The Veil of Night

by Lydia Joyce

  "Isn't it a sight?" Mr. de Lint said with a display of heartiness that Sarah couldn't quite believe was sincere.

  She did not know whether he was addressing her or his mother; he had used that trick before to embarrass her, so she simply nodded slightly, keeping her eyes fixed on the white buildings that marched down to kiss the sea.

  "I'd bet you never pictured yourself here," he continued in the same too-easy tone.

  Sarah looked up sharply to meet his amber gaze. Eyes that color should not be able to look cool, but his did, and they had a glitter that made clear that the reminder of her origins was neither accidental nor careless.

  "I am pleased to go where Lady Merrill wishes, sir," she said softly through the rising heat of impotent humiliation.

  "What virtuous meekness," he murmured, those hard eyes scouring her face, picking out each pock-mark that welted her skin with an expression that was almost hungry.

  She jerked her head away, the deep brim of her unfashionable bonnet shuttering his view.

  "Sarah is quite the perfect companion," Lady Merrill said, oblivious to the tension that thrummed in the air. She patted Sarah's white-knuckled hand on the rail next to hers.

  "You are easy to please, your ladyship." Still rattled by Mr. de Lint, Sarah knew her words had a hollow ring. But it was true; Lady Merrill, for all her faults, was a remarkably undemanding mistress. Sarah would be more than happy to spend the rest of her life as a lady's companion if she knew that all her future employments would be as pleasant as this one. The lady's flighty granddaughter and her fluttering friends Sarah could bear with equanimity. If only it weren't for the lady's son…

  "Would you like to see the carnival, madam?" Mr. de Lint asked over Sarah's head, dismissing her as if she had ceased to exist the moment his attention turned elsewhere.

  "The carnival?" Lady Merrill asked. "Why, that's three-quarters of a century dead!"

  Her son laughed. "Oh, it never truly died, and with Venice's glorious liberation from the greedy Austrian oppressors—" He struck a pose. "—certain elements of the Venetian youth have decided to revive its more notorious elements year-round. In private, of course, and with far more taste and discretion than was displayed in times past." From his tone, Sarah could not tell whether he thought that was a good thing. "You would make a stunning houri in any of their masques, Mother. If I might be so bold." He adopted a tone of wild flattery.

  Lady Merrill laughed merrily. "Oh, those days of mine are over. I am done with shocking society! And besides, Sarah might die of humiliation if she were dragged along in the company of a seventy-year-old odalisque, never mind what Anna and her young friends would think."

  "What is it, Grandmama?" Lady Anna asked, turning from her conversation with the Morton sisters at the sound of her name.

  Sarah said nothing as Lady Merrill explained, hoping that the girl's interruption would deflect Mr. de Lint's attention. But almost immediately, she felt his eyes light upon her again.

  "Our Sarah might just enjoy the opportunity to hide behind a mask and veil," he said, ignoring his half-niece. There was no edge in his words, but Sarah could feel their malice biting into her.

  I don't care, she told herself. But she did, and he knew it. No matter how many years stood between her and the filthy streets of the rookery, she would always carry the evidence of her origins on her face, bare for everyone to see. Her speech was now flawlessly correct, her education—if not her experience—as good as that of many peeresses, her bearing and etiquette without fault… but nothing could erase the smallpox scars that disfigured her cheeks and forehead.

  A century ago, those scars would have merely made her plain. But by the time of her birth, all but the poor and a few objectors whose wealth protected them were inoculated, and now that every child in England was required to be vaccinated by law, it marked her as one who had slipped through the cracks—who had origins such that it was possible for her to be invisible, and who had received none of the doctors' various concoctions or treatments for preventing scars when she contracted the disease.

  Quite simply, she wore her life story on her face.

  And so she would never be more man a lady's companion, and she was remarkably fortunate to have been elevated to that position. It was far more than she had once dreamed of and far more than anyone of her past deserved, and so, she told herself, she would be content.

  Resolutely, she shut out Mr. de Lint's continuing acid-laced commentary and turned her eyes to the palazzos that rose from the murky waters like a pale dream.

  * * *

  It was he. There had been no mistake.

  A black anger filled Sebastian as he stood in the shadows of the doorway of a draper's shop near the Ponte della Verona, wrapped in an amorphous cloak and in the swirling fog that now rose from the canals faster than the wind could tatter it. Three crowded gondolas and half a dozen wider battle buranele rested in the oil-smooth water at the canal door of the palazzo, the wallowing batele nearly gunwale-deep under the loads of boxes, trunks, and servants.

  Under the first gondola's black hood, de Lint sat with another passenger, his head bare and his chin raised with conceit that radiated across the water. Sebastian watched as the man leapt nimbly to the water stairs, much to the irritation of the gondolier, who cursed him roundly in the Venetian dialect as the boat rocked with his jump. His cloaked companion pressed her hands against the sides of the hood and said nothing.

  It was obscene that the man could stand there, smiling down like a benevolent deity upon the gondolas that floated at his feet. Even through the distorted lens of Sebastian's vindictiveness, de Lint looked every inch the gentleman, from the top of his perfectly smoothed hair to his shining short boots. Nowhere did the filth lying under that veneer betray itself; he was a picture of refinement and moderation, and Sebastian's hands balled into fists at the very sight of him.

  Ignoring both his companion and the gondolier, de Lint shouted at a servant who had issued a challenge from an upper window of the palazzo. As the great wooden doors were opened in response to his reply, he waved his boat away and ordered the next gondola up, holding out his arms theatrically to a white-haired woman within—Lady Merrill, Sebastian saw when she turned toward him, recognizing her through the twining mist. He allowed himself a surge of dark satisfaction; his sources had proven correct thus far.

  The lady flashed her son a dazzling smile and allowed herself to be helped up, laughing as he fussed over her extravagantly. As soon as she was shooed within the palazzo's tall carven doors, he turned back to assist the second passenger. The pretty redhead was exactly whom Sebastian had expected, one who was as essential to his plan as Lady Merrill or even de Lint himself: Lady Anna Dutton, de Lint's half-niece.

  The girl and the gondola were dismissed, and the final boat slid into place. Two more young girls—Melinda and Euphemia Morton, his sources had told him, friends and distant relatives of the family—were swiftly assisted out, followed by a third woman who had "governess" written in every line of her stout body. That conveyance, too, was rowed away, and Sebastian was about to turn aside when the first one pulled up again and de Lint held out an imperious arm.

  It was only then that Sebastian realized that it still carried de Lint's slender, cloaked companion. And no surprise that he had forgotten; as the woman stood, it became apparent she was a creature whose very meekness made her small body seem even smaller. Hunched shoulders, ducked head, all clad in a discreet black linsey-woolsey that completed her air of utter insignificance.

  And yet… His eyes were caught by the tension that radiated through that frame, more like the string of a bow than a lute, threatening danger rather than breakage. Despite the servility of her posture, there was still something—in her movements? her posture?—that spoke of strength and a deep, burning anger that was kept in check only by such elaborate displays of subjection, and Sebastian found himself wondering what would happen when that control finally snapped.

  She hesitated, standing
in the gondola and radiating uncertainty. The deep poke bonnet that she wore was twenty years out of date, and it hid her features as effectively as a wall.

  Until she looked up as if seeking an exit from de Lint's too-pressing offer. Then Sebastian has a brief impression of a narrow, pale face before her incredible dark eyes lit upon him, capturing his own gaze with their force and sending a jolt of—what?—surging through him. It wasn't alarm, exactly, or lust… something more like recognition, which was strange because he could not think of a single person who resembled that slender, tenuous girl in even the most remote way.

  Sebastian realized that he had been unconsciously leaning out from the doorway in interest; now he jerked back, but it was far too late to hide in anonymous shadows. Those eyes, darker than any shadow, followed him, touching every line and plane of his face that was visible beneath his hood.

  For an instant, he felt as if some sort of link formed between them through that intense scrutiny, boring into him and forging a connection by the sheer force of her gaze. Then she looked away, distracted by something de Lint said, and the illusion snapped. Released from the spell of her eyes, Sebastian saw for the first time the scars that marked her face.

  Another shock went through him, this more identifiable—mixed of vindication, fury, incredulity, and an instinctive sympathetic pain. The. nurse's wail when he had burst into the nursery echoed in his head: It was that pock-faced strumpet! She told me I was needed!

  And now here was de Lint with just such a scar-faced woman in tow. The marks were not very deep nor were they truly disfiguring, but they were clear enough that there was no room for doubt. Sebastian brooded as the man picked her up by the waist—to the gondolier's further curses—and swung her around once, acting for an instant as if he were going to tip her into the canal. Her hands tightened so convulsively on the man's arms that Sebastian could see the knuckles standing out from her flesh, but if she uttered a sound, he could not hear it. Finally, de Lint set her down. He was laughing. But when the woman turned back toward the gondola, not a trace of levity showed on her face.

  Two scarred women. Chance? Unlikely. Yet there was nothing of a whore in her expression as she looked at de Lint. She only looked frightened, shot through with an abiding anger that was so hopeless that Sebastian felt a mixture of pity and fascination without meaning to.

  Then her head came up: She was looking for him again. Wishing to avoid that disturbing gaze, he gripped the doorknob behind him and pushed, ducking into the draper's shop behind him.

  "Posso aiutarlo, signor?"