Starling (134 page)

But was it over?
She pulled back. “What about Dubois?”
“Arrested.” Luca couldn’t keep the beginnings of a smile from
creeping onto his face. “Zanotta. Domacetti. Arrested. Several people have been arrested in Florence as well.”
Cass hugged Luca once more and then went inside to share the
good news with the rest of Palazzo Dolce. The girls all gathered
around her as she read from the vellum.
“We should go to Villa Querini,” Feliciana said. “And tell Narissa. She’ll be delighted you’re no longer a fugitive.”
“She’ll be delighted you’re no longer missing,” Cass said. She
turned to Luca. “I think it’s a splendid idea,” she said. “Do you wish
to accompany us?”
“I’ve got to go to Palazzo da Peraga and inform the staff I’ve sold
the estate,” he said. “Then I need to have some papers drawn up. But
I can meet you there later this evening.”
“I still cannot believe that you gave up your family home,” Cass
murmured.
Luca shrugged. “A lot of sad memories linger there. I’m ready to
make new ones elsewhere.”
Narissa opened Villa Querini’s door with a dour grimace, muttering under her breath about useless butlers. The lines in her face
melted away when she saw Cass and Feliciana standing there. She
hugged them against her stout frame and then leaned back and gave
them a long look.
“You both look thin,” she said. “And what on earth did you do to
your hair?” She flipped the hood of Feliciana’s cloak down around
her shoulders and studied the cropped hair beneath.
“It was the nuns,” Feliciana explained. “I concealed myself in a
convent for a couple of weeks.”
Narissa guffawed. “You? At a convent? Now, that’s a story I’ll
need a little wine to stomach.”
“Precisely,” Feliciana agreed. “I needed quite a bit of wine just to
survive there.”
Narissa ushered them inside and hollered for the cook to prepare
a tray of snacks for the “starving girls.” The servants flitted through
the portego with tea and trays of food, each more delighted than the
last to see both Cass and Feliciana alive.
Later, Cass sat sipping tea with Narissa while Feliciana made
rounds among the servants, sharing stories of Florence and the convent.
“I’ve been waiting to give you this.” Narissa produced a rolled
parchment, sealed with red wax and tied with a lilac ribbon. “I found
it in Signora Querini’s bedroom with a set of keys, which I presume
open some of the trunks on the lower level.”
Cass took the parchment. Her name was scrawled in Agnese’s wavery handwriting right below the blob of wax. “What is it?” she
asked.
“I don’t know,” Narissa said. “Perhaps you should read it.”
Splitting the wax with one finger, Cass slipped the roll of paper
out of the ribbon tied around it. She began to read aloud.

I, Agnese Querini, born Agnese Bergamasca, being of
sound mind, do bequeath the sum total of my property to
my niece Cassandra Caravello. The villa, its furnishings,

and the grounds rightfully belong to my late husband’s heir