Chapter Thirty-Five
Venetia welcomed the reassuring squeeze of Lady Townsend’s arm as the young servant bowed them into La Serafina’s salon an hour later.
In daylight the rooms looked quite respectable. The crimson silk on the walls appeared elegant, the gilt chairs and carved tables seemed luxurious rather than decadent. A bowl of hothouse roses perfumed the air, not incense and wine as on the previous visit.
Of course, the last time she’d been here she had been one frayed nerve away from collapse—shaken from the cells, half mad with fear that she might spend the rest of her life in some Venetian prison for a crime she had not committed.
In that state, the laughter and masks and candlelight had taken on monstrous proportions.
Mostly, though, it had been Count di Montefiore. His threats. His hand closing on her wrist.
Lady Townsend’s quiet, undemonstrative kindness since then had been balm to her disordered state.
With her parents gone so early, Venetia had grown used to making do with neglect, to telling herself she needed no one.
Having someone fuss over whether she had eaten, whether she slept, whether she was warm enough, had awakened an ache she had not known was there.
Perhaps that is why I love Edward so hopelessly, she thought wryly. If one is starved of care, one is always vulnerable to the first perfectly decent man who offers it.
Not that Edward was merely decent. He was so much more than that. If ever a woman could feel blessed by friends and a husband both, it would be she, with Lady Townsend, Lord Thornton… and him.
“How kind of you to receive us at such an unfashionable hour,” Lady Townsend said as their hostess swept toward them.
La Serafina looked as if she had just risen from a couch in a Tiepolo painting.
Her dark hair, threaded with silver, was coiled high and fastened with pearl-tipped pins.
Her gown was of deep-green silk that clung rather more closely than any English modiste would permit, its lace sleeves falling back from elegant wrists heavy with bracelets.
Her perfume—amber and orange blossom—greeted them as she stepped forward.
“It is always an honor to receive English friends,” she said, with a graceful inclination of her head.
“And it is an honor to receive Venetian hospitality,” Lady Townsend returned. “Have you ever experienced our English ways?”
“Venice is everything to me. I have never been tempted.” La Serafina’s smile deepened. “I do not think I would thrive beneath your gray skies.”
“As a renowned opera singer, I had thought you might have performed on our shores,” Lord Thornton said, bowing over her hand.
She gave a little theatrical shiver. “I should shrivel up entirely. It is what I fear happened to my eminent mentor, the great Isabella Monteverdi.” Her gaze drifted toward the large portrait that dominated one wall.
“She allowed herself to be lured there by a good man, yes… but she never sang again.”
“Your art was more important?” Lady Townsend asked. “I recall hearing of Isabella Monteverdi, but I do not believe she ever graced our stages.”
“La povera Isabella.” La Serafina’s mouth tightened with something that was not quite disdain and not quite grief.
“She became a little housewife. Her husband was kind but not a man of great culture. He rescued her and her child, perhaps—when she believed her first husband lost at sea. But this…” She flicked dismissive fingers, as if brushing away memories.
“We are not here to talk of old tragedies. You come, I understand, to ask about a certain Count di Montefiore.”
Venetia’s heart picked up its pace.
“And I am very happy to tell you everything that I know of this gentleman,” La Serafina added, a glint in her eye, “whom I do not hold in the greatest regard. Several of my girls have furnished me with unsavory reports about his conduct.”
“What have they said?” Venetia asked before she could stop herself—and blushed when all three turned looks upon her.
La Serafina gave a mirthless laugh. “He is a relative newcomer to this city but the reports are beginning to gather. We are asked to believe him French-Italian, with a title that smells as false as his cologne.”
“So the Italian title and accent are fabricated?” Thornton asked.
“The title is fabricated. The…breeding…is fabricated, I am convinced of it. He first came to my salons last winter with a gentleman I know to be English—a Mr. G—” She paused delicately.
“Greene, he called himself that evening. They spoke in low voices near the musicians’ screen.
They forgot I, too, have English friends. ”
“What did they say?” Lord Thornton leaned forward.
La Serafina tilted her head, remembering.
“I quizzed my friends when I heard of your…difficulties.” She speared Venetia with a look.
“They told me he spoke of ‘trustees’ and ‘conditions in the will.’ Of a young lady who had inherited ‘what ought never to have left the line.’ They said Mr. Greene was angry; he drank too much and called your English lawyers ‘pious fools.’ Your Count di Montefiore”—her voice dripped scorn on the title—“laughed and told him that reputations were fragile things. That with the right… arrangements, a fortune could be redirected without any need to go near a court.”
Venetia’s hands tightened around the reticule in her lap until the beaded silk cut into her palms.
“There was talk of debts. A maid who would be easy to sway; willing to do anything, for she had a brother who needed money. I did not then know of any emeralds, but when the theft was whispered occurred, and later when Miss Playford was arrested, I began to join the pieces.”
“There were more pieces to join?” asked Venetia breathlessly.
La Serafina glanced about to ensure they were quite alone.
“The maid,” she whispered. “I heard her name was Griselda and that she was paid to take the emerald ensemble. I presume the contessa was her mistress. It makes sense. But now Griselda is in hiding, afraid for her life because of what this man Paolo required of her.”
“Paolo? Do you know more.”
La Serafina shook her head. “But I will tell you if I do.”
For several minutes Thornton quizzed La Serafina, and she answered candidly, her gaze occasionally resting on Venetia with sympathy.
Finally, after exchanging a grim look with Lady Townsend, he said, “Just as we suspected. It appears there is ample evidence to prove our di Montefiore is as much a nobleman as my valet, and that he is in the pay of Greene, the man who would profit should a poor report of Venetia sway her trustees.”
“We are deeply appreciative of your time,” Lady Townsend said after a few more questions, rising with a rustle of mauve silk. “We must not keep you from your rest.”
“If you learn anything more that might confirm our suspicions,” Thornton added, “we would be grateful if you would send word.”
“But of course,” La Serafina replied, spreading her hands with a gracious little flourish. She led them back across the salon, past a pair of velvet settees and a marble-topped table where a fan of tarot cards lay abandoned, their painted eyes staring up at the ceiling.
She paused, as Venetia had half hoped she would, before the enormous oil painting in the center of the wall.
“Behold the woman of whom I spoke,” she said softly. “The great Isabella Monteverdi.”
The portrait seized the light. Isabella stood slightly turned, as if about to move off the canvas.
Her simple white gown was a contrast to her proud magnificence, her dark hair arranged in glossy coils, her eyes bold and knowing, her mouth ripe and sensuous.
The painter had captured the proud line of her throat, the vulnerable slant of her shoulders, the strength in her mouth and eyes.
Her hands were clasped loosely at her waist—elegant hands, long-fingered, capable.
Venetia stepped closer, the hush of the salon falling away for a moment. She heard only her own heartbeat and the faint crackle of the fire.
La Serafina’s voice floated over her shoulder.
“It was rumored she married a great Italian nobleman in secret, though never confirmed,” she said.
“Marchese Alessandro Valenti. Their time together was brief. His ship was lost, or so everyone believed. It was rumored she had a small child; that she was alone, desperate. I was telling Miss Playford the sad story of my inspiration…though she never inspired me to make a poor bargain when it came to love.”
“And she did?” Lady Townsend asked.
La Serafina nodded. “When an Englishman offered marriage and safety, she took it. Ah, but if she had only been patient. Some months later, the marchese returned to find his wife gone, his son across the sea.” She sighed. “A grand opera, no? Only without the music.”
Venetia swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. She could almost feel the tragedy pressing from the paint—the sense of something unfinished, of words unsung.
“Forgive me, I repeat myself, Miss Playford,” she said. “It is an old story, and I am an old woman who loves to tell it.”
“I do not mind at all,” Venetia said, eyes still on the portrait. “It is a pleasure to gaze more closely at such a magnificent painting.”
Her gaze dropped to Isabella’s clasped hands.
A signet ring gleamed there. The painting was large, and the ring’s intricate detail was rendered with care. Heavy gold, the surface worn smooth in places, engraved with a crest: a phoenix, wings spread, and two tiny stars.
A jolt went through Venetia so sharp she had to lock her knees.
I know that ring.
Not merely the design, but the way it sat on the finger. The way the worn edge caught the light.
She had seen it a hundred times as Edward turned pages, as he rubbed his temple in thought, as his hand tightened around hers.
“I believe I have seen that ring before,” she said slowly, her brow furrowing as if she could think the connection away.
La Serafina nodded. “It is the crest of the Marchese Valenti. Only the head of the line wears it.” Her tone held reverence.
“It denotes the lawful bearer of an ancient name. It was Alessandro’s ring—which he placed upon Isabella’s finger the day they married in secret.
For I believe the marriage took place, even if it was never confirmed by the marchese who, heartbroken, disappeared onto his lonely island and was barely seen again. ”
The room seemed to tilt.
Conversation rustled faintly behind her—Lady Townsend murmuring something about Italian customs, Thornton asking a cautious question about the marchese’s present whereabouts—but their words came to Venetia as though through water.
She worried at her lower lip, staring at the painted ring until it blurred. The chatter washed around her like the lapping of the canal.
“Have you not seen that ring yourselves?” she asked at last, turning to Lady Townsend and Lord Thornton.
They both looked at the portrait, then at her, and in that taut, suspended heartbeat she saw the moment recognition dawned in their eyes too.
Because there was only one other hand they had all watched wearing that very ring.
Edward’s.