Читать книгу A Notorious Woman - Amanda McCabe, Amanda McCabe - Страница 14

“Well, Bianca, what do you think? Shall I disgrace my escort?” Julietta turned slowly before her mirror, gazing back over her shoulder to make sure the fall of her skirt was straight and elegant.

Bianca clasped her hands before her and nodded, black eyes shining. “Oh, madonna! It is beautiful. Where have you been hiding it?”

“In that clothing chest, of course.” Where it had been packed away from her trousseau over all these years, unworn, unneeded. Julietta was not even sure why she had kept it. Most of her other grand clothes had been left behind in Milan. Elaborately embroidered silks and velvets were impractical in the shop, too obtrusive and ornate. Perhaps she had kept this one out of some strange sentiment. Or perhaps she had known that one day she would need it again.

Julietta turned back to face herself fully in the mirror. Her chemise was of ivory-coloured silk, thin, soft, shot through with glistening golden threads that echoed the bodice and skirt of gold lace over gold satin. Sleeves of cloth-of-gold were tied on with thin white ribbons twisted with tiny gold beads. It was a few years out of fashion; the sleeves were narrower and the skirt a bit fuller than was strictly desirable, the waist too high. But the lace was still sumptuous.

As Bianca took up a needle and thread and began to stitch up a tiny tear at the hem, Julietta fussed with her hair. Usually hair was not her foremost concern. She always brushed and braided it in the morning, pinning it up and covering it with a sheer veil so it was out of the way of her work. No trouble at all, and she did not miss the elaborate coiffures of her early married days, all twisted and oiled plaits and curls. Tonight, for some reason she could not even explain to herself, she had left it down like a girl. It fell in a straight black curtain to her waist, entwined with gold and white ribbons.

Bianca broke off her thread and stepped back. “You look like the sun itself, madonna.”

“Let us hope I do not look like mutton dressed as lamb,” Julietta muttered, repeating a long-forgotten favourite saying of her old Scottish nursemaid.

“Madonna?” Bianca asked, her face creased in puzzlement.

“It means I hope people do not think I am an old widow trying to recapture my vanished youth.”

“Oh, no! You are not so very old, signora. And you will be masked, anyway.”

“To hide my crone’s wrinkles!” Julietta laughed, and reached for the mask resting on a nearby table. It was of fine white leather, carefully trimmed with gilt, fashioned in the shape of a cat’s features. She held it up to her face, and it did, indeed, seem to have a transformative quality. She was not herself, not Julietta Bassano, sensible shop owner, respectable widow. Yet who was she?

Only the night could tell. And what would Signor Velazquez think of her new aspect? Would he be proud to take her hand, to lead her into the crowd, into the dance? Or did he regret already the whim of inviting her tonight?

Julietta slowly lowered the mask to find her own brown eyes staring back at her in the mirror. What had possessed him to invite her to the ball? She did not understand, particularly after seeing him with the Doge today. He was greatly favoured in this city, much sought after and courted. Any woman would be proud to be seen with him at the festivities. Yet he had chosen to invite her.

Why?

Her heart had been full of suspicion for so long she hardly knew any other way to be. People always had hidden motives to their words and actions; there was always so much swirling just below the calm, dark, quiet surfaces—much like the waters of Venice themselves. Nothing was ever what it seemed, not really. Marc Velazquez was no exception, she knew that just by looking into his opaque blue eyes. As turquoise as the sky, and just as vast and changeable. Clear skies in the morning could mean violent storms in the evening, and a wise woman—a woman with her own secrets to hold—would avoid storms of the sort produced by men such as Il leone. They could prove deadly.

And yet, and yet…

There was that strange feeling when he held her wrist in his hand, when he leaned close to look into her eyes. It was a storm of a different sort, warmer, more alluring, yet every bit as dangerous. And it would not be denied. Secrets and deceits—yes, there were those in abundance. But she was being pulled along by this new swirl of emotions, and they would not let her go just yet.

Nor did she want to be released. Not right now. Carnival had obviously entered her blood, spreading a lust for life she had imagined long buried. The mask, the gown—they all conspired to make her forget herself this night.

She slipped on her shoes, a new pair of high-heeled gold-brocade slippers fastened with white ribbons, and wandered over to her open chamber window. The crowd was thick tonight, not as aristocratic as the gathering in the Piazza San Marco would be, but just as merry. They were masked and cloaked and costumed, dancing on the cobblestones, drinking the wine that flowed from the fountain.

Tonight began a time out of time, a moment when the cares and griefs of life could all be forgotten and joy snatched at like a bright jewel. Every person in Venice was caught up in the whirl—why should she not be? She had been careful for so very long. She just wanted to laugh, to dance, to drink wine until she was giddy with it.

“It is only one night,” she whispered. “What could happen?”

As if in answer to her query, a delicate missile landed with a crack on the bricks by her window, and the sweet, heady scent of roses wafted through the air, along with a shower of bright confetti. Julietta gave a startled laugh, and leaned over to watch the paper and bits of shell float to the ground below. A perfume egg, one of the hallmarks of Carnival, an eggshell carefully emptied and refilled with perfume, had just been lobbed at her head! The laughter grew in her throat, bubbling up in an irresistible flood. She clapped her hand to her mouth, yet it would not be held back.

As Bianca came up to her side to see what was funny, Julietta scanned the area for the culprit. She did not have to search far. He stood near her very doorstep, a tall figure clad in a black velvet doublet and silver hose, his black cloak covered with iridescent silver stars and crescent moons. Though he wore a mask, a silver sliver of moon, and his dark hair was tied back, she knew him at once.

Marc Antonio Velazquez. Il leone. He grinned up at her, his teeth white even in the torchlight. A pirate’s smile, filled with wild glee as he prepared to board an enemy vessel.

Julietta shook her head wryly, and leaned out of the window to touch a smear of the perfume with her fingertips. She brought it to her nose to smell, and found the roses touched with a strange musk. “An inferior product, signor,” she called.

He laughed, a deep, rough sound that made her shiver. “Madonna, your own perfumes are much too fine to waste on mere bricks and mortar! Yet I would happily spread precious myrrh and lilies beneath your feet if it would please you, along with the finest pearls of the Orient, amber of Russia, sapphires of India…”

“Then you would be a fool, indeed,” Julietta answered, her laughter threatening to bubble up again. “Crushed pearls never did benefit anyone.”

“Then permit me to enter your dwelling, madonna, and I will drape the pearls about your white throat, carpet your very chamber with the sapphires, twine emeralds in your hair, if you will but smile at me like that again.”

Julietta felt an answering smile tug at the corners of her lips and next to her Bianca was giggling into her apron. But she would not give in. It was far too early in the evening for such ridiculous flirtations. Later in the evening, after more wine and music, perhaps…

“You are a silver-tongued devil, Signor Lune,” she said.

“I have learned from the best, Signora Sol,” he answered. “Poets and players who are the finest of their craft.”

“Ah, then, you must not waste it on such a one as I,” Julietta said. “I have no need of pearls and sapphires and I allow no one admittance to my dwelling. Not even poets.”

“Alas, my sun, I am wounded!” He clasped one hand to his heart. “Have I nothing to offer you? Nothing that may tempt you?”