Inamorata

by Megan Chance

  After Barcelona, I’d been forced to go into hiding. For months I’d skulked in cellars and sewers, waiting for the vitality of those I’d drained to work its magic upon me, to bring me back. I had rarely tested my limits, but now and again I had misjudged and brought myself to this. But this time was the worst. It seemed to take an eternity to return to my human form. I slithered through dank and darkness and stink and waited, the part of me that was Odilé held in thrall to the demon I’d become. I was terrified that I would be a prisoner forever, a monster forever. Madeleine’s warnings wound an endless litany in my head.

  It was a nightmare I had feared I would never wake from. And what was worse was the knowledge that no one could help me. No one could save me. I was alone in the world. It was a truth I had known but never fully realized, and now it was one I could not forget. Now, my singularity was a curse, wearying and desolate, an endless, unassailable loneliness.

  Nicholas had taught me that. How could I ever forgive him?

  SOPHIE

  It was nearly dawn when we finally left the rooftop garden. We were all a little drunk from the wine, and the night had been as wonderful as the day, full of talk and laughter and stolen glances, a kiss that still lingered on my lips, a possibility I tried not to think about.

  It was only a short distance to our palazzo, though neither Joseph nor I knew the way, so we all set out—Duveneck on his way home and Nicholas Dane offering to walk with us, and Mr. Martin protesting why should Nick have you all to himself?

  I was glad for it; the truth was that had it just been the three of us, Joseph might have given me and Nicholas Dane the chance to be alone, and I was a little afraid of that, of how much I was growing to like him—and that kiss, which stirred feelings in me I knew were dangerous. I’d felt such things before, after all, and I must take care to be wise now. There are no white knights, Soph. Not like in your stories. You have to see people for what they are, not what you want them to be. Joseph’s words, and I knew he was right. We were—finally—hobnobbing with people rich and influential enough to actually help us, and Nicholas Dane, while not the former, was certainly the latter. I sensed we were only steps away from Henry Loneghan, and I felt a dizzying satisfaction at the thought of it that made me laugh a little too easily, flirt a little too well. I had to step carefully. Joseph and I could not afford to disappoint Nicholas Dane or to make him angry.

  We set off into the city, laughing and stumbling over one of Venice’s rail-less bridges, the white stone slippery from the evening mists. “Careful,” said Mr. Dane, taking my elbow as we crossed it. “The Venetians say there are four p’s to beware of. They translate to: white stone paving, whores, priests and jugglers.”

  “Jugglers?” I asked. “Why jugglers?”

  He smiled; there was a pleasing wickedness in it that reminded me of his kiss. “Why, because they’re all charlatans, didn’t you know? Actually, the word is Pantalone. Do you know him?”

  I shook my head.

  “He’s a character from Venetian comedy. A mountebank and a fool, but sinister too. No one you want to run into on a dark night.”

  “There’s not much in Venice I’d want to run into on a dark night,” said Mr. Duveneck, shuddering, drawing his coat close.

  But Nicholas Dane’s comments had intrigued me, and I found myself lingering at his side after we’d crossed the bridge and he released my arm. “You seem to know a great deal about Venice.”

  “Ah no,” he said self-deprecatingly. “Let us say I know a very small amount about a great many places. A hazard of being so peripatetic, I’m afraid.”

  “Really? You’ve traveled a great deal?”

  “I have.”

  “Where else have you been?”

  He shrugged. “Everywhere, I suppose. I haven’t lived in a single place longer than a few months since I left home seven years ago.”

  I couldn’t tell whether there was regret in his tone or not—I guessed not. He had said he didn’t care for his family, I remembered. “Why do you travel so much?”

  “Looking for that elusive inspiration.” Again I heard that bitterness I’d noted in the Gardens, that sense of something dark and unspoken.

  But I knew a bit myself about dark, unspoken things, and so I said, “What happens when you find it?”

  “I don’t know.” I felt him look at me. “I confess I’m curious to find out.”

  He’d said nothing really, and yet his voice was low and pregnant with something that made me shiver with sudden warmth. I thought of that kiss in the kitchen, the way my seduction had turned on me, how hard it had been to pull away. Remember what happened before, I reminded myself. Be careful.

  I glanced away. “You must have some fascinating stories.”

  “Perhaps. But mine aren’t pretty like yours. They have bite.”

  “Well, sometimes I think I should like a little bite.”

  He went quiet. His sudden tension made me wonder what I’d said. But when he spoke, his voice was wistful. “Don’t be so quick to wish for it. I like your stories better. The world is an ugly enough place; a little beauty now and then restores a man’s faith that there can be some meaning. I think you and your brother understand that. It’s not a common thing. I’m grateful to find it in you.”

  I liked his compliment. I liked that he understood what Joseph and I both felt. I liked that it mattered to him.

  We were quiet for a moment, and then he said softly, “You know, you are quite something, Miss Hannigan.”

  The words held an uncomfortable echo, and still I could not keep from going warm again. I was glad for the darkness that hid the flush I knew must be working its way over my cheeks. I could not help but feel that brush of possibility once more. Perhaps I might find something of my own in Venice after all.

  Oh, but that was folly, wasn’t it? I should not be feeling this. I did not want to feel it. I needed him for Joseph, for our plans. Nicholas Dane was a good man, but there was too much I could not tell him, too much he would never understand, because no one did. To think otherwise . . . I could not be so stupid again.

  “Sophie, come on!” called my brother from ahead. “Don’t linger or you’ll get lost!”

  I laughed a little nervously and said, “Oh, look how far ahead they are!” and hurried off after them, leaving Mr. Dane to catch up. I could not meet Joseph’s gaze when I reached them. But when he touched my arm, I felt myself fall back into place, my brother providing, as he always did, the anchor I needed.

  Still, I was very aware of Nicholas Dane as we walked through the twisting and turning calli, each of which seemed to take us ever deeper into some strange maze. It was easy to imagine getting so lost here one might wander aimlessly about for centuries. Our footsteps echoed and rebounded, seeming to come from all around us so I kept turning to see who followed. The shadows seemed deeper and more perilous at the street corners, where little shrines to the saints were lit by small and wavering flames of oil lamps that turned the shadows golden and then, at the edges, red. Everything around them seemed out of proportion, illusory and fantastical. Giles Martin swiped a piece of bread from one, munching on it as he walked, and Mr. Dane gave him a withering glance.

  “Leave it for the rats,” he said. “At least they’re God’s creatures.”

  Mr. Martin only grinned. “Now who’s the superstitious one? I’m God’s creature too, you know.”

  “A molding gone strangely awry,” Mr. Dane said dryly.

  I laughed, and so did Mr. Martin. Our voices braided together, echoing, twisting and transforming into something otherworldly. Every sound seemed funneled through the calli, footsteps echoing, the lapping sound of water though we were not near a canal, the muffled thud of a closing door, the screech of a window. Mr. Duveneck said, “You start to believe all those stories about Venice at this time of night.”

  “You’re right,” murmured my brother. “Ghosts in every shadow.”

  “And murderers around every corner.” Mr. Duveneck lowered hi
s voice, playing along. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see a man in a domino and a stiletto lurch from a doorway.”

  “Oh, stop,” I protested. “You’ll give me nightmares.”

  Joseph laughed quietly. “Sophie has too good an imagination.”

  “And I don’t want to be up all night thinking of ghosts.”

  Mr. Dane said, “Perhaps you could turn it into one of your pretty stories instead.”

  I glanced at him, and he smiled, and I could not help smiling back. Then we were there, turning a corner and suddenly at the courtyard entrance to the Moretta, a stone wall with a stout wooden door that bore a small opening crisscrossed with little iron bars. Joseph opened it.

  We said our goodbyes. Joseph stepped inside, and as I followed, Mr. Dane grabbed my hand, sliding his fingers along my palm—a touch that sent a shiver through me—before he let me go.

  Joseph closed the door, and we were in the quiet of the courtyard, its bordering pillars looming shadows, the ferns dripping down the walls like spreading fingers. The servants’ quarters off the courtyard was silent, the elderly couple who rented it gone to bed. There was no light or sound from the Frenchwoman or her two young sons on the upper floor. The sky was moving into dawn, the deep black of night changing to slate as Joseph and I made our weary way up the stairs to the piano nobile. I was exhausted—the day had been so long that the time we’d spent on the Lido seemed a year ago. I was more than ready for bed.

  “I have to go to the market today,” I said. “We’ve nothing here to eat.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Joseph said. “We’ll go to the Rialto. There’s a pretty little corner by one of the fishmongers. I want to draw you there. We’ll get you one of those shawls all the girls wear.”

  “All right,” I agreed. I turned to go to the bedroom. “But later, please. So we can sleep—”

  “Don’t go to bed yet.” Joseph took my hand. “Let’s watch the sunrise.”

  I was too tired to protest. Joseph led me into the sala, which seemed huge and echoing and empty, the murals of Neptune and his mermaids shadowed. Joseph went to the balcony doors and opened them, and the cool, damp air rushed in. Then he led me to the middle of the room and pulled me down with him, so we were both lying on the cold, smooth floor, staring up at the ceiling with its painted sky, which was so far above our heads and so dark it might not have even been there.

  “I thought you wanted to watch the sunrise,” I said.

  “I do.” He pulled me close into his side.

  I laid my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, along with the sounds coming from the city—the splash of oars, and a few voices. Someone laughing. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply of the early morning air, which smelled of algae and stone and salt, and my brother, who still had the scent of the Lido about him. Sand and sun and the tang of wine.

  Joseph said quietly, “So much for him not being interested. Today he could hardly keep his hands off you. What happened?”

  “I think it was the Lido.”

  “I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist that. You were perfect.”

  “And . . . I kissed him tonight. In the kitchen.”

  Joseph stilled. Then he said softly, “You should bring him round to Loneghan quickly.”

  “I will.”

  My brother ran his hand down my arm, and then up again, a slow and steady caress. “Be careful, Soph.”

  His touch was mesmerizing. It raised a shiver that coursed through me and settled deep and low. “I will. I am. I know.”

  “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want. You know that, don’t you? I wouldn’t ask it.”

  “I know,” I assured him. “But I do like him. And he’s easy to flirt with.”

  “Not like Stimpson or Davenport?”

  I thought of the two men in our New York salon, who we’d both thought had an influence it turned out they didn’t have. My seduction of them had been a waste of time. “I didn’t mind flirting with them, either.”

  “But you didn’t like sleeping with them.”

  I shrugged. “I thought they could help us.”

  He said, “What about Dane? Would you like to sleep with him?”

  I thought of the way Nicholas Dane had looked at me. I felt again his mouth on mine, his tongue, the heat of him that made me respond in a way I hadn’t expected. You are quite something. Yes, I was something. “I don’t know. Perhaps.”

  “I like him too, Soph. But don’t make him into another Roberts.”

  “No,” I whispered. “Edward Roberts was a mistake.”

  My brother exhaled in a great sigh. “I just don’t want you to make another one.”

  I heard his guilt and I said, “You weren’t to blame.”

  “Wasn’t I? Am I not always?”

  The wry self-deprecation in his voice nearly broke my heart. “I was foolish. You told me and I didn’t listen. I won’t let that happen again. I promise.”

  I looked at him and our gazes locked and his was so full of everything that I nearly wept. Then he glanced at the ceiling.

  “Look,” he said reverently.

  There it was, the thing he’d known to watch for, the reason we were lying on the floor beneath the sky-painted ceiling while the sun rose outside our window. Because it was rising for us in here, spreading over faux clouds and gilded plaster, gold and pink rippling, sparkling with the reflections of the canal below so the ceiling was aflame with light and motion, and it was as if the sun had chosen to present itself for us alone.

  “Oh,” I breathed, and Joseph laughed softly against my ear, and I lay there, awed and overwhelmed and no longer the least bit sleepy, watching the play of light across a painted ceiling, watching it come alive.

  SOPHIE

  I remember almost nothing of my life before our parents died, and I don’t think Joseph remembers it any better. My only real memory of them was their funeral, and standing beside double coffins gleaming in an unbearably hot sun. We were seven, and it was the middle of summer, and the black wool I wore itched; I wanted nothing more than to be out of my stockings, playing with my brother in the park. I think I was sad. I must have been sad, though even that memory is as a dream—I cannot be certain it is quite real.

  Our aunt, who was our guardian, swooped in and hired Miss Jessamine Coring to be our governess and then left again. My aunt did not like New York City; she kept the brownstone on Washington Square only because it was held in trust for Joseph, and because it suited her to keep us in it and away from her. Most of the furniture was sold to pay debts, and my aunt had replaced it with only the most necessary things, just enough to receive her when she flew into the city on her bi-yearly visits, when she would bring us into the alien land of downstairs to endure a long and wretched tea with her. She looked like a buzzard and had little patience for children, particularly for two she’d been told were so ill behaved.

  Whether that was true or not I couldn’t say. Surely Miss Coring thought so, which was why she never allowed us to leave the third floor. My world, which had never been broad to begin with, narrowed to the nursery, Miss Coring, and my brother, who was the center of it. Joseph and I had always been inseparable, and our isolation only brought us closer together. We saw no other children, nor did we think to miss them. We were too busy surviving Miss Coring and her mercurial moods. Joseph used to whisper to me, deep in the night, as we held each other against the darkness: We’re different, Soph. I know it. We’re marked for something special.

  Well, I knew it was true about him, anyway. His talent was evident from the time he could hold a pencil. And, because he insisted on it, I tried to believe it about myself, though I never quite managed it. It was some time before I realized just how different we were.

  I began to suspect it at sixteen, when Miss Coring died, leaving Joseph and me both rescued and abandoned at the same time, and Aunt Rebecca sent me to finishing school and Joseph to University. She tried to make us board, but neither of us would stay; we came back to t
he nursery each night, too fragile without each other, unable to make anything of ourselves apart, and so finally she gave up and left us to ourselves. But for the first time, I was exposed to girls my own age. I listened to their breathless talk, the things they cared about that all seemed so foreign and stupid to me. I pretended to care, to be one of them, because it was expected, but I felt every moment an imposter, as if I were living my life on the surface of a deeper and richer and more wondrous ocean I could not dive down deep enough to reach.

  The feeling only grew worse when my aunt, hoping to arrange marriages for us both that would take us off her hands for good, insisted Joseph and I enter again into the society that was our birthright. My parents had never moved in the upper echelons of society—we were not rich enough to be Astors or Vanderbilts—but still, it was strange to come into that world of teas and suppers and balls, to come back into the life we’d had at seven as if we’d never left it. Old friends of our parents welcomed us as if we’d never been away.

  Joseph, of course, was at home everywhere, so good-natured and lovely that everyone took to him immediately. But he was restless. At school, he’d made friends who introduced us to the circles we preferred, people more like us—different, marked—who did not spend their nights chattering about the latest fashions over too-sweet, warm lemonade. They talked of new worlds, of free love and women’s suffrage, socialism and philosophy and art. Joseph flourished among them. This is where we belong, Soph.

  I admit I took to it. It was heady talk, no matter how impractical. Joseph and I began to live double lives: evenings spent at society dinners, listening to the daughters of our hosts mangle the pianoforte, followed by late nights spent in rapt conversation about things that meant something, drinking and laughing until the early hours. Joseph believed—and I did too—that his talent would bring us everything we’d ever wanted, everything we’d dreamed of in those days when we’d invented imaginary worlds in the nursery together. He and I both believed that fame was our due—why else had we survived the hell of Miss Coring except for Joseph to be what he was? And too, our inheritance was so small that we desperately needed money. There were men—and women—in the salon who could help us get both things, and we set about using them to further Joseph’s career. Joseph engaged the women, who seemed more than happy to be engaged. It was harder for me, though I managed one or two of the men. Joseph could lose himself in desire, though he never seemed to care much for any woman once he was out of her bed. I wished I could lose myself so readily, but my own desire was fleeting; no matter how often I longed for it to consume me, it never did. I began to wonder if I was destined to love only once, if the only desire I would ever feel was one that I could not express.