In the Garden of Sin (19 page)

After packing my belongings—just the clothes I’d come with, not the courtesan’s wardrobe Domenico had commissioned for me—I had bathed and washed my hair. Just as Elle had promised, most of the dark hair dye rinsed right out. I went to bed, but sleep eluded me entirely. After an hour of tossing and turning, I got up, threw my new ivory silk wrapper on over my matching night rail, and went in search of Domenico.

I crossed to the corner bay, my feet so noiseless on the
velvety carpet that I managed to get within ten feet of him without his realizing I was there. He sat facing away from me in a leather armchair, and although I couldn’t see much of him, I could see that he was in his shirtsleeves. In his right hand, resting on the arm of the chair, he held an open book. He wasn’t looking at it, though. From his reflection in the window across from him, I could see that he was gazing bleakly at nothing.

I took a few tentative steps in his direction, stilling when he lifted his head to look at the window. He must have noticed the pale shimmer of my wrapper against the blackness of the night.

He met my reflected gaze for a moment, then shut his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Don’t do this, Hannah,” he said in a quiet, raw voice. “Please go. Go back to England.”

The urge to turn and leave was strong, but I stood my ground, my hands tightly clasped. “I don’t want to. Or rather, I don’t want to stay there. I must return long enough to make sure Buckingham keeps his word and acquits my uncle, but after that, I… I would like to go to Venice.”

He looked up, scowling in puzzlement at my reflection. “You
do
want to be a courtesan? I thought that was all pretense.”

“
’Twas
pretense. I don’t want to go to Venice to be a courtesan, Domenico. I want…I want what you were talking about in the Nemeton yesterday. I want to be with you, just you.”

“Hannah…” He looked away grimly. “When I talked about that… ’twas before I knew that you were just using me, deceiving me.”

“I did deceive you,” I conceded, my chin quivering as I struggled to maintain my composure. “I hated it, especially after I grew to know you and care for you, but I was desperate to
save my uncle. He’s all I have, he’s like a father to me, and they were going to execute him for a treasonous act he didn’t commit.”

“I can forgive you for that,” he said meeting my eyes in the window. “I
do
forgive you for that. In your place, I might have done the same. But…” He wrenched his gaze from mine, his jaw set. “To come to me as you did yesterday, in the Nemeton, and seduce me for information while letting me think ’twas something more, that you had the same feelings for me as I…
Merda.”
Hurling the book across the room, he propped his elbows on his knees and clawed his hands through his hair. “Hannah…Why must we do this? Why can’t you just leave?”

“Not—” My throat closed up; my eyes stung. “Not until I make you understand what really happened yesterday, and then, if you still want me to leave, I will.”

Still leaning on his elbows, he rubbed his eyes.

Striving to steady my voice, I said, “When I came to the Nemeton, I had no intention of… seducing you, or anything like that. None at all, I swear. I will admit that I meant to loosen your tongue with wine. But making love, that was… It just happened. It felt… as if it was bound to happen, as if you were always meant to be not just the first man I ever gave myself to, but the only one.”

Without lifting his head, he opened his eyes and trained them on my reflection.

I said, “You’re accustomed to women who regard their bodies as…well, much as a merchant regards his wares. ’Tisn’t for me to judge what others do, but as for myself, I couldn’t imagine lying with a man for any reason but love.”

He sat very still, his gaze fixed on me.

“I don’t expect you to feel the same way about me, not after …” Tears spilled hotly from my eyes. I scrubbed them away
and drew in a shaky breath. “Not after everything that’s happened, but I have to tell you… You need to know… I love you. I love you so much, Domenico. Yesterday, when you asked me to be your mistress, it filled me with such joy—but anguish as well. God, how I dreaded this moment.”

He wasn’t looking at my reflection anymore but staring pensively at the floor.

I waited for him to say something. He didn’t.

Desolate but resigned, I turned to leave, saying “I shall be gone in the morning.”

I crossed the huge, dark room as quickly as I could without running, because I was perilously close to bursting into tears, and that was something I didn’t want him to see. Better to hasten back to my chamber, close the door, and bury my face in my pillow.

I was almost to the door when I heard him say, “Hannah.”

Turning, I saw him walking toward me with those lengthy but slightly halting strides that imparted an almost stately aura.

He stopped about a yard from me. Quietly he said, “If you really want to come to Venice, Hannah, then come. But not as my mistress.”

I looked down, swallowing the sob that rose in my throat.

“’Twas never what I intended,” he said, “but I can be clumsy with words when it comes to certain matters. When I told you I only wanted you to be with me, what I meant was… that I wanted you to be my wife.”

I stared at him as he took a step toward me, his eyes huge and glistening in the dark.

“’Tis still what I want,” he said hoarsely, “more than anything, if you’ll have me.”

I did start crying then, my sobs mixing with laughter as he gathered me in his arms.

“You knew how I loved you,” he murmured, rubbing his cheek against my hair. “You must have known.”

I shook my head.

“Well, I did,” he said. “I do, with all my heart, and I intend to spend the rest of my life proving it.”

OMENICO AND I were married the following spring in Venice’s magnificent Basilica di San Marco, with my Uncle Guy there to give me away. Elle was among the hundreds of guests at the lavish wedding. Also in attendance were some two dozen young women who had become, through Domenico’s patronage, among the most elegant and esteemed
cortigianas onesta
in the city. These included Lucy, Sibylla, and Bianca, with whom I have remained friends over the years despite my lofty status as Signora Domenico Vitturi.

No ordinary Venetian matron would deign to make eye contact with a courtesan, much less befriend one. In truth, they wouldn’t have much opportunity even if they were so inclined, cloistered as they are within the thick stone walls of their homes. Domenico had promised me, however, that I
would never suffer this benign captivity, that I would be free to go about as I wished, to mingle with thinkers, artists, and politicians, and even to accompany him to a
ridotto
on occasion for an evening of cards and witty conversation. By way of justification to those men who would raise their eyebrows at my unfettered ways, he explains that ours is not the customary Venetian marriage, but a
“unione Inglese.”

“When I wed an Englishwoman,” he tells them, “I agreed to an English marriage. ’Tis a small enough price to pay for a lifetime with the most brilliant and beautiful woman in Europe.”

That visit to Grotte Cachée in the summer of 1626 was to be Domenico’s last. He never sponsored another courtesan, but a few months ago, at the urging of friends, he set about writing a memoir of his experiences as Pygmalion to a harem of wanton beauties. He’s using the title I suggested,
Una Durata di Piacere
, A Life of Pleasure, and he plans to have a handful of copies privately published—under a nom de plume, of course, lest it bring embarrassment to our children and grandchildren.

I must now lay down my quill, not only because my tale has come to an end, but because Domenico has stolen up behind me and kissed my neck and told me it’s time to come downstairs. Our head gondolier is waiting to take us for our customary twilight cruise through the canals.

Already, my husband tells me, the setting sun is painting the city gold.

By Rupert Brooke

(Sung, on one night, in the cities, in the darkness.)

Come away! Come away!
Ye are sober and dull through the common day,
But now it is night!
It is shameful night, and God is asleep!
(Have you not felt the quick fires that creep
Through the hungry flesh, and the lust of delight,
And hot secrets of dreams that day cannot say?).
     The house is dumb;
The night calls out to you.—Come, ah, come!
Down the dim stairs, through the creaking door,
Naked, crawling on hands and feet
—It is meet! it is meet!
Ye are men no longer, but less and more,
Beast and God…. Down the lampless street,
By little black ways, and secret places,
In the darkness and mire,
Faint laughter around, and evil faces
By the star-glint seen—ah! follow with us!
For the darkness whispers a blind desire,
And the fingers of night are amorous
Keep close as we speed,
Though mad whispers woo you, and hot hands cling,
And the touch and the smell of bare flesh sting,
Soft flank by your flank, and side brushing side—
To-night
never heed!
Unswerving and silent follow with me,
Till the city ends sheer,
And the crook’d lanes open wide,
Out of the voices of night,
Beyond lust and fear,
To the level waters of moonlight,
To the level waters, quiet and clear,
To the black unresting plains of the calling sea.