Larcenous Lady (13 page)

“I read and write Italian better than I speak it. The idioms confuse me.” He glanced toward Carlotta and knew she would be a better interpreter.

Before Deirdre could change his mind, the duchess joined them. “This robe will do for you, Deirdre,” she said, and handed her niece a heavy brocade gown. The sleeves were long and full, stitched with gold threads. Slashes in the material revealed white cambric inserts below. It was more interesting than beautiful, but the greater deterrent was that the stiff old material looked extremely uncomfortable.

“I rather like this one,” Deirdre said, showing a simple sheperdess’s gown of blue mulled muslin. The sleeves and skirt were full, the top featuring a blue velvet weskit that laced up the front. A wide-brimmed leghorn bonnet went with it.

“I have always wondered at that taste for the common in you,” Charney said, and cast a darkening eye at Belami.

Dick set the straw bonnet on Deirdre’s head and smiled. “Perfect! I wish I were a sheep.”

The duchess thought a wolf was more like it, but she said no more. Actually Charney was in high spirits. The palazzo was very much to her liking. What fun to wheel the conte, ten years younger than herself and in so much worse shape, around the house. She delighted in pointing out to him features that his dim eyes missed. Hands fallen off statues, spots on the carpet, dirty windows.

And when she tired, there was always a fine fire raging in the grate, with a bottle of wine left permanently at the ready. Lavish compliments on this inferior brew had informed her that it came from the conte’s own vineyards. She meant to see a large quantity of it sent to England before she left. The long days left her plenty of time to tease the conte about his wife’s never being home.

“You might give these a try,” Charney suggested to Belami. She handed him a short velvet jacket and a pair of long silk hose. A grotesque feathered hat completed the ensemble.

“I think not. I’m wearing a domino,” he replied firmly. “I’ll ask Carlotta if she has any.”

It made a good excuse to speak to the contessa without arousing suspicions. “I have a favor to ask of you,” he said when he was alone with her. “Can I meet you later tonight, after the others retire?”

Carlotta slanted a long look at him from below her lashes. “I was beginning to think you’d never ask,” she purred. “Your room or mine?”

“I want you to go to Mira with me,” he said. A nervous glance toward Deirdre and the duchess accompanied his answer.

“Perhaps that would be best. The duchessa is a regular Argus. Shall we say, around midnight?”

“As soon as the others retire.”

She tapped him playfully with her fan and glided over to push her spouse out the door, into the hands of his valet.

It was ten-thirty. Carlotta yawned extravagantly. “I’m for bed. Duchessa, would you care to have anything sent to your room? Some cold meat—wine?”

“I am feeling a little peckish,” the duchess admitted. “Bring that gown upstairs, Deirdre, and we’ll see if Haskins can do anything with it. It smells of camphor. It must be laundered at least.”

Deirdre looked a question at Belami. “Good evening, ladies. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, and bowed.

He remained below with Carlotta. The duchess had observed signs of the growing friendship between her niece and her rakish ex-fiancé and was determined to quash it.

“They will want to be alone,” Charney said. “It would be gauche of us to be forever hanging around. You know Belami must be carrying on with some woman. Better the contessa than you, my dear. That one can handle him if I know anything. Shocking the way she bear-leads the dear conte.”

“He’s not carrying on with her,” Deirdre said.

But as she peeped over the bannister, she saw very clearly that Carlotta was carrying on with Dick, and he wasn’t fighting her off as he should. He allowed the hussy to put her arm through his and carry him off like a trophy to the saloon, where they would be alone. The tinkle of Carlotta’s silvery laughter hung on the air. Carlotta had a very suggestive laugh.

Chapter Nine

Belami explained to Carlotta why he wanted to take her to an inn at Mira in secret at night, but her sultry glances said as plain as day that she thought it was a mere excuse.

“Such elaborate explanations are not necessary,
caro mio.
I will be happy to interpret anything you like. I am a very experienced—interpreter.” She smiled.

“Perhaps it would be better if I took one of your footmen. I don’t want to put you to so much trouble. I just thought the innkeeper would be more helpful to a contessa.”

“He will,” she assured him. “Shall we go? We must be back by breakfast. The conte doesn’t trouble me in my bedroom, but he does expect to see me at the table.”

“We’ll be back long before morning,” he said earnestly.

The contessa smiled her Gioconda smile. “We’ll see.”

In the gondola, Carlotta rested her head on Belami’s chest and captured his hands in both of hers. It was the least mischievous thing her busy fingers could be doing, so he didn’t object.

“What a moon!” Carlotta sighed, turning her face, pale in the moonlight, up to gaze at Belami. She had a lovely face, shaped like a heart, with those great soft eyes glittering. “Venetian nights were made for love,” she crooned.

Belami desperately searched his mind for something to distract her. “I have read there are over a hundred islands altogether in Venice,” he said, and felt like a fool.

“I’ve made love on ninety-nine of them.”

Belami laughed nervously. “And about four hundred bridges, I think.”

“I haven’t made love on many bridges,” she said. “Except the Rialto, where there are all the shops. I’ve never made love at Mira before,” she added, and began stroking her white fingers up his arm. “My favorite place for making love is in a gondola. Feel the gentle swaying of the water,
mio
Belami.” Her hands strayed to his chest, where they soon sought out the buttons of his jacket.

“Quite a stiff breeze,” Dick said, and did up his buttons as quickly as she unfastened them. “Now behave yourself, Carlotta,” he scolded when her fingers out ran his.

“You know how you can make me do anything you want,
carissimo,”
she said in a husky voice, and put her arms around his neck. “Just by doing—this.” She pulled his head down and kissed him, very long and hard, till his lips were stinging.

It was a long trip up the S-curve of the Grand Canal, around the island and to the canal of Mestre. Belami’s ingenuity was stretched to the limit. He sang, he quoted everything he could lay his tongue to, he kissed Carlotta and thought of Deirdre. She had been suspicious at his remaining downstairs with Carlotta, and a suspicious Deirdre wasn’t likely to stay in her bed once Charney was asleep. She’d be up prowling by now. At least she couldn’t very well follow him. The Ginnasis only had one gondola.

They went to Taverna Vecchia, a modest whitewashed inn standing in a small yard. “Tell them we want the room at the far end of the hall, the right side of the staircase,” Belami instructed.

The contessa relayed this information to the innkeeper, then turned to Belami. “It’s taken. I told him the one next to it would do.”

“No, no! It must be that room. Tell him I’ll pay the client’s bill if he’ll change to the next room.”

“Darling, they’ll think we’re mad!” Carlotta laughed.

“Just give him the message.”

Carlotta gave the message, and the innkeeper with a shake of his head went upstairs. He soon returned and led the new arrivals to the required chamber, muttering something unintelligible to himself. Belami caught the word
“imbecilles inglese”
and smiled sheepishly. When they were installed and the innkeeper had left, Belami took the lamp and began searching the room.

“What are you looking for,
carissima!
It’s right here,” Carlotta said, pointing to the bed. She had thrown off her wrap and was beginning to remove her dress.

“We’re looking for any sign that Elvira Sutton was here.” He opened the clothespress, and drawers of the dresser, looked under the bed. “There’s nothing.” He pulled the bell cord and the innkeeper returned.

“Ask him about Elvira’s visit—if this is the right room, how long she stayed, and whether she met anyone. See if the name Blackwell rings a bell.”

Carlotta talked for about five minutes, asking questions and frowning. Then she dismissed the man. “She came to this room, locked herself in, and wasn’t seen again. No one named Blackwell was here at all,” she said.

Belami went to the open door and looked up and down the hall. “There’s no fire door upstairs. If she didn’t go out through the lobby, she had to climb out that window.”

He opened the window and looked down. “She’d have broken her neck if she jumped.’’

Carlotta joined him at the window, her arm carelessly around his waist. “Unless there was someone there to catch her,” she said.

“That must be it. Claude was there waiting for her. But why did she bother stopping here?”

“Perhaps Claude knows the purpose of a bed,” the contessa said. Her voice was becoming just a trifle thin.

“Elvira came alone—she could hardly wait at the docks. This must have been where she waited for him,” Belami thought out loud.

“Now are we finished with business?” As Carlotta spoke, Belami felt her body rubbing seductively against his. Her gown was open to the waist, revealing sights that took his mind from business.

“Yes, we might as well go.”

“The room is paid for. Two rooms—it seems a waste.”

Dick cupped her upturned face in his hands. “You’re a beautiful woman, Carlotta. If I weren’t engaged—”

“She’ll never know!”

“Yes, she will. She has a sixth sense where I and other women are concerned. And really I don’t feel at all like—”

Carlotta lifted his hand and kissed his fingers. “I can take care of that,” she tempted.

“I know it very well. That’s why we’re leaving.” He buttoned up her dress.

It was a vast relief that Carlotta sulked all the way home. She sat with her eyes closed, pretending to be asleep, but Belami could feel the resentment emanating from her stiff body. Once he was assured she didn’t mean to continue seducing him, his mind was free to think of other matters.

Elvira had gone to a great deal of trouble just for a few days with Claude. Was there more than love involved? Was it some arrangement being made to unload the false money? Was she ever coming back? That was the important question. If she didn’t, he’d lost the trail of the Jalberts entirely. There was no point wasting Réal at the Léon Bianco. He’d send him to Mestre tomorrow—and if Elvira showed up with Claude, Réal would follow him and learn where the Jalbert gang were staying. One of Carlotta’s footmen would come in handy as interpreter.

When they landed at the palazzo, Carlotta wrapped her cape around her and strode angrily into the house without a word. Belami followed, trying to soften her up to beg the loan of a footman.

“Carlotta,” he said softly, and put his hand on her elbow. “I’m sorry. You’ve been a perfect angel, and I’ve been a fool. I thought you understood about my engagement.”

“You don’t have an engagement. You have a mousy provincial who doesn’t think enough of you to marry you. The duchessa has no intention of allowing this match. If you ever hope to marry that chit, you’ll have to carry her off by main force—to some inn, where you will paralyze her with boredom while you look in closets and under beds. I had heard the
inglese
were cold, but not that they were frozen.
Buona notte, signore.”

“Things are different in England,” he said simply.

Carlotta looked at him with rising interest. Belami was much more conciliating than he’d been earlier. “You are not in England now. When in Rome—and when in Venice also—”

“I’m just a tourist.”

“Then you must enjoy the sights while you are here.” She looked an invitation from her sultry eyes. “One of the more interesting sights will be on display in my chamber, in about five minutes.”

“But—”

“I’ll be expecting you,” Carlotta said, and fled upstairs to prepare for her visitor.

For the contessa, love was a battle; sex her weapon. Men had all the advantages of superior physical strength, wealth, and education, but God in his wisdom had hobbled them with one fatal weakness—lust. Belami would come, and before he left the room, he would have promised to redeem her diamonds from the pawn shop.

Guy was becoming tiresome about the Ginnasi diamonds. His latest request sounded very much like an order. “You will wear the diamonds at my masquerade ball,” he had said. “The duchessa would like to see them.” Diamonds could not be at the jeweler’s forever, having a clasp fixed.

Carlotta called her woman and made a grand toilette.

She knew virginal white was not her color. For gentlemen, she was the fantasy temptress. She wore assorted wisps of black lace that allowed tantalizing glimpses of white velvet skin to show beneath. Her black hair was carefully tousled to add a note of abandon. Perfume scented the air, and in far corners of her elaborate chamber, dim lamps burned. When all was ready, she dismissed her servant and arranged herself on the counterpane. Then she waited. And waited. And waited.

While she waited, Belami went to his room and undressed. It was demmed uncomfortable, having to offend your hostess. An offended Carlotta might make any amount of mischief. For openers, she’d be rude as only a clever street urchin could be to the duchess and Deirdre.

He wouldn’t bother asking Carlotta for the loan of the footman. He really should go to her and explain though. Money was the best explanation. He opened his metal box and picked up a handful of gold coins. With them in the pocket of his dressing gown, he went softly to her room and tapped at the door.

Carlotta called “Come in,” and he slowly opened the door. His heart sank to see her elaborate preparations. She patted the counterpane beside her and said in a pouting way, “It took you long enough, caro.”

* * * *

When Deirdre went upstairs with her aunt, she had no intention of remaining there, but getting away was extremely difficult. The duchess had a sharp nose for trouble, and knew by Deirdre’s restless roaming around the chamber that she was planning some foolishness.