Page 40 of Vengeance in Venice
How odd to find her working here… Or perhaps not. No doubt the money was useful during Rossi’s lean—and drunk—periods.
Constance watched her balance the tray or her hip, add another glass to the collection, and then vanish with her burden through the service door at the back. The Englishman, Kellar, strolled across her line of vision, drawing her eyes with him to the elegant buffet table.
She cast a quick glance at Lampl and Premarin, who had been her original quarry. She still wished to speak to them.
But first,she thought, turning back to Kellar with a surge of determination,you.
She made no effort to disguise her goal, walking straight toward him, and as he turned from the buffet table, a small plate in one hand, he saw her coming. The hand reaching for whatever delicacy was on his plate fell back to his side. As their eyes clashed, he acknowledged her as before with a small inclination of his head and moved on.
It had never entered her head that he would try to avoid her after staring so often.Interesting. She changed her direction to match his and kept walking, like a warship on a course of interception.
And like the pursued ship, he paused, then turned to face the inevitable.
“Good evening,” he said pleasantly, abandoning his untouched plate on the nearest table.
“Good evening,” Constance replied. “Forgive me, but I seem to know your face so well that I’m sure we must have met before.”
She held his gaze with conscious boldness but sensed no threat. There was wariness and curiosity in his intelligent gray eyes and a hint of tension in his posture.
“No, we have never met,” he said. “But you do remind me of someone. I suppose this is where I should apologize if I offended you by staring. The similarity is really most marked. My name is Kellar. Sebastian Kellar. I am something of a roving diplomat in Italy, though I contrive to be in Venice as often as possible.”
She offered her hand. “Constance Grey. I am visiting the city for the first time with my husband. It is our wedding trip.”
There was no surprise in those amiable eyes. None of this was news to him. He had told the consulate staff who Solomon was.
“Allow me to wish you every happiness. Your husband is an interesting man. I had not realized he was so young.”
Was it Solomon who interested him, then? Why? “He will get older in the normal way of things. So, you must know Venice and all these people”—she made a small hand gesture encompassing the reception room—“very well?”
“I am acquainted with most of them.”
She held on to his gaze. “Perhaps you knew the man who died. Angelo Savelli?”
“I did. Another interesting man. And a tragic loss to Venice—also to Austria, I suspect.”
“And to Britain?”
He smiled faintly and took a glass of wine from the tray being offered. “Her Majesty’s government supports the notion of a united and independent Italy.Risorgimento. Savelli did not, but he was a man we could all work with.”
“Was he?” Wild ideas were flying through her mind.Hadthe British been able to work with Savelli? Or had they found him so unbending and so capable that their secret forces—even this roving diplomat himself—had removed him?
Is Kellar an assassin?
The notion chilled her blood, even while her brain scoffed at such melodramatic imaginings. And yet those outwardly kind, affable gray eyes hid something. Why had he noticed her? Was his notice the real reason Savelli had abducted her? Had the Venetian’s outrage at her abduction been manufactured that night? She had not thought so at the time, but…
She threw off the welter of speculation before it drowned her.
“Oh yes,” Kellar was saying, “I believe so. He was a good man in many ways. But I have heard your experience might be…different.”
She raised her eyebrows, refusing to hide or be ashamed. She had plenty of practice in that. “You heard about my abduction?”
His brow twitched very slightly. Surprise? Distaste? “Then it is true?”
“It was apparently a misunderstanding by his servants. He released me almost immediately. By which time, my husband was already at his door.”
“Mr. Grey must have been extraordinarily angry.”
Oh, no, you will not pin your own crimes or anyone else’s on Solomon.“He was more concerned with my safety. By the timehe called on Savelli to demand explanation, the man was already dead.”
