The Secret of the Glass (9 page)

“Here, Sophia.” Viviana took her daughter brusquely by the arm and spun her to the two people seated on a faded, garden-print sofa. “Pay your respects to ser and signora da Fuligna.”

Sophia’s legs trembled as she made her obeisance. With a jolt, she realized her error. The man she thought to be her future father-in-law was in fact her future husband.

“It is my great honor to meet you, signore, signora.”

“Young lady.” The elder man gave a curt nod of his head, looking at Sophia with small, beady eyes from beyond a long, curved Roman nose. He wore a grand doublet and waistcoat and a long gray beard below his bald head.

The woman to his left said nothing at all, but bowed almost imperceptibly from her waist. Sophia thought she saw pity in the wrinkled woman’s face and light eyes but recognized it instead as timidity.

With a lowered head, she acknowledged the man now standing beside her, offering him a silent curtsy.

“Signorina.” He took her hand, and bowed over it, making no pretense to kiss it as was custom. “How do you do?”

His voice and diction were precise and clipped, as meticulous as his extravagant attire of midnight blue doublet trimmed with gold braid, matching breeches, and fine lawn shirt. He lifted Sophia up and out of her bow.

Pasquale da Fuligna resembled his father, a few less wrinkles perhaps, and a few more hairs on his head, a few of them still brown, but otherwise he was a duplicate of the elder man. Sophia couldn’t fathom his age; she didn’t think he was as old as her own father, but thought he looked to be more of Zeno’s generation than her own. His dark eyes appeared intelligent and hard, the closed and shuttered windows of an armored soul.

“Please sit,” he offered, but no warmth or courtesy reverberated in his voice, only instruction.

Sophia sat beside her mother on the smaller rose-colored loveseat across from the larger sofa while her father stood behind them.

“You have a lovely home.” Viviana’s words skipped along the finely strung tension filling the room.

“It has been in our family for over two hundred years,” the elder da Fuligna informed them with more than a little superciliousness. “We have more rooms than any other house on the canal.”

“Really?” Viviana turned to the woman of the house. “I’m sure that keeps your servants busy.”

Renata da Fuligna didn’t open her mouth; her thin, pale lips spread in a pale imitation of a smile. Eugenio da Fuligna answered for his wife. “They are proficient at their work.”

Sophia glanced about. The massive home shone clean, not a speck of dirt lay on the corners of the marble floor or on the intricately carved wainscoting and many-faceted chandelier above their heads. With a critical eye, Sophia saw beyond the pristine cleanliness, to the chipped stone, peeling paint, and distinct absence of art and ornamentation, save for the painted ceiling coves. Above her, naked, plump cherubs floated upon fluffy white clouds, their grins sardonic, as if they mocked her. On her hosts’ attire, she saw the same shabby grandeur in the frayed cuffs and yellowed lace of their
demodé
garments.

“You must be quite pleased,” Viviana said.

“Tell me, young lady, have you been educated?”

Sophia’s eyelids flapped, taken aback by the abruptness of the elder da Fuligna’s question, by the personal nature of it so soon upon their acquaintance. Pasquale showed no reaction to his father’s brusque rudeness. He sat stiff in his chair, chin in hand, flat stare intent and unsurprised. Understanding dawned upon Sophia with the flash of a fire’s first spark. This is why they were there; she must pass muster in the eyes of the father who dominated this peculiar family. She was a commodity being inspected, examined for any weaknesses or defects.

Sophia nodded. So be it.

“I can read and write with proficiency. I am conversant in Latin and can perform rudimentary mathematics.”

She spoke in her demure manner, but her jaw muscles flexed, and there was an upward tilt to her head. She longed to add that this was more education than most noblewomen ever received but the spirited intentions caught in her throat; the words in her mind were always more forceful than those she managed to say.

“And music…do you play?”

Eugenio showed no reaction to her litany of schooling. Keeping his thin-eyed stare planted firmly on Sophia’s face, he raised a joint-swollen, twisted hand to the door and beckoned the servant posed there forward.

Pasquale dropped his hands to his lap at the sight of the refreshments rolling in on a silver tray, ushered in by the same servant who had greeted the Fiolarios at the door. Heaving an undisguised sigh of impatience, he squirmed in his chair; his lack of desire to lengthen this occasion any longer than was absolutely necessary apparent, regardless of what correct comportment demanded.

“I play the lute,” Sophia answered, searching for more to say, if for no other purpose than to extend their visit in the face of such disdainful dismissal.

“She plays beautifully,” Viviana said with conviction, clasping Sophia’s hands where they twisted in her daughter’s lap.

“Sophia has many talents.” The fervor in her father’s powerful baritone was unmistakable, as was the succor in the hand that grabbed her shoulder and squeezed.

These proud parents had no real wish to lose their daughter to, nor impress these pompous people, but they would not allow her to be diminished in the eyes of the da Fulignas.

Signore da Fuligna slurped his wine, biting into the crunchy almond
biscotto
he’d picked up from the offered salver. Chewing on the dry cookie, smacking the lips of his almost toothless mouth, the food visible with each gaping yaw, the elder nobleman continued his interrogation. “The social graces, what of those have you learned?”

Sophia studied her future father-in-law with silent revulsion; she had never been schooled in deportment or manners, but as the crumbs sprayed from this unctuous man’s open mouth, she was certain hers were by far superior.

“Father,” Pasquale snapped with no small hint of exasperation and impatience. “She is obviously well-mannered, the rest can be taught.”

Three loathsome gazes flashed upon Pasquale; he spoke of Sophia as if she were a pig for sale at the fair. Not even the bent, contrite head of his mother could disguise the blatant opprobrium of this conversation. It heaped upon the moment more ill-will, to Sophia’s baffled discontent. It was not to her defense that Pasquale’s acrimony rose, but seemed more a product of the ire he felt for his father. There seemed no reason for her to be here, nor why this fusion of families should be sought after. There was no affection in Pasquale’s features when he looked upon her, nor any smidgen of desire.

The old man’s attention flashed on the face of his son with disgust; there was no love between these two men, regardless of the blood that bound them. She shivered from the cold radiating off these emotionally bereft people, saw her mother rub the skin of one arm, and knew she felt it too. This house was a nest of vipers and she would be the prey thrown into the fray.

Brushing crumbs from his lap and onto the floor, Eugenio retrieved a roll of parchment from the surface of the ornately carved walnut gueridon to his right.

“I would like you to read these over, Fiolario.” He thrust them toward Zeno. “You
can
read, can’t you? If not you should have a clerk of the court explain them to you.”

“I will have the barrister who represents our glassworks review them,” Zeno replied with a tight-lipped grimace, “
after
I have read them myself.”

Sophia wanted to cheer at her father’s bravura, but lowered her head, allowing a small smile to tickle her lips. Absent were any signs of her father’s confusion and frustration, of the vacant cast that stole over him more and more of late, and for that Sophia felt astounding gratitude; as if the indignation he felt toward these arrogant people kept his blood stirred, his mind sharp.

“If the contents are agreed upon, the signed copies will be exchanged at the ceremony,” Eugenio resumed dispassionately. “Pay particular attention to the last clause, that which would give my son control of the factory upon your death.”

Viviana shot the man a scathing look, her lack of patience with da Fuligna’s insensitivity scantily veiled by her impeccable manners. He ignored her.

“I must be clear, this means nothing,” signore da Fuligna insisted, eyes narrowing contemptuously, the baggy, ashen skin around them tightening. “To be allowed into a family who has been listed in the
Libro d’Oro
for hundreds of years is a privilege young women clamor for. I must give this union thorough study before any agreement is signed.”

At one time, Venice’s Golden Book of Noble Families held over two thousand names, but plague and declining fortunes, inhibiting marriage and the number of offspring, had seen that number shrink drastically in recent years. True, a small part of Sophia wished to see her future progeny’s name among the auspicious list someday—any Venetian who loved her country would—but she felt no inferiority to those who were on it. Her own family’s lineage reached back to the dawning of the
Veneta
and surely the Fiolario wealth far outshone most of theirs. After these scant few minutes with this family, she understood the true depth of her own family’s riches, wealth that could never be measured in
ducats
or
soldi
.

“Including further inquiries into your family’s lineage,” da Fuligna continued, oblivious to his offensive posturing.

“Would you care for more wine?” Signora da Fuligna’s sweet voice in the midst of such antagonism shocked the Fiolario family.

Viviana nodded, offering her empty goblet for the woman to fill.

“We.”
Pasquale sat forward in his chair, staring at his father though he addressed Zeno. “
We
will be making inquiries.”

Father and son dueled soundlessly, neither willing to back down or give way. The room fell into silence under the weight of unease; not only were the Fiolarios uncomfortable with their hosts, the da Fulignas were uncomfortable with each other. Pasquale sucked his teeth in exasperation as his mother filled Sophia’s empty glass and sprung to his feet.

“I’m very sorry,” he said, the feigned apology offered to the room in general. “But I must be leaving. I can delay no longer.”

With a shallow bow and without a hint of a glance in Sophia’s direction, he rushed from the room and was gone.

The father watched with undisguised loathing as the son sprinted out of the chamber. Sophia studied him as his lips parted, as thoughts whirled behind the fiery eyes. She wondered if he longed to cry out but used every ounce of restraint he possessed to remain quiet.

Sophia stared at Pasquale’s retreating form, at the empty doorway long after he left it. How could she ever grow to care about this man when his own family hated him?

Six

P
asquale jostled past the doorman, disregarded the outstretched hand of the family’s gondolier, and jumped haphazardly into the boat, his ungraceful descent tipping the slim vessel precariously. His impatience erased all concern for formality, his irritation at his father dismissing any possibility of enjoyment in the leisurely method of travel forced upon the Venetians living along the Canalazzo.

“Faster, faster, no dawdling,” he barked at the man who propelled the gondola.

He poked at the morning’s event with a thin needle of regard and found a slim vein of satisfaction in his father’s reaction to his abrupt departure, the rage-mottled skin and snarling mouth; the man’s attempt to thwart him had failed and the frustration had been clear on the repugnant features. He wondered if the old codger knew of his early-evening activities; why else would the man set today’s appointment at the time he had?

“Let me off here,” he snapped, pointing a beefy hand toward the public landing stage at the start of the Riva del Carbon. He would walk the rest of the way; it would be faster than the slow travel upon the crowded canal. From here there remained a few short blocks to the Riva del Ferro and the Ca’ Morosini.

Glazed stare still burning with irritation, Pasquale stomped along the quayside, nodding his head to the strolling neighbors who greeted him but taking no notice of their faces, nor of the beauty that surrounded him. His pointed dark leather shoes and matching hose blurred as his short, plump legs scissored down the causeway; his lightweight short cape flew out behind him, following him like a vigilant bird. His nostrils flared like a bull’s as his breathing grew more labored, the extra girth around his middle challenging his underused respiratory system. His long nostrils quivered as he inhaled the air, forever fecund with the briny scent of the sea.

As he drew closer to the eastern base of the Ponte de Rialto, the crowds grew thicker. Pasquale skulked as if in the vacuous eye of a swirling storm, solitary and silent, while invigorating, lively energy churned unheeded around him. The warm sun beat down upon his graying, thinning hair and the beckoning aromas of foodstuffs were inhaled but dismissed. Dust and dirt jumped up into the swirling, beckoning breeze and Pasquale closed his eyes to it as they attempted to add him to their spirited dance, but his determination made him an unwilling partner.

Pasquale flew across the magnificent home’s Gothic-style courtyard that opened onto the Canalazzo and hurried up the stairs, pumping his chubby fists, ignoring the bright white balustrade contrasting sharply against the deep gold stone. At the first platform, where the stairs turned right, he entered the wooden door to his left without a knock. The slumbering, elderly doorman woke with a snort, jerking from his chair with such haste he almost lost his balance and tumbled to the floor.

“Have no fear, Alondo, I will show myself in.”

Pasquale brushed past the surprised servant, grunting as he took the interior staircase two steps at a time, and burst through the burnished mahogany door at the top with a single knock of announcement.

“What…have…I missed?” he panted.