Venom (42 page)

For a second, no one said a word. The outburst had startled even Agnese into silence. Cass was sure that the servants were taking in every word.

Luca seemed suddenly to remember that there were others in the room. He passed a hand through his hair. “I apologize,” he said stiffly. “I don’t know why I got so upset.” He brushed a few crumbs from his clothing as he stood. “If you will both excuse me, I have some reading I must complete.”

Cass turned to her aunt the second Luca disappeared into the portego. “What on earth do you suppose that was about?” she asked.

“It appears that during his time in France, your fiancé developed a bit of a temper,” Agnese said mildly, as though Luca’s outburst were perfectly normal. She blotted her mouth with her napkin and signaled
a servant to bring her a second pastry. “Let’s just hope he saves some of that passion for your wedding night.”

Cass folded her napkin and put it on the table. She felt nauseated. She replayed the conversation with Luca again and again. He hadn’t even denied returning to Venice early. It was true—he’d been in town for at least a week, maybe more. Why had he lied to her? She thought of how she had seen, for just one second, his face contorted with rage as he warned her to be more careful. It was a side of Luca she had never seen—almost as though for just one second, he had slipped on a mask.

Or perhaps he had slipped out of a mask. Maybe, in that moment, he had let drop the image of the ever-composed, always righteous Luca.

It was more than just jealousy or overprotectiveness. Luca was hiding something. Cass was certain of it.

L
uca remained holed up in his quarters after supper. Cass retreated to her own room and readied herself for bed. After Narissa helped her from her dress, Cass slipped into a nightgown and stood in front of her mirror. She unpinned each of her braids, letting her thick auburn hair slowly untwist on its own. Cass shook her head and what remained of her braids came loose. She grabbed her hairbrush and brushed until her hair gleamed. The repetitive motion soothed her. Luca had always felt like a constant. Predictable. In the time Cass had known him, both in person and from his letters, he had never been volatile.

He had also never lied to her.

But he didn’t deny lying about his return to Venice. Had he been spying on her? Did he know about Mariabella? Did he know about Falco? Was that why he was interested in the group of boys roving the graveyards? Had he seen something? Was that why he had gotten so angry?

Cass thought again of all the times she had felt watched, both on San Domenico and deep within the city. Maybe it wasn’t her
imagination
or
Signor Dubois. Maybe it was Luca, tracking her movements? But why?

Thwack
.

A noise at the window made Cass start. Her heart fluttered in her chest. She moved slowly to the window, both hoping—and hating herself for hoping—that she might see Falco standing on the lawn below, beckoning to her. Maybe it was silly, but Cass still hoped for an explanation of what she had seen. One in which the boy she loved wasn’t wicked or depraved.

She pulled open the shutters.

A rock of disappointment settled in her stomach. It wasn’t Falco waiting on the grass below. It was Paolo.

He was holding something beneath one arm; with the other arm, he beckoned for her to come down. Fear and curiosity tugged her in different directions. Meeting him, in the dark, alone, was probably a bad idea. But what if Falco had sent him with a message?

Curiosity won out. Cass pointed toward the back door. She slipped out of her bedroom, casting a wary glance in the direction of Luca’s room. The door was closed. No light came from beneath it.

Downstairs, Cass wrapped herself in Siena’s woolen cloak and unbolted the kitchen door. Paolo and Cass stood facing each other for a moment. The tall boy made an effort to smile, but couldn’t manage it. Cass’s heart still thrummed in her chest.

“He’s not a bad person,” Paolo said abruptly. “Sometimes I think that I am, but he isn’t.” He looked away into the darkness.

“What you do…,” Cass croaked out. “What I saw…” She focused on the outline of the closest rosebush, its naked branches crooked as a witch’s fingers.

“Each man calls barbarism what is not his own practice—”

Cass finished his sentence. “For indeed, it seems we have no other test of truth and reason than the example and pattern of the opinions and customs of the country in which we live.” It was another quote from Michel de Montaigne. “Do you really think that applies in this instance?”

Paolo looked up. His dark eyes looked a little sad. “We live in the same place—you, me, Falco. But we live in very different worlds. Surely you understand that?”

Cass didn’t know what to say. Paolo went on, a little defensively, “We have reasons. It’s not for you to judge us.”

He thrust a square parcel, wrapped in rough muslin, into her arms.

“There’s a note in there,” Paolo said, gesturing at the bundle. “I’m sure he’d rather you hear from him, not me.” He bowed slightly, his inky black hair falling forward to obscure part of his face. “
Buona notte
, Signorina Cassandra.” With that, he turned away, disappearing into the darkness in just a few long strides.

Cass re-bolted the door. Her heart was still beating hard. She looked down at the wrapped square. It was about two feet by two feet and as thick as her wrist. Lighting a candle, she laid the bundle on the long wobbly table where the servants prepared food for the villa and took their own meals. She held her breath as she tugged at the coarse twine wrapped around the package.

The muslin unfolded in layers, revealing a canvas beneath. A folded scrap of parchment fluttered to the kitchen floor. Cass barely noticed it.

She was too busy staring at the painting.

There she was on the divan in Tommaso’s studio. Just a couple of
weeks had elapsed between now and then, but already it felt like years, like the dream of a different lifetime. Falco had captured her tiniest quirks on the canvas: the smattering of freckles across her cheeks, the unruly piece of hair behind her left ear that worked its way out of any arrangement. And her smile—Cass almost couldn’t believe it was real. She looked radiant, like she was experiencing true happiness for the first time.

She remembered Falco’s soft touches as he posed her, how delirious she’d been each time his fingers grazed her skin. She remembered how excited she was at being alone with him, the endless possibilities, the countless dangers. Cass wished she could dive into the painting and go back to that night where she had felt love for the first time.

But she couldn’t go back.

She touched the canvas. Liviana’s amethyst necklace hung around her neck. A deep sadness pierced her. The purple looked striking against her pale skin, but it was wrong that she had ended up with a necklace Liviana’s family had wanted her to take to heaven. That was Cass and Falco: beautiful, yet wrong.

Cass bent down to receive the parchment. She moved closer to the candle and read.

She looked again at Falco’s painting of her—for her. Even though her expression was full of joy, he’d somehow managed to catch a hint of sadness in her form. The hesitance in how she lay there, as though expecting that happiness to vanish at any moment. This must be what Falco meant when he said he had done it for the art. For the first time, Cass understood. This, this truth, was exactly what she wanted to capture in her writing.

She felt like weeping, but she wasn’t sure why. She and Falco understood each other, finally. It was the best possible outcome—the
only
possible outcome. But as she refolded a single corner of muslin over the canvas, an overwhelming sense of loss gripped her. This painting, this letter, it was Falco’s good-bye. Even if he remained in Venice, he would be gone to her. They would exist side by side, but in parallel worlds that never crossed over.

Cass couldn’t believe she had ever thought Falco might be a murderer. What he had done went against the Church, but he did have reasons. Maybe de Montaigne was right. Perhaps Cass had no right to judge what Falco was doing—what he must do—to survive. She had never known, would never know, what it was like to want for money. For anything, really, except for love. Maybe love was to be the one thing that would remain forever out of reach.

The thought was unbearable. Cass sat down at the servants’ table
and laid her head down against the rough canvas. She tried to feel each individual brushstroke through her cheek. Each stroke was a part of Falco, a tiny piece of the man she loved. She waited for the tears to come. She
willed
them to come, needed them to carry away some of her pain.

But just like at her parents’ funeral, when she needed tears the most, they stayed stubbornly, persistently out of reach. Cass sat there in the kitchen, dry eyed, until the candle burned down and darkness overtook her.