Fiona Paul: Belladonna

“Just sick of hiding,” Feliciana said with a wan smile. “And hungry.” She bit into the good side of the pear. She chewed slowly, as if it had been a while since she had eaten solid food.

“Of course. What’s the matter with me?” Cass made her way to the front of the stall, where she purchased a second pear and a cluster of grapes.

“Cass—Signorina Cass,” Feliciana corrected herself, when Cass returned. “I didn’t mean for you to—”

“I know,” Cass said, handing the fruit to Feliciana. “I wanted to.”

Feliciana finished the good part of her scavenged pear before beginning on the grapes. Each one brought a smile to her discolored face, as if they were the most exquisite food in all of Venice.

Siena returned, and Cass was overjoyed to learn they wouldn’t have to backtrack through the crowded marketplace to get to their ride. “I had to offer the return fare too, Signorina Cass,” Siena said apologetically. “You know how the gondoliers hate going all the way out to the islands.”

“That’s fine.” Cass would have offered her entire purse just to spirit her former lady’s maid to safety.

Feliciana kept her hood low as the three girls squeezed out the back of the market and headed for a gondola moored at the edge of the Grand Canal. An elderly gondolier helped them aboard. Cass instinctively checked his hands to see if he wore a ring with a six-petaled flower design. She didn’t know what the symbol meant, but she had seen it on a ring that Falco found in Liviana’s tomb and then again on the outside of Angelo de Gradi’s workshop full of body parts. Later, she had noticed Donna Domacetti, Venice’s biggest gossip, wearing a similar ring. Cass knew that the symbol heralded dark things—bad things.

It would look highly suspicious if they arrived home too soon after Giuseppe, so Cass commanded the gondolier to go slowly, saying she felt ill. The old man scowled, but slowed the rate at which he moved the long flexible oar through the canal water.

Cass reclined on the bench inside the felze, and Siena and Feliciana knelt on the boat’s stamped leather base, facing her. The three girls tucked their heads tightly together, speaking in hushed tones.

“What happened?” Siena asked, reaching out to push her sister’s hood back just far enough so she could see her eyes. “Did he hurt you?” Cass knew that Siena was referring to Dubois.

Feliciana shook her head and bit her lip. “No. Not like that. Joseph was . . . fond of me.” She avoided her sister’s eyes, and Cass wondered what Joseph Dubois had done to show his affection, and how Feliciana had grown so familiar with him that she would use his given name. “All the girls had whispered that he was fond of Sophia, too, and that she might be with child.” Feliciana faltered slightly over the words. “When she disappeared, I figured she had run away. Maybe gone to the Chiesa to live until the baby was born.”

Cass watched as the gondola passed the Chiesa delle Zitelle, which sat on the island of Giudecca, almost directly across from the entrance to the Grand Canal. It functioned as both a house of worship and a refuge for single women. Whether healthy or infirm, unmarried girls and prostitutes often sought shelter there.

Feliciana shuddered. “But then I overheard him speaking to a man I’d seen around the estate—another Frenchman—about what needed to be done about Sophia. Joseph told this man to make the problem go away.”

Cass’s throat squeezed shut. Cristian.

“Then I heard that her body was pulled from the Grand Canal. After that day, I began to cross paths with this man more and more. I was afraid maybe he’d seen me the day I heard him speaking to Joseph.” Feliciana’s eyes went dark. “I didn’t want to be next.”

Cass reached out and gave Feliciana’s hand a quick squeeze. “You’re safe now,” she said, hoping it was true. Once Feliciana was inside the villa, Cass would inform her about what had happened over the past few weeks. It wasn’t safe to talk about it further here. In Venice, even the water had ears.

Siena was staring at Feliciana. “So you and Signor Dubois were—”

Feliciana shook her head forcefully. “No. But it would have come to that.” And then, seeing Siena’s look of shock, she added, “Oh, don’t be naïve. No woman refuses that kind of request from her master, not if she wants to stay employed.”

Cass twisted around the edge of the felze to sneak a glance at their gondolier. The man was staring down at the lagoon, watching his oar move through the water.

Feliciana laughed bitterly. “Poor Sophia. One of her roommates told me that Sophia believed she was going to be transferred to Dubois’s mainland estate, into her own set of chambers. Instead she was transferred into the ground.”

“Why didn’t you come directly to San Domenico?” Cass asked. “Siena and I would have helped you. We would have protected you.”

Feliciana scoffed. “But what about your aunt? Was I to just show up and say, ‘ Scusi, Signora Querini, will you take me on again?’ The old woman might have sent me directly back to Joseph. Even if she didn’t, how was I to know I wouldn’t be bringing danger to the villa?”

“You still should have gotten a message to me,” Siena said accusingly. “I thought you were dead. We both did.”

Feliciana reached out and gripped her sister’s arm. “I never should have left you. I thought if I did well at Palazzo Dubois, I could persuade the master to hire you on as well. I never meant for us to stay apart.”

The gondolier had crossed the lagoon and was now cutting between the Giudecca and San Giorgio Maggiore. They’d be at the northern shore of San Domenico in just a few minutes. “He said he would take us around to Agnese’s private dock,” Siena said.

“And then what?” Feliciana asked, dropping her hood low once more.

“Siena will enter the servants’ door while we wait on the side lawn,” Cass said. “We’ll keep ourselves tight against the villa so we won’t be visible from any of the windows. Siena can come get us once she thinks it’s safe to sneak you inside.”

After the gondolier had moored at Agnese’s dock, the three girls disembarked. Siena disappeared inside while Cass and Feliciana skirted the edge of Agnese’s property, staying out of view of the windows. After a few minutes, Siena returned, and the three girls crept in the main door of the villa and quietly up the stairs. The portego was empty except for Agnese’s butler, Bortolo, who was napping as usual. The girls proceeded quickly to the back of the villa, where Cass and Agnese had their bedchambers. The three of them squeezed through the doorway to Cass’s room all at once, and she closed the door with a click.

Feliciana shocked everyone by dropping her hood to reveal an almost-bald head. Siena whimpered, and Feliciana patted her sister on the hand. “It’s just hair. It’ll grow back. Though the sister who razored it all off did seem to take a cruel pleasure in the task.”

“So you actually joined a convent?” Cass asked incredulously. The vibrant Feliciana in a nunnery made about as much sense as quiet Siena becoming a courtesan.

“My options were limited,” Feliciana said. “I went to the Chiesa delle Zitelle and they found me a spot in a nunnery on San Giorgio Maggiore. But the nuns were hateful. They were always waking me up at all hours of the night to pray. Each time I was late or ‘insolent,’ they forced me to wear a garment woven out of goat’s hair under my habit. It rubbed my skin raw and kept me from sleeping. They also made me empty the chamber pots for the whole convent and scrub the floors until my fingers bled.” She glanced down at her cracked and swollen fingertips and winced. “And then last week I saw one of the Sisters speaking to a man who looked familiar. I was afraid Joseph had sent his men to find me. I escaped the convent after dark, and returned to the city. I passed the days at the Mercato di Rialto and spent my nights locked inside the Ghetto with the Jews, hiding in the back room of a butcher’s shop. I knew eventually I would find someone I could trust at the marketplace.”