“There were other ways—”
“Were there? Easy for you to say, when you have the freedom to choose your own path.” Sofia’s voice turned bitter. “You could leave Venice tomorrow if you wished, pursue your career wherever opportunities present themselves. I’m trapped by birth, by gender, by family obligation. The only escape I have is the one I create for myself.”
“By destroying others?”
“By doing what I must.” Sofia straightened, and Edward saw the moment when vulnerability gave way to cold calculation. “Miss Playford will survive this scandal. She has wealth, connections, the protection of powerful friends. She’ll find some gentleman willing to overlook her tarnished reputation in exchange for her fortune.”
“You truly believe that?”
“I believe she has options I will never possess.” Sofia’s tone had grown arctic. “She can buy her way out of disgrace. I have no such luxury.”
Edward stared. Sofia spoke of necessity and survival, but underneath her justifications lay a ruthlessness that chilled him.
She merely had to tell the authorities—tell her grandfather—what she’d told him, and Venetia would be entirely exonerated.
But she’d weighed Venetia’s destruction against her own freedom and found the calculation acceptable.
Before Edward could respond, Caterina stepped closer with urgent whispers in rapid Italian. They’d been observed. Someone was takingtoo much interest in their conversation.
“I must go,” Sofia said quickly, her mask of composure slipping back into place. “Perhaps you should remember, Signor Edward, that everyone has secrets. Even you. But mine is that I’m in love with a man of whom my grandfather disapproves. Not that I’m a jewel thief.”
Technically you ARE a jewel thief. Just not the jewel thief who framed Venetia.
Sofia and her maid melted back into the crowd, leaving Edward frozen by the merchant’s stall.
Sofia’s desperation was genuine—of that he was certain. Her love for Paolo, her fear of forced marriage, her willingness to do whatever necessary to escape—all of it rang true.
She declared she’d not been responsible for planting the jewels in the tiara Venetia was wearing.
Which meant someone else did. Someone who knew about Sofia’s theft scheme and used it to frame Venetia.
If so, who had helped her? And then betrayed her?
Someone with resources and knowledge beyond what a desperate young woman could command alone.
Someone with an agenda against Venetia specifically.
Count di Montefiore? It had to be.
Edward started walking toward the count’s palazzo, his mind racing.
Sofia had stolen the emeralds. Someone else—probably the count—used her theft to frame Venetia. Sofia was too self-interested to confess. And Edward couldn’t tell anyone what he’d learned without admitting he’d approached Sofia.
Which means Venetia is still in danger, I’m still trapped, and now I know the conspiracy is even more complicated than I thought.
He clutched his satchel tighter. It was time to translateIvanhoe… where, in fiction, the hero always won.
Chapter Twenty-Six
So, Edward hadwithdrawn to protect her. Venetia was not a fool. She understood this.
Which meant, who else would fight to clear her name? Who else would undertake the risks needed to ascertain the role played by the man she now suspected of being at the root of her downfall.
Count di Montefiore.
And Greene.
By the time evening fell, Venetia had dressed for battle.
