The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy (18 page)

“Ah, you are admiring my scent,” he cried. “It comes from Paris, I have it made up especially for me, it is extremely expensive. I shall give you a bottle, as a token of my esteem.”

“Believe me, I want neither your perfume nor your esteem, my lord,” said Alethea, eyeing him warily. Was he going to lunge at her? He was, but she was quicker on her feet than him, and she sidestepped him neatly. Not such a good move, however, for now she found herself hemmed into a corner. What could she do, what would make him keep his wretched hands to himself? For if they wandered where they undoubtedly would, he might discover that she was not at all what he thought her, and then the fat would be in the fire.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said, raising her voice. “You are blocking my way to the door. I wish to leave.”

“Not so fast, my pretty young man.”

He was leering at her in what he presumably thought was an alluring way. “Do not be so hasty, do not scorn my company. I know what you are, I have lived a little longer in the world than you, and know what's what about men.”

A little longer! He must be at least forty, thought Alethea indignantly.

“I am a man of wealth and influence, and my friendship can be very rewarding.”

“I am sure that is so, my lord, for those who share your tastes, but I assure you, I am not one of them.”

“You are very young, and inexperienced; you do not yet know what pleasure is.”

Alethea struggled to compose her face into an expression of gravity. The situation was so absurd. A swift kick in his breeches might put a stop to his capers, or would that create the very scene she was anxious to avoid? One thing she knew about travelling in disguise: never draw attention to yourself. Leaving Lord Lucius rolling on the ground in agony might be satisfying, but it would not be prudent.

He lunged; she let out a furious yell and punched him hard in his stomach. He was momentarily winded, but hardly deterred, and the simpering look had quite gone from his face. He was, Alethea realised, bigger and stronger than her, however effete his manners. She had to escape from this room. “Waiter,” she shouted in her most powerful voice. “Here, immediately.”

“He will not come,” Lord Lucius said. “I have paid him to leave us alone.”

He was right, and the waiter didn't come, but Titus Manningtree did. He flung open the door, made an exasperated sound, and in two quick steps was shouldering Lord Lucius aside.

“Leave the boy alone, Lucius.”

Lord Lucius went pale with anger. “Manningtree, mind your own damned business. Barging in here, into a private parlour, without so much as a by your leave. You will answer for this.”

“Stow it, Lucius. Your reputation is bad enough without your foisting your attentions on young men like Mr. Hawkins, who is no meat for your plate.”

“Much you know about it.”

“Much I do know about it, indeed. And I know the boy's family; you'd best not try your tricks here, or it will be very much the worse for you. Good God, man, when you've had to leave England in such a hurry, do you want another scandal rocketing about your ears?”

Alethea was growing angry. “I can speak for myself, Mr. Manningtree. I have told Lord Lucius I do not want his friendship, as he calls it, and I am sure he knows I mean it.”

Lord Lucius rounded on her, as though to strike, but she held her ground and his gaze without flinching.

“Come along,” Titus said to Alethea. “I came to offer you a place in my coach. I can take you as far as Milan, should you care to accompany me.”

He could see the hesitation in her face, then she gave a quick nod of agreement. “As long as you have room for Figgins.”

“Your man? He may travel outside with Bootle. Only you must be quick. Where is your luggage?”

“Lord, I'm glad to be out of his company,” said Alethea as they crossed the yard outside to the waiting chaise.

“Whatever possessed you to be alone with him? Do not you realise what kind of a man he is?”

Yes, and I know what kind of a man I'm not, Alethea said inwardly. She laughed aloud. “I do, indeed.”

“And you find the situation you were in humorous?”

“I think it is very funny, much funnier than you know. Whose carriage is that leaving now?”

Titus looked across to the arched gateway. “Warren's, the fiend take him. Bootle! Bootle, where's Mr. Hawkins's man, Figgins? Find him this instant, we leave at once, there's not a moment to lose.”

“Why the hurry?” said Alethea breathlessly as he pushed her unceremoniously into the chaise.

“Oh, I wish to reach Milan as soon as may be.”

Liar, thought Alethea. You want to keep an eye on Warren, and I do long to know why.

Water rippling with reflections of the buildings on either side of the canal. A sense of lightness, despite the murkiness of the water through which the gondola moved with swift, silent ease. Voices ringing out across the water and snatches of song, gulls, the sound of pulleys as blocks of stone were winched off a barge rang out across the Grand Canal.

Venice, Alethea said to herself. They were actually in Venice.

Figgins was staring open-mouthed at the palaces lining the canal, the bridges, the people walking to and from alongside the canals and up and over the arched bridges.

“You said they had water for roads, but I never would have believed it, not without seeing it with my own eyes. How come they to build a city in such a damp place? The mould there must be, why, you can see it for yourself, all that green slime. How they must suffer from the rheumatism! Whoever would choose to live in such a place? Mrs. Wytton must have taken leave of her senses.”

“It is so very beautiful, Figgins. The light, and the reflection of the buildings in the water, and the movement of so many boats up and down the canals. It is all built on islands within a lagoon, you know, I remember learning all about it with Griffy.”

“Then it must be the only thing you remember of your lessons apart from all that music,” said Figgins.

“It captures the imagination, a city built on water, and indeed, it is far more beautiful than one could believe possible.”

“It is also a city of smells, faugh, what a whiff of dead things; if you fell in this water, I doubt they'd bring you out alive.”

“It isn't so very clean, but what does that signify? Do you realise that Vivaldi lived here, and wrote much of his music in this city? It was performed by girls, who came from an orphanage.”

“Dressed as boys and men, were they?”

“They were not. It was not considered at all wrong for women to perform music in public; they were excellently trained and the music they played was greatly admired.”

“Then it would have suited you; it is a pity you weren't born in this city, in that case. Is this Mr. Vivaldi still living in the city?”

“No, he died many years ago.”

“Of some disagreeable disease caught from the water, I dare say.”

“Of old age, Figgins; he was a composer of the last century, he lived here a hundred years ago.”

Alethea was about to trail her hand over the side of the gondola, but she thought better of it. Another gondola drew level with them; two gorgeously dressed ladies sat in it, being serenaded by their gondolier; they made eyes at the young Englishmen as they glided past.

“Hussies!” said Figgins.

“That gondolier has a good voice,” Alethea said. “The Italians are born to sing. Signore Silvestrini claims it is in their blood, and certainly it is a country full of music. While we are here, I shall hear as much music as I can.”

Figgins didn't appear overjoyed.

“I shall be sorry to become a woman again,” Alethea went on. “Dresses are so uncomfortable and impractical when compared with trousers.”

“Yes, but not respectable, and I've travelled all these miles with my heart in my mouth lest someone should recognise you, or that Lord Lucius try a trick too far and discover you are not at all what he thought.”

Alethea thought back to the spittal, and Lord Lucius's overt attempts on her person. Serve him right that Mr. Manningtree had come in just then, although his lordship didn't seem so much embarrassed as annoyed by the interruption. She supposed a man of those tastes was used to brazening it out. Titus Manningtree hadn't seemed shocked, either; he'd been more angry than shocked.

Mr. Manningtree puzzled her. His definite ways and air of authority reminded her of her father, but he had less of reserve and more inclination to black moods than Papa; he'd been in a most dreadful temper all the way to Milan. Then, although she had been more than grateful for the place in his carriage, she wasn't sure she altogether cared for the forceful way he had arranged for the rest of her journey in his company, once he had arrived in Milan and decided he was going to continue to Venice.

Odd, to come all the way to Italy and not be sure where you were going. However, from one or two things he had said, she understood there was a woman in the case. Perhaps it explained his bad temper, although she'd thought at first that had more to do with Emily Lessini. She wondered at Mrs. Lessini, for although the signore was a delightful man, Mr. Manningtree was—

She pulled herself up short. He was no more than another arrogant member of the opposite sex. Wise, sensible Emily Lessini, to opt for the warmth and lively humour of her new husband instead of taking on the moodiness and difficult nature of a Titus Manningtree; there was another man who would make life wretched for a wife.

She wondered why he had never married. Easier for him to carry on with another man's wife—yet Mrs. Lessini must have entertained a warm affection for him to have so lasting a liaison. She sighed; perhaps no relations between men and women were what they seemed, and she was sure that they were never easy, however serene a front a couple might present to the world.

And Titus Manningtree was clever, that was unquestionable. She liked a clever man. Had Penrose been—No, she wasn't going to think about Penrose.

At least, she reflected, they had managed to give Mr. Manningtree the slip when they reached Venice. She had told Figgins that she didn't want him to know where they were going; they had seized their opportunity when there was some argument between Bootle and a waterman about luggage to slip away unnoticed into the little crowd of visitors arriving and departing.

Alethea's Italian was stretched to the utmost; the Venetians seemed to speak an entirely different kind of language to the one she had learnt and sung. However, the gondolier had nodded when she wrote the address down, and set off with skilled enthusiasm to thread his way through the knot of boats and gondolas and out to open water.

Not that the canal itself was easy going. “It's as crowded as Piccadilly,” Figgins complained. “Only in London you are at risk of falling under coach wheels or being trampled by a horse, which is a Christian end, not like drowning in this canal.”

The gondolier left the wide canal and turned with an elegant swoop into a much smaller one. Houses were so close overhead that people on one balcony might almost reach out and clasp hands with a neighbour opposite. Washing fluttered from lines strung from the windows, and there was a hubbub of noise: voices talking and singing and calling out.

They slid past another gondola coming the other way, Alethea holding her breath; it seemed impossible for the two boats not to crash together, or for the single oars to become entangled.

Then a wider canal, and the gondola drew into the side, beside some steps leading up to a narrow alley. Alethea stood up, carefully, and gave Figgins a shove on to the side. She dug her hand into her pocket to find the coins to pay the gondolier, accepted his exaggerated bow of thanks—she must have tipped him too heavily—and sprang on to dry land.

It was mid-afternoon, and the sun was still beating down on them as they walked along the way the gondolier had directed them with graceful gestures and a torrent of Italian.

“I think this is the one,” Alethea said, pausing outside a narrow house of some four storeys. A woman who looked like a servant was passing by, and Alethea stopped her to ask if this house was the one she wanted. The woman nodded, bursting into a flood of unintelligible Italian. Alethea thanked her, shrugged at Figgins, and went up to the front door. The house had a shuttered look, but that might be normal in a country where the sun was an enemy to be kept out at all costs. She lifted the knocker.

There was no response, no sound of footsteps within, no voice calling out. She tried it again, and stepped back to peer at the upstairs windows, her hand sheltering her eyes against the brightness of the sun. The shutters were closed on the upper floors as well. Could the whole household be asleep?

It could not. There was the servant whom she had stopped, talking too fast to be understood, but waving her hand in a distinctly negative gesture. What was she trying to say? She appeared to have given up on her attempt to communicate, and instead, tugging Alethea by the hand, begged the signore to come with her to another house.

The other house was the one next door, where the woman worked. Her mistress was at home, a plump beauty with sleepy dark eyes, who spoke much more the kind of Italian Alethea could understand.

“What a pity, had they come a long way?” For the English couple, the Wyttons—she pronounced it in a charmingly un-English way—were not at home, were not expected to be back for some weeks. They had, she informed them, left only the day before, for Rome. So the young English gentleman must return next month, if his stay in Venice were to be that long.