Belladonna

well-established Venetian family. And he loved her. He loved her so much, he would die for her; he had proven that already. But Falco was . . . Falco. Just the taste of his name on her lips made Cass a little dizzy.

Her situation was hopeless: betrothed to one man, wildly in love with another.

Heavy footsteps outside her room shattered the reverie. Quickly, Cass slipped the letter under her pillow. She tucked an unruly shock of hair back under her sleeping cap as she hurried to her armoire and grabbed a dressing gown from inside. Securing the belt around her waist, she opened her chamber door a crack and peeked out into the hallway. It was dark, but the corridor was full of strange men dressed in scarlet and gold. Men with swords and clubs tucked into leather sheaths.

Soldiers.

“What’s going on here?” Cass asked.

The soldiers turned as one, quickly averting their eyes at her state of undress. “We’ve orders to search Signor da Peraga’s chambers,” one of them said stiffly. He wore a gold medallion pinned to his doublet. Cass assumed he was the man in charge.

“Search his chambers?” she repeated, incredulous. “For what?”

“Best you step aside, Signorina.” The soldier waved her out of the way with one of his filthy leather gloves. “These orders come straight from the Senate.”

Cass’s handmaid, Siena, appeared at her side, dressed but still half drunk with sleep, her blonde hair stuffed loosely under her bonnet. “Signorina Cass,” she whispered. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know.” Cass followed the soldiers to the room where Luca had been staying. Siena trailed behind her. The two girls stood in the doorway as the men converged upon the bed, tearing the pillows and sheets from it and tossing them to the floor. Finding nothing of interest in the linens, they moved to the worn leather trunk that sat against the wall. Horrified, Cass watched as one of the soldiers flung armfuls of books and clothing over his shoulder.

“Where is Luca?” she asked, her voice rising in pitch. “You’ve no right to go through his belongings without him present.”

“I suggest you go speak to Signor da Peraga yourself,” the nearest soldier said. “He’s in the portego with the rest of the brigade.”

Rest of the brigade? Pulling Siena behind her, Cass stormed down the hallway and pushed into the main room of the villa. The shutters were still closed, but the cavernous portego was aglow with torchlight. Agnese’s harp and the angel statues that stood on either side of it were casting deformed, wavering shadows across the marble floor. Luca stood near a velvet divan, talking to another group of soldiers. Cass counted seven of them. They smelled of sweat and ale and ashes. Scarlet and gold blurred before her eyes as the soldiers circled her fiance like lions preparing to pounce.

“Luca! What’s happening?” She pushed her way through the sea of red to Luca’s side, her forward momentum almost throwing her into his arms. It had been a while since she had been this close to him, close enough to see how his brown eyes faded to honey at the edges, close enough to smell a hint of citrus and cinnamon on his clothing.

“I’m being arrested,” he said calmly.

Cass felt as though the ground had opened beneath her feet. “On what charges? Under whose authority?” For a moment, she pressed her face against his broad chest, hiding her skin from the dancing flames of the nearest soldier’s torch. The silk of Luca’s doublet felt cool against her scorched cheek.

“What is the meaning of all this?”

Cass pulled away at the sound of Narissa’s shrill voice. Narissa was Agnese’s personal handmaid and the unofficial second-in-command of the villa. The stout, gray-haired woman surveyed the scene with a mix of shock and anger.

A crowd was beginning to gather at the edge of the portego. Siena stood just inside the doorway, her body leaning heavily against the wall as if she might collapse at any moment. She gestured wildly as she murmured to Narissa, but Cass couldn’t make out what the women were saying. She felt as though she hadn’t yet woken from her dream. Everything was strange and disjointed. Bortolo, Agnese’s elderly blind butler, stood behind the handmaids, his grizzled face twisted in confusion. In the other doorway, a trio of serving girls huddled silently together, taking in the scene with wide, frightened eyes.

A large thud made Cass jump. It sounded as if the soldiers were hacking Luca’s belongings to pieces with their clubs. With all the noise, Agnese was almost certainly awake now. Cass knew she should go to her aunt’s bedside, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave Luca.

As Cass watched, Narissa broke away from Siena and strode purposefully toward Luca’s chambers, undoubtedly to make sure the soldiers weren’t stealing anything or destroying the furniture. Cass knew Agnese would be hobbling her way into the chaos the instant she heard of the transpiring events. Ideally, Narissa could control the soldiers and her aunt, who was too weak to deal with something like this. Agnese’s latest bout with imbalanced humors had required a large bloodletting, and the doctor had recommended bed rest for a few days.

“On what charges do you arrest my fiance?” Cass asked again, directing her words to the group. When no one answered, she focused on the nearest soldier. His beard was flecked with gray, and several medallions glimmered on the breast of his doublet. Perhaps he, not the man leading the ransackers, was the leader. “You. Answer me.” The soldier looked pityingly at Cass but said nothing.

Cass turned to Luca. “This is madness!”

“They can’t tell us the charges.” Luca pressed his hands to Cass’s shoulders, steadying her. “They probably don’t even know. They’re just following orders.” He touched his lips to her cheek, then angled his mouth toward her ear. “Be strong,” he murmured. “And stay away from Signor Dubois.”

“Does he have something to do with this?” Cass knew that Luca had been to see Joseph Dubois only yesterday, and every shady dealing in Venice seemed to lead back to the Frenchman. A few weeks ago, he’d ordered Luca’s half brother, Cristian, to “dispose” of a maid from his estate. The girl’s mutilated body had surfaced in the Grand Canal, and now Siena’s sister, Feliciana, another servant at Palazzo Dubois, was missing. Cass prayed to San Antonio every night for Feliciana’s safe return, but privately she feared the worst.

Luca didn’t respond. The remaining soldiers filed into the portego, having apparently completed their search. Between the two groups there must have been close to twenty men. Did the Senate really think it would take so many soldiers to subdue a single man?

“Did you find anything?” The soldier with the graying beard lifted his torch so that the faces of his companions were illuminated.

“Nothing,” one of the soldiers barked in reply.

The brigade surrounded Luca and Cass, separating them from the rest of the household. The heat from their torches made the room go blurry. Cass blinked hard, but golden spots floated in the air, melding with the ocean of scarlet fabric, reflecting off medallions and sword hilts. She braced herself with one hand against Luca, trying to keep her knees from folding beneath her.

“Signor da Peraga must come with us now,” a soldier said. He detached a coil of rope from his belt and looped it around Luca’s wrists, cinching his hands behind his back.

“No!” Cass threw her hands around Luca’s neck, pulling him close. She fought back a sob, but a tear escaped, trickling down her cheek before she could brush it away.

“Everything is going to be fine, Cass,” Luca said. He leaned down to brush his lips against the tear. “Don’t cry.”

One of the men took Cass by the shoulders and wrenched her away. She stumbled backward, unmoored. Siena materialized at her side, reaching out, helping her regain her balance. The soldiers engulfed Luca and dragged him toward the stairs.

The front door of the villa slammed, and Cass ran to the window. The sky had gone from silver to blue. The soldiers doused their torches in the water as they forced Luca aboard the sturdy wooden ship. White sails snapped in the breeze as the boat pulled away from the dock. The waxing daylight wasn’t enough to see clearly by, but Cass swore Luca turned to look back at her as the ship bobbed out of sight. She touched one hand to the window, her breath condensing on the glass.

Luca was gone.