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Meanwhile, instead of quickly sinking into the gutter and dying, impoverished, diseased, and mad, as Johanna and Elphick had confidently expected, Francesca Bonnard had climbed in the world, too. Now she consorted with men of influence.
Now she was a problem, a very dangerous one.
Meanwhile, in Verona
“Do you not understand?” Marta Fazi raged at the gentleman who’d brought the message to the little cottage. “I’ve lost my best men, thanks to that Roman pig, whoever he is. Three of them crippled—useless. Another half dozen the soldiers took away. They are still in prison.”
“We got you out,” said the messenger. “It cost a bloody fortune in bribes.”
“I am worth it,” she said, chin aloft. “My Lord Elphick knows. But what can I do when my best men are useless?”
“Use your second-best men,” said the messenger.
She scowled at something across the room. She stalked past him to a shelf and turned a little statue of the madonna to face the wall. “Why does she look at me like this?” she said. “She knows what I have suffered. That cruel man. May he burn in hell.”
“Never mind the cruel man,” the messenger said.
She swung round, her black eyes glittering with rage. “Never mind? Do you know what he did?”
“I know he made you lose your temper and go on a rampage, which is how you ended up in prison and cost us—”
“My emeralds!” she cried. “My beautiful emeralds! He took them!”
“This is rather more important than—”
“Queens wore those emeralds!” she raged on. “They were mine!” She pressed her first to her bosom. “Do you know what I had to do to get them, those beautiful stones?” Her dark eyes filled. She, who mutilated for sport and killed with a smile on her face, wept over green minerals. “I loved them like children. My own little babies. Where will I find jewels to match those again? When I find that black-hearted pig who took them—”
“You can look for him later. Right now—”
“Who did this to me? Who is he?”
“We don’t know. We don’t have time to find out. Forget him. Forget the emeralds. You’ll never get them back. They’ve gone back to the royal coffers they came out of.”
“No!” She snatched the little madonna from the shelf and threw it across the room. It hit the back of a chair and shattered into fragments. “Forget? Marta Fazi never forgets! Not even a ring does he leave me. Not one ring! Nothing. Gone! All gone!”
“She has jewelry,” the messenger said. “She’s famous for it.”
The storm abruptly abated.
“Mrs. Bonnard has sapphires, pearls, rubies, diamonds,” the messenger said into the intense quiet. “And emeralds.”
“Emeralds?” Marta smiled like a child offered sweetmeats.
“Very fine emeralds that once belonged to the Empress Josephine,” the messenger said. “Get the letters and no one will mind if you take a few baubles as well. Deliver those letters safely to his lordship and he’ll give you the Crown Jewels.”
Venice, that night, at the opera
Though the season had not officially started, the boxes and pit of La Fenice were very nearly filled. This, James was aware, was partly because Rossini’s popular La Gazza Ladra was being performed and partly because Francesca Bonnard and her friends occupied one of the most expensive of the theater’s four tiers of boxes. As many people were looking up at her box as were looking at the stage.
And, this being Italy, many other people were doing neither.
As he well knew, Italian theaters were a different species from those in England. In Italy, theaters were social centers. To accommodate sociable theatergoers, the stairs and refreshment rooms were enormous. The vast foyers had been used until very recently for gambling. Now, with gambling forbidden, theatergoers were reduced to playing backgammon.
During the season, the educated classes attended the theater four or five times a week. Since this was a home away from home, the boxes were large as well, many of them furnished like drawing rooms and used in much the same way. From some, one could barely see the stage.
During the performance, people ate, drank, and talked. They played at cards, flirtation, and seduction. Servants went in and out. The opera or play provided background color and music, for the most part.
But at certain important times in the performance—the start of a favorite aria, for instance—the audience became hushed, and attended with all its might.
Such a hush was not in progress as James entered the box where Francesca Bonnard held court. Several parties on stage were screeching and bellowing something or other to which no one was paying the slightest heed.
No one paid James any heed, either. He appeared to be merely one of the several wigged and liveried servants going in and out with this or that: food, wine, a shawl. Playing a servant was easy. Those they served took little notice of them. He might stab the crown prince of Gilenia in the neck in front of a dozen witnesses, and later, not one of those witnesses would be able to identify James as the killer. No one would remember what kind of wig or livery he wore.
He was certain of this, having done away with two pieces of human slime under similar conditions.
Lurenze, however, was merely in the way. Since, given the lady’s reputation, one must expect a male—or several—to be in the way, James preferred the obstacle to be young and not overly intelligent. The French count Magny, with the advantages of age and experience—which included not losing his head, literally, during the Terror or thereafter—might have proved a more serious obstacle.
James’s attention shifted from the golden-haired boy to the harlot beside him. They sat at the front of the box, Lurenze in the seat of honor at her right. He’d turned in his seat to gaze worshipfully at her. She, facing the stage, pretended not to notice the adoration.
From where he stood, James had only the rear view, of a smoothly curving neck and shoulders. Her hair, piled with artful carelessness, was a deep chestnut with fiery glints where the light caught it. A few loose tendrils made her seem the slightest degree tousled. The effect created was not of one who’d recently risen from bed but one who had a moment ago slipped out of a lover’s embrace.
Subtle.
And most effective. Even James, jaded as he was, was aware of a stirring-up below the belly, a narrowing of focus, and a softening of brain.
But then, she ought to be good at stirring up men, he thought, considering her price.
His gaze drifted lower.
A sapphire and diamond necklace adorned her long, velvety neck. Matching drops hung at her shell-like ears. While Lurenze murmured something in her ear, she let her shawl slip down.
James’s jaw dropped.
The dress had almost no back at all! She must have had her corset specially made to accommodate it.
Her shoulder blades were plainly visible. An oddly shaped birthmark marked the right one.
He pulled his eyes back into his head and his tongue back into his mouth.
Well, then, she was a fine piece, as well as a bold one, no question about that. Someone thought she was worth those sapphires, certainly, and that was saying something. James wasn’t sure he’d ever seen their like, and he’d seen—and stolen—heaps of fine jewelry. They surpassed the emeralds he’d reclaimed from Marta Fazi not many months ago.
Bottle in hand, he advanced to fill their glasses.
Lurenze, who’d leaned in so close that his yellow curls were in danger of becoming entangled with her earrings, paused, leaned back a little, and frowned. Then he took out his quizzing glass and studied her half-naked back. “But this is a serpent,” he said.
It is?
James, surprised, leaned toward her, too. The prince was right. It wasn’t a birthmark but a tattoo.
“You, how dare you to stare so obscene at the lady?” Lurenze said. “Impudent person! Put your eyes back in your face. And watch before you spill—”
“Oops,” James said under hi
s breath as he let the bottle in his hand tilt downward, splashing wine on the front of his highness’s trousers.
Lurenze gazed down in dismay at the dark stain spreading over his crotch.
“Perdono, perdono,” James said, all false contrition. “Sono mortificato, eccellenza.” He took the towel from his arm and dabbed awkwardly and not gently at the wet spot.
Bonnard’s attention remained upon the stage, but her shoulders shook slightly. James heard a suppressed giggle to his left, from the only other female in the box. He didn’t look that way but went on vigorously dabbing with the towel.
The red-faced prince pushed his hand away. “Stop! Enough! Go away! Ottar! Where is my servant? Ottar!”
Simultaneously, a few hundred heads swiveled their way and a few hundred voices said, in angry unison, “Shh!”
Ninetta’s aria was about to begin.
“Perdonatemi, perdonatemi,” James whispered. “Mi dispiace, mi dispiace.” Continuing to apologize, he backed away, the picture of servile shame and fear.
La Bonnard turned round then, and looked James full in the face.
He should have been prepared. He should have acted reflexively but for some reason he didn’t. He was half a heartbeat too slow. The look caught him, and the unearthly countenance stopped him dead.
Isis, Lord Byron had dubbed her, after the Egyptian goddess. Now James saw why: the strange, elongated green eyes…the wide mouth…the exotic lines of nose and cheek and jaw.
