“It was Ian’s idea to make a glass room,” Crispin began when he noticed her interest in the design. “Something like this would not even be thinkable for my estate in England, because glass is so hard to get there. But since Venice has its own glass makers, it was easy here and it allows me to grow plants that otherwise could not exist in this climate.”
Luca gave another grunt and Crispin added with good humor, “I mean, it allows Luca to grow plants. I am only a dilettante.”
“Not but that you have a good touch, that I’ll grant you, ragazzo mio.” Luca’s voice was gruff, but his tone was affectionate. He turned his dirt-smeared face to Bianca. “This boy could make flowers sprout from the hindquarters of a dead partridge, be damned if he can’t.”
Bianca’s mind was so taken up with trying to picture this remarkable exercise that she completely overlooked the impropriety of the image. Crispin, on the other hand, blushed furiously.
He spoke quietly through clenched teeth. “Enough, Luca. I told you she is not interested in me. There is no reason to scare her off.”
“Who is trying to scare the hussy off? Not but that I spoke the truth, be damned if I didn’t.”
The laughter that burst from Bianca startled the two men. “I am sure you did no more than justice to His Lordship’s talents, Signore Luca.”
“You’ve got reason, mistress, and I wouldn’t have thought it, what with marrying His Other Lordship. That one’s a crazy one, I tell you. I was giving the plants their last watering of the evening late last night, when I saw him skedaddling naked across the rooftops, be damned if he wasn’t. Now, you ask me, is that how a sane man spends his time? and I tell you, no, s’blood, ’tisn’t.”
Crispin, clearly incredulous, was about to say something, but Bianca spoke first. “Did you see anyone else on the rooftops last night?”
“You mean that other bloke, with the cape. But he wasn’t dashing about all naked for Widow Falentini to see, and Lord knows that woman’s heart isn’t any too good and doesn’t need the sight of naked men to send her on over to the other side.”
“I am sure you are right,” Bianca’s voice was strident, “but did you see the other fellow? Anything about him?”
“And I’m telling you, no, I did not, because he was wearing proper clothes. All I saw was black, black, black and then here comes Ian, naked like the day he was born. I remember that day too. He’s a darned sight better looking now than he was as a babe, damned if he isn’t. Now ragazzo mio here, he was a fine-looking child, sunny and cheerful from that first day—”
Luca’s narrative would have been briskly interrupted by Crispin if he had not been preempted by a loud banging at the door at the far end of the room.
“Is Signorina Salva in there?” a voice shouted through the door as Crispin went to open it. “Ah, there you are, mistress; I have run over the entire house looking for you!” Nilo was impervious to the fantastic show of color and form around him as he nimbly navigated the rows of flowers. “You must leave word for me of where you are going! This house is so big, and should anything important come up, as it has, how will I know where to find you?”
Crispin and Luca contemplated the small, chastising figure with surprise, but Bianca was so eager to hear his message that she did not notice his importunate behavior. “What has happened? What is urgent? Was your trip successful then?”
“She says if you come at once, she thinks she has something that might interest you. But you must come at once. She is a very busy lady.” Nilo took Bianca’s hand to underscore the urgency of their departure.
“Thank you both for your courtesy,” she managed to say over her shoulder as Nilo dragged her toward the exit of the glass house. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Signore Luca and to speak with you, Your Lordship. I hope one day to see the rest of your fine collection.”
The door closed on her last words and the two men were left alone in the greenhouse.
“Women,” Luca muttered, shaking his head. “Come around, asking questions, acting all interested-like, making nice. And then someone younger comes along and they leave you, just like that, worse than they found you, damned if they don’t.”
Chapter Nine
“Do you think the rouge on the nipples is too much?” Tullia cast an appraising eye over her voluptuous anatomy in the mirror and then lifted her gaze to meet Bianca’s, standing behind her.
“You know well, Tullia, that I am the last person you should solicit for advice about how to please men. You had better ask Daphne.” Bianca tried to make her tone light but Tullia did not miss the hint of melancholy in it. Tullia was the first courtesan Bianca had gone to for assistance with her research, and the two women had developed a strange sort of friendship. As the reigning queen of the Venetian courtesans, Tullia d’Aragona was generally regarded more with envy than with affection by others of her profession and was therefore hard pressed to call any of the women she knew friends. While other courtesans would pretend to a genuine interest in her affairs, she knew from experience that they were more likely to respond to her troubles with jubilation than compassion. In Bianca she had found, for the first time in many years, a true friend, and she was disturbed to see her looking so distraught.
“So you still have not succeeded in ridding yourself of your persistent virginity. I know plenty who would sacrifice their real teeth for the privilege of seducing you.” She turned away from the mirror and toward Bianca, one of her famously captivating smiles on her lips. “I would. But you refuse to have me.”
In typical fashion, Bianca laughed the offer off, knowing that anyone as magnificent as Tullia d’Aragona wanted no traffic with an unadorned virgin like herself. While Tullia’s status at the top of her profession had been earned by hard work and her razor-sharp mind, her breathtaking beauty and sinfully voluptuous body had certainly helped. Bianca watched, fascinated, as Tullia’s Greek maid, Daphne, prepared her mistress for her next client. Dressed in a gossamer-thin gown, Daphne was only a shade less beautiful and more clothed than her mistress. Bianca admired and envied the two stunning women, who loved and used their bodies, who knew how to give pleasure and how to take it. Watching them together was like being a privileged spectator at a sensual ballet.
Even as she prepared her mistress’s toilette, it was obvious that Daphne’s companionship with Tullia went far beyond that of a mere chambermaid. Daphne carefully teased Tullia’s nipples to a point, gently rubbing each between her fingers so as not to disturb the rouge. She then used the tail of a wild rabbit to dust them with a powder of finely crushed diamonds, letting the puff caress the length of the courtesan’s torso. The powder caught the light from the elaborate pink glass chandelier at the center of the ceiling, making Tullia’s body glimmer alluringly as she reclined on a Chianti colored chaise.
Although she always felt horribly ill-shaped there, Bianca loved the overwhelmingly luxurious and sensual environment of Tullia’s house. Covered in rich silk, thick velvet, or the softest furs, every surface invited intimate exchange. The walls throughout were lightly gilded, each with a strategically placed mirror that diffused the soft light from the chandelier and gave the whole space a warm, sensual, ethereal glow. But Bianca’s favorite part was the heady scent that emanated from the body of the courtesan to fill every corner of the well-appointed rooms. She watched with rapt attention as Daphne brought over four ornately wrought glass flasks, presenting them to Tullia for her selection.
“Gardenia today. It is his favorite, I think, though it has been such a long time I can hardly remember.”
Daphne went to work, applying measured drops from the flask to the hollow of Tullia’s neck, the deep curve between her breasts, the soft flesh along the inside of her thighs. She ended by tracing the outline of the triangle of red-gold curls at the apex of Tullia’s thighs, pausing to carefully arrange them with a small mother-of-pearl comb.
“What would I do withou
t you?” Tullia kissed the girl’s fingertips appreciatively. “Now Bianca and I have serious matters to attend to. Bring me the lace dressing gown and the pearls Rono gave me, and off with you!”
When Daphne had assisted Tullia into a wrapper of the finest lace Bianca had ever seen, tucked a few stray hairs into her elaborate coif that would undoubtedly be tumbling down in one-eighth the time it had taken to erect, clasped a double strand of pearls around her throat and threaded two large pearl drops through her ears, she left them, closing the door softly.
Tullia resettled on the silk chaise and finally turned to the matter that had brought Bianca to her.
“Your boy said you were worried about Isabella’s disappearance and you wondered if I knew anything about it. I won’t ask you what has triggered your interest in Isabella,” Tullia said, “but if you wanted to tell me, I must admit I am dying to know. Was it an affaire de coeur?”
“Why does everyone think that?” Bianca was exasperated.
“Everyone?” Tullia cocked her head to one side and studied Bianca closely.
Bianca brushed the second question aside. “No, I was neither having an affair nor was I in love with Isabella. I am just worried about her welfare.”
“Good, then I need not be jealous. And you need not be worried. From what Isabella told me two weeks ago, her welfare is being well looked after. She is going to be married.”
“Married?” That explained why Isabella had asked her to write out a love sonnet at their last meeting, Bianca mused, but it still seemed odd. “Are you sure? Married?”
“Yes. I, too, found the prospect sufficiently unlikely to express a doubt, but she was adamant. When I mentioned the alarming disproportion between the number of marriage proposals courtesans get and the number of married courtesans, she said something like, ‘I’ve got a charm he just cannot free himself from.’ You know how intolerably conceited she is about her charms.” Tullia shrugged one polished shoulder. “I suppose she had a right to it, given how quickly she managed to snare a wealthy protector to set her up in her own house. Valdo Valdone has always had a soft spot for the charms of youth.”
“Was—” Bianca quickly corrected herself, “—is he the man she is to marry?”
Tullia laughed aloud. “Decidedly not. Isabella’s fiancé, if we are to take her at her word, is a young patrician from an old family with fine prospects. She fished a piece of his hair out of a locket she was wearing, and it was certainly not the gray, wiry substance that still covers a small part of Valdo’s pate. Indeed, I suspect this is why she has gone away, to avoid a confrontation between her old paramour and her new. If Valdo were to find out that she was planning to marry, no doubt he would cut her off without a ducat or challenge the fiancé to a duel. Or quite possibly both. In either event, it would provide fodder for the gossip mills, not at all the way one would want to begin life as a patrician wife.”
Bianca’s mind was filled with questions, but she knew asking too many would arouse Tullia’s suspicions. She finally selected one as the most important. “Did she happen to tell you the name of her bridegroom?”
“Surely, bellissima, you know Isabella better than that. The woman who was too vain and petty to have even a single female as a maid for fear her lovers’ eyes would stray? No, she would rather have given up those glossy eyelashes of hers than reveal his name to the grasping likes of me.”
Bianca could only laugh at Tullia’s inapt description of herself, although the information that accompanied it did leave her in a bit of a tight spot. The identity of Isabella’s fiancé could at least give Bianca a place to start her inquiry. She decided, at the risk of seeming overcurious, to pursue it one more time. “Have you any idea who it could be?”
“Given the color of the hair in the locket—blond bordering on a light brown—no more than one half of the patriciate, I would say. Eliminating those who are neither young nor promising, that leaves roughly three hundred possible candidates. That’s assuming she spoke the truth about his prospects. Elsewise we shall have to include all those without promising prospects, and that at least doubles the total.” Tullia saw the color die in Bianca’s face and decided to be more serious. “But there are probably only ten or so who see Isabella regularly, not counting her protector. Off the top of my head I can think of Sergio Franceschino, Lodivico Terreno, Brunaldo Bartolini, Giulio Cresci, your cousin Angelo and your brother, Giovanni. Oh, and of course, the feathers in Isabella’s cap, two of the Arboretti, Tristan del Moro and Crispin Foscari.”
Without thinking, Bianca blurted, “What about Crispin’s brother, Ian?”
Tullia laughed again and fluttered a hand. “It is funny you should ask about him. No, Isabella is not his type at all. She is too vivacious and, well, too insipid for the intellectual and brooding Conte d’Aosto. Her childlike naivete and innocence, considered her chief assets by most of her lovers, would grate on his nerves like an out-of-tune viola. His tastes run to the more mature, like me. Indeed, I am expecting him any moment.”
Bianca gaped at her friend, realized what she was doing, and tried to close her mouth. Swallowing deeply, she willed her heart to go back to its proper place instead of trying to crawl out her throat. She thought back to the pleasure with which she had watched Tullia’s preparations for her client and felt the nausea of the morning return with reinforcements. Her sole desire was flight.
“I see. Oh, my, then I really must not keep you.” She extended a hand, relieved to see it was not trembling. “Thank you for giving me so much of your time. You have been most helpful, Tullia, and it was a pleasure as always to see you.”
Tullia, busy arranging the folds of her dressing gown so they seemed to reveal more than they concealed, did not notice Bianca’s agitation. “If there is anything more I can do for you, bellissima, please rush over or send for me. You know I always wait on your pleasure.” She took Bianca’s extended hand and gave her a feathery kiss on the palm.
Bianca had not quite reached the door when it opened of its own accord to admit Daphne. “His Lordship is here, madam. Shall I send him up?”
Tullia nodded and then frowned at Bianca. “Your reputation will not benefit in the least from encountering a nobleman on the stairs of this house, my dear. No, that would be a travesty.” Bianca, stunned into immobility, could not have agreed more.
“That armoire,” Tullia spoke rapidly as she gestured toward a large, glass-fronted piece of furniture in a corner, “is the door to a passage that leads directly to the canal. But if you are not in a hurry, you may stay and watch, in secret, from behind its glass panels. I had them specially made for a client of mine with rather unusual tastes, and now I find that I work better when I know someone is watching. Especially someone as delicious as you are, bellissima.”
Their conference was cut short by the sound of footsteps in the hall. Bianca quickly concealed herself in the armoire, closing its door at the precise moment the door to the room opened. She ordered herself to turn and leave, but could not bring herself to turn away from the scene being played out before her eyes. She watched as Ian approached Tullia, kissing her hand, and presented her with a small wooden box embossed with the initials of one of Venice’s foremost goldsmiths. He looked superb, his hair slightly tousled from the wind outside, his doublet cut to accentuate the poetic lines of his body. Bianca could see only Tullia’s back, but her exclamation of joyful surprise came clearly through the armoire. Taking the enormous emerald earrings from the box, Tullia moved toward the mirror and held them up to her face. Ian moved behind her and stood, watching impassively as she replaced the pearls with his gift. She reached around and pulled Ian’s hand up to one of her breasts, slipping it inside the lace dressing gown as she leaned her body against his. Then she craned her neck around and gave him a deep kiss of gratitude.
Ian inhaled deeply as his hand strayed from her soft breast. He was pleased that she had remembered that he liked her in gardenia, and felt the exorbitant sum he had spent on the ear
rings was well justified. He gently nudged her back to the chaise, removing the dressing gown from her shoulders as she walked by him. He ran his hands along her body, kneading her soft buttocks, caressing her peach thighs, exploring each curve and every silky inch of flesh. Then he motioned her to sit before him and led her hand to his groin, at her eye level.
“It has been a long time, Tullia, but you are looking better than ever.
Tullia responded to his flattery by deftly unhooking the laces of his hose, to liberate his organ from the tight fabric encasing it. He smiled as she reached for his thick shaft, but leaned over to stop her before she took him in her mouth. Usually he enjoyed her intimate touches but today something was different, wrong. There was something missing.
Bianca could see only Tullia’s back as she undressed Ian, but she had a clear view of her betrothed. She watched, unable to move or even to breathe, as his lips curled into a faint smile when Tullia ran her hands over his body, and although she could not hear the words they exchanged, she was sure she heard him sigh with pleasure. She had never witnessed anything of the kind before, and she felt a certain amount of awe, mingled with jealousy. But overlying all of these was the deepest sense of loneliness and self-doubt she had ever known. Why wasn’t that her, why wasn’t it her body Ian was embracing, her mouth he was kissing, her damp heat he was plundering? She had offered herself up to Ian, for free, and he had scoffed at her and pushed her aside. Was she so hateful, so unsightly that he had to toss her away like a sack of rubbish? Would she ever know the feel of his hands on her body, of his lips on hers? Or of any man’s, ever? Hardly holding back the tears that threatened to pour out, she turned and made her way down to the canal.
As Bianca left, the couple in the room was moving toward the elaborately hung bed. Perhaps he just was not in the mood for foreplay, Ian reasoned with himself, desperate to understand what was happening to him. For the price of two large emeralds, Ian knew he had bought at least four hours of sensual attention, still an outlandish cost but hopefully worth it. It was medicinal, he told himself, he was taking a cure for the unnerving fantasies that had begun to plague his waking and sleeping moments.