Venetia hesitated then shook her head. Lord Thornton was probably in a tussle trying to secure them transport at this very moment. They’d probably step right out of the door and find him.
They hurried down the corridor. The muffled music fell away, replaced by the soft slap of water and the muffled creak of mooring ropes. A glass-paneled door opened onto the water-gate: a small stone landing directly onto the dark canal, lantern-light gilding the ripples gold.
Several gondolas bobbed gently. A couple emerged from the nearest boat, laughing, the woman adjusting her shawl as they disappeared into the house.
No sign of Lord Thornton.
“What do we do?” Mollie whispered.
“We must go home,” Venetia said.
The nearest gondolier turned at the sound of their voices. He was middle-aged, with a lined face and wary eyes.
“Casa Bonaldi?” Venetia asked in halting Italian, stepping toward him. “Can you take us there?”
He shrugged, raking his eyes the length of her. A proper lady did not go about alone at night. Not even with a servant. “If you pay, I row.”
Good enough.
“Miss, shouldn’t we wait for Lord Thornton—” Mollie began.
“I don’t know where he is. So we must just go home,” Venetiasaid, already stepping down.
She felt the boat dip under her weight, the sudden, unsettling give of wood on water. Mollie clutched her skirts and followed, almost tumbling into Venetia’s lap in her haste.
The gondolier pushed off, and the landing fell away; the lights of La Serafina’s palazzo slid swiftly backwards, shrinking to a smear of gold against the dark stone.
“Did you find what you were looking for, miss?” Mollie whispered.
Venetia gave a half nod as she said, haltingly, “I found the confirmation I needed.”
Her maid clapped her hands.
Venetia sighed. “Alas, it’s answers I really need, Mollie. Not confirmation of my fears.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It was nearlymidnight by the time Edward returned to the casa, climbing the marble steps with leaden feet, his leather satchel digging into his shoulder. The day’s translation work had been pure torment. Every line of Scott’s prose about impossible love and noble sacrifice had been like salt rubbed into an open wound.
Ivanhoe gets to be noble and get the girl. I just get to be noble and miserable.
Count Morosini had been particularly exacting, demanding faster translations and refinements that seemed designed more to keep Edward chained to the desk than to improve the text. His stomach growled; he’d barely touched the simple meal sent up to the library. Food had no taste when every bite reminded him of the price he was paying for Venetia’s safety—his silence, his distance, his apparent abandonment.
“Rothbury!” Lord Thornton’s voice rang across the main drawing room the moment Edward appeared in the doorway. Relief and something very like panic sharpened his tone. “Thank God you’re here.”
All the air seemed to leave Edward’s lungs. “What’s happened?”
“It’s Venetia,” Lady Townsend said, rising from her chair, her usually composed face drawn tight with anxiety. “We don’t know where she is.”
The words hit him like a physical blow. “What?”
Thornton dragged a hand through his thick gray hair. “I left her at La Serafina’s while I organized a gondola,” he said. “When I returned, she was gone.”
“La Serafina’s?” Edward repeated stupidly.
“The singer’s salon,” Thornton clarified grimly. “Artists, adventurers, half of Venice’s moreinterestingelement attend.”
“Yes, I know the place.” He fought for control. “What was she doing there?”
