Miss Weston's Masquerade

by Louise Allen

  She tossed the wine seller a few coins and stumbled miserably towards home. The door was open and a watchman blinked sleepily at her from his chair in the hallway as she dragged herself up the stairs. She pushed open the door into Nicholas’s chamber, driven by an obscure need to touch something belonging to him.

  His brocade dressing gown lay on the bed and she picked it up, smelling the ambergris he used. ‘Oh, Nicholas,’ she whispered miserably. What did she expect? He was a man of the world, used to indulging himself. He had not asked to chaperone a sulky, inexperienced girl across Europe.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Nicholas roared at her from the connecting doorway to her room.

  Cassandra jumped, dropping the robe as she clutch the bedpost in shock, her heart thudding in her throat. ‘I thought you were out.’

  ‘That is all too obvious.’ He strode into the room and took her roughly by the shoulders. ‘Where have you been sneaking off to? I managed to get Antonio to admit he’d allowed you to go out, but that’s all I’d expect from a Venetian rogue of a servant.’

  ‘Let go, you’re hurting me.’ Cassandra tried to free her arm from his grasp, but he only pulled her closer, a look of distaste crossing his face as he smelled the wine on her breath.

  ‘You’re drunk,’ he snarled. ‘Who have you been drinking with?’

  ‘No one,’ she protested, twisting in his grasp.

  ‘Don’t lie to me.’ Cassandra had never seen him so angry. ‘And what else have you been doing tonight?’

  The implication was clear, even through the fog of wine that was muddling her thoughts. ‘You think I’ve been… that I would… How dare you.’

  ‘What am I to think, with you wandering the streets like a…’

  ‘Like a courtesan?’ she finished for him. ‘Hardly. But I know what a courtesan looks like.’ Her chin came up and she looked him straight in the eye. ‘She has long, unbound hair twisted with a vermilion silk scarf. She paints her face, but lightly if she is young. Her breasts are bare and her gown is sequinned and she paints her nails to match other parts of her body which should remain concealed. She laughs a lot and when she does, the ruby round her neck…’

  Nicholas jerked her against his chest, glaring down into her face as she stared back defiantly. ‘You little witch. You followed me.’

  ‘I did not. But if you flaunt your courtesan in St Mark’s Square you should not wonder if you are seen.’ She wrenched herself free and ran across to the balcony, desperate for air. She felt sick with the heat and wine and the sordid argument.

  Nicholas followed and, before she knew what he intended, he had upended her across his knee and brought his hand down hard across the seat of her breeches. With the strength of pure outrage, Cassandra twisted free, bringing up her hand to fetch him a vicious crack across the cheekbone.

  The force of the blow snapped his head back and brought tears to her eyes. Nicholas stood frozen, one hand to his face, then turned on his heel and slammed the window shut with a clap that bounced off the walls of the little square.

  Cassandra clutched the balcony rail as a wave of sickness swept her from head to foot. When she recovered herself, she raised her head slowly and found herself meeting the quizzical gaze of the woman in the room opposite. She was lit by a branch of candles at one side and Cassandra saw a fleeting smile touch her lips. The woman raised her hand in a small salute, then slowly turned and vanished into the room.

  A thin dawn light penetrated the little courtyard, touching warm fingers on the damp stonework behind Cassandra’s head. She blinked and shook her head, wincing at the pain behind her eyes. So this was what an excess of wine felt like.

  She struggled to her feet, grimacing at the stiffness in her cold limbs and realised that she must have dozed off eventually, after a miserable hour or two. Sickeningly the memory of the terrible quarrel with Nicholas hit her, the shocking words she had used to him, the humiliation of being put over his knee like a recalcitrant school-boy, and she had raised her hand to him. How could she have struck Nicholas?

  No gently brought up young lady would use violence under any circumstances, save to protect her virtue or her life. And, however hypocritical he was being, she sensed Nicholas’s anger was prompted by his wish to protect her. But… He had not listened to her, he had assumed the worst and he had lost his temper every bit as much as she had. Perhaps she was not so much to blame as she thought.

  Cassandra heard the creak of oars and leant out over the rail to watch a vegetable boat emerge from the miasma of mist rising from the canal. The city was beginning to wake and go about its business and a servant from the palazzo ran down the steps and hailed the vendor. After much haggling and jesting, conducted in whispers, the servant returned, his wicker basket laden with salads and fruit.

  Silence fell again, broken only by the slap of the boat’s wake against the greenish stonework of the landing steps. Cassandra turned unhappily towards her chamber window, then paused as a man’s voice, low and sensual, broke the peace in the courtyard.

  Standing back in the concealing shadows of the architrave, Cassandra watched as a cloaked figure stopped on his way from the house opposite to the steps. He was looking up to the window where the Titian-haired woman in the green wrapper leaned out, calling softly down to him.

  As the church clocks began striking five the gentleman swept an elaborate bow, gesturing to a sleek black gondola which had drawn up in readiness. Intrigued by the pantomime of parting, Cassandra forgot her woes, watching the lovers. The woman beckoned, and as the man approached again, tossed down a round object. The gallant caught it one-handed, laughing up at his lady as he broke open the fruit.

  A pomegranate. Cassandra had never tasted one, but she recognised the faceted red flesh and smooth exterior of the fruit. Somehow, it added to the fairy tale mood of the scene with the mist rising off the canal and the sleeping city slowly rousing all around them.

  The magic held Cassandra until the carved stern of the gondola slipped from sight, then with a sigh she turned to slip into her room. As she moved, she found herself caught in the steady gaze of the courtesan. The woman smiled as she had before, then beckoned with one long-nailed finger.

  ‘Me?’ Cassandra mouthed foolishly, looking round, but there was no one else in sight. The woman nodded and gestured again. Cassandra hesitated, intrigued by the summons, yet unwilling to run the gauntlet of the servants, who would all be about their business by now.

  Suddenly emboldened, she swung a leg over the balustrade, gripped the heavily carved stonework, and in a moment had reached the safety of the courtyard, with only a scraped knuckle and a burst seam to show for her foolhardiness.

  The door opened silently as she approached and closed just as quickly when she entered. A maidservant holding a candle ushered her upstairs in silence, then abandoned her at a chamber door with a bobbed curtsey.

  Cassandra scratched tentatively on the carved panels and a soft voice called, ‘Come in, little one.’ It was English, exotic and musically accented, but English none the less.

  The chamber was heavy with brocade hangings, dominated by a huge canopied bed and lit by many candles, each multiplied over and over in the silvery mirrors which hung on every wall. The air was redolent of attar of roses and a hint of cinnabar, and Cassandra’s feet sank into the deep pile of a Turkey carpet as she hesitated inside the door.

  ‘Come in, little sister,’ the woman said, sinking gracefully onto a sofa with a gesture for Cassandra to come and sit by her.

  Startled, Cassandra blurted out, ‘You know I am not a boy?’ as she sat next to the courtesan, unashamedly staring.

  ‘But, of course. You may call me Lucia. And you are?’

  ‘Cassandra.’

  ‘Cassandra.’ Lucia rolled the name round her tongue as if tasting it and nodded in approval. ‘You will take your colazione with me.’ It was an assumption, not a request, and Cassandra abandoned all thought of her English Society manners. This was no afternoon tea party
at the vicarage.

  The maid was already laying the breakfast table with hot rolls, fruit and chocolate. The mixture of warm fragrances was so appetising that Cassandra could hardly contain her hunger.

  To her surprise, her hostess showed as hearty an appetite as she, and for several minutes neither spoke. At last Cassandra sat back with a contented sigh, warm, full and clear headed.

  Lucia shifted slightly to regard her guest. ‘So! Now you feel like a human being again. It is always a mistake not to eat, my child. How old are you?’

  ‘Eighteen,’ Cassandra confessed. Being lectured on the importance of eating properly was not what she had envisaged when she had entered this house.

  ‘Ah.’ She shifted uneasily under the courtesan’s appraising gaze. ‘Just eighteen, just arrived in Venice and you have had a disputa, a, what do you call it…?’

  ‘Quarrel?’

  ‘Si. A quarrel, with your lover.’

  ‘He is not my lover,’ Cassandra said flatly. ‘He is the son of my godmother and I am travelling under his protection.’

  ‘Dressed as his valet? And it is part of the masquerade that he beats you? You English.’ She cast her eyes heavenwards.

  ‘He doesn’t beat me. Well, that was the only time and I was more of a spank and we had both lost our tempers.’ Her voice trailed away as the resentments of last night resurfaced. ‘But he deserved what I said about his whore.’ Then she realised in whose company she was and felt her skin heat with embarrassment.

  ‘There is no need to avoid the word in my company, although courtesan is more accurate, both for myself and for the lady whom the Earl of Lydford was escorting.’

  ‘You know who he is?’ Cassandra looked at Lucia with new respect, noting for the first time the shrewd intelligence in her eyes.

  ‘It is my business to know.’ She shrugged, a lazily sensuous movement, even in the presence of another woman. ‘My sisters and I are well-informed. We are professionals, after all.’

  ‘Your sisters?’

  ‘Venice is a city of women. Men rule it – and we rule the men. Men work against each other for their own power. Our strength lies in our combined power and even the wives of the men who come to us are our sisters. We trust each other. It is accepted.’

  The idea of women selling themselves, yet still retaining their independence and their dignity, astonished Cassandra, yet, looking at Lucia, the only comparison she could draw was with her godmother, an independent great lady.

  ‘But why did you ask me here?’ she blurted out.

  ‘Because you need my help, that is plain.’ Lucia snuggled back into the cushions and tucked her bare feet up under her. ‘You say he is not your lover, this Earl of Lydford.’

  ‘Nicholas.’

  ‘Niccolo.’ Lucia tried out the name. ‘You do love him?’ Her plucked eyebrows rose interrogatively.

  ‘Yes,’ Cassandra whispered. Having said it out loud, she knew it was true. This was no hero-worship, no tendre of a young woman for an experienced man. It was certainly not gratitude. She wanted him in every possible way, and forever. ‘But it’s impossible.’

  ‘Perhaps. Do you want his heart or his body?’

  ‘Both,’ Cassandra confessed. ‘I want him to love me and marry me.’

  ‘Ah,’ Lucia looked thoughtful. ‘This is more difficult. He wants you, that is self-evident.’

  ‘It is?’ Cassandra’s eyebrows shot up. ‘There have been occasions…’ She blushed. ‘We have been thrown together by circumstance and he is a man of the world.’

  ‘So he starts to make love to you and then he feels guilty and stops. Oh, the English and their sense of guilt.’ Lucia frowned at her. ‘Silly little virgin, do you think he would be so angry with you if he did not want you?’

  ‘Perhaps not. But I am a great nuisance to him, I have ruined his Tour and perhaps even his reputation, if we are found out.’

  ‘You keep making excuses for him, yet you are angry and hurt,’ Lucia remarked shrewdly. ‘Why?’

  Cassandra got to her feet and began to fidget around the room. The question was disturbing, forcing her to confront her real feelings. ‘I am jealous,’ she said eventually. ‘I want him to see me, not an irritating child he’s been saddled with or a distracting body he must try and ignore. If he thinks of me at all, it’s either as the little girl I was when he last met me, or as a package he must deliver intact to his mother, because his duty demands it.’

  ‘So you want him to recognise you are a woman. A woman who can say yes or no to him.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Cassandra bit her lip, forcing herself to be honest. ‘But I wouldn’t say no. I want him. I know it is wrong, but I want him to love me – and to make love to me. He has always had everything he wants.’

  ‘And now there is something you desire?’ Lucia laughed. ‘And you need to learn how to use a woman’s power to make him see you and only you.’

  ‘But how?’ Cassandra sank down on the sofa, shaken by what she was saying.

  ‘You go home and go to bed, little one. Sleep. Eat your dinner in your room. Let your Niccolo believe you are not well, and when he goes out to the Turkish Ambassador’s ball this evening, come back here to me.’

  ‘How do you know where he is going this evening’’ Cassandra asked, although nothing about this amazing woman would surprise her now.

  ‘All Society goes to the Ambassador’s masque. And so do the courtesans. And for one evening you will be one of us, for your Niccolo only. And then you may love him or not, as you decide. Now go, and take care no one sees you leave.’

  Remaining in her room was simpler than Cassandra had feared. The encounter with Lucia seemed some sort of mad dream. How could she even contemplate anything so outrageous as to seduce Nicholas? She sent a message by Antonio that she was feeling unwell and would take her meals alone and received by return a curt note from Nicholas.

  It is not to be wondered at that you feel unwell after your behaviour last night, he wrote. For myself I have no wish to set eyes on you until you have had time to reflect on your conduct and make amends. The servants have been informed that you will remain in your room until they receive my orders to the contrary.

  It was signed curtly, Lydford.

  Cassandra read this missive through twice, unable to believe her eyes. So, he wanted her to confess her faults, while he offered no word of contrition for his conduct in putting her over his knee like a child or losing his temper. All doubts about Lucia’s wanton plan vanished.

  Cassandra screwed up the paper and hurled it at the wall. It missed, sailed out of the open casement and into the canal where it sank gently beneath the greenish waters.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was nine in the evening when Cassandra watched Nicholas emerge from the front door and make his way down the steps to his waiting boat. He was obviously dining out before the ball. Despite her anger with him, she felt her heartbeat quicken at the sight of him, magnificent in full evening attire. A heavy opera cloak lined with scarlet silk was thrown back over an evening suit of deep blue cloth. His neckcloth was immaculate in its complex folds, a single fob glinted against the dull sheen of soft silver threads in his waistcoat.

  The major domo stood with Nicholas’s mask dangling by its strings in his hand. Against the Venetian servants, Nicholas’s rangy height was even more apparent.

  More than anything else, Cassandra wanted to be with him, on his arm. To be helped into the boat by him with the solicitude he had shown his companion of the night before. After tonight, perhaps…

  With the Earl’s departure, the public rooms of the palazzo rapidly emptied of servants, making it easy for Cassandra to slip out and across the courtyard. The door opened before she even knocked and once again she was conducted silently into Lucia’s presence.

  The courtesan was already dressed in evening finery, although without paint. A large bathtub lined with white linen stood in one corner, a manservant filling it with flagons of warm water. Lucia sent him away and p
aused to consider a collection of glass phials.

  ‘Sandalwood, I think,’ she mused. ‘Heady, but not clinging. You will be able to wash it off later, and that may be important, for you may yet change your mind, little sister. Now, take off your clothes, and into the bath with you.’

  An hour later Cassandra was being laced into a corset which produced a figure which she had no idea she possessed. She looked down, startled, at a surprising amount of cleavage but, oiled, warm and faintly light-headed from a glass of sweet wine, she felt no inclination to protest. At least her breasts were not fully on display.

  The maid helped her into a gown the colour of crushed raspberries and began to fasten it. ‘But what about my hair?’ The boyish crop, even though it was beginning to grow into soft curls, was ludicrously at odds with the soft folds and low-cut bodice of the silk gown with its gauze overdress.

  ‘But a wig, of course.’ Lucia sat Cassandra to the dressing table, pulled back her hair with a ribbon and arranged a blonde mass of ringlets on her head. ‘There.’

  Cassandra gazed into the glass and a creature who was not Cassandra gazed back. Only her dark, direct eyes, shadowed by uncertainty, were familiar.

  ‘Now, to paint your face. We will do it together.’

  Cassandra sat passive as Lucia went to work with her brushes and myriad little pots. She brushed kohl around her eyes until they were huge and dark, then thickened the lashes with a black powder. She brushed Cassandra’s skin with rice powder, clucking over the fading sun-freckles. And then she painted her mouth with a red gloss the exact colour of the gown.

  The sensuous touch of the brush following the curve of her lip made Cassandra pout. ‘Perfect,’ Lucia murmured. ‘Now, remember, do not bite your lips and be careful when you drink.’

  Lucia, satisfied at last, led her to a full-length glass. ‘Look.’

  Cassandra gasped. A total stranger stood there, sophisticated, beautiful, intriguing. Yet despite the paint and the tumbling blonde curls, there was no hint of coarseness or wantonness. The neckline teased, but did not reveal, the lines of the gown flattered rather than flaunted.