Grave Consequences (Grand Tour Series #2) (43 page)

“That is good,” he whispered back. “For if you were not confused, then you would be decided. And until I know that you will decide for me, I am in no rush at all.”

I rose suddenly. “I must retire for the evening. Good night, Pierre.”

“Au revoir, mon amie,” he said, giving me a gentle smile, not reaching for me, as if he knew such a move would send me running. “Until tomorrow.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

~Cora~

After sailing to Torcello, the birthplace of Venezia, we’d been invited to a count’s home along the Grand Canal to dine that night before attending the Teatro la Fenice, an opera house known the world over. I was so weary, I thought I might fall asleep in my consommé, but as I donned one of my prettiest gowns and Anna did my hair, I felt a resurgence of spirit, eager to see another palazzo along the canal, as well as to experience an opera. The count sent many gondolas to fetch us, and my father insisted I ride with Pierre, alone, en route to the palazzo. “Simply do as I’ve asked for once, Cora,” he said when I opened my mouth to suggest I ride with the younger girls instead.

I frowned but accepted Pierre’s arm, wondering if this was a new attempt to bait the trap, to draw out our would-be kidnapper. Why did the men not confide in me? Did I not deserve to know, more than any other, if I was indeed their target? And did I truly wish for a life as a “target”? Who else might come after me, once the world knew me as a true heiress? I had a very serious desire to board the next ship for home and take my lumps as they came. If it weren’t for my father’s threat of removing my mama and papa from the deed if I didn’t do as he said…

I studied the water as we headed out. Who was to say that he would truly do it? Did he not desire a harmonious relationship with me? One between me and my siblings? Why had I kowtowed to his every demand? Did I not have rights of my own?

“Pierre,” I said softly.

He turned to me. “Yes?”

“Do you know of a good estate attorney here in Venezia? One who might be able to advise me of my rights in regard to my new holdings in America?”

He considered me and my request for a moment and then gave me a single slow nod. “What is it you wish to know?”

“Many things,” I said, turning back to the water. “Many, many things.”

“May I be of assistance? Advice?”

“Perhaps,” I said gently. “In time. Or perhaps this is for me to find out on my own.”

The water reflected the coral and pink tones of the setting sun, giving the canal a particularly soft, romantic look. The gondolier followed three ahead of us, pulling in toward a magnificent white palazzo with long windows along the first three levels and smaller ones on the fourth
piano
as well. Two men in Arabian dress awaited the guests, assisting us out and onto the stairs that led to the receiving hall. Admiring their silk turbans and balloon-like pants flowing in the wind, I felt as if I were entering a home even more exotic than any other I’d yet visited.

Pierre took my arm, and we climbed the stairs, which opened into a courtyard, much as it did in the palazzo in which we were residing. But here, the occupants had filled every inch of the walls with rich, dark oil paintings, and in the walkway in front of the paintings was sculpture after sculpture.

Pierre pulled me toward the Conte and Contessa Biviglio, our hosts for the evening. They were homely nobles with bulbous noses and wide bodies testifying to long, languid evenings filled with delicacies and ample wine. But their smiles and welcoming manner did nothing but endear them to me. “Ah, it is the newest Signorina Kensington,” the count said, bending to kiss my hand. “You honor us, attending our dinner.”

“It is you who has honored us with your invitation, Conte,” I said, smiling into his brown eyes.

“You shall be the talk of the evening, my dear,” he said, patting my hand and looking over my face as if I were another sculpture he could acquire.

“Oh, but she already is!” laughed the countess, gesturing widely, guileless. “Here on the arm of our friend Pierre, as well as in the pages of magazines and newspapers.”

“It seems my Cora is destined to steal the world’s stage,” Pierre said, casting me an admiring glance.

“Just do not let our opera star hear such things,” whispered the countess, moving on to greet the others behind us.

I giggled. “Far be it from me to ever challenge an opera star for center stage,” I whispered to Pierre.

“No?” he said, bemusement in each handsome line of his face. “You cannot carry a tune? Is this your one fault,
mon ange
?”

“One of many,” I said with a light laugh. I glanced over the crowd and stopped when I saw Lillian and Nell speaking with a tall blond man. Nathan Hawke. The man we’d met in Vienna—the one who had given us his sister’s copy of
Life
. “Let’s attend my sister, shall we?”

Pierre readily agreed, and we moved toward the trio.

“Ah, we meet again, Miss Kensington. This time under happier circumstances, I trust?” Nathan said, bowing toward me and Pierre.

“Indeed. I think we’re all eager to put that evening behind us.”

“Understandably,” he said with a gentle smile. He cast a flirtier smile in Lillian’s direction. “I was more than delighted to find that I’d run across my newest friends here in the city of love.”

Lil bit her lip and smiled, blushing prettily under his gaze, but my eyes narrowed as I studied him. He seemed charming, kind, but what was he really after? A man as handsome as he could pick his own bud among the gardens. Why my sister? Because of her name?

Pierre turned to take two flutes of champagne from a passing servant, and I checked my thoughts. Since when was I so protective? I searched the crowd again. Since I feared that man had come after my sister and her friend? Or since I decided I loved them both? The flood of emotion in my heart threatened to overwhelm me, and with sudden tears, I looked for Felix, over to Lil, then on to Vivian, Nell, Hugh, and even Andrew.

It was as if God had spoken directly into my heart. I wasn’t ready to leave them all. Indeed, I wanted to be with them to the end. And beyond, back home in Montana. As much as my father wished for me to embrace a relationship with the Kensingtons, I wanted it myself. But how was that to be accomplished when I so hungered for the chance to make decisions of my own? To carve my own path rather than simply dutifully follow the dictates of my father?

Wait…and trust.

I watched as Nathan whispered something into Lillian’s ear and she smiled up at him with adoration in her eyes as he passed her a glass of champagne. Was he not far too old for her? Where was my father, anyway? Why wasn’t he looking after Lillian as he did for me and Vivian?

Vivian moved into our circle then, clearly intent on ferreting out the same information I’d been considering drawing from this Mr. Nathan Hawke. I breathed a sigh of relief. Viv had the tenacity—and the place in our family—to do what I could not. Warn Hawke to tread very carefully with our baby sister…

I turned with a smile to acknowledge Pierre’s gesture toward the others, now filtering to a far room to be seated for dinner. “He’s not here, our enemy,” he whispered in my ear. “Rest, mon amie, and enjoy.” But all through our many courses, from the salted sardines to the mussels in rich broth, from the delicately cooked beef to the pasta flavored—and colored—with oily black squid ink, my attention was on Nathan, who was flirting with my sister at every turn.

It wasn’t that Lil was ugly. She was slender, and comely enough with her bright green eyes. But I’d been in social circles such as this all summer long. And I’d never seen a man as devilishly handsome as Nathan Hawke take up with a girl like her unless there was money involved. The same went for beautiful women taking up with plain-looking men. Generally speaking, it was money, and on rare occasion character, that bridged the gap. At some point tonight or tomorrow, I intended to find out just where Hawke had hailed from and what his prospects were. And what Vivian had found out.

He took a sip of wine and saw me staring at him. He lifted his goblet in a small, silent toast, giving me a warm, inquisitive look. I continued to smile, letting him think that I was silently flirting back, all while my mind was full of Vivian tearing him apart piece by piece. But my heart went out to Lil. The last thing I wanted was for the girl’s tender heart to be shaken by the conniving wanderings of a man such as this. What had been his true intentions when he handed me that copy of the magazine? Truly to warn me? Or had he simply viewed it as the means to worm his way into our lives?

I had to caution Lil. Make sure Vivian had shaken some sense into her. A girl without a mother was apt to drift in her later teen years, like a ship without a rudder.

We finished with our fine meal, letting the tart crystals of a raspberry sorbet slide down our throats, and then rose to make our departure back toward the theater. The opera would begin in but an hour, its star long departed after her appearance over cocktails. Separated by twenty or so people, I saw Nathan dare to put his hand on my sister’s lower back and bend to whisper in her ear again. He leaned back, cocked a brow, waiting expectantly, and after a moment, she hurriedly nodded, smiling shyly up at him. What was this? A proposal? For what?

They made their way to the edge of the crowd, and when a man began coughing as if he were choking, drawing nearby attention, Nathan grabbed Lil and pulled her into a dark side hallway.

I gasped and took Pierre’s hand, yanking him with me.

“Cora? What is it?”

“Come!” I whispered over my shoulder. “That scoundrel has spirited Lil off for a kiss, I’d wager!”

Pierre laughed, the sound warm and low. “One can hardly blame a man for stealing a kiss from any of the Kensington women.…”

“Pierre!”

“All right, all right,” he soothed. “Be at peace. Let us see to your sister’s honor and be on to the opera. It will be a night she’ll likely remember forever, regardless of what’s actually transpired.”

But as we entered the dark hallway, I blinked in surprise. My skin prickled in fear.

Because it was empty. “Where’d they go?” I whispered, rushing to the end. There was only one door, and my hand went directly to the knob.

“Hold, Cora,” Pierre said, all trace of amusement now gone. He tucked me behind him and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a small revolver. I shook off my surprise over his weapon as he opened the door. We saw that it led down a set of stairs and heard the lapping of waves; it was a sort of servant’s entrance to the canal. A small lamp illuminated a part of a gondola bobbing on the waves.

Pierre hesitated. “Perhaps he only wished for what I myself wished—a gondola ride on a beautiful eve with his lady. Alone.”

“Only you would gain my father’s permission first, yes? I doubt this one has.” He wasn’t one of the kidnappers. It was impossible. This was innocent…in certain measure.

Antonio appeared behind me. “Have either of you seen Miss Lillian?” he said.

“Yes. She disappeared down here. With Nathan Hawke.”

His bushy eyebrows lifted. “Well, regardless of his intent, Mr. Hawke is about to be relieved of her company. Will you permit me?” he asked Pierre, reaching for his own pistol and passing us.

“Stay here,” Pierre said to me, turning to follow Antonio down the dark stairs.

Wringing my hands and fighting the desire to follow, I watched them descend, crouching to see better.

But then a hand clasped over my mouth, and strong arms dragged me back into the dark hallway. A man quietly closed the door to the canal and flipped the lock, then turned to face me, still held in the iron grip of another.

I knew who it was before he fully turned. My kidnapper.

He smiled into my eyes. “Hello, Miss Cora. Did you think you could outrun me forever? Bring her,” he said cavalierly to the man who held me, turning to walk down the hallway, back to the main portion of the palazzo, whistling, hands in his dress jacket’s pockets. He looked like any other nobleman at our table that night.

I prayed that any of the men would come around, looking for us, for Antonio. I glimpsed a small crowd of people to my left, their backs all turned. Had the others not yet missed us? Or did our guardians think we’d simply become lost in the crowd leaving for the opera, somewhere among a hundred gondolas?

My enemy looked one way and then the other, then bent to light a cigarette, giving my captor a casual wave to move ahead. The man held me so tightly against his chest I could barely breathe, my toes inches from the ground. We moved right and through a hidden door and then brazenly past several servants all absorbed in their tasks, their backs to us.

The man laughed lowly as we entered another hall. He looked down at me. I was breathing fast and furiously through my nostrils, trying not to pass out from lack of oxygen. “Miss Cora Diehl Kensington, I am Luc Coltaire,” he said with a little bow. “After all this time, we’d yet to be formally introduced,” he said to his companion, as if it was some great oversight. All humor left his voice with what he said next. “And now you shall come with me, on my arm, smiling. Or you shall see your little sister die.”

Lillian. They had her.

“Come along quietly, and she will be released, unharmed.”

I stared at him, feeling hatred so intense that my heart pounded. After a moment, I nodded.

“Good. Release her.”

He stared hard at me as his companion let me go, waiting for me to try to run, to scream. But I merely straightened and pulled back my shoulders. He stared at me in wry admiration. “Shall we?” I said.

He laughed again and offered his arm. Begrudgingly, I took it, and we followed the huge man who’d held me out of the hall and down into a garden. From a side gate, we entered a narrow alley, the buildings so close together that we had to walk single file, me between the men now. A part of me was giving in to panic. But a larger part of me was surreally relaxed, relieved to finally be here. One way or another, my run-ins with this Luc Coltaire and his minions would end here, this night. Whether I lived or died, it would end tonight.