8. Chiara
— ? —
Chiara
Back in our bedroom, I sit on the edge of the bed with the sommelier’s summary still clutched against my chest. The pages have crumpled in my hands. Lorenzo saw me in his doorway, and I left before he could offer an explanation I didn’t want to hear.
I know you didn’t do this.
He said it so easily. I’ve been trying to find a way to make that answer possible for him, and there he was, giving it to Livia without asking her to prove anything.
I didn’t hear what came before. I only saw her sitting across from his desk and heard his answer as I stepped into the doorway. That was enough.
The papers in my hands are the same ones I brought to show him.
The preliminary findings, the timeline I’ve been piecing together, the questions I thought we could examine side by side.
I was going to knock on the partly open door and ask if he had time to talk.
Even after yesterday’s conversation, I wanted to believe we could work through this together.
How many times am I supposed to watch him choose her before I stop being surprised?
I smooth out the crumpled pages and set them on the nightstand. My hands are shaking. I press them against my thighs until I can pick up my pen and add the question I came to ask him: have the laboratory results arrived?
The sommelier’s preliminary summary stares up at me from the nightstand. Suspicious foreign substance, tests pending, no final conclusions. Everything I already suspected, written down in professional language that should have been the beginning of clearing my name.
I’ll ask the sommelier myself in the morning. I have already spent enough time waiting outside Lorenzo’s door.
I don’t sleep in our room. Somewhere past midnight, I gather a blanket and move to the small sitting room at the end of the corridor.
The settee is too short and the cushions smell faintly of dust, and I leave the lamp on beside it. Every sound in the corridor makes me look up.
I hate that moving rooms hasn’t stopped me waiting.
By morning, my neck aches from the settee, and I am annoyed with myself for not choosing a room with a bed. There are enough of them. I wash in the small bathroom off the sitting room, then return to our room to dress before heading to the cellars.
The sommelier is in his workroom when I find him, bent over sample glasses with the careful attention of someone who takes his craft seriously. He looks up when I knock on the open door, his expression shifting through surprise before settling into something cautious but not unkind.
“Signora Marchetti.” He sets down the glass he was examining. “I didn’t expect to see you this morning.”
“I wanted to ask about the laboratory findings.” I step into the room, keeping my voice steady. “The summary I have is preliminary. I was hoping you might have received final results.”
He studies me for a moment, and I can see him weighing something. Whatever he decides, it makes him reach for a folder on his desk rather than sending me away.
“The laboratory findings came back yesterday morning.” He opens the folder and turns it so I can see the pages inside. “The investigators took them to Don Lorenzo. This is our copy.”
Yesterday morning. Lorenzo had this while I was still reading the preliminary summary. I pull the folder closer. Before I decide what to say to him about that, I want to know what it contains.
“The investigators concluded that the contamination was deliberate.” The sommelier points to the relevant section. “The laboratory identified a foreign substance. Together with the handling checks and the affected bottles, it points to someone interfering with the wine.”
I suspected it. Seeing the conclusion on paper still makes me grip the edge of the desk.
“What about the botanical display?” I turn toward the next page before he has finished showing me the first. “The jars from my presentation?”
“Examined and excluded.” He turns to another page. “None of the materials from your display match the contaminating substance. There’s no physical connection between your presentation and the affected wine.”
Excluded. The word lands like a weight lifting. For three days I’ve been defending myself against whispers and accusations, insisting that my work had nothing to do with the disaster. Now I have proof, written in professional language on official paper.
“Can you tell what the substance was?” I lean closer to read the analysis details. “Or where it came from?”
“It’s the kind of product a supplier might keep for legitimate uses.” The sommelier points out the laboratory’s description, then lets me read it. “That tells us what to ask about. It doesn’t tell us who bought it or where.”
“The estate has regular suppliers.” I remember the order lists we used for the launch, names and contact numbers beside each item. “Would our usual supplier sell something in that category?”
“Possibly.” He finds the supplier’s card in his desk and lays it beside the report. “You can ask. I can explain what was found in the wine, but I can’t trace a purchase from that.”
“Could I have a copy of the findings?” I put the card in my notebook. “I want to read them properly.”
He copies the pages while I wait. On the sheet he hands me, I run my finger beneath the finding that excludes my presentation. Whatever happens next, I can show people this.
“Thank you.” I put the copy safely inside my notebook. “For being willing to explain this. For not assuming I already knew what the results would say.”
“You brought me your ingredient list.” He returns the original to his folder. “That gave me something I could check. Speculation doesn’t help me do my job.”
It’s not a ringing endorsement, but it’s something. He was skeptical of my ideas at the planning meeting. I remember disliking him for it. Now he has given me an answer I can use, without asking me to soften the question.
Rosalia finds me in the breakfast room an hour later, the laboratory analysis spread out beside a plate of food I’m not eating.
“You didn’t sleep in your room last night.” She closes the door behind her, keeping her voice low. “I took fresh towels up before you came back to dress. Your side of the bed hadn’t been slept in.”
“The settee in the blue sitting room looked more comfortable last night.” I push the plate aside and make room for her to sit. “I needed space to think.”
Rosalia takes the chair across from me, her eyes moving to the papers on the table. “What’s all this?”
“The final laboratory analysis.” I tap the relevant page. “It excludes my botanical display. The investigators have concluded that someone deliberately contaminated the wine.”
“That’s good.” Rosalia takes the page from me, moving her thumb clear of the line I’ve marked so she can read it. “They can’t keep blaming your jars.”
“It should be.” I fold my hands on the table, trying to organize my thoughts. “I went to see Lorenzo last night and heard him tell Livia he knew she hadn’t done it. He hasn’t said that to me. I want to know what happened in that cellar, with or without his help.”
The silence stretches between us. Rosalia is turning something over in her mind, I can see it in the way she picks at the edge of her apron, the same nervous gesture I’ve noticed before when she has something to say and isn’t sure she should say it.
“There’s something I should have told you.” She finally looks up, and I see guilt in her expression. “I’ve been trying to convince myself it didn’t mean anything, but after everything that’s happened…”
I wait. Pushing will only make her retreat, and I need to hear whatever she’s been holding back.
“The night before the gala, I was in the service corridor near the cellar entrance.” Rosalia pulls her chair closer to mine, though the door is shut. “It was late, almost midnight. I heard Livia on the phone with someone.”
My heart stutters. “What did she say?”
“I only caught part of it.” Rosalia looks down at the report, and I wonder how long she has been hoping someone else would find what she knows. “She said ‘It’s done. By tomorrow she’ll be finished.’ Then she heard something and I had to duck into the linen closet before she saw me.”
By tomorrow she’ll be finished.
I look down at the date on the laboratory report. What does she mean, finished? Her work, or me? I want to be fair about what Rosalia heard, but I remember Livia’s smile when everyone began blaming me.
“You knew this two days ago.” I pull my hand back from the report. She sat beside me in the car after that man spat in front of my shoes. “When we talked after the market. When I told you what was happening with Lorenzo. You knew and you didn’t say anything.”
“I know.” She reaches toward me and stops when I keep my hand beside my plate. “I know I should have told you. But Livia has been part of this estate for years, and Lorenzo protects her, and I was afraid…” She trails off, unable to finish the sentence.
“Afraid of what?” The unfinished warning makes me glance at the door she closed behind her.
“Afraid that if I accused her based on words I might have misheard, I’d lose my position.
” Rosalia finally meets my eyes, and I see the shame there.
“She’s powerful here, signora. She has Lorenzo’s ear, the staff respect her, the valley thinks she can do no wrong.
And I’m just a maid who heard something through a door. ”
I am angry that she kept it from me. Then I look at her apron and remember that losing this job would cost her more than an awkward conversation. She came into the market with me when she could have stayed behind. Fear doesn’t erase that.
“The words you heard.” I force myself to focus on what matters. “Could they have meant something else? Something innocent?”