SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Fifty-One
The following day, a knock on the apartment door startled me. I was alone; Duccio had gone out hours earlier. It wasn’t a palace servant—I’d already asked for solitude after they forced me from bed to assist with my dressing. It was the last thing I wanted, up and costumed like a gentleman when I only wanted to lie in bed.
“Esprit?”
Guccia’s voice came from outside, drawing me to my feet. I smoothed my hair and appearance without thought and opened the door.
Again, she dressed almost magisterially in a pale cream-colored satin that lit up her eyes.
“Your uncle said you aren’t well.”
Duccio had left me in the apartment last night to join the Prince’s welcome party. He hadn’t bothered to ask me to come. There was no need—he’d ensured I was in no state to attend.
“Just a cold.”
Guccia closed the door behind her and reached her hand to my forehead.
“You don’t feel warm, but indeed, you don’t look very well,” she said, her eyes distressed.
“I’m afraid yesterday was too much for me.”
“A young man like yourself? Surely not. Maybe you’ve caught an autumn cold. When the weather breaks, this sometimes happens, even to us.”
I didn’t answer. I found I hadn’t any more energy to devote to my deception.
Once Duccio left for their party, I’d cried for most of the night. When he returned, drunk and spent, he’d found me curled in a ball in a corner. He’d kneeled to run his hand through my hair, imploring me to forgive him for being “too rough.” I gave him no answer and allowed myself to feel none of his warmth. He gathered me and took me to his bed. He lay down beside me when undressed and drew me into his arms.
I’m sorry, my love, his mind said again and again as he cradled me. Moments later, I pulled away and moved to the other bedroom when he drifted away. I never fell asleep—it hurt too much. I don’t mean my body, though his callous exertions had all but injured me. The throbbing soreness was a cruel reminder of his assault, even after it subsided to a dull ache by dawn.
What I mean is that Duccio had broken my heart. Every bit of trust I’d once born for him died in those moments, and the hollowness was worse than anything I’d known. Even in Chastain’s dungeon, terrified beyond measure, I’d felt the dimmest light of hope that Maximillian and Gabrielle would find and save me. But now I felt entirely alone.
As I tried to keep my composure now, I realized I couldn’t stop myself from trembling.
Guccia saw my suffering, both with her eyes and mind. I felt her deep concern as she drew me to the sofa and bid me to sit. It was the same sofa over which Duccio had raped me, and for a moment, I closed my eyes to gather myself.
And then Guccia saw the truth. Whether she saw the full truth, she rose from her seat and walked to the window for a spell.
“Forgive me, my lady,” I managed. “I don’t mean to burden you with my troubles.”
At the sound of my voice, her mind returned as if from a daze, and she moved back to her place on the sofa beside me and took my hand.
“No, it is I who must apologize,” she whispered. “I was blind to the whole. I realized who you were, of course. It’s part of the reason I warmed to you so. But I hadn’t fathomed that he—
The apartment door opened, and I looked to see Duccio walk in, appearing surprised to find Guccia seated beside me. He carried what appeared to be a leather-bound case to hold a viol in his hand. I surmised it was a gift for me.
“Have I forgotten the time?” Duccio entered with hesitation, closing the apartment door behind him to approach us both.
“Not at all, my dear,” Guccia smiled, lifting her small hand so he might kiss it. “I was just telling your nephew how I need him to escort me today. I realize you’ll have your opinions, of course. But since you’ll be making all the decisions once we’re married, and you’ve already decided upon our home in Como, I’d like to select our Venetian house.”
Duccio stared at her, his handsome face ever the gentlemen, and nodded, “Of course, Princess. It’s your city. I know you’ll make the perfect choice without a foreigner’s help. It’s only that my nephew has not been well—
“Oh, but he just told me his stomach has returned after a proper night’s rest. I think some sun and fresh air will do him a world of good. I promise to keep him for only a couple of hours.”
Without waiting for a response from Duccio, she rose from her seat and reached for my hand.
“Come, my dear. We’ve just enough time to finish before we’re too late for lunch.”
I didn’t answer her or meet Duccio’s eyes for acknowledgment. Instead, I allowed Guccia to command me, rising from my seat to gather my hat and sword near the door. I followed her silently through the Doge’s Palace until I found myself outside in the light of day and boarding her gondola.
The princess only broke the silence of our ride once to point out her home, the Palazzo Adelchi, near where the Grand Canal opened on the corner of Rio dell’Orso beside the Ponte dell’Accademia bridge. It was a handsome structure, some three tall stories high, with an elegant Moorish facade of cream arches beset by walls of burned caramel. It was large enough to stand out even among the other impressive palaces along the majestic central artery of the city.
But I only appraised it for longer than a moment because I was meant to have visited it last night. Adelchi would’ve received Duccio and me at a lavish welcome party in our honor. I didn’t hear whatever she might have said about the house. Instead, I sat in a daze, my mind broken, watching the many homes along the canal drift past us. Venice still felt unreal to me, like I was lost at sea, and this apparition of beauty had taken control of my mind to hide how we were truly in Hell.
In time, we docked before another large home a few doors before the Rialto bridge. It towered over us with ionic and Corinthian semi-columns that reminded me of Rome. Lion heads stared down along the cornice to welcome or warn me, their ferocious faces carved from the same white stone that covered the entire facade.
Istrian limestone, she said to me as if it were an important distinction.
I rose to my feet when I noticed Guccia was already on the dock waiting for me to follow.
Unlike most homes on the canal, the facade pushed past the sidewalk to its front dock, forcing pedestrians to stroll through an open tunnel under the upper floors. Even more unique, no front door was waiting for us to enter.
On the side street, she said. It’s more private.
We walked a few feet around the northern side of the building, and I saw just how massive it was. It reached back from the canal to such a length that I realized its impressive front facade was the structure’s smallest part.
A servant opened the main entry door as if expecting us, and I followed Guccia through the double entry into the main parlor.
“You may remain here,” she told her guards, who nodded in agreement.
Doors open to the unexpected vista of an interior courtyard. Through the windows, I saw a small garden of fig and lemon trees rose from large stone planters, and delicate blooms rose from a sea of brightly painted terracotta pots. It was an inviting bit of the mainland hidden within this fortress that I wanted to slip into, but Guccia had other aims.
Taking me by the arm, she led us up the main staircase to stroll through the house one room at a time. To my surprise, she knew the house like she’d grown up here. She described the paintings on the wall, highlighting the artists’ intentions to such detail that I presumed she’d taken a hand in commissioning their work. When we came to a third-floor parlor, she stopped as if done with the tour and withdrew her arm from mine.
“This was my brother’s house,” Guccia said, her voice defaulting from its even curator’s pitch to express a sentiment I didn’t expect.
She turned to the glass doors that opened to a narrow balcony overlooking the stretch of the Grand Canal. A stone balustrade guarded us against the perilous fall but did little to ease my sudden fear.
“My family doesn’t expect I’d ever want to live here. It’s awash with painful memories of him and his family, of their cruel murders at the hand of Father’s enemies, and so they expect me to select anywhere else to reside. But this is the only place I could ever feel at home, and we won’t be going to visit anywhere else today.”
Guccia turned her face to look me in the eye.
“So, we have plenty of time for you to explain who you really are and what you’re doing here with him.”
It was a blunt statement that caught me off guard. Despite her earnest voice, the look in her eye was anything but uncompassionate, and I returned to the sitting room.
“You know who I am,” I said, waiting until she nodded to a settee so that I might sit.
“So you’re not an imposter, then?”
I sent her images of my life. Quick flashes of my boyhood, its simplicity, of playing in the streets with the men of the troop, and of singing with Uncle Guillaume. I showed her the Roussades. Maximillian’s loving words on the night of my transformation and the sight of the dazzling moon that took me—little bits of everything so that she might see I was precisely who I said I was.
At the image of Gabrielle, Guccia gave a deep sigh as if she hadn’t believed my story until that moment. Perhaps the sight of a young woman, so girlish and intimate as she stroked my hair in bed, changed all her presumptions? Perhaps her expectations of the Fire Witch crumbled under the truth of my lycan mother’s sweet face and affectionate whispers of love.
“But then, how did you come to this?”
Guccia stopped as if she resented her slip of the tongue. My family was dead, she remembered, though even that explanation didn’t satisfy her.
“I mean, your present suffering. How is it you are in such pain this very moment?”
“I was unprepared for this place… for what he would do…” I struggled to say more, the last of my self-discipline failing me. I would weep again if I didn’t silence myself.
“What, Esprit? What has he done?” Guccia took my hand, her impatience suffused with a girlish concern, so very much like the image of Gabrielle that swam in my mind on account of her prodding.
“He chose to marry you,” I said.