CHAPTER 6

      Giovanni sprang to meet the would-be robbers. He lashed out with a fist at the man in the lead and slammed a blow to the man’s jaw. The thief flew backward and got tangled up with one of the other men.

      But there were three more of them, and one of them darted in and swung a short club of some sort at Giovanni’s head. Denny thought it was going to smash his brains in, but at the last second, Giovanni ducked his head and twisted aside so that the club caught him on the back of his shoulder instead. It still packed enough power to make him grunt in pain and stagger to the side.

      The other two closed in on him and started hammering him with their fists.

      So far, none of the thieves had paid the least bit of attention to Denny. She would show them that was a mistake. She lunged at the one with the club and leaped onto his back.

      It wasn’t easy in the expensive gown she wore, but she managed to wrap her legs around the man’s waist and hang on with one arm around his neck. An opponent’s ears were often vulnerable, her father had taught her during one of her visits to the Sugarloaf. Sally had chided Smoke for the rough-and-tumble lessons with their daughter, but the things she had learned had come in handy more than once.

      She grabbed the man’s right ear and twisted as hard as she could. He cried out in a mixture of surprise and pain, then lurched back and forth and dropped the club so he could use both hands to reach back at her. She bent her head down to avoid his grasp and kept twisting his ear until she felt something give and hot blood spurted over the back of her hand.

      By now he was writhing around and flailing at her in a crazed fashion. They were near the waist-high stone wall along the side of the bridge, so Denny dropped her feet to the ground and shoved hard as she planted her shoulder in the small of the man’s back. Taken once again by surprise, he stumbled forward and she rammed him against the wall. He said, “Ooof!” as the impact bent him forward over the stone barrier.

      Denny acted almost quicker than the eye could follow, especially in the poor light. She reached down, grabbed the man’s ankles, and heaved upward. Already bent over the wall, he couldn’t stop himself as his weight shifted. He screamed as his head went down, his feet went up, and he flipped right over the wall and plunged the twenty feet or so to the canal. Denny heard the splash as he hit the water.

      She didn’t know how Giovanni was doing with the other attackers. As she whirled around toward the center of the bridge, her foot struck the club the man had dropped. It rolled away with a clatter. Denny pounced on it, snatched it up, and waded into the knot of struggling figures a few yards away.

      In the shadows, it was hard to tell which of the men was Giovanni. She spotted one she definitely knew wasn’t him, though, because he was too tall and thin. She laid into him from behind with the club, whaling away at his head and shoulders, as far up as she could reach, anyway.

      The man yelled and swept out an arm as he turned quickly toward her. His arm struck her wrist and sent the club flying. Snarling and cursing, the man came at her with his arms outstretched.

      Denny stood her ground and kicked him in the groin. Her foot landed hard and on target. The man howled in agony and collapsed as he tried to fold up around himself.

      The sound of running footsteps made her look around. It appeared that the rest of the thieves were fleeing down the slope of the bridge. Giovanni stood at the top of the arch, his hair disarrayed, his expensive suit torn and disheveled, and shook his fist at them as he shouted defiantly in Italian after them.

      He turned sharply as Denny came up to him and said, “Giovanni.” He gripped her arms.

      “Cara mia, you are all right?” he asked anxiously. “Those horrible men, they did not harm you?”

      “I’m fine,” she told him. “A little shaken, that’s all.” She pointed at the man who lay there moaning as he clutched himself. “One of them didn’t get away. You can call the police—”

      “No polizia. This man insulted your honor and dared lay hands on your person! I will deal with him personally!”

      He reached under his coat, and Denny saw starlight glitter on the blade of the dagger he pulled out.

      She grasped his wrist and said, “No! You don’t have to kill him. I’m all right, Giovanni, really. Let’s just . . . let’s just get out of here.”

      He hesitated but finally said with obvious reluctance, “All right.” He slipped the knife back in its hidden sheath under his coat. “Come with me.”

      He took her hand and led her down from the bridge. Denny was surprised that the encounter hadn’t attracted any attention, but the street seemed to be deserted. Giovanni took her to an elegant building that appeared to have been a palazzo belonging to one of Venice’s old families at some time in the past. It had been turned into apartments, and Giovanni led her to one.

      Denny recalled what he had been saying before the would-be thieves attacked them. Giovanni had gotten her into his apartment after all, but under the circumstances, he couldn’t have anything amorous in mind. Both of them were too shaken by the attack.

      And Giovanni was hurt, too, Denny saw as he lit an oil lamp sitting on an elaborately carved sideboard. Crimson trickled down the side of his face from a cut on his forehead.

      “You’re bleeding!” she exclaimed.

      “It is nothing,” he said with a dismissive wave. “A wound suffered in the defense of a woman is a badge of honor. Especially when the woman is as lovely as you, cara mia.”

      “This is no time for flattery,” she snapped at him. “I need to clean that up. Where can I get some hot water and a cloth?”

      “The kitchen is there,” he said, pointing. “There should be some embers in the stove.”

      Denny nodded. She always felt better when she had a task to accomplish. She went into the kitchen, stirred up the fire in the stove, and added some wood to it from a bin in the corner. On the other side of the room was a basin with a pump. She put some water in a pot and set it on the stove to heat, then began opening cabinets in search of a cloth she could use to clean Giovanni’s injury.

      When she came back into the other room, carrying a tray with a porcelain bowl of hot water and a clean cloth on it, she saw that he had taken off his coat and vest and cravat and stood there in shirtsleeves. And he was unbuttoning the shirt as well. It was already open enough to reveal a muscular chest thickly furred with dark hair.

      “My apologies for the indecency,” he said. “The lady who does my laundry, she would be very upset if she had to clean bloodstains from my garments.”

      “You don’t need to get blood on such fine clothes, anyway,” Denny said as she set the tray on the sideboard next to the lamp.

      He peeled off the shirt and tossed it onto a claw-footed divan with the other things he had taken off. Denny got the cloth wet and stepped close to him. Since there wasn’t a great difference in their height, she had no trouble reaching the cut on his forehead. He winced as she began dabbing at it.

      “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” she said.

      “It is a pain I suffer willingly, even gladly,” he assured her. “All in a good cause.”

      “Defending me?”