by Megan Chance
“Read what?”
“I’ve a book of poetry.”
“Poetry by whom?” he asked skeptically. “Wait, let me guess. Some suffragette poet. Is there such a thing? Or is that an oxymoron?”
“I don’t know, but I have nothing like that. I have a book by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. And another by Tennyson.”
“Ah. You’re a romantic.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I suppose I should have expected such things from a virgin. Tales of knights and princesses, true love . . . nothing real.”
I went so hot at the word virgin I was certain I must have been blistering red. “You don’t believe in true love?”
He laughed; it was more just a breath of sound. “No.”
“Then I suppose it doesn’t matter that you’re marrying someone you hardly know.”
“Don’t know,” he said shortly. “But you’re right; if I don’t believe in true love, how can it matter? Except that I’d like to make the choice myself. If I have to marry, I’d prefer it be someone I liked, at least.”
“Perhaps you will like her.”
“Unfortunately, I won’t know that until after the wedding, when I’ve already carried her off to our bridal bower. Too late then, don’t you think? What if she’s a shrew?”
“You could take a page from Shakespeare and tame her. Or she could tame you.”
“Poor woman. Rather like bearding a beast in his lair.”
“You are hardly a beast,” I said.
“No?” He lifted a brow. “You’ve seen it. Don’t tell me you weren’t frightened.”
I didn’t want to admit that I had been. I wanted him to think me competent and assured. I didn’t want to tell him I’d felt helpless and overmatched and stupid. “I’ve seen such things before.”
“I’ve seen doctors quake in fear. What makes you different?”
“You say you remember nothing during your seizures,” I pointed out. “How could you know how anyone reacts?”
He made a face. “You’re very clever.”
“You think to frighten me into running. I won’t.”
“My parents must have promised you something very good indeed.”
“You should stop trying to guess why I’m staying and concentrate instead on getting well. Now I think you should sleep. You look terrible.”
“I feel terrible,” he agreed. “But you did promise to read to me. No poems, though. I don’t have the head for it just now. All those ‘thees’ and ‘thous,’ and I’ll want to throw myself into the rio.”
“Then what?” I asked, glancing around, seeing not a single book anywhere.
“I have a book. I think you might like it. It’s a romance. Of sorts.”
“Where is it?”
He lay back again as if the simple motion of sitting up and holding the position for all of a minute had left him exhausted. “It fell to the floor the other night, and I haven’t seen it. I think it got pushed under the bed.”
I looked, reaching through dust and probably rat droppings to pull out a well-worn, yellow-covered book. A dime novel. No doubt full of melodrama and daring escapes. Papa would not approve of this.
I sat on the chair I’d pulled next to the bed last night, reading the title out loud. “The Nunnery Tales. I thought you said you were tired of ‘thees’ and ‘thous’?”
“Surprisingly, there seem to be very few of those,” he said. “I’ve marked the page where I was. Just start there.”
I turned to it. “Chapter Two,” I began. “We had an extremely good supper, and our snug little party thoroughly enjoyed it. Everything that could tempt and pamper the appetite was there”—here, a listing of foods, including oysters and shellfish; I had not realized nuns ate so well. And then, as if the author were commenting on my thoughts—“if the ladies in the convent lived on such luxurious and exciting viands, it was no wonder that they found their blood a little hotter and their passions more excitable—” I stopped.
“Go on.” Samuel’s voice was very quiet.
He was falling into sleep already. I didn’t think it would take more than a few more paragraphs. I read on as the narrator’s aunt told him that she suspected a priest was his real father. I suppressed a snort of disbelief.
“Don’t stop,” Samuel murmured.
I read on. “‘How do you know that, my dear aunt?’ I asked. ‘Oh, by the simplest way in the world,’ she laughingly replied.” The aunt explained how she’d paid a visit to her sister and been met instead by her brother-in-law, who complimented her lavishly. “‘He proceeded from compliments to kissing, and from kissing to feeling and handling my—’” breasts and rump.
I closed the book with a snap.
“What’s wrong?” Samuel asked, oh so innocently.
“This is obscene,” I sputtered.
“Come, don’t tell me it doesn’t intrigue you,” he said. “It would be good for you to read something about what real people do and how it feels. Perhaps then you’ll understand what you’re asking me to give up. You want to take away everything that’s worth living for.”
“You could find other things worth living for,” I said, throwing the book onto the bed, where it sprawled open. “Love, for one thing. A family.”
He made a sound of disbelief. “You could not possibly be so naïve.”
“I am not naïve. I believe life could be better for you. But you’ll never know if you refuse to try.”
“My God, you’re persistent.”
“It would be best if you understood that I don’t mean to fail.”
He was quiet for a moment. I saw a consideration in him I was not certain I liked, and knew I didn’t when he said, “Very well, I’ll make a bargain with you.”
“What kind of a bargain?” I asked warily.
“I’ll do everything you tell me,” he said. “If you read that book.”
“You must be joking.”
He shook his head. “No. I want you to understand why this might be . . . difficult. You’re a little self-righteous about all of it. It’s hard for me to listen to you when you’ve no idea what you’re asking.”
I glanced at those open pages, the words that leaped from them straight into imagery, things I’d never seen, that I didn’t know. That I didn’t want to know, and I was angry that he asked it, resentful not only that he had but also that he’d raised my interest. These were not the kinds of books decent women read, not the kind that I should read.
“Romance isn’t real,” he went on. “But what’s in there is. You’d be better off knowing it. You could say I’m protecting you, really. Once you know what’s really on a man’s mind, you’ll be better at judging whether or not he’s lying to you.”
It was as if he’d seen into my mind.
He closed the book and picked it up, holding it out to me. “Well? Have we agreed? My acquiescence for your learning. Believe me, I think you have the better side of it.”
Gingerly, I took the book. The cover was rough between my fingers. I noticed for the first time how worn the edges were.
His smile was smug. “It won’t be so bad.”
“You should sleep,” I said, rising. “I’ll be back later this afternoon. Believe me, I will hold you to your promise.”
“I’ll hold you to yours,” he said.
I tucked the book into the pocket of my skirt. It was not thick nor especially heavy, but it felt both things, and I could hardly wait to be rid of it. I left him and dodged into my room, tucking it under the mattress of the bed where no one would come upon it, where I might even forget it was there. I was angry with myself for agreeing, though really I’d had no choice.
Just like before.
Samuel Farber had worked me just as easily, but I pushed the worrisome thought away and told myself that as long as Samuel ended up doi
ng what I wanted, it didn’t matter. I would read every filthy book in Venice if it meant I could deliver a compliant and healthy heir to the Farbers.
Still, I was so undone that I was halfway down the stairs to the courtyard before I realized I had no idea what I was doing or where I’d thought to go. Wanting to be somewhere warm, I hurried to the kitchen. Just as I reached the door, it opened, and Giulia stepped out.
She looked surprised to see me, and then her expression settled into insolence. She kept the door from closing with an outstretched hand. “Mamzelle, how can I help you?”
“You can’t,” I said, trying to push past her. When she didn’t budge, I stepped back.
Her eyes narrowed with a satisfaction I didn’t understand or like. “Samuel has a beautiful voice, does he not? I think it is a gift, to be so chosen. Do you not think it too, mamzelle?”
“Chosen?” I asked. “Sometimes the medicines affect him strangely, that’s all.”
“If that’s what you believe,” she said, dropping her hand from the door and stepping aside. I caught it with my foot before it closed. She leaned close, whispering, “But I would lock my door at night if I were you, mamzelle.”
I was so taken aback by her warning that I said nothing as she stepped away, sashaying and bouncing as she went.
Chapter 7
That night, I stood at my bedside, thinking of the quid pro quo Samuel had asked of me. I felt an unwanted anticipation that made me say to myself, no, you don’t have to read it. Just tell him you have. But I had a feeling he would know if I lied, that he would ask me something I couldn’t answer. I wasn’t in the habit of breaking promises, either. So I took off my dressing gown and pulled the book from beneath the mattress before I crawled into bed.
It was poorly written, and I winced from the first sentences, and the preposterousness of the conceit: a mother and son needing to hide from the Republicans purging France of all aristocrats, and deciding to take refuge in a nunnery where a relative was abbess, which required that the son be disguised as a girl. I had only skimmed a few pages before they were invited to witness a priest’s “punishment” of a nun. I began to squirm. I was fascinated at the same time I was repulsed, my cheeks heating even with no one here to see, no one but God, who surely must not want me to be reading this.
The nun disrobed to take her punishment, and the disguised son began to speak of his own arousal in intimate detail, and I felt a corresponding warmth and slapped the book closed, shoving it beneath the thin mattress. I’d hardly read anything, and nothing of any substance. But what had been about to happen teased at my thoughts, and I felt . . . I hardly knew. Something that wasn’t quite shame, though I wanted it to be. I picked up my Baedeker’s Paris and its Environs, trying to forget The Nunnery Tales, but when I finally slept, I was restless, my dreams filled with unclothed nuns kneeling on cushions, and a birch rod trembling in an abbess’s hands.
The next morning, the book’s cover, peeking as it was from beneath the mattress, seemed to mock me, and images from my dreams still chased themselves in my head like fluttering ghosts. I was angry with myself for being so preoccupied with it, and feeling as unsophisticated as Samuel had accused me of being. Then I realized that he meant for The Nunnery Tales to distract me from my purpose. I did not want to understand what he was giving up. I simply wanted him to do so. Though his wounds were healing, the epilepsy was no closer to controlled than it had been when I arrived ten days ago, nor was I closer to convincing him of the need to give up his degenerate habits.
It was long past time that I understood exactly what I was up against. Both Madame Basilio and Giulia made me think there was something here I wasn’t seeing, and Giulia’s comment last night had only exacerbated the feeling. I wanted to know if they had seen a seizure. Or something else? How much was I going to have to explain away?
I went downstairs and knocked upon Madame Basilio’s door. There was no answer. It was early; perhaps she was not awake. I had just decided to give up when I heard footsteps, and the door opened to reveal Madame Basilio, dressed as austerely as ever, this time in lavender, another half-mourning color—and one that did her sallow skin no favors.
“Mademoiselle Spira,” she said with a chill politeness made even worse by the formality of her French. “What brings you here so early?”
“I’d like to speak with you for a moment, if I could.”
“Of course.” She ushered me inside, closing the door behind me.
I could not wait even the few moments it would take to get to the sala, nor bear the small politeness of an offering of refreshment. I burst out, “I wanted to ask you a question about M’sieur Farber’s dreams. The angels and his singing.”
“It has happened again?”
There was an avidity in her that startled me. “H-he . . . the other night, he was singing, and I would like to know how often you’ve heard him do that. And if . . . if there was anything odd after.”
“We first saw it the second night he was here. Giulia witnessed it.”
“Did anything strange happen?”
“You do not think singing in the middle of the night strange enough?” Spoken so dryly there was not a speck of humor.
“Yes, but—”
“She tried to dance with him and he woke from his dream and threw her to the floor. When Giulia told me of it, I asked her to inform me if it happened again. Which it did, four nights later.”
“You saw it?”
She bowed her head in acknowledgment. “He was a man in ecstasy.”
Just as I’d seen before he’d seized. “And then?”
“He sang ‘Un Ziro in Gondola,’” Madame Basilio murmured, her voice soft with memory. “A favorite of the gondoliers. My daughter also had a special fondness for it.”
“I didn’t know you had a daughter.”
Madame Basilio blinked as if to put the memory away. “She has been gone some time.”
I thought of the handkerchiefs in the drawer. Perfumed and monogrammed. But just now I cared only for what Madame Basilio had seen that night in Samuel’s room. “You said he spoke of an angel.”
“Yes, that is what he said. Did he tell you the same, mademoiselle? Was there an angel in the room? Did he talk of her?”
The oddly gleeful light in her eyes unnerved me. “Not really,” I said uncomfortably. “Did . . . was there anything after? I told you what his injuries might cause.”
Madame Basilio shook her head. “He calmed and Giulia put him to bed. He seemed confused.”
It was all I needed to know. Perhaps Samuel had been hallucinating, or perhaps he’d had a petit mal seizure on one of those nights, but if so, neither Giulia nor Madame Basilio had interpreted it as anything more than dreams and sleepwalking. “Thank you, Madame. You’ve been most helpful.”
She nodded and opened the door to show me out. Once I’d stepped onto the landing, she said, “You should be careful of him, mademoiselle, as I said before. I could send Giulia to help you tend to him.”
“Please don’t. I’m not afraid for myself. The medications I’m giving him need time to work, but once they stabilize him, I think you will see no more singing with angels.”
Madame Basilio looked surprised, and displeased, which confused me. “A pity to destroy such beauty.”
“It’s illness,” I said.
“Is it?” she asked, and the way she said it was needling, as if she knew a secret and meant to keep it from me. I was still wondering uneasily about it when she closed the door.
Two days of bright, cold sun passed without incident. Already December 10—time was moving more quickly than I liked, but at least Samuel was as tractable as he’d promised, although still not sleeping well.
Now, it was snowing; heavy wet flakes that melted the moment they hit the carved stone of the balcony’s balustrade, a whirling cloud obscuring the buildings across the canal and
masking the black shadows of the gondolas, the whole world muffled and cloaked. It was not like snow at Glen Echo on the Hudson, icy, hard pellets that sparkled over the ground, everything pointed and sharp, icicles and jagged ice forming over the river. As with everything in Venice, even the snow felt as if it held ghosts within it, a lacy shroud hiding indiscretions and secrets.
I’d never had such morbid thoughts before, and I didn’t like them now. This place preyed upon the mind. Behind me, I heard the splash of Samuel rising from the bath, the heavy slide of his hand on the metal side of the tub. He said, “I’m decent.”
He had dug a dressing gown from his trunk. It was heavy, lined with blue satin, paisley patterned in blues and deep maroons, and as I turned from the window, he was securing the belt tightly. His hair curled wetly at the ends. He shivered, glancing past me to the snow, saying, “I dislike it here in the winter so much I’m not tempted to try any other time of year.”
“I hear the summer’s quite fine,” I said.
“Dreaming of romantic rides in gondolas and serenading Venetians?” he asked. “Perhaps mosquitos and stench would be more accurate. Nero avoids summer here like the plague. Perhaps because of the plague, for all I know.”
I ignored him, taking in the way he stood, a bit straighter now, as if the pain was not so much. I wondered if he was yet able to manage the burning liniments and massage.
“I can see you’re debating new tortures for me.”
“Only if you can bear them,” I said.
“You mean I have some say in it? Then please, not yet. But I’ll tell you what I would like, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“If I can provide it, and I think it won’t harm you.”
“A long list of nos, it sounds like. But what about chocolate? Something warm.” He wrapped his arms about his chest and shivered. “I’m cold to the bone. Deeper than bone, if you want to know the truth.”
“What about some mugwort tea?”
“What about something good? And sweet. I’ve obeyed your every command, and I haven’t once asked for laudanum, though I suspect you have some and I’d give a substantial reward to anyone who could procure it for me.”