‘You don’t own me.’ Her words were vehement, but they were only words. There was no substance behind them and they both knew it. At the moment, she had nowhere to run, nowhere to go except with him. She needed a plan. She needed a way to see the silver lining. How could she turn this tragedy into an opportunity? If she could push past the panic that had consumed her at the table; the anger and disbelief that consumed her now, she could find a solution. But the Englishman’s arrogant words made it difficult.
‘Again, I must beg to differ. You’re as much my property as five thousand lire, Signor Bellosi’s gold watch and four diamond stickpins. The only difference is that you’re not as useful. I can’t convert you to cash.’
That did it. If there had been any lingering vestiges of shock, he’d effectively exorcised them. She would not be the pawn of any man again, not the count and certainly not this Englishman who acted as if this were a grand lark. At the bottom of the palazzo’s steep steps, gondolas bobbed on the waters of the canal. The Englishman handed her in and waited patiently for her to sit and arrange her art piece of a dress before joining her on the plush velvet seat. He had manners aplenty, even if he was arrogant, and that was something at least. She would take what she could get. It was starting to sink in just how much danger she was really in. If the money hadn’t protected her, nothing would.
He called out directions to the gondolier. ‘Hotel Danieli, per favore.’ Gianna smiled to herself. He had good manners and good taste, part of his arrogance, she supposed. He was a man who liked the best and perhaps therein lay his flaw. A proud man was blind to his weaknesses. She would exploit them if she had to, as long as he let her stay.
It was the hotel that clinched her decision, that showed her the silver lining. Staying was the key. The count had attempted to frighten her into compliance tonight, but he’d made a grave mistake. When he’d lost his hand, he’d inadvertently set her free. For a few days or for as long as the Englishman was willing to keep her, she was beyond the count’s control. Gianna didn’t fool herself into believing it would be easy. If, after a few days, she didn’t return, the count would come looking for her. She would have to act fast.
She couldn’t go back, not after tonight. Gianna shuddered to think of what going back would entail. The count would be cruel, crueller than he’d ever been. If he was willing to sell her virginity in a card game, there was no telling what he’d do next in order to get what he wanted. His home was no longer safe for her, if it had ever been.
Safe was a relative term in this case. If it was only herself to consider, she’d leave the city, but she couldn’t leave the city, not yet. There were things she needed to retrieve from the count’s home, she needed Giovanni and she needed her money. Otherwise there would be no way to support the two of them. Until those items were assured, she needed somewhere to live. She also needed a protector or at least the illusion of one.
Her mind began to work, a plan started to form, beginning with the premise that she’d catch more flies with sugar than vinegar. Perhaps the Englishman would play the role of protector for her if given the correct incentive. To do that, though, she’d have to change her current tack immediately. Everything hinged on the Englishman letting her stay beyond the night.
That conjured a host of other thoughts regarding what she might be required to do in order for her persuasion to be successful. Certainly, the Englishman was expecting to claim that which he’d won. A shiver took her. In her anger, her disbelief and panic over her plans being shredded, it had been easy to shove aside the more practical implication of what the wager involved: sex. With a stranger. With this man who sat beside her, a man about whom she knew nothing except his accommodations and that his manners, while nicely turned, bordered on arrogant. But perhaps she’d find a way to avoid that, too.
‘The Hotel Danieli is the finest in the city...’ she began, trying to make the stranger less strange. Perhaps if they talked, she could build some rapport. ‘It used to be a private palazzo.’ Gianna shivered again, this time from the breeze off the canal. She regretted not having had the Englishman stop for her cloak. Then again, if she had her cloak, she wouldn’t have an excuse for what she did next.
‘Are you cold?’ He shifted in his seat, but before he could shrug out of his coat and play the gentleman, she inched close until there was no space between them on the seat and pressed against him.
‘Just a little, I left my cloak behind. Would you mind if I...?’ She put her hand in the pocket of his evening coat, letting her words trail off in a delicate fade. She tossed him a smile. ‘Thank you, that’s better, much better.’
It was also much more ‘friendly’. The outside pocket of his evening coat proved to be a very intimate location indeed when one was seated. Her hand rested mere inches from a very private part of him that seemed compelled to stir at the proximity of her fingers. In a sense that was good. She wanted him attracted to her. But it was also a reminder of what might be surrendered in order to secure the larger goal.
They rode in silence after that, the Englishman not inclined towards conversation. The night spoke around them in the passing songs of the gondoliers and the laughter of revellers on the canals until the gondola bumped against the pier. The gondolier called out, ‘Hotel Danieli, signor.’
The Englishman extracted her hand from his pocket rather reluctantly, and stepped out of the barque. He passed some coins to the boatman, his words catching her entirely by surprise. ‘Take the lady wherever she’d like.’
Here! She wanted to be taken here, Gianna fought the urge to cry out. Surely he didn’t mean to leave her? Is this what he’d been thinking in the gondola? How to get rid of her? In all of her imaginings it had never occurred to her that he might find the arrangement as distasteful as she did. He was a man, after all, and men were all alike, her mama had taught her. Men were governed by sex.
She’d tried to make herself agreeable. She’d made conversation, to which he hadn’t responded. She’d put her hand in his pocket, to which he had responded. Sweet heaven, she’d almost touched his cock! He was not getting away this easy, not when she’d decided she had plans for him. Gianna bolted into action with a sharp cry. ‘Aspetta! Stop!’ She climbed clumsily to her feet, her hasty efforts hampered by her heavy skirts. She stumbled and got back up, the gondola rocking. She should have stilled and waited for the boat to settle but her mind was fixated on the Englishman. Her plans were not going to be wrecked by two men in one night. He couldn’t set her free. She had plans—admittedly, they were hastily concocted ones built in the silence of the boat ride, but plans none the less, to replace the ones the count had destroyed.
The Englishman stepped forward, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. ‘Signorina, I think you misunderstand. I am giving you your freedom. This is where you and I part ways.’ He said it as if ending their association was a good thing. They were not parting ways, not until she decided it.
Gianna faced him, hands on hips, trying to look dignified in a dangerously rocking boat. She pushed back a strand of hair and tilted her chin in defiance, struggling to maintain her balance. ‘No, signor, you misunderstand. This is the part where I—’
Stay.
The word never left her mouth. The gondolier gave a warning yelp and leapt for the pier. Gianna surged forward to the dock, hoping to escape the inevitable, but she was too slow. The boat tipped. She hit the water.
‘Gianna!’ The Englishman’s voice was the last sound she heard before she went under.
Two sensations hit her simultaneously: the water was dark. No lantern light reached the depths—
someone could fall in and simply disappear without being seen even if their fall had been noted. Second was that it was cold, so very cold. Gianna tried to push to the surface, arms and legs working to propel her upwards, but she had little momentum with nothing for her legs to push off from and an enormous