Katerina Montescue had responsibilities as well as longings and desires. She couldn’t simply toss over the one for the other.
And, besides—she had no idea how to meet him anyway. Neither of her two personas, either as “the Spook” or as Katerina Montescue, would ever come into contact with a clerk who worked, no doubt, in a back room at Ventuccio. A dark back room where his eyes would go . . .
What to do? What to do?
Francesca. Yes! I’ll talk to Francesca about it. The very next time I see her!
Katerina’s face went through an odd little play of expressions. “Oh,” she murmured to herself. “That’s tonight, isn’t it?”
And that was another problem! For a moment, Katerina almost burst into a pure shriek of frustration at society’s quirks.
* * *
“Are you going to get dressed or aren’t you?” snapped Alessandra, peering around the door.
Guilt and the reason for being so out of sorts returned Kat to the real world. “I’m coming.”
“Well hurry up,” said Alessandra irritably. “We go out so little that you don’t have to be late when we do have the chance. You’ll never find a man—not that you’ve got a chance without a dowry—cooped up here.”
Kat began to hastily dress her hair. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“You’re not wearing that dowdy old green thing to go to La Fenice, are you?” Alessandra demanded. Kat’s sister-in-law was clad in a Venetian lace-trimmed gown of golden-yellow silk. Katerina shuddered to think where the money had come from. Alessandra, on the other hand, looked truly shocked at her sister-in-law’s dusty-green taffeta.
“Yes. Now go away and let me finish.” It was last year’s style and last year’s dress. And in Venice among the Case Vecchie, death was better than being out of fashion. It was just too bad. Katerina had learned this much if nothing else: there were many more important things in life than silk.
“We won’t wait!” threatened Alessandra.
I wish, thought Kat. But she held her tongue and simply closed the door. Took out a string of “pearls” that wouldn’t stand too close an inspection. Glass and fishscale . . . A poor replacement for what had been her birthright. She shook herself. It was no use getting upset about any of it. She had no idea if she’d ever get to meet him. Or if he was married already. But wait, that canal-brat, Benito! She’d seen him, now and then, wearing Ventuccio livery. Perhaps he would help her—
“KATERINA!” It was an old voice, the timbre going, but still strong.
“Coming, Grandpapa.”
* * *
Katerina had that feeling in her stomach which more commonly accompanied a over-sufficiency of sugar-plums. Her stomach . . . well, she just felt sick. She was used to doing dangerous things—alone at night. Going to dark and insalubrious places to meet possibly very unpleasant people.
This was somehow worse. Kat swallowed, looking around at the slow butterfly swirl of the haut monde of Venice socializing. The public masques were events where the people came as much to be seen, as to see the performance. She wished desperately she’d never agreed to do this.
It had not seemed unreasonable when she was sitting talking to Francesca. It was very different here under the glitter of the candelabras. “Introduce me to your grandfather at the interval at the masque at La Fenice. It’s something of a public place, and I have not yet acquired the cachet for exclusive soirees or recitals at private camerata. He’s still a man of influence, you know, and highly respected. Crème de la crème, in Venetian society. It will do me a great deal of good just to be seen talking to him.”
Kat understood the logic. In truth, all that visibly set the courtesans at such events apart from the matrons and virgin daughters of Venice was the lower cut to their dresses. And the more well-known and reputable men that a courtesan could draw around her, the more her acceptability grew.
The problem for Kat, however, was that there was a fine social line “respectable” women did not cross. Men openly talked and flirted with the courtesans at these events. Women didn’t. So Kat needed to make the introduction in as discreet and unnoticed a manner a possible.