Death in the Floating City Read online

  For Andrew, who showed me Venice

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Un Libro d’Amore, 1489, i

  Chapter 2

  Un Libro d’Amore ii

  Chapter 3

  Un Libro d’Amore iii

  Chapter 4

  Un Libro d’Amore iv

  Chapter 5

  Un Libro d’Amore v

  Chapter 6

  Un Libro d’Amore vi

  Chapter 7

  Un Libro d’Amore vii

  Chapter 8

  Un Libro d’Amore viii

  Chapter 9

  Un Libro d’Amore ix

  Chapter 10

  Un Libro d’Amore x

  Chapter 11

  Un Libro d’Amore xi

  Chapter 12

  Un Libro d’Amore xii

  Chapter 13

  Un Libro d’Amore xiii

  Chapter 14

  Un Libro d’Amore xiv

  Chapter 15

  Un Libro d’Amore xv

  Chapter 16

  Un Libro d’Amore xvi

  Chapter 17

  Un Libro d’Amore xvii

  Chapter 18

  Un Libro d’Amore xviii

  Chapter 19

  Un Libro d’Amore xix

  Chapter 20

  Un Libro d’Amore xx

  Chapter 21

  Un Libro d’Amore xxi

  Chapter 22

  Un Libro d’Amore xxii

  Chapter 23

  Un Libro d’Amore xxiii

  Chapter 24

  Un Libro d’Amore xxiv

  Chapter 25

  Un Libro d’Amore xxv

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Tasha Alexander

  About the Author

  Copyright

  I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;

  A palace and a prison on each hand:

  I saw from out the wave her structures rise

  As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand:

  A thousand years their cloudy wings expand

  Around me, and a dying Glory smiles

  O’er the far times, when many a subject land

  Look’d to the winged Lion’s marble piles,

  Where Venice sate in state, thron’d on her hundred isles!

  She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,

  Rising with her tiara of proud towers

  At airy distance, with majestic motion,

  A ruler of the waters and their powers:

  And such she was; her daughters had their dowers

  From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East

  Pour’d in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.

  In purple was she rob’d, and of her feast

  Monarchs partook, and deem’d their dignity increas’d.

  In Venice Tasso’s echoes are no more,

  And silent rows the songless gondolier;

  Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,

  And music meets not always now the ear:

  Those days are gone—but Beauty still is here.

  States fall, arts fade—but Nature doth not die,

  Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,

  The pleasant place of all festivity,

  The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

  —GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: Canto the Fourth

  1

  “I’d expected jewel encrusted, not encased in a layer of dried blood.” Almost cringing, I fingered the slim medieval dagger that felt heavier in my hands than its size suggested.

  Tourists come to Venice, the city Petrarch called mundus alter, “another world,” to take in the opulent beauty of the floating city’s palaces, the soft colors and vibrant gold of St. Mark’s Basilica, and the rich elegance of Titian’s paintings. My trip, however, came without the prospect of such pleasant things. I was standing in a dark, musty palazzo with my childhood nemesis glowering over my shoulder as I inspected the knife an intruder had used to kill her father-in-law. An unpleasant sensation prickled up my neck as I stared down. Instruments of murder are not something with which a lady contends on a daily basis. Particularly not one still bearing evidence of its evil use.

  “The police returned it to me in just that condition,” Emma Callum said, wrinkling her nose. “I wasn’t about to touch it. And the servants point-blank refused to clean it. I’d fire the lot of them if my Italian were better.”

  I liked to believe the majority of my fellow countrymen were excellent travelers abroad. Credits to the empire. An Englishman ought to conduct himself in a manner more likely to draw admiration than scorn, and should use his explorations of the world as an opportunity to expand his mind and improve his character. Emma showed no sign of such aspirations, a condition unusual in someone who has chosen to go beyond simple tourist and embrace the life of an expat. Then again, Emma had lived in Italy for three years without bothering even to learn the language.

  My husband took the knife from my hand and studied it before laying it on a table. We’d been married just over two years, and Colin Hargreaves still took my breath away every time I looked at his preternaturally handsome face. Early on in our acquaintance (even before I’d abandoned my erroneous suspicion that he’d murdered my first husband—but that’s another story altogether), I’d decided his perfectly chiseled features looked as if Praxiteles, my favorite ancient Greek artist, had sculpted them. His dark eyes and darker wavy hair lent him a romantic air that would set Mr. Darcy to permanent brooding and send Heathcliff stalking across the moors, never to return. No man, fictional or real, could compare.

  Our hostess, however, was an entirely different matter. One might, perhaps, compare Emma to Miss Bingley or Mrs. Dashwood, but she did not quite reach the level of a great villain of literature. Still, nothing short of murder could have induced me to renew my acquaintance with Emma. We had never been close, and it was unlikely this would ever change. Put simply, she despised me, and I’m ashamed to admit I returned the feeling. When we were six years old, she destroyed my favorite doll, smashing its porcelain face with her boot. She scooped up the pitiful remains of the toy my father had specially brought for me from Paris and ran downstairs from the nursery to the conservatory where our mothers were having tea.

  I will never forget the way the conservatory looked that day, the way the sunlight filtered through the leaves of my mother’s precious lemon trees, and the scent of bright lilies, which forever after would seem to me heavy and cloying. Emma held out her bounty, her eyes wide with horror, and spoke, her voice trembling.

  “Look at the terrible thing Emily has done,” she said. From where she conjured her tears, I know not, but her voice grew even more pathetic as she continued. “I told her the dolly was pretty, but she insisted she wanted one with better curls. So she stepped on her. Crushed her head in with her foot and said now she knew she’d get a new one.”

  “Did she?” My mother’s face was inscrutable, but I knew the trouble I was in for.

  “It doesn’t seem right,” Emma said. “To destroy something only to be rewarded.”

  “I can assure you, Emma, that will not happen.”

  When I woke up the next morning, all my remaining dolls had disappeared from the nursery, and there was never another one seen in the house.

  I knew better than to tattle and didn’t even try to defend myself. Any attempt to do so would have been met with even more trouble. Emma and I continued to be thrown together throughout childhood due to our mothers’ friendship, but I
refused to engage in any but the most basic interaction with her. She did not improve with age. As a debutante, she barraged with attention any gentleman who showed even the slightest interest in me, culminating with a clumsy attempt to wrangle Philip, the Viscount Ashton and at the time my soon-to-be-fiancé, away from me.

  It was unlikely our acquaintance would ever grow into a real friendship.

  Now Emma needed me, and I was not about to walk away from her, despite our past. Her father-in-law had been murdered, and her husband had disappeared shortly thereafter, an act that, so far as the authorities were concerned, proved his guilt. She sent for me, begging for help. This, in itself, was proof of how desperate she was feeling.

  Seeking our assistance was no rash act on Emma’s part. My husband, an agent of the Crown, had a reputation for his ability to crack any investigation with his trademark discretion. And I, if I may be so bold as to give myself such a compliment, had proven my own mettle after successfully apprehending six notorious murderers. As a result, the day after reading her panicked wire, my husband and I traveled to Venice and, almost immediately upon our arrival, climbed into a boat and glided out of the slim canal that skimmed the side of the Hotel Danieli. The gondolier rowed us under a single bridge and into the lagoon before turning into the Grand Canal. Sunlight poured around us, its reflection dancing over the ornate facades of the buildings that rose, majestic, straight from the water. We passed the domed church of Santa Maria della Salute, built in the seventeenth century to give thanks for the end of the plague that had killed upwards of a hundred thousand people in the city, and we crossed under the Ponte della Carita, to my mind the ugliest bridge in the city. It was made from iron, did not have a graceful arching form like the famous stone bridges prevalent throughout Venice, and had been placed too low over the water, making it difficult for gondoliers during high tide. Around us, the canal was crowded with boats, the only method of transport in a place with no streets. I’d already decided I didn’t miss them. I much preferred the sleek gondolas, with their singing boatmen, to the clatter of horse and carriage.

  On both sides of us, glorious palazzi lined the water. Although built with precision, they had succumbed to centuries of shifting waters that left their facades with a pervasive asymmetry. This did not detract from their beauty. It only enhanced the feeling that one was gliding through something out of a dream.

  As the elegant stone arches of the Rialto Bridge came into view, the gondolier steered us to the side of the canal and slowed to a stop in front of an imposing fourteenth-century palazzo, seat of the Barozzi family and Emma’s marital home. I nearly lost my balance as I stepped out of the gondola onto the slippery marble pavement at the water entrance. My shaky legs told me I was nervous to meet my old rival.

  A sinewy man opened a low wooden door and ushered us inside. “Signor Hargreaves?”

  Colin nodded.

  “Buongiorno. Signora Barozzi is expecting you.”

  Although Emma’s husband bore the title conte even before his father’s death (it was given as a courtesy to all of a count’s sons), no one in Italy used the term in direct address. Emma, who had made much out of becoming a contessa—always using her title when signing letters and insisting that her parents’ servants address her as such when she visited England—must be disappointed to be referred to as signora.

  We walked along a dark corridor and up a flight of marble stairs into a dim room, the portego, which ran the entire length of the house. At one end was the Barozzi family restelliera, a display of swords, scimitars, spears, shields, and banners hanging on the wall, below which stood two suits of fifteenth-century armor. At the other, large trefoil windows looked onto the canal, the light pouring through them providing the only illumination in the room. Neither of the large lanterns hanging above us was lit. Portraits of the Barozzi ancestors, in dire need of restoration and cleaning, lined the remaining walls, staring down as if to assert the family’s noble roots. The fresco covering the tall ceiling was showing signs of decay—the paint had started to peel—and the bits of terrazzo floor that peeked beyond the edges of a threadbare Oriental carpet had lost their shine. Eloping might not have served Emma quite so well as she had hoped.

  Some years back, at the insistence of her parents, Emma had accepted the proposal of the younger son of a minor English nobleman. It had appeared, after several unsuccessful seasons, to be her only hope for marriage. She had resisted the gentleman’s affection for months, and we’d all believed she’d done so because she harbored higher aspirations. Who could have guessed that all along the dashing Conte Barozzi had been wooing her from afar and that they had plotted their elopement almost from the time they’d met in a London ballroom?

  After their secret marriage, Emma and her new husband fled to the conte’s home in Venice, scandalizing the ton, everyone fashionable in society. Her family stood by her, and I’d heard rumors that her father, ever devoted to his difficult daughter, continued to offer her financial support. This gossip led in turn to stories about the conte’s lack of fortune. But, as is often the case, trading cash for a title was not considered a bad bargain. Most people agreed the new contessa had done well for herself.

  Emma rose from a seat near the windows and crossed the room to greet us. The bright yellow satin of her gown suggested time in Italy hadn’t altered her taste in fashion. Garish had always been her signature. She was as skinny and angular as ever, all hard bones and frown lines. I pushed unkind thoughts out of my head, displeased that old habits had got the better of me. I was prepared to let go the troubles of the past. Emma and I were no longer sparring schoolgirls or rival debutantes. I was here to help her.

  She did not meet my eyes but focused on Colin instead. My heartbeat quickened as I wondered if she would launch straight into her usual flirtatious ways or if marriage had tempered her.

  “Darling Hargreaves,” she said, holding a hand out to him. “It’s so good of you to come. Both of you.” She made a point of looking away from me. “I know I do not deserve your kindness.”

  “Think nothing of it,” I said, feeling an unfamiliar warmth towards her. “It’s time we move beyond our differences. We’re not children anymore.”

  “Thank you, Emily,” she said. “I simply had no one else to turn to. I suppose that ought not surprise me. After all, what lady of my rank would associate with persons who investigate crimes? That I know even one is astonishing. Two, if we count your charming husband.”

  She winked at him.

  I pressed my lips together hard. “Emma, we need to know exactly what happened the night of your father-in-law’s death.” Exchanging social niceties with Emma was far less pleasant than thinking about murder.

  “I had no idea anything out of the ordinary had occurred until the following morning,” she said. “I’d seen Signor Barozzi before I retired to my room and he was in perfect health. The next morning, our steward informed us that he was dead. I know you’d much prefer it if I could give you some sort of juicy clue as to what happened, but I can’t. I do hope having the murder weapon helps.”

  I took the slim dagger back into my hands. Its blade was eight inches long, and precious stones—diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires—encrusted its hilt.

  “It belonged to my husband’s mother,” Emma said. “She kept it next to her bed.”

  “For protection, or just because she liked the way it looked?” I asked.

  “Protection. It’s an old family habit,” Emma said. “You know how these Italians can be. Very passionate and very dramatic. Not at all like we English. It’s quite alarming.”

  “Was anything else in her room disturbed?” I asked.

  “I can’t really say.” Emma clasped her hands and looked down. “My father-in-law hasn’t let anyone into her room since she died more than a dozen years ago.”

  “No one was allowed in the room?” Colin asked. “Not even servants to keep it clean?”

  “No,” Emma said. “He couldn’t bear to have anyone to
uch her things. He dusted them himself and even went so far as to wash the floors.”

  “Have you gone into her room since the night he died?” I asked.

  “I did, just to see it,” Emma said. “Perhaps it sounds callous after having lost a family member, but I admit I was curious.”

  “If no one has been in the room for so many years, how can you be certain the knife came from there?” Colin asked.

  “Paolo—my husband—recognized it.”

  “May we see the room?” I asked.

  “If you wish,” Emma said, “but you won’t find anything of interest.”

  We followed her into an ornately decorated room where the frescoes on the ceiling were in slightly better condition than those I’d seen in the rest of the house. The furniture, some of which could have been original to the palazzo, was fashioned from heavy, dark wood. The bed was enormous, with a canopy high above it and long velvet drapes pulled to enclose it on three sides. Through the fourth side, where the curtain had been drawn, we could see the bedclothes of fine linen, still rumpled as if the bed’s occupant were in the next room taking breakfast. There was still a slight depression on the pillow where Signora Barozzi’s head had rested on the night of her death. My skin prickled at the sight.

  A quick search of the room yielded nothing of interest to our current case. Colin checked each of the windows and then asked Emma to show us where her father-in-law’s body had been found.

  “It was here.” She had taken us back to the portego and pointed to a spot on the floor. “We believe his assailant entered the room through the window just above.”

  “Is it generally kept open at night?” I asked.

  “No, but it was open when the servants found him. It had been shut the night before.”

  “It’s possible the conte opened it himself,” I said, pulling a notebook out of my reticule and starting to scribble in it. “Of course, that doesn’t preclude the possibility someone else did.”

  Colin peered out the window. “It’s a long way down,” he said. “Someone climbing up from canal level surely would have been noticed, either by neighbors or boaters.”

  “The police looked into that,” Emma said. “No one came forward to say they’d seen anything unusual, and it would be impossible to know who had been passing by at just the right moment. A hopeless business, really.”