The crowd were content to follow the comtesse and her impromptu guest, avid to learn what would happen next. Would Signora Ruggeri retreat quietly, admitting defeat this night? Or turn her advantage in gaining the house to more insolent demands?
Signora Ruggeri never had the chance to decide. A man’s voice in heavily accented French abruptly arrowed through the open windows from the courtyard below.
“Isadora! You bitch. Come out of there, now.”
After one startled moment, the guests rushed to the windows. I confess I was only steps behind them, Grenville and Donata flanking me.
I glimpsed, over ladies’ feathered headdresses, a man in a black suit and half cloak planted on the stones of the courtyard before the front door. Hatless, his hair gleaming in the torchlight, he cast an enraged gaze upward, like a lover in an opera.
“Isadora!” he roared, as footmen surged around him.
Signora Ruggeri started for the window, but the comtesse held her back.
“Best not to let him goad you, my dear,” she advised.
“I did not bring him here, I promise you, madame,” Signora Ruggeri said in anguish. “He must have followed me. Oh, I am sorry. I am sorry.”
Her accent slipped a little as she gushed in sincere regret, and I heard even in French that Donata was likely correct about the signora’s origins.
The comtesse patted her hand. “Never mind. You should rest a while. My maid will take you to a quiet chamber and give you coffee while we wait for your gentleman to leave.”
Signora Ruggeri’s dark eyes filled with tears. “You are too kind.”
“Not at all, my dear. Every guest of mine deserves courtesy. Here is my maid.” The comtesse released herself from Signora Ruggeri’s now clinging grip and handed her off to a mob-capped, stern-faced older woman who took charge of her. “Look after her, please, Perrault.”
The guests watched Signora Ruggeri’s exit with interest, then returned attention to the windows as the man outside continued to shout.
Those shouts cut off abruptly when several of the burly guards, Brewster among them, took hold of the man and escorted him unceremoniously to the gate.
“He was once her paramour,” Grenville informed us as we eased back into the ballroom. “Vincenzo Gallo, is his name. From Padua in truth, I believe.”
“The scandal deepens,” Donata said. She brightened as the orchestra began to play. “At last.”
Grenville, scrupulously polite, held his hand out for Gabriella, as the youngest lady of our party. “Shall we take a turn, Miss Auberge?”
Gabriella shook her head, though she smiled her thanks. “I prefer not to dance, Mr. Grenville. It is kind of you to offer, but I would like to sit with my father.”
“I know when I have been rebuffed, young lady.” Grenville winked at her then pivoted to Donata. “My friend?”
“Delighted.” Donata rested her hand lightly in his. “As we will have no further excitement this evening, let us dance and console ourselves.”
They sailed out to join the forming set. I led Gabriella to a chair on the side of the ballroom as the ladies and gentlemen began to glide about.
“You have no need to sit with me,” I told her. “Though I appreciate your courtesy.”
Gabriella sank down beside me. “I truly prefer not to dance unless it is with Emile. Mr. Grenville is well-mannered, but rather older than me, isn’t he?”
I hid my smile at her assessment, though I was vainly pleased she preferred to remain with me instead of flitting about the ballroom.
She called me Father as opposed to the more familiar Papa, which she reserved Major Auberge.
Gabriella’s acceptance of me as her true father had erased much of my wretchedness, and I didn’t mind that she was more formal with me. Perhaps one day, she’d lose her reserve and we’d be as close as though we’d never been forced apart.
For now, I enjoyed spending this time with her, before she’d become Emile’s wife. I’d have fewer opportunities to see her after that.
As we watched the dancing and conversed about Emile, his family, the sumptuousness of the house we were in, and the new house Gabriella would have after she wed, the drama of Signora Ruggeri and her spurned lover faded into unimportance.
I’d thought the scene at the ball would be the last of my encounters with the pretended Paduan lady and her lover, Signor Gallo, but it was not to be.
