Page 91 of Vengeance in Venice
And there were footsteps, voices outside the drawing room. Someone knocked.
Pellini swore beneath his breath, and the pistol slid off her temple while he tried to wrestle the lip of the flask back on to her mouth. The pistol didn’t fire. No projectile ended her life in an instant.
Quite suddenly, she realized the pistol wasonlya threat. He needed her to drink.
“Signora!” called a servant from behind the door. The handle turned and rattled and the voices grew frightened.
But Constance knew she had to save herself. She struggled and strained even harder—but only for an instant. She went suddenly limp in Pellini’s hold, forcing him to support her entire weight, and as he desperately adjusted his grip, she snatched the flask from his fingers and wrenched herself free.
She staggered backward away from him, just as something crashed against the door and hurtled inside to the distinctive sound of splintering wood.
Inevitably, Pellini turned to face the new threat. Constance whipped back her arm and hurled the flask with all her might.
It struck Pellini somewhere near his right ear. Liquid splashed over him and over the carpet as the flask fell andbounced on the floor. Pellini stumbled. One knee buckled, and the pistol fell from suddenly nerveless fingers. Several people rushed on him at once.
Constance blinked. They were her manservants. All of them. And straightening from among them, Sebastian Kellar met her gaze and gave a wry yet satisfied smile.
“So sorry to intrude upon you at this hour,” he said politely, sidestepping the scramble between them. “I saw you from my boat, at the window, and had the feeling something was amiss.”
Constance had the insane desire to laugh.
Below, the front door slammed, and more footsteps clattered across the tiled foyer.
“Constance!” Solomon shouted, and stupidly, unforgivably, though at least silently, she began to cry.
She blundered past everyone, and abruptly he appeared in the doorway, disheveled and panting. In one bloody hand, he carried a jeweled, long-bladed dagger. None of that mattered because the chest she threw herself against was solid and strong. Fear was still fading from his face as she gripped it, gasping, between her hands to be sure. His arms enfolded her in warmth and reality, and just for an instant, nothing else mattered.
*
“What an eye,”Kellar said, his face alight with amusement and admiration as he gazed upon Constance. “Quite deadly accuracy, I assure you.”
It was an hour after Pellini’s capture, and the would-be assassin had been taken away by Foscolo’s men, who had turned up very shortly after Solomon. Solomon had washed and changed, and Constance had dressed his wounds. The cut to his fingers was long, but not deep enough to need stitches, so henow sat beside her on their favorite sofa looking more or less his usual, elegant self. His bandaged hand added a touch of dash.
Whatever had been in Pellini’s flask, it had been well scrubbed from the carpet and a chair it had sprayed over on its way down. Constance could no longer smell it, possibly because the windows were wide open and she was desperately interested in all everyone had to say. Giusti, who had arrived with Foscolo, had told his tale, and so had Solomon, partially, at least. Kellar had just finished his.
Foscolo eyed Solomon. “You should be careful.” He was only half jesting.
“Oh, I am.”
“I’m sorry,” Foscolo said abruptly. “It never entered my head he would try to usethatto kill you too.” The dagger lay on the low table between them, winking in the splashes of sunlight that came and went through the clouds. “Perhaps it should have. I think it was symbolic.”
“The way he ran at me,” Solomon said, speaking for the first time about the fight, “I thought he meant to impale himself on it. That would have been symbolic, too.”
“I received word while you were changing,” Foscolo said. “Lampl’s body was pulled out of the Grand Canal. He is indeed dead. It will all be covered up, of course, and there will be someone else to take his place. But his guilt is known now, all over Venice. The Austrians will not deny it, just make the point that he acted alone and against their law.”
“So you will be safe?” Giusti asked.
“Yes, I think so. Anything else would be too much of an embarrassment for the government.” Foscolo turned to Constance. “How did Pellini get in here?”
“I think we have a spy in the household who let him in—possibly with reluctance, forallthe servants helped capture him in the end.”
Foscolo sighed. “It was not a great plan, was it?”
“It did what we intended,” Constance said, prepared to be kind now that the danger was past. “If not quitehowwe intended it.”
“You are generous,” Foscolo said moodily.
“She is,” Solomon agreed.
