his cappuccino and tapped it lightly on the tip of his tongue to taste the sweetness. Like so many of the windows in Venice, this one was designed for seeing without being seen, for mystery rather than clarity. The glass was not set in flat panes, as was done in other places, but in small round bull’s-eyes framed in iron. Miss Wood would have no idea he was standing here, or that he’d been watching her ever since he’d glimpsed her in the gondola. A pretty deception, like everything else that made life interesting.
He shifted to one side so he could watch her as she waited at his door. She’d pushed back the hood of her cloak, and now he could see how the chilly early morning air had pinked her cheeks and the tip of her nose.
There were never any of the usual female artifices of powder or paint with her, none of the little false ways of hiding from a man. She was always as she seemed, fresh as new cream. Despite her age, he’d stake a thousand gold sequins that she was a virgin. He could sense it. She’d be as untouched as any young postulant, really, and he’d always a weakness for debauching convent flesh.
It was this utter lack of guile that had tempted di Rossi from the moment Miss Wood had appeared one morning in his drawing room, her letter of introduction in her gloved hands. Seduction, corruption, ruin or simply a worldly education in pleasure—it would all amount to the same thing for him. She was a governess of no social standing or family, a foreigner, in truth no more significant than any other servant. He could do whatever he pleased with her without consequences.
Now he watched as she entered his house, the door closing after her, then he smiled, and considered the delicious possibilities she presented like a gourmet before a rich feast. Though clearly she’d the body of a woman beneath that grim, shapeless gown, in her heart she still had that innocent’s trust in the goodness of men. Teaching her otherwise was proving to be the greatest diversion he’d had in years.
Jane perched on the very edge of the chair. No matter how she tried, she could never quite relax on the delicate gilded chairs here in Signor di Rossi’s drawing room. The red-silk damask cushions seemed too elegant to sit upon and the artfully carved legs in the shape of a griffin’s clawed feet seemed too delicate to support any grown person. She was certain, too, that the chairs were very old and very valuable, like everything else in the signor’s house, and she would hate to repay his hospitality by being the clumsy Englishwoman who broke a chair.
Once again she drew her watch from her pocket to check the time. She realised that calling here so early in the day could be interpreted as an affront, especially by the signor, who had the most refined manners she had ever encountered in a gentleman. But the hour could not be helped, not if she wished to offer both her thanks and farewell. As much as she’d enjoyed his company these last weeks, her time for the idle pleasures of art and conversation were done.
Restlessly she smoothed her skirts over her knees. She’d already accomplished much this morning, making her plans for life beyond the Farren family. She had decided to stay here in Venice rather than return to England, where her likely lack of references from the duke would be an impossible handicap. With the assistance of the English ambassador here, she had already found new lodgings with a Scottish widow that were both respectable and inexpensive. The ambassador had also promised to help her find a new place with a family with children here, either English or Italian. Failing that, she could be a companion to a widow or other elderly lady. She couldn’t afford to be particular. She’d little money of her own, certainly not enough for the costly passage back to England. No wonder her situation was a complicated one, and vulnerable, too. Given his Grace’s fury last night, she could return to the Ca’ Battista and find all her belongings bobbing in the canal outside by his orders.
‘Ah, Miss Wood, buon giorno, buon giorno!’ Signor di Rossi entered the room with the easy self-assurance that generations of aristocratic di Rossis had bred into his blood. ‘You cannot know how a visit from you pleases me.’
He was too dark, too exotic by English standards, but here in Venice Jane thought he was the very model of an Italian gentleman. He was perhaps thirty, even thirty-five. Over his shirt and black breeches he wore a long, loose dressing gown of quilted red-and-gold silk. With the pale winter sunlight glinting on the gold threads, the extravagant garment floated around him as he walked, more like a king’s ceremonial robes than a gentleman’s morning undress while at home. By contrast, his olive-skinned face seemed almost ascetic, his cheekbones and nose sharply defined. His black hair was sleeked back into a simple queue, and his dark eyes were full of welcome as he reached out to take her hand, and lift her up from her curtsy.
‘You are most kind, signor.’ Jane smiled, flushing with embarrassment as he held her fingers a moment longer than was proper in England. ‘Most kind. You always have been that way to me.’
‘But that is hardly a challenge, Miss Wood,’ he said, motioning for her to sit. ‘Not between friends such as we, surely?’
Purposefully she didn’t sit, determined to keep the visit short, as she’d intended. ‘I am honoured that a gentleman so grand as yourself would consider me as such, signor.’
‘Please, Miss Wood, no more.’ He waved his hand gracefully through the air, the wide sleeve of his banyan slipping back over his arm. ‘You speak as an Englishwoman who has had the misfortune to have spent her life in the thrall of your English king. Venice is a republic, her air free for all her citizens to breathe. If I wish to call a gondolier, or a fisherman, or an English governess my friend, then I may.’
As experienced as Jane was at masking her feelings, she couldn’t keep back a forlorn small sigh at that. She’d miss her time with Signore di Rossi, discussing the beautiful paintings that his family had collected over the centuries. She’d met him soon after she’d arrived in Venice, through a letter of introduction meant for the duke’s daughters. This was the customary way that well-bred English visitors could view private collections on the Continent, a day or two walking the halls of palaces and country houses with a watchful housekeeper as a guide. But to Jane’s surprise, the signor had shown her his pictures himself, and invited her to return the following day, and every day after that.
And the signor was speaking the truth. He had treated her as a friend, almost as an equal. He had respected her observations about art so much that he’d sought her opinions as if they had actual merit. No other gentleman had listened to Jane like that before. Was it any wonder, then, that her visits here to him had become the most anticipated part of her day?
And now—now they must be done.
‘Let me send for refreshment for you,’ the signor continued as he stepped to the bell to summon a servant. ‘It’s early, yes, but not so early that I cannot play the good host to my favourite guest. A plate of biscotti, a cappuccino, a dish of chocolate, or perhaps your English tea?’
‘Thank you, no, signor,’ Jane said, though sorely tempted. She’d come to adore Venetian chocolate in her time here, and it would be one of the things she’d miss most when she returned to England. ‘You are most generous, most kind, but I cannot stay.’
He turned on his heel and stopped, one black brow raised with surprise. ‘How do you mean this, Miss Wood? How can you come, and yet not intend to stay?’
‘Exactly that, signor. I’ve come only to thank you, and to—to say farewell.’
‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘I shall not permit it. I’ve something special and rare to show you today, a manuscript book, drawn by hand four hundred years ago in a Byzantine monastery. The artistry will steal your breath, Miss Wood, with each parchment page brought to life with ground lapis and gold leaf and—’
‘Forgive me, signor,
