Page 8 of Vengeance in Venice (Murder in Moonlight #6)

“Will she receive us?” Constance asked. “What if she has heard that her husband kidnapped me?”

“Then I’m sure she would like the matter cleared up. And yes, I think she will. It could be that she is floundering in this tragedy to the point of desperation, and any company will be better than none.”

“Could she have done it?”

Solomon considered. “I think she could . I would say there is great strength beneath the frail surface. But I have no idea what feelings lurk there. I don’t even know if she is grieving, though she is certainly shocked.”

“Giusti cares for her. He doesn’t want to, but he does. It was in his face, his voice, when he asked you about her, as though the words were dragged out of him without permission.”

Solomon grimaced. “One way or another, it doesn’t look good for Giusti. And yet I still find myself hoping he didn’t do it.”

*

Ludovico Giusti, Ludo to his many friends, was reckless by nature.

Since the crushing of the revolution to which he had given his heart and soul, he seemed to have forgotten that.

He remembered it again during his second interview with the policeman Foscolo, when he had the urge to physically kick him out of his house.

Once, he would probably have done it. But Foscolo was a good man who had fought beside him against the Austrians and was only doing his duty. So Giusti kept his worn-out boots on the floor and explained about Grey’s part in the fight with Savelli’s men, and their mission to rescue Grey’s wife.

“I wanted to keep them out of it,” he said.

“Murder is more serious than that.”

Giusti almost laughed. They had both seen more than enough men killed in their time.

“When did you last see Signora Savelli?” Foscolo asked.

That was when Giusti’s feet were in most danger of kicking. But he shrugged. “How do I know? Venice is a small city. I noticed her in San Marco some time in the last month. In a particularly dazzling shade of gold.”

“I mean, to speak to.”

“That is easier. 1849.”

Foscolo had pressed him no further on that score, but that was when the recklessness took hold in more than fantasy.

So, when it was dark, Ludo took his own boat and traveled the familiar waterways to the Palazzo Savelli. He knew where to wait and watch and blend in with the stone so that no other passing boat would endanger him, nor anyone make him out from nearby windows.

Savelli’s house was in darkness, at least from the back. It was all locked up and there would be no comings and goings even among the servants, on the night after their master’s death.

Using his oar, Ludo glided silently nearer. He didn’t go as far as the Savelli steps, but even so, he had to wait, lying flat on the bottom of his boat, until another had passed and gone on its way. Then he simply climbed out and up.

He was quick and agile and old enough to know better.

But there were many hand- and footholds in the old stone and the ornate carvings.

His hope was that in a house rattled by sudden death and police investigation, the servants would be careless about locking windows.

And he was right—although he had to try three, and almost lost his footing entirely on the third ledge, before he managed to push a window open and wriggle through.

He had brought his own candle and tinder box, so once he had picked himself off the floor, he lit it and found his way out of the room—some minor reception room he couldn’t recall ever being in before—and on into the dark passage beyond.

He found the staircase without difficulty and climbed.

A few of the steps creaked, but not enough to disturb anyone’s sleep.

Though he knew she wouldn’t be asleep.

He also knew where her private rooms were. Roughly. Though it was difficult in the dark with one tiny candle, and he had never counted windows and doors.

It was the palest glow that gave her away in the end.

More like a lighter shade of blackness beneath the ornate door.

He went in as quietly as he could. Another dark room—a sitting room, he thought, from the brief waving of his candle.

Its chief interest to him was the fact that a more definite light shone beneath another connecting door.

He caught his suddenly ragged breath. But he had come this far.

He walked carefully toward the light, and when he came to the door, he halted and listened for a long time. He knew instinctively she would not have a maid in the room. She would be alone. And he would terrify her.

Recklessness got one into all sorts of difficulties. Perhaps last night’s fight had dealt him one too many blows to the head.

It was time to leave.

And yet he didn’t. He turned the handle and opened the door.

And blinked in the sudden brightness.

She stood barely a foot from him, a tall, carved branch of candles in her hand.

She wore a velvet silk dressing gown that covered her from neck to toe, but her raven hair was loose and she looked magnificent.

Brave and angry and unafraid, she stared at him, no doubt taking in his disreputable cuts and bruises and the tears in his clothing from the climb.

Elena. Dizzyingly close after all these years.

“What are you doing here?” The faint tremble in her voice almost undid him.

“A call of condolence,” he said, and of course it came out wrong. It sounded brash, mocking, when all he really wanted was to be sure she was…what? Fine? Well? Coping?

“You were always an idiot,” she said contemptuously. “Get out of my house before we are both crucified for this.”

She was right, of course. This was beyond reckless, unforgivably so because it was Elena’s reputation he was risking. He turned away to obey, but her voice stayed him, husky and yet harsh.

“Ludovico.”

He waited, though he could not bring himself to turn back to her.

“Did you kill him?”

He shook his head. “Did you?”

There was silence. And then, flat and emotionless, “Then you didn’t come for absolution?”

He breathed again. And yet he wanted to throw things, even his candle, set the house and the whole world on fire.

“You are undoubtedly correct that I am an idiot,” he said between his teeth. “And perhaps there was a time I would have killed him for you. But after four years? When I can never have you anyway? Even I am not that big an idiot.”

He heard the catch in her breath, and abruptly, her manner changed.

“I saw you, Ludo.”

Slowly, he turned back to face her. He did not ask, but she answered anyway.

“Last night. In the little boat your servants used to use.”

“No, last night I was in an Englishman’s fine gondola. We came to rescue the poor woman your husband had abducted.”

“She went home before midnight,” came the calm response, so clearly this was not news to her. “You were there at three o’clock in the morning, at the back of the house. I saw you.”

He lifted one side of his mouth. “Then you were also up at three in the morning.”

“Shall we tell on each other and see whom the police arrest?”

“Oh, I don’t think you will need to do that to see me arrested. It is between me and the Englishman. Although,” he added inconsequentially, “he looks a little African to me.”

“I think I met him.” She blinked in the candlelight, as though surprised to be conversing with him. “Can you get out the way you got in?”

He nodded.

She said, “Don’t do it again.” And quietly closed the door on him.

The light beneath it went out. Very gently, he laid his forehead against the wood. He wanted to weep.

Instead, he straightened and trailed back the way he had come, forcing himself to concentrate on not falling into the canal or otherwise giving himself away.