The Dark Lady's Mask (28 page)

“One of Father's masterpieces,” said Leandro. “My brother and I have painted many copies.”

“Now we shall go to his room,” Francesco said.

T
HE BEDCHAMBER WAS FLOODED
in the golden light of late afternoon. Blinded by its brilliance, Aemilia had to blink before she made out the old man in his bed, his face like parchment. Francesco's wife sat at Jacopo's bedside, cajoling her father-in-law to drink from a goblet she held before him. But his eyes, as dark and compelling as Papa's, anchored upon Aemilia. He raised his right arm.

“Jasper? How good of you to come.”

Aemilia had expected his voice to quaver, betraying his frailty, but he spoke with the force of a man in his prime.

“
Signore,
I am Emilio, son of Battista Bassano.”

She swept into a bow then stood at attention while old Jacopo stared, as though to take her measure. His hand beckoned her near. She sat on a stool beside the bed.

“If you are truly Battista's child, tell me of him.” His hand gripped hers.

So he meant to test her? She felt her skin grow clammy.

“Don't be rude, you old fool,” his daughter-in-law said, her voice as fond as it was frank. “Emilio has the letter you sent to Jasper in England, only Jasper had to return.” She turned to Aemilia with apologetic eyes. “Forgive the old mule,
signore.
He can be stubborn.”

“Olivia, pray leave me alone with this Emilio. Francesco and Leandro, you must go as well. I will ring the bell if I need you.”

Aemilia noted the brass bell propped on the bedside table.

“Stand in the full light where I may see you,” the old man told her, after the others had vacated the room.

Setting her face like stone, Aemilia did as she was told.

“How am I to believe you are who you claim to be?” Jacopo asked her. “You could be some fortune seeker who murdered poor Jasper and took the letter from him in hope of gaining my bequest.”

“I swear that I am indeed Battista's child.” Her eyes blazed into his as though her conviction could prove it.

“Then tell me of the man.”

“He and his brothers were court musicians for old King Henry of England and later for Queen Elizabeth. Papa died in the year 1577.”

Jacopo stared at her steadily. “Go on.”

“He was as great a musician and instrument maker as you are an artist,
signore.
”

The old man waved his hand impatiently. “Any stranger might speak of Battista's public reputation. Tell me something only his child would know.”

Tears stung at her eyes, but Aemilia blinked them back. “When I was a child, he told me again and again how much he loved the house he was forced to flee. The house where
you
now live,
signore.
You who interrogate me like an inquisitor.”

Her bitter voice echoed so loudly through the chamber, she expected Francesco and Leandro to burst in and drag her away. But Jacopo never flinched.

“What else? What can you tell me that no one else would know?”

“My father's secret?” she asked him. “I think you know as well as I, though you pretend to have nothing to do with it.”

Her voice was as cold as the tile floor beneath her thin shoes. She no longer cared whether Jacopo believed her or whether she offended him. Let him banish her just as her father had been banished. At least she could vindicate Papa in his old home, her words bearing witness to what he had suffered.

“Come closer,” Jacopo said, “and tell me Battista's secret you say I know so well.”

“As you will.” Aemilia sat stiffly on the stool. “He and my uncles had to lock themselves in our cellar to say their Hebrew prayers. I wasn't to know. He tried to hide it even from me, but I begged him until he told me. Are you satisfied now,
signore
?”

His hand gripped hers with surprising strength.

“Did you know that Battista and I wrote to each other?” he asked.

From under the coverlet he drew a bundle of letters covered in faded ink, nearly illegible with time and wear, but she recognized her father's signature.

“So I have shown you my evidence.” The old man's face was only inches from hers. “But yours is still lacking. I know you lie.”

Aemilia stared at him, her throat seizing up. She attempted to pull away, but his grip was too tight.

“Emilio is an impostor. From Battista's letters, I know he had no son.” The old man's face softened. “Only a daughter he loved more than the sun and moon.”

Hearing his words, she cracked like glass and wept.

Jacopo stroked her cheek. “
Cara mia,
do you think an old man like me would be fooled by your disguise?”

Having lived his entire life behind a mask, he had seen straight through hers.

“Don't cry, my dear. I know you came all the way from England and it's dangerous to travel as a woman. But here you are safe with your family.” He stroked her hand. “You have no more need to hide your womanhood, Aemilia Battista Bassano.” He kissed her forehead the way Papa used to do. “How I wish Battista and his brothers had dared to return when I begged them, but instead Battista's beautiful daughter has come home. And you are a mother! And a widow.”

Aemilia sensed he wouldn't probe any deeper. As long as she revealed herself as a woman, Battista's daughter, Jacopo would forgive her any lesser lies.

“I am so, so happy you have come, Aemilia.” He gripped her hand tightly, as if he feared she might vanish as his kin had done. “Did you know your father's true name was Aaron?”

Tears in her eyes, she shook her head.

“He took the name Battista when he submitted to baptism. We all submitted. Some of us were better at burying the past than others.” He let out a hollow laugh. “I never knew your father went on saying his prayers in secret. I never dared take such a risk. You must understand. We were terrified of the Inquisition.”

She watched Jacopo weep even as she wept, and then she held him as though he were her father come back to life. What choices he had been forced to make, what a narrow line he had walked. She thought of his painting of Christ and the adulteress. Jacopo identified with the fallen woman—he, too, longed to be forgiven for the lies by which he had been forced to live.

S
HRINKING PAST ONE OF
the Casa dal Corno's maidservants, Aemilia knocked on the door of the garret room assigned to the Weir sisters.

Winifred opened up. “Yes, Master Emilio, sir?” She could not have sounded more sarcastic. But when she saw that Aemilia had been crying, she pulled her inside and held her tight. “Whatever's the matter, mistress? Did that poet take any liberties? I'll smash his head in!”

“No, Winifred.” Aemilia spoke in her natural voice. “Old Jacopo has divined my true sex and wishes that I disguise myself no longer. Only I . . .” She broke off, feeling like the most wretched fool. “Only I left all my gowns behind when we left Venice. I thought I'd have no more need of them.”

Winifred cackled. “Never you fear, mistress. We saved them for you.”

Prudence appeared with Aemilia's best gown of claret-colored damask. It had been freshly sponged and pressed, and it smelled of lavender.

“Will this do, mistress?”

Aemilia regarded Prudence in wonder. “How in heaven's name did you know to prepare it for me?”

But the Weir sisters were already whipping off her jerkin and doublet. Winifred held the offending male garments at arm's length as though she wanted to burn them. Prudence whisked off her mistress's breeches and linen shirt.

“You can keep the slippers,” Winifred remarked. “In faith, I always thought they looked like lady's shoes.”

Winifred and Prudence, Aemilia decided, looked far too smug.

“Lift up your arms, mistress.” With an air of great ceremony, Prudence helped her into her best chemise.

She was obliged to suck in her breath as her two servants laced her into her stays. Next came the skirt, petticoat, and bodice. She had nearly forgotten how constricting it was to dress as a woman. Prudence tied on her sleeves while Winifred ran a comb through her hair.

“Thank your stars you didn't cut it too short, mistress,” Winifred said.

Prudence fitted a black velveteen snood on Aemilia's head. “Now you look a perfect lady, Mistress Lanier.”

“Bassano,” she said thinly. “My name is Bassano.”

“Pardon my saying so,” said Winifred, “but I think it best that you go as the
Widow
Lanier from now on.”

Aemilia shrugged in resignation. How she had loved Emilio, and how she would miss him.

“Where's Tabitha?” she asked. “Where's Enrico?”

“In the garden,” said Winifred. “With the poet.”

Aemilia emerged from the Weir sisters' room only to collide with the maidservant who had been lurking in the corridor, no doubt scandalized to see the young English gentleman enter his maids' room. Now seeing Aemilia step out as a lady in a damask gown, the girl shrieked and shook her upraised hands in bewilderment before she scarpered.

“Well, look at her,” Winifred said nonchalantly. “You'd think she'd never seen a lady in breeches.”

W
HEN
A
EMILIA STEPPED OUT
among the peach trees and late-blooming roses, Will poked his head out over the fountain and hooted at her as though he were cheering a player upon the stage.

“But soft! What is this apparition?” he asked Enrico, lifting the child to see his mother. “'Tis none other than violet-eyed Cytherea sweeping down from her dove-drawn chariot.”

The poet set down the little lad so he could scrabble toward her.

“You'll dirty your mother's fine dress!” Tabitha, her eyes enormous, picked him up but held the child close enough so he could kiss his mother and pat her face.

Aemilia glared at Will. To her irritation, he seemed to find her latest twist of fate most hilarious. But at least that awkward silence in the bedchamber had ended, swept away by his usual teasing, as though it had never happened at all.

“If you ever deign to stop laughing, sir,” she said, “we need to discuss your sleeping in a separate room.”

Her fine dress be damned, she took her son in her arms and planted a fierce kiss on his face.

Tabitha cleared her throat. “Pardon me, mistress, but won't these people think you're a bit odd?”

Aemilia turned to see faces popping out of every window and doorway to gape at her.

“Has fair Bassano ever known such excitement?” asked Will. “A gentleman who in a trice becomes a lady as beauteous as the Queen of Carthage? Poor Harry would be green with envy.”

“So you think I am a figure of fun,” she said hotly.

“No, indeed! You are the fearless heroine of a romance, a comedy of errors. I only fear that I must don a lady's gown to keep pace with your adventures, madam.”

Francesco, Leandro, and Olivia now entered the garden. Handing Enrico to Tabby, Aemilia searched for the words to explain herself. Olivia, as regal as an empress, held her by the shoulders and kissed both her cheeks.

“Jacopo told us everything. It's too perilous to travel as a woman and so you disguised yourself. But why should you keep up your masquerade in front of us, your family? Did you not trust us,
signora
?”

Aemilia could only stare at the lady. Why indeed? Because she loved her guise too much? Because she pined for her boots and breeches even now? Because she had longed to cling to her liberty for as long as she could? How could she possibly tell this to her kindly hostess?

“I beg your pardon for any offense,” she said. “If I appear strange to you,
signora,
it's because this has been such a long and strange journey. In faith, I can scarcely believe I've finally arrived at the Casa dal Corno, your beautiful home.”

Olivia smiled in tenderness, as though to a daughter. “
Your
home, too. Welcome home, Aemilia.”

 

N THE FOLLOWING WEEKS
, Aemilia felt strangely light, her head abuzz with the novelty of it all. A woman once more, she no longer had to lie or lower her voice, but she still felt like an impostor, an elephant in skirts, for in her time as Emilio, she had grown accustomed to taking huge strides, to laughing aloud instead of tittering behind her hand, to speaking her mind without thought of feminine modesty. Yet Jacopo's household, far from regarding her as a monstrous specimen of womanhood, appeared to believe that her many quirks could be explained away by her Englishness.

She spent hours in Jacopo's room. Francesco and Olivia moved their daughter Giulietta's virginals to the old man's chamber so that Aemilia could play for him and sing in harmony with sweet-voiced Giulietta. The entire household crowded in to listen, and Jacopo never seemed to tire of the music.