Chapter 26

H owever irritated he was to see her go, Rat did not stop Melody from taking the gondola to visit Alessandro. She had hoped that Giovanni knew the Foscari palazzo and was not disappointed. Earlier in the week, Lady Bainbridge had said it wasn't far, and it wasn't. The palazzo was also in the Dorsoduro, though closer to where it met the San Polo district.

The journey was so short that Melody barely had time to consider how she would explain her visit. She had been so fired up with righteous indignation at Rat's attempt to prevent her going that it had not occurred to her that Alessandro might give her visit a more romantic interpretation than she intended. As soon as this occurred to her, Melody became flustered. The man had rejected her forcefully only two evenings prior. Would he view her purported desire to question him as merely a ploy to be in his presence? The mere thought was enough to make Melody consider asking Giovanni to turn the gondola around. Her own thoughts almost sufficed to do what Rat's stern words were unable to achieve: make Melody second guess her plan.

Giovanni was beginning to pull the gondola towards the canal's edge, and she had only moments before they would arrive at Alessandro's palazzo. Just as she was about to ask the gondolier to turn around, Melody considered what the dowager would do in this situation. Granny had a force of personality that struck fear into the hearts of even the most hardened criminals. She never let herself be affected by what others might think of her, as much as her family often wished otherwise. When the dowager had come into Melody's life, the woman was already elderly. Nevertheless, neither her age, gender, nor the expectations of how a woman in her social class should behave had ever stopped the Dowager Countess of Pembroke from striding forth, ready to take control of any situation. If she were in Melody's shoes, there is no doubt that Granny would not have turned back. And so, Melody took a deep breath and didn't stop Giovanni from pulling the gondola up to the porta d'acqua.

Seeing Alessandro's gondola tied up, Melody was unsure if she hoped that indicated he was home or not. Either way, the die was cast, and she thrust out her chin, allowed Giovanni to help her out of the gondola, and climbed the two steps to the door. Pausing a moment before fully committing to her plan, Melody finally used the door knocker to rap decisively on the door.

The door was opened by Alessandro's maggiordomo, who cocked an eyebrow at the young woman standing alone at the door. Melody's immediate thought was that British butlers knew better than to let their thoughts be evident on their faces. It seemed that inscrutability wasn't in the job description in Venice.

"I am here to see Conte Foscari," Melody said in Italian. "Please tell him that Miss Chesterton needs to speak with him urgently."

The maggiordomo's face showed that he could only imagine one reason that an unaccompanied young woman might come looking for his master. Melody was glad that the man had quickly turned his back to her, so he couldn't see how flushed she became at this realisation. However, he didn't question her further and made it clear that she should follow him.

Even though she was glad not to be challenged, the butler's immediate acquiescence made Melody wonder how often young women turned up at Alessandro's door. The thought that the butler lumped her in with those women mortified Melody even more.

Melody was led down a hallway and through a door into an impressively grand sala. However close to destitution the Foscari family might once have been, it was evident that Alessandro's father had done more than enough to restore their fortunes. Everything about the receiving room was understated elegance. Melody had been in enough drawing rooms in her young life to recognise expensive furnishings that felt no need to call attention to their cost. The overall effect in this room was a stylish simplicity that nevertheless left one in no doubt as to the wealth of the palazzo's owner.

The butler indicated that Melody should take a seat on a cream, silk-upholstered sofa. She perched on the edge, too nervous to even relax back into the sofa's luxurious cushions. His job done, the man left the room, shutting the door behind him having not said a word. Was he merely reticent or did he not believe her Italian up to a conversation?

If she were waiting in a London drawing room, Melody would expect to be served tea and cake not long after arrival. Her only experience of afternoon customs in Venice was in Lady Bainbridge's home which hewed closely to those of upper-class London society. Just as she was wondering whether Italian afternoon social calls followed any of the same rules of etiquette as Britain, the door opened, and Alessandro entered.

Somehow Melody had forgotten just how handsome he was. His striking green eyes were sparkling now with something that, if Melody had to put a name to it, she would have reluctantly called laughter. Yes, the man seemed amused by her presence in his home.

Coming towards her, he bowed low over Melody's proffered hand, his eyes flickered up to meet hers. "What a delightful surprise, Melody," Alessandro said in a tone whose underlying amusement matched the look she had seen in his eyes.

If Melody could have erased the past fifteen minutes and instead listened to Rat and not come, she would have. Suddenly, she saw herself through Alessandro's eyes: a naive young girl who had got in over her head in the gondola the other evening and read more into their kiss than he had intended. All Melody wanted to do in that moment was to make clear that her presence in his home had nothing to do with any feelings for him. And of course, that was because she had no such feelings.

Unsure how to immediately disabuse him of any assumptions he may have jumped to, Melody said in a very businesslike voice, "Conte Foscari, I wish to discuss the two recent murders with you."

Alessandro raised an eyebrow, though, whether at her formal use of his title or at the topic she wished to talk about. "And what do you have to do with these murders, Miss Chesterton?" He stressed the formality of his pivot to her last name.

Melody considered how many of her cards to lay on the table. "You may not have heard, but Luisa, the marchesa, and I stumbled across the body of Antonio Graziano, the deceased bookseller."

"I may have heard some rumour that alluded to that. And the second murder?"

Melody had forgotten to check the morning newspapers, so she wasn't sure what, if anything, had been reported about Silvio Verdi's death. Deciding she had little to lose by repeating the story that she and Rat had been using, she explained why they had been looking for the journalist and how they had come across his body.

Alessandro let her finish and then said, "Two bodies in less than a week. A more superstitious man than I might say that you bring bad luck." As he said this, he smiled, indicating he was teasing. Then he continued, "But I still do not understand what you wish to discuss with me."

Deciding that if she was in for a penny she was in for a pound, Melody plucked up all her courage, and replied, "I know that you lied to me when you said that you do not know Herr Peetz. My brother saw the two of you talking at the marchesa's party and overheard you speaking of Signor Graziano's death."

Alessandro's face was impassive as she made this accusation. The silence when she stopped speaking went on so long that she wondered if he would answer at all. Finally, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and steepled his fingers. "And what did your brother believe he overheard? "

"That Signor Graziano's death was a loss for you and caused worry that your plan had been discovered."

His face still giving nothing away, Alessandro asked, "And what do you and Mr Sandworth believe was meant by that?"

Deciding that she had gone too far to pull back now, Melody looked him in the eye and said, "My brother thinks that you may be working against the interests of the British Government."

"Do you agree with your brother?" Melody wasn't sure if she was imagining it, but she thought that perhaps his words were tinged with a little sadness as he asked this question.

"I do not know. Luisa told me that Herr Peetz has published articles that have angered the Austria-Hungarian imperial government and that he has taken refuge in Italy for the time being. We know that the deceased journalist, Silvio Verdi, wrote for one of your newspapers which published some of his exposés. We believe these may have been written using secret papers smuggled out of Vienna. My brother thinks he may have done this against your wishes."

Melody paused; if she went any further, she was potentially risking her investigation and showing too many of her cards to Alessandro. However, if she didn't tell him what she knew, how could she gauge his reaction? Finally, throwing caution to the wind, she said, "Matthew and I searched Signor Graziano's flat above his shop."

At this admission, Alessandro's eyebrows shot up, but he said nothing. Melody continued, "We found a list of books with some names next to them. The first name on the list was Silvio Verdi, and now he is dead as well."

"And you believe that both men were killed by the same person?"

Melody then explained the deductions she had laid out for the inspector days earlier. Alessandro was visibly impressed with her reasoning, and Melody couldn't help but feel proud and happy that he might come to realise that there was more to her than a silly debutante.

He then asked the question to which Melody had no answer, " Do you think that I am the killer?"

Melody paused just too long, and she saw a look flit across Alessandro's face; was it hurt? Was that possible? Why would he care what she thought?

"I did not kill those men," Alessandro asserted. "Nor do I know who did. I can tell you that it wasn't Dieter Peetz."

"The man you claimed not to know," Melody said with more bitterness than she meant to show.

Alessandro had the good grace to look chagrined. He got up from the armchair he had been sitting in and moved to sit next to her on the sofa, taking one of her hands as he sat. The move was so quick that Melody barely registered it until her hand was in his. He held her hand in both of his, looking down at their conjoining, saying nothing.

Finally, he looked into her eyes with an intensity from which she wanted to turn away. But she didn't. Instead, she held his gaze, as painful as it was to do so. "Miss Chesterton, Melody, I wish I could tell you everything, but I cannot. There is too much at stake."

"And you do not trust me?" she said, finishing his sentence.

"I cannot trust anyone."

"Yet you are asking me to trust you. To believe you."

Again, he looked ashamed at her words. With one hand still holding hers, Alessandro touched her face gently with the other, gossamer-light strokes of his fingertips on her cheek. "You are so beautiful and so young. You deserve a world as wonderful as you are, but, alas, that is not the world we seem to be living in. There are forces at work determined to drag us all into war."

His words broke the spell that he had woven with his touch. Pulling away from his caress, Melody asked sharply, "And which side do you wish Italy to be on when Britain goes to war with Austria-Hungary and Germany?"

"How can you ask that? Britain is my home. I was raised there."

Instead of answering his question directly, Melody said with genuine compassion, "It must have been hard to grow up torn between two countries, two cultures."

Alessandro laughed darkly. "You have no idea. I was never British enough at Eton or Oxford. But when I came home to Venice, I did not speak the Venetian dialect fluently and did not know every calle and fondamenta like the back of my hand. I was never enough of each and always too much of both. That someone like that cocky fool, Ashby, feels he can look down on me says everything you need to know. It doesn't matter if his father lost his title and his fortune. It doesn't matter that they had to sell off the family estate, that the girls have no dowries, and the boys all must work for a living; he still thinks he's better than me, and most people in society agree with him."

He had dropped her hand and turned away as he said this. Taking his large hand in her dainty one, Melody said gently, "I know what it is like to be viewed as never good enough."

"You? You are the ward of an earl! I doubt that people look down on you."

"I am the ward of an earl, but I spent my first four years of life penniless in the East End of London. When I was four, my parents died, and Matthew and I became homeless orphans. If we had not fallen into the Earl of Pembroke's sphere and if he had not taken us in, my life would be very different today."

This was not the first time that Melody had considered the vagaries of fate, but it was the first time she had ever spoken of them to anyone other than Rat. She knew what would have happened to them; Rat would have ended up joining Mickey D's criminal organisation, and she, well, if she were lucky, she would have found herself married to a drunk who beat her regularly and saddled her with a brood of dirty-faced children already. If she were unlucky, she would have already spent a few of her prime years as a prostitute catering to the working men of Whitechapel. This so easily could have been her life, perhaps was destined to be her life, except for a quirk of fate that usually took her breath away even to contemplate.