“So you are from Lyon, Monsieur Desgrange,” she said after those within earshot at the table had looked askance at their talk of some scientific experiments they had both read about. “I know the view from Fourvière extremely well. My uncle Henri and his wife have made their home in Lyon since he retired from the army.”
It emerged in the course of their conversation that she was acquainted with quite a few people Alix knew. She had a wry wit and an observant eye, several times surprising him into a grin.
Dancing and cards followed the dinner, and it was not until a buffet breakfast with champagne had been served that the guests finally departed. It was dawn and the rain in the night had finally washed away all traces of the snow, leaving a mildness in the air.
“The weather is as changeable as a young girl’s heart,” the marquis commented from the watergate steps of the palace as Alix and Henri left with Jules in a gondola. Louise, who had also come down to see the guests off, thought scoffingly to herself that men were far more fickle.
THAT NIGHT ALIX unlocked the calle door and went into the loggia to wait for Marietta. There was no moon, but the sky was full of stars. When he heard her coming out of the building he whispered her name, not wanting to frighten her by suddenly appearing. She ran to him with her arms outstretched and he caught her hands in his.
“Such a risk!” she exclaimed in a whisper, both excited and alarmed that he should have had a second key made for himself. “If the watchman had seen you he would have had you arrested as an intruder!”
“My coming here is nothing compared with the risk you are taking to meet me. Did you return the key?”
“Yes. Nobody questioned me.”
Outside in the calle she began to put on the moretta mask that she had brought, but he stayed her.
“Not that one tonight,” he said, putting a beribboned box into her hands. “Wear this one instead.”
By the light of his lantern she opened the box and the gold beads winked on the green velvet mask where it lay upon the lace mantilla. “Oh! It’s a beautiful Columbina!” When she was arrayed in both, she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips in thanks, so quickly and lightly that she was out of his reach again before he could seize her. She went tripping and spinning and dancing ahead of him along the calle.
“Now I’m really free!” she called recklessly over her shoulder, not appearing to care who might hear her. He was suddenly afraid that in his gift of the Columbina mask he might have given her far more liberty than he had intended. The last thing he wanted was that she should feel free of him. He ran to catch up with her.
“Would you like to go to a ridotto?”
“I should like that immensely! What fun to be on the other side of the grilles for once. Which one have you in mind?” When he told her she nodded. It was at the house where she had glimpsed Domenico Torrisi without a mask. “That one is all right. The Pietà musicians are playing elsewhere tonight.”
“Would it matter? None of them would recognize you.”
She smiled to herself. Naturally a man would not think of the one clue that might have set the girls questioning even if they had not actually become suspicious. “They would have known my velvet gown, which I had made in the color, design, and fabric of my own choice.”
If she had known she was to receive the Columbina mask and a mantilla she would have worn one of her very best gowns, but to date she had thought it wise to dress discreetly and thus avoid notice. But now a sense of daring was taking hold and she felt immune to danger.
Her feet still seemed not to be touching the ground as Alix escorted her into the ridotto’s buffet salon for supper and wine. Knowing that she was totally unrecognizable, wearing a mask in which she could talk, eat, drink, and flirt—even sing if she disguised her voice—made Marietta feel completely light-headed. She would always treasure her dear little moretta mask, but having the Columbina was a lifelong dream come true. She made Alix tell her all about his home and his family, right up to the quarrel with his father that had led to the Grand Tour.
“Don’t you get on with your father at all?” she asked incredulously.
“Yes, when we avoid talking politics and certain aspects of business. He cannot see that changes are needed everywhere in France. But I’m not going to talk about all that to you. Not tonight anyway.”
When Alix took her into the gaming rooms, something about her poise made Domenico Torrisi, lounging between games, stare at her from behind his bauta mask. Leaning a shoulder leisurely against a pillar, he watched the two newcomers take seats at one of the tables. It was clear that the girl was a complete novice, for the young man with her was advising her on every move. But she was obviously quick to learn. When they went on to another table and a game that required more skill, she was soon making her own decisions and was innocently jubilant when she won.
Marietta had lost all sense of time. She was so absorbed in the play that she took no notice when a seat was vacated beside her and someone took it at once. She looked at the two cards she held, confident of winning this time, and was just about to make her wager when a male voice spoke quietly in her ear.
“How have you flown the walls of the Pietà, Maestra Marietta?”
The cards fell from her hands. On a choked gasp of fright she looked wildly at the masked man who had spoken and knew him to the depth of her being. His grey eyes pierced into hers and she realized that nothing she might say would counteract the truth that she had been discovered. On her other side, Alix was asking what the matter was but she ignored him, still looking into Domenico Torrisi’s eyes.
“Don’t give me away!” she said between her teeth. It was a hiss that was neither a plea nor a demand.
“Trust me,” he replied and turned his attention back to the game.
Trembling violently, she hastened from the table, Alix following quickly behind. “What is wrong?” he exclaimed in bewilderment when they reached the reception hall.
She shook her head, not answering him until they were outside the building, when she almost collapsed against him. “That man! Signor Torrisi! He recognized me.”
“But how?”
“It could only be the color of my hair that gave me away, but I thought it would not show through the lace.”
“It only glinted a little. Nothing more. I’ll buy you a silk mantilla tomorrow.”
“He said I could trust him.” She was still preoccupied and pulled away to start back in the direction of the Pietà. Alix fell into step and put an arm about her waist.
“Is he to be believed?”
“I think so.”
When they reached the door in the calle Alix entered with her to hold her tight. She was still trembling and he thrust up his mask and kissed her tenderly, full of concern and yet not wanting her to put an end to their meetings.
“Don’t say you will not see me anymore, Marietta. We can go to quieter places where we are unlikely to meet Signor Torrisi again.”
He felt her straighten in his arms. Abruptly she took his face between her hands and pulled him down fiercely to bestow a kiss that contrasted in every way with their earlier one. Breathless, she drew away again.
“I’m not afraid of a Torrisi! He shall not drive me into the shadows. I leave that to the Celano family. Let us go dancing next time. What I would like most of all would be to spend a whole night of Carnival with you, not returning here until dawn!”
“Somehow I will grant you that wish,” he vowed, fervently catching her in his arms again and kissing her even more passionately than she had kissed him. She felt herself slipping out of her depth as his hand moved caressingly over her velvet-covered breasts, arousing new, painfully sweet sensations in her.
“Good night, dear Alix,” she whispered, although it was less than two hours until dawn. Then she slipped away from him and ran along the loggia to re-enter the Pietà. Once inside, she paused briefly in the darkness to face a moment of truth. She could no longer deny to herself that she loved him.
<
br /> IN THEIR GRAND bedchamber Angela Torrisi lay in her husband’s arms. She was intrigued by the second installment in his account of the wayward Pietà girl.
“How has the young maestra managed it?” she pondered delightedly. “Such daring! What spirit! Love will always find a way.”
Domenico smiled into her bright little face, enjoying the impish sparkle in her eyes. “Perhaps it was just an urge for adventure. She was certainly enjoying her first experience of gaming. Maybe the young man is introducing her to the pleasures of Venice.”
She prodded her forefinger into his chest. “Don’t spoil the romance of it for me. You know as well as I do that no Pietà girl would risk breaking all the rules without an over-riding motivation, which can only be that she is in love.” Then her attitude turned playfully against him. “It was cruel of you to give her such a fright.”
“On the contrary. If I could penetrate her disguise, so could others. It was for her own good.”
“But you had the advantage of having seen her briefly without her hood.”
“True. And now I hope she will be less careless in future.”
She scrutinized his expression. “You mean that, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“I’m glad. There are those who would take a fiendish delight in denouncing her.” All cruelty was abhorrent to Angela. Only that morning she had chanced to see a condemned man being strung up by his thumbs between the two upper columns of the Doge’s Palace, which were deliberately constructed of a deeper rose marble than the rest and where such tortures often took place. She had almost fainted with pity and horror.
Domenico cradled her to him and kissed her lovingly. She responded to his mounting desire as his hand traveled down her back and over her smooth thighs. There had been so many miscarriages, so many disappointments in the seven years of their marriage, but their passion for each other had not waned. His lips moved to her breasts and, as always when he began to make love to her, she hoped that this time she would conceive a son she would carry successfully to term.
ONCE MARIETTA HAD donned Alix’s gift of a new silk mantle and mantilla, for which he had received an appreciative kiss, she had no second thoughts about risking an encounter with Domenico again.
“Let us go back to those same gaming rooms, Alix!” she urged, her eyes sparkling.
He did not argue. Almost from the start he had sensed that the spice of danger only added to her enjoyment of their time together. Now, with his arm about her waist, he wondered, not for the first time, how much she might dare in her relationship with him.
Once she had settled down at one of the gaming tables, Marietta took a few seconds to look around at the ring of spectators. “The Torrisi is not here tonight,” she said with conviction to Alix at her side. She had brought her own money this time, and her first small stake had already increased quite handsomely.
“How can you know that?” Alix asked. “All men in bautas look alike.”
“I would know him out of a thousand thus masked.” Then her whisper rose in glee. “Oh, look! I have won again!”
By the time they left she had lost most of her gains and was almost back to her original stake, which did not depress her in the least, for she considered she had had a wonderful time. In the loggia, when Alix enfolded her in his arms, she could feel through her skirts the effect that passion had on a man’s body.
WHILE ALIX’S NIGHTLY excursions with Marietta continued, his days and evenings were fully occupied. He and Henri spent many hours with Jules studying the architecture of churches and secular buildings, and there was no end to the masterpieces and other treasures to be viewed. Alix appreciated all he saw, but he would have enjoyed these sessions much more with Marietta at his side. How easy it would have been elsewhere in Europe to view historical monuments and famous paintings with a pretty girl and her chaperone in tow, but the grilles of the Pietà were like prison bars.
Much of Alix’s time was also taken up in finding works of art to send home. A promising young local artist was touting his paintings to those sitting at tables in the arcade outside Florian’s. Alix, who had been drinking coffee there with Henri, bought this artist’s domestic scene of two women sipping hot chocolate, which he particularly admired. He had been exercising his own taste since halfway through the tour and had already dispatched from Venice a small thirteenth-century painting on wood of a Madonna and Child, as well as two views of the Grand Canal by another Venetian artist known as Canaletto.
Added to these activities were evenings at the Palazzo Cuccino for cards or music. Alix spent one such evening playing billiards with the marquis and afterward they sat in the mezzanine library talking politics over good French wine. They found they held many of the same opinions, although the marquis had the wisdom and experience to temper Alix’s grandiose ideas of how miracles of reform might be accomplished overnight.
“Patience and perseverance,” the marquis advised. “That is the only way. We must talk again. I know a couple of other exiles in Venice who would appreciate meeting you. That shall be arranged.”
The marquis and his family had begun to take it as a matter of course that Jules, Alix, and Henri should be included in their round of entertainments. Gradually Alix had come to know Louise better than her cousins. He was not in the least attracted to her, but he continued to find her intelligent company, for she had a comprehensive knowledge of French and Venetian politics as well as a wide knowledge of music, literature, and art. If he took any note of her looks at all it was to think how pale and lusterless she was in comparison with the vibrant seventeen-year-old girl he loved and desired and longed to see again each time they were parted. When he had cupped Marietta’s bare breast in his hand for the first time she had uttered a soft little cry of erotic pleasure.
It was during a musical evening at the Palazzo Manunta that Louise unwittingly offered to do him an extremely good turn.
“My grandparents have obtained an invitation to take my cousins and me to a reception at the Pietà quite shortly. As you and I have agreed, the girls’ voices are quite wonderful. One of my cousins will not be coming, because her parents are returning from a visit to Verona that evening and she wants to be here to receive them. Although I do not doubt,” she added drily, “that if the choir consisted of young men she would have quite forgotten her filial duty. Would you like to take her place? I know my grandparents would be agreeable.”
Managing to control his glee, Alix replied soberly that he would be most pleased to accept. Marietta rejoiced with him when he told her the news, welcoming the bonus of an extra meeting. It also made up for the time he had missed seeing her through being unable to extract himself from the Guèrards’ company until it was too late. More than once he had arrived with only a minute to spare.
THEN THERE HAD also been the night when he waited for her in vain. Again and again he had checked his watch to make sure he was neither too early nor too late. Finally he had to leave. When she failed to appear again the next night he became anxious. Had she been discovered the last time she returned? Or had the Torrisi failed to keep his word? Several more nights went by. Two or three times Alix tried the door into the building itself only to find it securely bolted. He looked up at the windows, hoping she would throw down a written message, but although lights went on and faded away again there was no sign of her.
Marietta was at a sickbed. Bianca had fallen ill with a high fever, and since the infection could not be diagnosed, isolation had been imposed—not only on the child, who had been removed from the bedchamber she shared with other children, but also on those nursing her. Had Elena not been sharing the nursing duties, she would have delivered a note of explanation to Alix; but as it was, Marietta had to let him remain puzzled in the darkness, for she could not risk passing the infection to him by any means.
Then the morning came when Marietta and Elena were able to leave the sickroom. The fever had broken at last with no dreaded signs of either smallpox or the plague.
<
br /> “It’s going to be a fine day,” Marietta said wearily, pausing to look out the window. Then her head drooped as she pressed a hand to her suddenly quivering mouth and her voice broke. “I was so afraid we were going to lose Bianca.”
She had uttered the words that neither of them had dared even to think while sponging down the child’s feverish body, giving her sips of water, and smoothing the sweat-tangled curls. Elena put an arm about her shoulders.
“It is over now. Get some rest. Bianca will want to see us again when she wakes.”
Shortly after midnight, while Bianca again slept peacefully, Marietta left the sickroom briefly on the chance that she might see Alix for a few minutes. But the loggia and the calle were deserted. When she returned, she found Bianca awake and crying for her.
“Hush, little one. I’m here.” Marietta rushed to the bed and sat down to gather the child gently in her arms.
“I was afraid,” Bianca whispered, her head resting weakly against Marietta’s shoulder.
“I shall not leave you again by night for a single minute until you are well and strong again,” Marietta promised. It was like cradling a little bird that had fallen from the nest, for the child’s fever-wasted body was all bones.
“Sing ‘Columbina.’” It was a drowsy, whispered plea.
Marietta sang softly, rocking the child gently. Not until she was sure Bianca slept soundly again did she undress and lie down herself in the truckle bed alongside. Then she lay looking up at the pool of candlelight thrown across the ceiling. She did not blame Alix for not being outside, but disappointment at not seeing him, even briefly, stabbed like a knife at her heart. Rain began slashing at the window.
Alix, who had been delayed by an absorbing discussion with the marquis and his two exiled friends, reached the shelter of the loggia. He shook some of the rain from his cloak and took up his hour-long vigil.
Venetian Mask Page 11