Stealing Venice

by Anna E Bendewald

  After his meeting with the detective, Salvio slipped back into his secret passageway and popped out inside his wife’s darkened chamber. He was a man on a mission: to make an heir. He removed all of his clothes except for his shirt, and folded them carefully. Raphielli lay motionless and prepared beneath a white cotton sheet. He whisked the sheet off her with enough momentum that it hung in the air like a ghost in the dim pools of light before falling to the floor. Raphielli lay naked with her eyes on the ceiling. He’d seen the vague trembling beneath the sheet. She was too stupid to understand that she was the luckiest fat cow in the world. She didn’t deserve to have such a powerful man be true to her. His wife was a huge disappointment. But did he hold that against her? No, he gave her the world. And now he was going to give her his seed until she was full, whether or not she deserved it. She was withholding a son from him, but he was going to spear his essence right into her womb.

  He grabbed her under her thighs and hauled her hips down to the edge of the table. Her eyes didn’t leave the ceiling because she knew if they did, he would pluck them out. He would not tolerate being looked at while he was undressed. Yanking her legs apart, he thrust inside her, then held her in place with his hands clamped on her breasts. He stabbed himself into her repeatedly, and as he finished, he yanked the ribbon from her hair so her curls tumbled down. Then he shoved her off the table onto the floor where she landed on her elbow and hip. She didn’t react or make a sound. She lay perfectly still as he got dressed, and then he disappeared behind the heavy tapestry into the secret passage.

  The night was cool, and the stately grounds on the edge of the forest were silent except for the wind in the trees as Markus walked up to the château door. He remembered that Giselle had asked for the guard dogs be locked up, and was glad she’d thought of that detail. He wouldn’t want to be attacked out here alone in the dark. Giselle had left the door unlocked for him, and he entered the foyer of the grand house, which was dimly lit from wall sconces. He looked around a moment, admiring the statues and the ornate chandelier suspended in the shadows above, before walking to the back of the home to find her. The sound of his footsteps echoed hollowly back to him as he crossed the large rooms. Giselle’s home was furnished with expensive antiques that were well maintained, but clearly used by their owners. There were magnificent paintings on the walls, but it didn’t feel like a museum. The floors and walls were cold stone surfaces, so even though it had been warm outside today, the heat never made it far enough inside to warm the sprawling rooms.

  As he neared the back of the mansion, he heard the distinctive clink and clatter of dishes and silverware being handled, and he followed the sound to the end of the main hall. He stopped outside the kitchen and watched Giselle as she moved back and forth in front of an open hearth, pulling a meal together. Her hair was damp and hung down past her shoulders in pale blonde waves. She was wearing a brief silk housedress that buttoned down the front, and a cardigan sweater hung unbuttoned from her shoulders. Illuminated by the dim firelight, the glow of her skin was arresting. He moved into the room toward her.

  “You have a beautiful home.”

  “I do.” She gave him a contented smile and walked toward him in white scuff slippers.

  “I feel under-dressed.” He gestured to her attire. “You are wearing silk.”

  “Mmmm, my whole closet here is nothing but my friend, Ava’s, dresses. Her designs are so comfortable. They’re the best dresses to live in.” She pointed at the cutting board laden with cheeses, bread, vegetables, champagne, and jars of homemade pate. “Let’s have dinner. Aren’t you starving?”

  “Looking at this now, I am as you say, starving.”

  They assembled an array of small tastes and tempting bites on a tray. He followed her into an adjacent room that was decorated in the Moroccan style, with a low, tiled fireplace that was crackling from within. She kneeled down at a low table surrounded by padded ottomans, and he bent to set their tray on it.

  “This is an unusual decorating style for the French countryside.”

  “My great-great-uncle married a woman from Morocco, and she decorated this room. I like eating in here. I avoid the dining room unless we’re having a party…you know, less formal.”

  “Then that is your aunt’s shower in the stable house bathroom…or should I call it a swimming pool?”

  “Oui, she lived there in her later years. Her knees got bad, and she couldn’t climb the stairs here in the big house, so she lived out there for a while. Even after the family had the elevator installed here, she preferred the stable house at the end of her life. My grandparents used to tell stories about how happy she was making her Moroccan-style blankets with her friends in the workshop.”

  “I noticed her loom is still in good condition.”

  “Uh-huh. I believe she made the bedding that you’ll be sleeping in.”

  “Sleeping under a family heirloom. I am honored.”

  Giselle sat on the rug and leaned back against one of the ottomans. She poured each of them a glass of champagne, and lifted hers.

  “Now that we’re here, let’s drink a toast to art.”

  He sat near her on the rug, accepted the glass and raised it. “To art.”

  She touched her glass to his. After he took a sip, he said what was on his mind.

  “I asked Selma, and she told me you have had other artists come here to work with you.” He didn’t want to pry, but he had to ask. “I thought you said you always work alone.”

  “I should’ve said I prefer to work alone. But there’ve been two people who’ve helped me in the past.”

  “Ah.”

  “I had a metallurgy instructor here from Paris for a summer. She lived in the stable house during the week and went home to her family on weekends.”

  “Ah.”

  “I also had this crazy kid who makes gyroscopes come help me with my sculpture that had spinning crowns on it. He was here for two weeks.”

  “Now you have me to help you with Star Fall.” He set a small plate before her. “So, how will we begin?”

  “Here are my prototype and sketches with the dimensions.” She gestured to a wire model and a stack of rolled papers nearby. “Tomorrow we’ll set the beams inside the base pattern. I’ve been thinking that if you pour the cement bases for the structural beams while I organize the materials, we could move quickly to the main framework assembly.”

  “That will save time.” He nodded. “When will I see these glowing spindles?”

  She popped a piece of cheese into her mouth and smiled. “They won’t be glowing until I make them glow, but we should be ready for them before too long.”

  After dinner, they moved the ottomans aside and Giselle spread her paperwork on the floor in front of the fire. She stretched out on her stomach and traced the drawings with her finger.

  “I’ve developed a design that will suspend the spindles together in a simple star pattern. When we get the glass tubes to fuse, I make a tiny fissure in the main spindle connection, allowing the fluid and gas to mix. It’s the same concept as combining carbon dioxide and water. The irrodium-hydrogen mixture inside the spindles will cause the glass stars on my sculpture to glow for a hundred years.”

  Markus lay beside her and followed her explanation. He was surprised at how good her drawings were. He hadn’t heard that her talents extended to pencil on paper, but her sketches were rendered in rich charcoal and would have been impressive in frames. Studying the schematic, he focused on the assembly.

  “I see all of your measurements for holes in the steel girders. Did you have the factory drill them already?”

  “Oui.” She shimmied closer to him and pointed out the junctions. “These holes here are where the girders join, and these here are where we’ll insert the copper curls, and then the spindles go here.”

  He looked at the copper curlicues in her design, and then at an inset sketch that illustrated some sort of a tool.

  “You have custom made something to form your
copper curls?”

  “Mm-hmm. I worked with different lengths of copper for months in Paris, bending them around everything from bottles to chair legs. But I finally built a wooden form that works like magic, and now they come out perfectly. It’ll be fun…you’ll see. And we have lots of copper curls to make.”

  “I see your Star Fall has the strong industrial elements of the beams, and then these clouds of copper curls that house the one-hundred-year-glow of your dangerous stars.”

  “My first concept was a steel sculpture that looked like a burst of fireworks. It was covered with blades, with actual fireworks at the base that I planned to detonate at my first exhibit, leaving burn marks all over the metal frame…”

  He shook his head in disbelief. Her art had certainly earned its dangerous reputation.

  “But as I played with that concept, I found it wasn’t the explosion of the fireworks that I loved. I wanted to capture the weightlessness of the falling stars after the violence.”

  The embers of the fire had died down when Giselle rolled onto her back.

  “I can’t believe I was foolish enough to think I could do this alone. Without you, I would’ve come up here and had to hire workers. They would have thought I’d lost my mind.” She looked at him happily. “Thank you for coming with me, Markus.”

  He stretched out on his side and gave her a long look. “When Ivar told me that you wanted me, I did not hesitate.”

  She yawned. “I’ve got to call Vincenzo. Let’s get some sleep, and have an early breakfast tomorrow.”

  Markus watched with appreciation as she rolled with fluid ease onto her stomach, lifted her hips to stretch like a cat, and then stood to stretch again.

  “Okay, Giselle, go make your call. I will clean up.”

  “Sleep well.”

  Carrying the tray toward the kitchen, he admired the way her hips undulated as she disappeared down the hall. After cleaning up and dampening the fires, he clicked the lock on the front door and let himself out. He made his way to the stable house, and headed into the bathroom to brush his teeth and plug in his shaver. Then he stripped off his clothes before clicking off the lights and climbing into the big bed. He drifted to sleep thinking of Giselle’s body stretched before him in the firelight.

  He woke in the middle of the night restless, so he dragged on a pair of pants, went to the workshop, and started a new sculpture from the wealth of scrap materials on hand. Working with his hands was like meditation for him and quieted his mind. But even after busying himself in the process of creation, he couldn’t stop thinking of Giselle. So he headed back to the bathroom to take a cold shower under the swan head.

  CHAPTER

  6

  Alphonso arrived in the quiet town of Aiglemont early in the morning and found a tiny hotel with a restaurant near the train station. He parked his rental car and went in to see if he could get a room. If not, at least he could get something to eat. From the front door, he could see into the café where locals were relaxing over coffee and omelets, and his nose told him they employed a talented cook. As he approached the front desk, a man peeked out from a back office and eyed Alphonso’s suitcase.

  “Ah, bonjour. Looking for a room?”

  “Oui.”

  “Just you?”

  “Just me.”

  “How many nights?”

  “It depends on how long it takes to do some local business. I’m not sure, but let’s start with three nights.”

  “You sound Italian.” Alphonso was aware he was being felt out. This must be the proprietor, to take such an interest in him. “Where are you visiting from?”

  “Venice.” Alphonso learned early in his career to lie as little as possible; it helped him keep his story straight.

  “Ah, welcome.” The man placed a form on the counter and took a key from a cubbyhole. “I have a good room for you. Just fill this out, please.”

  While jotting down his information, Alphonso fished, “I hear there’s a famous Italian family in this area…”

  The Frenchman ignored the bait and eyed Alphonso suspiciously. “So, what business brings you here?”

  “I’m consulting on a champagne purchase for my cousin’s restaurant.” He pushed the completed form across the counter. “I’ve heard the Verona family has a home here.”

  “A restaurant? What’s the name? Perhaps I know it.”

  “Il Gusto di Mama. But it hasn’t opened yet.”

  “Well, that’s what everyone wants from a meal—mama’s cooking, right? Running a restaurant isn’t easy. I wish your cousin luck…” He paused and glanced down at the form, “…Alphonso.”

  Ah, he’s smart, and not touching the subject of the Veronas. “Merci…”

  “Henri.”

  “Merci, Henri. Do you mind if I leave my suitcase behind your counter while I have breakfast?”

  “Not at all. I’ll just need your room deposit.”

  Alphonso counted over the cash.

  “I can run a tab in the restaurant and put it on your hotel bill if you’d like.”

  “That would be good. Merci.”

  “Prego.” Henri smiled, took the small suitcase, and put it in a closet behind the desk.

  Spotting an empty table, Alphonso made his way into the café and sat down. He didn’t have to wait long before a young brunette in a cotton dress, worn Mary Janes, and a red apron appeared and took his order. In only a matter of minutes, she had delivered his meal and left him to enjoy it in peace. He watched the goings on and decided that his waitress must be Henri’s wife, judging from their matching wedding rings and her command of the place as she whisked about signing for deliveries.

  Unlike the Venetians, the French didn’t seem to be forthcoming about the Veronas. Going for broke, he waited until the brunette came to check on him. He tried a casual tone.

  “So, do you know Giselle Verona?”

  She looked at him with a distinctly cool French attitude, and let his question hang in the air.

  He tried again. “I mean, she’s just the most famous resident here, isn’t she?”

  She put her hands on her hips and looked him over. “She is from here. Everyone in Aiglemont knows her.”

  He could see her suspicion mounting. “I guess that’s true. I didn’t think of it that way. It’s just that it’s a coincidence I’m here in her hometown, and just the other day Contessa Juliette was teaching me how to make tortelloni…”

  The woman’s demeanor changed completely. “Ah, Juliette’s tortelloni! The ricotta and ramp, or the three mushroom?” She smiled.

  Alphonso smiled, too. “Tre funghi. But the foraged porcini weren’t up to her standards.”

  She relaxed visibly and sat down across from him. “Ah, certainly not. But then, she’s so particular about her porcini. You know, she refuses to even look at the cultivated ones.”

  Alphonso nodded animatedly. “That’s what she told me. She said cultivated porcini are…”

  “…too watery,” they said in unison, and both laughed.

  “Right, that’s just what she says!” Her hands flew up in surprise.

  Unable to help himself, he continued proudly, “She taught me this trick with a cheese cloth.”

  She held her hands up. “Oh la la la la la! Please! I’ve even seen her do it with a coffee filter!”

  “Sì! I can picture her doing that!” he laughed.

  She clapped her hands over her mouth and giggled through her fingers. “Juliette told me that one time while they were visiting friends on an island, her husband’s nonna used a silk stocking to strain the porcini she had brought with her, because it was all that was on hand!”

  He nodded in admiration. “The Verona women are so practical, and I think maybe…unstoppable.”

  “Sorry I was rude. I’m Fauve. Giselle and I are old friends from when we were toddlers. Why do you ask about her?”

  “Oh, no reason.” Then he thought of a strategy. “It’s just that I’ve seen articles about Giselle, and she look
s completely unlike someone who would be close to Juliette. You know…the Paris tabloid cover girl, the dangerous artist. Does she get along with her mother-in-law?”

  “Oh, mais oui! Juliette loves her like she was her own daughter. And Giselle’s not at all like what the papers and magazines say about her or Vincenzo.”

  “They must love being out here in the country together.”

  “Since they graduated high school, they spend most of their time in Paris. But Vincenzo hops all over the world saving the planet, and Giselle comes up here to work on her art projects.”

  “Alone?”

  “Well, without Vincenzo. But she has me, and all the friends she grew up with. The truth is, she’s totally focused on her art, and doesn’t give herself much time for anything else. She never has. Vincenzo is exactly the same about his charity work. They’re both really driven. Perfect for each other.”

  Alphonso figured it was time to get moving. “Well, I should start my day. I’ll be back here for dinner tonight. Even after my breakfast, thinking about Juliette’s pasta has made me hungry again.”

  “You won’t find any pasta here in Aiglemont that’s as good as Juliette’s, I’m sorry to say.” Fauve smacked the table in mock frustration, and then had a thought that made her grin. “But I’m making a white bean cassoulet to die for. It’ll be on the menu tonight.” She hopped up and went to check on her other diners.

  “I can’t wait,” he called. Then he went to the front desk, claimed his suitcase, and headed up to his room.

  Markus was already dressed as the sun rose over the forest. He found Giselle in the château’s kitchen, wearing a briefer version of the housedress he’d seen the night before. This one was made of faded blue silk, with buttons down the front, and the hem was three inches above her knees. She had on soft, off-white suede oxford shoes, with no socks. She is working in that? How am I supposed to focus on building if she is not wearing work clothes?

  She looked up at him and smiled.