The Stargazer: The Arboretti Family Saga - Book One

by Michele Jaffe

  “Three of them were around me, and I remember thinking that they were not very skillful as I slashed through first one, then another of them. Knowing that Christian was an even more adept swordsman than myself, I felt we would be fine. I was wrong. At the moment I was preparing to deal with my third attacker, I heard Christian shout out.

  “I turned just in time to see them pull him off his horse and slice his throat. I watched as the knife went in, as they cut his head off. I must have watched and done nothing, just stood there. When I was found, four days later in an alleyway in Messina, I had only a few bruises. No sword wounds, no broken bones, no evidence that I had tried to defend him at all. I stood and watched as a man was killed, my best friend.” Ian’s voice faltered, and Bianca could feel his chest rise and fall as he gulped air. When he resumed, his voice was tight, emotionless, under control. “They killed the one person in the world I was really close to, and apparently I did not put up a fight.”

  Bianca’s arms stayed around him, but he could not bear to see her face. He stiffened, anticipating her harsh words. “How did you get back to Messina?”

  Ian exhaled sharply. She had asked a logistical question. She had been listening and had asked a question, not offered a rebuke. “I do not remember. I don’t remember anything after slaying my second attacker. I suppose I blocked it out. But you know what they say about cowards, that we always have an explanation ready. At any rate, when I opened my eyes, Giorgio was standing over me and we were already at sea. He told me only that my body had been found in a small street behind an inn. He had made inquiries, but no one knew how it got there.”

  “What about Morgana?” Ian did not know the effort it cost Bianca to speak of her. “You said Christian was the only person you were close to, but you were close to her then too. She was living here.”

  Ian drew a deep breath. “When I came home, she had already heard the news, that is, she already knew that Christian was dead. She stayed with me and asked me to tell her what had happened, everything, every detail. I told her the story as I told you, and then she left.” As you will, Ian added to himself.

  He turned finally to face Bianca. “But not without first telling me what she thought of me. She said I was a coward, impossible to love. She told me she had suspected it but this proved it, that I would stand by and watch as bandits took the life of someone I claimed to care about. She pointed out that no one I said I loved could expect anything from me. She showed me that I did not know the first thing about love, about emotions, or about making her happy. She informed me the baby she was carrying was not mine, that I had not satisfied her for some time, that I was a selfish pitiful lover, more like a child than a man. At last she explained that I was a hateful, self-serving coward. I report this to you so that you will not feel you need to repeat it.”

  Ian turned his head away and willed her not to speak, but of course she could not resist. “Don’t worry, my lord. I would never call you a coward. Irritating perhaps, stubborn, even thick-skulled, but never a coward.”

  She was making fun of him. He had bared his soul to her, and she was mocking him. Angry, he turned to berate her. But the words stuck in his throat when he looked into her eyes. They had tears in them.

  “Provoking, certainly, that would be a good label for you. And antagonizing.” She continued speaking as first one tear, then another rolled slowly down her cheek. “But also, fascinating, gifted, wonderful, and admirable. Shall I go on?”

  Ian did not trust his voice, so he just shook his head. Then he changed his mind. “Are there more?”

  Bianca looked deep into his eyes and laughed. “One or two. Smart. Brave. Very brave. And…likable.” It was not the word she had intended to use, but it was safer.

  “Likable?” Ian’s forehead wrinkled. “That is not very exciting. Couldn’t it be ‘ardent’ or ‘fiery’ or ‘scintillating’?” Or lovable? The voice in his head seemed to be back, intent on dismantling Ian’s sanity. It reminded him of the words he had heard her speak two nights before, but which he dared not hope to hear again.

  “Whose list is this?” Bianca demanded with mock annoyance. “Besides, I don’t want it to go to your head.”

  Ian contemplated her in silence for a moment, tracing the path of one tear down her cheek with his finger. Then he bent, kissed her where it had landed on her collarbone, and rested his head once more against her breast. “Do you really think I am fascinating?”

  “Santa Aemilia’s middle toe! It was unpleasant enough having to produce all those nice adjectives for you, you may not now quiz me about each and every one.”

  “I am not kidding, Bianca.” She saw his hand curl into a tight fist and realized that indeed he was not.

  “Yes, my lord, I really do think you are fascinating.”

  “And attractive?”

  “I don’t believe I mentioned ‘attractive’ in my list.” Bianca’s voice was playful now.

  “Then you don’t.” Ian sounded petulant.

  “My lord, I doubt there is a woman in all Europe who does not find you attractive. There, are you satisfied?”

  Ian nodded, though not completely satisfied with her answer. What did he care about the other women of Europe? He wanted to hear her say it, to know she found him attractive. But he did not want to seem too insistent, so he went on. “You did say ‘brave.’ Do you really think brave?”

  “How many men do you know who would betroth themselves to a murderess, my lord?”

  She had a point, Ian conceded, although right now she did not seem terribly dangerous. Except, perhaps, to his future happiness, the voice said. Damn voice. He ignored it, bracing himself to ask the final question, the one to which all the others had been leading.

  “And… likable?” The word still sounded disappointingly generic, but he was afraid to use any of the substitutes.

  “Yes, and… likable.” With his head on her breast he could hear her heart beat faster as she spoke the last word, and he wondered what that meant.

  “Still, after I told you about Christian?” He plunged ahead, steeling himself for her response.

  “To be honest, my lord, I find you even more likable since then.”

  Ian needed to think about that for a moment. “You are not like other women,” he said finally.

  Bianca exhaled sharply. “I have been wondering when you would realize that, my lord.”

  “Ian,” he invited.

  “Ian,” she repeated.

  “Kiss me,” he suggested.

  “Kiss me,” she echoed.

  He did.

  Chapter Twenty

  They tiptoed toward the door, following Giorgio’s signal for silence. First one, then another of the Arboretti put his eye to the keyhole.

  “I don’t believe it.” Tristan was shaking his head. “He isn’t really whistling to himself, is he?”

  “Yes.” Crispin shuddered. “And given his sense of music, it would be better if he didn’t.”

  “Dio mio, I think I just heard a chuckle!” Sebastian was horrified.

  Giorgio cut in, nodding. “He’s been doing it all morning. I thought you should see it. It is very worrisome.”

  “Very,” they all concurred.

  “It could just be her, couldn’t it?” asked Miles, whose developing crush on Bianca was obvious to his cousins.

  “No, not a chance.” Sebastian was emphatic. “Ian has had thousands of women, and none of them have had this effect on him.”

  “She is unusual,” Miles, her champion, pointed out.

  “So was Morgana, and she never got him singing like this. At least, not when he was alone.” Tristan’s pun got only a tepid reception from the others, all too preoccupied with the transformation in Ian.

  “He seemed perfectly normal last night, didn’t he?” Giorgio queried the cousins.

>   Crispin was nodding. “If you mean gruff, chilly, formal, and frightening to women and small animals, yes, he was in fine form.”

  “It is more serious than we think. Take a look.” His blue eyes flashing with bewildered mirth, Sebastian redirected their attention to the keyhole.

  Ian, no longer whistling, was seated at his desk in a pose that he had assumed a thousand times before, but with a single difference: he was smiling. “And not one of those typical Ian smiles that looks more like an affliction. This is, you know, well, um, a real smile.” Miles, who was the poet of the group, struggled to find the right words.

  “You must do something,” Giorgio said sternly to the cousins in an undertone. “This is neither normal nor healthy. The last time he looked that way was right before he blew up Lord Roche-Bernard’s place, and I am sure you have not forgotten what a mess that was.”

  None of the Arboretti could forget their rapid flight across the French border when Ian, taking offense at a comment made by Roche-Bernard about a woman at court, had decided to get even by testing his newest explosive on the man’s country estate. Much to the dismay of the other Arboretti, the test had been a smashing success, and it had been years before they could return to France.

  On the other side of the library door, Ian was feeling anything but abnormal or unhealthy. Indeed, he was feeling quite pleased with himself. His early trip to the Rialto had been a great success, and he had found exactly what he was looking for. Although he was reluctant to admit it, his sense of well-being came from more than just his shopping trip. It came from the hundred times that morning that he had made Bianca repeat to him that he was likable. Even knowing what she knew about him, she still said it every time he asked. He was likable.

  But he must not let it change his outward behavior, because she might have been lying, in which case he would look like a fool. She was a sly potential murderess—well, she was sly at any rate. Therefore, when the knock came at the door he made sure he used his normal, caustic voice to invite the knocker to enter. By the time the door opened, he had composed his face into its customarily determined look. At least he hoped he had. It was hard not to greet Giorgio and the Arboretti warmly as they entered, to confide his secret to them—he wondered if they remembered or had ever even known that he was likable—but he reminded himself that it was best to act as though nothing had changed.

  He did such a good job acting his old, stern self that the Arboretti and Giorgio felt the keyhole must have been enchanted. His face bore no trace of a smile, and his lips were so tightly drawn together that it was impossible to imagine them capable of whistling. Could the typically grim man sitting behind the desk really have been chuckling to himself moments before? Crispin even went so far as to run his fingers over the lock, looking for evidence of fairy dust or some potion that might have distorted their vision. While he was busy with this, Sebastian started speaking.

  “We did not know if you wanted to meet downstairs, as we normally do, or up here. I fear that your betrothed will draw quite a crowd for luncheon, and it might be more pleasant if we avoid it. While I wouldn’t mind another glimpse of Cecilia Priuli, I could easily live without the dull witticisms and less than flattering comments about my mixed ancestry in which her mother seems to delight.”

  Ian had forgotten all about the traditional pranzo the day after the betrothal party, and he was sure Bianca had done likewise. He wondered which saints she had sworn by when she found out about it. Imagining the look that must have appeared on her face when Roberto and Francesco came to escort her down made him want to laugh out loud. Fortunately, he managed to contain the urge, reminding himself just in time that laughing was forbidden. Instead he nodded solemnly in agreement with Sebastian and asked Giorgio to bring more chairs to the library.

  As servingmen filed in with chairs and refreshments, the other Arboretti continued to eye Ian curiously, but once they were seated, they redirected their attention to Sebastian.

  “I asked you all here instead of waiting to tell you this at our normal meeting tomorrow, because I think time might be a factor, and besides, I need advice. As you know, I left the ball early last night because I had an appointment.” Sebastian put up a hand before Tristan could interject. “And no, not with Cecilia Priuli on her terrazza. Magari! If only! No, with someone decidedly less attractive. My cousin Saliym.”

  Sebastian’s father, the only male offspring of Benton Walsingham and his Venetian wife, inherited his mother’s illustrious family name and his father’s wanderlust. As the scion of the illustrious Dolfin family, Sebastian’s father had served Venice for many years as an ambassador and emissary to the Ottoman Empire. While there in his official capacity, he had fallen in love and married a Turkish woman. And not just any woman, but one of the daughters of the current sultan. Sebastian was born in the imperial palace and spent his early life there, but the death of the sultan, Sebastian’s grandfather, precipitated a power struggle within Turkey and allowed for the rise of a strong anti-Venetian faction. When relations between the Venetians and the Turks grew hostile, the family had relocated to Venice. In recent years an uneasy peace had been restored under the newly instituted sultanship of Sebastian’s uncle. Saliym, the youngest of the sultan’s sons, had been an occasional guest at Palazzo Foscari and was well liked by all the Arboretti.

  “Saliym is here? Why didn’t you invite him last night, instead of dashing off in that romantic way?” Crispin’s tone made it clear that he was sure Sebastian was perpetrating a hoax.

  “That’s just it. He is not here. Not officially anyway, or I should say, not officially as far as the Venetians are concerned. You should have seen him last night—he is traveling as one of the sultan’s high holy men.”

  Tristan, Miles, Crispin, and Ian asked in unison, “Saliym? A holy man?” It seemed somehow inconsistent with their memories of him on his previous visit to Venice. Tristan had a clear image of him sanguinely enjoying the ministrations of four young prostitutes at the same time, and Miles’s breathing still quickened when he thought about the interactive dessert course Saliym had provided at a banquet in the Arboretti’s honor.

  Sebastian nodded, eyes alight with merriment. “No wine, no women, no socializing. He spent half the night describing his privations to me in as pitiful a tone as he could muster. Indeed, he risked ruining his disguise by contacting me only to find out if I knew of any extremely discreet courtesans. But in passing he mentioned something that I thought might be important to us.”

  He waved aside the interesting question of which women he had recommended and returned to his serious narrative. “Apparently, keeping the Ottoman Empire together has been more work than my uncle anticipated, and he is sorely in need of munitions. As you know, the English and the Portuguese are the only powers that will even consider selling gunpowder to the Turks, since they are the only powers the Turks have never directly threatened. Taking advantage of their monopoly, they have raised their asking prices a thousand-fold. Saliym claims that careful calculations made by the sultan’s accountants show it to be less expensive to move the whole of Constantinople to the New World than to buy a cargo of munitions from Queen Elizabeth. Indeed, it turns out it is cheaper to buy the stuff on the black market, and that is what the sultan has decided to do. The ship that Saliym and his fellow countrymen arrived on was supposed to rendezvous with a ship from a Venetian trading conglomerate—who had promised to supply them with twelve hundred tons of gunpowder.”

  Sebastian paused to let his words take effect. Even under the current unsteady peace, the Venetians remained wary of the Turks, their historical enemies. It was therefore not simply an offense but a traitorous act to sell any type of weaponry whatsoever to the Ottoman Empire. Well placed, a thousand tons of gunpowder alone could easily blow the whole of Venice out of the water, and still leave the extra two hundred to take care of anyone who might have survived. The deal Saliym had disclosed to Sebastian wa
s treason on the most massive scale.

  “You said ‘was supposed to rendezvous.’ Did they?” Even now Ian had to work to keep his tone appropriately grim. He wondered how he normally managed it.

  “No. The boat never came, but an emissary from the group did, promising them delivery of a reduced shipment yesterday, but refusing to reduce the price.”

  “Let me guess. They said they could deliver seven hundred tons?” Tristan’s customary smile was nowhere to be seen as he named the amount of gunpowder that had been removed from Arboretti warehouse just before the explosion.

  Sebastian shook his head. “No, only five hundred. But the Turks refused to pay for merchandise they were not getting, and the Venetians refused to budge on their price, complaining about the difficulties they had endured to get the stuff in the first place.”

  Ian snorted. “ ‘Difficulties.’ Breaking into our unguarded warehouse and paying some people to keep their mouths shut. ‘Difficulties.’ ”

  “How do you know it was our gunpowder?” Miles queried, pushing the hair off his forehead. “As Sebastian just said, it does not correspond to the amount they took.”

  Ian turned up his palm. “The timing is too neat for it not to be. There is also the original quantity. Remember, the boat we were prepared to send off, the one L.N. warned us about, was supposed to have exactly twelve hundred tons of gunpowder on it.”

  “But there is nothing special about that number.” Miles looked toward Ian when he spoke, but it was Tristan who answered.

  “Exactly. That is why the coincidence is so strange. Why not an even number like a thousand tons, which is how things are usually sold?”

  Crispin was skeptical. “Why did they sell only part of what they captured, if that is the case? What were they saving that extra two hundred tons for? To blow up someone’s hunting lodge?”

  “No, that requires only half a ton,” Ian quipped before he remembered that he did not make jokes. He sobered himself quickly, hoping no one had noticed. “I suggested on Saturday, and I still believe, that we, the Arboretti, are under some threat. I would hazard that they have reserved two hundred tons of explosives to make that threat good.”