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Whether she'd heard him, he didn't know—but at least she didn’t object. He led her upstairs and into the long loggia—open to the Grand Canal below—and helped her to a chair. She sat down slowly, as though she ached all over. The full moon illuminated a layer of haze above the water and silvered the domes of Santa Maria Della Salute, but she seemed not to see it at all.

He reached across and took her hand. “Cecil Townley is nothing. Pomona? He is nothing. He is a man of few talents and even less importance. His only qualities of note are that he has an ambitious mama who has purchased influence for him, and that he is a shameless bully. But any person of sense knows that anything that he says is simply discounted the ranting of a jealous, vindictive…” He ran out of adjectives.

She pulled her hand away. She seemed too exhausted to speak. Finally, she said simply, “You cannot possibly understand.”

“Pomona. Pomona.” He found himself repeating her name, as though it might reach her across the chasm that seemed to have reopened between them. “Do you not see? Compared to you, he is nothing. You are… you are”—everything, he wanted to say. “You are the Duchess of March. You need not fear some... nobody.”

She took a deep breath. “He is not a nobody. He is a member of parliament. He is rich. He is a man. And he is ruthless. And he hates both of us.” She lifted her head and met his eyes. “And it is dangerous to underestimate him. You were there. You saw him. You know that he is capable of... God knows that I have tried to put it out of my mind. But I sometimes ask myself what he might have done, had you not been there. I do not think that there are any limits to what he might be capable”—

“Please. It can do no good to imagine dreadful things that did not happen. Besides, what can he do to either of us now?”

She stared at him for a long time, as though he were a stranger and she couldn’t imagine what to say to him. Finally she sighed. “You are not listening to me. You never listen to me.”

He’d blundered. But he did not see why, and he felt a little aggrieved. “As I have pointed out, you are a duchess. He cannot touch you. His comments about you burning down houses merely made him look deranged and foolish.”

“And do you think that he will ever forgive either of us for that?” Her expression was suddenly fierce. “Do you know what really happened at my come-out ball? Townley drank so much that he fell insensible. And then, because everyone had seen him lying on the floor, he concocted a story that he had been shot by a gangster. He repeated it so many times that he made me a laughingstock. If he has even the slightest thought that he is being made to look foolish, he goes on the attack. And every time you dismiss and underestimate him, you make the situation worse.”

Well, she was losing all sense of proportion. “I am not underestimating him. " He snorted. "It is impossible to underestimate him. He is a lazy drunk whom nobody regards. You give him far too much credit.”

“For once in your life, Gabriel West, listen to me!” Her eyes flashed. “Lady Theodosia would believe me—if I had only come here with her, instead of you! She knows how malicious Townley is. Why must you scoff at everything that I say? Townley is here, is he not? Do you think that that is coincidence? No. He is here because he wishes to do us some harm—depend upon it.”

She had a way of speaking that could be very barbed indeed. He reminded himself that she’d had a shock. Still, to hear her openly wish for Lady Theodosia’s company, instead of his, after the moments that he’d thought they’d shared… And the way that she’d asked him to listen to her “for once in his life...” That stung.

“Pomona, you are being irrational. I loathe him as much as you do, but there is nothing at all extraordinary about a wealthy man of fashion visiting a fashionable destination on a tour of the Continent. All that I am saying is”—

“I ought to have known it. I really ought to have.” The angry edge in her voice had been replaced with something far worse: Defeat. She was silent a moment. “I knew that you were only saying what you believed I wished to hear. Why did I listen at all? First you tell me that I am brilliant, and then you dismiss everything that I say.” She set her scarcely-touched glass of madeira down slowly. “I must be the biggest fool alive.”

“Pomona. I do not say that you have not had a shock, or that you are not entitled to be angry. But I am certain that you will think better of all of this in the morning.”

She shrugged off the wrap that he’d tucked around her shoulders and rose. “Well. Perhaps you are right.”

“Where are you…?”

“To bed. Good night.”

West strode through the network of calles, the stone-paved footpaths that were Venice’s equivalent to back streets. The day promised to be hot later, but for now the sun was obscured by mist, and the air was cool. He needed a walk to clear his head. He’d lain awake half the night regretting what he’d said to Pomona.

Or at least, how he’d said it. Because he happened to be right. Yes, Townley had bullied Pomona in the past. And yes, he was a thoroughly unpleasant, unscrupulous man. West didn’t doubt that if anyone were to look into his private life, he or she would discover a great many disgusting scandals.

But Pomona was a duchess, and Townley was a commoner. So yes, they could simply dismiss him as the insect that he was.

He paused on a steeply-arched footbridge over a canal. The tide was out. A pair of somber black gondolas were drawn up on a narrow, muddy strip of sand before the local boat builder’s business. They looked larger out of the water than they did in it, and as awkward as water birds on land.

He took a deep breath of salty, slightly rank air. Well. The answer to all of this was obvious. They would do as Signor Rinaldi had suggested: They would leave Venice for a villa outside some charming lakeside town. That way, he need not continue to worry about the incident with the gunman, and Pomona could be certain of not encountering Townley again.

In fact, Signor Rinaldi could probably suggest some charming but secure spot. They could be gone from Venice in a day or two. The arrangements could be finalized as they traveled. He would take Pomona to see Padova and Verona on the way. And then they would spend the summer in the cool mountain air… somewhere that there was a lake, and fountains, and lemon trees.

A few more twists and turns brought him to a narrow lane that led into St. Mark’s Square. He found himself, as always, astounded by its beauty. Pale stone colonnades stretched along its sides. The domes and lacy-looking ornamentation of the cathedral seemed eternally elegant and civilized, despite the decline of the city since Bonaparte’s depredations.

A group of somberly dressed young men he recognized as bureaucrats in the Austrian governor’s staff hurried across the square, heads bent in discussion as they made for their offices in the Doge’s Palace. He felt a momentary pang for his own days as a young bureaucrat. Things had been simpler then.

Well, he reminded himself, he could still do good. Which reminded him... he still hadn't hear back from the mine manager at Castle March. He would write a sternly-worded letter before they left Venice.

“Buongiorno, duca.” A row of waiters bowed to him as he entered the nearly-empty coffee house. Caffè Florian only really came to life in the late afternoon. It was far too early in the day for the regulars to be here. But his spirits rose with the aroma of fresh coffee and the muted clatter of dishes. It was a pleasant, elegant warren of rooms, with large mirrors in baroque frames that brightened even the back corner where he’d settled, prepared to enjoy the quiet with an out-of-date London newspaper.

“Ah. West. Of course, I meant to say your grace.” A hand clapped him on the back and then, almost in the same movement, pulled out the chair facing him, scraping it loudly over the marble tiled floor.

It was, of course, Townley.