“Not quite,” Venetia said, sobering. “I had to strike something of a bargain with the young lady. One that involves, perhaps, enabling herto find her own happy ending with Paolo. She will not confess anything unless that is promised.”
Concern—and confusion—clouded Lady Townsend’s features. “How are you to unite a pair of star-crossed lovers like Count Morosini’s granddaughter and her… unsuitable paramour?”
“To begin with, he is not entirely unsuitable,” Venetia replied. They stood aside for a fishmonger’s barrow to rattle past, the sharp scent momentarily overwhelming. “Paolo is the second son of a noble family. At present, that is enough for Count Morosini to refuse him. But Paolo’s elder brother is much older and has been childless for the duration of his ten-year marriage. It will not be too long before Paolo is considered the heir apparent. It is a fair assumption to make.”
She glanced up at her friend, urgency making her heart race. “So in uniting them, I do not think we are scandalizing Venetian society beyond repair. And as forhowI mean to accomplish it—well, it all hinges upon the balloon ascension.”
“Dear Lord, no.” Lady Townsend stopped dead, clasping her gloved hands together and lifting her eyes to the bright strip of sky between the houses. “Not another balloon ascension requiring luck and timing and a guardian angel. Are you truly prepared to risk such danger again, Venetia, when we know it was only by a hair’s breadth of good fortune that Mr. Rothbury galloped in to save the day? Who will gallop in on a black stallion so that Signorina Sofia and her worthy groom enjoy similar providence? For I take it that is the condition upon which she will confess. Though I cannot begin to understand why she would so readily reveal her own moral deficiencies.”
“She believes that doing so publicly will shame Count Bembo who will want to wash his hands of her,” Venetia explained. The thought of Bembo’s wounded dignity gave her a wicked twinge of satisfaction. “If she admits everything before all Venice, she becomes undesirable to him—while at the same time clearing my name.”
She squeezed Lady Townsend’s arm. “So, willyou help me unite these two worthy lovers? You have made something of a career of such things, after all. And I am sure Lord Thornton will help you once you have persuaded him—as you always manage to do.”
They resumed walking, their reflections wavering together in the canal. Venetia dropped her voice. “As for running the marchese to ground, Signorina Sofia has given me all the information we require for a beginning. Our only difficulty is that he is notoriously hermit-like and does not receive visitors.”
“A reluctant gentleman with a love of books and little inclination for society who has perhaps never received visitors?” Lady Townsend’s mouth curved into a delighted smile. “My dear, I am quite certain we shan’t let such small difficulties stand in our way.”
Chapter Forty
Since it hadbecome well established that the best place for intelligence gathering was La Serafina’s salon, it was there that Venetia and Lady Townsend presented themselves yet again the following morning.
It had been mutually decided that they would not tell Lord Thornton of their visit.
“He is such a darling, helpful man,” Lady Townsend said as their gondola nosed through the green water, “but in this instance I do think we shall move faster—and more efficiently—if the fact-gathering is left to the ladies.”
“Is this based on his skepticism and the fear he might throw cold water on our enthusiasm?” Venetia asked.
Lady Townsend merely patted her arm.
Now, seated opposite La Serafina at a small table set with thin porcelain cups and a dish of tiny sugar-dusted biscuits, Lady Townsend got straight to the point.
“We are hoping, madam,” she said, lifting her teacup, “you might advise us how a reception with the Marchese Valenti might be arranged.”
“The Marchese Valenti?” La Serafina, lounging opposite in a robe of white, sat abruptly straighter. “Marchese Alessandro Valenti? Why would you wish to seehim?” Her dark brows arched. “I am astonishedyou even know of his existence. Oh yes, I told you he was the widower of the great Isabella Monteverdi, but that was many years ago. For the past twenty years he has moldered away in his old castello on the Isola di San—” she flicked her fingers “—a little scrap of stone in the lagoon. He comes into Venice only when he grows impatient with the progress Count Morosini reports to him about his other passion. The passion second only to the love he had for Isabella.”
Venetia’s fingers tightened around her cup. “He is involved in the project to translate Sir Walter Scott?” she whispered. “Ivanhoe?”
“And all the other great works the Scottish master has sent into the world since he began publishing his romances five years ago,” La Serafina agreed. “Barely are they printed in English before the marchese demands them in Italian. It is a torment and a blessing for your Mr. Rothbury, I suspect.”
Venetia opened her mouth, but no sound came. The marchese was involved in theIvanhoetranslation? “So he is a great scholar, then,” she managed. Her mouth felt suddenly as dry as a desert. She turned a wide-eyed look on Lady Townsend, who was watching La Serafina with a look of stupefaction.
“You mean,” Lady Townsend said carefully, “that Count Morosini and the marchese are both bibliophiles with a particular passion for Sir Walter Scott?”
“Bibliophiles?” La Serafina gave a little laugh. “They are fanatics. Two old men behaving like love-sick boys over tournaments and doomed maidens.”
Venetia could scarcely take it in. The room seemed to narrow around the three of them: the crimson walls, the glittering chandelier, the faint clink of glass as a servant picked up a tray of glasses—all of it receded behind the pounding in her ears.
“Does he… does the marchese know the man who translates these masterpieces?” she asked, trying to sound casual, as if so much didn’t hang upon her answer.
La Serafina’s smile turned sly. “Oh, signorina, I am told the translator is worth his weight in gold. In fact, I have it on excellent authority that when Count Morosini mentioned his young Englishman was in love with a lady who might lure him away from his desk—nay, Venice—the marchese was so desperate to keep such talent at work that he insisted my dear count enter into what you might call a devil’s bargain to keep the poor fellow beholden.”
“A devil’s bargain?” Venetia’s heart gave a painful leap. Edward. Shackled not by one powerful old man, but by two… promising to protect Venetia provided their translator remained on a tight leash so he could do their bidding.
La Serafina tilted her head, studying her. “Is it that you share this passion for Sir Walter’s romances, perhaps? That might be the only means of persuading the marchese to receive you. And even then, I promise nothing. He is a recluse and a curmudgeon. Books and ghosts are his preferred company.”
Venetia glanced at Lady Townsend, silently asking how much they ought to reveal. Their true purpose—to prove Edward’s birth and restore him to a father who did not even know he had a living son—seemed far too fragile to expose to daylight, let alone to a woman who traded in secrets.
No. Not yet. Their hunch might be entirely misplaced, and gossip multiplied like pigeons in Venice.
