The Rossetti Letter (v5)

by Phillips, Christi

  “So all I know of love is how it can destroy people: my father, my mother, who did not long survive my father, Ephegenia…”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Don Gaspar sent her to a convent. From what I know, she is there still.”

  “And you? Did it destroy you?”

  “I’m alive, am I not?”

  “For the second time today, you evade my question.”

  “Yes.” He turned to her with a thin smile. “Forgive me.”

  “You are forgiven, but only because that is one of the saddest stories I have ever heard.”

  “We both have such stories, it seems.”

  “Still, yours was an unduly harsh introduction to the ways of the world.”

  “I suppose. But you understand now why I owe my life to the duke of Ossuna.” He was silent while he thought of what he hesitated to tell her: how, when he saw his father and Girrón dead on the ground, it was as if all feeling had left him. How killing a man in practice was quite different from what one imagines: more difficult, messier, more agonizing than his brief description would imply. He’d never been able to forget the grimace of surprise and suffering in Girrón’s face as he died. Or how every man he’d killed since seemed to look back at him with Girrón’s eyes.

  The sun was low in the sky. “We should go back,” Antonio said.

  “Are you ready to join the festivities again?”

  “Must we?”

  “Yes, I insist. Carnival is most exciting at night. You must see it at least once.”

  The moon had risen and set before they made their way back to Alessandra’s house. In companionable silence, Antonio and Alessandra rode facing each other in the gondola. She’d shown him the best of Carnival: the flotilla of decorated boats in the Grand Canal; tumblers, jugglers, dancing dogs, and puppet shows in every square; the midnight performance of the Flight of the Turk, in which an acrobat made a spectacular descent along a rope from the top of the Campanile to the door of the Doge’s Palace. They ended the evening at an outdoor ball in the Campo Sant’ Angelo, so packed with bodies that they never felt the chill night air. At first, Antonio had taken her hand with what appeared to be reluctance—perhaps he did not dance?—but soon the music and the gaiety inspired him, too, and they whirled around and around with the others until they were laughing and nearly breathless with the simple pleasure of it all. She looked away from him as she remembered it, a recollection based more on sensation than thought: the sudden charge of standing so close to him; the way her palm fit neatly in his; his lips as they brushed against her forehead; the warm, intoxicating feeling of his hand at her waist.

  They turned into the Rio di San Giuseppe, preternaturally dark and quiet in contrast to the celebrations in the city center. As the gondolier steered their boat to the mooring post outside her garden gate, Alessandra was surprised to see that another gondola was already there.

  “The ambassador is here,” she told Antonio.

  “You were expecting him?”

  “No.” She peered at the gondola. It was empty. “He must be in the house already. Wait here. I’ll see why he is come, then I’ll return.” She had already offered Antonio her spare bedchamber for the night, and now she’d have to sneak him in somehow. She stood up to step out of the gondola, but Antonio held her back.

  “The last time I was here you asked me about the marquis, and I could not answer,” he said. “I have an answer for you now. He is an ambassador—which means, of course, that he is a spy.”

  “What do you know exactly?”

  “Nothing that I am at liberty to tell you. But you must trust me when I say that I know something of the world in which he moves. I don’t think it wise for you to be connected with him.”

  “And just what do you expect me to do? Tell him to leave me be?”

  “That is one way…”

  “You are not so wise if you imagine it will be so easy. Please, do not concern yourself.” She looked back at the house, saw the glow of firelight in the parlor windows. “Wait here. I’ll be only a moment.”

  Inside, Bianca was upon her as soon as she set foot in the door. “The marquis waits for you upstairs. Something is wrong—he is in a very bad humor.”

  Alessandra climbed the stairs and found the ambassador seated in front of the fire, a glass raised to his lips as he took a swallow of strong drink. As she approached, he turned his head. The firelight gleamed red in his eyes. Alessandra realized her heart was beating furiously; although she had shrugged off Antonio’s warning, he’d made her afraid. She’d never seen the marquis looking so fierce. Alessandra steeled herself for an outburst.

  “Do you sew?” he asked.

  His question was so far from what she had expected, she wasn’t sure she’d heard rightly. “Pardon?”

  “Do you sew?” The ambassador’s voice was deeper and more gruff than usual. As he took another swig of brandy, Alessandra wondered if he was drunk.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You must help me.” Bedmar put his glass down on the floor and slowly stood up. With his left hand, he fumbled with the buttons at his chest. “Help me off with this.”

  Alessandra unbuttoned his doublet, gasping when she saw the bloodstain spreading across his linen shirt.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “I was set upon by some ruffians.” Or so they were meant to seem, Bedmar thought. There was one who fought as if possessed by the Devil himself, with greater skill and agility than was common in a street hoodlum. A light-eyed creature with Mongol features who would have killed him if Sanchez and the others hadn’t come to his rescue. When this devil had seen that his three cohorts had been mortally wounded and that he was outnumbered, he had clambered up the side of a building and away over the rooftops, escaping as easily as a bird taking flight. Bedmar would swear that he’d turned around and smiled triumphantly before he’d disappeared. No, they weren’t common thugs; that crookback senator was behind the surprise attack, he was certain.

  Alessandra helped the marquis remove his shirt and saw the wound that pierced his right shoulder, so deep it exposed the bone. “I’ll send for the doctor.”

  “No doctors.”

  “He is discreet.”

  “No, you must sew it yourself. It will not do for anyone to know I have been wounded.”

  “All right, then. You should stay seated. I’ll be back in a moment with something to bind your wound.” She raced downstairs to the kitchen, where Bianca waited anxiously. “I’ll need needles and thread and some dry towels,” she said. “And ask Nico to prepare the spare bedchamber—we’ll have more than one guest tonight.”

  Alessandra pushed past Bianca and hurried to the door. The viscount would surely be wondering what had kept her so long. But when she got outside, she discovered that Antonio had already gone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “DAD!” GWENDOLYN SQUEALED. She held the hotel phone tight to her ear and sat down on her bed. “I was just going to call you!”

  Claire had just returned from her morning jog on the Riva. She’d gotten back sooner than she’d planned. Halfway to Alessandra’s house she’d spotted a man jogging toward her. As he got closer, she’d seen that it was Andrew Kent, and she’d turned back toward the Piazza. If she was going to (almost literally) run into the Cambridge professor, she’d much rather do it when well fortified by coffee and breakfast.

  “The flight was fine,” said Gwen, with a sidelong glance at Claire. “You mean the boats? No, not yet. But I met this really nice girl, Stefania…”

  Claire knew what would follow. As they were leaving the Baldessaris’ the night before, Gwen had asked if she could go to the Lido with Stefania in the morning. Claire had said no, of course, as she imagined how much trouble Gwen could get into if she were left for an entire day on her own. Gwen had sulked all the way back to the hotel, not forgetting to mention every five minutes that her parents would have said yes.

  “…and she asked if I could go to t
he beach with her today,” Gwen went on, “and I really want to go but Claire said I couldn’t and I was just wondering if you’d talk to her—not to Stefania, to Claire—and tell her I go places with my friends all the time…”

  Claire wondered if she should tell Edward Fry why she had forbidden Gwen to go off with Stefania, but there was probably no way to do that without revealing a few of his daughter’s more interesting proclivities. Of course, if Gwen went to the Lido, Claire would have the day to herself, an entire, uninterrupted day in the Marciana, and this was weighing heavily in favor of the girl’s excursion. It was also true that during the past twenty-four hours, there had been no stealing, no drinking, no groping of tattooed boys. Yes, it was a vast improvement over the previous twenty-four, which clinched Claire’s resolve: if Edward Fry gave his consent, then she’d happily go along with the plan, and whatever fate befell Gwen that day would be on his conscience, not hers.

  Gwen held out the phone. “He wants to talk to you,” she said, smiling triumphantly.

  Behind the counter of the Biblioteca Marciana reading room, the sleek, chic Francesca checked a stack of books and documents against the list of requests Claire had left behind the day before.

  “Minutes of the Great Council meetings, March 1618”—Francesca placed a large, leather-bound volume in front of Claire—“and the Relazioni of the marquis of Bedmar.” This smaller book was the product of an eighteenth-century Italian publisher, with a faded, water-stained Venetian pressed-paper cover. Reputedly, this edition was a direct translation of Bedmar’s original Relazioni, the official reports that, as ambassador, he sent regularly to the Spanish king. It was as close as she could get to the original, at least for the moment, as the original was in an archive in Spain.

  Francesca carefully picked up a single sheet of antique parchment that was encased in a clear plastic sheet. “And Alessandra Rossetti’s letter to the Great Council.”

  Claire regarded it with wonder. Almost four hundred years ago Alessandra had composed this letter, and put her life at risk to save Venice from the conspiracy. She looked over the letter’s spidery black script and saw that she had a serious task ahead of her. She hadn’t considered how much more difficult it would be to translate someone’s handwriting than to work from a printed text. Alessandra’s ornate, archaic penmanship looked about as decipherable as Sanskrit. She skimmed the page with growing concern; it hardly looked like words.

  Francesca broke in on her thoughts. “I’m afraid that the diary you requested is not available.”

  Claire was so engrossed in the letter that it took a moment for the librarian’s statement to sink in. “The diary?”

  “Yes, you requested”—she checked Claire’s list once more—“the diary of Alessandra Rossetti, January 1618 through—”

  “But I have to I see it. Except for this letter, it’s the most important document in my research. Are you telling me that you don’t have it?”

  “We do have it, but it’s already been reserved by someone else. As you know, the materials can be checked out for one week. After he turns it in, we can make it available to you. That would be next Monday.”

  “I’m leaving Venice on Saturday.”

  “I’m so sorry. I know how disappointing it is, but he was here before you, and we must honor the first request.”

  “Who’s ‘he’?” Claire asked, with a sinking feeling that she already knew the answer.

  Francesca checked another paper on her desk. “Andrew Kent.”

  Of course, Claire thought. He had arrived at the Marciana an entire day before she had because he had waltzed through the EU line at the Venice airport passport control while she was stuck in a mob of two hundred. Something for which, she now decided, he was completely to blame. His story about her being apprehended for not having an EU passport could have been a lot of baloney; it was almost as if he knew where she was headed and had deliberately misled her in order to get to the diary first. Claire understood that she was being irrational, but she was too angry to care.

  “We have an earlier diary of Alessandra Rossetti’s, if you’re interested,” Francesca said, holding up a small, battered journal bound with rust-colored leather. “This one covers the period from July through October 1617.”

  Claire nodded her assent. Although it didn’t cover the crucial months of early 1618, it might provide some insight into Alessandra’s life.

  “Perhaps Dr. Kent will finish his work with the other diary soon,” Francesca said, “and you’ll be able to see it before you leave.” She glanced at the shelves of books and manuscripts behind her. Near the middle was a large stack of books topped by a small, weathered, leather-bound book that looked identical to the one Claire held in her hands: Andrew Kent’s stack, topped by Alessandra’s second journal. There it was, so close and yet so far from her grasp, waiting not for her but for Andrew Kent to uncover its secrets.

  “Can I take a look at it?” Claire asked.

  Again, Francesca shook her head, softening her refusal with a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry, but we have to keep very careful track of the materials. Once they’ve been reserved, we cannot give them to anyone else. There have been a number of thefts from Italian libraries recently, and we’ve been forced to institute stricter procedures.” Francesca smiled confidentially and leaned closer. “Perhaps if you ask him, he will return it early so that you can see it. I’m sure you can be very persuasive if you choose.”

  Claire stared at the librarian, her mouth slightly agape with surprise. Francesca was suggesting that Claire use her womanly wiles to get the diary. After all, Francesca’s subsequent shrug implied, that’s what she would do—without any remorse, and certainly without regard for political correctness.

  “That’s—that’s an incredible idea,” Claire stammered.

  “You are a woman, he is a man…” Francesca’s pretty hands went palms up in the air.

  Claire giggled in spite of her desire not to.

  “You think I am a comic?” Francesca asked.

  “I was just thinking that I can’t imagine a Harvard librarian ever suggesting that I use my sexuality to coerce a manuscript from another historian.”

  “What’s the point of having sexuality if you’re not going to use it?”

  “Ah. Well. You do have a point. But don’t you think it’s sort of…wrong? Most American women are philosophically opposed to that sort of thing, and the librarians would probably worry that giving out advice like that would make them vulnerable to a lawsuit.”

  “You Americans are much too serious. It’s just a game, and it’s so simple,” Francesca said. “You are a woman. You should know how to get what you want.”

  All well and good, except that it was Andrew Kent they were talking about. He didn’t exactly inspire her feminine instincts. Not to mention that she wasn’t so sure she had any womanly wiles to call upon.

  She gathered up her materials and walked off in search of a secluded spot in which to work. It was still early, and only two others—surrounded by books, heads bent, quietly industrious—sat at the reading room’s massive wooden tables. She set her things down on a table at the back, far from the wall of windows. The day was so brilliantly beautiful, she was afraid that the alluring view of the lagoon would be distracting, and distractions she had more than enough of.

  She decided to start with the Relazioni instead of Alessandra’s letter. Her translating skills needed some polishing, and the book, with its printed text, provided a better way to begin. She took a copy of her dissertation from her tote bag and set it down next to her notebook, books, and documents. Small yellow Post-it notes marked with a “B” flagged the places in her paper where she had used quotations from Bedmar’s reports, quotations she’d found in other published sources.

  She had long hoped this moment might arrive, when she’d be able to confirm the citations in her work with books such as this, and with some of the primary sources. It was a huge step toward completing her dissertation. Before she left H
arriott, she’d looked forward to the time she would spend in this room, immersed in books and papers, immersed in the past, lost in thought, her mind focused and humming. But as she opened the Relazioni, pen poised over notebook, she didn’t feel the excitement she had thought she would. Now that she was where she had so long wanted to be, she couldn’t concentrate.

  The Marciana’s slanting shafts of morning sunlight, its slowly drifting dust motes, its hushed silence: all conspired to increase the restlessness she felt. She had an overwhelming desire to be outside on the Riva, sitting at a table under a striped umbrella, drinking coffee and looking out over the lagoon. Or on a vaporetto chugging slowly along the Grand Canal. Or aimlessly walking through the narrow Venetian streets, stopping wherever she pleased to window-shop for things she didn’t need: Venetian glass and carnival masks and high-heeled shoes of glove-soft leather. Or eating nothing but gelato for lunch and then spending hours in the Accademia, looking only at the paintings she loved and ignoring all the others, even if they were important. She could be with Gwen on the beach, soaking up the sun and the Lido’s cheesy, retro glamour.

  Gwen. An anxious sigh escaped her lips. It wasn’t only the attractions of Venice that were making it hard for her to concentrate, it was the distraction of other people. Living, breathing people who crowded her thoughts and provoked too many emotions. It hardly seemed fair, now that she had the day to herself, that she should be worrying about Gwen. It was a constant, niggling kind of worry, like a mental ticker tape of every problem, disaster, or catastrophe that Venice could inflict upon the girl. Or vice versa.

  And what about Giancarlo? She’d better not start thinking about him or she’d never get any work done; but she couldn’t forget how estranged they’d been by the end of the previous evening, her questions unanswered, his discomfort evident. He hadn’t exactly lied to her, but he hadn’t told the whole truth, either, had he? She supposed it served her right for falling for a handsome face. She should have guessed that there was a woman in his life already—men like Giancarlo were always attached to someone. Often enough, they were attached to more than one someone.