Inamorata (6 page)

With all my strength, I forced the darkness back. Antonio took a deep and shuddering breath, and I said, “Take me to San Maurizio. And quickly, before mass begins.”

He nodded, still looking puzzled, and it was all I could do to control the gnashing inside me. When we arrived, the organ music was already drifting from the simple white stone edifice, and the campo with its huge square wellhead was nearly empty. I went to the door of the church, peering into darkness. I heard the creak of the organ bench as it was pushed aside, a few words exchanged, a pleasant voice, and then footsteps.

The man who came out was red haired, blue eyed, pale and lithe and lovely. I saw the expression I loved on his face—startlement, then awe and desire—as I stepped into the light.

“Was it you who played?” I asked him.

“Y-yes,” he stammered.

I smiled. “It was wonderful. I knew I must come and discover who had such talent.”

He flushed. I felt a sudden stab and bit back a gasp as I put out my hand. “I’m Odilé León.”

He took my fingers in his, caressing my hand as if he’d waited his whole life to do so. “Jonathan Murphy.”

In the end, for me, there was only this: desire and addiction and hunger, a craving that made the world look hard-edged and brutally lovely.

“Would you have a glass of wine with me?” I asked Jonathan Murphy.

S
OPHIE

T
he police kept me for two hours, though I had nothing to do with the body or with the place it had been found. The landlady was hysterical, and I was not much better. Marco was the one who sent for the police, and Marco was the one who drew me gently away from the courtyard after they’d asked their questions, firmly ending the interview, leaving them with my name and situation in the event they had need to contact me again.

But as I watched the oily, dusky reflections on the water glide by on the way back to the Danieli, I could not shake the vision of that body in its pool of blood, or stop hearing the buzzing of flies.

Marco frowned as he helped me disembark. “You should rest,
padrona
.”

I smiled at him—I felt how strained it was. “I will. But you must promise to come back tomorrow—I won’t take that place after all, you know. I couldn’t bear it.”

He looked alarmed. “No, you must not, of course! Not with such an angry ghost.”

“An angry ghost? But it wasn’t a murder. It was a suicide.” That was what the police had decided. The pool of blood was from his wrists, which had been neatly and fatally slit. The landlady had said,
He looked ill, that is true. I begged him yesterday morning to eat more. He said he had no need of food, that love kept him alive.

Not anymore,
the inspector had said in distaste.

“An unhappy ghost then,” Marco said to me now.

“Whether there was a ghost or not, I would never be able to go into the courtyard,” I told him. “You will be here tomorrow? There are other places to show me?”

“A hundred places,
padrona
. You can rely on Marco.”

I managed to keep my composure as I left him and walked through the grand lobby of the Danieli—full now with people returning from their day trips, looking to rest before they went out again for the evening—but I couldn’t manage to smile or talk to anyone. By the time I finally reached our rooms, the day had caught up with me; I could not stop trembling.

Joseph was already there. He was lounging on the bed, barefoot, sketching, leaving charcoal dust all over the coverlet. When he saw me, he looked up, smiling. “I think I’ve found the way in.”

I swallowed, trying not to show my distress. “Have you? So quickly?”

“I told you I would. I met him this morning. A poet. He’s been in Venice for a while. He knows Henry Loneghan, Soph.
Loneghan.
They’re friends.”

“Loneghan? Oh . . . that’s very good.” I sat on the edge of the bed, drawing off my gloves, which stuck to my sweating palms. My fingers fumbled with the hat pin.

“He’s amusing. I think you’ll like him.”

I dropped the pin; my hands were shaking too badly to keep hold of it. I lifted my hat from my hair, pretending it didn’t matter. “What is this paragon’s name?”

But Joseph had seen—he always did. He put aside his sketchbook. “What happened? You’re white as a ghost.”

A ghost.
I couldn’t help it; I laughed. Even I heard the edge of hysteria in it.

“Sophie, for God’s sake . . .” He moved to sit beside me. “Tell me.”

“It’s nothing to worry about. The police said it was a suicide—”

“A suicide? What do you mean? Who was a suicide?”

“Mr. Stafford. Oh, Joseph, it would have been so perfect! The
sala
was so bright and your room was to overlook the canal and he was a writer—”

“Sophie. Look at me.” As he spoke, he turned me firmly to face him. “You’re not making sense. Who is Mr. Stafford? What
sala
are you talking about? Start from the beginning.”

He reached for my hands, gripping them hard, stilling my trembling, and I felt myself regain my composure, moment by moment returned to myself.

I explained it to him, the search for lodgings, the landlady. But I could not bring myself to leave it so bare and ugly and meaningless, and so I tempered it, my imagination painting it in different colors, ones I could bear. “She said he died for love. It’s so romantic really, don’t you think? Something kept them apart, perhaps, and there was no way to be together. He couldn’t live without her. Or perhaps . . . perhaps there was a reason she had to leave him, but she refused to be parted, and so he made the most honorable of sacrifices. For her. It was all for her.”

Joseph gave me a thoughtful look, and then he said quietly, “You’ve had a shock. Let me get you something—chocolate, perhaps? W
ould that help? Or no . . . sherry.” He released me, getting to his feet. “Damn me, but there’s nothing in this room, is there? I’ll have to go downstairs—”

I grabbed at his arm before he’d gone a step. “No. No, please, I don’t want anything. Don’t leave me.”

I thought he would protest, but then he looked at me, and his expression softened. He sat beside me again on the bed, drawing me into his arms, pulling me back with him until we were leaning against the carved, gilded headboard, my head on his chest. Gently he smoothed a loose tendril from my cheek.

“We’ll stay in tonight,” he whispered, brushing his lips across my forehead. “I’ll have someone bring food up.”

“It’s too expensive,” I murmured.

He ignored me. His caress was mesmerizing, soothing. “We’ll save Florian’s for tomorrow. I wanted you to meet Dane, but it can wait.”

It was what I wanted to do. To lie here and be comforted and think of nothing and go nowhere. To not have to pretend at something I did not feel. But a whole night, wasted. . . . We could not afford it. I pushed myself away. “No. No, I’ll be all right. We should go to the cafe.”

“A night won’t change anything.”

“You say he can help us?”

“I think so.”

“Then we shouldn’t lose him.”

“Are you certain? We could stay here. I don’t mind it. I could send him a message. It’s not much of a delay.”

“But I do mind it. I want to go,” I told him earnestly, and it was what I wanted just then; the specter of poor Mr. Stafford drifted away for the first time since I’d laid eyes on his corpse. “We haven’t a choice. Our money won’t last long. We
have
to take every opportunity. You’ve found him; now I must do my part.”

Joseph was quiet for a moment, measuring me. He sighed. “Very well. If you insist.”

“I do,” I said firmly. “Now, tell me all about him. Is he handsome?”

“You’ll find nothing to complain of, I think. And it shouldn’t be difficult to snag him. He’s half in love with you already, thanks to me.”

That too had been part of the plan. A man was mine to manage; a woman belonged to Joseph. “And the Bronsons’ salon?”

“If he knows Loneghan, it’s a safe bet he knows the Bronsons, don’t you think? Besides, Loneghan’s got the money for patronage. He’s the more important one.” He leaned his head back, looking dreamily at the ceiling. “I never thought there would be a chance at him. Not in a hundred years.”

“It seems fated, doesn’t it?”

“I told you it would work out, didn’t I? It’s what we’re meant to have. It could be no other way. But now it’s up to you, Soph. You’ll need to reel him in.”

By the time we left for Florian’s, I was well prepared to meet Nicholas Dane. I knew of the cafe, of course; everyone did. It had been there forever, one of those that served the greatest drawing room of all, the Piazza of St. Mark’s, and in the evening it was at its most brilliant. The setting sun gilded the herringbone pattern of the pavement and sent a rosy golden glow over the basilica and the pink and white of the Doge’s Palace. When Joseph and I arrived, the tables crowding the Piazza were already nearly full; the supposedly ubiquitous pigeons had mostly retired for the evening, though one or two strutted about, scattering beneath a careless foot.

There was no band tonight; but it was noisy. Talking and laughing; flower girls calling out; vendors crying, “Caramel! Caramel!” as they bore their baskets of shining candy; boys performing tricks for pennies; a man with an accordion and a ragged girl with a pretty voice singing whatever anyone would pay her to sing. Promenaders circled the square and dodged into the arcades, waiters hurried about bearing ices and syrups, coffee and the occasional chocolate. It seemed nearly everyone in Venice must be here.

Joseph pulled out a chair, then waited for me to sit. “Let him find us. It wouldn’t do to look too anxious, would it?”

I took my seat, but I was never so confident as my brother, and I worried that Nicholas Dane might even now be at another table, waiting the evening away for us. But Joseph seemed perfectly at ease. He ordered a lemon ice for me and a coffee for himself, and when they were brought, he leaned back in his chair, stretching his arm along the back of mine, lounging and looking for all the world like a man at his leisure.

I picked at the ice, taking only the barest of tastes.

“You look ready to shatter,” Joseph said in a low voice. “Shall we give it up for tonight and go back to the hotel?”

Before I could answer, his gaze leaped past me, his worry for me disappearing in a quick smile. “Dane!” he said, rising. “I’d wondered if we’d missed you.”

“Oh, it’s early yet, isn’t it?” said a voice—smooth and British, and I looked over to see two men standing there, one very tall, with lank brown hair, who kept poking at the round spectacles sliding down his long nose, and the other, shorter and more compact and quite handsome, with a chiseled face and wavy blond hair cropped short, a high forehead and very blue eyes.

Joseph said, “Sophie, may I present Nicholas Dane and Giles Martin.”

I held out my gloved hand and smiled. “I’m Sophie Hannigan, and I’m very pleased to meet you both.”

Mr. Martin gaped at me like a fish. “So very pleased, Miss Hannigan,” he said, grasping my fingers a bit too tightly before he released them.

“As am I,” Mr. Dane put in smoothly. “You look very like your brother. Hannigan said you were his twin?”

I said, “Yes, but even so, I’ve never thought we looked much alike. Beyond our coloring, I mean.”

“Fortunately Sophie escaped Papa’s nose. I was not so lucky.” Joseph touched the tip of my nose affectionately, teasing.

We sat again, and Giles Martin looked at me hungrily, but I already knew, given what Joseph had said, that Mr. Martin wasn’t the one I had to charm. Still, I wasn’t certain how important he might be, so for now, I included him in my smile.

Joseph said, “We almost didn’t come. I’m afraid Sophie’s had a bit of a scare.”

“Is that so? Nothing too bad, I hope.” Mr. Dane motioned to the waiter for coffees. It gave me a moment to survey him. He looked well put together, in his deep-brown coat and fashionably checked trousers, though I suspected he wasn’t wealthy—I saw no watch chains dangling from his waistcoat pocket, and no rings or studs at all. A poet, Joseph had said, but there were no ink stains on his fingers either.

I was so busy studying him it was a moment before I realized they were all waiting for me to say something. I struggled to remember what the question had been—my scare. “Oh. Oh, well, yes it was bad, I’m afraid. Terribly so.”

“She stumbled upon a body today,” Joseph said.

“A body?” Giles Martin asked, clearly shocked. “A corpse, you mean?”

I nodded. “Yes, though the police assure me it was a suicide and not a murder, which is what I thought at first.”

Nicholas Dane raised a sandy brow. “A suicide?”

“He was a poet, like yourself, Mr. Dane. His name was Nelson Stafford.”

He took a hard breath. “Dear God.”

“However did you manage to stumble upon him?” Mr. Martin asked.

“It was not nearly so difficult as it might seem,” I said wryly. “I was looking at lodgings. He was in the courtyard of one.”

“I hope you didn’t lease it!” Giles Martin said.

“I nearly had. But then . . . well . . . of course I couldn’t.”

The coffees were brought. Mr. Dane played with the handle of his tiny cup, saying thoughtfully, “I had not heard. It’s strange. Venice lives for gossip. And a suicide. How tragic.”

“We only found him a few hours ago,” I said softly. “I don’t think there’s been time for word to get around. Did you know him?”

Giles Martin shuddered. “No, though we’d seen him about once or twice.”

Mr. Dane brought his cup to his well-shaped mouth. His eyes met mine over the rim. “A horrible thing for a gently bred young lady to see,” he said when he’d taken a sip. “I cannot imagine you’re recovered, Miss Hannigan.”

I reached reflexively for my brother’s hand, which dangled near my shoulder. He gripped my fingers tightly, reassuringly.

“Why d’you suppose he did it?” Mr. Martin asked meditatively. “God, I hate suicides. They always make me think there must have been something I could have done.”

“But you said you didn’t know him,” Joseph said.

“Well yes, but still . . . I hope he doesn’t take it into his head to haunt you, Miss Hannigan.”

“You’re as superstitious as any Venetian,” Mr. Dane said dismissively.

Joseph laughed lightly. “Well, it’s easy to be so here, isn’t it? Last night, coming to our hotel . . . it felt as if time stood still. All that history . . . Venetian spies, murders around every corner. The place feels full of ghosts.”