Page 2 of Vengeance in Venice (Murder in Moonlight #6)

“Oh, no, the police will do nothing. They are mostly in Savelli’s pocket. I come with you.” The man kept pace with Solomon, although he limped somewhat. “We shall steal her back. At the very least, Savelli will release her in exchange for me.”

Solomon did not waste breath on further speech until the three of them were in the boat and Alvise was rowing them up the Rio di Luca, turning into the Rio della Vesti.

By the boat’s light, he could more clearly see the face of his ally, wiping the blood off his cheek and chin.

The sleeve of his coat was slashed, and there was blood around the torn knee of his trousers.

“Who are you and who has taken my wife?” Solomon demanded.

He was hanging on to his intellect by a thread as the nightmare threatened to engulf him in sheer panic.

It all felt too eerily familiar—disappearance, loss, fear—and yet it had sprung out of a moment of pure happiness, of the kind she had once wished for him, back when they first met…

Focus, fool—this will not help her.

His rather battered ally was speaking. “I am Ludovico Giusti, a gentleman of Venice. I believe your wife was taken by the men of Angelo Savelli, like those who attacked me. We are…enemies.”

“Who is this Savelli?”

Giusti’s lip curled. “A rather wealthy so-called gentleman of Venice. As he has clearly demonstrated this night that he has no honor. He is a traitor, collaborating with the Austrians, with whom he always sides, even when we had the chance of freedom.”

Along with most of the rest of Europe, Venice had erupted in revolution in 1848, only five years ago, and thrown their Austrian overlords out of the city.

The newly proclaimed republic had enjoyed only a brief moment of victory and liberal self-government, however, for just like all the others of that year, the Venetian revolution had been swept aside, and the city reconquered—by the forces of foreign oppression, according to the defeated, or by the legitimate government, according to the winners.

“We are British, and not involved in your political quarrels,” Solomon said, with less sympathy than he might have acknowledged had Constance been by his side.

“Oh, our quarrels are more than political,” Giusti said with a grimace.

“They go back many years and involve jewels and faithless women and betrayals of all kinds. He has the woman. I have a jewel or too. It seems he wants everything. This little attack was meant to scare me, to force me to give him what he wants. Now he thinks your wife is his trump card.” Giusti flashed a smile that was oddly attractive, even with his fattened lip. “He is right, for I am in your debt.”

“But what has my wife to do with any of this?”

Giusti shrugged. “Nothing, of course. You ran to my aid, as though we are friends. She was with you. No doubt the fools imagined you are her bodyguard, her servant whom she sent to protect me.”

Perhaps it would have been funny, without the violence, without the desperation. “This enemy of yours made the decision that you are my wife’s lover on the basis that we just happened to see your being attacked on our way home from the opera?”

Giusti’s darting gaze returned to Solomon, his eyebrows raised.

For a moment Solomon thought he was about to ask which opera they had seen, but instead Giusti said, “Savelli himself was not there. He is not so stupid. His men are mere…” He struggled for the English word and gave up.

“ Guardie del corpo mercenarie, condottiere , hired as guards to do his dirty work so that his hands remain clean.”

Contempt seemed to drip from his lips, which did nothing to allay Solomon’s anguish.

The thought of Constance in the hands of such people was unbearable, even knowing she had her own ways of dealing with them.

Here she was, in a foreign country, able to speak very little of the language and with no knowledge of the local customs, and according to Giusti, they regarded her as the enemy.

“How much further?” Solomon asked between his teeth.

Giusti threw some instructions over his shoulder at Alvise, who nodded acknowledgment.

Giusti grinned at Solomon as though they were upon some grand adventure.

His eyes were almost dancing with excitement.

The overall effect, on a face beginning to bruise and swell, with traces of blood smeared across it, was almost grotesque, and made Solomon wish very hard that he had gone straight to the city authorities.

Why had he relied on this stranger who quite clearly had his own agenda of quarrels and spite?

“We go in the back way,” Giusti explained. “Take him by surprise. No one will expect us so soon…”

*

It was a long time since Constance had been so frightened.

When they had forced the gag in her mouth and yanked the wide hood of her opera cloak fully over her face like an impenetrable cowl through which she could see nothing but shadows, she had known this was more than a random street robbery.

She was being abducted, kidnapped, for reasons she could only guess at. All of them terrified her.

Her whole body shook, because she was powerless as they dragged her through streets.

She knew they passed other people, and yet she could not beg for help, could not break free.

She trembled with shame at that helplessness, as well as with fury.

They held her so tightly between them, walking so fast that her feet barely touched the ground.

She probably looked like an errant wife being returned to her family.

When she tried to shake her head free of the hood, one of them held it closed. Fear had cut off her ability to think, even her wish to think beyond her silent screams of Solomon!

And more abjectly, Help me!

Somewhere she was aware that her abduction must be related to the attack on the stranger. And she didn’t even know if Solomon was alive. How had their happiness broken so suddenly into this…? Whatever this was.

She was half carried down some steps and then recognized that she was in a boat on the water.

She heard the splash of oars and came to the decision that she would throw herself over the side to escape.

Her skirts would quickly hamper her, of course, but with her arms free, surely she could at least attract help…

She was never given the opportunity, for her captors never released her for a moment.

She had tried alternately going limp in their hold and struggling ferociously, but at least one of them always held on, and their grip only tightened.

Her arms would be black and blue from the cruel grasp of their fingers, designed to intimidate as well as to hurt.

At least they had not struck her—not beyond an early buffet to her hooded head, which she had taken as a warning shot and ignored.

Their voices were rough when they spoke together in rapid Italian.

She barely understood a word of it, and none of it gave her any clues as to what was happening to her.

She began to think she was safe as long as they were on the water, and dreaded their arrival.

The filthy rag in her mouth had been tied in place now and dried her throat unbearably.

All part of the nightmare, and yet she would gladly suffer it all if only Solomon lived…

Abruptly, she was moving again, hauled off the wobbling boat and dragged up a couple of steps. She was indoors, and her fear sharpened.

Oh God, why can I not even think?

There were more stairs, and the vague smell of damp faded. Although she could not see where she was, she knew there was light, and whatever building they were in was substantial, for she and her captors walked side by side without difficulty.

She heard a door open and was dragged inside another well-lit room. Still her captors did not release her, and most terrifying of all, rapid footsteps approached, and she felt her captors tense.

She wished she could stop shaking. She needed to be aware enough, swift enough to grasp the first opportunity to escape… Only how, when she could neither see nor speak?

Despair swamped even the fear, and then another presence entered the room, snapping questions at her captors, one of whom released a torrent of words.

Without warning, her bruised arms were released, and yet there was no point in throwing herself toward where she knew the door to be, because the newcomer stood right in front of her, blocking some of the light.

Her hood was pulled back, away from her face, and she screwed up her eyes against the sudden glare.

She heard the intake of the newcomer’s breath, and then a blast of furious Italian.

Her gag was untied by the newcomer, and she spat and dragged the disgusting rag from her mouth.

The man in front of her spoke again. “ Mi scusi, signora .”

That, at least, she could understand. She stared at him. He was no thug in appearance, but a well-dressed gentleman with a neat beard and turbulent eyes, though she had the impression his anger was not directed at her but at his minions, whom he banished from the room with an angry snap.

“No,” Constance said, all the more furious because her words came out hoarse and faint. “I do not excuse you, and—” She broke off, coughing, and her captor, muttering under his breath, strode to a jug on a pretty inlaid table and poured a glass of water, which he brought to her.

She would have loved to dash it in his face, but she needed the drink, and she needed answers to the questions clamoring to form in her shaken mind.

She drank. And looked about her. The room had grand proportions and had once probably been handsome, although now it bore signs of neglect, such as chipped, faded paint, and smelled somehow unused.

There were no pictures on the wall, no carpets on the floor.

It was sparsely furnished with two chairs and the small table. Was this to be her prison?

“You are English?” her captor said.

It spoke volumes for her weakened state that she was actually grateful he spoke her language. “I am. And suddenly I think very ill of Venetian hospitality.”

“I am not surprised. I can only apologize once more for your rough treatment. Please, sit.”

Again, she wanted to remain standing, but she needed to recover her physical strength more than retain her pride. At least he did not touch her, merely indicated the ornate chair closest to where she stood. She sank into it and took another sip of water. He remained standing.

A new possibility occurred to her. “Are you the police ?”

His eyebrows flew up. “No, I am a private citizen.”

“In my country, you would be charged with kidnapping and hanged.”

“I should not go unpunished in mine, either. My fools misunderstood their orders and acted on their own initiative. Never a happy event. However, they associate you with one Ludovico Giusti, whom I think you know?”

The apology had faded from his eyes, leaving them hard and watchful.

“I do not,” said Constance. “I have been in the city a matter of days.”

“And yet you sent your men to the aid of Giusti.”

She tilted her chin. “ My husband sent himself to the aid of a man being attacked in the street by at least four others. If these were your men…”

“Giusti has something of mine. Of my wife’s. I need it returned.”

Constance stared at him. “So you send your thugs to beat him in the street? Is there no law in this city?”

To her surprise, a hint of color seeped into his cheeks. He seemed to be a serious, rather stiff man, and yet he was not old, surely not much over thirty.

“There is, of course,” he said awkwardly. “But some things go beyond law. To honor.”

“What honor is there is four men beating another to steal from him? In abducting a woman alone because her husband and servant had gone to the aid of the poor victim?”

“Giusti is no victim,” he snapped. “And he is the thief, not I. My question is, what were you and your husband even doing there, since you claim not to know Giusti?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Returning from the opera.”

He blinked, as though that were the last answer he had expected. “Which theatre?” he barked at last.

She arched her eyebrows. “La Fenice.”

“What did you hear?”

“Verdi’s new work, La Traviata . And what business is this of yours?”

The man dragged his fingers through his hair. “None,” he said bitterly. His shoulders slumped. “Clearly none. Allow me to escort you to wherever you are staying.”

For a stunned moment, she was speechless. Her jaw probably dropped. “I would not allow you to escort me from the room. Where is my husband?”

He actually looked flustered. “I do not know. My men ran off, frightened of being identified when your boatman joined the fray. They mistook your husband for your servant.”

Then he was alive, surely he was alive… Emotion burst into words. “He is no one’s servant. Your men must be imbeciles. You may hire me a boatman entirely unconnected to you.”

“Madam, if I am seen hiring another boatman for a lady…” he began, clearly startled. “Consider my wife—”

“Did you consider her when you abducted me? How is that compatible with respect while fetching me a safe means of transport is not? I owe you no consideration, and neither does my husband—who, if he lives, must be searching frantically for me!”

His eye twitched. But he said only, “Everything I do is for my wife. I have apologized for my mistake. Let me send you in my own boat—with a maidservant for your comfort and respectability. She and the boatman will stay with you until you are returned to your husband. I can only apologize once more for the rough treatment of my men, who are indeed imbeciles.”

It was the best offer she was likely to get. And considering what she had feared during her journey here, she should thank God fasting he was letting her go at all.

Part of her wanted to refuse and rail and threaten him with the police and the British consul and the full prosecution of the law. But she had no cards to play here except his apparent goodwill, which was bizarre in the circumstances and could easily change.

Sense prevailed. She said, “Then lend me your boat and your servants.”