Belladonna

six

What? Why would my mother—”

Heavy boot steps sounded behind her. The jailer was coming. Cass was out of time.

“The key is in the study at my family palazzo,” Luca whispered. “Hidden in the fireplace.”

Before Luca could explain further, the jailer took hold of Cass’s arm and hauled her back to her feet. “You must go now,” he said, prodding her roughly through the door that led back into the passageway.

Wiping the perspiration from her brow, Cass retraced her steps to the room with four doors, where she quickly exchanged her shoes and cloak with Siena.

“Let’s go,” Cass said. “I’ll explain on the way.” She towed Siena across the vestibule and down the stairs. A pair of noblewomen stood just inside the porta della carta, their handmaids hovering dutifully at their sides. Cass could feel all four sets of eyes burning into her back as she passed.

“Get everything you came for?” the shorter soldier asked as Cass slipped back into her chopines. She ignored him, heading quickly across the smaller part of the piazza to the lagoon, where Giuseppe and their gondola bobbed in the quay.

For one brief second, Cass allowed herself to replay the kiss, the prickle of Luca’s beard against her chin, his lips on hers. Softness. Pressure. How could he just tell her to forget him and find someone else if he loved her? Even if Cass were to be executed, she would want her husband to weep over her corpse, to declare her the great love of his life.

Without waiting for Giuseppe’s assistance, she wobbled her way into the boat. She instructed him to take them down the Grand Canal.

“Where are we going?” Siena asked, taking Giuseppe’s gnarled hand in her own as she lifted her skirt over the side of the gondola.

Cass yanked open the slats on the felze. “We have to go to Palazzo da Peraga, but first we’re going to pay a little visit to Donna Zanotta.”

Giuseppe obeyed wordlessly. He had been working for Agnese’s estate for more than thirty years and had learned not to question the whims of Cass or her aunt. It occurred to Cass for the first time that he must know many secrets about Agnese. She wondered what sort of stories he might be able to tell.

As they passed into the wealthiest part of the San Polo district, Cass balled her fists tightly in her lap. Hortensa had everything. What could Dubois possibly have promised her in exchange for her testimony? Had she done it just to be cruel, to be hurtful? Or had he threatened her to get her to comply?

Giuseppe slowed the boat to a stop in front of Palazzo Zanotta, a vast and ostentatious building with a façade made of brick and brightly painted marble trimming. Don Zanotta’s private dock featured a pair of mooring posts carved in the shape of knights wielding broadswords. Giuseppe tied up the gondola and helped Cass and Siena from the boat.

Cass glanced up as she stepped onto the dock. The sun had made its way across the sky. It must be late afternoon already. She adjusted her lace collar, which seemed intent on strangling her.

The front door of Palazzo Zanotta was made of carved wood and gold filigree. An ornate bronze doorknocker in the shape of a wreath was mounted at eye level. Cass reached up and knocked the circle of metal leaves, wincing when the foliage’s sharp edges pricked the skin of her hand.

No one answered. She knocked again, this time more insistently. Louder. More knocks. “It appears no one is home,” Siena ventured.

“Of course someone is home,” Cass said crossly. “Don Zanotta wouldn’t just let his palazzo sit empty, not even if he and the donna were away.”

Eventually the front door opened a crack and a wrinkled, pasty face appeared. “The don and donna are away in Florence,” the servant rasped.

Cass wasn’t even sure if she was speaking to a man or a woman. The door started to close and Cass jammed her foot in the crack. “When will Donna Zanotta be back?” she asked. “It’s important that I speak to her as soon as possible.”

“Not until the end of summer. They left yesterday at daybreak. You just missed her.”

How convenient. Hortensa Zanotta had given false testimony and then immediately fled the city. And to Florence of all places, where Luca believed the Book of the Eternal Rose to be. Could it be a coincidence? Or was everything somehow connected?

Cass nodded at the servant, and then she and Siena returned to the gondola. Giuseppe made quick work of rowing them through the network of smaller canals to Palazzo da Peraga. The whole place looked a little worn, as if even the servants were neglecting it. The shutters were fastened tightly and the mooring post was in bad need of a repainting.

It had been years since Cass had last visited Luca’s family home. Back then, her parents would always speak quietly to his parents in the study while she and Luca were either abandoned in the portego or ushered out into the tiny courtyard to “play.” For Luca this usually meant time to read. Sometimes he would pick out a book for Cass too. Then they would sit curled up in garden chairs for hours. Cass had found it dull, and even a little rude, that Luca spent so much time reading around her. Now she thought perhaps it had just been his shyness that kept him from speaking more.

The girls exited the gondola, and Cass stepped up to Palazzo da Peraga’s door and rapped sharply. Siena stood next to her, worry manifested in her posture, in the way she kept threading and unthreading her fingers.

Cass knew it should bother her—really bother her—that Siena was in love with Luca, especially if she was going to continue serving her after Cass and Luca got married. But right now, Cass was just grateful to have such a staunch ally.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Siena asked.

“A key.” Cass didn’t explain further, that the key unlocked her family tomb. She was still struggling to wrap her mind around that fact. Surely her parents hadn’t been members of any Order that included Joseph Dubois, but then how had her mother come into possession of the documents Dubois was so desperate to acquire?

The da Peragas’ butler, a tall lanky man with silvery hair and piercing brown eyes, opened the door. Though she had been just a child when she had last visited, he recognized Cass immediately. “Signorinas, do come in,” he said.

“Signore,” Cass said, trying to recall the man’s name, but failing. “I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”

Two men were sitting in the portego, sorting through stacks of crumbling parchment.

The butler noticed Cass staring. “They’re looking through the estate’s finances. We are trying everything we can to help Signor da Peraga during this difficult time.” The butler stumbled over the last couple of words.

“Do you believe he is innocent?” Cass said.

“Of course,” the butler said, looking shocked. “But sometimes it isn’t the truth that matters. It’s what other people think is true.” He sighed. “What can I do for you, Signorina?”

“I was hoping to look around,” she said. She tried to make her voice wistful, as if she were merely interested in acquiring a few tokens to remind her of her fiancé. She didn’t want to tell the men she had spoken to Luca earlier. They would not approve of her bribing the Palazzo Ducale jailer.

“Go ahead. The soldiers came to search the place this morning. We’ve done our best to return everything to its place.”

Cass’s stomach tightened. So the soldiers had been here. She could only hope they had not discovered the key.

Siena trailed behind her as Cass pushed open the thick wooden door to the study. It swung inward, creaking on its rusted hinges. She went immediately to the fireplace. Kneeling on the tile floor, she peered up into the darkness of the chimney. She reached a gloved hand into the flue. Soot rained down, blackening her glove and making her cough. She examined the entire fireplace, running her hands across the bricks, wondering if maybe she’d misunderstood Luca’s words.

Then her fingers skimmed a rough edge. She paused and peered closer. Once again, she traced a finger of her dirty glove over the thin strip of mortar between two of the bricks at the back of the fireplace.

One of the bricks was definitely loose. She jiggled it, biting her lip to keep from crying out as the brick fell into her hand, exposing a hollow space at the back of the fireplace. Cass reached back into the dark opening. Her fingers closed around something wrapped in fabric. She pulled it out for examination. It was a bright red bundle. Inside it was a key.

Siena sucked in a breath. “Whose crest is that?” She pointed at the carving of a lion holding a shield. “The da Peraga family?”

Cass shook her head. Her mouth was dry. “It’s mine,” she croaked out. “It’s the Caravello crest.” She had seen the emblem on sashes and wall hangings and even some of the dinner napkins she had used as a child.

Turning the key over in her hands, she ran one finger along the dulled edges of its teeth. How did her mother come to possess documents from a mysterious Order? Why had she hidden them among the dead?

When Cass and Siena arrived back at the villa, there was another surprise waiting for them: a wide blue boat with long leather privacy curtains was tied up at Agnese’s splintering dock. A black silk banner emblazoned with a gold griffin holding a flaming sword was mounted on the stern of the boat. The word victory was splashed across the sword’s blade.

The rage that Cass had been fighting all day threatened to overwhelm her. She knew that crest. She had seen the blue boat before. “What is Joseph Dubois doing here?” she spat out.

She didn’t even wait for Siena to exit the gondola behind her. She kicked off her chopines as she ran across the damp lawn, sprinting up the stairs and into the portego. Dubois was sitting across the table from her aunt Agnese, sipping from one of Agnese’s painted teacups. They both looked up at Cass in surprise.

“Haven’t you done enough?” Cass burst out. Blades of wet grass fell from the hem of her skirts onto the clean portego floor. “Letting thieves and murderers go free while sending an innocent man to the gallows? Now you’ve come all the way out here to revel in our misery? Is that it?”

“Cassandra!” Agnese cried out, shocked.

Dubois looked unfazed. “Signorina Caravello,” he said, rising from his seat to bow. “Your passion is so like your mother’s.”

“You have no right to speak of my mother,” Cass said, wishing her voice wouldn’t shake.

Agnese looked as though her eyes were about to pop out of her head. “I apologize, Signore,” she said quickly. “I can’t imagine what has made my niece behave in such a fashion.” She turned back to Cass, scowling so deeply that her silvery eyebrows met in the middle of her forehead.

“It’s all right, Signora Querini,” Dubois said. “Young Signorina Caravello is under a great deal of stress. Perhaps, Signorina, it will please you to know that we have apprehended the man responsible for Sophia Garzolo’s death. He is scheduled to be hanged at sunset exactly a fortnight from now.”

Footsteps sounded on the main staircase. Siena burst into the portego with Cass’s chopines dangling from one hand. She froze when she saw Dubois. Dropping her eyes to the floor, she backed quickly against the wall.

“And what man is that?” Cass asked, raising her chin and meeting Dubois’s stare. What other poor unfortunate soul had crossed the Frenchman and ended up sentenced to death?

“Signor Carmino, the estate butler. I was very surprised to find out he had been . . . harassing several female members of my staff. I assume he was trying to court Signorina Garzolo.” Dubois examined his nails. “Things must not have gone his way.”

Cass fought a feeling of revulsion. She did not believe a single word that came out of Dubois’s mouth. “And did this man explain why he took the time to carve an X in the poor girl’s chest?” she challenged. If Dubois was going to send another innocent man to die, Cass wanted him to understand that she knew it.

Dubois raised his shoulders slightly. He managed to make even a shrug look regal. “Who can understand the mind of a criminal?” He sipped from his teacup. “The important thing is that Signor Carmino is going to hang for his crime. Justice will be served.” He set his cup down onto the gold-rimmed saucer with a delicate clink.

“Speaking of justice,” Cass said, her voice turning to acid, “perhaps you can explain to me why my fiancé was carted off to the Doge’s prisons the day after seeking an audience with you.”

Signor Dubois tilted his head just slightly. “Signorina Caravello,” he said piteously, reaching out toward her, “I can assure you I was as stunned to hear about his arrest as you were.”

Cass pulled her hand out of Dubois’s reach. “And are you also stunned to hear of his impending execution, just a month from today? Certainly you must not have known or you wouldn’t have been so cruel as to pay us a visit and speak so cavalierly of a hanging.”

“I apologize. I was unaware a sentence had already been handed down.” Dubois’s eyes flicked around the room. They landed on Siena, who was still pressed against the corner. She appeared to be growing paler with each breath. Soon she would fade completely into the white marble. “But actually I came here because I heard rumor that you or your lady’s maid might have heard from Feliciana Minorita, my missing servant.” Signor Dubois’s eyes went dark for a second; his voice dropped in pitch. “You see, I would do almost anything to have her back.”