by Megan Chance
“Not that one,” I said, and he set my foot down carefully and picked up the other, sliding his fingers over my heel, the arch of my foot.
“It’s not bad. Not deep, though you’re bleeding like a stuck pig. Have you any bandages?”
“There’s a roll in my medicine case.”
“Fetch it, will you, Samuel?” he asked. “Unless you’re unable to stand.”
The laudanum. The morphine. Samuel had already proven himself untrustworthy. “No,” I said. “No, it’s fine. I can do it myself. If you’ve a handkerchief or something to stop the blood . . .”
Basilio frowned, a questioning look, and then I saw him remember why I objected, what Samuel had done. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a handkerchief and wrapping it around the wound, tying a small knot to keep it in place. When he was finished, his hand slid down my calf, a bit too lingering.
I drew my foot away with a shiver. I could breathe again, though my heart pounded. How fast your little heart is beating. “Thank you.”
He sat back on his heels, glancing at Samuel. “You shouldn’t be alone with him.”
“You aren’t the only one who thinks it,” Samuel said.
I said, “I won’t have Giulia here, and she forbids Zuan to help me.”
“In that, she’s right,” Basilio said. “Zuan is useless. He’d only stare at his feet and mumble while Samuel was beating your head against a wall.”
Samuel made a sound of defeat.
Basilio’s lips thinned, a moment of hesitation and then, “I’ll move my things up here.”
In sudden panic, I said, “Mr. Basilio, you cannot possibly—”
“Why not?” he asked reasonably. “Samuel’s my friend. I’m the one who sent him here. And please, I’d prefer it if you would call me Nero. I’ve seen you now in your nightgown, after all.”
“Nero,” I said uncomfortably, too intimate again. I crossed my arms over my breasts and saw his tiny smile at it. “Surely you must see that it would be completely inappropriate. I . . . I cannot be here alone with you and . . . and only an ill man to chaperone . . .”
“She’s right,” Samuel said. “You’d only compromise her.”
“Ah, I see. You want her to yourself. To kiss and bash about without interference.”
Samuel glared at him. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’d prefer it if she would leave me completely.”
“But as she won’t, she needs protection.”
“Is protection all you’re offering?”
“Would I be getting in the way of your plans?” Nero asked nastily. “Or did you mean to do a little seducing before you beat her insensible?”
“Please,” I said quickly. “Enough of this. I’m sorry, Mr.—Nero, but it won’t do. There’s no place to put you even so.”
“I can have a bed hauled up here quickly enough,” he said. “Zuan’s good for that, at least. I ask you to think about how my aunt and I would suffer if something happened to you here. Let me make certain it doesn’t.”
“Perhaps you could sedate me,” Samuel suggested. “That would make it easy for all of us.”
“No,” I said, though just now it did not seem a bad idea.
Samuel took a deep breath. Dawn light eased the darkness, making visible his pain as he slowly stood, sliding up the wall for support, testing his knee before he put weight on it, grimacing when he did. “I’m going back to bed, if you don’t mind. Discuss it without me if you like. Just know that I agree with Nero that you need protection from me, and I agree with you that it shouldn’t be him.”
He staggered from the room, waving me off when I started to rise to help him.
When he was gone, Nero said, “I’d feel better if you’d let me help.”
“He was dreaming. The medicine makes such dreams more . . . intense.”
“Why would you continue it? It makes him a danger.”
“I know what I’m doing. Truly.”
It wasn’t true. I was anything but certain. Samuel had frightened me badly, and I wanted someone here to help me. To save me if I needed saving. The burden of my task seemed unbearable suddenly. What was I doing here? How had I agreed to this? How could I possibly fulfill the bargain I’d made? No one had known Samuel Farber was this ill, had they? My father had not known it. He would never have sent me otherwise.
I was so caught in my agitation that it was a moment before I realized Nero was quiet. He had drawn up his knees, folding his arms across them, and his head was bowed so I couldn’t see his face.
“I should go to bed.” I grasped the armrest and rose, favoring my foot.
When I stumbled, he was on his feet, gripping my arm. “Let me at least help you to your room.”
I didn’t refuse him. The pain was not so much, but I wasn’t ready to be alone. There was no help for it, of course, and once we were back in my bedroom, I drew away. “Thank you. For everything tonight.”
“Why are you really staying, Elena?”
My heart stuttered at the sound of my name on his lips. “What?”
“There’s something more here, isn’t there? You’re staying when he’s hurt you. No one would do that unless they had to. Or unless . . . are you in love with him?”
I was so surprised at the question I could only gape at him.
“Are you?” he asked again.
“No. No, of course I’m not. You’ve mistaken it. You’ve mistaken everything.”
“Oh?” He was intent, insistent. “This isn’t just about the beating he took in Rome, is it? What’s really wrong with him?”
I struggled to calm my growing panic. “He’s—” I foundered, searching for a suitable excuse—“he abuses himself with alcohol and . . . and opium. I’m trying to break him of the habit. Of . . . debauchery. That’s what the medicine is really for.”
I felt him measuring, weighing. I didn’t know if he believed me, but finally, he nodded. “Will you at least do me a favor and lock your door tonight?”
I tried to hide my relief. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
“Then good-night.” That courtly half bow. I had the feeling he’d learned it as a child and it was so rote he hardly realized he was doing it. He backed away from the door, leaving me. I heard the patter of his bare feet down the hall, and I stood there listening until the stairway door opened and closed, and he was gone.
I locked the door, as he’d asked. My head was throbbing now, both from tension and the release of fear. The white sheets of my bed gleamed. I stumbled to it, relieved and exhausted. But then I only lay there, staring into the darkness, my fears chasing themselves. Samuel’s distant, dangerous eyes. Nightmares and visions.
A madman. A beast.
What really was wrong with Samuel Farber?
Suddenly, the key in the lock did not seem protection enough, and I wished I had not asked Nero Basilio to go.
Chapter 17
I watched the dawn grow into morning and listened to the sounds in the courtyard, the dragging creak of the pail at the well, Zuan calling to someone to fetch coal, the clang of metal on stone, gurgling water, a splash. Church bells, the ones from the Madonna dell’ Orto across the canal loud, along with others more distant—perhaps those from the other church Nero had pointed out, the Sant’ Alvise. A veritable chorus of bells, all with their different tones, blending and weaving, separating to echo among the stones, some lingering, others fading quickly. Someone laughing, muffled and misty. I thought of Laura Basilio with algae in her hair, stuck in a cupola with her teasing cousin, watching rainbows in the water. Samuel’s black eyes as he whispered, “How fast your little heart is beating.”
I was still weary as I finally roused myself, washing and dressing slowly. The cut on my foot smarted, but it was small and not bleeding as I rewrapped it, and it didn’t bother me to walk on it. Once that was done, I sat aimlessly, reluctant to see my
patient. I no longer trusted myself to know madness from sanity. I’d been wrong before, and Samuel’s visions and nightmares could be explained—couldn’t they? They were more intense than I would have expected, but still manageable. I told myself that last night was the worst it would get.
And so, finally, I made myself go to him.
The balcony door was open, and he stood staring down into the canal. I went to stand beside him, following his gaze down three stories to the narrow strip of water, which was bright green, fantastical and looking even more so in the clear, bright light. The sky was intensely blue, no clouds today, and the colors of the buildings were vibrant, every streak of rust and mildew in high contrast, shimmering silver salt stains the only evidence of a morning fog.
I touched his arm, not liking him there, where it was too easy to jump, to fall as she had. “Come inside.”
He let me bring him into the room, watching as I closed the windowed door.
“I remember some of it,” he said softly, though I had not asked a question. “My dream, I mean. There’s an angel . . . I can’t really see her. She’s . . . just light.”
“He’s speaking to an angel,” Madame Basilio had said. I wanted to strangle her. All her talk of ghosts and angels—it affected even me, and I did not have Samuel’s troubled, impressionable brain.
“She shows me things,” he went on.
“What things?”
He was quiet for a long moment. “Sad things. A woman I don’t know drinking herself into a stupor. A man putting a pistol to his temple.”
The words burst from my mouth before I knew I was thinking them. “Nero’s family.”
Samuel gave me a puzzled look.
“Nero said that his father committed suicide, and his mother drank. Who else could it be? This house is so full of sadness. It feels as if it’s always . . . watching. As if it wants to pull you in.”
He turned to me quickly, hopefully. “Yes, you understand. It is this house. It’s putting things in my head. It’s making me see things.”
“I only meant that it’s depressing. These aren’t hallucinations, they’re memories. Nero told you how his parents died, and you’re imagining the scenes.”
“No, I”—he put a hand to his head in frustration—“No. I don’t remember that. I never knew any of that. Only that they died.”
“You’ve known each other for years. Don’t you think it possible that one drunken night he told you, and neither of you remember? That’s the only rational explanation for what you’re seeing, Samuel. Things don’t just appear out of nowhere.”
“They do for me. All the time. Out of nothing.”
“Because of the epilepsy,” I said.
“Yes,” he agreed with a sigh. “Buildings and people that rise from thin air. Ground dissolving before my feet. Trees turning into ladders. Roads disappearing into grass. I know they’re not real, but they are. They feel real. You tell me: How can I trust anything? How can I believe in anything?” His voice was so soft I had to strain to hear it. “I’ve always hallucinated, but it’s only come with seizures before. But now . . . now I’m seeing things all the time. I don’t know what to think. I’m afraid.”
“You’re seeing things all the time,” I repeated. “When did that start happening? Was it before you came here?”
“No,” he said. “I see that woman drinking and falling unconscious. I hear her neck break. And the man . . . the crack of the shot, the cloud of powder . . . there’s blood on the walls—”
“Oh, Samuel.”
“I see them drag Laura from the canal. She leaves puddles on the floor where she walks. It’s so cold I wonder why they don’t turn into ice.”
“It might be that the bromide dose is too strong. I’ll lessen it.”
“It’s not the medicine, Elena. You know it. The bromide’s never had this effect on me before. It’s made me sleepy and . . . it’s sometimes made the visions more vivid. But it’s never done this.” He turned to me, again with that bleak gaze, the fear within it. “I was sleepwalking last night, as you say. I was in a dream, and in it, the angel wanted me to hurt you and then . . . then I wanted that too. I wanted to push you over . . .” he trailed off as if he couldn’t bear to say the words.
Carefully, I said, “Push me over what?”
“I don’t know. I only knew that I wanted you to fall. This is why you should sedate me, Elena. There’s something wrong with me. It’s never been this bad. I’m becoming my visions. I think I’m going mad.”
“No,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say. My worst fears realized, everything falling from my grasp. “I won’t believe it. Together we can—”
“Don’t be a fool! Don’t you understand? I’m afraid. Every time I touch you”—his fists clenched—“I hear—Christ, I don’t even know. That cursed angel? Or maybe a demon. Whatever she is, I can’t make myself believe she’s not real when her voice is in my head. She’s angry with you, and I’m afraid of what I’ll do about that. Is that madness enough for you? Or would you like me to be more specific?”
“No.” I was backing away without realizing it. “No, that’s quite enough.”
He half turned, watching me, his eyes dark and intent. “You’re running away. Good. You should run. Tell your father you couldn’t save me. Tell my parents I won’t come home to terrorize a woman whose only misfortune was to have the right name.”
“I’m not running away,” I said, though I was still moving to the door. He was not seeing visions now, not sleepwalking, and his words were more frightening for that.
He made a bitten-off sound—discouraged, hopeless, amused . . . I could not tell which.
I needed time to think. Time to decide what to do. I was at the door. I said, “I’ll draw your cold bath.”
“Wonderful,” he said. “Bring it to me naked. I want to see if your body is as lush as I imagine it.”
His crudity fell between us like a stone. I fled without thought to the only safety I knew.
I was outside and halfway down the stairs before I realized where I was going, but I didn’t stop. When I reached the landing of the second floor, I rapped loudly on the door. It wasn’t until then that my panic eased enough to hear what I hadn’t before: shouting from inside, gone suddenly silent.
But then Giulia opened the door, and it was too late to retreat, not that I truly wanted to. Where would I go?
“What do you want?” she asked in blunt and almost accusatory French. To say Go away, you are unwelcome would have been to soften it.
“I’d hoped . . . is Mr. Basilio in?”
I knew he was. It was his voice I’d heard shouting, along with Madame Basilio’s, and not only that, I heard him now in one of the rooms beyond, speaking rapidly and insistently in Venetian, voice lowered but still touched with anger.
I remembered what Samuel had told me about Nero’s relationship with his aunt, and I stepped back. “Never mind. If you could just let him know I called . . .”
“Do not leave,” Giulia said. “I am certain he would wish to see you.” That look of hers, slightly amused—or, no, as if she anticipated my discomfort—could mean nothing good. When I hesitated, she motioned for me to step inside, saying “Please, mamzelle,” and so, warily, I did, following her down the length of the hall. Nero and his aunt were still arguing.
“Truly, I don’t wish to interrupt.”
She ignored me. We were at the entrance to the sala. She announced, loudly, “Mademoiselle Spira.”
The talk stopped dead. Nero and his aunt stood facing one another, each bristling, on either side of the settee. Nero’s expression was dark with anger. When he saw me, his hands, raised in gesticulation, fell to his sides. Madame Basilio twisted to look over her shoulder, her eyes narrowed, back stiffly straight. The silence was explosive.
I could not have felt more uncomfortable.
“Pardon me,” I said, turning around before I’d finished the words. “I don’t wish to interrupt. I’ll go—”
“No!” Nero said, too loud, and then, more quietly, “No. You’re not interrupting. We were just finished.” He dodged around the settee as he spoke, crossing the room to me. “What is it? What happened? Did he hurt you?”
That he’d seen something was wrong even through his own anger made me forget my discomfort. His concerned sympathy made me glad I’d sought him out.
“No.” I shook my head. “No, I’m just . . . forgive me. I shouldn’t have come, but I thought . . .”
“You thought what?”
I tried to smile. It wobbled into place and fell again. “Nothing. I just needed to escape for a moment. I’ll go back upstairs.”
“I think you’re not ready to go back,” he said, taking my arm. “Come with me.”
I saw Giulia’s satisfaction crumple. However she’d thought to disconcert me had not worked as she’d intended. I wondered what she’d meant to do, but mostly I felt vindicated as Nero escorted me from the sala without a single backward glance at his aunt or his housekeeper.
He pulled me with him down the darkened interior stairwell that led into the receiving court, the white marble steps only partially illuminated by the ambient light from above. He said nothing, and I felt the argument with his aunt churning in him, making him go too quickly for me, who had not traipsed these stairs a hundred times in the dark. I stumbled after him to the bottom, where we emerged into the red-walled room made more oppressive by the sunlight struggling through the algae-skimmed glass of the only two unboarded windows.
It was there I stopped, pulling from his grasp. “I know I interrupted you, and I truly don’t wish to take you from anything important—”
“I’m thankful you did,” he said, “You’ve saved my sanity, though I fear only wine and your company can fully restore it.”