Jane Vows Vengeance

letting Jane do all the work looking for Crispin’s Needle. He’d waited until Jane found it—or until he thought Jane had found it—and then moved in to steal it. Only there were two things he hadn’t counted on: first, that the Needle had either rusted away to nothing or been stolen, and second, that he would run into Walter as he fled the room. That’s when he must have glamored him.

“You always were too clever by half,” she said, as if Joshua could hear her.

By now he would have discovered that the Pierrot was empty. But would he know that it was because the Needle was gone, or would he assume that Jane still had it and had hidden it somewhere for safekeeping? Jane suspected the latter. And if Joshua thought that Jane still had the Needle, he was still a danger.

“Wow,” Walter said. “My teeth are really buzzing now. It’s like my mouth is full of bees.”

Jane sighed. The glamor was wearing off. Next would come the pounding headache.

“We’ll get you some aspirin on the way to dinner,” Jane said as she picked up her purse. “And whatever you have for dinner, make sure it has lots of garlic in it.”

Chapter 20

Tuesday: Venice

Half an hour into it, Jane was regretting the gondola ride. For one thing, the singing was annoying. For another, it looked like it might rain. But mostly she was irritated that Miriam had managed to sit between her and Walter, making what might otherwise have been a romantic affair merely a study in tedium. Lilith was sitting on Miriam’s lap, and she was enjoying the experience only slightly more than Jane was.

“I hate Venice,” Lilith said, although of course only Jane could hear her. “What moron thought it was a good idea to build a city in a lagoon?”

“They’re Italian,” Jane said. “They’re all mad as a basket of rats.”

“Who are you talking to?” asked Lucy, who was sitting behind Jane.

Jane had forgotten that she didn’t need to speak aloud when communicating with Lilith. In fact, it was best if she didn’t, as having a seemingly one-sided conversation with oneself was likely to bewilder anyone who—like Lucy—happened to overhear what was being said.

“She’s lost her mind,” Miriam said under her breath. “Someone should check her basket for rats.”

“Don’t make me pitch you into the canal, old woman,” said Jane in a tone that only Miriam could hear. “Remember what happened to Katharine Hepburn when she fell in while filming Summertime.” Jane bugged out one eye and twitched it, mimicking the results of the infection that supposedly plagued Hepburn for the rest of her life following her dunking.

Miriam turned her face away and pretended to look at something on the other side of the canal. Jane, pleased with herself, turned around. “Just having a chat with my dear mother-in-law,” she said to Lucy, enjoying the way Miriam stiffened at the reference.

“Coming up you will see Ponte dei Sospiri,” said the gondolier, who despite being named Napoleon was actually quite tall and very good-looking. “You will know it as the Bridge of Sighs, a name that was given to it by the famous poet Byron.”

Jane rolled her eyes. Enough with him already, she thought. It was bad enough that they were staying at the Byron Hotel. She’d forgotten how much the Venetians considered him an adopted son of the city. It’s a good thing he’s not here, she told herself. He’d be impossible to live with.

“It’s said that if lovers kiss beneath the Bridge of Sighs just at sunset, their love will be eternal,” Napoleon informed them. He then glanced up at the sky. “If we wait a few minutes, we can put this to the test.”

“That’s all right,” Miriam said loudly. “We don’t need any of that.”

“Just because nobody wants to kiss you,” Jane murmured in her ear. She made kissing sounds just to be irritating. Miriam swatted her away as if fending off a mosquito.

“Listen to this,” said Ben.

At a bookshop in a narrow street just off Piazza San Marco he had picked up a battered copy of Mark Twain’s classic piece of travel writing, The Innocents Abroad. He had been reading them bits and pieces of it throughout the day, focusing, naturally, on the chapter devoted to Venice. It had become bothersome, but he was so enthusiastic about it that no one wanted to tell him to stop. Also, because he was a rabbi, there was a feeling that it would be too much like poking God with a stick.

“ ‘The gondolier is a picturesque rascal for all he wears no satin harness, no plumed bonnet, no silken tights,’ ” Ben read. “ ‘His attitude is stately; he is lithe and supple; all his movements are full of grace. When his long canoe, and his fine figure, towering from its high perch on the stern, are cut against the evening sky, they make a picture that is very novel and striking to a foreign eye.’ ”

Napoleon beamed as if Twain had written the words after having taken a ride in that very gondola. “Apart from calling such a fine craft a canoe, I can find no fault with that,” he said.

“I love Twain,” Walter said, surprising Jane. “He had such a wit.”

“He did indeed,” said Miriam. “Do you know what he said about Jane Austen?” She didn’t wait for anyone to answer before continuing. “ ‘Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shinbone.’ ”

Miriam laughed loudly, and Jane was horrified to hear Walter laugh along with her, although he didn’t laugh nearly as loudly. Lucy, ever the true friend, remained silent, and Jane chose to believe that Ben did not join in the mockery because he found Twain’s assessment rude and not because he was too busy reading Twain himself.

“How interesting that he said ‘every time I read Pride and Prejudice,’ ” Jane remarked, keeping her temper in check. “If he really detested the book, I wouldn’t think he’d want to read it ever again.”

She saw Miriam open her mouth to rebut, and cut her off. “And of course Pride and Prejudice has outsold, well, all of Twain’s books combined, I would think.” She smiled. “I imagine that would take a bit of the sting out of such a remark. If Austen was alive to hear it, of course.”

“Do you know why Byron called this the Bridge of Sighs?” Napoleon asked, bringing the exchange to an end.

Jane spent the remainder of the ride rubbing her right foot against her left shinbone and wondering just how much damage it might do if applied to a head with the proper amount of force. She regretted not having heard of Twain’s remark while he was still alive, so that she could have provided him with the opportunity to find out. She made a mental note to remove all of his books from her store when she got back, or at least to hide them in the stockroom so that people would be forced to ask for them. Customers seldom asked for anything; they either left when they didn’t find what they were looking for or, more often, selected something else. Jane knew this because until Lucy had found out and made her stop, she’d kept any book by a Bronte in the back room as well, and generally suggested one of her own to anyone foolish enough to inquire about Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre. (She made an exception for The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, keeping a single copy on the shelf out of curiosity to see what kind of person might buy it. So far, no one had.)

When the gondola ride ended, Jane clambered out and onto the dock, happy to be out of the narrow boat and away from Miriam. She was even more relieved to get back to the hotel and into the shower, where she spent a good long time washing away the feelings of irritation aroused by the afternoon’s activities. By the time she got out she was looking forward to the rest of the night.

First to come was dinner, which promised to be excellent. She and Walter had been invited—along with Lucy, Ben, and the rest of Team Chumsley—to join Orsino at a restaurant he knew from having lived in Venice for several years. Miriam too had been invited, but to Jane’s relief she had declined. Jane hadn’t cared enough to ask her what other plans she might have, and Miriam had not offered any explanation.

Following dinner they were to attend a performance of La Traviata. But rather than sitting in the stuffy, albeit lovely, La Fenice they would be in the Palazzo Barbarigo Minotto, a fifteenth-century