Bianca looked grieved. It had not been her intention to displease or upset him, just the opposite. “I needed help with my hair.” Her voice was small. “I did not want to embarrass you.”
The lump in Ian’s throat grew bigger.
“You could never embarrass me,” was on the tip of Ian’s tongue, but what he said was, “As if this delay were not embarrassing enough. Come, we don’t have time to hear any more of your silly excuses.” He took her hand and roughly pulled her toward the door. “Tell them we are finally ready, Giorgio, that my charming betrothed has seen fit to return from the scullery.”
Ian tried to turn a cold eye on her, to let her feel the full force of his wrath, but as soon as he looked in her direction, his anger evaporated. Instead of a cold glare, somehow, he found himself kissing her, crushing her to him with all the strength in his body, holding her as close as he could.
“Bianca,” he breathed when they separated, his tone different from the one he had just been using. “Bianca,” he repeated, softly, almost with reverence. But any words Ian might have spoken were abruptly interrupted. As if on cue, the opening strains of the processional were heard, bringing an end to the betrothal couple’s interview and forcing them out into public to greet their guests.
Giorgio was smiling to himself as he descended the stairs, but his smile did not last long. Just as the quartet struck up their now familiar refrain again, the rumble of voices from below drowned them out. The cause of the disturbance was only briefly a mystery, for Morgana da Gigio in person could be seen ascending the staircase, magnificent in crimson silk. She had timed her arrival to coincide with the descent of the betrothal couple, hoping to embarrass Ian and highlight as much as possible the discrepancy between herself and whatever boring patrician chit he was marrying. She wanted to make it plain to Ian what he had lost through his selfishness. Ideally the girl would burst into tears and require Ian’s unwilling attention, but that was not strictly necessary for Mora to feel her plan had been a success.
It worked admirably at the beginning, her arrival causing a pleasing stir, her admirers flocking around her in support. But when she encountered Ian and the chit on the stairs, something was awry. The girl did not look like one of the plain, dull women who predominated in her class. She simply was not ugly enough. And Ian looked nearer tears than she did. Mora curtsied low, low enough to reveal her nipples over the lace of her bodice to several happily placed young men, and greeted the betrothed pair.
Bianca held out her hand as Ian made them acquainted under the eyes of a thousand of Venice’s leading citizens. “Carissima, this is Morgana da Gigio, my former mistress.”
Nothing Mora could have done would have caused as tremendous a stir as Ian’s introduction. For weeks afterward people talked about the endearing way he had addressed Bianca and its contrast with his clinical description of Mora. While the act earned him the hatred of some of her admirers, it also worked to replace his chilly, stonelike reputation with a new image of him as a romantic hero. By the night’s end, Ian had decided with despair that he preferred his old reputation, which had never subjected him to the adulation of the teams of young women who suddenly found him unbearably gallant. Bianca wanted to lean over and kiss him but knew that would be stoutly frowned upon.
Ian had won the battle of wits, and Mora knew it. Conceding defeat, she stepped aside, but not without first giving Ian one of her famous, dazzling smiles, more for its effect on the chit than for its effect on him.
It worked. No meeting could have underlined the difference between Bianca’s plain, dull self and Ian’s fascinating former mistress better. The strength that had suffused Bianca after Ian’s kiss left her all at once. Indeed, with her mud-colored eyes and curveless body, Bianca felt herself growing smaller and uglier each time she breathed. But the assembled guests pretended not to notice, treating her not only civilly but with affection as she and Ian continued their descent. She knew it was only pity that motivated their kindness, but she was grateful nonetheless. By the time they had reached the ground floor and had successfully led off the first dance without anyone commenting audibly on the likeness between her and an ungainly monster, she was feeling almost human, and certainly strong enough to begin the first of the tasks she had set herself.
Since Ian had confined her to the house, Bianca had decided to seize the opportunity the ball presented to interview all the men identified by Tullia as possible candidates for the role of Isabella’s fiance. She spotted Brunaldo Bartolini standing by a fountain with his twin sister and considered approaching the gloriously good-looking pair but was reluctant when she noticed how intimately they were talking. There were rumors that they were closer than a brother and sister should be, scarcely surprising since not many people were as handsome as they were, and though Bianca did not believe the talk, she was nevertheless wary of interrupting anything too personal. Continuing her survey, she caught sight of Lodivico Terreno and was about to approach him when a hand on her shoulder made her turn.
With his small deep-set black eyes, slicked-back hair, and whiny voice, Giulio Cresci knew he was irresistible to women and therefore did not waste any charm convincing them. “Dance with me, signorina,” he ordered rather than asked, and Bianca found herself being shuffled gracelessly about the dance floor. Under any other circumstance she would have marched away with her head high, but as he was one of the men on her list to interview, she valiantly persevered. Weaving in and out of the other dancers, they exchanged scattered words, but Bianca soon saw that she would need to organize a tête-à-tête with him to get her questions answered.
Feigning exhaustion, she allowed him to drag her toward a bench. She regretted it almost instantly, for he seemed to have a misguided idea of her intentions. She was able to put her questions to him, but his responses were something less than helpful. He addressed her only in mildly raunchy puns, which were bad enough without his curious habit of repeating the punch lines to himself and thus making it impossible for Bianca to feign polite misunderstanding.
When she asked him if he had houses in the country, he smiled knowingly at her and retorted, “Planning to wiggle your way out from under Ian? Wiggle out from under? Wiggle under?”
When she asked him how he felt about the Arboretti, he raised his eyebrows saying he was more interested in his own little tree, and offered her the opportunity to help make it grow, make the tree grow, make it grow big.
When she asked him if he had any interest in flowers, he asked her if she wanted him to press her petals and make her bloom, press and bloom, press and bloom. It was when he offered to demonstrate that last technique that Bianca, ungraciously, fled.
Though none of her other interviews were as taxing, they were equally inconclusive. She learned that the Franceschinos had sold their estates on Lake Como, that Lodivico Terreno had an interesting collection of medicinal plants, that Brunaldo Bartolini kept bees, and that they all professed to admire and like the Arboretti. Something about the way Brunaldo spoke Ian’s name made her suspect that there was a bit of animosity between the two men, but he rebutted all her attempts to make him admit it. At the end, she had learned nothing but that it was exhausting to interview people in the middle of a ball.
Ian’s attempts with Signora Valdone were no more informative but far more suggestive. Lucretia, as she insisted he call her, was not quite as large as her husband, nor quite as proportional. She had responded to Ian’s invitation to dance with such a profusion of lash fluttering and loud exclamations that Ian thought she might be collapsing in a fit, but it soon became clear that for her such behavior was normal. It became equally clear that she had no interest in her husband’s amorous exploits because she was much too busy carrying out her own. When she propositioned Ian the first time, he was slightly surprised, but by her third unsubtle hint, this time accompanied by gestures, he was inured to it. He was able to untangle himself only when one of his serving yout
hs succeeded him in her attentions, and he made a mental note to give the young man a bonus, should he ever see him alive again.
The night slid festively on, the guests and the peacocks eating, drinking, and dancing to satiety. Making a wrong turn, Bianca had stumbled over Ian’s cousin Sebastian giving Cecilia Priuli an extended lesson about palm reading in a secluded alcove. Bianca’s retreat was checked by her cousin Analinda, who, having received two compliments from Crispin, hugged Bianca close at the assured prospect of their soon living under the same roof again. Tristan seemed to be making equally good progress with Catarina Nonte, even under the sulky eyes of her overprotective brother, Aemilio. It was while watching them that Bianca’s mind wandered to her own brother, and she began to wonder where he was, what he was doing, and if he was a murderer.
The last thought brought with it a wave of emotions that, in her exhausted state, she had difficulty controlling. Excusing herself from the group of young women who had gathered around to congratulate her on her happy match, she stealthily sneaked off to her apartment for a moment of solitary relaxation. She was just passing through from the sitting room into the bedroom when she heard the door behind her open and shut, and a female voice call her name.
“I thought I would find you in here, carissima.” On Mora’s lips the word had a foreign sound that both attracted and repelled Bianca, who suddenly felt a tinge of fear. Telling herself she was being foolish, she turned and curtsied to the other woman.
Mora drew up to her and regarded her. “You look exhausted. Come, sit, let us relax together.” She led Bianca toward a divan against the side wall and sat down close to her. “You know this was my suite. Ian had Paolo Veronese paint it for me.”
Bianca nodded, not because she had known but because it made sense. It was a glorious suite of rooms, well worthy of a glorious occupant. What did not make sense, what she did not understand, was Mora’s seeking her out in this manner.
As if reading her mind, Mora smiled at her. “You are wondering why I am here. Why I am passing my time with you rather than in a crowd of my admirers. It’s obvious, actually.” She reached out and took Bianca’s hand in hers, meeting her eyes openly, candidly. “Ian asked me to find you and to instruct you in what he likes. He says he has been trying to teach you his preferences but that you are, well, a little willful.”
Bianca was too shocked to pull away. It sounded false, completely improbable, but Mora was meeting her eyes with complete candor, and no one could lie that convincingly. Having admitted her shortcomings to herself that afternoon, she had already surmised she was routinely disappointing Ian, and it should come as no surprise that he had arranged for an expert tutorial. It was actually kind of him, to give her this chance to learn, before discarding her altogether.
At least that was how Mora put it. She had spent the hours since her first glimpse of Bianca in moody meditation, trying to contrive some way of making the chit hers. Her hatred for Ian was only part of her motivation, for she found as she watched the girl move about the room, talking or dancing or laughing, that she started to desire her. Mora was not sure that an interlude between her experienced arms would completely erase the girl’s desire for Ian, but she knew her powers and that she could realistically count on them to at least dampen it. Almost by magic, the moment she hit upon the right approach the girl withdrew from her band of insipid companions and made haste for her room. Mora’s room. It was too perfect to be true.
She brought Bianca’s hand to her lips and kissed the fingers gently, all the time keeping her eyes locked on Bianca’s. Her shoulder dipped as if by accident and one of her coral nipples peeked out of her deep red gown. She smiled apologetically and slipped Bianca’s hand down to touch it, pushing Bianca’s unwitting fingers over it until it formed a hard little peak. Then she slid the hand around so Bianca was holding the whole of her large breast. “This is what Ian likes,” Mora purred, moving Bianca’s hand over her voluptuous anatomy. “Don’t you?”
Bianca felt as if she were caught in some sort of spell, unable to move or breathe, to acquiesce or to protest, somehow outside her body. Her fingertips tingled where they were touching Mora’s impossibly soft skin, and she imagined how much Ian must miss resting his head on the smooth, ample globe. She thought sadly of her own meager anatomy and how little it had to offer to him. It was clearly a disappointment to Mora, who was regarding her with a look of deep pity.
Mora had to exercise intense restraint not to reach down and cup the girl’s deliciously fresh breasts. She allowed herself only to caress Bianca’s wavy hair where it spilled onto her milky skin, to brush her fingertips over the girl’s silky soft decollete. She considered starting there, planting a kiss first at the nape of the girl’s neck, then one lower, then lower still, until the bodice of her gown was dispensed with, but realized she did not have the luxury of time because they could be interrupted at any moment. Instead, she pulled her closer and brought Bianca’s lips to hers.
The kiss—warm, yielding, sensual, and very real—had begun before Bianca realized what was happening. In a flash, her powers of reason flooded back. It was impossible that Ian had sent Mora to her, completely inconceivable, and if she allowed herself to be seduced by the remarkable woman, she would become simply another part of the pain that Ian carried around with him, another pawn in a game of revenge that she did not understand and which had gone on too long. Abruptly, she pulled away from Mora’s lips.
“I am afraid I must return to my guests. Thank you for the lesson.” Bianca turned and left the room.
All the girl’s gratitude could not counter the fact that Bianca had repudiated Mora’s advances. She, Morgana da Gigio, had sacrificed time with her admirers to offer herself as a tutor to the selfish, inexperienced chit and had gotten nothing but paltry thanks in return. Bianca had taken advantage of her, Mora realized with outrage, had let her feel her little hands on her body, let her imagine the suppleness of her touch, and then, ungrateful of the honor of Mora’s affections, had walked away from her. Mora’s only consolation was the surprise and horror that would cross Ian’s face when he learned what she had done. Perhaps it would even be enough to make him repudiate the girl. No one abused Morgana da Gigio without repercussions. The girl would get what was coming to her.
For the time being, Mora needed something to remove Bianca’s taste from her lips, the ungrateful and selfish girl’s image from her mind. She considered calling one of her admirers in to make love to her there, imaging that it would be almost as disrespectful as the seduction she had attempted earlier. The impulse was tempting, and yet somehow unappealingly crass in the room Ian had built for her. No such objections existed to her next idea, however, and she made haste to execute it.
It was not quite dawn when Bianca, Tristan, and Miles saw the last guests to their gondolas. Sebastian had left earlier with a mysterious excuse about having a meeting to go to, and no one had seen Crispin or Ian for hours. Miles, who was well embarked upon a crush on Bianca, was warmly praising her for her performance that evening and running over the litany of flattering comments people had made about her. But she was too preoccupied to hear what he said, or even to smile as Tristan rallied her on her conquest of Miles. What she needed was to find Ian, to hear from him that she had not embarrassed him at the ball. When Roberto and Francesco approached to exchange further pleasantries, Bianca made an excuse and bade them all good night.
She went straight to her room, or the room she had once considered hers, but only for the sake of appearances. Without even pausing to change out of her elaborate gown, she made for the hidden passage at the far end that led directly to Ian’s bedroom and descended. She had the doorknob in her hand and was just about to burst in when she heard the voices.
They were not voices, really, so much as moans, which grew faster and louder as Bianca stood, stunned, on the threshold. Unable to move, she heard the sounds build in intensity until, suddenly, she could
clearly make out words.
“Yes, yes, Morgana; oh, yes, Mora, Mora, Mora,” a deep male voice was shouting over and over in a fever pitch of ecstasy.
Chapter Nineteen
The time had at last come to throw herself into the canal, that was clear to Bianca. The only decision still to be made was whether to throw herself off her own, or rather, Mora’s, balcony, which might not be high enough, or off the roof of the palace. While the roof would be slightly harder to get to, it had the advantage of guaranteed success. Running back up the stairs of the secret passage, she opted for the roof. She passed through her beautiful room, not even pausing to admire the fine frescoes one last time, and made for the main staircase, moving as quickly as her legs would carry her. She had traversed the first set of stairs and was halfway up the second when she ran directly into the wall.
Like all the walls in the palace, this was no ordinary wall. As Bianca stood, trying to regain her equilibrium after the impact, the wall grew first arms, then a voice, then a second voice.
It was the second voice that spoke. “Is it always like this for you, d’Aosto, as soon as you speak a woman’s name, she comes flying into your arms?”
“One of nature’s few gifts to me.” Ian tried to keep his voice light to match the tone of his interlocutor, but one look at Bianca’s face told him that something was desperately wrong. He wrapped his arms tighter around her stiff figure as he introduced his companion. “Carissima, I believe you know the Duca d’Aquila. He was just asking me about your anatomical work.”
Bianca had met Alessandro Cornaro, Duca dAquila, at one of her first balls and had found him more than typically diverting, but just at the moment she was too perplexed to take advantage of his conversational skills. Her body told her that she was standing in the safe circle of Ian’s arms, but her mind knew that was impossible. How could Ian be here with her when he was three stories below in bed with his no-longer-former mistress?
The Stargazer: The Arboretti Family Saga - Book One Page 22