Inamorata

by Megan Chance

  I said, because I could not think of what else to say, “Odilé León.”

  I had not realized how much I had hoped Nicholas was wrong until I saw how her name galvanized them. One of them rose quickly and strode toward me officiously, spewing Italian until I held up my hand and said, “Does anyone speak French? Or English?”

  He stopped, frowned, and said, “I speak both, mademoiselle. Which would you prefer?”

  I looked at him in relief. “English, please. I’ve come to speak to a . . . an inspector, I think? About her. Madame León.”

  He nodded, and gestured for me to follow him, which I did, trying to keep up with him as he maneuvered through the labyrinth of desks. He stopped at a door at the far end of the room and rapped sharply upon it. At a grunt from the other side, he launched into Italian, got a reply, and then turned to me, saying, “Inspector Balbi will see you.” He opened the door, and when I stepped inside, he closed it behind me.

  The office was small and cluttered; a single, narrow window, paned and filmy with dust and smoke, looked blurrily out on the Canal below. The room stank of stale tobacco, and on the corner of a large desk littered with papers was a pipe and a bowl of emptied ashes. Seated behind it was a tall man with dark, darting eyes and a graying Vandyke beard.

  He rose. “You have some information regarding Odilé León?” he asked me, very politely, in heavily accented French.

  I nodded, and he made a motion—there was a chair behind me, and I sank gratefully into it.

  “My name is Sophie Hannigan.”

  He frowned. “Sophie Hannigan? Why is that name familiar to me?”

  It was one more thing that settled the truth more firmly. “I found Nelson Stafford’s body.”

  “Ah.” He sat down, leaning back in his chair. “Yes. You were looking into leasing. Quite unfortunate, mademoiselle. I am sorry for it. All I can say is that such things are not common in Venice these days.”

  “But more common than you’d like, I think.”

  His dark eyes glinted. He gave a short nod. “It has been an eventful summer. Why are you here, Mademoiselle Hannigan? Have you more to add to your testimony on Mr. Stafford? My man says you wish to speak of Odilé León.”

  I nodded. “I understand Mr. Stafford was connected to her?”

  The inspector regarded me steadily. “And if he was?”

  “I’ve been told that she was the one he committed suicide for. That he was in love with her.”

  “Who told you this?”

  “Katharine Bronson.”

  “Ah. The Ca’ Alvisi?”

  I nodded. “She was only repeating gossip.”

  Balbi steepled his fingers before him. “In Venice, gossip is everywhere, but no one comes to the police to report it. I suspect this talk about Mr. Stafford is not the reason you are here. Perhaps he is not your only connection to Madame León?”

  “My brother and I met Odilé León some days ago,” I told him frankly. “And . . . and he has become her lover and he hasn’t come home and I’m worried for him.”

  Inspector Balbi sighed heavily. He dropped his hands to the surface of his desk and leaned forward. “You should be worried, mademoiselle. I would venture to say that it is a hazardous duty to be Odilé León’s paramour.”

  My chest tightened in dread. “I’ve heard she’s connected not just to Mr. Stafford’s death, but to others.”

  “Two others,” said the Inspector. “Three altogether.”

  “Three.” My voice was a whisper. “Then . . . then you must help me.”

  “How am I to do that?”

  “You must rescue my brother. Go there and bring him out. At least long enough for me to speak with him.”

  “He is a grown man, is he not, mademoiselle?”

  “Yes. Yes, but—”

  “Then there is nothing I can do. We have no evidence against her. Each of those men was her lover in the days before he died, and I suspect she either had something to do with their deaths, or knows something. But she says she does not, and so—” he shrugged eloquently. “But if it were my brother in her bed, I would advise him very strongly to leave it.”

  “But I told you, he hasn’t come home. I haven’t been able to speak to him. She won’t let me in.”

  Balbi’s gaze was sympathetic. “Then I sincerely hope it is not his body we next fish from a canal.”

  I felt another wave of nausea; my heart pounded so loudly I could hear nothing else.

  “Mademoiselle,” he said, snapping to his feet, reaching across his desk as if he meant to save me from something, and I realized that I was rising, swaying. The world seemed to have lost its color, and I longed to peel back a corner to see if I could find beneath it dragons or princes or any of the things I knew how to conquer, because there was nothing here to grasp, nothing to fight.

  Oh, what fools we’d been! How could I save him now?

  I said goodbye to Inspector Balbi and left the police station blindly. When I finally reached the gondola, Nicholas gave me an anxious look and said, “What happened? What did they tell you?”

  “We must save him,” I said. “Promise me you’ll help me. You know what to do. You know how to fight her.”

  “I haven’t been all that successful, as I’ve said.”

  “But you know the truth of her, which is more than anyone else does.”

  He frowned. “If she’s chosen Joseph, my love, there is little we can do.”

  “Please, Nicholas. I’ll die if something happens to him. I can’t be without him.”

  He gave me a strange look, but I couldn’t read it, and I was trembling again. His arms came around me tightly.

  I whispered, “He would not want to live that way, no matter what he thinks now. I can’t let him. We must stop him before he makes the promise.”

  I felt the warmth of Nicholas’s breath against my temple, his fingers in my hair, stroking again, and the worn softness of his coat against my cheek.

  “You care for him as I do, don’t you?” I asked him. “If you love me, you must love him too, because we’re the same. You must be a true friend to him now, Nicholas, to the both of us. Can you be that?”

  His fingers stilled upon my hair. I heard his voice through the beating of his heart in my ear, though it was soft as a whisper. “Yes,” he said. “I can be that.”

  ODILÉ

  I watched Joseph uneasily as he worked, not realizing I was frowning until he glanced up and said, “Have I made you angry?”

  “No, of course not. Why would you say it?”

  “You look . . . I don’t know . . . annoyed. No—frayed.” Before I could answer, he turned back to the canvas, already distracted, sighing, scraping at something he didn’t like with the palette knife, muttering, “Something’s wrong. I can’t see what.”

  His words mirrored my own thoughts so exactly I was startled until I realized he was speaking of the painting. “Perhaps another eye would help. Should I take a look?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not ready for you to see it.”

  It was odd—by now he should be painting feverishly, flooded with inspiration, but since the choice had been made, he’d been desultory, slow, dissatisfied with every stroke. It was exactly the opposite of what I’d experienced with my other choices, who had been tireless once the bargain was set. I told myself not to worry; his genius was in my blood now, where the succubus in me changed and strengthened it, feeding the magic again to him whenever we made love, and I knew he would find in it what he needed, no matter that it might take a few days.

  I turned away, going to the window. I did not see Nicholas anywhere. I hoped Sophie Hannigan had him well wrapped about her finger—not that it mattered now. I had beaten my hunger; time was as nothing again. The choice was made and there was no going back.

  Still I heard her voice in my head, like a song one couldn’t forget. It’s done it’s done it’s done.

  I heard a sound behind me, and I turned to see Joseph. He came up to me, putting his
arms around me, drawing me back against his chest, kissing my ear.

  I shivered, suddenly cold, and twisted to look at him. “You’re not finished for today?”

  “I need some inspiration,” he murmured. “Inspire me. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”

  I was relieved for the distraction, and so I obliged, but when we were finished, he only stared off into space, running his hand through my hair, but unseeingly, obviously thinking of something else. I was afraid to ask what it was. She was there in the room like a ghost.

  He fell asleep. When he woke an hour or so later, he seemed listless. When I suggested he paint, he turned tired eyes to me and said, “Tell me a story instead.”

  “I’ve told you all my stories,” I said quietly.

  “That can’t be true,” he insisted. “I want to understand. How old are you? What made you this? Or were you born this way?”

  I laughed. “Born? Oh no. I was not born to it. I was made, as all other things are made.”

  “All other things?”

  “We do not stay as we were born, none of us.” I poured a glass of wine. “We are all made. And this—what I am—was nothing but one more choice in a sea of choices.”

  “Have you ever regretted it?”

  “To be a muse for the ages? To see adoration in every eye? How could one regret such a thing? What woman could regret it?”

  I said it lightly, but he did not take it so. “I don’t think adoration is all you hoped for, is it? It seems such a small thing to ask. Especially for someone like you.”

  “Someone like me?”

  “There’s a passion that burns in you. One that has nothing to do with the carnal. There are things you want. Tell me what they are.”

  Again, I was unsettled by his perception.

  “What I want? I have everything I need or desire. I have you.” I took up the glass and came over to him, kissing him lightly.

  He did not respond. When I stepped away, I saw a bewildering thoughtfulness in his eyes. He said, “When you told me that Sophie might want something more than being my muse . . . you were right; I’d never thought about that before. And now I cannot help but wonder the same thing about you.”

  “There is no need to wonder. I am made to be a muse. It is my calling and my destiny.”

  “Yes, perhaps.” He lifted my chin, forcing me to look into his eyes. “But that is not all there is to you. I can feel it.”

  I yearned to tell him everything. To have him truly know Odilé León—not the monster Nicholas knew, but the woman Madeleine had seen. The woman I’d been. I moved gently away. “I was nothing. And I wanted more than that. But what woman in this world ever gets exactly what she desires? We do not change the world with our gifts, cheri. We are only women. Born to inspire men to greatness, but never of our own accord.”

  “I don’t think you believe that. Why should women not make something of their gifts, if they’ve been given them? Sophie’s stories—”

  Must every conversation turn somehow to her? “Her stories? And what does she do with those beyond amuse you on a lonely night?”

  I had meant to belittle her. But his thoughtfulness grew. “She makes the world bearable.”

  “Ah, but the world only sees her through you, and you do not celebrate her, do you? How well she fades in the brightness of your star. The world does not remember the names of women. The world sees only men and not those who stand behind them.” I spoke with all the pent-up frustration of centuries, all my sorrow and despair. He had brought out the emotions I usually controlled so well. But then again, I did not expect him to hear them. What man ever heard the real desires of women?

  But he did hear. There, in his eyes, was compassion. Bewildering, again.

  “I have never known anyone quite like you, Joseph Hannigan.”

  His arms came around me, and my wine ended up undrunk. He was as passionate as ever, as heedlessly lost in lovemaking as he had been before, and yet . . . he did not go back to painting that evening, instead lounging on the settee, his sketchbook open on his lap as he turned the pages. When I inquired, he said only, again, “It’s nothing. I’m tired.”

  The next day was the same. After playing at the canvas for a few hours, frowning a great deal, exhaling in frustration, he stepped away, covering it, saying irritably, “When am I supposed to feel something?”

  I had no answer for him—what could I say? You have already been feeling it? I don’t understand why it isn’t marking you the way it should? I don’t understand you? I lit a candle and looked down at him as he slept. He was so beautiful, and he belonged to me now, and I should have been triumphant.

  But I felt distress, because he should be wanting nothing more than to paint through the night or to make love. I should be posing for him, despite the fact that he claimed he needed no studies, that he saw things in his head as perfectly as he wanted them to be. Canaletto had insisted I stand near him as he worked. Byron had wanted me in the room so he could look at me whenever his strength lagged. Robert Schumann had asked that I remain near enough to touch. And Keats . . . lovely Keats . . . he had penned “Lamia” as he lay with his head in my lap.

  But Joseph Hannigan did not want me hovering. He needed only to see me in his head.

  I was struck by a sudden suspicion, an urge I could not deny. I got out of bed, pulling on my dressing gown, taking up the candle. He slept on soundly, not the least bit restless. I wondered if he even dreamed, or if he had fallen into that vast, dark oblivion inside himself. Another thing that troubled me.

  I hurried from the bedroom, soundlessly, the candlelight wavering on the highly polished floor, my shadow flickering and shuddering as I padded out into the portego, to the easel there, the large canvas with its cloth covering.

  I hesitated, suddenly uncertain and afraid. I didn’t know what I expected to see. I didn’t know what I wanted to see.

  Carefully, I lifted the cloth, bit by bit, slowly at first, revealing the painted shine of a terrazzo floor so beautifully rendered that it seemed to be only a continuation of that beneath my feet, then the delicate arch of a foot, calves, knees, up and up and up. Finally I grew impatient with my own reticence and pulled the muslin off all the way, letting it fall in a shush to the floor.

  That it was beautiful there was no denying. The marble walls danced with reflections; Venice’s strange, wavering light cast everywhere—not only on the walls, but on the skin of the nude who stood there, her back to the viewer as she reached up to take down her hair. Strands were already falling, curling to the back of her neck, between her shoulder blades. She looked over her shoulder, and the look in her eyes was alluring, compelling—one wanted to follow her wherever she would go, even when following her meant going into the room beyond, which was dark with shadows, horrors leaping from each one, barely seen, barely articulated, but the mind saw them. The mind understood and recoiled.

  I want to see something of desire, I’d told him. I want to see your secrets.

  And here they were. Joseph Hannigan laid bare. Demons in the darkened room beyond, a spirit in a thin chemise wisping even as it spun, losing pieces of itself like smoke fading into the darkness, the shadow of a bed, shadow upon shadow, a woman with glowing eyes that seemed both malevolent and tempting, an outstretched hand, and another woman in the far corner—an angel with a face so terrible and yet so beautiful it was impossible to stop looking at her, to stop searching her face, which changed and shifted with each movement of the viewer. And all these things emerging from such vast and solid darkness that it seemed to have no end.

  The woman in the doorway was the light in the center of that darkness, so softly spun in brilliance I did not know how he had accomplished it. The light seemed to emanate from her skin, an illumination that both revealed the figures in the room beyond and cast them more firmly into shadow. She was salvation—and she was stunning. Rounded hips, dimpled buttocks, her back arched just so. The hair glinting with reddish highlights that he was carefully darkeni
ng. Eyes whose slight slant had been rounded. Gray, yes, but opalescent too, a step to the right and they were not gray, but blue. The full upper lip had been smudged, made thinner to barely cover a slight overbite, the hip shadowed to make narrower what had once been full.

  And there . . . on her shoulder blade, a mole like a star. A missing star meant to match other stars, to fill in another constellation, to make it whole.

  Before I could fully grasp the meaning, I heard a shuffling behind me. I turned slowly, half afraid I would see her there, but no, it was him, come from bed, naked and frowning.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  He came up beside me. “I asked you to wait. It’s not finished.”

  “No, I can see that.” I pointed to the mole on the shoulder blade. “I don’t have a mole like that.”

  “It’s Sophie’s,” he said softly. “I’ve always found it—”

  “It’s the missing star in the constellation.”

  “What?”

  “The moles on your back form a constellation. They’re missing only one star to be complete. This one, where it is, on her.”

  He looked surprised. “Really? A constellation? Which one?”

  “The Serpent Bearer,” I told him, looking back at the painting, feeling something in me tighten. “Ophiuchus. Who was Aesculapius—the healer. Or no, not the Serpent Bearer exactly. Your stars don’t make the healer. They make the serpent he holds. The Serpent’s Head.”

  “Sophie used to say they were a map.” He was looking at the painting, his expression wistful.

  “A map to where?”

  “Somewhere only we knew.” Wistfulness in his voice too.

  I felt cold again, a bitter chill that made me wrap my arms around myself. “Snakes have many forms, you know. They have not always been evil or poisonous—or at least, not only so. Just as desire has not always been evil. In ancient times, snakes were a symbol of healing. Of wisdom. They can be very beautiful.”