Page 21 of Vengeance in Venice (Murder in Moonlight #6)

H alf an hour later, she was heartily relieved when Solomon suggested leaving. For the last few minutes, she had felt distinctly shaky and unwell, and besides, the guests were thinning out.

She was glad of Solomon’s arm out in the fresh air, like an anchor in a suddenly unsteady world. Kellar had disturbed her more than he should, and she was anxious to discuss him with Solomon, the good and the bad suspicions.

But Solomon was talking, and it was oddly difficult to concentrate.

“…divided between Giusti and the widow. Though one Englishwoman’s opinion seemed to be based solely on the fact that they were all foreign.

She accused Signora Savelli of multiple affairs, including with Giusti, Premarin, and even Domenico Rossi. ”

Constance frowned and peered at him. “Is Kellar a spy of some kind? An assassin? Am I tipsy?”

Solomon smiled. She loved his smile, but it died disappointingly quickly and now he was frowning. “Actually, you don’t look well.”

“I don’t feel well,” she admitted. “Where is Alvise?” Don’t let me be sick in the boat…

But the movement of the water beneath proved too much for her roiling stomach and she was violently ill. The delight of traveling by traditional gondola vanished into misery, until she latched on to one incredible idea.

Some women were terribly ill during pregnancy, at least in the early stages.

Admittedly, it was generally in the morning, but not always.

Until Solomon, she had never imagined she would ever have children, and even when they were married, the idea had been sweet, confusing, and unreal.

Now, her skin clammy, her head swimming, and her stomach in torment, she hung on to the idea with fierce, desperate hope.

She could bear anything for this reason…

But she was barely aware of anything else. She knew Solomon was carrying her off the boat and into the house, heard his urgent voice demanding a doctor in both Italian and English, but by then her main concern was not losing any more dignity, and she somehow staggered alone into the privy.

After that, awash with pain and sweat and shivering so violently that she couldn’t speak, she knew very little.

*

It was still early in the morning when Elena Savelli somewhat listlessly broke her fast with coffee and bread.

She felt exhausted, but then, she had not been sleeping well since Angelo’s death—or before, really.

She seemed twisted up with guilt and grief as well as hopelessness.

But she was so tired of those feelings, vaguely aware that they had been building within her for some months before he died.

Before he was murdered.

Yesterday, she had buried him. She had sat in the great, beautiful church, trying to pray for Angelo’s soul.

She had accepted the condolences of, it seemed, the entire city—certainly of all the most prominent citizens and their Austrian masters.

Veiled and numb, she had accepted it all, had even hosted the gathering here at the palazzo, with generous amounts of food and wine.

She had been going through the motions, giving Angelo the respect that was his due, but then, so had they, and most had not stayed long.

Her own family had stayed away.

It was done now. He was buried. And she had no idea what to do with herself.

The lawyers had told her everything was hers.

His houses, his businesses, all his possessions.

Many people wanted to manage everything for her.

But she could manage everything just as well, she thought, given time.

She just couldn’t summon the desire or the energy.

Soon. Soon, I will. Perhaps when Foscolo arrests someone—or gives up.

“Signora, Dr. Donati is here.”

Elena blinked at her maidservant. “Why? Who is ill?”

“He has come to see you, signora.”

In fact, the young doctor stepped around the maid, bowing. “Forgive the early hour, signora, but I was passing and your servants told me you were up.”

“But I am not ill.”

“You will be if you do not sleep.”

Elena flicked one finger, dismissing the girl. She invited the doctor to sit and regarded him. “So will you. You look dreadful.”

He smiled wearily. “I have been up all night with a patient. Which is why I call on you now, so that I can sleep with a clear conscience.”

“You cannot doctor loss. Though I admit I would welcome something to help me sleep. I hope your night’s work was successful.”

“So do I,” Donati said ruefully, reaching into his bag. “A young foreign lady, terribly ill from…food poisoning.”

“Poor creature. Bad clams?”

“Not clams.” The doctor took a large bottle from his bag and began to decant some of it into a smaller bottle. “Two drops of this at bedtime and you should sleep until morning. I will come back in a week if you don’t send for me before. Are you eating properly?”

“Yes,” she said, though in fact she wasn’t sure. “What did the foreign lady eat?”

“Nothing, apparently.”

She frowned at him, interested in spite of herself. His face was carefully expressionless. Clearly, he did not want to talk about it, but he was troubled, worried.

“Is what she did not eat something you should report to the police?” she asked.

Deliberately, he thrust the little bottle of sleeping draft across the table to her. He said nothing, yet some emotion flickering in his eyes caught at her breath.

In spite of herself, she leaned forward. “Who is this lady?”

“The Englishwoman. Signora Grey.”

Her blood seemed to surge. Without intending it, she was on her feet. “No. I cannot allow it. Will she live?”

“I hope so.”

“But she has no one to nurse her but servants. I will go to her.”

“Signora, is that wise?” he blurted.

She stared at him. “Meaning if she dies, I will be under suspicion for two murders?”

He blushed painfully. “I know better. Besides, I see no reason for Signora Grey’s illness to be connected to your husband’s death.”

Except by me . “I have to go. Thank you for the medicine. Go home and sleep.”

She was already walking away. But at least her brain had cleared. She knew the risks to herself, to her reputation, but in truth, she did not care.

Half an hour later, she strode into the Palazzo Zulian, at her most imperious. She did not even wait, following the servant directly upstairs to the sick room.

“Signor, Signora Savelli—” the servant began.

Elena brushed past her. “How is she?”

Constance Grey was deathly pale, almost one with the pillow cases that surrounded her, apart from her bright red-gold hair. Her eyes looked bruised, the lids like scribbled-on paper, and she lay so still that Elena was afraid she was already dead.

From the chair beside the bed, Solomon Grey stumbled to his feet. “She is asleep.”

His appearance was almost as shocking as his wife’s.

The urbane, handsome man, whose personality had so easily commanded her drawing room, had shrunk.

His golden-brown skin looked gray, his clear, melting brown eyes distraught with more than exhaustion.

Much more. Even recognition seemed to take time to register.

“She was poisoned,” he said harshly.

It might have been an accusation. “Where? When? Who was there? How could it have happened? The doctor told me she ate nothing.”

He blinked. He was in no condition to consider causes and culprits.

His whole being was concentrated on his wife’s recovery.

Elena’s heart contracted and seemed to swell, breaking through the fog of her own misery, for right now, his was greater.

She had never seen such fear in a man, even during the siege.

That had been a different kind of fear. This, she had no name for.

But her words reached him. She saw them register. Yet still he stared at her. “Go home, signora.”

His suspicion did not even hurt. She understood it perfectly. “I am the last person in the world to hurt her. If she dies while I am here, nothing can save me.”

The woman on the bed stirred, as though their voices had disturbed her. Abruptly, Grey sat down on the edge of the bed and took his wife’s hand. Her eyes fluttered open.

“Sol.” It was little more than a sigh, a croak, but incredibly, the woman’s beautiful mouth twitched into something approaching a smile. Even now, his mere presence made her happy.

Elena’s heart ached. Not with resentment but with loss.

Constance’s eyelids drooped again, then suddenly opened again. She was looking at Elena.

“Is she real?” she asked her husband.

“Yes.”

“I came to help,” Elena said, “if I can. You have no family here, after all.”

“Neither do you.”

From nowhere, tears crowded into Elena’s throat.

The Englishwoman’s eyes closed. “I am so tired. Look after Solomon…”

*

Solomon had never spent such a night of fear and anguish.

Not even in childhood when his brother David had vanished, for that had been a much more gradual understanding.

This sudden, visceral knowledge that he was losing Constance, when he had only just found her, devastated him.

He could only bathe her hands and face in the hope of comforting her fevered body.

He would have given everything to take her pain himself.

Despite her suffering, she had wept only once, when the doctor first arrived and asked if she could be with child.

It was Solomon who had told him it was possible, but Dr. Donati had quickly ruled out the possibility.

He told Solomon it was food poisoning and went very quiet as Solomon explained that Constance had eaten nothing since midday.

Urgently mixing potions, the doctor had asked questions about where they had been and what they had drunk, and somehow Solomon had absorbed the knowledge that Constance had been deliberately poisoned. The importance was very much secondary, however. None of it mattered if she did not live.

Until Elena Savelli arrived, and abruptly every nerve seemed to scream with alarm.