Any other night...

  Her breathing charged ahead and she struggled to calm it and complete her tale. Milly’s winged brows drew closer and closer together, her eyes narrowed with anger.

  ‘I wish you had conked that slimy slug over the head, Phoebe. Though it is probably best you didn’t. At least not until we’re done here. Then I’ll happily do it for you.’

  Phoebe smiled. ‘That is sweet of you, but threatening him was bad enough. Never mind that now. Tell me how it went with Alexei instead.’

  Milly sighed and sank onto the armchair, kicking off her slippers. ‘Ugh. He’s another noxious slug, always drooling over my jewels as he moans about his miserly father and ugly wife. Poor woman. I shan’t have any qualms about framing him for stealing von Haas’s documents. It is good we are coming to the end of this mission. Between him and Clapton, there are too many toads in this swamp...’ She paused, her sharp gaze fixing on Phoebe. ‘By the way, just how did darling Dominic come to be there so fortuitously?’

  Phoebe frowned. Now Milly mentioned it... Only moments before he had been surrounded by a bevy of attentive beauties in the ballroom... And suddenly there he was.

  ‘I... I don’t know. He said something about searching for brandy.’

  ‘There was plenty of brandy on hand in the card rooms. Enough for a battalion. I know because Alexei was enjoying it earlier. Did he follow you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t imagine why. I’m not certain he even knew I was there that evening. He certainly seemed surprised to find us in that room. I didn’t think of it at the time.’

  ‘I dare say you didn’t if you were reduced to brandishing a candelabra. Perhaps he saw you rushed out of there by one of the slug’s minions and he’s seen that manoeuvre before and came to the rescue. If so, that is impressively chivalrous of him.’

  Phoebe went to the sofa and sat down. It might be nothing at all. Perhaps he had noticed her called away and... For a moment she could almost feel him standing behind her, his eyes dark, brooding, watchful. Milly wasn’t methodical, but she had very sound intuitions about people. When she smelled a rat it was best to check under the sofa.

  Phoebe let the thought enter and settle. She’d already accepted that Dominic was a mass of contradictions. And lies. Perhaps there were more than she’d even realised. She’d attributed her difficulty in seeing him clearly to the unfortunate attraction that afflicted her, but perhaps it was not that. Or not merely that...

  ‘What are you thinking, love?’ Milly asked in tones utterly unlike those she employed in public.

  ‘I don’t know. You are right that something is off about him. I can’t put my finger on it, though.’

  ‘You will. You always do. What do you always tell me? Don’t push against a door that won’t open. Let it be and search for ways around it and often it swings open of its own accord. Right now we shall concentrate on making you as pretty as a picture for our excursion to the royal gardens with your icy giant von Haas this afternoon. You shall have quite a bit of him over the next few days, no? Charming him at the gardens today and keeping an eye on him at the Imperial residence ball the day after tomorrow while I sneak into his office. A delightful evening’s excursion.’

  Phoebe smiled. There was nothing quite as familiar and comforting as plotting a break-in. That was all she must concentrate on at the moment—charming von Haas sufficiently to discover how best to enter the Procuratie without being caught. Everything else must be set aside.

  But once they were done she would take her fate in her hands and try and seduce the most desired and elusive and confusing man in Venice.

  Phoebe let out a long breath. She must be quite, quite mad.

  Chapter Sixteen

  All men were boys. And slightly mad.

  This was Phoebe’s conclusion as she stepped onto Campo San Polo the following day. Or rather pressed and shoved her way through the roaring, rumbling, and cursing crowd.

  Why had she even come? This was no place for a foreign woman to wander. Only an idiot like her would have come here on her own.

  An idiot or a woman bent on propositioning one of the players.

  She hadn’t even told Milly where she was going. After their successful afternoon enjoying von Haas’s gracious hospitality at the Giardini Reali, which had included a short tour of the Procuratie buildings themselves, she reasoned she’d earned a day off. Especially given what awaited them tomorrow.

  Milly was well accustomed to Phoebe’s need to spend time alone and knew she thought best while prowling. Usually Phoebe would wander until her mind cleared, absorbing the streets and alleys, and then return. But today she left with a destination in mind.

  She was going to Campo San Polo to watch grown men play a game she knew nothing about other than that it involved a ball and apparently a great deal of violence.

  Why? Because she was a fool and she wished to see Dominic. She’d seen neither hide nor hair of him since he’d slipped out of her window the day before and a few careful questions had ascertained he hadn’t slept at the Gioconda. No one found this unusual though, as Lord Wrexham was expected to hop between bedrooms.

  Phoebe knew this image he portrayed was not strictly true and yet she didn’t know what to put in its place. There was part of her that hoped watching him play football might give her a clue as to who he really was.

  And whether she was mad to be considering propositioning him. Again.

  She let out a frustrated huff and several men looked over their shoulder and made way for her, eyes wide. Apparently there were advantages to being a foreign woman in this tangle of shoving and cursing men and Phoebe took full advantage to make her way mercilessly to the front of the crowd.

  She reached a line of makeshift wooden fences that enclosed part of the square and the cheering crowds. To the right there were several groups of people standing high on tables or on two large stone wells, and all around people filled the windows, calling out encouragement or curses.

  Phoebe spotted Dominic immediately and almost as immediately regretted it. He stood some ten yards from her, hands on his hips, laughing at something one of the players was saying. He wore vivid blue breeches, tall dark boots, and nothing else.

  Phoebe swallowed.

  His muscled arms and chest were slick with sweat and bronzed by the sun to a lovely pale wood colour. His hair was dark with damp and the sun picked out traces of mahogany, like a fire smouldering deep below the surface. There were smears of dirt along his back and even from here she could see a livid bruise on his shoulder. At one point he must have been wearing a shirt because its tattered remnants hung from his belt like a storm-torn sail. A blue ribbon was tied around his left arm, its tails fluttering. He looked like a pirate after a battle that had ended in his favour.

  This was such a mistake.

  She truly did not need these images engraved into her mind. She had more than enough to torture herself with. She forced herself to inspect the rest of the square. A knot of other players seemed to be arguing with a man she surmised must be the game’s official as he was the only one wearing puffy black and yellow striped breeches.

  There was another man in the discussion, but this one was dressed as fine as any dandy and Phoebe recognised Donatello Luzzatti. He appeared to be playing peacemaker, his hand gestures calming, and soon the reds and blues moved away and the judge raised a leather ball. Signor Luzzatti ambled back towards the crowd and before she could withdraw he caught sight of her and turned in her direction, his gaze intent.

  There was an audible murmur from several men beside her and they slipped away, leaving her for a moment as exposed as Andromeda tied to her stone by the shores of Joppa. Phoebe’s heart was already pounding uncomfortably and now it accelerated further, this time with apprehension. But as he reached her, Signor Luzzatti’s face lit with a charming smile.

  ‘My dear Miss Brimford. You came!’ he said, quite as if he had extended an invitation himself. ‘You shall witness a triumph. Our friend Domenico is in good form and he and my boy have done well this day. Come, you shall sit with me.’

  Phoebe had no choice but to follow, the crowd parting for them like a sinuous Red Sea. He led her to a raised tribune halfway down the square and shooed away a plump official so she could take a seat next to him. She thanked him, very self-conscious to be watched by so many of the crowd, but just then there was a cry as the judge set the ball in motion once more and no one wasted another thought for her. Including her.

  It was horrible. And strangely, unnervingly, beautiful.

  First, everyone seemed to want to kill Dominic. Well, everyone looked as if they wanted to kill everyone else, but it was only Dominic’s fate that worried her in the slightest.

  And the mystery of it was that they all seemed to be having a marvellous time trying to kill each other. And all for a silly, dirty leather ball.

  Men.

  ‘There were once bullfights here,’ Donatello said, raising his voice above the cacophony. ‘The last one was twenty years ago, but then a bull in a frenzy attacked the tribune and the cowardly officials decided that was that, no more bulls. So now we have this. But it is better, yes?’

  Phoebe watched the mayhem before them—men running, cursing, pushing, falling, taking swings at each other.

  ‘Better for the bulls,’ she muttered, but thankfully his son Pietro had just kicked the ball into the opponent’s tent and the cheers drowned out her words.

  Totally against her will her mind began following the horrid little ball, her body straining and flinching as if she’d become that round sack of leather. She began to see that different players had different roles. There were burly fellows who tried to block and stop others and capture the ball from them, and then agile, swift players who ran with it and tried to kick it into what she gathered was the object of the game—a tent-like structure with the enemy’s coloured flag on it. Dominic and Pietro Luzzatti were in the latter camp. Pietro was slight and swift as a fox, slipping between the others as if he was greased, which perhaps he was.

  She registered all this, but her attention was wholly on Dominic.

  It wasn’t by choice. She did her best to detach her gaze from him, but it was drawn back each time. He and Pietro appeared to control the last stage of every battle. Every time he took possession of the ball it felt to Phoebe as if the red team converged on him like a swarm of wasps and her stomach tangled into a knot of knots.

  He was quick, but it was his calculation that was more effective than his speed, he seemed to always gauge where there were openings, and when they closed on him he passed the ball with precision to Pietro, even if he was halfway across the field. The moment the ball left him so did the swarm and Phoebe could breathe again.

  It felt like hours.

  Finally, Donatello glanced at his pocket watch and muttered.

  ‘Five minutes to the hour. Come on, Pietro. One more for your father.’ He glanced up at the sky. ‘For you too, Father.’

  By some signal the players were also made aware of the time and there was a rush of renewed energy. The blue team secured the ball just feet away from their tent and it was passed along with more brutality than usual. She tensed when it was passed to Dominic and she watched him weave, his gaze scanning the players, searching for openings, giving orders to the men assigned to keep his path clear.

  She could sense the moment he felt Pietro was well positioned behind a wall of blue players preparing just for this. But just as he was poised to kick the ball an enormous bull of a man crashed through the two men protecting him and, with a roar of rage audible above the din, threw himself towards Dominic like a starved lion being let loose from a cage. Phoebe’s body clenched in total panic. Dominic was large and well-muscled, but being tackled from behind by a roaring beast would surely kill him.

  She cried out and Signor Luzzatti shushed her just as two equally well-endowed fellows tackled the incoming man, inches away from Dominic and seconds before his leg shot out, raising the ball into the air and carrying it over a wall of men and directly towards the running form of Luzzatti’s son, who with a deft twist of his foot sent it into the tent.

  The crowd rose as one with a great roar and an answering chorus of boos from the red team. Luzzatti was on his feet, stamping them like a delighted boy, cheering at the top of his lungs. A chant of ‘Pietro i Domenico!’ set up, louder and louder. Phoebe found herself on her feet, too, laughing and cheering with the rest.

  ‘Bravo, Dominic!’

  There was no possible way he could have heard her voice amidst the din but just then Dominic turned, the sun coursing over his bare chest like a spray of gold tossed at him, his hand halfway through scrubbing back his damp, tousled hair.

  Her breath caught mid-cheer.

  A great rushing sound replaced the cheering crowd, a biblical wind filling the world and muting everything else. Goosebumps rose on her arms.

  She was saved from herself by the judge calling the end of the game. The crowd streamed into the campo, clapping backs and cheering. They picked up Pietro and carried him to the tribune, where he laughed up at his beaming father. They surrounded Dominic as well and drew him and the other players to the tribune to receive Donatello’s blessing.

  ‘I brought you a gift, yes, Domenico?’ Donatello motioned to Phoebe. She felt ridiculous and was certain she was blushing like a schoolgirl, but the men standing around them appeared delighted at this unexpectedly medieval twist to their victory.

  ‘Give your lady the ribbon!’ Someone called out and the others chimed in. Dominic’s gaze caught hers, the blue as vivid as the silk ribbon adhered to his arm.

  ‘It is a trifle damp, but all in a good cause,’ Dominic said as he tugged it loose and held it out. A shiver of fear struck her as she looked down at the slash of blue laying across his palm. She ought never to have come. What had she been thinking? Why hadn’t she been thinking? This was foolish, dangerous...

  ‘You’re about to shame me before half of Venice, which shall promptly inform the other half, you know.’

  She looked up swiftly at his words. He was still smiling, but the wariness was back in his gaze. She knew she hadn’t the strength of mind to be sensible, not when he looked like that—caught between happiness and hurt. She took a deep breath and held out her hand.

  ‘I shall be honoured to carry your team’s colours, damp or not. Thank you, Dominic.’

  His chest rose and fell as he took her hand. His hands were rough with grit and yet as gentle on hers as if he’d picked up a chick fallen from a nest. Hers shivered a little in his and she called it to order. Calm.

  He tied a blue bow about her wrist and then raised her hand to his mouth. His lips were warm, his breath still fast and hard and a shiver of pure anticipation raced through her. Then he raised her arm a little to show the crowd, which set loose a cheer almost as loud as at the winning strike.

  They stood there, amid the mix of Venetian nobility and citizens, engulfed in the exuberant chatter, but all Phoebe was aware of was her hand in Dominic’s as he helped her off the tribune and that he did not let it go. It was shockingly improper. Her being here at all was shockingly improper. It went counter to everything her image was supposed to portray, to all of Uncle Jack’s and Oswald’s training, and yet she couldn’t find it in herself to care.

  Later she would be proper Miss Brimford once more and at night she would become the Zephyr once again. But right now she was only Phoebe who was bursting with joy that he was holding her hand as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Right now she was...happy.

  So this was love.

  She could almost hear Milly answer her, eyes rolling.

  ‘I don’t know about love, but it most certainly is some marvellous lust. I mean, just look at his chest. And those shoulders... And his arms... I mean, good lord, child!’

  It is more than that, I’m afraid, Milly.

  Love had tackled her like that great big lion man, throwing her hard to the paving stones, and it kept kicking her where it hurt just when she thought she was beginning to pick herself up again.

  But it was also wonderful.

  Dominic turned from his animated discussion with the Luzzattis, who kept clapping him and Pietro on the back, his gaze catching hers, a drop of perspiration slipping from his temple over his sun-warmed cheekbone. His eyes narrowed and for the briefest of moments his tongue just touched his lower lip, reminding her what it felt like on hers. Her stomach clenched, followed by a rush of heat setting up a pulsing tattoo between her legs and turning her breasts tender and tingling. If he’d wanted to kiss her right then, she probably wouldn’t have said a word, couldn’t have.

  His hand tightened, drawing her closer, and when he bent towards her she turned her face up, stupid and hopeful.

  ‘There’s nothing for it but for you to come to the celebration, Phoebe. Donatello and Pietro will expect that now. But stay close to me at all times; after that little show the crowd will know not to touch you for fear of upsetting Donatello, but they’ll soon be good and drunk and they can be...handsy.’

  She nodded, his practical words waking her abruptly from her sensual stupor. She nodded again, this time to herself. Wake up, fool. Enjoy it for what it is, but remember what it isn’t. This was not the time or the place to start believing in fairy tales.

  As they followed the Luzzattis, someone tossed Dominic a white linen shirt and she watched in regret as he slipped it over his head. But he took her hand again, this time threading his fingers through hers.

  They had not far to go. An old, rather bare palazzo had been set up as a banqueting hall and long tables were loaded with food and drink. The Luzzattis had pride of place and she and Dominic were seated next to Donatello and across from Pietro.

  There was a great deal of laughter and drinking and toasts, and Phoebe had a marvellous time, not least because her thigh was firmly pressed against Dominic’s under the table for most of the meal.

 

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