Page 32 of The Wandering Season
A few hours later the girls went to bed, and I found myself restless. I couldn’t abide another night of tossing and turning, so I abandoned my bed as soon as it became clear sleep wouldn’t come. I wandered down to the living area in search of a novel in English or even the notepad Stephanie had been using so I could attempt to “download”
all the thoughts out of my brain and onto paper in hopes it might allow me enough peace to sleep. I found the notepad and a pen and settled on the sofa.
I’d only written a few sentences when the room began to swirl. The living room morphed into a cheerless parlor as it came into focus. The modern furniture gave way to the elegant trappings of a fine country estate. It was spring now, instead of winter, and the women were dressed in featherlight silks instead of rich velvet. Giacomo, now even broader around the middle, wore a black tailcoat with matching black trousers. The effect was comically penguinesque, but there was nothing funny about the miserable little man.
“As brilliant a performance as ever I could have hoped for,”
Giacomo boomed jovially as he bounded into the parlor, unbuttoning his waistcoat to allow his bulk its freedom. “I didn’t think she had it in her.”
Donatella collapsed in an armchair on the opposite side of the room from her father, ignoring his fleeting glare of disapproval. These evenings left her drained, and I could feel the last shreds of her energy seeping into the floorboards.
“I wouldn’t doubt if Von Hügel asks for your hand within the fortnight. What a triumph, eh?”
Giacomo helped himself to some grappa from the sideboard and took his place by the roaring fire that had been tended by a maid or footman in their absence.
“She has definitely earned her retreat to the country,”
Carlotta said, her tone dry. It was a reminder of a bargain made, I was sure. I could all too clearly see Carlotta bargaining with her husband: one ball, one week in the country. Anything to keep Donatella’s nerves from fraying to their snapping point.
He grunted into his glass. “But a brief one, mind you. Von Hügel will want to see her again soon. Better to keep her fresh in his mind.”
Carlotta looked to Donatella, whose gaze was fixed nowhere in particular. She had shut herself out of the world completely after so much stimulation. “What will happen if—or more likely when—she has a spell of melancholia after she is married?”
Giacomo waved dismissively. “I’m convinced within myself that marriage is the cure for all that ails her. She’ll be so busy as a pillar of society, she won’t have a moment to think of herself. And when the children come along, that will be doubly true.”
Carlotta, who remained standing by the sideboard, perhaps considering a measure of grappa for herself, steadied herself against it as if summoning strength from the sturdy oak. “Husband, if I thought that were true, I’d have seen her married off three years ago. What do you think Von Hügel will do when she has a spell?”
“Beat it out of her with a strap, if the boy has any sense,”
Giacomo grumbled.
“Did it work for you when you tried?”
Carlotta challenged. She was more resolved now, and it suited her. Some pieces of her plan must have fallen into place. “Is she any worse since I forbade it?”
Giacomo rose from his comfortable armchair by the fire and got so close to Carlotta I could smell the rank odor of rancid liquor and rotting teeth rolling from his mouth like a putrid fog. “Do not trifle with my anger, woman.”
The corners of her lips turned up in a small feline smile. “And what of mine? Shall I get my solicitor involved in the matter?”
Giacomo’s eyes flashed hot with fury. “What have I told you about casting that man and your family’s trickery in my face?”
She stood her ground, and I could now see she towered over him by several inches, but she always made an effort to disguise it for the sake of his fragile ego. She leaned in closer, her voice dropping, low and deadly. “I’m not casting anything in your face, Giacomo. I am simply reminding you of what can be done to you if you raise a hand to me or my daughter ever again.”
“Such an arrangement ought not to have been legal.”
Giacomo turned away from Carlotta, heading back to the center of the room to pace like an overfed caged circus bear. “Imagine a man not having sovereignty over his household. A wife with her own money and property to do with as she wishes. It’s an affront against the natural order. I ought to have control over my family as is my God-given right.”
Her lips pulled back in a sneer. “You’ve taken to religion? That’s a change.”
“I warn you, Carlotta, you may hold the purse strings to this home through your lout of a solicitor, but I won’t tolerate more insubordination from you. A man can only abide so much.”
Carlotta’s eyes flashed in a warning. “My mother didn’t want me to be at the mercy of a brute. She had the measure of you better than I did at seventeen. I’ve given thanks above for her foresight ever since.”
Giacomo waved a hand in the air as if batting her words away. “Donatella will marry Von Hügel if—more likely when—he asks for her hand. The law is on my side on this, and I will hear no more prattle from you.”
Carlotta glowered. “He will have her institutionalized, Giacomo. Thrown in a cell with a horde of lunatics to wither and die.”
“What should it matter to us, as long as she’s married well first? She will belong to the Von Hügels and they can do with her whatever they see fit to do. It will be no concern of ours.”
“Do you really think we’ll be invited to their fine dinners when they learn we knowingly saddled their innocent young son with a woman in need of serious medical care? Will that endear you to the top circles in society when that news spreads?”
“It needn’t spread at all. We’ll join them in lamenting her unexpected and sudden bout of illness. You’ll do your best to keep her in line until he gets an heir and a spare off her.”
“How will I do such a thing from separate houses? Or have you deluded yourself into thinking Von Hügel would somehow be delighted to live with his mother-in-law?”
Giacomo shot her a disgusted sneer. “You’re supposed to be so clever. You’ll find a way to keep it quiet long enough. Our future will be secure.”
“It already is, husband. We have all the money we need, lavish homes, and every comfort a person could want.”
“I don’t want anyone to look down on me, woman. No one. And if getting a foothold in society means marrying her off to Von Hügel, the crown prince, or Father Christmas, I’ll do it.”
Carlotta very calmly grabbed one of the fine crystal tumblers on the sideboard and threw it at the wall, narrowly missing his head. “No, you won’t, Giacomo. I won’t let you sell my only child to the highest bidder to be used as a brood mare.”
“You’ll do as you’re told, or I swear I’ll find a way to make you suffer, woman. No matter what idiocy your family contrived to keep the Del Vecchio money out of my hands.”
His voice was a low growl, but Carlotta didn’t flinch.
“You’ve had plenty of it in your hands and wasted most of it. You don’t scare me anymore, Giacomo. I’m putting an end to this foolishness now and taking Donatella to America for help. My solicitor has it all arranged for us. He cares about Donatella’s future, and he’s been researching doctors and care facilities for months that might be able to help her. And if she can’t be helped, she can at least be comfortable without you dragging her to endless dinners she can’t stand. He told me just this week he’s arranged everything.”
Giacomo bridged the gap between them. “I am not going to America, you manipulative cow. I have worked too hard to give up on everything just because you’ve spoiled our only child and weren’t enough of a woman to bear more children.”
“No, you aren’t going to America. Donatella and I are going with Vincente. You may keep the town house, but I’m taking every red cent of my family money so you don’t squander more of it in this silly scheme of yours to ooze your way into the upper crust. You’ll have to get back to your workshop and make your own way.”
“You will not, woman. I forbid it,”
he growled.
She pretended not to have heard him. “Most of those posh fools you admire so much think you’re ridiculous, by the way. I hear them laughing about you.”
It was the worst possible thing she could have said. Giacomo went to raise his hand to Carlotta, but Donatella had crossed the room without anyone noticing her. She was a statuesque woman like her mother and was able to twist his arm behind his back until he whimpered in pain.
“Do. Not. Touch. My. Mother,”
Carlotta snarled.
“How dare you, you demented little—”
His words were cut short as she twisted his arm tighter.
“You will not touch my mother ever again, you filthy cretin.”
He grimaced as she tightened her grip. “You disobedient shrew, let me go.”
He thrashed wildly, but she managed to keep him pinned.
“No. I want you to die knowing your wife and child will never spare you another thought. It’s the fate you deserve. Get out of this house or you’ll have to figure out how to make jewels with a broken arm, you worthless son of a bitch.”
Carlotta was perfectly calm, gazing upon her daughter with satisfaction. “Donatella, darling, mind your language. He isn’t worth demeaning yourself.”
She strode across the room and pulled the bell with the same nonchalance as if she were ordering coffee for guests.
A few moments later, a footman—tall and broad shouldered—appeared. He was slightly out of breath from rushing from his room in the attic, probably not expecting he’d be needed again that evening.
Carlotta smiled. He was just the footman she’d been hoping for. “Ah, Niccolo. Very good. You will see Signore Valenti has all his belongings packed and see him back to his quarters in Milan. And you will ask Francesco and Matteo to ensure he doesn’t enter the premises again.”
“Very good, Signora Valenti.”
He bowed to his mistress.
“I shall be reverting to my maiden name, Niccolo. Inform the staff I am to be called Signora Del Vecchio from now on.”