The Visitant: A Venetian Ghost Story

by Megan Chance

  He pulled me down to meet him in a kiss, and then his mouth slid to my cheekbone, my jaw, biting my earlobe gently, and then his hot breath on the tender skin below, his tongue, and I came unexpectedly and powerfully, crying out and bucking against him. He moaned and arched his hips, lifting us both from the settee. His hand came to my throat, tearing at the collar, revealing the bruises on my skin, his fingers dragging against them, evidence of Samuel’s desire, and there in Nero’s eyes was that jealousy again, and there was something so unbearably carnal in it I could not look away. He jerked from me with a cry, and I felt him throbbing between us, hot and sticky and wet. His hand fell from my throat, and it was as if his hold had been the only thing that made me solid, and now there was nothing to prevent me melting into nothing. I collapsed upon him, feeling his soft kiss on my shoulder, and on the floor the knife gleamed in the reflected light, sending its blinding shine into my eyes.

  Chapter 27

  He murmured against my hair, “What a surprise you are. Usually my jealousy only provokes women into calling me foul names and throwing things.”

  “Jealousy is a terrible fault,” I whispered, trying not to feel shaken at what I’d just done, or how much I’d liked it.

  “I know. I try to control it, but as you can see”—a wince, as if it pained him—“I am not always successful.”

  I picked up the blade and held it to his throat. “I understand. But if you ever accuse me of preferring Samuel again, I will use this on you. I promise.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” he said, that dark desire flashing through his eyes, his hand flexing on my hip. “I ask you, what was I to think when I found that book in your bed?”

  “Perhaps not what you did.”

  “I gave it to him two years ago, and I’ve seen him use it many times. I know his intention.”

  “It might have been so once. Not anymore.”

  Nero laughed, short, disbelieving. “He can’t take his eyes from you any more than I can.”

  I brushed my lips against his ear. “You should have more faith in your powers of persuasion.”

  “Ai, a mesmerist is what I am,” he said self-deprecatingly. “This is why my betrothed left me for another man.”

  “I think she couldn’t have known you as I do.”

  He cocked his head, again there was something in him I couldn’t quite grasp—sadness, I thought. Something more than regret. “You should be careful, cara.”

  “Are you telling me not to fall in love with you?”

  His hand traveled my thigh, fingers easing beneath my garter. “Truthfully, I wish you would.”

  “I’m halfway there already.”

  “It’s only because you like what I do to you.” He sighed. “I’m good at this, Elena, but not much else.”

  “Then you can keep doing this to me all across Europe.”

  He smiled ruefully. “How? As accommodating as you are, I can’t think you’d like sleeping in the streets and scavenging for food.”

  “Perhaps it won’t come to that after all.”

  He went suddenly attentive, all the soft languidness of aftermath gone. “Yes, of course. You’re very distracting. I forgot. What did the priest say? What happened?”

  I moved off him, sitting beside him on the settee. He reached for his trousers as I said, “I hardly know where to start.”

  “Start with my aunt,” he directed, pulling on his trousers, no underwear, and grabbed his shirt, pulling it on too, as ruined as it was, flapping open to reveal his chest. He sat down again, resting his elbows on his knees, leaning forward, his whole stance begging me to continue, a fiercely directed interest I could not resist.

  I told him all of it. The priest’s words, his aunt’s anger, and the exorcism. “He’s coming tomorrow at noon.”

  “What?” Nero looked thunderstruck. “An exorcism? Now I’m beginning to believe you’re all mad. Don’t tell me you believe a demon is possessing Samuel.”

  “I don’t know. Whatever it is, perhaps Father Pietro can find out what it wants.”

  “Or perhaps we’ll find it’s only a figment of a fevered imagination.”

  “I have to admit that I hope Father Pietro is right. Then at least this would be over. I wouldn’t have to worry about Samuel jumping off the balcony or anything else.”

  “Such despair doesn’t have to come from a ghost or a demon, Elena. Sometimes it is only despair.”

  “I know that,” I said, remembering my own. Then I heard what was in his tone, and I looked at him in surprise. “You’ve tried it yourself. You’ve thought about suicide.”

  He said, “I’ve thought of jumping off this balcony a hundred times. It seems to be a family trait. We are all prone to self-destruction.”

  “You mean . . . because of this house. When you’re here.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s not just here. If not coming here helped me to escape my thoughts, I’d never return. But no, they follow me everywhere. Laura hated my ‘black moods,’ as she called them. Ask Samuel. He’s seen them a time or two. Everyone does. Fair warning. I suppose I shouldn’t have told you that. I’ll frighten you away.”

  “No.”

  He hesitated. “Here is something else I should not tell you. You won’t think well of me.”

  “I suppose I should know the worst, shouldn’t I? If we mean to . . . continue.”

  “Do we mean to?” he asked quietly.

  I looked away, forcing myself to say, “You don’t want to. I understand—”

  “I’m falling in love with you, Elena.” His voice was so soft. When I looked at him again, his gaze seemed to penetrate; I felt it in every part of me. “But you should know what I am before it’s too late.”

  “Too late for what?” I managed.

  “It’s unfair of me to ask you to help me be a better man if I don’t tell you what I’ve done.”

  That unease again, along with a searing little joy, an unsettling mix. “What have you done?”

  “I killed him. Laura’s lover. I shot him.”

  Involuntarily, I jerked away. Whatever I’d been expecting, it wasn’t that.

  His expression became deprecating. He made to rise. “Perhaps I was expecting too much—”

  “No!” I grabbed his arm before he could move. “You surprised me, that’s all. You can’t just walk away without explaining.”

  He took a deep breath. “You know I had reason. I challenged him to a duel.”

  “A duel? That’s against the law.”

  “This is Venice,” he said. “Murder and vengeance are our traditions. Though, actually, it was in Milan where I caught up with him. I told you, jealousy is a fault. I had been in Paris with Samuel, and he got me drunk and stupid enough that I calmed down, at least when it came to Laura. But the thought of him . . . I tried, but I couldn’t get past what he’d stolen from me. I couldn’t just let it lie. When I heard he was in Milan, I left Paris to challenge him. He accepted. It was a fair fight. He lost. I suppose . . . I didn’t have to kill him. But I did.”

  “This is why your aunt told me to ask you what happened the night Laura died.”

  “Did she?” A short laugh. “Another old refrain. She wants so much to believe that Laura didn’t kill herself that she’s convinced herself I must have played a part in it. But I don’t know what happened the night Laura died. I wasn’t here. I was bribing authorities in Milan. After that, I returned to Paris. Still, my aunt is right to blame me. I blame myself. Laura might have forgotten her suffering. She might have grown to love me again. But when she heard what I’d done . . . you know the rest. It’s my fault she jumped into that rio, Elena. No one else’s.”

  I stared down at his hand over mine, fingers that had been so gentle. I wanted to be able to say that I could not imagine him so angry that he’d killed a man. But today . . . I’d seen his jealousy, the volatility t
hat had frightened me.

  Still, I could not stand for him to take the blame when there were other things I saw as well. He was too ready to be thought terrible, but I knew he was right; I could make him a better man. I would start with changing his perception. “You said Laura wrote you that she expected Filippo Polani to fight for her. Did he? Did he try to change your aunt’s mind? Did he write to you and ask you to step down?”

  Nero shook his head. “No, none of those things. He gave her up and left for Milan. Another reason I should have let him live. But to think of her pining away for him . . .”

  “She was pining. That was why she jumped, Nero. Not because you killed him but because the man she loved didn’t fight for her. He walked away. That would have been the bigger hurt.” Her lover gone, leaving her a prisoner in a house of madness and bitterness and sorrow. I thought of what might happen to me if my life became what I dreaded. A lifetime of wanting more and never having it. A time when a maid’s interruption might come too late to keep me from opening a window latch.

  “She’d misjudged him. How could she live with that? She’d dreamed of a life different from the one she had, and it was gone because the man she’d chosen was not what she’d imagined him to be. She had only the mess she’d made and no way to repair it. The future seems unendurable. How do you go on, knowing you’ll be watched every moment because of your indiscretion, that you’ll be married off, only to wonder forever what you might have had if you hadn’t been so stupid as to think you were different from every other woman. What a fool you were, to believe that you were special—” I stopped short, realizing what I was revealing, seeing the way Nero stared at me—was that pity in his eyes?

  I looked down, banishing the past, regrets, everything Laura’s story brought back. We had much in common, and that was frightening too, that I had felt such pain, that I understood why she had jumped.

  Nero lifted my chin so I was forced to look at him. He kissed me gently, a brush of his lips that sent every nerve tingling. He whispered, “I’ve changed my mind. I think I’m the one who should be careful. You will shatter me.”

  I tried to smile. “I haven’t the skill for shattering.”

  “What is this, a bacchanal? Why was I not invited?” Samuel said from the doorway.

  I jerked away, and Nero let me go. “I didn’t want the competition,” he said, smiling, looking every inch debauched and languid, his shirt spilling open, hair falling across his brow. “It’s not often that a woman has eyes only for me.”

  Samuel smiled, but it was pained. “You look cold.”

  “No buttons. Elena has a way with a knife,” Nero said, taking up the edges, letting them fall again. “As I think you know.”

  “She was a bit more zealous with me.” Samuel’s hand went to his chest, to the wound I knew was there. “I wish it had been only my shirt that suffered.”

  I did not miss the edge in their banter. I ignored it, and my embarrassment, and rose from the settee, going to Samuel, who looked terrible, drawn and tired, as he limped into the room. He was not the kind of man whom pale listlessness flattered.

  He said, “The morphine is only making my dreams worse.”

  “Did you sleep at all?”

  “I kept hearing noises. Moaning. Panting. The settee creaking.”

  I blushed. Nero grinned. “A pity you had not been only a few minutes later.”

  “A fault of mine. I’m always too early or too late.” Samuel sank onto the settee beside Nero, his foot kicking the edge of The Nunnery Tales, which had slid beneath. He leaned over to see, and raised his brow at me. “Putting it to good use, are you? Though not really as I’d intended.”

  “Always the teacher,” Nero said with deceptive lightness. I saw the way his hand gripped the carved wood of the armrest. “I am happy to inform you that your pupil has learned very well.”

  “I still have the knife,” I said mildly, trying to pretend I wasn’t horribly chagrined. “Perhaps you’d like a wound to match Samuel’s?”

  Nero looked surprised.

  Samuel laughed. “Careful, my friend, she has a sting.” He turned to me; again I saw his hurt, limned with anger. “Did you find the priest you went looking for? Or have you been too distracted to remember me?”

  “I spoke to him, along with Madame Basilio.”

  Nero made a sound of contempt. “According to Padre Pietro, God’s armies are waging battles inside of you. The priest wishes to be a general leading the charge.”

  Samuel looked at me in question.

  “He wants to do an exorcism,” I said. “Tomorrow at noon.”

  “A what?”

  I told him what had transpired with the priest. When I was finished, Samuel asked, “You believe I’m possessed? You agreed to this?”

  “It’s your decision, of course. But I don’t know how else to explain what’s happening to you.”

  “Why not just admit that Nero’s right and I’m mad?”

  “Is that what you want? Because if it is, we can arrange for you to return to Glen Echo, though my father won’t be there to see to you. I can’t vouch for whoever will take over. But if you wish it, say the word, and I’ll see it done.”

  Samuel was quiet for a moment. Then, “If I do this exorcism, and it doesn’t work, what then?”

  “Then we’ll try something else. I promised I wouldn’t leave you, and I won’t.”

  Samuel got to his feet woodenly. I could only watch as he came up to me. His hand brushed my arm as if he searched for comfort, and then fell away again. He leaned close, his breath hot against my ear as he whispered, “No restraints, Elena. Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  “Thank you.” His relief was obvious. “And Nero—you’ll be here tomorrow, won’t you? You’ll witness?”

  “Of course,” Nero said.

  “Then . . . don’t let me hurt her.”

  Nero was quiet, hooded, contemplative in a way I hadn’t seen. “I’ll see to it.”

  Samuel left. I heard his heavy, halting step into the hall, and I felt sick, the decision I’d made untenable and somehow wrong, though I could not think of any other way. I wished I could take it back. I wished I knew something else to do. I felt alone and vulnerable—and then I looked at Nero and saw his affection for Samuel in the lines on his face, a worry that matched my own. I wasn’t alone. He was here with me. It was enough to comfort, for now.

  Chapter 28

  Father Pietro arrived with the ringing of the noon Angelus from the Madonna dell’ Orto, the echoes and murmurs of Venice’s other church bells wafting and lulling in chorus, music that seemed ominous and eerie and bodiless, suspended as it was in the fog that shrouded the city. That morning I’d gone to Samuel’s balcony, needing to see the color of the dyer’s canal. It seemed important to know what it was. Not red, I prayed. Please, not red. But all I could see was a thick layer of fog below, as if it meant deliberately to hide the color. I hoped it was not a portent.

  Both Giulia and Madame Basilio accompanied the priest to the third floor. He was vested in surplice and purple stole, wearing a large cross around his neck and bearing a heavy leather bag and a Bible, and the moment I saw his serious expression, I wanted to send him back to the church, to cancel the rite. It all seemed too much for this . . . this was not so large a problem, was it, that it required God’s mediation?

  We were in the sala. Samuel lay exhausted on the settee, eyes closed; Nero leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, surveying the scene with thinly veiled contempt. When his aunt entered, he gave her a look of such accusatory scorn I was surprised that she did not wither beneath it. It had the opposite effect: her already ramrod-straight spine went rigid, her chin jutted out, bristling as if at any moment she might start spewing a stream of poison. The dislike between them was so palpable that even Father Pietro felt it. He frowned at them, though he said
nothing.

  Giulia leaned over Samuel, brushing his hair back from his forehead. He did not respond, not with a look or a smile, and I felt a thin satisfaction when she drew her hand away, clearly annoyed.

  Father Pietro gestured to Samuel. “This is the afflicted one?”

  I nodded.

  The priest clutched his Bible more tightly. “If I could ask you some questions, m’sieur.”

  “As you will,” Samuel said tiredly.

  Father Pietro peered down at him as if he could see into Samuel’s soul. “Have you had a loss of appetite?”

  “No.”

  “Have you tried to harm yourself? Cutting, biting, scratching?”

  “I tried to throw myself into the rio. Does that count?”

  The priest frowned. He held out the cross around his neck, brandishing it in Samuel’s face. Samuel only stared up at him blandly. Father Pietro stood there for a moment, measuring. I wondered if he’d expected Samuel to burst into flame at the sight of a holy object. He seemed disappointed that Samuel didn’t.

  “Have you entered a church recently?” Father Pietro asked.

  “No.”

  “Because you could not?”

  “Because I would not,” Samuel responded. “I haven’t been to church in years.”

  “Then I would hear your confession, my son.”

  “I’ve nothing to confess. Or too much. It comes to the same thing. I committed sins with deliberation and purpose. I have no wish for God’s forgiveness.”

  Father Pietro turned to me. “Have there been strange bodily postures? Frenzies?”

  Samuel’s gaze jerked to mine, a warning. I willed Nero to say nothing about Samuel’s epilepsy, and said to the priest, “He’s attacked me, as I said. I would call it a frenzy.”

  “Does he speak an unnatural language? Or one he’s claimed no knowledge of?”

  “Venetian,” I said. “He’s spoken it in trance but says he doesn’t know it.”

  “I don’t,” Samuel said. “Beyond a few words—mostly curses. And some of those ridiculous proverbs Nero’s always spouting. Fra Marco e Todaro, things like that. That’s the extent of it.”