Chapter Forty
Since it had become well established that the best place for intelligence gathering was La Serafina’s salon, it was there that Venetia and Lady Townsend presented themselves yet again the following morning.
It had been mutually decided that they would not tell Lord Thornton of their visit.
“He is such a darling, helpful man,” Lady Townsend said as their gondola nosed through the green water, “but in this instance I do think we shall move faster—and more efficiently—if the fact-gathering is left to the ladies.”
“Is this based on his skepticism and the fear he might throw cold water on our enthusiasm?” Venetia asked.
Lady Townsend merely patted her arm.
Now, seated opposite La Serafina at a small table set with thin porcelain cups and a dish of tiny sugar-dusted biscuits, Lady Townsend got straight to the point.
“We are hoping, madam,” she said, lifting her teacup, “you might advise us how a reception with the Marchese Valenti might be arranged.”
“The Marchese Valenti?” La Serafina, lounging opposite in a robe of white, sat abruptly straighter.
“Marchese Alessandro Valenti? Why would you wish to see him?” Her dark brows arched.
“I am astonished you even know of his existence. Oh yes, I told you he was the widower of the great Isabella Monteverdi, but that was many years ago. For the past twenty years he has moldered away in his old castello on the Isola di San—” she flicked her fingers “—a little scrap of stone in the lagoon. He comes into Venice only when he grows impatient with the progress Count Morosini reports to him about his other passion. The passion second only to the love he had for Isabella.”
Venetia’s fingers tightened around her cup. “He is involved in the project to translate Sir Walter Scott?” she whispered. “Ivanhoe?”
“And all the other great works the Scottish master has sent into the world since he began publishing his romances five years ago,” La Serafina agreed. “Barely are they printed in English before the marchese demands them in Italian. It is a torment and a blessing for your Mr. Rothbury, I suspect.”
Venetia opened her mouth, but no sound came. The marchese was involved in the Ivanhoe translation? “So he is a great scholar, then,” she managed. Her mouth felt suddenly as dry as a desert. She turned a wide-eyed look on Lady Townsend, who was watching La Serafina with a look of stupefaction.
“You mean,” Lady Townsend said carefully, “that Count Morosini and the marchese are both bibliophiles with a particular passion for Sir Walter Scott?”
“Bibliophiles?” La Serafina gave a little laugh. “They are fanatics. Two old men behaving like love-sick boys over tournaments and doomed maidens.”
Venetia could scarcely take it in. The room seemed to narrow around the three of them: the crimson walls, the glittering chandelier, the faint clink of glass as a servant picked up a tray of glasses—all of it receded behind the pounding in her ears.
“Does he… does the marchese know the man who translates these masterpieces?” she asked, trying to sound casual, as if so much didn’t hang upon her answer.
La Serafina’s smile turned sly. “Oh, signorina, I am told the translator is worth his weight in gold. In fact, I have it on excellent authority that when Count Morosini mentioned his young Englishman was in love with a lady who might lure him away from his desk—nay, Venice—the marchese was so desperate to keep such talent at work that he insisted my dear count enter into what you might call a devil’s bargain to keep the poor fellow beholden. ”
“A devil’s bargain?” Venetia’s heart gave a painful leap. Edward. Shackled not by one powerful old man, but by two… promising to protect Venetia provided their translator remained on a tight leash so he could do their bidding.
La Serafina tilted her head, studying her. “Is it that you share this passion for Sir Walter’s romances, perhaps? That might be the only means of persuading the marchese to receive you. And even then, I promise nothing. He is a recluse and a curmudgeon. Books and ghosts are his preferred company.”
Venetia glanced at Lady Townsend, silently asking how much they ought to reveal. Their true purpose—to prove Edward’s birth and restore him to a father who did not even know he had a living son—seemed far too fragile to expose to daylight, let alone to a woman who traded in secrets.
No. Not yet. Their hunch might be entirely misplaced, and gossip multiplied like pigeons in Venice.
“We are… great admirers of Mr. Scott,” Lady Townsend said smoothly. “And naturally curious about any gentleman who shares such taste. But you have already been more than generous with your information, La Serafina.”
Venetia sipped her cooling tea, trying to quiet the tremor in her hands.
On a lonely island in the lagoon, this widowed marchese pored over the same stories that filled Edward’s days. He wore the same crest on his finger that Isabella had worn in her portrait—and that Edward wore now.
If she and Lady Townsend were wrong, this was nothing but a series of coincidences.
But if they were right…
Then the translator Count Morosini kept on a scholar’s chain was the son of the Marchese Alessandro Valenti.
And every step Venetia took from this moment on would bring them closer to a truth that could either set them all free—or burst their careful plans apart like an overfilled balloon exploding above the piazza.