The Stargazer (21 page)

Bianca held out her hand as Ian made them acquainted under the eyes of a thousand of Venice’s leading citizens. “
Carissima
, this is Morgana da Gigio, my former mistress.”

Nothing Mora could have done would have caused as tremendous a stir as Ian’s introduction. For weeks afterward people talked about the endearing way he had addressed Bianca and its contrast with his clinical description of Mora. While the act earned him the hatred of some of her admirers, it also worked to replace his chilly, stonelike reputation with a new image of him as a romantic hero. By the night’s end, Ian had decided with despair that he preferred his old reputation, which had never subjected him to the adulation of the teams of young women who suddenly found him unbearably gallant. Bianca wanted to lean over and kiss him but knew that would be stoutly frowned upon.

Ian had won the battle of wits, and Mora knew it. Conceding defeat, she stepped aside, but not without first giving Ian one of her famous, dazzling smiles, more for its effect on the chit than for its effect on him.

It worked. No meeting could have underlined the difference between Bianca’s plain, dull self and Ian’s fascinating former mistress better. The strength that had suffused Bianca after Ian’s kiss left her all at once. Indeed, with her mud-colored eyes and curveless body, Bianca felt herself growing smaller and uglier each time she breathed. But the assembled guests pretended not to notice, treating her not only civilly but with affection as she and Ian continued their descent. She knew it was only pity that motivated their kindness, but she was grateful nonetheless. By the time they had reached the ground floor and had successfully led off the first dance without anyone commenting audibly on the likeness between her and an ungainly monster, she was feeling almost human, and certainly strong enough to begin the first of the tasks she had set herself.

Since Ian had confined her to the house, Bianca had decided to seize the opportunity the ball presented to interview all the men identified by Tullia as possible candidates for the role of Isabella’s fiance. She spotted Brunaldo Bartolini standing by a fountain with his twin sister and considered approaching the gloriously good-looking pair but was reluctant when she noticed how intimately they were talking. There were rumors that they were closer than a brother and sister should be, scarcely surprising since not many people were as handsome as they were, and though Bianca did not believe the talk, she was nevertheless wary of interrupting anything too personal. Continuing her survey, she caught sight of Lodivico Terreno and was about to approach him when a hand on her shoulder made her turn.

With his small deep-set black eyes, slicked-back hair, and whiny voice, Giulio Cresci knew he was irresistible to women and therefore did not waste any charm convincing them. “Dance with me, signorina,” he ordered rather than asked, and Bianca found herself being shuffled gracelessly about the dance floor. Under any other circumstance she would have marched away with her head high, but as he was one of the men on her list to interview, she valiantly persevered. Weaving in and out of the other dancers, they exchanged scattered words, but Bianca soon saw that she would need to organize a tête-à-tête with him to get her questions answered.

Feigning exhaustion, she allowed him to drag her toward a bench. She regretted it almost instantly, for he seemed to have a misguided idea of her intentions. She was able to put her questions to him, but his responses were something less than helpful. He addressed her only in mildly raunchy puns, which were bad enough without his curious habit of repeating the punch lines to himself and thus making it impossible for Bianca to feign polite misunderstanding.

When she asked him if he had houses in the country, he smiled knowingly at her and retorted, “Planning to wiggle your way out from under Ian? Wiggle out from under? Wiggle under?”

When she asked him how he felt about the Arboretti, he raised his eyebrows saying he was more interested in his own little tree, and offered her the opportunity to help make it grow, make the tree grow, make it grow big.

When she asked him if he had any interest in flowers, he asked her if she wanted him to press her petals and make her bloom, press and bloom, press and bloom. It was when he offered to demonstrate that last technique that Bianca, ungraciously, fled.

Though none of her other interviews were as taxing, they were equally inconclusive. She learned that the Franceschinos had sold their estates on Lake Como, that Lodivico Terreno had an interesting collection of medicinal plants, that Brunaldo Bartolini kept bees, and that they all professed to admire and like the Arboretti. Something about the way Brunaldo spoke Ian’s name made her suspect that there was a bit of animosity between the two men, but he rebutted all her attempts to make him admit it. At the end, she had learned nothing but that it was exhausting to interview people in the middle of a ball.

Ian’s attempts with Signora Valdone were no more informative but far more suggestive. Lucretia, as she insisted he call her, was not quite as large as her husband, nor quite as proportional. She had responded to Ian’s invitation to dance with such a profusion of lash fluttering and loud exclamations that Ian thought she might be collapsing in a fit, but it soon became clear that for her such behavior was normal. It became equally clear that she had no interest in her husband’s amorous exploits because she was much too busy carrying out her own. When she propositioned Ian the first time, he was slightly surprised, but by her third unsubtle hint, this time accompanied by gestures, he was inured to it. He was able to untangle himself only when one of his serving youths succeeded him in her attentions, and he made a mental note to give the young man a bonus, should he ever see him alive again.

The night slid festively on, the guests and the peacocks eating, drinking, and dancing to satiety. Making a wrong turn, Bianca had stumbled over Ian’s cousin Sebastian giving Cecilia Priuli an extended lesson about palm reading in a secluded alcove. Bianca’s retreat was checked by her cousin Analinda, who, having received two compliments from Crispin, hugged Bianca close at the assured prospect of their soon living under the same roof again. Tristan seemed to be making equally good progress with Catarina Nonte, even under the sulky eyes of her overprotective brother, Aemilio. It was while watching them that Bianca’s mind wandered to her own brother, and she began to wonder where he was, what he was doing, and if he was a murderer.

The last thought brought with it a wave of emotions that, in her exhausted state, she had difficulty controlling. Excusing herself from the group of young women who had gathered around to congratulate her on her happy match, she stealthily sneaked off to her apartment for a moment of solitary relaxation. She was just passing through from the sitting room into the bedroom when she heard the door behind her open and shut, and a female voice call her name.

“I thought I would find you in here,
carissima
.” On Mora’s lips the word had a foreign sound that both attracted and repelled
Bianca, who suddenly felt a tinge of fear. Telling herself she was being foolish, she turned and curtsied to the other woman.

Mora drew up to her and regarded her. “You look exhausted. Come, sit, let us relax together.” She led Bianca toward a divan against the side wall and sat down close to her. “You know this was my suite. Ian had Paolo Veronese paint it for me.”

Bianca nodded, not because she had known but because it made sense. It was a glorious suite of rooms, well worthy of a glorious occupant. What did not make sense, what she did not understand, was Mora’s seeking her out in this manner.

As if reading her mind, Mora smiled at her. “You are wondering why I am here. Why I am passing my time with you rather than in a crowd of my admirers. It’s obvious, actually.” She reached out and took Bianca’s hand in hers, meeting her eyes openly, candidly. “Ian asked me to find you and to instruct you in what he likes. He says he has been trying to teach you his preferences but that you are, well, a little willful.”

Bianca was too shocked to pull away. It sounded false, completely improbable, but Mora was meeting her eyes with complete candor, and no one could lie that convincingly. Having admitted her shortcomings to herself that afternoon, she had already surmised she was routinely disappointing Ian, and it should come as no surprise that he had arranged for an expert tutorial. It was actually kind of him, to give her this chance to learn, before discarding her altogether.

At least that was how Mora put it. She had spent the hours since her first glimpse of Bianca in moody meditation, trying to contrive some way of making the chit hers. Her hatred for Ian was only part of her motivation, for she found as she watched the girl move about the room, talking or dancing or laughing, that she started to desire her. Mora was not sure that an interlude between her experienced arms would completely erase the girl’s desire for Ian, but she knew her powers and that she could realistically count on them to at least dampen it. Almost by magic, the moment she hit upon the right approach the girl withdrew from her band of insipid companions and made haste for her room. Mora’s room. It was too perfect to be true.

She brought Bianca’s hand to her lips and kissed the fingers gently, all the time keeping her eyes locked on Bianca’s. Her shoulder dipped as if by accident and one of her coral nipples peeked out of her deep red gown. She smiled apologetically and slipped Bianca’s hand down to touch it, pushing Bianca’s unwitting fingers over it until it formed a hard little peak. Then she slid the hand around so Bianca was holding the whole of her large breast. “This is what Ian likes,” Mora purred, moving Bianca’s hand over her voluptuous anatomy. “Don’t you?”

Bianca felt as if she were caught in some sort of spell, unable to move or breathe, to acquiesce or to protest, somehow outside her body. Her fingertips tingled where they were touching Mora’s impossibly soft skin, and she imagined how much Ian must miss resting his head on the smooth, ample globe. She thought sadly of her own meager anatomy and how little it had to offer to him. It was clearly a disappointment to Mora, who was regarding her with a look of deep pity.

Mora had to exercise intense restraint not to reach down and cup the girl’s deliciously fresh breasts. She allowed herself only to caress Bianca’s wavy hair where it spilled onto her milky skin, to brush her fingertips over the girl’s silky soft decollete. She considered starting there, planting a kiss first at the nape of the girl’s neck, then one lower, then lower still, until the bodice of her gown was dispensed with, but realized she did not have the luxury of time because they could be interrupted at any moment. Instead, she pulled her closer and brought Bianca’s lips to hers.

The kiss—warm, yielding, sensual, and very real—had begun before Bianca realized what was happening. In a flash, her powers of reason flooded back. It was impossible that Ian had sent Mora to her, completely inconceivable, and if she allowed herself to be seduced by the remarkable woman, she would become simply another part of the pain that Ian carried around with him, another pawn in a game of revenge that she did not understand and which had gone on too long. Abruptly, she pulled away from Mora’s lips.

“I am afraid I must return to my guests. Thank you for the lesson.” Bianca turned and left the room.

All the girl’s gratitude could not counter the fact that Bianca had repudiated Mora’s advances. She, Morgana da Gigio, had sacrificed time with her admirers to offer herself as a tutor to the selfish, inexperienced chit and had gotten nothing but paltry thanks in return. Bianca had taken advantage of her, Mora realized with outrage, had let her feel her little hands on her body, let her imagine the suppleness of her touch, and then, ungrateful of the honor of Mora’s affections, had walked away from her. Mora’s only consolation was the surprise and horror that would cross Ian’s face when he learned what she had done. Perhaps it would even be enough to make him repudiate the girl. No one abused Morgana da Gigio without repercussions. The girl would get what was coming to her.

For the time being, Mora needed something to remove Bianca’s taste from her lips, the ungrateful and selfish girl’s image from her mind. She considered calling one of her admirers in to make love to her there, imaging that it would be almost as disrespectful as the seduction she had attempted earlier. The impulse was tempting, and yet somehow unappealingly crass in the room Ian had built for her. No such objections existed to her next idea, however, and she made haste to execute it.

It was not quite dawn when Bianca, Tristan, and Miles saw the last guests to their gondolas. Sebastian had left earlier with a mysterious excuse about having a meeting to go to, and no one had seen Crispin or Ian for hours. Miles, who was well embarked upon a crush on Bianca, was warmly praising her for her performance that evening and running over the litany of flattering comments people had made about her. But she was too preoccupied to hear what he said, or even to smile as Tristan rallied her on her conquest of Miles. What she needed was to find Ian, to hear from him that she had not embarrassed him at the ball. When Roberto and Francesco approached to exchange further pleasantries, Bianca made an excuse and bade them all good night.

She went straight to her room, or the room she had once considered hers, but only for the sake of appearances. Without even pausing to change out of her elaborate gown, she made for the hidden passage at the far end that led directly to Ian’s bedroom and descended. She had the doorknob in her hand and was just about to burst in when she heard the voices.

They were not voices, really, so much as moans, which grew faster and louder as Bianca stood, stunned, on the threshold. Unable to move, she heard the sounds build in intensity until, suddenly, she could clearly make out words.

“Yes, yes, Morgana; oh, yes, Mora, Mora, Mora,” a deep male voice was shouting over and over in a fever pitch of ecstasy.

Like all the walls in the palace, this was no ordinary wall. As Bianca stood, trying to regain her equilibrium after the impact, the wall grew first arms, then a voice, then a second voice.

It was the second voice that spoke. “Is it always like this for you, d’Aosto, as soon as you speak a woman’s name, she comes flying into your arms?”

“One of nature’s few gifts to me.” Ian tried to keep his voice light to match the tone of his interlocutor, but one look at Bianca’s face told him that something was desperately wrong. He wrapped his arms tighter around her stiff figure as he introduced his companion. “
Carissima
, I believe you know the Duca d’Aquila. He was just asking me about your anatomical work.”

Bianca had met Alessandro Cornaro, Duca dAquila, at one of her first balls and had found him more than typically diverting, but just at the moment she was too perplexed to take advantage of his conversational skills. Her body told her that she was standing in the safe circle of Ian’s arms, but her mind knew that was impossible. How could Ian be here with her when he was three stories below in bed with his no-longer-former mistress?

“Thank you for the tour of your laboratory, d’Aosto,” Alessandro was saying when Bianca came out of her reverie. “It is a splendid space. When I return from my next voyage, you will have to come out to my estate with me to look at the ruins of the Roman observatory. I would love to hear your opinion of them. And of course, yours too, signorina.”

“You have been in the laboratories?” was Bianca’s none too genteel interjection.

“Yes, d’Aquila shares my, or rather,
our
interest in stargazing.” Ian felt her body relax against him as he spoke. He looked down at her, trying to read the confused emotions in her eyes, and she returned his look with what he supposed was supposed to be a smile. It wasn’t.

Alessandro felt a pang of envy as he watched the intimate exchange of glances between the couple. They looked as if they shared a world apart, a magical space all their own, and were eager to get back to it. He was too much of a gentleman to linger when it was painfully obvious that they wanted to be alone, so he politely took his leave, telling them not to bother escorting him out. While descending, he berated himself for not having pursued Bianca with more vigor during her first months in Venice, then reminded himself he would never have had a chance against the Conte d’Aosto.

Only when they were finally alone did Ian loosen his grip on Bianca.

“You were in the laboratories with the Duca d’Aquila?” Bianca repeated.

“Why do you keep asking me that?” Ian’s confusion sounded like annoyance, and Bianca pulled away from him. She wanted to be able to see his face clearly when she asked the next question.

“You were not with Mora? In your room? In your bed?”

Now Ian really was angry. “Did she tell you that?”

He had not denied it. Bianca struggled to keep her voice even. “No. I heard you. Through the door.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Ian was moving with grim determination, descending the stairs at a rapid pace. Bianca was torn between continuing on her way to the laboratories to throw herself into the canal, as planned, or following Ian. Her feet made the decision for her, and she was already tripping down the stairs behind him when her mind hit upon the rationalization that the canal would still be there in another hour.

The smell struck him even before the sight, the seductive, singular scent of Mora. He could feel her there, feel her suffusing the room with her presence. A black silk stocking lay abandoned on the velvet divan, the silk coverings of the bed had been carelessly thrown aside, and the sheets still showed the impression of two bodies caught in a passionate tussle. But the room was empty, the bodies gone. She had defiled his room, purposely, blatantly, filling it with the smells and signs of her body, and then left. Ian was seized with a deadly rage.

The signs were unmistakable, but Bianca felt suddenly clearheaded. “You do not need to explain, my lord, nor deny it. I understand why you would be drawn to her. I felt her attractions myself. I am just going to go up to the roof—”

Bianca stopped speaking because Ian had grabbed her and was looking at her with eyes filled with dark emotion. “Stop it!” he commanded in a voice that left no room for disobedience. “It was not me, not with her, not ever again. You must believe that.”

Bianca had never wanted to believe anything so much in her entire life. “I do, my lord,” she assured him, hoping to banish the hunted look from his face. When Ian relaxed his hold on her arms, she swallowed deeply and then asked the question whose answer she was afraid to know. “Did you send her to me to tutor me? To teach me to make love the way you like?”

Ian was aghast. The idea that Bianca had anything to learn from anyone about lovemaking was so ludicrous he almost wanted to laugh. But the way she seemed to be holding her breath for the answer told him this was no joke to her. “Of course not! Who told you that? Actually, there is no need—undoubtedly it was Mora herself.” Ian looked away so she would not see the deep anger in his eyes and misunderstand its object, but a noise brought his attention back to her. “What are you doing?” Bianca had burst into tears.

“Oh,
madonna
. She hurt you, didn’t she? I will kill her. What did she do to you? Tell me, Bianca, damn it, what did she do?” Ian’s voice was rapier sharp with rage.

Bianca shook her head and tried to stop her tears of relief. When she spoke, it was between little gasps of air. “No—no—nothing. She didn’t do anything except kiss me. But I was so worried, I was so worried that you had sent her like she said, that I displeased you, that you were dis-dis-disgusted with me—”

Bianca was again silenced by Ian grabbing her, but this time it was to hug her close to his chest. He would protect her, he vowed, he would show her how completely undisgusting he found her. He gathered her against him and held her there with all his strength. She thought she felt him shaking, but it could merely have been the trembling of her own body.

Without speaking, they moved to the bed. Ian helped Bianca undress but refused to let her remove the massive stone that still hung between her breasts. When they were both nude, they climbed into the russet bed and reclaimed it as their own, making slow, deep love. Afterward, they spoke of their experiences at the ball, cuddling close together like a blissful couple long accustomed to intense intimacy. The mood was spoiled only when Bianca described her conversation with Giulio Cresci and Ian stood to challenge the man to a duel, but with a few well-placed kisses Bianca persuaded him to lavish his heated attention on her instead. As the embers in the fireplace died out, they fell asleep entwined tightly together, listening to the light rain on the windowpanes.

Something heavy fell on Bianca’s nose, waking her, but if it hadn’t, she would have awoken a moment later when the shouting started. It was indistinct, more noise than words, but it was unquestionably coming from the man next to her, the man whose arm was presently hindering her breathing.

“Ian,” she said, first softly, then again more insistently, but not loud enough to be heard over the shouting. She wriggled out from under his arm and moved to shake him, but as soon as she touched him, he pushed her away and off the bed.

“
Ian!
” she shouted, righting herself, gripping his shoulders and shaking him as hard as she could. “Santa Beatrice’s scars, Ian, wake up!”

Ian sat up, panting, and looked around him disorientedly. He looked down at the hands still holding his shoulders, then up at the woman standing over him before he remembered where he was and understood what had happened. The nightmare had been different this time, more realistic and more intense than ever before. It was all Mora’s fault, suffusing his room with her smell and her presence, bringing back the memories and the pain of that time with unmatched clarity. He shuddered as Bianca climbed back into the bed next to him, putting her arms around him and resting his head on her chest.

It felt nice lying with her like that, and Ian relaxed enough to catch his breath. She stroked his hair soothingly with one hand, her fingers lightly massaging his scalp. When his breathing had slowed to normal, she spoke.

“Why don’t you tell me about the nightmare?”

He went rigid again and tried to pull away from her, but she held fast. She wanted so desperately to understand him, to know what had made him so impossibly hard, to see into his secrets, and to help him heal his wounds. After the torturous moments of self-doubt she had experienced that night, she was not going to let him pull away from her again. “You have to tell someone. If you keep them to yourself, they will never go away.”

Rain streaked the windows and the silence stretched. Bianca’s arms stayed around Ian, protective and warm, and his head stayed on her breast. Its softness was wonderfully alluring, and as he moved his cheek back and forth against it, he felt himself becoming aroused. He would make love to her, he decided, and then they would sleep and then she would stop pestering him with questions. He was vaguely aware that he was doing something wrong, but decided to ignore the feeling, to lose himself in the delicious woman next to him. He took her hand from his shoulders and moved it down his torso toward his already growing shaft. At the same time he rotated his body so he was on top of her.

“Make love to me,
carissima
. Take me into you,” he whispered in a voice that promised pleasure, a voice he knew she could not resist.

“No.” She shook her head and met his hooded eyes. “Not until after you have told me about your nightmare. I want to know what pains you so much. I want to help you stop it.”

She was unprepared for Ian’s demonic laugh when it came. Still over her, he pulled himself up on his elbows to laugh at her. The laugh was anything but mirthful, and the expression on his face sent a chill through Bianca’s body. Ian laughed and laughed. She wouldn’t make love to him until he told her his nightmare, she claimed, but he knew she wouldn’t make love to him afterward. Afterward she would not want to touch him; she would leave him, as fast as she could. And that was what made Ian laugh the hardest, because, of course, she was trapped, she was his prisoner, a criminal or his betrothed, either way she could not leave. She would have to stay, and he would make love to her, watch her cringe away from him, feel her pull back from his odious touch, know that she found him hideous, horrible, disgusting. All of Mora’s predictions would come true. Bianca had once said she hated him, but that was nothing compared to the complete revulsion she would soon feel.

Ian continued to laugh, even when Bianca called his name, even when she tried to push him away. He would give her a reason to hate him, and then he would not have to explain. She wanted to know him better, be closer to him. Fine, then he would help her to see him as he saw himself.

“You will make love to me. Now.” It was a command, issued in a voice she did not recognize. “It will be better this way, easier for you to hate me. Believe me,
carissima
, it is better this way.”

As he spoke, Ian reached down and tried to pull her legs, clamped shut, apart. Her effort to push him away seemed to work, but only long enough for him to get his arms up over hers, to pin her hands above her head. This time he shoved his knee between her legs, managing to spread them as she writhed under him. He held both her hands in one of his and used the other first to roughly fondle her breasts, then to guide himself into her. He saw her face fill with fear but closed his eyes before he saw the loathing that he knew would follow it. She kicked against him, screaming, fighting, as the full horror of his sudden madness swept over her.

“No! No, Ian, no!” He kept his eyes closed as he struggled to subdue her and enter her. “It won’t work, Ian, it will not work. You cannot make me despise you!”

Her words brought a grim smile to his lips, and he opened his eyes. “Make you? I thought you already did. You told me so yourself, in this room only days ago.”

“I was wrong. My feelings had been hurt and I spoke rashly,” Bianca apologized.

Ian, or the man who was once Ian, grunted. “I will hurt more than your feelings this time,
carissima
.”

Now feverish to be inside her, he redoubled his efforts to rip through her defenses and plow himself into her. But she fought back just as hard, kicking with the full force of her strength.

“Call me a bastard,” Ian whispered in her ear, squeezing her wrists tighter and tighter as she refused to speak. “Tell me that I am a coward. Call me a rapist.”

“No,” she repeated over and over, “no, no, no,” her last defense against the pain in her wrists.

“Tell me you hate me.” Ian’s face was only a hair’s breadth from hers. “Say it, damn you, say it!”

Bianca shook her head and spoke in a new voice, a voice that was calm and quiet. “It is no good, my lord. I won’t. This is not the right way, to run and hide, pushing away the people who try to care about you. You may hurt me, my lord, you may violate my body, you may pollute my womb, though I don’t believe you will. But you cannot make me defile my mind or my mouth with statements which are untrue. I will not be stopped so easily.”

It was her voice as much as her words that broke through Ian’s dementia. His face contorted with pain, and he collapsed on top of her, suddenly without strength. Bianca, too, felt spent but at the same time euphoric. She had saved both of them from a violation that would have scarred them each forever. She had penetrated Ian’s defenses, fought her way inside the stony fortress he had erected around his emotions. Nothing could be the same between them again, but she dared to hope it might be better.

As soon as his hand slipped from her wrists, Bianca brought her arms around Ian and held him as he lay on top of her. There was no question this time that he was trembling. He was mortified and horrified, shattered by the violence he had almost perpetrated on Bianca’s body. He did not know what had happened to him, what demon had taken over his mind. Or rather, he knew too well. He felt as if he had made the nightmare true, acting out each of the hateful labels that Mora had assigned him. Reflecting on his loss of control and the horrible cruelty he had almost committed against Bianca brought with it a wave of nausea and self-disgust so acute that he could scarcely bear to be in his body.