Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
Montefiore toppled backwards into his own gondola, landing heavily. The boat rocked wildly; his gondolier yelped.
“That’s enough,” Edward said through his teeth, chest heaving. “If I see you again anywhere near her, I won’t be so gentle.”
Montefiore lay where he had fallen, teeth bared in a rictus that wasn’t quite a smile. “You think you’ve won something here?” he rasped. “You’ve merely made my work easier.”
“Row,” Edward snapped to his own gondolier. “Now.”
He turned to Venetia and held out his arms. “Come.”
She didn’t hesitate. She flung herself at him, fingers digging into his shoulders as if she’d never let go.
He lifted her—light and trembling—and stepped back into his own gondola, Mollie clambering after them with the agility of the terrified. The oar bit into water, the gap widened. And Montefiore’s curse echoed after them and was swallowed by the dark.
Only then did Edward feel his hands shaking.
“Are you hurt?” he managed, searching Venetia’s face in the dimness. “Did he—”
“No.” Her voice broke. “No, not—not in any way that matters. Edward, you came.”
“As if I could do anything else,” he said hoarsely.
And then she was in his arms again, not clinging in fear but surging up, pressing her mouth to his with a desperation that matched his own.
The world fell away.
For a wild, endless moment there was nothing but the taste of her—salt from tears, the faint ghost of La Serafina’s champagne, the sweetness that was uniquely Venetia.
His hands framed her face, slid into her hair, memorizing every line, every silken strand.
She made a small sound against his lips that undid him utterly.
This. This was right. This was what every line of Ivanhoe had made him ache for without knowing it—two souls who had circled and denied and tormented themselves finally colliding into this perfection.
He kissed her as if he could pour every unsaid word into her: I love you. I will fight for you. I will burn every bargain I made if it keeps you safe.
She answered with a fervor that banished every doubt: hands in his hair, fingers curling into his coat, mouth moving under his with glorious, unpracticed ardor.
There was nothing restrained, nothing decorous about her.
She gave herself to the moment with the same wholehearted courage she gave to everything she did.
Finally, they broke apart. Foreheads pressed together, they laughed shakily into the small space between them.
“I thought—” she began, then stopped, swallowing. “I thought you’d decided it was wiser to stay away.”
“I had,” he said honestly. “And then you vanished into Venice. Thornton told me. Do you think I’d leave you to find your own way back?”
She gave a watery laugh. “In the cell to which Captain Rizzi marched me, I believed I’d never see freedom again.
I was so frightened that when I was released, I couldn’t just hide in my room.
Not for long, anyway. So I marched off to find the truth, and I ended up nearly being manhandled into a villain’s gondola and ruining everything. ”
“You were so brave,” Edward said fiercely. He kissed the corner of her mouth, the damp track of a tear. “Venetia, I—”
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Not yet. If you tell me you love me in a gondola on a Venetian canal, I might actually expire from romance on the spot.”
“In Ivanhoe,” he said helplessly, “the hero—”
“Gets the girl,” she finished for him. “You will not bribe me with Scott, Edward Rothbury. No matter how much I’ve always wanted to be Rowena.”
“You’re more Rebecca,” he said quietly. “Braver. Clearer eyed.”
She drew back enough to really look at him then, her expression softening, deepening. “And you? Which are you?”
He thought of Morosini and his library. Of Montefiore’s threats, Greene’s hatred, Rizzi’s suspicions. Of his life, built from duty and caution and compromise.
For the first time, he didn’t care.
“I’m the man who will fight for you,” he said simply. “Even if it ruins me.”
Something in her eyes went molten. “Edward…”
The gondola slid on, rocking gently, the night folding around them.
She told him, in gasps and snatches, of La Serafina and a famed opera singer named Isabella Monteverdi, of an angry French “Monsieur Vert” with a suspiciously familiar name.
He stilled in momentary horror at her mention the famous Monteverdi before he returned his attention toward piecing together Montefiore’s agenda: Greene’s grievance, the will’s clause, the elaborate staging of Venetia’s disgrace.
He told her—finally—about Morosini’s bargain. About the library, the veiled threats, the conditions tied to her freedom. Her hand clenched in his when she realized just how tight the net around them had been.
“And you came anyway,” she whispered.
“How could I not?”
For half an hour—or perhaps a lifetime—they existed only on that strip of water between stone and sky as they opened up their hearts to one another.
He knew he would pay for it. He knew this night would have consequences that would ripple outward like circles on the canal. But he did not care.
If this was his ruin, he would go to it with his eyes open and her hand in his.
“Almost there, signore,” the gondolier called softly at last.
The casa’s landing materialized ahead, lanterns flaring golden against the night. Edward straightened, reluctantly loosening his hold as the gondola glided toward the steps.
“Whatever happens next,” Venetia said, fingers tightening on his sleeve, “you know I feel the same as I ever did. Do you understand?”
What could he say? He nodded, and they shared one last, swift kiss and then the prow bumped gently against stone.
The gondolier steadied the boat. Edward rose, intending to step out first and then lift Venetia to the safety of the casa’s private jetty.
He looked up.
And the world crashed down.
Captain Rizzi stood at the top of the steps, boots planted wide, hands clasped behind his back. The lantern light threw the angles of his face into harsh relief, his expression a blend of victory and long-awaited satisfaction.
Beside him, immaculate in dry evening clothes despite their recent encounter, stood Count di Montefiore.
Of course he’d recovered quickly. Of course he’d gone straight to Rizzi. Of course.
“Signor Rothbury,” Rizzi said, his voice carrying coolly over the water. “And Signorina Playford. How fortunate. We were just discussing you.”
Venetia’s hand jerked in Edward’s. He stepped instinctively in front of her, useless gesture though it was.
“Captain,” he said, forcing his voice to steady. “It is late. Miss Playford has had a trying evening. Whatever business you have can surely wait until—”
“Until you have finished compromising her yet further?” Montefiore drawled. “But, my dear Rothbury, surely the damage is done. Look at you. Returning together from some nocturnal adventure, disheveled, alone. Imagine how that will sound in the proper ears.”
Rizzi’s gaze swept over them: Venetia’s loosened hair, her flushed cheeks; Edward’s bruised knuckles and cravat askew.
“If you thought yourself ruined before, signorina,” Montefiore went on pleasantly, “you have outdone yourself tonight.”
Venetia’s chin lifted.
“I know,” he said softly, “that I offered you a way out. A chance to ally yourself with someone who could protect you from what is coming. You spurned it.” His eyes glinted. “Now you have placed yourself, and your very noble English translator, entirely in my hands.”
Rizzi nodded once, as if confirming a report.
“The count came to me as soon as he left La Serafina’s.
He told me of his concern for you, Signorina Playford.
How he feared an English gentleman had enticed you into dangerous circles.
How he worried you might be further compromised.
” His mouth thinned. “Then I hear that you leave La Serafina without your agreed escort, returning at midnight, alone…with a man.” He hesitated.
“Something I do not think your trustees will take kindly to learning.”
Edward felt Venetia flinch.
“Let me be absolutely clear,” Montefiore said, every word a poisoned drop. “My Englishman will hear of this.”
He smiled at Edward. “You should have left her to me, Rothbury. I might have been kind. Now, when the story is told, it will be of the heiress and her lover, the theft and the tryst, the jewels and the kiss by night.”
“And whose story will that be?” Edward demanded. “Yours? No chance for Miss Playford to put her side?”
“Mine,” Montefiore agreed. “Captain Rizzi’s. Mr. Greene’s. The notaries’.” He spread his hands. “The only people who will dispute it are the ones already under suspicion. You, and the signorina.”
Rizzi stepped forward. “Miss Playford, you are still at liberty only through the Count Morosini’s intercession. Tonight’s excursion will be noted in my report. I suggest you consider carefully how you spend the remainder of your grace.”
“And you, Signor Rothbury,” Montefiore added softly, “might wish to consider how easily certain tales about a foreign clerk seducing his patron’s guest could find their way to the right ears. In Venice. In London. At the Foreign Office.
“If you had accepted my hand when it was offered,” Montefiore went on to Venetia, almost regretful, “I might have chosen to pull you out instead of push you under. But you are a proud little thing. Proud—and, it seems, not very clever. You have destroyed yourself, and you are dragging your English hero down with you.”
Venetia’s fingers dug into Edward’s coat. He reached back, covering her hand with his.
“This is not over,” he said to Montefiore, low and fierce.
“Oh, I sincerely hope not,” the count replied. “I am enjoying it far too much.”