Chapter Forty-Four
The gondola bumped lightly against the weed-slick landing steps and the gondolier steadied the craft with his pole.
Venetia rose, placing her gloved hand in his as she stepped out onto the slimy stone.
Lady Townsend followed, gathering her cloak away from the puddles as the gondola rocked and fell back into the water with a soft slap.
Before them, the marchese’s palazzo reared out of the lagoon like something half drowned and reluctant to return to life. One tower leaned at a perilous angle, and a jagged crack zigzagged down its side.
Venetia’s heart, which had been beating high with hope all the way across the lagoon, gave an uncomfortable lurch.
If this was Edward’s father’s domain, then perhaps the rumors were right and the Marchese Alessandro Valenti was nothing more than a ruined recluse, an eccentric relic of an old nobility.
Poverty she could have borne—Edward’s worth had never rested on his pocketbook—but what if the old man’s wits were gone?
What use would it be to discover he was Edward’s father if he had no memory left, no capacity to recognize the significance of the signet ring Isabella had left to her son?
The great door creaked open before she could lose her nerve. An elderly servant, stooped and stiff jointed, regarded them from beneath heavy brows.
“Il Marchese is not receiving visitors,” he said in heavily accented English, giving only the barest inclination of his head. “But he welcomes the signora to look at his library.”
Venetia’s fragile optimism dipped further. So they might admire the marchese’s dusty volumes, but not the man himself—the very reason for their pilgrimage—when time was running out and tomorrow would see her fate decided.
If Captain Rizzi’s report went against her, if she lost her fortune, what future could there be for herself and Edward?
He was chained to his employer for an unknown span of years.
She would have to find some means of supporting herself alone.
Edward had not spoken of any alternative to her exoneration.
Did he know something she did not? Or was he simply trying to spare her despair?
No. For now she must focus on what she could do: search for any clue that strengthened the connection she believed existed between Edward and the owner of this decrepit stronghold. A noble father—with or without money—would change everything.
In silence she and Lady Townsend followed the stooped retainer through a warren of narrow, chill corridors, their footsteps echoing.
At last the servant halted before a heavy door, produced a large iron key and turned it with an effort. The hinges groaned.
“See.” He pushed the door wide and stepped aside. “I wait here.” Folding his hands over his livery, he took up a post by the door, clearly intending to keep watch.
The sight that met them stole Venetia’s breath.
The library was vast: a high, vaulted chamber where the walls were lined from floor to ceiling with books, their leather spines in rich shades of brown and red and gold.
A narrow gallery ran around the upper level, reached by two elegant spiral staircases.
Light filtered in through tall, arched windows and mingled with the glow of wall sconces, picking out the gleam of gilt lettering and the drifting dust motes.
“Oh my goodness,” Venetia whispered, stepping forward as if drawn.
She made straight for a section where familiar names leaped out at her.
“Lady Townsend, look—Sir Walter Scott! Waverley, Guy Mannering, The Bride of Lammermoor…here in English—and here in Italian.” She touched the bindings reverently.
“Do you suppose Edward translated all these? You have been in Italy longer than I; was he already translating for Count Morosini when you arrived in Venice?”
“I believe he came almost immediately after my comet-viewing gala,” Lady Townsend replied, moving beside her. “It is possible.”
“Really?” Venetia’s heart gave a small, foolish leap.
How had she never known the exact moment he had gone from her life?
But everything had been so full of commotion then, with the surprise of her inheritance, the excitement, the flurry of congratulations.
She had wanted Edward to be part of it. Instead, he had vanished to Italy without a word.
Well, she had found him now, she thought fiercely. She did not intend to lose him again.
She drew out the English copy of The Bride of Lammermoor and opened it with care.
Dense type marched down the page. “Look, Lady Townsend.” She reached for the corresponding Italian volume and opened the first page.
“Here it is—La Sposa di Lammermoor.” In slow, halting Italian she began the opening lines, her voice echoing faintly beneath the vaulted ceiling, until emotion constricted her throat and she broke off on a shaky breath.
“To think of Edward spending all his days rendering such beauty into another tongue. Does the world even understand how adored Scott is here?”
She hugged the book to her chest. “It is so beautiful—and so tragic. It seems cruel that we will not meet the marchese to speak with him of his treasures. Edward would wish to know what manner of library belongs to the man who so devours his work.”
She rounded a towering bookshelf—and stopped dead.
“Oh,” she breathed, all thought of books forgotten. “Lady Townsend…look.”
Her friend joined her, then gave a low exclamation.
Dominating one wall, flanked by candle sconces positioned to cast a flattering glow, hung an enormous portrait of Isabella Monteverdi.
This likeness was finer even than the one at La Serafina’s: the colors richer, the brushwork more delicate.
Isabella’s dark hair was swept up to display the graceful line of her neck; her eyes, luminous and alive, seemed to follow them.
Her hands were folded at her waist, fingertips just touching.
“It is magnificent,” Lady Townsend murmured, stepping back to take in the full effect. “An even better likeness than La Serafina’s.”
The sconces threw a halo of light about the singer’s face and picked out the gleam of a ring upon her middle finger. Venetia’s breath caught.
“She is so very beautiful,” she said. “And—look at her eyes. Edward has her eyes, Lady Townsend. He does.” Giddiness swept over her. She darted closer, pointing. “And her ring—it is painted in such detail. The same signet, except for that tiny extra star. Oh, Lady Townsend, I am right, am I not—?”
A movement to their right made both women turn sharply.
An old man stood there, half emerging from the shadows between two towering bookcases.
He wore an old-fashioned velvet coat, the color dulled with age, and his gray hair hung to his shoulders; his beard, equally gray, was worn long.
The light from the sconces fell across a face lined by time and grief.
His eyes, dark and wary, regarded them with such suspicion that Venetia instinctively took a step back.
These were not Edward’s eyes. There was no physical resemblance that she could see between the proud-featured young man she loved and this gaunt, haunted nobleman. In a single, dispiriting rush, she felt her carefully built edifice of hopes topple like the leaning tower outside.
Of course. She had been inventing fairy tales, trying to fashion a happy ending out of scraps.
On the heels of that disappointment came another chill thought: Tomorrow’s grand spectacle would likely bring more disillusionment.
The men of power in Venice were not motivated by truth.
Captain Rizzi knew enough of it to clear her name, yet he had far more reason to write a damning report to her English trustees and claim whatever reward Mr. Greene, through Count di Montefiore, had promised him.
And now here stood this old man, seeming as distant from their troubles as the moon over the lagoon.
“You speak as if you knew Isabella,” he said abruptly, his voice harsh with feeling. He addressed Lady Townsend, for Venetia was plainly too young to have known a woman who had died around the time of her birth. “You are English. Did you know her in your country?”
Lady Townsend cast Venetia a quick glance before she replied. “I did not have the honor, my lord. It is only in Venice that I have learned from so many of her talent, her beauty…and how beloved she was.”
“Indeed, she was beloved,” the marchese murmured, his gaze shifting to the portrait. “All Venice worshipped at her altar.”
“Including you, my lord?” Lady Townsend said gently, looking between him and the painting. “Is that why she has pride of place in your library?”
He had not yet introduced himself, but it hardly seemed necessary. His assumption that they must know who he was suggested he had at least been told of “two English ladies” who would visit his books.
“She was the light of my life,” he said quietly. “My reason for drawing breath.” As he spoke, he turned slightly. The firelight winked on the signet at his hand.
The tiny flash of gold seemed to strike Venetia like a spark. Her hopes, so recently doused, flared again. If that ring connected him to Isabella, then perhaps—
“She wears your ring,” she heard herself say, barely recognizing her own voice. She looked from his hand to the painted one in the portrait. “There. It is almost the same.”
His gaze came back to her, sharper now. “Your observation does you credit, signorina, though you have missed the detail that matters. Her ring bears two stars.” He extended his hand, palm down, for them to see. “Mine has only one.”
Venetia’s pulse thundered. She forced herself to sound merely curious. “Why does she wear your ring, my lord? Were you related?”
“She was my wife,” he said, without flourish. His eyes had already strayed back to the canvas. “The worthiest woman who ever lived, though my family would not sanction the match. We were forced to marry in secret.”
“Yet if your family would not sanction it, all Venice revered her,” Lady Townsend ventured, her tone gently probing. Venetia sensed that her friend was trying to coax from him what he might not otherwise divulge.
“She was magnificent,” he said simply. “Her voice—” His own cracked. “She sang to me every day. She sang to our child—”
“You had a child?” Venetia could not stop herself. She prayed he would not notice the urgency in her voice. The story she’d heard said Isabella had a young child when his ship was lost.
The Marchese nodded slowly. “A fine boy. Lusty lungs—his mother’s—and her eyes.” A faint smile touched his lips. “Eduardo, we named him.”
Venetia’s knees felt weak.
“Where are they now?” she asked, scarcely above a whisper.
The marchese turned fully toward them at last. “Both are gone,” he said. “Long gone. Lost to me.” A single tear gathered at the corner of his eye but did not fall. “That portrait is all I have of my Isabella. She died in a far country.”
“In my country,” Lady Townsend said softly. “In England.”
“You heard her sing there?” he asked quickly, hope flaring for an instant—but Lady Townsend shook her head.
“She never sang in England,” she said, taking a delicate risk.
“She was too broken-hearted. She had lost her true love. She and her son left Venice when her protector’s ship was lost.” She hesitated, then went on, “Two years passed without word. An Englishman—a good man—offered his protection to her and her child, and brought them to a land that was…”
“Gray and cold…Ah, so you know the story,” the marchese finished hoarsely, staring at some point far beyond them.
“A prison compared with her beautiful Venice.” His hands clenched at his sides.
“I tried to come back to her. When the Santa Lucia went down, I alone survived. For two years I wandered half mad, fighting to return to what I loved. When at last I reached home, three years had gone. Isabella Monteverdi had left Venice. England, they said. Taken by a man bewitched—as I was—by her beauty and her voice.”
He gave a broken laugh. “I thought that with a voice like hers she would be easy to find. A nightingale like that? I asked about her everywhere. I begged for news of the great Monteverdi. I gave every name, every description that might stir a memory.” He shook his head.
“Nothing. She had vanished. She no longer sang. By the time I learned she was dead, so was the Englishman who had stolen her. A bailiff, they told me. A clerk of estates. Of my son, there was no word. Perhaps he died of the same fever that took his mother.”
His shoulders sagged. “I was defeated. By grief, by time. I returned here, to the house of my fathers. My own father was gone. I had nothing.”
Venetia met Lady Townsend’s gaze. Her friend’s eyes were bright, her expression intent. Now, Venetia thought wildly. Now, you must tell him. Tell him his son lives. Tell him his son is—
But Lady Townsend only lowered her voice and said gently, “Not quite nothing, my lord. You had your stories. Your novels. Perhaps…because they were a pleasure you once shared with your Isabella, they became your refuge?”
The marchese drew in a sharply audible breath and stepped toward her.
“Yes,” he said. “Exactly.” His hand lifted as if to touch a nearby shelf.
“She was enamored of your Mrs. Ann Radcliffe. I have all her books, even if I read English badly. And then, when Sir Walter Scott burst upon the scene with his tales of knightly valor, it was as if my blood stirred again. My old friend Morosini had La Sposa di Lammermoor translated into Italian. I felt life return to me.”
He gave a strained smile. “Now Scott’s Ivanhoe mirrors everything I have lost. Each week new chapters are delivered, and I grow feverish for the next.
It is a sickness, almost. Rowena is my Isabella; Ivanhoe the man who is finally reunited with her.
They tell me this is the ending in the English.
I will read it in the Italian.” His eyes gleamed with a sudden, almost boyish mischief.
“And if the ending displeases me, I shall have my translator change it—for me alone.”
Venetia’s heart hammered against her stays. “Your translator, my lord,” she said, her voice trembling despite her efforts. “Who is he?”
The marchese looked at her as though only now recalling her presence. For a long moment he studied her face, then spoke slowly, the words seeming to surprise even himself.
“He is,” he said, “the man who makes my dreams come true.”