The Visitant: A Venetian Ghost Story (18 page)

Samuel buried his face in his hands. “We’ll return to New York tomorrow. Pack your things. Perhaps I can convince Nero to come along. To keep you safe.”

Yes
, I thought, and then
no
. What I’d seen in Samuel’s eyes nagged at me. It had been so strange. Not like any madness I’d seen before. “I brought you back, Samuel. You’re here. We agreed. We don’t have to leave yet.”

He looked up. “All I had to do was lean out too far over the railing.” His voice lowered; he spoke as if in a trance. “To dream, to sleep, all mistakes forgotten . . .”

I froze at the echo of my own thoughts.
Not just mine.
Laura Basilio too had felt such temptation. Had surrendered to it.

“Nothing to redeem, nothing to remake,” he went on. “Only peace.”

I did not believe in ghosts. Damn Madame Basilio for even suggesting it.
I do not believe.
But I heard myself ask, “Samuel, did you see your angel?”

He frowned as if trying to remember.

“Just now, when you were . . . kissing me and then . . . did you see her? What do you remember?”

“I wanted you, that’s what I remember. I was—
am
—mad for you.” A bleak look.

I ignored the tiny thrill I felt, wrapped as it was in regret and a wish not to disappoint. “And then?”

“And then . . . yes, the light. Her. I felt this rush and . . . I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to kill you. Then everything went dark. I didn’t come to myself again until you stabbed me.” He looked down ruefully at his chest. “Well done, by the way. It hurts like the devil.”

“Not like a petit mal.”

“No, nothing like.”

I grabbed my medicine case and moved closer, reaching to unbutton his shirt. Samuel jerked back, paling, raising his hands. “Don’t.”

I rolled my eyes and pushed past his hands, feeling the warmth of him beneath my knuckles as I unbuttoned. A long cut, crossing browning bruises, stretching from below his nipple, slashing diagonally across his ribs. I cleaned it, ignoring the harsh jag of his breath.

“Tell me about this rush you felt,” I said, wrapping the bandages around him.

He hesitated. “It was like morphine when it’s injected. Like a surge in the blood, I suppose, but one you don’t cause or control.”

I finished tying the bandages and sat back. It all battered about in my head, things locking together now, beginning to make a sense I did not want to contemplate. Laura Basilio’s favorite song and her handkerchiefs flying. Samuel lunging for the balcony and Laura’s suicide and Madame Basilio’s belief that her daughter’s spirit had returned to deliver a message. Demons. Angels. Ghosts. In New York, I never would have countenanced any of this. But here, in Venice, everything seemed possible.

The preternatural cold. Her scent. My sense of being watched and the shrouded figure. That consciousness I’d seen in Samuel’s eyes that wasn’t his own, but wasn’t emptiness either. Hatred and jealousy. Not his, but someone else’s.

Laura’s?

Ridiculous. Impossible. Madness even to think it, wasn’t it?

“Why are you asking these things?” Samuel asked. “What are you thinking, Elena?”

“I don’t know.” I put the bandages back in the case and closed it. “Not yet. But I think it’s time I asked some questions.”

Chapter 23

I was a rational being. I’d never believed in ghosts. But I had no other way of explaining the things I’d seen here, and my questions and rationalizations snarled into an impenetrable knot. I was afraid to leave Samuel alone now, so I did what he asked and sedated him. The morphine had become a blessing; when I left him, he was safe in bed and sleeping, and I went in search of Nero.

There was no answer when I knocked on the door. Zuan was in the courtyard below, cleaning out a barrel, puddles of murky water about his feet and the sleeves of his coat dark with wet. When I called to him about Nero, he jerked his head to the kitchen. “There, mamzelle.”

I hesitated. The chances that Giulia would be there too were high, and I had no wish to speak with her or to interrupt whatever they were about. I had no right to feel jealous over that either, I reminded myself. What mattered now was Samuel.

But thankfully, when I went into the kitchen, I saw no sign of Giulia. Only Nero, lounging on the bench, drinking wine and idly mangling a piece of bread into a pile of crumbs. He looked louche and lazy and lovely, those tousled curls, the coat over his shirtsleeves, no collar or vest or tie. When I entered, I said, “There you are,” but I got no welcoming smile from him.

He frowned. “What’s that on your throat?”

I tried to cover the forming bruises with my hand, wondering how bad they were. “Isn’t it a bit early in the day for drinking?”

“I told you before, in Venice it’s never too early. What happened? What are those red marks?”

“They’re nothing. I need to talk to you about your cousin.”

His hand tightened on the glass. “I’ve no wish to talk of Laura.”

“I think you need to. I know this will sound bizarre. I don’t know if I believe it myself, but I can’t quite discount what your aunt says about her ghost.”

I expected laughter. Outright disbelief. Even scorn. Instead, he rose from the bench in a fluid motion and grabbed the pitcher of wine, the glass. “We can’t talk here. Anyone could come in.”

“Wherever you say,” I told him.

“The cupola. No one will find us there.”

I nodded and followed him out, neither of us speaking until we’d gone up the stairs and skirted the tiles of the roof, wet with mist, and slippery. Once we were inside, door safely closed, he poured wine into the glass and turned to me. His gaze went directly to my throat. When I made to cover it, he brushed my hand away, his expression one of horror and fear—for me, I realized gladly. “
Santa Maria
. He tried to strangle you.”

“He wasn’t himself. And I’m perfectly fine. I used your knife. He’s asleep now. I sedated him.” I took a breath, then, “I’ve promised to stay.”

“Elena, don’t be a fool.”

“He’s not himself,” I said again. “He says an angel tells him to do things.”

A flicker in his eyes. Terror, I thought, and something else, a dawning awareness that told me he was going to believe me. But he shook his head. “An angel? Do you hear yourself?”

“He sees a man putting a pistol to his head. A drunk woman falling. I think they must be visions of your parents’ deaths, but I don’t know. Is that what happened? Is that how they died?”

Nero frowned. “Yes, but—”

“Did he know any of it? What did you tell him about them?”

“I don’t talk about them as a rule.”

I gripped his arm hard. The wine splashed in his glass with the force of my movement. “Try to remember. Did you tell him any of it?”

He pulled away. “He knew they were dead, but I never told him the details. I never tell anyone. It tends to cast a pall, and what does any of it matter?”

“You’re certain?”

“I don’t know how he would know.” He gulped the wine.

“He says he sees Laura. He sees them dragging her from the canal—”

“Please.” A wince, a lifted hand to quiet me. “I understand.”

“The handkerchiefs, things moving . . . He tried to hurt me because she told him to. Because she’s jealous.”

“Jealous?” he asked sharply.

“I don’t know what else it could be. I don’t know what any of this could be.”

He paused as if he didn’t want to speak the next words. “Madness, perhaps?”

“Before you didn’t think it was.”

He met my gaze. “I know. I didn’t want to believe it. But a ghost? Tell me the truth now, Elena: That medicine you give Samuel, what is it really for? There’s no remedy for debauchery that I know, and I’ve never heard of cold baths being a cure for it either. You said such treatments helped him before, but if you mean he became sober and changed his habits, I assure you that has never been the case in the years I have known him. And that rich man with the weakness for opium, the one you stole for . . . What kind of doctor is your father?”

There was no way around it. I needed him to understand completely. I needed his help. “He’s an asylum superintendent.”

Nero nodded as if he’d suspected it. “So Samuel has a history of madness. He was in that asylum.”

“Yes, but not for madness.”

“Why else would he be there?”

“I couldn’t tell you this before. No one’s meant to know.”

“Know what?” Nero asked warily.

“Samuel is an epileptic.”

Nero went still. I felt things dropping into place for him, questions he’d perhaps had about his friend, things that had not made sense before.

“I see.”

“His parents have kept it a secret his entire life. They’re desperate that no one know. Samuel
can’t
tell people. The things they would think . . .”

“Of course. Of course.”

He was so quiet. I wondered if he thought it a betrayal. I might think it so, had I a friend I’d known most of my life, whose greatest secret had never been told to me.

“I’m to stabilize his seizures,” I explained. “That’s what the medicine is for. And the baths. His fiancée isn’t to know until after the wedding. They’re afraid she would refuse to marry him.”

Nero made a sound, a small laugh, a rush of breath. He stared into his wine. His voice was low when he said, “Too many secrets.”

“I don’t disagree.”

“I wonder if everyone has something too terrible to admit to the world,” he mused, running his finger around the rim of his glass. He spoke as if to himself. “I loved Laura. I thought she felt the same. And I was so
certain
of her.”

I tried to ignore the tightness in my chest.
You have no business feeling this.

He went on, “We ran around like wild things when we were young. She was my first kiss. We were ten and playing at being husband and wife. It was only a quick buss. Even though we were betrothed, anything more was discouraged. Rather fiercely”—a half smile—“in fact, my father beat me once when he caught me trying to kiss her in the
portego
. She was
not for trifling with
. His words exactly. ‘A wife is a sacred duty, son, and that she is family makes her doubly so.’ And so I was good. Very much the courteous cavalier. No more kisses except on the hand. When I went away to school, I sent her letters full of admiration and regard. I did not let myself speak of passion or desire. I sent her gifts, all carefully chosen so as not to offend. Perhaps I took my father’s words too seriously.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“I spoke of our future life together, but not of love. I didn’t try to woo her—she was already won, wasn’t she, and I thought she felt as safe and happy in that as did I. But I should have known. I
did
know. It wasn’t as if I were chaste in those years.
Santa Maria
, I’m no monk. I have spent a hundred thousand pretty words and gestures on women I wanted for nothing more than a moment’s pleasure, but Laura, who was meant to share all my pleasures . . . I did not think that she might want the same.”

I heard his disappointment and regret.

Nero let out his breath in a long hiss. “I was not ready to settle, and so I put off our marriage. One year, two . . . there was no money and I didn’t want to think of what I must do to support a wife. All this noble waiting, and for what? What did I intend? I thought I was looking for a way for us to live, but I was only playing. I thought she would wait, but in that I misjudged her. No, I did not speak to Laura of love, and so she looked for someone who would. She found it in the son of another Golden Book family, whose name is as old as our own. Impoverished, just as we are. Filippo Polani. No money and no skills beyond writing poetry, which apparently he did extraordinarily well.” A harsh laugh. “I’ve read some of his poems to my betrothed. They’re quite beautiful. And passionate. She must have blushed to the tips of her toes. Ah well, what can I say? She fell in love with him. It went on for months before Aunt Valeria discovered it and put an end to it. She forbade Laura to break our betrothal. It would have dishonored my aunt, you see, for the world to see her own daughter so disobedient. Had Polani been rich, it might have gone differently, but he was not.”

His expression was miserable. “Laura wrote to tell me she no longer wished to marry me. She expected Polani to fight for her. That is one reason my aunt is angry with me. Perhaps the biggest one. Because I did not try to win Laura back after her betrayal.”

“Why didn’t you?” I asked quietly.

“Imagine, if you will, that you have spent a lifetime watching everything that belongs to you fall away. Bit by bit. Piece by piece. There is nothing you can do but cling to the one thing you do have. That one thing becomes your anchor. A tether from your heart to heaven. Then it is snatched away. And the truth was that I was angry with her too. I didn’t want to see her. I did not want to admit to myself that she had not felt our bond as I had. I loved her deeply, and I thought she felt the same. To give to him what was mine by rights . . . I was hurt, and jealous, and angry. I did not want to forgive her.”

“So you lost her.”

“More completely than I expected,” he acknowledged.

“Do you forgive her now?”

He shrugged, a gesture of helplessness, remorse, sorrow. “How can I not? The question, cara, is, does she forgive me?”

“You said she wanted you not to mourn, but to move on,” I reminded him.

“That’s just what I tell myself. Who knows if it’s true?”

“I think we must all tell ourselves something, mustn’t we? Else how would we live with our regrets?”

His gaze was puzzled, admiring, searching. I felt the deep, reaching tug of it. He said, “How is it that you have the power to draw my secrets from me?”

“Perhaps it’s only that no one else listened.”

He set the empty wineglass on the little table, along with the pitcher of wine. Such deliberate movements. “Do you listen to Samuel this way?”

I didn’t allow myself to hope it was jealousy I heard. “I suppose. I think when burdens are shared they are easier to carry.”

“Like a modern-day sin-eater,” he said thoughtfully. “I wonder if it could be enough.”

I frowned. “Enough? For what?”

He stepped closer, reaching out to touch the marks on my throat, the gentlest of touches, a flutter I barely felt, but my heart set up a frantic beat. I felt as if I surged to his touch, though I was frozen in place. “To save me,” he whispered, the words breathed more than spoken.

I hardly knew how it happened. I was not aware of moving. We met each other openmouthed, hungry, overwhelmed. I threaded my fingers through his hair, keeping him there, tugging on his curls when I thought he would pull away, and he made a small cry of pain and then laughed into my mouth, his hands tightening, jerking me close, anchoring me against him. I felt his need; my own was like drowning, my bones liquid, everything in me urging him on. It was only a kiss, but it felt like more; it felt like I’d been ravaged, flayed alive, images from Samuel’s book playing through my head, and I wanted it all. I wanted Nero to do each of those things to me, but I had no words for it, none that I could say, and when he finally did break away, breathing as hard as I was, his dark eyes black, I felt I might become the ache that had lodged inside me, just one big bruise of longing. I could not bear to let him go.

He was smiling; he brushed my lips again with his own. I grabbed at him, but he did not let me keep him. His fingers were at my jaw, a gentle stroke. “We could do this right here,” he whispered to me. “But it’s all windows.”

“I don’t care,” I said.

“I think you would, when the priests at the dell’ Orto began giving you lecherous looks.”

“How would I know it? I don’t go to church.” I put my hand on his chest, wishing to touch his skin, wishing I could bring myself just to unbutton his shirt, taking control like the women in that wretched novel, but I was too aware of myself, of everything I didn’t know. As much as I wanted it, I was afraid.

“Heathen,” he whispered, kissing the forming bruises on my throat, and the image came into my head of Samuel doing the same thing, that same kiss. “Your heart is racing.
Corexin de conejo.
”

I stiffened. Those words. Just what Samuel had said. But then, they were friends. They spent so much time together. They’d shared women—not a comfortable thought—and it made sense that they might say the same things. “What does that mean?”

“Little rabbit heart,” he whispered against my skin.

I was disconcerted, though I shook it away. I did not want to be disconcerted. I wanted to keep feeling that urgency in my blood, that singing yearning.

He must have felt my hesitation, because he raised his head, a light frown in his eyes. Before he could ask, I forced myself to be bold; I attacked the buttons of his shirt—how clumsy I was; I could not make them work. He glanced at my hands, covered them with one of his own, stopping me. When I looked at him in question, he said, “Elena, I know you’ve never done this before. I want to be gentle with you. And I don’t want to bed you here, where all of Venice could see.”

The words sank into all my darkest, deepest places. “Then where?”

He laughed. “
Santa Maria
. So impatient.”

My face went hot. He laughed again, but more tenderly now, brushing my cheek with his fingers.

“I’m moving to your floor, as you insist upon staying. I’m not leaving you unprotected, whatever is going on with Samuel—no, I don’t want to hear your protests. It’s either that or I put you on the next train, regardless of how much I want you. Now: Shall I have Zuan bring up a bed, or will yours suffice?”