take cold,” she said.
“I’ll see that she doesn’t,” Cordier said. He took the basket and dressing gown from her. “Madame pleases to drive me mad—”
“Monsieur pleases to provide me the same service,” Francesca said.
“Nonetheless, I shall see that she comes to no harm,” Cordier said. “You may go now. She’ll scream if she needs you.”
Thérèse looked to Francesca. “You may go,” Francesca said.
The maid went out.
“Every member of the household knows what happened,” he said. “It will be all over Venice in five minutes.”
“You upset me,” she said.
“The feeling is mutual,” he said.
“I don’t like to be upset,” she said.
“Who does?”
“I have spent the last five years arranging my life to keep that from happening,” she said.
He inspected the jars and bottles and soaps in the basket and removed one bottle before setting down the basket on the table close by the tub. He unstopped the bottle, sniffed it, then sprinkled a few drops into the tub. “I’m beginning to understand,” he said.
“You’re a man,” she said. “It’s impossible for you to understand. Men have all the power. Men control everything. They make the official laws and all the ordinary and unofficial rules. They—”
“Your husband broke your heart,” he said.
What was she to do? Lie and lie again? Pretend, endlessly pretend? That worked well enough with everyone else, but with this man the pretense made her sick and confused.
“Yes,” she said. Her shoulders sagged. She was weary, so weary.
“Come here,” he said.
She went to him, of course. That was all she wanted to do: to go to him, to feel his arms about her.
But he didn’t pull her into his arms. He turned her around and unhooked the back of her gown. “You look like Isis in this gown,” he said. “After she fell into the Nile.”
In spite of the weariness, in spite of old wounds, she smiled. “Did she fall into the Nile?”
“Or was she pushed? Who knows?” He untied the waist, and the gown drooped. If it had been dry, it would have slid down. “I like this garment construction,” he said. He tugged gently, drawing the gown down over her hips.
“It was a beautiful gown,” she said. “Dry, it whispered over my petticoats as it slid to the floor.”
It wasn’t dry now, though, and he had to help it down. Once past her knees, it fell to the floor with a most unseductive plop.
He went to work on the wet strings of her petticoat. “I’m sure you don’t like being wet and bedraggled any more than you like being upset,” he said. “You should have thought of that before you jumped into the canal.”
“You were going to throw me in.”
“And you jumped to rob me of the pleasure?”
“I wasn’t thinking clearly,” she said.
“As I believe I pointed out to you. More than once. Al diavolo!”
“What’s wrong?”
“These strings are impossible,” he said. “By the time I’ve got them and your corset string untied, you’ll have pneumonia. And the bath will be cold. I’m cutting them. It’s not as though you can’t afford to replace them, what with your being the great Whore of Babylon and all, and rich as Cleopatra besides.”
Her chest heaved.
“Don’t cry,” he said.
“I’m n-not,” she said.
She felt the strings give way.
He swiftly stripped off the petticoat, stays, and shift. She stood only in her soaked stockings and garters, and her water-stained slippers.
She heard him suck in his breath.
She turned toward him.
He stood, looking at her, up and down, up and down. He had a penknife in his right hand.
“I’m going to faint,” he said.
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “You’ve seen lots of naked women.”
“I’m not silly,” he said. “I’m half Italian, and you…” He drew his left hand down over her breast. “I think you must be the Eighth Deadly Sin. And well worth an eternity in Hell.” He knelt, slid the penknife between her leg and the garter, and slit it. He peeled the stocking down, slipped off her shoe, and drew the stocking over her foot. He kissed her knee.
Her legs trembled. She set her hand on his shoulder to brace herself. He slit the other garter and performed the same ritual.
“I can think of a great many things to do at this moment,” he said, stroking her thigh. “But the bath will grow cold, and you do smell of canal, and so do I.”
He rose, set aside the knife, and began to work his way out of his sopping coat. The garment fit, as it ought to do, like skin.
She moved to help.
He waved her away. “Get in the tub,” he said.
“You’ll never do that alone,” she said. He probably needed two servants to get him out of it.
“Watch me,” he said. “Get in the tub.”
She climbed in, and groaned involuntarily. It was beautifully warm and smelled like a lemon grove.
She closed her eyes and leaned back, resting her neck on the thick linens with which the servant had draped it.
“This is a wonderful bathing room,” he said.
She opened her eyes. He was hanging his coat over the back of a chair. This was a man who’d had practice in doing without servants, she thought.
This man. She knew so little about him. Five days. And yet…
He unbuttoned his waistcoat. “Nymphs and satyrs frolicking on the walls. Candles and incense. It’s your own little temple, isn’t it? The Temple of Francesca, Goddess of the Canal.”
“It’s the Temple of the Vestal Virgins,” she said. “I’ve never had a man in here before.”
He paused in the act of pulling off his waistcoat. “I’m the first?”
“You’ve no idea how privileged you are,” she said.
He got the waistcoat off and draped it neatly over the chair seat. “I have an excellent idea,” he said. “Especially now that I’ve seen you naked.”
“You don’t need to flatter me,” she said. “I don’t need honeyed words.”
“When have I flattered you?” he said. He undid the button at the neck of the shirt sticking wetly to his torso. It sagged open, revealing a V of his powerful chest, gleaming bronze in the candlelight. “I believe I called you an idiot more than once this morning alone.” He sat on the chair, on top of his wet waistcoat, and tugged off his stockings. “And to think I nearly wore boots today. We might have both drowned. Or you would have done so, by the time I got them off.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she said.
He stood up and pulled his shirt over his head. “Give me one more minute,” he said. “I’ll think of something.” He began unbuttoning his trousers.
She ducked down, under the water, and came up again, looking like one of the nymphs in the frescoes. Only more beautiful.
She was right: James had seen countless women naked. Perhaps she wasn’t perfect. Her high, round breasts could have been a bit fuller, her waist a bit narrower…
No. He couldn’t be objective. All he could see was womanly perfection, a goddess.
He peeled off his waterlogged trousers, kicked them aside, and climbed into the tub.
She drew in her legs, making room for him.
For a moment he simply let himself sink into the warmth and the delicious scents swirling in the atmosphere of the intimate room. He slid down as she had done, bringing his head under water, and came up again. He let the back of his head rest on the thick towels
draped upon the tub’s rim and looked up at the ceiling, where nymphs and satyrs were cavorting among bunches of grapes and flagons of wine and Pan playing his pipes.
“I’d always thought these rooms were used as offices, like the ones below, on the andron,” she said. “But I was told that in the last generation or so, the family used them as sitting rooms and parlors. I made this one my private bathing room because it’s closer to the water supply and the kitchen. Less work for the servants, heating and carrying the water. And I liked the frescoes.”
He sat up and reached beside him for a square of soap from the basket on the table. He reached under water and found her ankle. “You need a bath, my water nymph,” he said. “And I’m going to give you one.”
“Do you promise not to pull me under?” she said.
“No,” he said. He lifted her foot above the water and began to soap it, taking his time. He worked his way up her ankles and up and round and over the shapely calves and onward, over her knees. As he washed her, he inched closer. But when he reached the juncture of her thighs, he simply let his hand drift over the bottom of her belly. He heard her inhale sharply, but he continued to the other thigh, and worked his way down that leg.
“You’re not very…thorough,” she said softly.
“Give me time,” he said.
“No, you give me time,” she said. “My turn now.”
