Grave Consequences (Grand Tour Series #2) (40 page)

“Do the pilings not rot, there in the water?” my father asked.

“No,” Pierre said. “I’ll give you an example. When the bell tower fell in ’02 and they went to rebuild it, they found the thousand-year-old pilings in as good a shape as ever. The waters here…full of minerals—they seem to enhance…uh, become like rock, over time. It happens with trees.” His forehead wrinkled as he searched for the right word.

“Petrification,” Andrew supplied.

“Oui,” Pierre said with a relieved nod. “A
petrification
process that makes them stronger than ever.”

“I must say that you do quite a good job filling in as bear,” Lil said, taking Pierre’s arm. I stiffened and turned away. No one could fill Will’s place. No one. I knew it was silly. Pierre was simply trying to help us, engage us, answer our questions. This was a city he knew well, and we were to stay in a palazzo owned by one of his friends. But I could not help feeling defensive on Will’s behalf.

The ferry stopped at a dock, and we disembarked and waited for the servants to gather our luggage. Then Pierre set off, leading us through narrow alleys and down a crowded street so thick with people we could barely move, then through a tunnel and into a tiny piazza, with a well at the center and buildings all about, one of which was a large white building to our left. Pierre went to the gates and rang a bell that we could hear clang within, high up. “From now on, we’ll come and go from the palazzo via the waterway,” Pierre said. “As her owners once did.”

A manservant came to the gates and, after a word in Italian with Pierre, allowed us entry. We walked through a tiny portico and garden, then through a huge, tall door into the foyer. Out of the sun and surrounded by stone, it was blessedly cool. I walked forward, drawn by the light, and my mouth again parted in wonder. The entire center of the palazzo was open to the sun, forming a square courtyard that extended four stories high.

Antonio turned to direct the servants on where each person would be and therefore where they should deliver the luggage, while the rest of us congregated around Pierre. I moved over, happily allowing others to put some distance between me and Pierre. I was overcome by my agitation again, despite my best efforts. “This bottom floor was where the merchants saw to all their business,” he said. “The next floor up was where they lived, as well as the third. The fourth floor was usually reserved for servants. Now, as families struggle to maintain the palazzos—for they are costly—many rent out the third and fourth levels, or
pianos
, as they call them, electing to live on the first and second. But back in Venezia’s heyday, that would’ve been impossible. Because all day, every day, the gates to the canal would have been open, and in many buildings, goods would enter and exit, an active trade business.”

“Where does that trade occur now?” Andrew asked, making me want to throttle him. I was about to scream from the lectures. Lectures that should have been Will’s to give.

“Mostly on the mainland.” Pierre reached out to run his hand along the smooth stone of a column. “Venezia now echoes with the wonder she once was; she serves as a reminder of how power comes and goes, no matter how great.”

He said the last with such a gentle tone that it almost sounded like introspection, thawing a tiny bit more of the chill building within me. He clapped his hands together. “Well, then, my friends. Let us all go and rest before we begin exploring, no?” He pulled out his pocket watch, looked around, and said, “Let us meet here again in two hours. That should give you each enough time for a rest, and then we’ll go and tour San Marco and I’ll take you to my favorite
trattoria
for some supper.”

“That sounds delightful, Richelieu,” my father said. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am, you setting this up for us.”

“Not at all, not at all, my friend.”

I left then, not meeting his eyes, eyes I could feel trailing after me. If I looked beyond my own resentment, I grudgingly had to admit that he was an excellent guide, with an intuitive sense of when to wax on and when to cut short a lecture. No doubt it served him well in all his business and political endeavors. I hurried up the stairs after Anna, eager to be free of him and my father for a bit. No doubt I wouldn’t be able to avoid Pierre for long. Soon we’d need to speak, and speak frankly. The trouble was, I couldn’t seem to figure out which end was up. I liked him, cared for him, but my heart was Will’s. More and more, I was sure of it. And yet my father had hog-tied me to Pierre. So how was I to speak about what I couldn’t get straight in my own head?

“Cora! You’re down here! Next to me!” Lil cried, waving me down the hall to the end. “Wait until you see it!” She practically ran down to me and looped her arm through mine. We entered my room, and I laughed with delight. The tall windows on the far wall were open, light curtains blowing in the breeze. We could hear the wash of water, the shouts of boat captains below, before we reached it. What was more, there was a small patio outside and a narrow door with a rusted brass knob allowing us access. Lillian squealed and led the way out, pulling me by the hand. “Come, come! Look! It runs the whole length of the palace! We can come out here tonight!”

“It’s lovely,” I whispered in awe. For the first time on the tour, I wasn’t thinking about what might be next, but rather how long I might be able to remain. Because, oh, how this place invited me to linger, pause,
heal
… Looking one way and then the other along the canal—here a long, wide curve with buildings disappearing around the bend—and behind me at yet another beautiful bedroom boasting a big four-poster bed laden with pillows and a thick comforter, I couldn’t imagine anywhere else I’d rather be. If only Will could be here with me, I decided. And Mama and Papa. Then it’d be perfect.

The thought brought me up short. Because try as I might, I couldn’t imagine Mama and Papa here with me. In this palazzo. They’d be lost, intimidated, ill at ease. And that scared me.
How will I ever feel at home with them again? Now that I know more of the world? Possibility? Potential? Promise? Or am I forever changed?

I walked along the narrow porch, dragging my fingers along the polished limestone, wondering if the mine, the sudden wealth, would change them, too. Open them up to all I had experienced.
Bring us together again.
It was all enough to make my head throb.

“Lil,” I said, taking her hand in mine. “Would you excuse me? I think I need to lie down.”

“Of course,” she said, green eyes twinkling. “I’ll return to my room this way!”

I smiled at her glee, and we parted. When I closed the porch door and shut out the canal’s traffic noise, the relative silence eased me. The room was massive, housing the bed, two chairs and a dresser, an armoire, and a table with a pitcher and bowl—there was no water closet, I saw—and I felt swallowed up in the space.

I sat down on the bed, pulled off my suit jacket, and then bent to unlace my boots, suddenly feeling every ounce of weariness in my body. When the second boot dropped to the thick carpet atop the marble tiles, I flopped to my back, looking up to the fabric draped across the rods above me, then over to the ceiling. It looked like it’d been damaged and repaired over the years, now with a painting of clouds across its surface. I stared at them, imagining myself home, on the farm, beneath the tree out back, and it took me some time to remember what it felt like, smelled like.

But after a while, in my head and heart, I was back in Dunnigan, and at last I slept.

“Miss Cora. Miss Cora,” Anna said, shaking my shoulder. I groaned and reluctantly felt my dream slip away. I had been with Mama and Papa, outside the little country church, talking with the neighbors about what everyone was bringing to the picnic. Waking to find I was in Venezia, the sound of water overtaking the sound of my dreams—wind from the mountains—was jarring and left me feeling a bit unbalanced. Wary.

“My, you must have been weary indeed to have slept the way you have,” Anna said, going to open the curtains a little wider and allow the last bit of afternoon sun in. “I came in an hour ago and found you so asleep I thought I’d better give you more time.”

“Thank you,” I said, forcing myself to sit up and yawning. “I think I might’ve slept the whole night through, given the option.”

“Yes, well,” she said, “you’ve had some frightfully short nights. Perhaps you’ll catch up on your rest here.”

So she’d noticed. My late-night pacing. My inability to sleep past sunup. Combined, they’d left me with far too little sleep. Back home, I’d gone down with the sun.… For a moment, I considered giving in to my drowsiness and returning to my dreams of home.

“Miss Cora?” Anna asked, obviously for the second time.

“Oh. Pardon me?”

“I wondered if you’d like a fresh suit for your afternoon outing.”

I looked down at my skirt and blouse and knew I must have appeared rather rumpled. But what did it matter, really? Who was I to impress? Did I not want Pierre and my father to accept me as I was? Why would I pander to their attentions? I rose and turned my backside to her. “Am I presentable enough?”

“Let me just give your skirt a quick press. Given that you took off the coat, I think we can make do.”

“It will be dark soon,” I said, smiling as I unbuttoned the skirt and stepped out of it. “So no need to work too hard at it.”

“Lucky for us. I’ll return in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

“Thank you, Anna.”

“Not at all, miss. I laid your brush and powders over there on the dressing table.” With that, she disappeared.

I pulled out a small watch from my pocket and flipped open the cover. I was to meet the others in fifteen minutes.
No wonder Anna urged me to see to my own hair.
I sighed and forced my swollen feet into my boots, laced them back up, and walked over to the dresser, a small stool before it, a mirror above it. I laughed when I saw my reflection, my hair a catawampus mess after my long nap. It was to Anna’s credit that she had not laughed aloud when she saw me.

Moving quickly now, I pulled out the twenty or more pins and brushed out my hair in furious strokes, wincing as I hit one knot after another. Then I elected for a simple knot atop my head that I’d mostly hide with a big hat. In a minute, I had it in proper order, and the hat pinned atop it. Anna arrived with my skirt, buttoned me up in back, and I scurried out of the room. I was reluctant to depart this sea-kissed sanctuary and looked forward to returning—evening above the canal would be rather magical, I thought.

I was the last to arrive in the courtyard, and my father gave me such a long look, full of chastisement for being tardy, that I narrowly resisted sticking my tongue out at him. Hugh, also at the back of the group, edged closer to me, his hand in front of his mouth, laughter in his eyes. “What kept you?” he asked in a whisper. “You were so late I thought you had stolen away”

“I was hardly off cavorting,” I whispered back. “I was napping.”

“Ahh, beauty rest for the beauty, eh?”

I rolled my eyes at his idle flattery. “One does what one must.”

“Well, then,” my father said, “let’s be off. Outside on the canal are several gondoliers. They shall take us down to Piazza San Marco.”

Hugh offered his arm, and I accepted it. “So it appears you’ve chosen the prince over the pauper?”

“I have chosen no one, no matter how my father wishes to choose for me. Pierre and I are…friends.”

“Come now, Cora. There is no such thing as a friendship between men and women.”

“No? Then what are we?”

That caught him, and he paused as we stepped down the stone stairs to get to the small pier outside. “More than friends, I think,” he said, holding the door open. “More bonded, after all our adventures together.”

I smiled at him as I passed. Who would have ever guessed that I would one day think Hugh tolerable? Almost…endearing? I sucked in my breath as we came outside and I saw two gondoliers on either side of the narrow pier, with three more maintaining their position just a bit away. The long black boats were elegantly slender, with a gentle curve to them and a fancy decoration at their stern. The boatmen stood on the back, rhythmically turning their long oars in a small circle on one side to keep them in place.

Hugh went first down the walkway, gallantly offering me his hand. I accepted, given that in my long, narrow skirt and high boots, it’d be a horror I’d never live down if I fell in the water. He’d fished me out of an icy crevasse; I didn’t need him to fish me from the turquoise waters of the lagoon. At the end of the walkway, the gondolier offered me his hand too.
“Per favore,”
he said, gesturing down and into a seat for two decorated with red cushions. Gingerly, I stepped into the gondola, adjusted to the rocking sway of it, and then made my way over and onto the seat.

Hugh came after me. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” I said.
Better him than Pierre.

One of the new guards, Nario, climbed in with us, and our gondolier moved off, making room for the next to be loaded. On the other side of the pier, Vivian and Andrew departed, with another guard named Pascal playing the chaperone. Lil rode with Felix and Antonio, and Nell with both fathers. They didn’t have guards with them, but I noticed our gondolier waited for the others, then set off behind Pierre, while Vivian and Andrew’s brought up the rear.