The Stargazer (17 page)

“A new wardrobe?” Bianca had never been concerned with how she looked, and since her mother had died while she was still in swaddling clothes, no one had ever bothered to tell her she should be. Her aunt Anatra had graciously helped her have several gowns made for her debut in Venice, picking out colors and styles whose most recent heyday had been in the last century. Because she could not entirely lock Bianca and her fortune away, Anatra’s intention had been to render the girl so homely that her son would have no competition for her hand, but the unfashionable attire had done nothing to reduce her niece’s appeal to the suitors that flocked around her.

“I admit I need a new work dress, since my favorite one was destroyed in the fire, but an entirely new wardrobe?”

Ian had always been too busy fuming at her or picturing her naked to pay much attention to Bianca’s clothing, but he now found himself intrigued. He imagined her in a plush blue-and-gold brocade, the dress’s low neckline framing a rich sapphire choker. Then he imagined her out of it, wearing just the sapphire choker, and his earlier anger fused into intense arousal. To conceal it, he reseated himself behind his desk.

“Francesco and Roberto are just being polite. Your wardrobe is a travesty.” Ian spoke to his uncles. “Order the gowns from Rinaldo Stucchi. And remind him that I like blue-and-gold brocade. I will of course pay for everything.”

Bianca gasped when she heard the name of Venice’s foremost gown maker, and again when Ian said he was paying. It was one thing to accept a traditional gift from her chaperons, though she did not remember ever having heard of such a practice, but it was another to have to be beholden to the maddening man who couldn’t even bother to remain standing through an entire discussion. She was about to express this, and several other sentiments, but Francesco cut her off.

“Indeed, we are keeping Signore Stucchi waiting right now. He has arrived with ten dresses for a fitting.” Francesco paused to catch his breath, saw that Bianca was again going to attempt to speak, and rushed on. “Your offer is very generous, Ian, but of course we mustn’t take you up on it. It is our duty, and our privilege, to supply your betrothed with her wardrobe. You know the customs.” Francesco looked pointedly at his nephew and then at Bianca, who had finally stopped trying to interrupt.

Ian decided to let his uncles get away with their subterfuge. He knew that they had made up the renowned custom of wardrobe provisioning on the spot, just as he knew that any money they spent would inevitably come from him. But the thought of Bianca dressed properly, or actually, the thought of undressing a properly dressed Bianca, was too delicious to interfere with, and it seemed clear she would accept nothing from him.

Bianca attempted several more arguments about why she did not need new clothes, but stood no chance against the combined front of Roberto, Francesco, and Ian. As the clock struck six, she finally gave in and allowed herself to be led from the library, looking only slightly less unhappy at the prospect of spending hours with a dressmaker than she had when she offered herself up as a slave.

Eight hours later Bianca was sound asleep in her bed. Three of the proceeding hours had been spent, not disagreeably, with the dressmaker, and she had to admit that the beautiful new gowns they had ordered thrilled her with a sensual pleasure she had not expected. But after the long session with fabrics, pattern books, measuring instruments, and detailed discussions about the difference between applique and embroidery, she had been exhausted. During dinner with Roberto and Francesco, she had been incapable of reciting the narrative of Caesar’s miraculous birth she had promised them, and spoke nary a word until the topic of flowers for the ball arose. Then, to the surprise of them all, she blurted out, “Gardenias are Ian’s favorite flower,” hastily excused herself, locked herself in her apartment, and burst into tears. Instead of worrying about the desperate state of her life and her emotions, she acted on the instructions of her physician—herself—and went straight to bed.

It was there, therefore, that Ian found her when he soundlessly entered her room late that night, or rather, early the next morning. Returning from his evening out, he had convinced himself that another test of her attractive powers was in order before he slept. He began by objectively studying her face on the pillow in the candlelight of the taper he carried with him. With her eyes closed, her long lashes made graceful arcs on her cheeks, he noticed, and he had the sudden urge to see if they would feel like butterfly wings against his hand. She was lying on her side along one half of the large bed, facing the other half. One of her arms, its thin sleeve pushed up past her elbow, had strayed to the empty half of the bed and lay there outstretched, like an invitation. As he watched her sleep, the blankets going up and down with her even breathing, Ian felt an emotion he could not describe, but he was sure it was not arousal. He congratulated himself on the effectiveness of his cure, and decided that since he was no longer in any danger of being seduced by her, he should accept the offer made by her arm and join her in bed.

But once he had stripped off his clothes and climbed in next to her, once she had pressed her warm, tender body against his, he realized he had been duped. Whatever his earlier emotion had been, it easily gave way to a powerful rush of desire. The thin, soft fabric of Bianca’s nightgown brushing his thighs sent a shiver of excitement through him. And when she burrowed deeper against his chest, her small hand straying first to his cheek, then to his neck, he thought he might begin to rave. It was lunacy, he told himself, to be so excited by the least erotic of touches. The brush of a piece of fabric! Clearly, his cure needed more time to work, and the only possible treatment was lovemaking. Resigned, he reached down and caressed her face, willing her to open her eyes and ask him to enter her.

In Bianca’s dream, Ian made love to her. His hand was on her cheek, then her neck, then her breast. She gave a little sigh and trailed her fingers from his neck down his chest, over to his side, and then up his back. Ian began slowly, very slowly, to push the material of her nightgown up until it was above her waist. She could feel the delicious warmth of his hands through the fabric as they moved up and over her body. When the lower half of her was naked, Ian moved his body closer to hers and began to rub his hard shaft along her thigh.

Her hands now moved down his back, luxuriating in the feeling of his warm, muscular flesh, his smooth skin, and finally his wonderfully graspable backside. She left her hands there, using them strategically to push him toward her as she shifted slightly so that his shaft was rubbing hard against her sensitive place. She let her legs part slightly, not enough for Ian to slide into her, but enough for him to move up and down between her thighs, to be caressed by the wet, waiting lips of her sex.

In Bianca’s dream, she was wanton. She pushed Ian onto his back and climbed atop him so she could more easily rub herself over his shaft, pressing against it, until she felt her climax nearing, and then she took her hand and guided him into her. She heard him moan softly as she kept her hand between their bodies, rubbing his wet organ with it as he plunged into her body. She whispered to him, told him of the sliver of pleasure that she was feeling, described it as it grew larger with each of his thrusts, told him how she would close around him when she climaxed, her passage becoming snug around his tense shaft. She felt it coming and moved her hand away, commanding him to grind himself into her, ordering him to take her, to touch her, to bite her, her words barely distinguishable from her loud cries of pleasure that began soon after and went on and on until Ian mingled them with his own.

In Bianca’s dream, she told Ian she loved him.

Voices penetrated from someplace outside the room. He strained his ears to make them out, but the words were muffled by the thick walls. Even faintly, however, he could be certain he heard her voice.

He had recognized her instantly when they had arrived, the young man acting as his escort. She had arranged herself on a couch, her shapely legs revealed between the folds of her diaphanous dressing gown, her maid languorously combing out the thick plaits of her hair. It fell in glossy tendrils over her breasts, skimmed her shoulders, curved under her chin. The woman knew the power of the performance she was orchestrating, the sensuality of even the simplest acts when seen voyeuristically, and pretended to be unaware of her audience.

It was exciting to watch, and both he and his escort had found themselves filled with longing by the time the spectacle was through. The woman took notice of them, finally, and beckoned them over, sending her maid away.

His escort had introduced him and stated the purpose of his visit. The woman regarded her guest sharply with a half smile that was both inviting and quizzical. He felt as though she were reading him, trying to learn his pleasures, and his weaknesses. He told himself to be wary, so when she asked him several questions, he had refused to answer unless an amount was agreed upon.

Praising his carefulness, she had gestured him onto the divan alongside her, dismissing his escort and saying she was sure they could help each other. For an hour, she listened intently as he spoke about his background, his family. She sighed sympathetically when he told of their misfortunes, colored with anger when he described the lies that had been told about them. Her eyes filled with melting tears as he described the wrongs perpetrated upon them by their enemies. At that point she reached out her hand to show her support and let it rest casually on his thigh, her eyes locked on his.

He knew as he spoke that she was falling in love with him. He could feel it, there was no mistaking her responses. No woman had ever warmed to him the same way, had ever given him such completely rapt attention. When she asked him if he would help her, if he would be her champion, he could only say yes. She leaned over and kissed him, her taste and scent filling his head dizzyingly. She would be his, she told him, and his heart thrilled at the prospect. He had only to tell her what had passed in his meeting earlier that day.

It was such a small thing, such an easy thing, she told him. She did not want there to be any secrets between them, any hesitation, any unknowns, and he agreed. He told her everything, described the meeting in detail. He had given them no names, had told them nothing, he swore it.

But she did not believe him. She turned her eyes from his and summoned back the young man to be his escort.

“He is unkind to me,” she told his escort. “I have been candid with him, have opened my heart to him, and what do I get in return? Ungrateful of my attentions, he lies to me. He is no friend of mine. He has betrayed me.”

Her guest, the subject of her charge, moved to speak, but the woman interrupted. “Do not speak. Your lies, your treachery to me, cause me too much pain. You are my enemy.” She cast a final injured glance on her guest, then turned to his escort. “Take him away, take him to your place and quiz him. I cannot bear to look upon him, to hear his web of lies, any longer.” The pout of her lips changed slightly, suggestively, as she continued. “You know how pleased I will be with my angel if you find out what I want to know. I will come to you soon, I promise.”

In the hours that followed, he had been beaten mercilessly. His escort had discovered that interrogation was not only tiring but also arousing. There was something about watching the well-dressed figure grovel and writhe before him that the young man really enjoyed. He had pursued his information-gathering task with a vigilance that he knew would well please his mistress. By the time the woman had arrived, he was in a frenzy of anticipation for his reward.

After she had accommodated and satiated his bodily desires on one of the benches lining the dark room, the young man had delivered a report on the results of his inquisition.

“He swore, even under my most creative tortures, that he gave them no names. He said they asked for them but he refused to supply any.”

“And yet,” the woman paused to run her fingers down his stomach, “he claims they, or rather, she, paid him five hundred gold ducats. Is she fool enough to throw away money like that?”

The young man looked thoughtful for a moment, then spoke with more certainty than he felt. “Yes, I would say she is.”

The woman raised herself on her elbows, struck by an idea. “Are you certain that they paid him at all? Did he have the money on him?”

“When I came upon him, he had already been at the tables for some time, and he appeared to be losing badly. But he still had over three hundred ducats in his pocket. Even if they did not pay him the full five hundred he claims, they paid him a large amount.”

She drew circles in his golden chest hair, rewarding him for his thorough inquiry. “I still do not understand it, but I suppose if she is as half-witted as you say she is, it may be true. Do you think we can learn anything else from him?”

When the young man shook his head she resumed, speaking in a low voice near his ear. “You will give him his payment then? Just the way I said?” The young man groaned in agreement and pushed her head down toward his rising shaft.

On the other side of the door, Enzo listened to his cries of pleasure with envy.

Her relief was momentarily dampened by the stickiness between her legs, but she concluded that had to be a natural result of the dream. Still, she was not completely at her ease as she dressed, and she would rather have encountered a herd of wild boar than Ian that morning. She mentally reviewed the list of tasks she had decided on the night before, making a face when she remembered her dress fitting at six, and set out for the servants’ quarters.

She descended the two and a half flights to Marina and Caesar’s new room. Both mother and son were doing well, but the clock was striking twelve by the time Bianca had finished her visit. Concerned that she might run into Ian on his way to the dining room, she climbed the four and a half flights to the laboratories on the back stairs.

Her goal was not her own laboratory but Crispin’s glass rooms, or more precisely, Crispin himself. Bianca told herself she was just going to ask Crispin a few questions about the Arboretti and about Isabella, just to get to know him better, but if he wanted to give her any insights about his mysterious, maddening brother, that would be fine as well. She knocked on the door of the glass room, got no answer, found it was unlocked, and entered.

She had unwittingly used a different door than the one she had entered by before, and she now found herself in a magical but unfamiliar room filled with benches and benches of fruit trees. There were oranges, peaches, plums, apples, and tens of other plants whose identities were a mystery to her. She was looking around in awe when someone spoke behind her.

“Thought I heard someone who ought to not be up here being up here, be damned if I didn’t,” was Luca’s welcome to her when she spotted him behind a furry brown fruit tree.

“Good day, Signore Luca.” Bianca curtsied politely as she spoke, hoping to soften the man, but instead increased his ire as her skirt nearly toppled a tub of lemons.

“Thems women’s things, always making a nuisance for everyone.” He began muttering to himself and passed through another door before Bianca could apologize or tell him how much she would rather be wearing men’s leggings.

Cursing her inconvenient petticoat, she followed him into the room she had seen two days earlier. It looked as if there were even more flowers than before, with dozens of them sitting in pots of water against the far wall. Luca was parading up and down the aisles with a huge knife, pausing every now and then to cleanly slice a flower from its stalk. Bianca watched this operation for almost a minute, enough time for Luca to assemble a large bouquet, and then tried to get his attention again.

“I am sorry to disturb you,” she began, “but I was looking for Crispin.’”

“What for? Isn’t one of them Foscari brothers enough for you?”

Bianca was confused. “I only wanted to,” she sneezed, “ask him some questions.”

“That’s how it starts, be damned if it don’t. What’s this, what’s that, where’s your affections, do you like this gown? Before you know it, you’ll be fluttering those eyelashes at him and then where’s your questions? Nope, I won’t let that happen to
ragazzo mio
. You can have Ian, but I am keeping Crispin away from the likes of you, yes, I am. And anyway, you missed him by hours and hours. He was here last night but he’s not up here now, so you needn’t be either.”

Three quick sneezes were Bianca’s only reply.

When the sneezing first began, she had thought nothing of it, but now an idea blazed across her mind. She began moving quickly up and down the benches of flowers, ignoring the rain of curses that the antagonized Luca was sending down upon her. She was just starting up the fifth and last row when she spotted it.

Two red flowers were growing from a single bulb, buried deep within a very ornate flowerpot. As far as she could see, neither the plant nor the pot had a twin anywhere in the glass rooms. She stopped in front of the pot, her eyes watering, and wondered how she could have forgotten about it. Of course! That was what had been missing from Isabella’s room when she went there to investigate. She raised her hand to pick up the pot, but Luca was there before she could reach for it.

“It’s bad enough you come in here, bumping around letting those women’s things run riot across my plants, but don’t now be setting yourself to touching them. These plants don’t like the female touch, specially not this one I would say from the way you’re sneezing at it.”

Bianca had to concede that she and the plant did not get along. She moved away, but only slightly, and tried to control her nose enough to speak.

“Has that plant,” she sneezed, “been here for a long time?”

Luca scowled at her, then transferred the scowl to the plant. “That plant has something fierce against you, be damned if it doesn’t. I’m not sure it would like me telling you its biography, the way it feels.”

Bianca saw she would have to beg. She interrupted a series of sneezes to plaintively choke out, “Please, Luca,” before sneezing again. “It is very important.”

Luca took a closer look at the plant, sniffed it, and sneezed once himself. That settled it.

“For all that, not a very nice kind of a plant to send as a present, if you want my opinion. It arrived this morning, all wrapped up fancy in paper, and I think to myself, here is something good, damned if I didn’t.” He sent a disappointed glance at the plant and shook his head. “Now, I’ve never seen its like before, of that I am sure, and neither had my Crispin, but that don’t make it worth looking at or coming a-badgering people with questions, especially not people as have a job to do.”

Bianca was deeply miserable. Not only were her eyes and nose watering, but she noticed small itchy red bumps coming up on her hands. She had to leave the plant rooms, but first she had one more question to put to the unfriendly plant man.

“Do you know,” she sneezed, and sneezed again, “who sent it this morning? Where it came from? Anything about it?”

Luca was regarding her with pity, almost. “Did I not say you ought not be in here, be damned if I didn’t. And now look at you, worse than horrible, even for a woman. I don’t know where the plant came from, and I don’t see why you care to either, not as if you’ll be wanting to write them a thank-you card.” He put a hand on her shoulder to usher her out, almost managing to conceal his distaste at having to touch a woman. “You’ll need to be leaving now, take my word for it.”

Bianca had no choice but to agree with him. Once in the hall her sneezing slowed and her eyes began to water less. She still felt strange and a little logy, but she pushed those feelings aside and went in search of Crispin. Her desire to find out about the plant overrode even her discomfort at encountering Ian, and she marched bravely into the dining room. Only Roberto and Francesco, deep in conversation, were still seated at the table. They looked up briefly when she walked in, then did a double take and stared.

“Heavens, my child, what has happened to you?” Roberto moved toward her as he spoke, putting his hand on her forehead. Francesco was there too and would have opened her mouth to peer in if she had not first sneezed and then begun to speak.

“Nothing.” She sneezed. Bianca acted nonchalant. “I had a slight,” she sneezed, “reaction,” she sneezed, “to one of Crispin’s plants.” She took a deep breath and tried to speak without sneezing, knowing her argument would be more persuasive. “But I am fine now and was looking for Crispin.”

Francesco led her to a large mirror at the far end of the room. “Look at yourself. You are not fine.”

Bianca now understood why they had been staring at her. The red dots on her hands were also visible on her face and neck, nicely complementing her red-rimmed eyes and pink nose.

“But I feel,” she sneezed, then sneezed again, “fine.” She turned away from the mirror to emphasize the disparity between her looks and her health.

Roberto and Francesco, however, would have none of it. They conferred between themselves, shushing Bianca’s attempts to distract them, and finally agreed on both an elixir and a treatment. They would give her a large glass of wine and send her to bed.

Bianca balked, saying that she had errands to do, and finally, in desperation, reminding them about her dress fitting.

“Do you expect to attend the ball looking like that?” Francesco asked cruelly, swinging Bianca around again to face the mirror. She was forced to admit defeat and allowed herself to be ushered upstairs and put to bed. It was little consolation to her that the Chianti she gulped down was probably the best in Ian’s cellar, but Francesco and Roberto found it very soothing to their nerves when they split the remainder of the bottle later.

The gossip reached Palazzo Foscari at about the same time that Ian returned from his meeting at Sebastian’s. Sorting through all the possible enemies of the Arboretti and figuring out the best mode of inquiry into the explosion had been grueling. The wretched possibility that one of the Arboretti themselves was the traitor had to be owned up to and resolved, which created an atmosphere of such unpleasantness that, although it was decided that one of their number had not planned the explosion, Ian and Crispin were barely on speaking terms by the time the meeting concluded. Ian was so relieved to be at home, with the prospect of uninterrupted hours in his library, that he did not even notice Caesar’s wails as he entered the house.

But his relief was short-lived. Less than half an hour after he had cloistered himself in the library, Giorgio entered, looking grim.

“You told me you’d want to know right away if I had any success tracing the source of this,” Giorgio laid the jeweled dagger on Ian’s desk as he spoke, “but I think you might want to reconsider.”

Ian knew that Giorgio, while prone to joking and mockery, would never deliberately toy with him, especially not in his present mood. “What are you suggesting?”

“Merely that maybe the information is not worth having anyway.”

“S’bones, Giorgio, cease your evasions. Who made the dagger?”

“That question is easy, Federigo Rossi made it. I told you none of the goldsmiths in the city would own up to it the first time I asked, but when I tried the strategy you suggested, pretending it had been a betrothal present and we did not know who to thank, they opened right up. And no wonder, because your idea was even more plausible than you imagined.” Giorgio paused, deciding whether to continue or try to change the subject. “You see, the dagger was commissioned by Giovanni Salva.”

“Bianca’s brother!” Ian echoed loudly, and then sat glaring at the weapon on his desk. Damn that woman, damn her with her protestations of innocence, her sensual words, her promises. Damn her for toying with him. Her brother! How could she be such a fool? Or how could he be? He found he had gotten so used to the idea of her probable innocence that he could scarcely believe her guilt, did not want to believe it. But what else could explain
this?
His incredulity turned to icy rage. He would confront her with it and she would have to crumble. There would be no more fancy lies and excuses from her now.

“Send Bianca to me.” Ian’s lips were pressed together so tightly that they were barely visible.

Giorgio hesitated. “Before I do that, I think I should tell you one more thing, something you are not going to like any better. It may not be true, I heard it myself only a short time ago in the kitchens, but I think you had better know. That man, Enzo, that I brought up here yesterday to meet with you and Bianca?” Ian nodded for Giorgio to continue. “His body has been found floating in a canal not far from here.”

Master and servant regarded each other morbidly, each with the same unpleasant thought.

“I asked around a little, but the answers are inconclusive.” Giorgio preempted Ian’s question. “Marina, that is, her new maid, says she was with her from about half ten until the clock struck twelve, but none of the staff saw her after that. Your uncles claim that she came to the dining room as they were finishing luncheon, sneezing and covered with bumps, and they sent her to bed. She is there now, I just looked, but no one checked on her between, say, two o’clock and five. And even if she really was ill then, there is still the period from about noon until one when no one saw her. One of the serving men said he thought he saw her heading for the back stairs and puzzled over it at the time, but he did not stop her. I have not yet confronted her with any of this, figuring you would want to do that yourself.”

Ian nodded. “Bring her.”

When Bianca entered the library, all the stoniness that Ian had shed in the course of the previous week had returned and even redoubled. He sat more like a mountain than a man, contemplating her silently. All that remained of her horticultural reaction were the red rims of her eyes and a slight pink tinge on her nose. She did not look sick, Ian told himself, and another part of him whispered, nor does she look like a murderer. It was not enough that she had infiltrated his household, but she seemed also to have taken hold of some part of his mind. He heard her dreamy words from the previous night in his head, and a tremor went through him. She had tried to manipulate him, tried using the most familiar of tricks, and it had almost worked. The idea that a woman could do that to him augmented Ian’s fury and deepened his steely glare. He was determined not to let the moments they had shared together blind him to the truth. His earlier softness and the strange emotions he had begun to feel galvanized instead into a steely determination to make Bianca confess her guilt. When he spoke, his voice came from the deepest, coldest, stoniest part of him.

“It is time for you to tell me the truth. All of it.”

This again? They were back to this? Bianca, too tired to argue, was filled with despair. “I have already told you the truth. The whole truth. You know everything.”

Ian pounded his fist on his desk and looked at her with fury. “Lies, all lies!”

“Why? Why must they be lies? There is nothing to contradict them. Nothing.” Bianca, as if infected by Ian’s anger, felt her rage returning and with it her strength.

Ian held up the dagger. “There is this. And I know who ordered it.”

“Who?”

Ian would have sworn that Bianca was genuinely interested. Damn, but she was sly.