The ocean breeze somehow smelled different here than it did in Venice—sweeter, warmer, fresher. I could leave the villa—loaned to us for our wedding trip by a friend of Giacomo’s—and wander down to the shore in nothing more than a shift, for there was no one else on this small Greek island to see us. I spent many enjoyable days exploring the beaches and forests, as I was usually left to my own devices.
The evenings were another matter.
As I watched the fiery sun sink beneath the waves, Giacomo came up behind me, wrapping an arm around my waist. “Beautiful, is it not?” he asked, as if he had commissioned the entire spectacle for my pleasure and now expected to be thanked for it. “Beauty seems to flourish here.” He bent his head and kissed the side of my neck, while slipping my shift down my shoulder. I did not move, keeping my eyes on the fading horizon, until he took my hand and placed it over his hardening manhood beneath his breeches. I forced myself to pull away slowly.
“Here, marito?” I asked. “Surely the marriage bed is a more appropriate place for such … activity.”
“We are newlyweds,” he reminded me. “A bit of adventurousness is to be expected, si?” He reached for me again, but I instinctively took a step back.
“A wife’s duty is to please her husband, in every way,” he reminded me with a growl. “God knows I am not some handsome young swain, but I am your husband, and so you might think about resigning yourself to that, Adriana. A bit of gratitude would not be wanting, either.”
The more I help him along to his pleasure, the less time it all will take. “I am sorry, marito,” I said aloud, looking up at him through my eyelashes. “Of course you are right. Let us only go inside to the bed, where we will be more comfortable.”
His annoyance melted away at once. I let him take my hand and lead me inside.
* * *
Gloomy autumn rain splashed against the windows and high stone ceilings of the church—a far cry from the weather on that lovely island paradise, which I still thought of longingly from time to time. The humidity made my mourning wear—a heavy black velvet gown and black lace veil—difficult to bear.
On my left side, Giacomo listened stoically to the funeral Mass, while on my right, my father was—uncharacteristically—weeping. I had never been under the impression that he loved Claudio all that much, but rather only saw him as a successor to the business. Yet apparently I was wrong.
Earlier that month, we had received news that Claudio had been found stabbed to death in an alley in Florence—outside of a brothel, where there had been an altercation between Claudio and another patron. The murderer was not apprehended; likely the culprit was someone of far greater wealth and influence than my brother.
It was a fitting end for Claudio, really, I thought ruefully. Yet tears sprang to my eyes as I contemplated how devastated my mother would have been, had she lived to see the mess her son had made of his life.
As everyone rose to receive the Host, I surreptitiously glanced around the church from beneath my veil. The pews were full of people I did not know. I had been hoping to see Giuseppe, but he did not appear to be present. I wondered if he had even heard the news, though there was no love lost between him and Claudio in any case.
Giuseppe and I corresponded regularly by letter—he had found employment as a secretary for one of the members of the Council of Ten—but we had not seen each other since my wedding. Giacomo’s and my first true argument as a married couple had been when he had forbidden me from inviting Giuseppe into our house.
“Your father warned me about this friend of yours,” Giacomo said as I broached the subject over dinner one evening. “I know he was the one who helped facilitate your trysts.” He shook his head and reapplied himself to his meal. “No. I shall not have him in my house.”
“And did my holier-than-thou father also inform you,” I asked, “that this same Giuseppe Rivalli is also his bastard son, and therefore my half brother?”
The look of surprise on my husband’s face was quite gratifying. Giuseppe may have sworn not to reveal the truth of his parentage, but I had taken no such vow.
Giacomo recovered rather quickly. “Most men of privilege have at least one bastard somewhere,” he said. “It is the way of the world.” He glanced up at me. “You should know that better than anyone, Adriana.”
That put a quick end to our discussion on the matter.
After the requiem Mass, we accompanied Claudio’s coffin out to one of the islands in the lagoon for burial, and then returned to the city. We had offered to return home with my father and spend the evening with him, but he had declined rather brusquely, saying he preferred to be alone.
“A sad state of affairs,” Giacomo said as our gondolier rowed us back. “But in truth it seems your brother had no one to blame but himself.” He quickly crossed himself. “Not to speak ill of the dead, of course.”
“I do not believe the dead can hear you, husband,” I said, smiling slightly, “nor do I think they can take offense at an utterance of the truth.”
He smiled back, changing the subject. “As to happier thoughts, can we expect the renovations to be finished by the end of the month, as projected?”
“We can,” I told him. “The new carpets I ordered are set to be delivered tomorrow, and the last few pieces of furniture by early next week.”
“Excellent.”
Just as Giacomo had told me on the night we first met, his palazzo was very much in need of renovations when I moved in: the furniture was both old and old-fashioned, scratched and worn; the curtains were oppressively thick and heavy; the carpets had grown threadbare.
He had told me to spare no expense in the renovations and to choose whatever pleased me. Glad to have a project to distract myself from the memories that resurfaced upon our return to Venice, I summoned the finest furniture makers, upholsterers, and carpenters in the republic to remake the old bachelor’s house into a home fit for a patrician and his wife, and perhaps someday children as well.
Giacomo had also allowed me to hire whatever additional servants I might need, and my first act had been to find and rehire Meneghina as my personal maid, for which she seemed both grateful and happy.
“Home we go, then,” he said, smiling at me.
“Yes,” I said, realizing that I was beginning to think of his palazzo that way. Ahead of us, Venice rose out of the waters of the lagoon to greet us, as if by magic. “Home.”