Starling (80 page)

apart searching for you, Cass, but no one had seen you. So then I
started checking all of the places that were connected to the Order of
the Eternal Rose.” He shook his head. “I didn’t really expect you to
be here. Where’s my old friend de Gradi? Still in Florence?”
“He’s dead,” Cass said, frowning. Falco’s story sounded good,
but she was still carrying Luca’s words around in her head.
Are you
really so naïve . . .
What if Falco
was
involved? What if his being
beaten and imprisoned was just a ruse? Maybe Piero had believed
her when she said she had the book and lied about it being recovered.
Maybe they had paid Falco handily to beat him, to place him in a cell
next to her to find out where she supposedly had hidden it.
“How long have you been here? How did they find you?” Falco
asked.
“You led Piero right to me,” Cass said. “After you left my room,
he showed up. He tried to drug me. I ran away, spent the night in the
Ghetto. The next day I arranged to meet Feliciana. She was going to
help me sneak into Palazzo Dubois, but our gondola was ambushed.
I woke up here. I don’t even know if she’s all right. She might have
drowned.”
“
Mi dispiace,
Cass,” Falco said. “I didn’t realize I was being followed. You know I would never put you in harm’s way, right?”
“Of course,” Cass said. But inside she still wasn’t sure.
Falco rolled over onto his back. “You don’t sound very convinced. Can’t you see I just got pummeled trying to save you?
Santo
cielo,
Cassandra. I asked you to marry me! Would I have done that
if I was secretly plotting against you?”
Cass had almost forgotten about Falco’s impulsive proposal.
“About that,” she started.
He chuckled, and then clutched at his ribs again. “Put it out of
your mind. It was wrong of me to pressure you.” He paused. “But my
feelings for you are—they always have been—sincere, and I insist that
you recognize that.”
Cass sighed. “I’m having a bit of trouble trusting anyone these
days,” she said. “I want to believe you, but you
always
seem to be
around whenever the Order is. How do you explain that?”
Falco gingerly palpated his jaw. “Bad luck?” he offered.
“And perhaps it would help if you weren’t always lying to everyone about everything,” she said. “Have you ever thought about telling the truth?”
“I did that some when I was younger. It always seemed to get me
in trouble though.”
Cass felt her lips curve upward, despite the situation. “You’re impossible,” she said.
“And you’re mad,” Falco groaned. “You should have run when
you had the chance. Both you and your fiancé.”
Cass couldn’t bring herself to tell Falco that Luca had broken off
their engagement. She looked down at the damp floor.
“I’ve made you sad again.” Falco curled back on his side, wincing
as his ribs came in contact with the hard floor. His hair fell in front
of one eye. “What is it, starling?”
“Nothing you can fix, unfortunately.” Cass was seized by the urge
to brush Falco’s hair back from his face, and then immediately consumed by guilt at the realization that even broken and bleeding, and
perhaps having betrayed her, something about Falco was still enticing.
But perhaps that was just how things were supposed to be. She had