“Don’t treat me like a baby.”
Giulieta Calvieri retracted her hand with the slice of apple. She would gladly have slapped him across his cheeks, but didn’t want to upset him while he was recovering. Marcheti had told her he had been attacked in the street, an easy victim for thugs after money.
Giulieta didn’t believe it for one moment, sooner attributing the injuries to a drunken stumble. But it was none of her business what her future husband did. Just as long as he married her and she got what she wanted.
She took a deep breath and smiled. “Have you been able to play?”
“Not for more than a few minutes. It gives me a terrible headache.” Leonardo looked at her. His eyes were suddenly wide and questioning. “Will I ever play again like I used to? Marcheti tells me all my notes are off-key.”
“Let me hear.” She rose and brought him his violin. He played a few notes. They were hesitant, but the pitch was perfect.
“Marcheti has been lying to you. There is nothing wrong with it.”
Leonardo exhaled. “I thought so. Why would he lie to me?”
“Because he wants you to feel insecure and need him. But you do not need him. He was once your master, but you have long since surpassed him.”
Leonardo smiled to himself. “I knew that.”
Giulieta also smiled, but she didn’t show it. She would wean him away from Marcheti step by step. There was nothing in the whole wide world that meant more to Marcheti than having Leonardo for a puppet. And she’d cut the strings. He’d be left with nothing. Nothing, like he deserved.
She put her hand on Leonardo’s arm. “You must get well soon.”
“Yes, then I can perform again.”
“And we can marry. I’ve been looking for a dress. My friends say it must be simple as I have been married before. But I want it to be special for you.” She leaned over and pressed a kiss on his cheek. “I love you.”
She felt him cringe under her touch but it didn’t anger her. He didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. He was just a means to an end. And although it could have been anyone under Marcheti’s care, it was just as well that it was him. He was arrogant but he would learn humility once he realized she had never wanted him for his sake. Perhaps it would even make him into a tolerable person.
Leonardo looked at her. “Do you really love me?”
A trickle of doubt streaked her back, like a draught from an open window striking goose flesh on her arms. “Why do you ask? Of course I love you, I have been so worried for you. I have prayed day and night for your full recovery.” It was wrong to involve God and the saints in her deception, but then vengeance was a biblical principle. She would ask for forgiveness later.
Leonardo relaxed a bit. “Whole churches must have prayed for my recovery. It would be a terrible waste if my talent was lost.”
Giulieta resisted the urge to hit him with his violin and get these ideas of superiority out of his head. Yes, he was talented, but he would never be loved if he betrayed his vanity so clearly. Why not conceal it more, keep it to himself like a guilty secret?
Leonardo put the violin under his chin and played some more, a dreamy haunting melody. Giulieta thought of her first husband and how they had danced on their wedding day. How he had carried her up the stairs to their bedroom and had smiled down on her as he had placed her tenderly on their bed, on the rose petals strewn across the blanket. “Ti amo,” he had whispered, “per sempre.”
Sempre had lasted for about a year and then he had started looking at others and betraying her, shaming her with his affairs. She had lost her faith in love, which was a good thing now. It made it so much easier.
The door opened, and Marcheti rushed in. His eyes flashed. “Can you not play one note as it should be?” Then he spied her and stopped, his expression changing as if a hand wiped over it. Irritation made way for charm as he reached out and kissed her hand. “Shall I bring refreshments? You have been a bad host, Leonardo.” He turned to the door and clapped his hands, shouting commands to the servants.
Her hand pricked where he had kissed it. His lips were cold like the grave. The grave where she would put him if she had her way.
Slowly. Step by step. With a smile, never betraying anything. Never making a single mistake.
* * *
“What is this nonsense?” Lord Bantham stormed into the room and threw something at his wife.
The note fluttered to the floor and she had to crouch to retrieve it. It contained a few lines. “The police have dredged the canal underneath the Ponte della Musica this morning. There will be a meeting at Sir James Lovelane’s palazzo this afternoon at three. Come in the costume you wore to the party when Lady Bantham came back from the dead. All will be revealed.”
“There is no name under it,” she observed.
“How clever of you.” He glared at her. “Do you know who sent this?”
“How should I know?”
“It looks like your handwriting.”
“What nonsense. My handwriting is nothing like it. Are you going?”
“Are we going?” he corrected. “The envelope was addressed to both of us.”
“I have a terrible headache.”
He closed in on her. “I don’t think you can get away with it that easily.”
“Away with what?”
“Murder?” He held her gaze. “You insisted we would tell Jasper we had been together all night. But we know better. Don’t we? You could have killed her.”
“So could you.” She pulled back her shoulders, determined not to let him bully her.
“You stood to lose the most from her return.”
“Not true. At the time of our marriage, she was alive. That means it was never valid. Killing her here in Venice would not have changed a thing. Like you just said, I am clever. I have no motive.”
“You believed that with her dead, I would marry you again. You suggested as much to Jasper.”
“I did not. And besides, why would you not marry me again? Have you tired of me?”
Ignoring the question, he pulled the note from her hand and studied it. “Perhaps Sir James wrote this. He never could accept his daughter’s death.”
“She didn’t die. She walked out on him like she walked out on you. He must have been livid when he realized that. I do hope Jasper put him on the suspect list. What does it mean that the police dredged the canal? Her body has been found, right?”
“Probably for the weapon. But I can’t imagine they found anything. There must be a layer of mud on the bottom of the canal.”
“It sounds like you considered this before. Perhaps when you threw the weapon over the railing of the bridge?”
He looked her over. “I suggest you go and dress, darling. We should be there before the clock strikes three.”
A chill travelled up her spine. “You want to go there? Dressed up like we were that night?”
“If Sir James wrote this, Jasper will be there as well. If we don’t appear, he’ll think we have something to hide.” Bantham frowned. “Your costume had these golden ribbons tied to the hem. What if one of them is missing? Recovered on the scene of the crime?”
A cold feeling settled in her stomach. “I will go and dress,” she whispered and ran up the stairs. In her room she opened the closet and pulled out the costume she had worn that night. The heavy brocade felt like a dead weight in her arms. She looked at it, from all sides, looking for missing ribbons. They all seemed to be there. Nothing wrong, just him riling her, enjoying causing her anguish.
Then she noticed something else. Halfway up the skirt, at the height of the left thigh, was a stain. A dark red stain. A blood stain?
She had not seen it before.
She stared at it as if her disbelief could will it away. But it was there. She exhaled in a hiss. What to do? Not go, feign that headache and let Bantham go alone?
He could say anything then. Accuse her. If he confessed they had not been together, because they slept in separate bedr
ooms…
He could come back from that meeting with the news that Jasper was now convinced she had done it. He could even come back with Jasper to arrest her. If he turned against her without her being present to make sure the dagger got dug into his back…
She drew breath to strengthen herself. Everything was at stake here. She couldn’t stay away because she was afraid. She had to wear another dress and make the best of it. Somehow.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Come in the costumes we wore on the night…” Larissa Kenwood threw the note down on the table. “What tasteless joke is this?”
“I can assure you it is no joke.” Arundell gestured across his own outfit: the all black costume of the highwayman. “I obliged and so should you.”
“You have a nerve telling me what to do after… our last encounter.”
Arundell’s eyes flashed through the slits of his mask. “That little matter is nothing in sight of what we face here.”
“How do you mean?”
“Sir James is calling this meeting for a reason.”
“Sir James?”
“Yes. It’s at his house, he must be behind this. He wants to do a re-enactment of the scene or something. I don’t know exactly what. But it could be dangerous, especially if he also asked Jasper to be present to draw conclusions from the little charade.”
That sounded plausible enough. Sir James was desperate for answers. And Jasper knew he had failed three years ago. They wouldn’t just let the matter rest. Larissa studied him. “You want to work together?”
He shrugged. “I have no ill will against you. I needed the emeralds. That is business.”
“And what is this? Personal?”
“Well, I do call a meeting that could decide about one’s life or death, personal.” Arundell studied her. “If Jasper decides you killed Lady Bantham, you will never go back to England a free woman.”
Larissa swallowed. “Why would he decide that?”
“Because the police dredged the canal this morning. They must have found your little toy.”
Larissa tried not to sway. The fan was gone from among her things. Someone had taken it and thrown it into the water where it could be found. Had already been found, probably. She was this close to being arrested and charged with murder.
“What do you suggest?”
Arundell held her gaze. “You must tell Jasper beforehand that your fan with the dagger was stolen from you at the party. I will confirm your story, declaring you told me right after the fact.”
“He will never believe that. He will ask us why we never mentioned it to him until now.”
“Because it might have incriminated you.”
“Yes, as it will now. I will not make any kind of declaration to Jasper until I know what this whole meeting is about. If it is just a re-enactment… He cannot know anything. He has barely had time to investigate. He is a foreigner here, people will not want to cooperate.”
“You are wrong there.” Arundell smiled, that slow wolfish smile that she had once found so enticing. “People are more than willing to cooperate. You see, if you give information that points at someone other than your—”
“I despise you.”
He held his head back and laughed. “I came here with the honest intention of giving you good advice. If you don’t wish to take it—”
“Why would you want to give me good advice?”
“Because – how do I put it delicately? I have no interest in cutting off a new source of income?”
Did she understand him correctly? Did he mean that he would keep asking her for payment to keep his mouth shut about what he allegedly knew?
For a moment she wondered if it would really be so bad to be arrested by Jasper and tried. Then a jury would decide, impartial people who had no history with her. Here she was at the mercy of a man who loathed her for having tried to seduce him while she was in love with another. A man who would make sure she paid, to the full, for that slight.
* * *
“But I don’t understand,” Rose said as Luigi manoeuvred the gondola through the narrow canal. “I never went to that party. I’ve never even been to that man’s house. This Sir James. Why do I have to go there?”
“Jasper asked me to bring you and he knows best.”
“He said he would protect me. How can he protect me when I have to go to the house of a man associated with the Banthams?” Rose wrapped her arms around her shoulders. “I don’t want to go. I’m afraid.”
“I’ll not let any harm come to you. I’ll stay with you all of the time. If they come near you, I’ll defend you. I’ll help you flee. You can stay with me, here in Venice.”
She looked up at him and smiled. “You’re so kind.” He was but a boy making a boy’s promises. She was a married woman, even with her husband lost at sea. As long as he was not dead, she could not commit to another. He just saw the allure of her position, all alone, under threat in a strange city. And perhaps it was better to flee with him than to go back to England where she would have no more work and still no certainty about her sister’s fate.
“There we are,” Luigi said, docking the gondola. He helped her alight from it and held her hand in his. “I will protect you.”
She nodded and they went to the side door for the staff. They walked through solemn corridors together, to find the room where the meeting would take place. Luigi said Jasper had explained it all to him. Rose just hoped it would not take long. Her head was light as she inhaled the strange scents of this opulent home.
Stepping into the room, she saw a group of people assembled. All dressed up and wearing masks. She halted, panic flooding her. She could not see who was Lord Bantham, or Lady Bantham who had screamed at her that she would be beheaded by the guillotine. She could not recognize any of them as they turned to look at her with their expressionless faces.
Luigi put his arm around her and ushered her closer to the group.
Jasper appeared in the doorway with two more people. Not dressed up. Scowling at her as soon as they saw her.
Rose cringed. “His lordship and his wife,” she whispered to Luigi. His hold on her tightened. She knew he would be good for his word. But would it be enough?
* * *
“Why are you not dressed up?” Arundell asked as he saw them come in. “The note was explicit. Or did Sir James not send the same message to everyone involved?”
Jasper nodded calmly. “I did send the same message to everyone involved. But people still have their own decision to make whether to obey or not.”
“Obey?” Bantham laughed. “You think a lot of yourself, Jasper. What are you really? A retired inspector. You have no authority here. Scotland Yard is a long way off and Vernassi doesn’t count you as one of his men. I saw no reason to listen to what you asked.”
“Then why are you even here?” Arundell hissed. “Afraid to miss something?”
“We came as a simple courtesy to Sir James.” Lady Bantham sounded crisp. “He was our host for the party and he asked Jasper to look into the matter. Understandably.”
Jasper raised his hands. Although their bickering, their need to immediately pounce at each other like chickens determining who ruled the coop, was revealing and, in a way, even amusing, he wanted to get started quickly. This was hard enough as it was.
He gestured to the group to gather round. “Although not everyone responded in equal measure to my request.” He put emphasis on the word ‘request’. “You have at least all seen the need to be present.”
“You were so mysterious we had no choice,” Larissa Kenwood said. She smiled at him coyly.
“I don’t understand,” Bantham barked, “why Sir James agreed to this. Lent his house for this charade.”
“Charade?” Jasper asked with a raised brow. “You already know what I have in mind?”
“It doesn’t take much deduction…” Bantham gave the word a ridiculing air. “To understand. Why else ask us to come in costume unless you want us to re-enact the p
arty? Go through it all again? But I can tell you that you will learn nothing new from that.”
“Please.” Sir James raised a hand. “Let Jasper tell us what he has in mind. I agreed to this, lent my house for it as you so aptly put it, so now let us hear what it is.”
“As if you do not know yet.” Lady Bantham snorted. “You and Jasper made this plan together.”
“Jasper has revealed nothing to me.”
Jasper wondered a moment if Sir James blamed him for that, or something else caused that quiver in his voice. Was he nervous about what was about to be revealed?
He should be.
He frowned to drive his thoughts back to the present moment. “We will all return to the night of the party, close to midnight, démasqué. Please take the places you took then.”
“Here we go,” Bantham groused. “Pure nonsense.”
Jasper looked at him. “Will you take your places?”
They looked around them and then moved, into a reasonably accurate position, he thought. It was hard to determine exactly as the room had been so full that night and was now almost empty but for them.
Nobody looked up at the balcony, to the clock that sat there ticking the minutes away. Eight minutes past three.
“It surprises me,” Bantham said, apparently having followed his gaze up, “that you are not doing this at midnight to make it even more real.”
Jasper shook his head. “I have no need for theatrics. You need not fear that up there a woman will appear in a red dress. Another Lady Bantham returned from the dead.”
He saw with satisfaction how the heads all moved to look up, involuntarily. Psychology was a powerful weapon. About the only weapon he had to catch these people at their own games. There was a killer among them and the others weren’t innocent either. None of them.
“A woman in red appeared and removed her mask. She was recognized as Lady Bantham, last seen in England at a party where she had worn a similar gown.”
“I merely thought it was someone impersonating her,” Leonardo said. He had come in a monk’s robe but not the same as he had worn that night. That one had to be bloodied and this one was clean. “That is why I ran after her. I only wanted to ask that woman what on earth she was doing.”
Under the Guise of Death Page 17