Heart of Glass
ALSO BY SASHA GOULD
Cross My Heart
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Created by Working Partners Limited, Stanley House, St. Chad’s Place, London, WC1X 9HH.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gould, Sasha.
Heart of glass / Sasha Gould. — 1st ed. p. cm.
Companion to: Cross my heart.
Summary: In Renaissance Venice, Laura’s marriage to Roberto is thrown into chaos when he is accused of murder, while the Segreta are under threat from the Doge’s army, and loyalties are sorely tested.
eISBN: 978-0-375-98541-6
[1. Secret societies—Fiction. 2. Sex role—Fiction. 3. Love—Fiction. 4. Venice (Italy)—History—16th century—Fiction. 5. Italy—History—16th century—Fiction. 6. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.G73585He 2013 [Fic]—dc23 2012014714
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
With special thanks to Karen Ball
1
I gaze down the length of the narrow blade at my enemy. His own sword is lowered, his chest heaving as a bead of sweat rolls lazily over the ridge of his collarbone and then into the dip of his sternum. It joins the others in a damp patch over his heart.
“Yield,” he says.
“Make me.”
Roberto sends me a smile, then attacks. I dodge across the varnished floorboards of the palace’s gallery, but my silk skirts swing heavily, weighted by the lead beads sewn into the hem. They’re slowing me down.
“A peacock’s feathers don’t help it fly,” Roberto says, his eyes traveling over the shot turquoise of my dress. With a hiss of impatience I use my free hand to loosen the ribbons on my outer robe, shoving one shoulder and then the other out of the bodice until the silk slips over my limbs and lands with a sigh in a blue cloud at my feet. Neatly, I step out of it, my sword still trained on Roberto. I ignore the loud tut of disapproval from the servant who sits on one
of the window seats, chaperoning us. When I first met Roberto six months ago, I might have blushed, but six moons have done more than just improve my sword skills. I’m a different person.
“You may leave us,” I call out. My eyes never stray from Roberto’s face.
There’s a scuffle of shoes across wood and then the slam of a door shutting.
“Now there’s no one to witness your humiliation,” I say. My voice echoes around the long gallery.
“Or yours,” Roberto replies, raising his eyebrows.
I stand before him in nothing but my linen chemise and corset. My cheeks are hot, with both the duel and my recklessness. I blow a stray lock of hair out of my face and it sticks to my temple.
Roberto slowly circles. “Are you going to use that sword or just admire it?”
I turn on the spot. Behind him shift the blurry outlines of oil paintings and—as we turn again—long windows, beyond which lies Venice. Once a prison, now my home. The days of the convent are long gone, many months ago, fading quickly into the past. My stale vows to God will always lurk in my mind, but they are nothing more than a distant chanting now, faint beneath new words of love.
Roberto dances lightly from foot to foot. One flying lunge with my sword and I’ll be the victor; a single riposte from him and I taste defeat. I notice his hand tighten slightly under his bell guard, and anticipate his move. As he lunges I hop to one side, turning my back on him and bringing my own blade round in a swift movement so that it cuts up under his. Our weapons bounce apart, but with a light jump
I bring the buttoned point of my sword against Roberto’s chest, the blade bending under the pressure. We’re so close that I can feel Roberto’s breath on my face.
“Disarming,” he says. He fails to keep the surprise out of his voice.
I cannot help laughing, though we don’t pull apart. “Does this make me the winner?” I ask.
Roberto dips his head in acknowledgment. “So it seems.”
“Then I demand my prize.”
He glances back up, his eyes widening a little as he leans against my blade. “Which is?”
I jerk my sword away and he staggers into me. He straightens up, cheeks flushing. “Laura—”
Before he can say another word, I bring my sword around in a wide arc until the blunt tip slides between our bodies and presses against the underside of his chin. “I demand a kiss.”
We both wait. I lower my sword. Roberto is free to move. His arm is suddenly around my waist, bringing me even closer to him. As his chest presses against mine I am aware of the thin fabric of my chemise, the heat of his body. He leans over me, arching my spine backwards, and presses his lips against the hollow at the base of my throat, which I know must be salty with sweat. When he releases me, we gaze at each other, standing on either side of a long sunbeam that traces a path across the floorboards.
“Is this what love feels like?” he asks.
“I think so.”
We both know how lucky we are. It might have been so different, if my father had had his way. I shudder to think
of the man I was to marry, one of my father’s cronies from the Grand Council. Vincenzo was old, selfish and cruel, but he was rich, and that’s all that matters to a man like my father. And at that time, Roberto was living in poverty as a painter, under the name Giacomo. For his past too was a prison of sorts, hiding from the vendetta that threatened his life as the Doge’s son. It’s a miracle our paths crossed at all.
I go to pick up my discarded dress as Roberto pours us each a tumbler of water from a glass jug with images of swans etched and gilded on its handle. He hands me the water and I gulp it down gratefully. Roberto wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, recovering his breath. Beyond his head, a row of portraits of Doges past runs across the paneled wall. Roberto’s father, Alfonso, the present Doge, is last. The ancient faces that look down at me are stern and unforgiving, dark shadows lurking in the corners of one painting, a fierce dog sitting at its master’s feet in another. One day, Roberto’s portrait will hang there too, but I can’t imagine him gazing down on Venice with such ferocity.
Roberto removes his shirt and towels himself dry with it. As he moves, the muscles of his stomach contract and expand, so that the scar on his chest seems to writhe across his skin. It will always be a reminder to us of how precarious life can be in Venice. The wound, delivered when he was just a boy, has long since healed, but a few months ago the same blood feud almost claimed his life again. It was only the intervention of the Segreta that ended the cycle of violence and spared him.