to admit Signora Mercanti, one of Julietta’s regular patrons. Her wrinkled, powdered cheeks were red with excitement, her dark eyes bright. In the flurry of her furs and ribbons, the scurrying of her servants, the barking of her lap-dogs, Signor Velazquez slipped out of the shop, unseen by anyone but Julietta. She slid to the side, watching out the window as he crossed the campi, a splash of scarlet amid the pastel crowds. He joined another man, a tall, plainly dressed figure, by the fountain, and together they left the campi, vanishing down the narrow passageway, out into the great city.
Two days. He would be back in two days.
“Have you heard, Signora Bassano?” Signora Mercanti cried, grabbing Julietta’s arm and drawing her into the bustle of the shop. She could scarcely puzzle after a man with such flutterings and flounces about her. “There is a great scandal abroad this morn. My maid heard of it in the market this morning.”
Julietta shook her head, reaching down to scoop up one of the yapping dogs and hand it over to a servant before it could do its business on her skirts or her clean tile floor. “There is always great scandal in Venice, signora.”
“Oh, but this is very great, indeed! Michelotto Landucci was found dead in his bed this morning, expired right beside his sleeping wife.”
Julietta froze. The remembrance of Cosima Landucci and her dead husband was like a sudden splash of cold seawater, driving out the last remnants of hot lust for Il leone. How could word of it already be swirling down the calli and canals? But then, this was Venice. How could it not be?
“Indeed?” she said, as calmly as she could. “Is the manner of his death known?”
Signora Mercanti shrugged. “They say apoplexy, after too fine a supper and too young a wife. But is it not odd, Signora Bassano, that he is the third member of the Savio ai Cerimoniali to die since only November? Oh, Signora Bassano, I just thought of something! Is Signora Cosima Landucci not one of your patrons? She will be in seclusion, of course, but perhaps her maidservant will come here today, and we shall know more.”
Signora Mercanti plumped herself down in a cushioned chair and accepted a sweetmeat proffered by Bianca, obviously prepared for a long, cosy stay in the shop. The bell over the door jangled again, as more customers poured in, full of talk of the Landuccis, of the upcoming Carnival balls, and of Il leone and his heroics.
Il leone. Julietta tossed one more glance at the window before disappearing into the fray. She was filled with the most incomprehensible urge to run after him. To beg him to help her escape on his great, fast ships.
Escape. Yes. If only she could. If only he could vanquish her fears as easily as he had those pirates. But she knew that could not be. Her demons were beyond even the reach of the celebrated Il leone.
Chapter Four
“Well?” Nicolai asked. “You have seen her?”
Marc paused to glance over his shoulder once more at the blue-painted door surmounted by the swinging wooden sign traced with the image of a perfume bottle. For just an instant, he imagined he saw her there. Julietta Bassano—tall, cold, proud, distant, yet not, he sensed, completely indifferent. Her pale cheeks had turned the most delightful of rose-pinks when he’d caressed her wrist. “I have seen her.”
“And?”
Marc shrugged. “I am not sure what old Ermano sees in her,” he lied.
Nicolai laughed, a loud, warm sound that caused two pretty maidservants to stop and glance at them with interest. It was hardly the time for attracting attention, though, as delightful as that would be later. Marc steered his friend into a near-deserted tavern, where they soon found themselves ensconced in a darkened corner with a pair of goblets of cheap ale and some meat pies.
“I would imagine he sees her fine villa on the mainland, her fertile fields there,” Nicolai said, leaning back lazily in the splintered wooden chair. His brilliant Arlechino silks were put away in favour of plain russet wool, his bright golden hair pulled back tightly. Yet there was still the attention-seeking quickness of the born actor in his blue eyes, the impatient gestures of his long hands. Marc wondered again if his old friend could stay the course of this scheme.
But Nicolai was one of the few people Marc could trust, and as a travelling player he had been everywhere, knew everyone. He was intimate with every dark, dirty corner of La Serenissima, could coax free its secrets and its gossip in a way Marc, who had been away from Venice since he was six years old, could not yet hope to do on his own.
Not yet, but soon. Soon, this serene city would lie on its back for him and splay her jewelled legs like a two-scudi whore, and it would give up to him all he desired, all he demanded. All he had planned and worked for since he was a child.
And God help anyone who got in his way. Even a woman with night-dark hair and white skin scented with flowers and sadness.
Marc tossed back a long swig of the rough, cheap ale. “No villa or farm seems worth the fuss Ermano is making. One would think he had enough of those already.”
“Perhaps the exalted count knows he is being made a laughingstock by his determined, and very public, pursuit of the widow Bassano,” Nicolai said, his voice touched only at the very edges by the sound of his long-abandoned Russian homeland. “And it has made him more determined.”
Marc remembered Julietta Bassano’s eyes, as dark as black ice and twice as perilous. “I am sure that is true.”
Nicolai took a long sip of the ale, his gaze constantly scanning the dim tavern. “What is your next step, my friend?”
“Why, to woo the beautiful signora, of course,” Marc answered, with a humorless laugh. “She is the key to this entire affair.”
“And with the freedom of Carnival upon us, who knows what will happen?”
“Exactly.”
“Just take care, Marc, I beg of you.”
Nicolai’s tone, always so full of cynical merriment, was suddenly quiet and solemn. Marc tossed him a puzzled glance over the rim of his goblet. “I always do. How else could I survive the life of seafaring mercenary?”
Nicolai shook his head. “Ermano is well known for his treachery, even in a city as perilous and deceptive as Venice.”
Marc had a quick, flashing memory, an image of golden hair spread across a marble floor, sightless blue eyes, a gaping red wound on a white throat. “Well, I know it.”
“Yet you are still willing to bargain with the devil?”
Marc swallowed down the bitter dregs of the ale. “I must. I have come a long way to see this through, Nicolai. There were vows made, and I must fulfill them. It has been far too long.”
“As I thought. You have always been a stubborn mule, ever since I met you in that filthy brothel in Germany.”
Marc laughed. “But you needn’t be a part of it any longer. I have no wish to be the ruin of the few friends I possess. It is my quarrel alone, after all.” Even as he said the words, though, Marc knew he could not lose Nicolai’s help; knew he had to keep it by any means possible. Nicolai had saved his life in that brothel, and Marc had saved his in return, threefold.
