Death in the Floating City

by Tasha Alexander

  “Heavens,” I said. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. Well, if the reputation of the empire is at stake, God save the queen!” I leaned forward and kissed him. Our boatmen’s song did not change, but I sensed a tremor of approval in their tone.

  I liked Italy—and I found that extensive kisses make the time spent on a boat pass with remarkable speed. We reached our destination all too soon.

  Used to splendor though I was, I was taken aback at the neoclassical magnificence of the Villa di Tranquillità. Palladio had designed it in the sixteenth century, and I couldn’t imagine a better example of his work. A large dome, reminiscent of that on the Pantheon in Rome, rose from its center behind the long, elegant Ionic columns that fronted the home’s perfectly symmetrical facade.

  “We should think about abandoning Anglemore Park,” Colin said, staring at the building before us.

  “You’d never abandon the Hargreaves family seat,” I said, not giving the slightest consideration to his comment. He was more attached to his country house than any other gentleman I’d ever known.

  “I wouldn’t have thought so until I saw this,” he said. “Perhaps we could have Angelmore pulled down—”

  “And reanimate Palladio and bring him to England? Unlikely, my love.” One of the boatmen helped me out of the rocking vessel.

  My husband was still studying the villa. “I could design it.”

  “Heaven knows you need something to occupy your idle brain,” I said. “I’ve noticed that you aren’t particularly industrious between the hours of three and four in the morning. Perhaps you could fill that time pursuing the study of architecture.”

  “Let me assure you, dear wife, that any occasion on which you’ve been awake to observe my state at such a time generally coincides with a great deal of industriousness on my part.”

  I blushed … and wished we were back in our rooms at the Danieli.

  A servant welcomed us into the house, and we found that the interior of the Villa di Tranquillità matched the easy grace of its facade. Large, airy rooms opened onto two long loggias, overlooking the river, and it was on one of these that Signora Morosini received us.

  “I admit to being most concerned when I received your message,” I said, after making the requisite introductions. “Has anything else happened? Or was only the one canvas damaged?”

  “Just what I told you in my note,” Signora Morosini said. “Before I offer you refreshments, do let me show you what this vandal has done.”

  We followed her into the Palladian equivalent of a Venetian portego that, like that at Ca’ Barozzi, was lined with fine oil portraits.

  “I’ve always liked something about her eyes,” she said, stopping in front of a large picture of a solemn-looking woman. “They don’t match the rest of her expression.”

  Besina was older in this portrait than in the other I’d seen. Her skin was not quite so luminous, and her features were not quite so smooth, but Signora Morosini was right about her eyes. They hinted at a lively life behind a flawless impression of an honorable matron.

  Or perhaps the impression hadn’t been flawless. The painter might not have known what Besina’s husband suspected of her.

  Most striking was what the canvas had suffered. It appeared that Besina had posed clasping her hands together beneath her waist. A gaping hole now stood in their place.

  “Can you remember anything about her hands?” I asked. “Was she wearing rings?”

  “But yes, she is a Renaissance lady, very wealthy. Noble. She would have worn rings on every finger.”

  “Could this be one of them?” I held up the conte’s ring for her to see.

  She hesitated. “It’s possible, yes. It looks familiar, but I cannot say I am certain. I’ve never much cared for old jewelry.”

  “Can you recall any details that had to do with her hands?” Colin asked.

  “She was holding a rosary, but you can see that from what remains.”

  The crucifix and a length of beads were still visible at the bottom of the painting.

  “The painting has been in your family for years, is that correct?” I asked.

  “Some years, yes,” she said, “but not in the way I think you mean. I bought it from Zaneta Vendelino. It was languishing in her family’s villa, only a few miles from here. I spent a fortune having it cleaned and restored. And I suppose shall now have to do it again.”

  “Vendelino?” I asked. “With a V?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Is that important?”

  “It may be extremely important,” I said. “Do you know anything else about the painting?”

  “Not really. The Englishwoman who suggested you visit me recognized the subject when she saw it at a party we had last summer. She said the Barozzis are an old Venetian family. But I need not tell you that. You are friends with Paolo Barozzi’s wife, yes?”

  Colin nodded. “It’s quite possible that the ring my wife showed you is of critical significance to the murder that occurred at Ca’ Barozzi. Can you try to remember anything about the rings on Besina’s hands?”

  “Two of them were sapphires. I know that as sapphires are my favorite,” Signora Morosini said. “There was a ruby, I’m sure, but as to whether it’s that particular one…”

  “Is it true the Barozzi family once owned this house?” I asked.

  “Oh yes, they did,” Signora Morosini said, “but that was long after Besina would have been dead. I understand she came to disgrace and ruin before the end of her life. Her husband locked her up in a convent or did something equally dreadful to her.”

  “What had she done to merit such treatment?” Colin asked.

  Signora Morosini shrugged. “It doesn’t take much to aggravate a cantankerous husband, does it? And in those days, a man’s power was absolute. I do not suggest things have changed all that much.”

  “It’s intolerable,” Colin said. “Then and now. Have you any other records or information about the time the Barozzis summered here?”

  “Heaven knows what one might find in the attics, Signor Hargreaves. It’s far too hot for me to be inclined to look.”

  My work, it seemed, was coming ready-made for me.

  Un Libro d’Amore

  vi

  Nicolò climbed into the felze and pressed his lips against Besina’s so hard she struggled to breathe. Then, afraid he might have hurt or scared her, he took her in his arms and covered her neck with soft kisses. And then he began to work his way lower. She had never felt such pleasure, but fear mixed with it.

  “Nicolò, you must stop,” she said, her voice a trembling whisper. “We are not safe here.”

  He stuck his head out of the small cabin and murmured something to the gondolier that made him start rowing. Soon they were far from Ca’ Vendelino, lost among the crush of boats in the Grand Canal.

  “You were right to come to me,” he said. “The situation is grave.”

  “I cannot marry him,” Besina said.

  “No. You cannot. I will find a way to save you from this fate. Are you prepared to act quickly?”

  “I would go now were that possible.”

  “We will be together, my love,” Nicolò said. “That I promise you. I will organize everything by tomorrow evening. Tonight will be the last you spend with your family.”

  “They will forgive us after we are married.”

  “Eventually, I hope.” He kissed her again, this time gently, holding his passion inside, not wanting to frighten her. “But I care not for the approval of our families. All I want is your love.”

  After more kisses than Besina could count, Nicolò returned her to the house of her dearest friend, where she spent only a quarter of an hour. The other girl queried the source of her flushed face and bright eyes. Besina admitted nothing, blaming the unusually warm summer for the color of her complexion. Her friend had no reason to think there was anything amiss.

  Besina returned home, not to spend a congenial evening with her family, but to suffer through a recepti
on held in honor of herself and her would-be groom, a celebration of their engagement and a prelude to their imminent wedding.

  Even those with the most generous of dispositions could not describe Uberto Rosso as the sort of man who might fuel the dreams of a young girl. He had not aged well, and his girth was matched in its obscenity only by his propensity to belch. He was a tall man, confident in his every movement, but incapable of grace. This was due not only to his size but to his disposition. He had no interest in beauty or elegance. His features did little to commend him, though his nose might be described as aristocratic. What little hair remained on his head had faded from jet black to a dull, greasy gray.

  His hand was damp with sweat when he took Besina’s and led her to dance. She wondered what she could say to him, knowing she’d spent the afternoon kissing Nicolò in a gondola, and worried her voice would somehow reveal her deception. It soon became apparent that she would not be required to speak. Signor Rosso showed no interest in any sort of discussion. While Nicolò’s touch had made her feel loved, her fiancé’s felt like a show of ownership.

  Ca’ Barozzi was at its finest that night. No one could argue it was anything short of the finest palazzo in the republic. The family’s wealth and influence shone from every bit of the house. Candlelight glimmered, reflected on gleaming terrazzo floors polished with linseed oil until they shined like mirrors, important works of art hung on the walls, and the frescoed ceilings were—so gossip said—more impressive than those in the Doge’s Palace. The food served was the finest available, seasoned with exotic spices from the East. Music and laughter filled the rooms. The alliance between the Barozzi and Rosso families would be a triumph, bringing together fortunes and power. The doge himself was pleased at the news of the union. He said it would strengthen Venice.

  Everyone was happy but Besina.

  Until the messenger arrived.

  7

  Colin and I played to our strengths as we set to work at the Villa di Tranquillità. Which meant I climbed a series of seemingly endless staircases to hot, dusty attics while my husband interviewed Signora Morosini’s extensive staff about the damaged painting. The fact that this allowed him to explore nearly every inch of the property was a much-welcomed perk so far as he was concerned. He could bask in architectural heaven while I threw myself with something approaching wild abandon into the discovery of untold treasure.

  “Treasure” might be too strong a word, but the delight I took in exploring the hidden bits of the Morosini estate could be matched only by the emotions I felt when I had first been able to read Homer in the original Greek. Armed with a maid ready to help me dust anything I found too odious to touch (Signora Morosini was more squeamish than I when it came to such things and insisted on sending a girl up with me), I surveyed the scene before us.

  It would be unreasonable to expect the cast-off possessions of nearly four hundred years’ worth of residents to be well organized, and the innumerable piles of trunks, the occasional mummified mouse, and the heaps of furniture in various stages of disrepair that filled the rooms did not disappoint me. I (figuratively) rolled up my sleeves and set to work, following a strategy of first trying to roughly identify the ages of objects before me. I would then focus on the oldest things.

  Some of the collection predated the house itself. A Crusader’s sword, for example. There were trunks full of rich fabrics now too fragile to touch—fabrics from the golden age of the Venetian republic: the finest silks, some plain, some embroidered, and heavy velvets whose bright colors had been protected from fading over the centuries.

  “What Mr. Worth could do with something like these,” I said, wishing my favorite dressmaker had access to such finery. “Nothing modern is ever so nice, is it?”

  The maid asked if I’d like her to wash them. I shook my head, managing not to shudder at the suggestion.

  Leather tubes held medieval maps, and a medium-sized trunk was full of ivory keys from a long-since-dismantled harpsichord. More than a dozen discarded paintings leaned against a wall. None was from the time when Besina was alive.

  It occurred to me the Barozzis might not have kept anything of hers after she’d been unceremoniously flung from her husband’s house, and even if they had, what were the odds that, generations later, those things would make their way to a newly constructed summer villa? The attics were unlikely to be of further use. Better that I search the hidden recesses of the convent in which Besina spent her final years.

  I assumed she died in the convent, unless she’d managed to make a spectacular escape and run off to some far away place with the man she loved. Perhaps N.V. was not her husband. Perhaps he was the man who rescued her from a dingy existence in her small cell and gave to her the world. Thinking back, I now wonder if I might have applied myself with success to the art of writing fiction, so carried away was I by filling in the details of this woman’s life. At the time, no such fancies occurred to me. Instead, with customary thoroughness, I searched the remainder of the attics, not surprised when I turned up nothing of significance.

  By the time I descended to the cooler rooms of the house, Colin and Signora Morosini had returned to one of the comfortable loggias and were sipping prosecco.

  “It appears that our plague doctor enjoys the occasional country retreat,” my husband said as our hostess offered me a glass of the cool, sparkling drink. “Two maids and a houseboy insist they saw just such a figure the night the painting was vandalized.”

  “It may have been nothing,” Signora Morosini said. “The child is often having nightmares, and those maids are particularly susceptible to suggestion. I wouldn’t take anything they say too seriously.”

  “Any physical clues?” I asked.

  “None,” Colin said, “but the intruder came in through a first-floor window, just as the murderer did at Ca’ Barozzi.”

  Signora Morosini blanched. “You think the murderer is the same person who destroyed my painting?”

  “It is quite likely,” Colin said.

  “A murderer? In my house?” Horror gripped her. “Take that painting with you when you go. I don’t want it anywhere near me.”

  * * *

  Searching Besina’s convent rooms had seemed an excellent idea until we learned that what remained of the building now housed police barracks. A perfunctory search of the spaces that had once housed the nuns—wild and debauched nuns, according to the young officer who escorted us through the place—revealed that too many changes had been made to offer us hope of finding anything of Besina’s. I identified one brick that might have indicated a secret hiding place, but it was a false alarm and revealed nothing behind it but another brick.

  “Perhaps we should go back to the villa,” I said, frustrated, after we’d returned to the Danieli.

  “You were extremely thorough, Emily,” Colin said. “I’ve no doubt if there was something left to be found, you’d already have located it.”

  I sighed. “At least we know there is something significant about the ring. A serious error on the part of our miscreant. He’s done nothing but draw attention to the object he wanted to hide.”

  “Unless the vandalism was meant to throw us off track.”

  I didn’t like to admit that possibility, but had no choice. “I still think it’s worth pursuing.”

  “Agreed,” Colin said, “but you’ll have a difficult time convincing me the solution to Barozzi’s murder will come from the past.”

  “I won’t have to convince you of anything once I’ve got the truth dangling in front of you.”

  “Not if I get to it first.” He ran his hand through his thick, dark hair. “I’ve received word that Paolo has sold another book. This time in Padua.”

  “Any sign of the mysterious monk?”

  “The monk completed the transaction himself this time. No one admits to seeing Paolo.”

  “Perhaps the monk is our murderer, and now that he’s got his hands on the books, he’s taken care of Paolo as well.”

  �
��I should like to be able to dismiss the idea out of hand, but can’t,” Colin said. “The only slim comfort is that—so far—no one has found a body matching Paolo’s description.”

  “Does Emma suspect he might be in danger?”

  “Not so far as I know,” he said. “I’m going to Padua to speak to the man who bought the book. I trust you can mange things here?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Keep watch for our plague doctor. I don’t want to return to find you’ve been spirited off by some maniacal fancy dress aficionado.”

  His tone was full of jest, but his eyes registered concern. “I shall take extreme care,” I said. “Perhaps I’ll even manage to convince Emma to assist me with my work.”

  “I don’t expect miracles, my dear.”

  * * *

  I expected nothing of the sort either but felt that a visit to Ca’ Barozzi would soon be in order. Not so much to see Emma, but because I thought it possible Besina had returned there after her divorce. First, though, I wanted to find whatever concrete information I could, and I knew the city archives would be the place to start. They put to shame any I’d seen elsewhere. A clerk had told me they were second in size only to those in the Vatican but insisted that Venice’s were more detailed. I had no reason to question him, as I could not have been more impressed with what I found. With relative ease, I’d managed to locate the record of Besina’s divorce from a man called Uberto Rosso (not N.V.) and the record of her admittance to the convent. I wondered what Besina had done during the three-week period between the two dates.

  As soon as I’d said good-bye to Colin, who was off to Padua, I directed the Danieli’s gondolier to take me to call on Zaneta Vendelino, who was expecting me. As well as being the previous owners of Signora Morosini’s portrait of Besina, the Vendelinos were the last of the V’s Donata and I had identified in the Libro d’Oro. Their palazzo, aptly called Ca’ Vendelino, was situated on the Grand Canal not far from the famous Ca’ d’Oro, and it provided a perfect contrast to Ca’ Barozzi. While time had left an unhappy mark on the latter, Ca’ Vendelino had been lovingly restored in the eighteenth century and taken exquisite care of ever since.