The Stargazer: The Arboretti Family Saga - Book One

by Michele Jaffe

  Crispin watched his brother’s back disappear up the stairs, unsure whether to be relieved that his emotions seemed to have returned or terrified of what he might do to himself. Deciding that he was himself too exhausted and upset to make such a decision, he took a different set of stairs toward the kitchen, in search of some warm water and a much needed drink.

  Ian had chosen the library because it was his favorite room, but as he neared the door he shied away from it. Memories of the time he had passed with Bianca there washed over him, first the delightful hours they had spent arguing and at each other’s throats, and then the even more delightful hours they had spent in each other’s arms. He remembered walking into the library that first night they made love and seeing her stretched out before the fire, her supple body golden in the light of the flames, her nipples taut, her back arched in pleasure as she gracefully stroked herself.

  He closed his eyes when he opened the door and crossed the threshold, savoring the image of her there again. When he opened them, he nearly jumped out of his skin. The room was exactly as it had been that night, shadowy and dark but for the fire blazing in the hearth, and there was indeed a figure stretched out on the rug before it. But it was not Bianca, not even close. For one thing it was too small. For another, it was a rather grotesquely dressed man.

  As Ian approached, it turned around and squinted at him. “You that lazy servant finally come to bring me some grappa?” the small man demanded.

  “No, I am the servant’s master.” Ian’s voice was contemptuous. “Who might you be?”

  The small man hurried to his feet and bowed deeply. “Beggin’ your pardon, but the way you’re dressed you don’t look much like a lord, Your Lordship.”

  Ian was in no mood for either criticism or company. “I accept your apology, but you still have not answered my question. Who are you?” And when are you leaving? he added to himself in an undertone.

  The last comment was interrupted by a knock at the door, followed by the entrance of one of Ian’s servingmen with the grappa decanter and a glass.

  “Bring another for His Lordship, won’t you?” Cecco ordered, and the man left hurriedly without even looking at his master. “That one’s good enough,” Cecco said, gesturing to where the servant had just been standing, “but slow on his feet. I’ve been a-waiting these twenty minutes for that grappa. I wouldn’t tolerate it if I was you.”

  If Ian had not been immersed in deep despair and self-pity, he would have found the little tyrant’s remarks by turns amusing and annoying. As it was, he just wanted to know his name so he could kick him out in a personal manner.

  “I am sorry that my staff does not meet your approval, Your Highness,” Ian said, crossing to a chair and sitting with his head in his hands.

  “ ‘Highness,’ that’s funny, it is,” Cecco said with a smile, seating himself opposite Ian and taking a gulp of grappa that would have flattened a larger man. “You’re a funny one. My name’s Cecco, Cecco the Nano. The woman was right, we’ll get along fine.”

  Ian raised his head. “What woman?”

  The servingman reappeared, bearing a second glass and handed it to Ian. Cecco waited until it had been filled and motioned to Ian to take a sip before continuing.

  “It looks like you could use a drink. That murderess who ain’t a murderess woman. Bianca. She ain’t told me her other name. But she told me you and she were a-fixing to get married and I should come an’ see you and tell you a story I told her, an’ also something else.” Cecco paused to drink back the rest of his glass and wipe his lips daintily with his sleeve.

  Ian’s bloodshot eyes widened, and he moved forward on his chair. “Bianca? You saw Bianca? Where?”

  “Where do you think? In those damn wet cells at the duke’s house. Where else would I have met a lady o’ that quality?” Cecco’s appreciation for Bianca had gone up markedly when he saw the style in which her friends lived, and he saw no reason not to pour on the flattery.

  “You saw her in prison? When?” Ian was hovering on the edge of his seat, his despondency momentarily lifted.

  “Oh, must have been a good five hours ago, I reckon. If them clocks of yours are right.”

  Ian slid into his chair, settling back into his misery. Five hours ago was an eternity. “Was she still alive?”

  “Must have been, mustn’t she, if she told me to come a-calling to tell you my story.”

  Ian was confused. On her deathbed Bianca had sent a dwarf to entertain him with fairy tales? “What kind of story?”

  Cecco gulped down more grappa and held out his glass for a refill. “She told me that you would be grateful to me when you heard it. I just want you to know that from the outset, in case you forget it in the middle and get some murderous idea into your head. Do you promise to let me finish the story?”

  Ian nodded dejectedly, not thrilled by the prospect of company. He just wanted to be alone, to let his grief wash over him.

  “An’ not do any badgering with questions?” Cecco went on.

  As if he had the energy for questions. Or even for listening. Ian nodded again.

  “All right, then. It’s a story of what happened two years ago. In Sicily. Outside Messina.” Cecco waited a moment, decided he had as much of Ian’s attention as he was likely to get, and went on. “I’m to tell you as how a witch-woman an’ her lover hired me an’ my partner to ambush you in Sicily and kill you. Now I had nothing against you, personally see, but that witch-woman, she went on and on about my adorable ears an’ there was nothing for it but to take the job.” Cecco studied Ian, who appeared to be only half listening. “Your ears aren’t any too bad either if you’d a-use ’em,” he observed, then went on. “Problem is, we made a mistake an’ we killed the wrong one. But it wasn’t really our fault, see, because there was only supposed to be one of you in the first place.”

  Cecco stopped talking because he had lost his audience. A faraway look came into Ian’s eyes as he digested the half-heard words being spoken by the dwarf. So deeply was he consumed by misery, that it took him almost a minute to realize what Cecco was telling him. Mora and Christian together had hired an assassin to kill him. His best friend and his mistress. What kind of fool was he that he had never seen it, never even suspected it?

  But even that horrible revelation could not hold his interest. His mind kept drifting to Bianca, to the blissful years they should have passed together, to the family they should have had, to the abysmal emptiness his life would be without her. The pain of his loss was so profound that he doubled over in his chair, his hands pressing hard against his skull, his lips squeezed shut to hold in his anguished cries. She was gone. She would never come back. He had lost her forever, lost the only person with whom he had ever known true happiness. For the first time in years, more than two years, he allowed first one, then a dozen slow tears to trickle down his face.

  He had completely forgotten that there was anyone else in the room when, a quarter of an hour later, Cecco cleared his throat. “That’s not the end of the story. Then we dragged you to Mes—”

  “I know how it ends,” Ian interrupted, not removing his head from his hands. “I know what happened afterward.”

  “Know it all, do you?” Cecco rose in his seat and made a fist at Ian, who turned his head slightly to regard him. “Did you know the blow you dealt killed my partner? Best damn friend a man ever had?” Cecco asked savagely.

  “No,” Ian spoke into his lap, quietly.

  Cecco brought his fist down. “Ha!” he said. “Never thought about that, did you? Did you know I had to hide, spend these two years locked in by my own choice, afraid to show my head in the streets of Venice?”

  Ian raised his red-rimmed eyes to study the dwarf. As he shook his head in negation, it occurred to Ian that he and Cecco had a lot in common. They had both lost their best friends on the plains of Sicily. They had bo
th spent the past two years locked away, afraid of Mora, afraid of what might happen to them if they showed their true face in public. And now they had both been given their lives back, freed from Mora’s curse, by Bianca’s final gesture.

  Ian gulped back the lump that had been in his throat since he saw the flooded prison. The small man seated before him, glaring at him and drinking his grappa, suddenly became, as Bianca’s final legacy to him, very dear. He did not bother to keep his voice steady or to keep the misery out of his expression when he addressed Cecco. “I am sorry. I had no idea.”

  Ian’s apology caught Cecco off guard. The glare left his face as quickly as it had come. “An’ if that ain’t the most unexpected thing ever. Thank you. You are some kind of man. But you don’t look so good. D’you want to hear the rest of your lady’s message now, or—”

  “Yes,” Ian said with a wretched urgency that was painful to hear.

  Cecco cleared his throat to ensure proper delivery. “She said to tell you it wasn’t her as done the murder but some Anzelo or Angelo fellow, a cousin of hers. An’,” Cecco made a face, but decided he owed it to the girl in exchange for the apology Ian had tendered, “she said to say she loved you.”

  Still, Ian thought to himself. After all that. She still loved me. The realization sent a shudder up his body, sharpening the edge of his misery.

  Cecco saw the dark mood descending on his companion with surprise. Surely the news that his betrothed wasn’t a murderess should be received gleefully. “I don’t know if you caught that first part. I was saying as how she said to tell you about her being innocent—”

  “I know.” Ian cut him off grimly. “I already knew she was innocent. I knew it all along. But it hardly matters now that I have lost her.”

  “You’re a fine one for giving up, then, ain’t you? I put her on that boat not more than two hours ago an’ I don’t reckon they up and aweighed anchor yet, not on a night like this.”

  “What do you mean?” Ian asked, his heart suddenly starting to beat again.

  “I see I was wrong about your ears. You people can’t understand a little plain language to save your lives, can you?” Cecco shook his head. “What I mean is that I put her on a boat not more than two hours ago and I don’t think it’s a-left yet.” He spoke the last words loud and slow, hoping that would overcome the gentleman’s hardness of hearing.

  “How? She’s alive?”

  “That wasn’t no corpse I went back and dragged through the sewer with me, I tell you that. Of course, I can’t say for positive she’s still alive, sometimes death is mighty sudden you know, but two hours ago, when I put her on that boat—”

  “Why? Where to?” Ian spoke as he rose from his seat. “Why did she want to get on a boat?”

  “Some nonsense about an unwanted betrothal, and trying to get out of the way or something. Believe me, she wasn’t in much better shape than you are.”

  “She was running away from a betrothal?” Ian said more to himself than to Cecco. Bianca was running away and leaving him. But why?

  It hit Ian like a thunderbolt. She must think he hated her after how he had treated her. Not only had he refused to believe in her innocence, as far as she knew, but he had gotten up and marched out in the middle of her murder trial without even so much as a look in her direction. He had behaved like the most despicable, unpleasant monster in all Italy. He could not blame her for wanting to get away from him. He would have to make it up to her, explain it to her. Certainly he could not allow her to go.

  Cecco cowered low in his seat as Ian leaned over him. “Where was the boat going?” he demanded with a degree of animation that Cecco thought had to be unhealthy for at least one of them.

  “I don’t know,” the dwarf answered plainly. “She didn’t tell me.” Ian, like a man possessed, was heading for the door. “But I am sure you’ll have no trouble finding it,” Cecco said helpfully to his broad back. “There can’t be more than a hundred galleons moored out in the lagoon tonight.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The water lashed against the prow of Ian’s boat as he and Giorgio took over for the weary gondoliers and rowed up to the millionth, or perhaps the fourteenth, merchant marine ship.

  “Bianca!” Ian started bellowing, in what was, by this point, a familiar pattern to Giorgio. “Bianca! Are you there? Bianca!”

  Giorgio wondered if he should tell his master that since the wind and rain made it almost impossible for him, only three armlengths away, to hear Ian’s shouts it was highly improbable that anyone on a ship would hear them, but he decided against it, reasoning that anything that would alleviate the strange madness that had gripped his master was to be encouraged. They were pulling along the side of the large vessel when a head poked out of one of the lower portholes.

  “What d’ you want?” an old sailor with a tanned face and a stark white beard demanded, not friendly. “We’re getting ready to lift anchor, and we ain’t got room for more passengers.”

  “Do you have a woman on board?” Ian asked with such desperation that the sailor let out a whoop of amusement.

  He flashed Ian a toothless conspiratorial grin. “You come all the way out here for a woman? You loony or something? There’s dozens, hundreds of ’em right back there in Venice. ‘The Paradise of Prostitutes,’ that’s what they call the city, and not for nothing. I can give you the address of such a one that knows a thing or two about feathers—”

  “No.” Ian was shaking his head and struggling to get a word in. “I am looking for a particular woman. My, ah, my sister. She’s small, with a beautiful oval face, silky light brown hair, and eyes that glitter like molten gold when she is excited.”

  “Don’t sound like you’re talking about your sister to me,” the sailor said with raised eyebrows, “but it ain’t none of my business. ’Specially seeing as how we ain’t got any merchandise of that quality aboard, I’m sure. What?” the sailor demanded of someone behind him. He turned back to Ian, said, “Don’t leave yet, you hear,” and disappeared into the interior of the vessel.

  “We’d better move on,” Giorgio cautioned Ian after they had waited two minutes that felt more like two years in the freezing cold wind. “All of these boats will be making off as soon as the tide comes all the way in. That gives us less than an hour, and we still have about forty to see. I’m sure if you just leave your name, that nice sailor will send along the address of the feather woman.”

  Ian struggled to decide whether to punch Giorgio or ignore him. He had just opted for punching, hoping it would relieve some of his tension, when the head popped back out of the window.

  “Supposin’ that someone knew something about your, ah, sister,” the sailor rolled his eyes backward and motioned slightly with his head. “Why would you be looking for her, eh?”

  “I’ve made a terrible mistake,” Ian confessed loudly to the man, “and I want to make it up to her. I must see her and speak to her.”

  The man nodded, disappeared into the hole for a moment, then reemerged. “What do you want to say to her?”

  “I will tell her when I see her!” Ian was exasperated. “Don’t play games with me, man. I must find her, even if it means sailing all the way to China. Is she there or isn’t she?”

  The sailor gestured upward with his chin. Following his suggestion, Ian trained his gaze on the deck of the ship. There, among the two dozen sailors readying the vessel for departure, was Bianca. As she stood against the railing, her eyes alight, her hair being whipped about her by the wind, she looked like an ancient maritime goddess come to do battle with a mortal enemy.

  Bianca was kicking herself. She had known she should not allow herself to see Ian, should stay as far from him as possible, but she could not help it. On first hearing him shout her name she had tried, but she did not have the power. Her traitorous heart had leapt up, racing with joy, thrilled by the sound
of his voice. He had come after her. He had come to find her.

  Or, her cool head told her, to drag her back to prison and punish her. To tell her to her face how he hated her. How sorry he was she had not died in her flooded cell. Her heart was beating so loudly with excitement and dread as she stood on the deck of the boat that she was sure it could be heard all the way back in Piazza San Marco. She struggled to keep her face expressionless, her voice noncommittal.

  “You found me,” she stated intelligently to Ian, below.

  Ian did not know what he had been hoping for, but the emotionless welcome he had just received turned his insides to ice. He had rowed all the way out there, purposely putting himself in the way of a blustery storm for the second time that night, risking pneumonia and worse, to tell her how his life would be nothing without her, how he needed her, and all he got was a frosty ‘You found me.’ His heart, now frozen, shattered into a thousand bits.

  “I certainly did!” His tone pierced her like glittering shards of ice. “Did you really think you could simply up and leave, just like that? Need I remind you that you are a fugitive from justice and technically under my care?”

  Bianca’s heart seemed to drop through the deck and into the lagoon below. So that was indeed why he had come. He had come not out of love but only to win himself the prestige of having found a fugitive. His tone, his expression, told her clearly that he felt nothing for her but disgust. She bowed her head, hoping he was too far away to see the tears welling up in her eyes. “I had forgotten. How careless of me.”

  Hearing her voice, so cold, so uncharacteristically devoid of emotion, confirmed Ian’s worst fears. She had fled because she did not want to marry him. She enjoyed him physically, but there it ended. The prospect of spending her life with him was distasteful to her, even hateful. But she had said…

  The words came out before he knew he was speaking, his voice no longer a voice of ice but a voice of pain. “Why won’t you marry me? You said you loved me.”