not see her after tonight.
Marguerite shoved away that unease. There was no time for it. She had to do her task and be gone.
“I have not seen you here before,” he said.
“I am new. Bella is my name, I have just arrived from my village on the mainland to work for Carnival,” she answered, gesturing for more ale. “Do you come here often, then?”
“Often enough, when I am in Venice.”
She laughed. “I would wager! A virile man like yourself, I’m sure the pale, choosy courtesans of the grand palazzos could never keep you satisfied.” The ale arrived, and she handed him one of the goblets. “Salute.”
“Na zdorovie,” he answered, and tossed back the sour drink. “Venice is truly filled with the most beautiful of women, signora. Lovelier than any I have ever seen, and I have travelled to many lands. But I do prefer company more like—myself.”
Marguerite glanced toward the boy in blue. “Yourself, signor?”
He laughed, and she was again reminded of summer and home, of the warm, sparkling wine of Champagne. “Not in that way, signora. Closer to the earth.” She must have looked puzzled, for he smiled down at her. “’Tis a saying from my homeland.”
“You are not from here, either.”
“Nay. I can see where you might mistake me, though, given my excellent Italian,” he said, giving her a teasing grin. “I am from Moscow, though many years removed from that place.”
“Ah, that explains it, then.”
“Explains what, signora?”
“The virility. For is Moscow not snowbound for much of the year? Much time to spend in front of the fire. Or in a warm bed.”
“Very true, signora.” His arm suddenly snaked out, catching her around the waist and pulling her close. For one flashing instant, Marguerite was caught by surprise and instinctively stiffened. She forced herself to go limp, pliant, arching back against his arm.
Through her skirts and his hose she felt the press of his erection, hard and heavy. “No ice tonight, I see, signor.”
“The Italian sun has melted it away—almost.”
She smiled teasingly up at him, twining her arms about his neck. His hair was like satin spilling over her fingers, cool and alluring. She tangled her clasp in its clinging strands, inhaling that clean, warm scent of him. “I’m sure this Italian sun could finish the job completely, signor. You would never feel the touch of ice again.”
In answer he kissed her, his lips swooping down on hers so quickly she had no time for thought. She could only react, respond. His kiss was not harsh and bruising, but soft, gentle, nibbling at her lips, luring her to follow him into that sunshine and forget all. For a moment, she did forget. She was not Marguerite Dumas, not the Emerald Lily. She was just a woman being kissed by a handsome man, a man who ensnared her with a blurry, humid heat, with his scent, his strong arms, his talented lips. She pressed closer to him, so close the edges of her being melted into his and she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. His tongue pressed into her mouth, presaging an even more profound joining.
Overwhelmed, Marguerite eased back. She needed her own ice now, the cold thoughts, precise actions. Not this, this—lust. This need. The Emerald Lily did not have needs, especially not carnal ones. Nicolai Ostrovsky was a task, nothing more.
Why, then, was it so very hard to remember that as she stared up into his pale blue eyes?
She made herself smile. “You are hot tonight, signor.”
“I told you the Italian sun has made me so.”
“Then come with me, signor, and I’ll cool you off—eventually.” She untangled her clasp from his hair, reaching down to take his hand. His fingers held hers tightly, holding her prisoner as she led him toward that small doorway she earlier emerged from.
They climbed the narrow stairs, Nicolai ducking to avoid the rafters overhead. The quiet enclosed them again, the loud, bright world shut away, and Marguerite felt her heart thud in her chest, felt her skin grow chilled. The time was almost upon her.
At the entrance to her little room, Nicolai suddenly reeled her close to him, spinning her lightly around to press her to the wall. Marguerite’s heartbeat quickened—had he discovered her, then? Was she caught in a trap of his own?
He did not slit her throat, though. He merely held her there, pressed against her in the half-light, staring down at her with those otherworldly eyes as if he could see into her soul. Her sin-riddled soul.
“Where did you come from, Bella?” he said softly. His accent was more pronounced now, the edges of his words touched with some icy Russian music.
Marguerite smiled at him. “I told you, from the mainland. This is our most profitable time of year, but one has to be in Venice to make the coin.”
“Have you been a whore long, then, dorogaya?”
She laughed. “Oh, yes. Decades, it seems.”
“Miraculous, then. For you still have your teeth, your clear eyes…” He reached down to trace the underside of her naked breast, the soft, puckered flesh. His thumb flicked lightly at the rouged nipple, making her shiver deeply. “Your smooth skin.”
“I was born under a lucky star, signor. My father always said so,” she said, still trembling. And that was one true thing she said tonight. Her father had told her that when she was a child, holding her up on his shoulder so she could see the clear, bright stars in the Champagne sky.
But then her star faded, and here she was in a Venetian brothel. Bound up with this beautiful puzzle of a man.
“A lucky star on the mainland,” he said.
“Just so. You must have been born under an auspicious sign yourself, to be so handsome.” She spoke teasingly, but it was also true. Such beauty and charm should belong to no ordinary mortal. He was blessed. Until tonight.
This was a fateful hour for them both, then.
“If we are both so fortunate, then, Signora Bella, why are we here?” he murmured, as if he truly could read her thoughts. “A whore and an actor, who must both sing for their supper. Can we even afford each other?”
“I am not so expensive as all that,” Marguerite said. She went up on tiptoe and whispered in his ear, “Not for you. I think we are alike, you and I, whores and actors both in one. And we do love our homelands, though we don’t want to admit it.”
He pulled back, staring at her as if surprised by her words, but she wouldn’t let him go. She caught him closer, kissing him with every secret passion of her heart.
“You didn’t come from any human land,” he muttered roughly against her neck, his lips trailing a fiery ribbon of kisses along her throat, her shoulder. “You come from an enchanted fairy realm, and you’ll surely vanish back there at the dawn.”
“’Tis
