The Rossetti Letter (v5) (41 page)

“Gabriella…,” he warned.

“Are you staying in Paris?” Gabriella asked Claire, ignoring him.

“No.”

“No need to alert the French archives, then.”

“Why don’t you meet me at the baggage claim?” Andrew said to Gabriella. “I’ll be along in a minute.”

“We haven’t time,” Gabriella objected. “We’re running late for our dinner with Bertrand as it is.”

“I’m sorry, it seems I’ve really got to be going,” Andrew said to Claire. “But you will get in touch, then?”

“Of course,” Claire replied. It wasn’t until they started walking away that she remembered what she’d wanted to say. “Thank you!” she called after Andrew, but she wasn’t entirely sure if he’d heard.

C
UP OF TEA
in hand, Claire had just walked out of the kitchen when she saw Meredith arrive on her front porch and knock on the door.

“I’ve only got a few minutes before I have to be at school,” Meredith said as she stepped inside, “but I wanted to find out how the trip went.”

“It was great, actually.”

Meredith stared at her oddly. “Are you going somewhere?” she asked.

“No, in fact, I’m going to be working nonstop for the next month, and then I meet with Hilliard to hand in my dissertation. All that’s left is the oral exam and I’ll have my degree. Can you believe it?”

“That’s terrific. But…how come you’re dressed like that?”

“Like what?

“You’re not wearing your pajamas.”

“Oh.” Claire laughed. “I threw them away.”

“And about time, too. Where’d you get that green blouse? It’s pretty.”

“It’s a souvenir from Gwen. She must have slipped it into my suitcase before we left.”

“So how was it? With Gwendolyn, I mean.”

“Well, at first it was…” Claire checked herself. No reason to go into all of it, was there? “It was great. We had a really good time together.”

“What happened with that professor? Did you meet her? Did you find out about her book?”

“First of all, she turned out to be a he, and second, he offered me a job.”

“You mean a real job? A teaching position?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“At Cambridge, as a guest lecturer for a year. It starts in September.”

Meredith looked at her, wide-eyed. “Good lord. That’s fabulous!” She smiled wickedly. “Michael is going to eat his heart out.”

“I know.” Claire grinned back.

“So you’re going to be gone for a whole year?”

“I’ll be back next summer.”

“What am I going to do without you for so long? A week was bad enough. I didn’t have anyone to jog with, and I went out on this horrible date with a doctor.”

“A doctor?”

“I thought it would be a nice change from the artistic types I usually go out with. Well, it wasn’t. The very first thing he said to me after we sat down to dinner was, ‘For such a tall woman, you sure have short, stubby fingers.’ It took every ounce of self-control I had to keep from replying, ‘For such a young man, you sure are bald.’ And it just got worse from there. Do men actually believe that being insulting is some kind of courtship ritual?”

“Only the psychotic ones.”

“Anyway, it was terrible, and I didn’t have you to talk to.”

“Summer school only lasts six weeks, right?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe you should take some time off after that and go to Venice. After all, there are Italian men in Venice.”

“You don’t say.”

“Hordes of them, all gorgeous.” Claire paused, then smiled. “Although there’s one in particular I think you would like very much.”

A week later, Claire received an email from Federico Donato, professor of history at the University of Padua.

Of course she’d write back and ask him to send them along. She’d like to read that graduate student’s paper, too. Maybe the paper, combined with the coded letters Alessandra had written to her cousin, would be enough to prove that she’d gone to Padua after the conspiracy ended. Solving the mystery of Alessandra’s disappearance would make a very nice ending for Andrew Kent’s book. She forwarded the email to him, with a note that she’d be in touch soon.

And then she got back to work on her dissertation. If she were going to finish it by next month, she had no time to waste, and Claire was determined to meet her deadline.

After all, she had a lot to do before she left for England.

12 September 1621

T
HE
A
URORA, A
600-ton French galleon on the final leg of its present journey, smoothly pitched over the gently rolling waves of the open ocean. Alessandra stood on the starboard side of the quarterdeck, enjoying the brisk, sea-misted air. This spot on the deck just above her cabin had been her favorite post from the beginning, during their journey south along the Adriatic, through the Strait of Otranto and into the Ionian Sea, and now, southeast across the Mediterranean. From here she could see most of the 140-foot ship stretched out before her and could view the activity on deck without being in anyone’s way.

She watched as a group of sailors climbed the ratlines to unfurl the mainsail, which had been trimmed the night before when a storm appeared to the east. But the morning had dawned clear, with a steady wind, calm seas, and a sky of vibrant blue. The crew scurried about with a pleasant sense of purpose. She hadn’t decided yet if the crewmen were the keepers of the galleon, or if it was the other way around: sometimes she thought of them as small, parasitic creatures clinging to the rough brown hide of a giant sea beast that creaked and groaned as it swam through the waves. At night, trussed in canvas slings, the men were rocked to sleep inside its great belly, like a hundred Jonahs inside a whale.

She understood why her father and brother had been drawn to the road of the sea. A turn of the ship’s rudder and they could go anywhere: Greece, Turkey, Syria, Jerusalem, Tunisia, Sicily, Spain, or west through the Strait of Gibraltar to Portugal and across the Atlantic to the New World. She felt exhilarated, alive and free as never before, felt alive as she’d never expected to feel again after the events of three years ago.

Once they’d buried Nico at the Church of San Giuseppe, she, Bianca, and Paolo left for Padua. She couldn’t stay in Venice; her memories of Antonio were too painful, and she still had reason to fear Bedmar’s and Ossuna’s retribution. But soon after they were taken in by Giovanna and her husband, Lorenzo, she had received news of the conspirators’ fates.

The Spanish ambassador was brought before the Great Council for an angry confrontation in which he was accused of “ignoble deceits.” Bedmar swore to the Doge in the presence of the Senate that “as the nobleman I am, and by the chrism on my forehead,” he knew nothing of the matters with which he was now being charged. But he had made a hasty exit from Venice almost immediately afterward, and no one expected him to return. The last Alessandra had heard, the marquis had become a cardinal and was serving in the Netherlands.

Shortly after the conspiracy was brought to an end, Ossuna’s palace in Naples was attacked by an angry mob, and the duke burned in effigy. Ossuna was recalled to Madrid, where he was thrown into jail and, for the next two years, until he died, protested his innocence in the Venetian affair.

Jacques Pierre was arrested onboard the
Camerata
and executed by its Venetian admiral. Arturo Sanchez and Nicholas Regnault had been hanged along with Antonio. The fate of the others mentioned in her letter was unknown. They may have met their end in the Canal of Orphans, as so many did; or they may have escaped the city.

Girolamo Silvia adopted La Celestia’s daughters, who as the heirs to their mother’s and to Silvia’s fortunes became the most desired match among the Venetian nobility, in spite of the fact that they were some years away from being of marriageable age. Silvia prospered after the conspiracy was exposed and ended. His political status increased, until the winter of 1620, when a sudden illness unexpectedly took his life. Rumors persisted that he had caught a fever from the contaminated blood of a Turkish spy he had tortured; others whispered that poison had hastened his end. Mourning for the senator was brief and perfunctory.

In the weeks following her own flight from Venice, Alessandra desired no one’s company except for Bianca’s, her cousins’, and Paolo’s, who stayed on with them in Padua. Even after the three of them moved into their own domicile, a small villa surrounded by gardens, she remained a recluse, spending her days in silence, taking no comfort in her usual pursuits. Paolo was her most constant companion. With his skillful pen, he often captured views of Padua to share with her. Every day he urged her to draw, bringing her the gilded box that contained her inks and charcoals and paper, until one morning she proposed a pact: she would draw if he would read aloud to her one hour each day.

During that long summer, they whiled away the daylight hours together in the garden, sketching the plants and the flowers and each other, she learning his silent language, he strengthening his voice. One evening, Giovanna and her husband came to visit and Lorenzo exclaimed over their sketches and insisted on taking a few to show his friend, a publisher of books that were widely used at the university. Soon they had a commission to create illustrations for a series of volumes that would document the local flora.

It took them nearly a year to complete them all, and in that time Alessandra discovered the joy of true employment. It was a pleasure to be contributing to the edification and greater knowledge of all, to draw with a purpose beyond her own amusement, to earn a living with her mind, her talent, and her craft. With this satisfaction came the certainty that she would never return to her former life.

Paolo also flourished. He was now a man of twenty-four, confident, secure, tirelessly industrious. After the botanical books were printed, they received many offers; Paolo’s precise rendering caught favor and was in great demand. Sometimes Alessandra worked with him, and sometimes Paolo was sent far afield on his commissions, to Verona, to Florence, once even to Rome.

Gradually, Alessandra realized that she was in love with him. Perhaps not with the same kind of passion she’d felt for Antonio, but with a quiet, steady love that grew deeper with time and gathered strength from the pleasure they found in their mutual endeavors and from the tenderness with which Paolo always treated her. Soon after they were married, they were offered an extraordinary commission: a trip to Egypt to document the wonders of the Nile Valley, of which many people had heard but few had seen. Alessandra recalled her father’s stories of that magical land, and they had accepted at once.

Alessandra rested her arms on the thick wood rail of the ship and looked over the ocean with deep wonder and satisfaction. What sights they would see! What treasures they would behold! The date palm and the camel, the white-robed followers of Mo-hammet, the minarets and the mosques, the colossal pyramids rising from a sea of sand. She was brought back from her reverie when she spied Paolo on deck, walking toward her. He had become a handsome man, almost unrecognizable from the scrawny youth she had first seen rowing Bedmar’s gondola. Sometimes, like now, she felt that she was seeing him for the first time, and her heart never failed to leap a little.

Paolo approached and offered his cloak. She shook her head.

“But the air is cold, my love.”

“I don’t mind, I find it refreshing.”

“Captain Fournier says he can’t recall a woman who adapted to life onboard ship so well as you. I believe he admires you.”

“He also admits that this has been an uncommonly happy voyage. Yesterday he mentioned that he’d never seen the weather so clear at this time of year.”

“He just told me that if we continue at this pace, we should sight land in two days.”

“Did he say where?”

“If we keep true to our course, we should see it there, just right of the bowsprit.” He pointed across the sea. Her gaze followed, skimming over the water to where the sky met the edge of the earth and resolved into a thin, silvery line. The vision filled her with awe at the immensity of the world and the vast, unknowable future. Not long ago, her life had ended—and she had discovered that a life could end, and still continue, and still be utterly surprising and unpredictable, with the capacity for wonder and joy and love. She had discovered that a heart, once broken, could be healed.

She felt Paolo’s arms enfold her, and she readily accepted their familiar comfort. He was her willing partner on this journey, yet she knew that at times he longed for the Serenissima’s watery world, its labyrinthine canals, its delicate rippling light, just as she did.

Someday they would go back to Venice; someday, after the old memories were replaced by new memories and all the ghosts were put to rest. But for now their future lay ahead, and she held her gaze steady on the place it would appear: there, just there, on the shining horizon.