Chapter Forty-Six #2
“Come now, Venetia, it is not all so very bad,” Lady Townsend said, giving her arm another reassuring pat, only to break off with a little gasp.
“Oh my. I think I see the marchese. Yes—there, by the fountain. No one else would dare appear in such an unmodish suit of velvet. He is very easy to pick out.”
A tiny flame of hope flared in Venetia’s breast. It faltered almost at once. What use was the marchese’s presence if Edward was not to be here? The old man might listen; he might even begin to suspect the truth. But without Edward…
For a while they mingled dutifully, responding in halting Italian and better French when approached by Morosini’s guests.
Venetia felt as if she were moving through a dream—nodding, smiling, exchanging pleasantries—while all the while her gaze slid back, again and again, to the dais, the balloon, and the cluster of important men near the front.
There was Rizzi, in full uniform, his expression bland as he conversed with a grave-faced gentleman. She felt herself blanche. Not far from them stood Count di Montefiore, his once-fine nose still a little crooked.
Both of them desiring to strip her of her liberty, fortune, and good name—with a few strokes of a pen.
Then, with a great flapping and fluttering, the balloon gave a majestic lurch, rising fully above the platform. A cheer went up from the crowd. The silk canopy glowed like a strange new sun against the sky.
Count Morosini stepped forward, clapping his hands for attention. His voice rolled over the assembled company, hearty and expansive.
“Signore e signori! It gives me the greatest pleasure to welcome you all to this magnificent celebration—” his hand swept toward Sofia and the dour-faced groom at her side “—to unite my beloved granddaughter, Sofia Morosini, with a husband worthy of her, the highly esteemed Count Bembo!”
Enthusiastic clapping erupted. Venetia joined in, though her hands felt stiff.
Count Bembo bowed repeatedly, his fleshy lips stretched in a smug smile, his waistcoat straining over his stomach.
He looked, Venetia thought with a shudder, precisely like a prosperous fishmonger dressed up in borrowed brocade.
Morosini raised his hand again for silence.
“As many of you know,” he went on, “I am a great admirer of the English author Sir Walter Scott. His works are as yet unknown to many in our beloved Italy, but soon you shall read them in our own tongue and be transported to worlds of chivalry and romance!” He thumped his chest with theatrical fervor.
“At the request of my dear friend and my granddaughter’s godfather, il Marchese Valenti, I have commanded my translator to read a passage for your entertainment. ”
“Well, well, my dear, this is excellent,” Lady Townsend breathed in Venetia’s ear, her voice alight with excitement.
“Edward is here. Look—there, mounting the steps. And there is the marchese just behind Count Morosini. Was it he who requested the reading? At Thornton’s suggestion?
Perhaps last night was not in vain, after all. ”
Venetia’s heart gave such a leap she thought she might be ill.
But it was true. Edward had stepped up onto the dais, looking rather as if he would prefer to face a firing squad than an audience.
Yet even as the crowd swallowed her, even as Morosini reached out to draw him forward, he seemed to know precisely where she stood.
His gaze swept the piazza and found her.
For a fleeting heartbeat the world narrowed to the space between them: his dark eyes locking with hers, the quick flare of feeling he could not quite disguise, the slight inclination of his head that acknowledged her.
Then he turned to his patron and bent respectfully.
He took the proffered book—an English edition of Ivanhoe—and another slim volume bound in Italian calf. The murmur of the crowd faded into an expectant hush.
“Signore e signori,” Edward said, his voice carrying clear and steady. “By the count’s command, I shall read first in the English, and then in our Italian, from the moment when the disinherited knight is at last acknowledged for who he truly is.”
A little shiver ran down Venetia’s spine.
He opened the English book, and began:
“Then threw the stranger from him his casque and plume, and the face of Wilfred of Ivanhoe looked forth, pale with wounds, yet bright with that high courage which no reverse could quell…”
Venetia shot a glance toward the marchese.
Sunlight slanted across his lined face, carving his features into planes of gold and shadow so that it was impossible to read his expression.
Did the words Edward had just spoken touch any buried memory?
Would he notice the elegant hands turning the pages—Isabella’s fingers. And the ring he had gifted her?
Her heart thundered. From this distance, there was no way of knowing. All she could do was hope and pray, while an unhelpful little voice in her head murmured that hope was a foolish thing for a woman in her position.
Not a romantic heroine, Venetia. Merely a girl one step away from ruin.
She barely had time to quell that thought before Count Bembo, pink and perspiring, lumbered to the front of the dais. His stout form dwarfed the slim figure of Sofia at his side.
“My friends!” he boomed, spreading his arms. “My deepest gratitude for your presence in making me the happiest of men, united with such a paragon of virtue—”
“Paragon of virtue?”
The words spoken in a clear male voice dripping with disdain sliced through the applause. The crowd gasped and turned as one. Bembo’s mouth snapped shut; he took a threatening step to the edge of the dais, searching for the speaker.
“She is a jewel thief!” the voice called again, louder. “She stole the emerald parure of the contessa. It is she who has kept all Venice awake at night, fearing the same will happen to them!”
“Arrest that man!” Count Morosini thundered, clapping his hands to summon the guards stationed below.
“He speaks the truth!”
This time the exclamation rang out even more clearly—and the shock that rolled through the piazza was almost tangible, for it was Sofia’s voice.
All heads swiveled. Sofia had broken from Bembo’s side. Color burned in her cheeks, but her chin was high, her pink gown fluttering in the breeze.
“It is true,” she cried, and when Bembo lunged toward her, hand outstretched as if to clap over her mouth, she ducked away. “I am the thief. I had the emeralds taken and hidden because it was the only way to escape my fate!”
A collective shiver of outrage and morbid delight ran through the crowd as her words were feverishly conveyed to those who had not heard.
Venetia felt it as a physical thing, like the ground tremoring beneath her slippers.
This, then, was the confession Sofia had promised—spoken not in some quiet corner, but here, in front of half of Venice.
Guards jostled the onlookers as they hurried toward the first speaker: a fair-haired young man with the look of an Adonis, fleet of foot and laughing even now. Venetia saw him weave away from reaching hands, dodge a soldier’s grasp and, in three astonishing bounds, leap onto the dais.
Paolo.
Before anyone could stop him he had swept Sofia bodily into his arms, vaulted across the planking, and deposited her into the wicker car of the balloon. He jumped in after her, landing beside the startled French aeronaut.
“Stop them!” Morosini roared, voice breaking with fury. “No one shall speak ill of my granddaughter, the paragon of virtue who is to wed Count Bembo!”
“I will not be so humiliated!” Bembo bellowed, purple with rage. “Better she hang for theft than carry my name to shame!”
“Good Lord!” Miss Bentley squeaked somewhere behind Venetia. “What on earth is Mr. Rothbury doing? He has a knife! Dear heaven, he is not going to attack Count Bembo, is he? I always knew he was not to be trusted.”
“Good heavens, Catherine,” Lord Thornton murmured, “I think you attribute altogether too much bloodthirstiness to those who capture your interest—in this case, our very self-contained translator.”
Venetia’s heart lurched painfully. Knife? Edward? She craned to see.
There he was, moving with swift, purposeful steps along the edge of the platform, the small blade glinting in his hand. For one terrifying instant, she, too, imagined carnage.
Then, quickly, Edward stooped and slashed through the thick rope tethering the balloon to its stake.
The great silk envelope surged upward with a mighty heave.
The car rocked; Sofia gave a breathless laugh that carried faintly on the wind.
Morosini leaped to seize the trailing rope, only to let it go at once as his feet left the ground.
His weight was no match for the balloon’s soaring power.
It wrenched free and climbed higher, the shouts of the crowd fading into a roar of astonishment.
Just as his power, Venetia thought, had proved no match for the combined determination of Sofia and Paolo.
“Oh my goodness,” she whispered, hands clapping together of their own accord.
“Did you see? Edward must have colluded with them—and now he has given them their hearts’ desire.
He has done this for them. No, for me,” she finished in astonishment as she realized the implications. “Oh, but what will it cost him—?”
Her question died as she saw Morosini wheel upon his translator like a striking hawk. He seized Edward by the lapels, dragging him close, his face contorted with rage.
“You will pay for what you have done!” the count snarled. “Captain Rizzi! Arrest this man at once!”
Rizzi stepped forward, hand going to his sword, eyes flickering between his employer, his superior, and the English guests.
Count di Montefiore watched on with fascination.
Miss Bentley clutched at her reticule, looking as if she were torn between horror and unseemly fascination.
The marchese, Venetia saw, had gone quite rigid.
Then he moved.
With a speed that belied his age, the Marchese Valenti strode across the open space, shoving through the frozen ring of onlookers. He shouldered Morosini aside so forcefully the other man staggered.
A stream of rapid Italian poured from the marchese—his anger needed no translation.
Rizzi hesitated, caught between two great houses.
The crowd fell into an awed silence, watching the two old lions snarl and snap at one another while, far above, the balloon drifted over the lagoon, Sofia and Paolo silhouetted against the pale sky, their heads bent close in a kiss that even at this distance was unmistakable.
At last, Morosini’s bluster faltered. Whether it was the presence of Rizzi’s superior, the excited murmur of his guests, or the iron fury in the marchese’s eyes, something made him fall back a pace.
The marchese stepped into the space he left. In one decisive movement, he caught Edward by the wrist and thrust his arm up for all to see.
“Behold,” the marchese cried, his voice ringing over the square, “the Valenti signet upon the hand of my long-lost son, Eduardo—prince of his craft, given back to me by divine Providence—nay, by Sir Walter Scott himself. Behold my son and heir, the next Marchese Valenti!”