Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [143]
Giuliano came, as she had known he would. She looked at him standing in her magnificent room. Although he was ill at ease, trying to hide the eagerness to learn what she had to say burning inside him, he still moved with grace, and grudgingly she admitted to herself he was better than handsome: He had a vitality of mind that she could not ignore. If she had been younger, she would have wanted to lie with him. But he was a Dandolo, and the dream in the eyes, the shape of a cheekbone, the width of his shoulders, or the way he walked could not pardon that.
He made all the usual polite remarks, not rushing into asking for the new information, and she played the game, uncertain whether she enjoyed it or not.
“I have heard more of your mother,” she said as soon as the greetings were over and the casual remarks that courtesy required. “She was beautiful, but perhaps you knew that already.” She saw the flicker of emotion in his face, the sharp hurt too deep to camouflage. “Perhaps you did not know that Maddalena had a sister, Eudoxia, also beautiful, but regrettably there is considerable scandal about her name.” Again she saw the emotion raw in him. A pity she could not be young again. “What I did not know before is that Eudoxia is said by some to have repented deeply in her old age, and to have joined some holy order. I do not know which, but I may be able to learn. It is possible that she is still alive.”
“Alive?” His eyes opened wide.
“Please, leave it to me. I have ways which are not open to you, and I can do it discreetly. I will let you know as soon as I have something that is certain.”
“Thank you.” He smiled at her, a handsome, self-assured man with a charm that came without effort.
“I was three when my mother died,” she said to Giuliano, aware that her voice was shaking but unable to control it.
“I’m sorry,” he responded with sudden shock, his eyes tender.
She did not wish his sympathy. “She was raped and murdered.” Then she wished she had not told him. It was a weakness and a tactical error. He might work out the year, and the circumstances, and then know he could never trust her. “I have something for you,” she said hastily, trying to cover it. “I came by it almost by chance, so please feel no obligation.” She moved away from him over to the table on which lay the dagger with the Dandolo crest. She unwrapped the blue silk cloth around it and held it out, hilt toward him, crest upward. Bardas had done a perfect job: It looked old and well used, yet every detail of it was clear.
Giuliano stared at it, then looked up at her.
“Take it,” she urged. “It should be yours. Anyway, what on earth would I do with a dagger that carried a Venetian crest on it?”
He was not clumsy enough to offer to pay for it. He would give her a gift of appropriate value, a little more than he judged the dagger to be worth.
He weighed it in his hands. “The balance is perfect,” he observed. “Where did it come from?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “But if I find out, I shall tell you.”
“Thank you.” He was not effusive, but the depth of his feeling filled his voice, his eyes, even the way he stood and the touch of his hands on the knife.
“Wear it,” she said quite casually. “It will become you.” She would pray that he did, kneel before the Virgin Mary and beseech her that he did. Unless the dagger was known to be Giuliano’s, Zoe’s plan would not work.
“I will.” He seemed about to add something further, then changed his mind and took his leave.
She watched him go with an odd little pain biting in her side, as if something were slipping out of her hands. Now there was nothing to do but wait, two or three weeks, at least. She had to be sure others had seen Giuliano with the knife and knew it was his.
She waited a month. Time seemed to crawl by like a crippled thing, dragging days behind it. The heat of noon paralyzed, the afternoons were heavy and silent, darkness was a mask that could hide anything, every creak and footstep a possible