Chapter 4 #2
“The lady is certainly is not from Padua, as she claims,” Donata said. “I’d say from Manchester. In the play, she spoke with a decided accent of that area, and such things are not easily mimicked.”
“An Englishwoman then.” Grenville tucked his quizzing glass into his pocket as though satisfied with their conclusions. “One who has learned to pass for Italian, at least among the French.”
“No wonder she looks confused at the moment,” Donata observed. “She is not certain what role to assume.”
Gabriella and I listened to all this without comment, both of us intrigued by their assessment.
“Forgive me, Miss Auberge,” Grenville said when he found us scrutinizing them. “Witnessing scandal in the making is vastly diverting.”
“So long as you are not making the scandal yourself,” I said with some humor.
“Very true.” Grenville nodded. “All jesting aside, I admire the comtesse. She could so easily have let her servants throw the upstart out. I’ll be curious to learn of Comte Lejeune’s reaction when he hears of it.”
The comte himself was notably absent. I wondered if he’d anticipated such a scenario and chosen to spend the evening elsewhere.
“That will be equally as diverting,” Donata said. “Unless the comte pretends to take no notice of what his ladies get up to.”
“I’d be thoroughly embarrassed, if I were he,” I said mildly.
“You would, yes, Gabriel.” Donata laid her fingers on the crook of my arm. “Although, I don’t believe you’d be in such a predicament in the first place.”
“Of course not.” I touched her gloved hand. “I have no need.”
Donata looked pleased at my declaration. “We are a highly unfashionable pair, I admit. Will there be any dancing at all, do you think, Grenville? I am growing restless.”
She looked to the orchestra, who waited in a balcony above for the comtesse to indicate they should resume.
The comtesse and Signor Ruggeri had reached the far end of the ballroom. The comtesse then began steering the signora back again, making certain that every person in the room greeted her.
The crowd were content to follow the comtesse and her impromptu guest, avid to learn what would happen next. Would Signora Ruggeri retreat quietly, admitting defeat this night? Or turn her advantage in gaining the house to more insolent demands?
Signora Ruggeri never had the chance to decide. A man’s voice in heavily accented French abruptly arrowed through the open windows from the courtyard below.
“Isadora! You bitch. Come out of there, now.”
After one startled moment, the guests rushed to the windows. I confess I was only steps behind them, Grenville and Donata flanking me.
I glimpsed, over ladies’ feathered headdresses, a man in a black suit and half cloak planted on the stones of the courtyard before the front door. Hatless, his hair gleaming in the torchlight, he cast an enraged gaze upward, like a lover in an opera.
“Isadora!” he roared, as footmen surged around him.
Signora Ruggeri started for the window, but the comtesse held her back.
“Best not to let him goad you, my dear,” she advised.
“I did not bring him here, I promise you, madame,” Signora Ruggeri said in anguish. “He must have followed me. Oh, I am sorry. I am sorry.”
Her accent slipped a little as she gushed in sincere regret, and I heard even in French that Donata was likely correct about the signora’s origins.
The comtesse patted her hand. “Never mind. You should rest a while. My maid will take you to a quiet chamber and give you coffee while we wait for your gentleman to leave.”
Signora Ruggeri’s dark eyes filled with tears. “You are too kind.”
“Not at all, my dear. Every guest of mine deserves courtesy. Here is my maid.” The comtesse released herself from Signora Ruggeri’s now clinging grip and handed her off to a mob-capped, stern-faced older woman who took charge of her. “Look after her, please, Perrault.”
The guests watched Signora Ruggeri’s exit with interest, then returned attention to the windows as the man outside continued to shout.
Those shouts cut off abruptly when several of the burly guards, Brewster among them, took hold of the man and escorted him unceremoniously to the gate.
“He was once her paramour,” Grenville informed us as we eased back into the ballroom. “Vincenzo Gallo, is his name. From Padua in truth, I believe.”
“The scandal deepens,” Donata said. She brightened as the orchestra began to play. “At last.”
Grenville, scrupulously polite, held his hand out for Gabriella, as the youngest lady of our party. “Shall we take a turn, Miss Auberge?”
Gabriella shook her head, though she smiled her thanks. “I prefer not to dance, Mr. Grenville. It is kind of you to offer, but I would like to sit with my father.”
“I know when I have been rebuffed, young lady.” Grenville winked at her then pivoted to Donata. “My friend?”
“Delighted.” Donata rested her hand lightly in his. “As we will have no further excitement this evening, let us dance and console ourselves.”
They sailed out to join the forming set. I led Gabriella to a chair on the side of the ballroom as the ladies and gentlemen began to glide about.
“You have no need to sit with me,” I told her. “Though I appreciate your courtesy.”
Gabriella sank down beside me. “I truly prefer not to dance unless it is with Emile. Mr. Grenville is well-mannered, but rather older than me, isn’t he?”
I hid my smile at her assessment, though I was vainly pleased she preferred to remain with me instead of flitting about the ballroom.
She called me Father as opposed to the more familiar Papa, which she reserved Major Auberge.
Gabriella’s acceptance of me as her true father had erased much of my wretchedness, and I didn’t mind that she was more formal with me. Perhaps one day, she’d lose her reserve and we’d be as close as though we’d never been forced apart.
For now, I enjoyed spending this time with her, before she’d become Emile’s wife. I’d have fewer opportunities to see her after that.
As we watched the dancing and conversed about Emile, his family, the sumptuousness of the house we were in, and the new house Gabriella would have after she wed, the drama of Signora Ruggeri and her spurned lover faded into unimportance.
I’d thought the scene at the ball would be the last of my encounters with the pretended Paduan lady and her lover, Signor Gallo, but it was not to be.
The next day, I took my early walk to the Presqu’?le and Beaumont’s tavern to seek my breakfast. I was alone this morning—Gabriella had departed after the comtesse’s soiree, Major Auberge arriving in a carriage to escort her, as arranged.
Brewster, who’d insisted on accompanying me into town, had paused to slurp coffee from a vendor as we’d made our way down the hill.
As I neared the middle of the Pont Tilsit, the bridge across the river Sa?ne, I spied a man sprawled, face upward, on its paving stones. Bending over him was my old enemy, Colonel Moreau.
The body proved to be that of Signor Gallo, who lay in a pool of brownish blood. Moreau gripped a long knife in one fist, its blade covered with same drying blood. No one else was near, the middle of the bridge empty.
Moreau heard my step and snapped his head up. He froze, wide eyes burning, his face becoming a stark shade of gray.
“No,” he declared in halting English. “This, I did not do.”