The soiree’s guests came from many parts of the Continent, with a smattering from Britain. Some had owned theatres and been actor-managers, and others had made grand names for themselves in their day.
Artists were there as well, including one Antoine Berjon, whose still-life painting I’d admired on the wall of Comtesse Lejeune’s chateau.
Marianne, dressed in fine gray silk, greeted guests along with the host, welcoming us with aplomb. She’d grown quite stately since she’d married Grenville, comfortable in her new role as wife of a wealthy and acclaimed gentleman.
Grenville was already surrounded, as he was a famous arbiter of taste. Every artist and poet there wanted him to give a favorable pronouncement of their next work.
Donata nudged me as we circled the room, and surreptitiously indicated a window alcove.
Signora Ruggeri reposed there alone. She wore a more subdued ensemble than when she’d stormed the chateau, tonight’s gown of glossy browns and creams, the bodice modestly cut. Dark curls framed her face, her otherwise simple coiffure adorned with a feathered headdress similar to Donata’s.
She glanced past me without interest, her gaze seeking Grenville. I wondered if she sized him up as a possible new protector for when the comte finished with her. Grenville was easily the wealthiest gentleman in this room.
Donata broke from me to speak to a poet she’d once sponsored in London, taking his arm and asking in a motherly fashion how he fared. As they wandered away, I strolled to the alcove.
Signora Ruggeri blinked up at me when I halted before her, clearly not recalling me from the comtesse’s soiree. Her face was lined with weariness, her eyes twitching nervously.
“May I sit?” I asked after giving her a bow. “Captain Gabriel Lacey, at your service, signora. My knee troubles me if I stand too long.”
“Of course.” Signora Ruggeri answered in charmingly accented English and waved a hand at the chair next to hers. “You are the husband of the viscountess, are you not?”
“I am.” Donata was technically no longer a viscountess, but many people still referred to her thus, as it was a more lofty position than wife to a mere army captain. “You met her yesterday, I believe.”
“I did. She was most kind.”
The signora’s first untruth. Donata could indeed be kind but also quite pointed. She would not have been soft and gentle with Signora Ruggeri.
“My condolences,” I said. “On the loss of your friend. Signor Gallo,” I finished when she stared at me blankly.
When I spoke Gallo’s name, Signora Ruggeri’s eyes widened, and she wrapped slim but strong fingers around my wrist.
“Oh, sir,” she said, her voice trembling. “I am so very afraid.”
“Of what?” I asked. “You are safe here, signora.”
“Perhaps, but nowhere else.” Signora Ruggeri glanced out the window behind her. “They murdered Gallo, and they will not stop until I join him.” Her fingers tightened on my arm. “Captain, I fear for my very life.”
Chapter 18
Signora Ruggeri’s declaration was delivered with the exact tremor of a stage actress used to seducing gentlemen, but I saw true fear in her dark eyes.
Sitting in a lighted window, visible from the courtyard below, was not the best place to repose if one was worried about being harmed, I mused, but nowhere else in the room could we be private.
“Please tell me why,” I said in a low but soothing tone. “Why should whoever killed Gallo fear you?”
“Because he trusted me.” Signora Ruggeri darted her gaze about the room. “We had to flee Padua because of his enemies, like the Carbonari, who believed he’d betrayed them …”
She named the bands of revolutionaries who worked to drive foreign rule out of Italian provinces.
“Signora.” I cut off her increasingly dramatic flow of words. “The Carbonari are fighting mostly in Naples and the Papal States these days, and I doubt they worried about one confidence man from the Veneto making his way to France.” I grew stern. “And why should an English actress from Manchester pretend to be a courtesan from Padua?”
Signora Ruggeri gaped at me, then her face became a blotchy red. “How dare you, sir?” she demanded, retaining her rehearsed accent. “Because I am woman, alone and unprotected, you accuse me?—”
“My wife recognized you.” I indicated Donata, who was deep in conversation with her poet, feathers in her headdress bobbing. “The play was called The Tender Foes, which Marianne tells me was very much derived from Sheridan’s The Rivals, and performed at Sadler’s Wells. You were excellent as the mischievous daughter, my wife said.”
Signora Ruggeri stared at me, torn between denial of her deception and flattery that Donata had praised her performance. I watched her debate between the two, before she bowed her head, her shoulders drooping as though in surrender.
“You cannot imagine how difficult it is to find work.” Signora Ruggeri’s words were a near whisper, any accent but her native one gone. “When one isn’t in a regular company and has to move from place to place. Thought I’d try my luck on the Continent, but no one wanted me here either. I had to become Signora Ruggeri.” She raised her head again, her brown eyes soft with pleading. “I had no choice. To take the protection of gentlemen like Signor Gallo and then the comte was the only way I could sustain myself.”
