Chapter Thirty-Four
The visit to La Serafina would, Venetia told herself, be exactly what she needed. Her thoughts were in tatters, her body too restless to sit meekly in a drawing room and sip chocolate.
She would go with them, she said.
First, however, there was the small matter of a torn sleeve.
Her silver-gray evening gown—embroidered at the hem—had caught on a nail in the casa’s narrow stairwell.
The rip at the wrist gaped accusingly every time she moved her hand.
Madame Bertolini could fix it in minutes, so with a promise to Lady Townsend and Lord Thornton that she would be back in time to accompany them to La Serafina in the early afternoon, Venetia set out with Mollie.
The market near the Rialto was already in glorious chaos. Fishmongers shouted their wares over the slap of gutted fish on marble slabs; baskets of lemons glowed like small suns; bolts of striped cotton hung from stalls like the sails of ships. The air smelled of brine, crushed herbs, and humanity.
Venetia drew in the chilly morning air, hoping it would clear her head. Instead, every turn of the narrow lanes seemed to knot her thoughts further.
“Why, there is Mr. Rothbury!” Mollie exclaimed suddenly, clutching her arm as a barrow piled with cabbages lurched past them. “A handsome man he is, miss, though always so serious—” She gave a beatific sigh, adding, “except when he’s defending your honor, miss.”
Venetia’s heart gave a violent leap against her stays.
Edward.
She saw him at once: tall, hat brim low, leather satchel couched under his arm, moving with that purposeful stride she knew so well. A lock of hair had fallen over his brow. He looked tired. And beautiful. And entirely out of reach.
You should keep walking, a sensible voice in her head said. You are under orders. So is he. Be a good girl, Venetia, and go and have your sleeve mended.
Another voice—louder, wilder—cut in. This may be the only chance you have for days. Take it.
Count Morosini wanted to own Edward—body, mind, and time. Any association with Venetia threatened that ownership. To run to him, to draw attention to them both in the middle of the market, would not be kind.
But she could contrive a chance meeting.
She drifted toward a stall heaped with glass beads and cheap trinkets, leaning over as if examining them. If she turned at exactly the right moment, the press of bodies would hide the briefest of conversations.
That was all she wanted. Just a greeting. Just to be near him. She had not seen him since the stolen, glorious, disastrous kiss in the gondola.
Since Captain Rizzi’s outraged interruption.
For he made sure to leave before she was up, and to return after she had dined.
“Mr. Rothbury,” she said softly, turning with a smile that she tried—quite unsuccessfully—to temper. She felt it burst across her face, pure and unguarded.
“Miss Playford!” He stopped short. For an instant he did nothing but look at her, as if she were something he’d conjured from longing. Then he cast a quick, furtive glance around and, shielded by the crowd, reached for her hands.
The warmth of his fingers closed around her gloved ones, solid and sure.
Venetia stepped closer, as though the tide of Venetians had pushed her there, and let herself lean into him for a heartbeat—just long enough to feel the steady rise and fall of his chest—before she straightened and gave his hands a quick, answering squeeze.
“I have missed you so dreadfully,” she said under her breath. “Why do I never see you anymore?”
Color flared along his throat and up into his cheeks. Guilt, pain, and longing chased across his face in quick succession.
“You know,” he said quietly, “how much it costs me to leave before you are awake and return when you have retired.” His voice roughened. “But you also know I have no choice.”
“Because your first obligation is to your employer?” she asked, trying—and failing—to keep the hurt from her tone.
“My first obligation,” he murmured, his grip tightening fractionally, “is to you, my dearest Venetia. That is precisely the difficulty. You know we are both in an impossible position. Count Morosini will guarantee your protection only so long as I remain his perfectly obedient translator. I am in service to a demanding taskmaster. He wishes to read the ending of Ivanhoe in his own tongue faster than I can reasonably provide it.”
A rueful smile twisted his mouth. “It is a curious irony to work for a man whose sole delight appears to be the exaltation of high romance on the page, while he has not the slightest regard for the real romance unfolding under his nose.”
“Do you refer to his granddaughter Sofia…” Venetia asked, boldness pricking at her, “or to us?”
His eyes softened. “He can only truly dictate the romantic direction of his granddaughter,” he said. “It is your very liberty he controls.”
Liberty. Not heart. The distinction stung.
“Do you care only for my liberty, then—and not my heart?” she asked. The flash of pain that crossed his features made her instantly sorry and fiercely glad both at once.
“What is in your heart—or mine—my darling Venetia,” he said, voice low with feeling, “cannot be allowed to govern how I act. You are so far above me in station. I will not drag you down—”
“You confuse the matter entirely.” Her laugh came out shaky. “If there’s any dragging to be done, I assure you I would be the one doing it, Edward.”
He stared at her, torn between amusement and anguish. She wished she could reach inside his head, shake sense into all those noble principles and line them up behind her instead of against her.
With another quick glance to make sure Mollie was momentarily occupied haggling over oranges and that no one seemed to be paying them particular attention, Venetia freed one hand and brushed her knuckles lightly along his cheek.
“Were you, perhaps, concussed,” she whispered, “when I told you I would give up my fortune for happiness with you?”
His eyes closed for a moment, as if the touch hurt.
“You would give it up in vain,” he said roughly.
“You are in danger initially—and only my continued good standing with Count Morosini will keep his protection on you—” He swallowed, “—and your fortune safe. If I defy him, I cannot keep you—or your fortune—safe.”
He hesitated, then pressed his lips together as if deciding something. “This morning, Signorina Sofia told me who was responsible for stealing the emeralds.”
Venetia drew in a shocked breath. “She actually confessed?” The thought was at once shocking and vindicating. “That is dangerous… but very gratifying. At least you can be assured of my innocence.”
“Assured?” His mouth curved. “I have never,” he said gently, “doubted your innocence for a single instant. Not in this matter, nor in any other.” He drew a breath.
“As to why she told me… reality has at last impressed itself upon her. She is to marry Count Bembo, not her Paolo. She was half wild with misery. In that state, she told me it was Griselda—the contessa’s maid—whom Paolo approached. ”
He spoke quickly, giving her the essentials in low, urgent tones: Paolo’s pressure, and promises, the moment in the ladies’ mending room when Griselda had admired the tiara, taken it from Miss Bentley who’d held it while Venetia attended to an errant curl, and slipped the earrings into the hidden compartment.
“To be perfectly honest,” he finished, “I think there was little for Griselda to gain and much to lose if she refused. Paolo was obviously very persuasive.”
She pressed her lips together, thinking.
“How does this work, then? If this is, indeed, the truth, how am I to be vindicated? Of course we can’t go to Captain Rizzi and tell him until we have irrefutable proof,” she said.
But her body thrilled with hope. The truth was now known.
By Edward. Not that his faith and belief in her needed any bolstering. She knew that, but still—
“Rizzi,” Edward said grimly, “is almost certainly in the pay of Count di Montefiore and Mr. Greene. If we go to him now and repeat what Sofia told me this morning, he will twist it to suit his employers, and we will be worse off than before. We must find the right moment, the right avenue. We need proof.”
“Perhaps,” Venetia said suddenly, “I should simply confess.”
His head jerked. “Good God, Venetia, what are you saying?”
“That I might be better off confessing to the crime and being stripped of my inheritance,” she said, hearing the wildness in her own voice and not caring. “Then my situation would be more equal to yours. If I were penniless, you might at last be inclined to give me my heart’s desire.”
“It might also see you locked in a dungeon—or worse,” he replied hoarsely.
But there was no mistaking the way her words shook him. His hands tightened around hers, his eyes dark with terror and longing, and for an instant Venetia felt a fierce, reckless satisfaction.
Well, she thought, if reason cannot move him, perhaps the prospect of me cheerfully ruining myself in order to marry him will.