Page 30 of Vengeance in Venice (Murder in Moonlight #6)

She paused quite close to the beginning. The weapon that had killed Angelo Savelli was a long-bladed dagger, according to the police. Constance had never seen it. She wondered if the police had returned it to Elena, along with her husband’s body…

“Signora!”

The call startled her out of her thoughts, and she peered toward the noise. Domenico Rossi stood on the other side of the tall wrought-iron gate that covered the opening between the Palazzo Zulian and the building next to it.

She laid down the papers on the bench beside her and rose without thinking to unlock the gate and let him in.

As he strode past her into the garden, she caught a whiff of wine on his breath.

But then, small amounts of wine were drunk all the time here by most people.

She was just more sensitive to it because she was barely drinking it at all right now.

He spun around and spread his arms with pleasure. “I came to see how you are, but how wonderful to see you looking so well! When I last saw your husband, he scared me witless. You are better?”

“Much better, though still annoyingly weak. It has rather interfered with our portrait, I’m afraid. I don’t think I want to be painted looking exhausted and ill!”

“Who would? But in my picture, you will shine as you still do.”

“Hmm.” As she sat back down, he bent and picked up the papers from the bench, presumably so he could sit beside her. She could not help the speed with which she grasped them. “Let me take these out of your way…”

Over the notes, their eyes met for an instant and she saw that he knew what they were.

He must have glimpsed something of what was written there.

She couldn’t recall what was on the top sheet, apart from that one brief mention of the weapon.

She just hoped it was not littered with suspicions of Rossi and Adriana.

After a frozen instant, his grip loosened, and he sat down as though he did not care. She placed the pile of notes on her lap, face down, and folded her hands over them.

“We did not expect you today,” she said lightly. “I’m afraid Solomon has gone out.”

“Making inquiries like a policeman?” Rossi said, a sudden spark in his eyes. “Or a spy.”

“Or a concerned husband,” she said evenly.

His eyes narrowed and she became aware that the smell of drink was really quite strong and sour. “But it’s about more than your eating something that disagreed with you, isn’t it? It’s about me. Why? Did someone tell you I drink too much and forget things?”

She met his gaze because she never backed down. “Such as whom you last fought with?”

*

Nicolo Premarin was at home, alone in his comfortable, blessedly masculine study, gazing bleakly into space and wondering what the devil he was going to do. He did not even hear the door open until the servant spoke.

“It is the Englishman again.”

Relief at this distraction hit him in waves. Besides, his ambition to rope Solomon Grey into some—any—kind of partnership had not abated one iota. He bounced to his feet, hurrying into the hall to capture his prize before Bianca discovered him.

Greeting the Englishman effusively, he bore him off to the study rather than to the drawing room and his wife.

“My wife told me you called yesterday,” he said. “I was so annoyed to have missed you. I would have come to you, only I don’t like to intrude when your wife is ill.”

“I believe she is mending, although we had a serious fright.” Grey sat in the comfortable chair Premarin indicated.

Premarin decided to do him a favor. “You should know,” he said confidentially, “that words like poison are being bandied about.”

“Indeed,” Grey said without obvious surprise. He met Premarin’s serious gaze with cool, clear, dark eyes.

It gave Premarin pause, that look, reminding him that Grey was not a man to trifle with. He had not achieved what he had by stupidity or even luck. He was a polite, elegant force of nature.

Grey added, “We believe the poison to have been in her wine glass at the reception, for she ate nothing.”

Premarin felt the blood drain from his face. “But…you cannot think… I poured her wine from a fresh, open bottle, but I drank the same wine myself. So did you!” He had to control the panic before his voice gave him away. There was too much at stake here.

“I know,” Grey replied, much to Premarin’s relief. “You might even have saved her by diluting the poison that was already in her glass. The trouble is, we cannot tell when or by whom the poison was placed there.”

“But my dear fellow…! I cannot conceive… This is truly shocking, utterly dreadful.”

“It is,” Grey agreed, unblinking. “Have the police not asked you what you witnessed?”

Premarin shook his head. “No. I know of no one who has been questioned, in fact, which is why I did not believe the rumors could be true. Perhaps the authorities were satisfied after talking to the consulate staff.”

But how could they be satisfied without a culprit? As far as he knew, they did not have one. And yet they hadn’t spoken to himself or Giusti, or anyone else he knew who had been there.

Clearly this had already occurred to Grey. Premarin, doing his best for his countrymen, said, “I suppose, since your wife recovered, they have gone back to the murder of poor Savelli.”

“Don’t they believe the matters are related?”

Premarin shrugged. “Who knows what they believe?” He hesitated, searching Grey’s face, which, now he looked more carefully, was all suppressed anger and nigh-intolerable anxiety.

He didn’t even try to hide it. Premarin, veteran of a thousand successful negotiations, found himself hurrying into unplanned speech.

“It is difficult. Everything is difficult now. I know for a fact the government wants the murderer found, but the attack on your wife could easily become a diplomatic incident. If they find Savelli’s killer, then presumably they have your wife’s poisoner too, and justice will be served.

Though I myself see no obvious connection. ”

Grey lifted his brows in blatant disbelief, and Premarin could have kicked himself.

“Don’t you?” Grey said. “My wife and I have been asking questions, at first because we were once under suspicion ourselves. But we don’t like to leave such matters unsolved, and I owe Giusti—another suspect—a debt of gratitude. I don’t believe he killed Savelli.”

“I find it hard to believe too.” Premarin spread his hands. “Anything I can do to help you,” he said with sincerity, “I will.”

Grey held his gaze, and pounced. “Did you know that your wife has been seen late at night outside the Palazzo Savelli? Including on the night of the murder.”

Premarin closed his eyes as though that could shut out this suddenly relentless man and his own burning shame. And Bianca’s. He had to say something, make some kind of defense.

Then he remembered quite suddenly whom he was dealing with. Premarin was good at reading men. He’d had to be. And he had already assessed Solomon Grey as a clever, driven, but basically honest man. He was not unkind, but he would not tolerate deceit.

And so Premarin’s defense, like any future negotiations—and he refused to give up on those even now—depended on his own honesty. And on Grey’s goodwill and understanding. He had to risk it.

He opened his eyes in time to catch the hint of pity in Grey’s, quickly veiled. But there would be no quarter. The man wanted, needed , an answer.

“I was not aware she had been seen,” Premarin said with what dignity he could muster. “But I know she was there. So was I.”

Grey’s brow twitched, ever so slightly, his only betrayal of surprise. “You were? No one told me that.”

He was not here for blame or accusations, Premarin saw with considerable relief, just truth. So that was what he would give him, since he had no choice now.

“I am an ageing man, Signor Grey, with a young wife. I married her when she was but eighteen, mainly as a mother for my children. It did not enter my head that she was little more than a child herself. To me, it was a matter of convenience. To her…a girl has the right to expect some romance in her life.” He shrugged.

“But I work too hard, I make assumptions, and while I am never unkind, I certainly make few allowances for her youth. For anything. Until I saw her slipping out of the house one night.”

With a self-deprecating smile, he mocked himself.

“Now I notice. My honor is at stake. I think she has a lover, so I follow her. She does not go far. She just stands in the shadows outside the Palazzo Savelli and waits for him to appear at a window. He never acknowledged her. I don’t believe he ever noticed her, but that first time I waited.

I too saw him at a window. When he had gone, when the last light was doused, she left, and again I followed. She returned straight home.”

Saying it all was ridiculously easy. The earth did not swallow him up. No monster ate him. Grey did not even look at him with scorn, just those steady, unblinking eyes, taking in every nuance of his face and voice.

“Savelli was a handsome young man,” Premarin continued, “everything I am not. He even made an effort to talk to her, to listen. Which I did not. Oh, it woke me up to my own behavior, my own frailties as well as hers. In some ways, I am too late. She knows I do not love her.”

“How does she know?”

“Because Venice is a small city. Everyone knows I asked Elena first. Elena Savelli, as she is now.”

Grey’s eyes grew sharper. Premarin doubted he could have hidden if he’d tried. “You were in love with Elena.”

“And I could not have her, so I took another, any other, for convenience. Bianca’s family were generous.

She was convenient. Only she isn’t now. She is a worry to me, Signor Grey.

The first time, I followed her from suspicion.

After that, from fear for her safety. She never noticed me.

I only hope no one else noticed either of us. ”

Grey stirred, as though moving on. “On the night that Savelli died, you followed her to his house as usual. The front of the house?”

Premarin nodded.

“You did not go by boat?”

“It’s a simpler walk, and clearly neither of us wished to wake the gondolier.”

“What time was this?” Grey asked.

“About two? After three by the time we left.”

“Did you see Savelli at his window? Hear his voice? See any of his servants?”

“Nothing. No one.”

“What about on the way home? Did you see anyone in the streets? On the canals?”

“There were a couple of boats. I didn’t look.

” Premarin stopped, frowning. “Wait, though—I did see someone in a boat, drinking straight from a bottle and shouting occasional obscenities. The man is a known drunk, so I hurried to catch up with my wife. But he didn’t appear to notice her.

He seemed to have some fixed purpose, though he could not keep his boat in a straight line.

He bumped into several that were tied up and swore at them all. ”

“Where was this?” Grey asked urgently.

“On the Grand Canal, though I think he turned off because I couldn’t see him the next time I glanced over my shoulder.”

“Going in which direction?” Grey demanded. “Toward Savelli’s house or away?”

“Toward, I suppose.”

“And this man was known to you? Who is he?”

Premarin could see that Grey already knew, but he said it anyway. “Rossi. Domenico Rossi.”