Venice

by Lynne Connolly

  My third and last partner was “Lady Strang”. I studied this impostor, the showy gown, the false sapphires at her neck and I sighed. I thought of my sapphires resting in their case at the apartment and the fine gowns I hadn’t yet worn and then chided myself for being so vain.

  We set to playing and I could again admire the skill of the professional card sharper, this time used in my favour. I did my best to lose, by putting cards into the talon I should have kept and failing to see sets of four, but she kindly corrected me when she could and seemed to have very bad luck. If a player has no court cards, they can claim a carte blanche and increase their score, but strangely, she seemed to avoid that, always having at least one in her hand, not usually any good to her. At one point I was forced to claim pique and repique, the best score possible. When it was over I found myself a heavy winner.

  I smiled with delight as we all rose for supper and I found myself claimed by the blustering Mr. Squires, red-faced from drink and crowing with triumph. Richard led in Mrs. Squires, smiling politely as she told him about her children. She commiserated with him at his lack of offspring.

  “My wife’s been ill recently,” he told her, “I can only be thankful she been spared the travails of childbirth.”

  The lady frowned in sympathy and leaned towards him, patting his hand in consolation, her approach as obvious as her husband’s had been to me.

  Mr. Squires gave me a cup of punch, letting his fat hand rest on mine again. “I hope you’re in the best of health now, Mrs. Locke?”

  I assured him I was and sipped the punch cautiously. With some relief I saw Richard coming over to me. His companion held on to his arm with quite a grip so she left a mark on the dark red cloth of his coat. “Sadly, we have to take leave of our hosts. We have to be about our business in the morning and I don’t want you overtired.”

  I played my part and took his arm when he shook off his new friend. We went to see our hosts and made our excuses. They expressed regret, but said they perfectly understood and went to the door of the salon with us. “A perfectly charming evening,” Richard told them. “I can understand why you should abjure the reception next door.”

  Mrs. Ravens’ look went to her husband as he said smoothly, “Quite. We find we much prefer quiet evenings with a few acquaintances to such affairs. Besides, it would not be the thing on a bride-trip.”

  His sense of the proprieties was either unusual or he was using it as an excuse. To my surprise, Richard gave him our card, the wrong name but the right address. I hadn’t known he would do that. I asked him about it when we had reached the safety of our gondola. “We’d better do some reeling in of our own. They’ll want to invite us for a rematch and they’ll need somewhere to send the invitation. Also, although the address is good, it’s only an apartment and it might serve to confirm their suspicions about us.”

  The gondolier pushed us off the side of the building and passed to the next, where the reception was still in full swing, when we heard something we would rather have not. “Strang!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  RICHARD TURNED HIS head. A young man was waving from the quay. A beautifully dressed young man, either just emerging from the house, or going into it. He paused when he saw me, but Richard ordered the gondolier to pull in. “The game is up, I’m afraid, my love.”

  “Strang!” said the youth. “I heard you were in Venice! Oh, Lord, have I committed a faux pas?” He paused and looked anxiously at me. I thought with some amusement that he must have taken me for a lady of the night.

  “Not at all, Wrisley,” said Richard, “but you’ll do me the honour of not crying my name out like a watchman calling the hours.” The youth coloured up. “My dear, this is Lord Wrisley. Wrisley, this is my wife, Lady Strang.”

  “Oh!” The young man bowed hastily, but elegantly. “Beg pardon. I didn’t know you were married, Strang.”

  “How long have you been abroad now, Wrisley?”

  “Just over a year, why?”

  Richard glanced anxiously at the Palazzo Barbarossa, but there was no sign of anyone except the footmen outside the door. “I wondered why I didn’t see you at the wedding. On the Tour?”

  “Yes. Haven’t had such a good time in my whole life before! I must say,” he added, looking doubtfully at us, “you’ve changed since I saw you last. Are you coming in? You must have been sent an invitation.”

  Richard looked down at himself, then at me. “Like this?”

  “Well you only live next door, don’t you?” said Lord Wrisley. “Go and change.”

  “Well, no, we don’t live next door,” Richard admitted. “I’ll tell you about it, if you like, but not here.” He turned to me. “It’s barely ten. Should you like to change and come back here? I’d love to show you off as you should be.” He turned back to Wrisley. “Whose reception is it?”

  Wrisley was carrying a black mask on a stick, which he waved in the vague direction of the house. “Contessa Marini’s. She’s bound to have sent you an invitation.”

  Richard shrugged. “It probably went to the wrong address.” Wrisley drifted off into the house. “Would you like to go, my love?”

  I didn’t stop to think properly. “Yes. I can wear my new sapphires.”

  We waved goodbye to Lord Wrisley and promised to return. “My lord,” Nichols said from behind us, “this may not be wise.”

  Richard waved her concerns away. “I’m tired of hiding my bride away. No one from the gathering tonight will be at the contessa’s, and our assassin is notable by his absence.”

  The boatman pushed away from the quay. Richard leaned back once more. “I didn’t know the contessa was in residence. She’s an old friend of my mother’s and if we don’t go, she’ll probably pay us a call at the palazzo. Then the fat would be in the fire.” He turned his head and regarded me, his gaze soft in the gentle light of the lamp set in the front of the boat. “In any case, I want to see you shine.”

  I turned my head towards where Nichols sat in the rear of the gondola. “Can you dress me in half an hour?”

  “If we don’t powder, it should be possible, my lady.”

  “Very well. The dark blue.”

  We returned to the apartment and I went to my dressing room, as excited as a girl at her first Assembly. The suddenness of it and the prospect of dressing as I should, lifted my spirits and the thought of going with Richard made me feel even better.

  Nichols was as good as her word. In barely half an hour she had dressed my hair in a more flattering style, taken off the offending gown and dressed me in one of my new ones. I chose a dark blue brocade embroidered over in pink, with its matching petticoat. Then she changed my lace to fine Brussels point and arrayed me in the sapphires. When I opened the box, I found Richard had added a pair of earrings to match, heavy three pendanted girandoles, just right for the gown. I went to the music room, where he waited for me. When he saw me, he bowed, before coming forward to take both my hands. “Now that is more like Lady Strang should look.”

  He had chosen pink, a deep pink that complimented my gown perfectly. I’m sure no accident was involved in his choice. His waistcoat was of the palest shell pink, seemingly embroidered by mice, with glittering buttons that didn’t look like paste to me. The diamond pin was back at his throat and the wig was a perfection of powdered curls, ending in a queue fastened by a black ribbon. How a man in pink could look so blatantly masculine passed my understanding, but he managed it, the tight cut of the sleeves displaying the muscles of his arm when he bent them. When he moved the muscles in his thigh was outlined by the fine fabric, the lace showering over his hands only emphasised their firm structure.

  We were poled up the Grand Canal to the house. One or two people were still arriving, so we followed them in through the doors.

  Richard didn’t need to tell the servants who he was. We were announced and went through.

  Unlike the grand rooms next door, this one was thronged with people, all begowned and bejewelled, obviously the cream o
f Venice society. They all turned to look, every one.

  “You’re new,” Richard murmured to me as we descended the stairs. “They’re wondering about us. Stare them out.”

  A large lady of a certain age surged through the crowds to greet us, the crowd parting before her. I curtseyed low while Richard made the introductions to our hostess, the Contessa Marini.

  “Richard! And your new lady wife. Lady Southwood wrote and told me you had finally married and I didn’t believe it, but now I see her I can believe it only too well.” The contessa beamed and to my surprise took me by the hand. “Plus bella! I always knew Richard as a connoisseur and I see he waited for the best he could find.”

  “I’m glad you can see that, Contessa,” Richard murmured, smiling when he saw my blushes.

  “To tell the truth,” the contessa continued, “your mama wrote to me, telling me you were marrying a little brunette sparrow of a girl and she was very surprised, knowing your preference for blondes, but this is surely not the lady she was describing.”

  I tired of being talked about. “I’ve always thought of myself in those terms. Only Richard thought of me differently.”

  The contessa spread her fan and waved it vigorously, nearly taking out the eye of a nearby guest. “I see no little sparrow here.” Her dark eyes flashed. “You are a coup for me, my dear. Invitation after invitation has been sent to you and you have accepted none. All Venice been agog to see you!” By her standards, “all Venice” was her particular confined circle, most of who must be present here tonight. “Richard has been courted by the most beautiful girls for years and he has never even turned his head.” He turned plenty of other things though, but for their older, married sisters. The reminders were constantly about and it would be foolish of me to ignore them. But he was mine now and I intended to keep him.

  “If the invitations are sent to the Palazzo Barbarossa, they won’t find us there,” Richard explained.

  Several heads nearby discreetly turned. Richard moved and led the contessa and me further into the room. He spoke as we walked, so no one could overhear the whole. “We discovered impostors living there. It’s their misfortune that we chose Venice as our destination, but I owe them a small service for helping my wife on the road, so I don’t wish to condemn them publicly.”

  The contessa gave him a shrewd glance. “You’re up to something.”

  “Not at all, Contessa,” Richard replied smoothly.

  At that moment, someone I knew came up to us and bowed. “Richard! I thought you weren’t showing your face yet.”

  “We had little choice, Freddy,” Richard said. “Wrisley saw us outside and immediately called out at the full stretch of his lungs. We changed in the greatest haste and returned. I fear I’ll have to tell everyone not to use the palazzo next door for us, so I wonder if you would do me a favour and take care of my wife for a while? Once you’ve heard the same story more than once, it tends to bore and I particularly wish Rose to enjoy herself tonight.”

  “The greatest pleasure imaginable,” said Freddy gallantly, offering his arm. I curtseyed to the contessa and left them. Freddy took me to find a glass of wine and then to a corner filled with some of the younger people.

  “Here is the new Lady Strang!” he declared, thus doing away with formal introductions. Then he rattled off the names of the people there, explaining, “You won’t remember all the names, but I daresay enough will come back to you to be useful.”

  Miss Crich, a blonde and pretty young lady, eyed me curiously. “So you’re the one. I’d love to know how you did it. I tried for him myself a year or two ago, but apart from a delightful flirtation, I didn’t get very far. Some people call him the Iceberg, you know and they’ve been taking bets for years on who and when Strang would marry.” She patted the seat beside her. “Come and sit with me and tell me all about it.”

  I had little choice. Only then I realised I didn’t know how much of Richard’s privacy he wanted me to keep. I decided to err on the side of caution. “Well, my cousin—the last Lord Hareton—and Strang’s sister, Maria, had an agreement but that fell through.”

  She flicked her fan in a gesture of dismissal. “An arrangement? Surely not! I would never have supposed Lord Strang would marry to please his parents.”

  “He was supposed to marry Miss Julia Cartwright, to please them,” I reminded her.

  “Yes,” she agreed doubtfully. Young ladies surrounded our sofa and they leaned forward in a scented wave at the mention of Julia’s name. Obviously some of the scandal had leaked out. We had not been anxious to conceal it, but neither had we spread any gossip. There would always be plenty of people for that. “Lady Strang,” murmured Miss Crich. “You were there, weren’t you, at Hareton? Have you any idea what really went on?”

  I marshalled my thoughts. “I know some of it. I met the man I wanted, by some miracle he wanted me and Julia got in the way. Meantime, Miss Cartwright preferred my brother’s curate to Lord Strang.”

  “So it’s true! Did they really run off together? Is he as poor as they say?” Fans were vigorously plied and the heat increased as half a dozen young ladies moved closer. I unfurled my own fan, lifted it over my mouth and decided I might as well sow some mischief. “Yes, they ran off together. Overnight!” There followed a collective indrawn breath of delicious satisfaction. “And yes, he is poor. Or he was, because I suppose he has the disposal of her fortune now.”

  “I saw them,” someone said and thankfully attention turned away from me. “Mr. Drury is very handsome, isn’t he, Lady Strang?”

  “Very. He was curate of our parish in Devonshire and he only came to Yorkshire as our escort on the road. He determined to make the most of his good luck. Every young lady in Devonshire was at his feet, but not seriously, you know, because of his lack of personal fortune.” They nodded wisely. I omitted any mention of my foolish infatuation with him. It seemed so long ago now and completely irrelevant. “Miss Cartwright decided she wanted him, despite her formal betrothal to Lord Strang. She neglected Strang disgracefully after his accident, intent on seducing Drury.” I sighed theatrically and looked around at the sea of rapt faces around me. “She succeeded.”

  “Accident?” someone said. It seemed they hadn’t heard that part.

  “Richard was in the coach accident that killed the last two Earls of Hareton,” I explained. “He cut his arm badly and his man had to stitch it up for him. Miss Cartwright didn’t think her place was by his side.”

  “I knew it!” Miss Crich sat back and clapped her hands. “You nursed him when he was ill and you brought yourself to his notice. How clever of you!”

  I didn’t want the conversation to turn to me. “No, it wasn’t like that.”

  “Not quite,” he agreed. I glanced up to where he leaned on the back of my sofa, his attention only on me. To my relief I saw his smile, not a frown of disapproval. I looked away hastily, still not sure how much he wanted people to know about us.

  Miss Crich continued. “The Drurys went to London, you know, after they married and they’re saying the most scurrilous things to anyone who will listen.”

  Richard leant his elbow negligently on the back of our sofa. “How do you know, Miss Crich? I seem to remember you being sent away in disgrace some time before.”

  To my surprise she laughed. “Oh that! My mother was convinced I was going to run away with Lord Trente, but I never meant to. I left him waiting at the rendezvous and sent someone to tell him.”

  “He turned up?” said my husband in some surprise. “But he’s a convicted Jacobite!”

  “Yes, but I didn’t tell anyone about it until I was sure he’d gone. Fair’s fair, after all.” The laughter was general, but I was just a little shocked at the behaviour of a young, unmarried lady. It would have ruined anyone of my circle, but it seemed here it was more permissible.

  Another lady entered the fray, a dark, pretty girl, who stood on the other side of the sofa. “I’ve heard some of the things Mrs. Drury said. Of course, I never
believed a word of them.”

  “Of course,” I agreed, too quickly.

  She looked down at me, her finely plucked brows arched in surprise. Her fan flicked shut. “She said Lord Strang had thrown himself away on a little brown thing, not at all his style.” She stared at me. I didn’t need to look at Richard to know the frozen look he assumed, his eyelids drooping over those cold blue orbs. “She said some dreadful things as well, some things I don’t care to repeat.” She looked as though she would love to repeat them and probably would have done, had we not been there.

  He touched my shoulder. “Julia was always spiteful. What do you think? Have I married a little brown thing?”

  They all stared at me, assessing. I badly wanted to drop my head and retreat into the background, but I put up my chin and stared back at them. I caught Freddy’s glance and he smiled, so I smiled too.

  Miss Crich sighed. “Sadly, no. Lady Strang can give me half a head, so takes care of the ‘little’ part. And she’s not at all brown, apart from her hair. In any case, Julia Drury was always a spiteful package. I never liked her.”

  Richard leaned forward and lowered his voice. “What will you tell her?”

  Miss Crich lifted her chin so her face was close to his and smiled, brilliantly. “I don’t speak to her. Ask her yourself.”

  “We’re hardly on speaking terms ourselves.” He straightened up. “I wish her joy.”

  “Really?” Miss Crich turned her head to stare at him.

  “She released me from a contract that was particularly irksome to me and left me free to follow my true destiny.” He touched my shoulder again.

  Miss Crich clapped her hands in triumph. “So I was right. I said it was more than dynastic. I knew you wouldn’t marry merely to please your parents, any more than I would. Didn’t I say?” She turned to her friends, who all agreed that she had said. “And he swept you off your feet, didn’t he, Lady Strang? He’s very good at that. I’ve seen him do it any number of times.”