In the Garden of Sin (2 page)

The Venetian rose from his writing desk as I was presented,
bowing with his hand upon his breast, but not before I caught sight of his face—the face I had been warned to expect, lest my countenance betray any hint of distaste. His forehead, cheek, and jaw on the right side were badly scarred, the flesh there gouged and puckered but well healed. These ghastly wounds appeared to extend to his chin and neck, but were mostly concealed in those regions by a narrow, trim beard of the type that was in fashion at that time, as well as by the ruff at his throat.

“Don Domenico.” I executed as graceful a curtsy as I could manage, given my state of nervous excitation. “I thank you for agreeing to see me.”

Vitturi was a tall man, and younger than I had expected, the unravaged side of his face being smooth-skinned and fine-boned; he wore a small gold hoop in the ear on that side. His eyes, which were the same deep brown as his shoulder-length hair, bespoke a perceptiveness that I found both appealing and unnerving.

“Are you chilled, Mistress Leeds?” he asked, nodding toward my tightly clasped, trembling hands. His Italian-accented voice was roughly soft, like the fur of a wolf, his manner courtly but distant.

“I… suppose I am.”

If he knew that I was, in fact, trembling from nerves, and I suspect that he did, he gave no indication of it. Instead, he led me to a trio of stately, tall-backed chairs before a fireplace in which low flames sputtered and popped. Pulling one chair a bit closer to the fire, he gestured for me to sit.

From the corner of my eye as I arranged my skirts, I noticed his gaze shift from my face to my modest linen coif to my dress, which he surveyed from neck to hem. Although fashioned with a modishly short-waisted basque and full sleeves, it was made entirely of black crepe save for the white muslin
cuffs and a plain, turned-down collar that fell from the throat in two long points over the bodice. The somber costume was a far cry from that of most Englishwomen, who were notorious throughout Europe for their uncovered heads and low-cut bodices.

In fact, Vitturi himself was attired entirely in black, including an overgown of lustrous matte satin worn open over his close-fitting doublet and breeches. The latter were less puffy and somewhat longer than those being worn in England at the time; as I recall, they extended over the knees. The overgown, with its togalike flap over the left shoulder that was, like the rest of his costume, peculiar to the patrician gentlemen of Venice, imparted an aura of archaic dignity; few Englishmen wore gowns as a matter of course anymore.

“Claret?” he asked, lifting a silver ewer from the elegant little black and gold lacquered table around which the three chairs were clustered.

I accepted with thanks, hoping the wine would soothe my nerves. No sooner had he filled two silver bowls than the footman reentered the room, bowed, and announced the arrival of a “Mademoiselle Elle.” With a glance in my direction, he asked his master, “Shall I see if Mademoiselle would be amenable to returning at a more convenient time, signore?”

“Nay, show her in,” Vitturi replied, explaining to me that he had requested the lady’s presence at this meeting so that she might help in determining my suitability for “the undertaking in question.”

“Elle makes her home at Château de la Grotte Cachée,” he told me. “She assists me in the selection of promising young ladies and imparts a distaff perspective to their tutelage that I have found to be indispensible.”

He rose again as a golden, statuesque beauty swept into the
room with a whisper of rose-hued taffeta and a merry
“Bon-jour
. Pray pardon my lateness, Domenico. So this be your supplicant, eh? Upon my faith, but she is a pretty little thing.”

“Mistress Hannah Leeds,” Vitturi said, “may I present Mademoiselle Elle, who serves as abbess to my novices.”

He fixed me with that dark, trenchant gaze, as if gauging my reaction to his likening of courtesans-in-training to Brides of Christ. Schooling my expression, for in truth I did find the comparison a bit unseemly, I rose and greeted the luxuriously attired “abbess” with a smile and a curtsy. “’Tis a pleasure to make your acquaintance, mademoiselle—or should I address you as Mother Elle?”

As quips went, it wasn’t much—I was far too wrought up for genuine cleverness—but Elle laughed appreciatively as she returned my curtsy. “‘Elle’ is fine all by itself—
Sister
Hannah,” she said. “And the pleasure is mine, I assure you.”

Elle was the most resplendent woman I had ever seen, with radiant blue eyes and a beguiling smile. Her hair, like pale amber spun into the finest silk, was smartly styled in a chignon flanked by twin masses of side curls. Her gown was cut in the French fashion, with a face-framing winged collar of starched point lace trimming a neckline so wide and deep as to reveal a breathtaking display of bosom, compressed by her stays into high, creamy-soft mounds. Pearls encircled her throat and dangled from her ears; her fingers and thumbs glittered with rings. An ivory fan hung from a golden girdle around her waist in the Continental style.

Vitturi motioned Elle into the third chair, poured her a bowl of claret, and fell into a contemplative silence as she chatted amiably about this and that without seeming to expect much input from either Vitturi or myself. I sensed, with much appreciation, that she was attempting to put me at ease. It worked—until I glanced toward the Venetian and found him
studying me over the rim of his claret bowl. I quickly looked away, not because of his scars, for I had already learned to focus on the unblemished aspect of his face, but because of the intensity of his gaze. It felt as if he were peering right through my skin—or trying to.

When he did finally speak, he got right to the point. “I cannot help but wonder, Mistress Leeds, why a highborn Englishwoman such as yourself should wish to move to Venice and become a
cortigiana.”

The honest answer was that I had no desire at all to become a courtesan, nor any intent to pursue such an occupation. What I did wish—what I urgently needed—was to get close to the Duke of Buckingham as soon as possible, but my attempt to maneuver an introduction had failed miserably. As soon as he’d learned whose niece I was, he had adamantly refused to see me. Ah, but at Grotte Cachée, I would be just another of Domenico Vitturi’s “novices.” Buckingham’s guard would be down. He wouldn’t recognize me, having never met me in the flesh. Nor would he recognize the name “Leeds,” which was not my true surname, but my grandmother’s maiden name.

It was an imperfect plan, in that it required me to present myself as a candidate for whoredom, with all the degradation that was likely to entail, but the situation was dire, and it was the only viable plan at my disposal.

Of course, I could reveal none of this in response to Vitturi’s query as to my motives. Instead, I delivered the little speech I had rehearsed over and over in my mind the night before, while I tossed and turned and fretted about what to say and how to say it during this crucial interview. “I find myself in a bit of a dilemma, signore. My mother met her maker in March, and—”

“Ah,” Elle said, nodding toward my funereal gown, “I
suspected you might be in mourning. Either that, or a Calvinist. Or both, perchance?”

“Nay, I am—”
Careful
. “—most definitely not a Calvinist. When my mother passed on, I was left with very little to my name, save a dowry so that I might contract an advantageous marriage. I’ve a cousin who has assumed the role of my guardian and protector, and he has negotiated my betrothal to a widowed gentleman who is… well, somewhat older than I, and whereas I am certain he is a fine man, and would provide well for me—he is a baron with an excellent holding—I doubt very much that he would find me a suitable bride.”

“Your father is no longer with us?” Elle asked.

“Nay, he succumbed to a tertian ague when I was an infant.”

“And why is it,” Vitturi said, “that you feel your betrothed would find you unsuitable? Is it because you are not a virgin?”

“He…he is not my betrothed. The union has yet to be formally contracted. And as for… the other, you appear to suffer under a misapprehension, signore. I am, in fact… That is, I have never…” I gestured vaguely, appalled to feel my face stinging. They must have thought me an utter ninny.

“Are you saying you
are
a virgin?” he asked.

“That is a virginal blush if ever I’ve seen one,” Elle observed as she snapped open her fan. “What an intriguing state of affairs. ’Tisn’t often that an untouched maiden petitions to be one of Signor Vitturi’s novices. In fact, I cannot recall a single instance.”

“If your maidenhood be intact,” Vitturi said, “why do you feel that your not quite betrothed will find you an unsuitable bride?”

“The gentleman in question has seven children, all of them still quite young and rather unruly from a lack of governance in the year since their mother’s death, and he seems to think
that I would make an ideal stepmother for them. When I speak to him of my interest in the Greek and Roman poets, and ancient history and such, he is apt to chuckle and wave his hand and tell me that I shall have no more time for such idle pursuits once I am ‘chasing after his brood of little devils.’ He has even told me that I shall have to put away my lute, because by the time I tuck the children into their beds, I will almost certainly be too fatigued to—”

“You play the lute?” Vitturi asked.

“Aye, signore,” I said, “and the harpsichord.”

“Do you sing?”

“I do.”

“How well do you sing?”

“That would be for others to judge, I suppose.”

With a weary little sigh, he said, “But these others are not here, are they? So I am asking you. How well do you sing?”

Leaning over to rest a hand on my arm, Elle said, “A beautiful singing voice is considered a great asset in a courtesan. Your modesty is charming and bespeaks a virtuous nature, but on an occasion such as this, frankness might serve you better. Given your lovely speaking voice, I would suspect that you sing like a bird. Am I not right?” She smiled and gave my arm a surreptitious little squeeze.

“I have ofttimes been complimented on the quality of my singing,” I said.

“Have you any other talents?” he asked. “Favorite pastimes?”

“I compose madrigals to perform with friends, the words and music both.”

“Indeed,” he said, his eyes sparking with interest—perhaps because he was a poet, and what was a madrigal but a form of poesy? “How many have you written?”

“Seventy or eighty, perhaps more. I would have to count
them. I transcribe my favorites in a notebook bound in red leather that my unc—that was given to me as a gift.”

“Are they any good?”

Having learned my lesson as regarded false modesty, I said, “I believe so, signore.”

“A scholarly young lady such as yourself must speak one or two languages,” he said.

“French, Latin, Greek, a little Spanish, and …
parlo Italiano fluentemente.”

Vitturi’s look of surprise was immensely gratifying. He ducked his head toward me, granting me a real smile, one that warmed those large brown eyes for the first time since we’d met.
“Ciò è
inattesa,”
he said. “A delightful discovery, Mistress Leeds.”

I returned his smile. For the briefest of moments, the space of two heartbeats, he held my gaze, and we shared—or so I fancied—a wordless communion of startling intimacy. But as quickly as one might snuff out a candle, his eyes grew opaque and his studied reserve returned.

He leaned over to lift his cup, took a long swallow, and said, without looking at me, “So you have concluded that the life of a Venetian
cortigiana onesta
, with the freedom, riches, and intellectual amusements that such a life provides, would be preferable to that of the wife of an English baron.”

“And stepmother to seven little hellions? I have, Don Domenico.” It wasn’t a lie per se. Everything I’d told him was the truth. I had indeed found myself without property or prospects save for the singularly unappealing marriage that I had described. It was a grim predicament.

But it was not what had driven me to Domenico Vitturi’s doorstep.

“In my part of the world,” Vitturi said, “a female in a situation such as yours might very well take the veil. Of course, there
are no nuns in your English Church—which is a pity, really. The convent has been the deliverance of many a young lady whose only alternative was a marriage they found abhorrent.”

Vitturi’s assumption about my religion was understandable, considering Parliament’s decades-long campaign to purge the British Isles of “Romanists.” Catholics who failed to attend worship services of the Established Church risked fines, ostracism, and imprisonment. The punishment for attending Mass was hanging. Although the persecution of Catholics had eased up a bit since King Charles’s coronation, especially after he dissolved Parliament in June, official British policy was still fervently anti-Rome. Vitturi may have been Catholic himself, but he was also on intimate terms with many high-ranking men in Parliament. As such, he was the last person in whom I would confide such potentially damning information.

“Have you any close relations,” Vitturi asked, “other than this cousin who has been endeavoring to marry you off?”

“There is no one,” I lied.

Elle said, “You are fleeing a marriage—a life—that you foresee as repugnant, but are you aware,
really
aware, of what is entailed in the life of a courtesan? ’Tis true that you will enjoy a level of independence and intellectual liberty quite foreign to most women, especially to the matrons of Venice, who are kept, by and large, secluded in their homes with their children and their Bibles. The courtesan pays a price for her precious freedom, though. She has benefactors, half a dozen perhaps, whom she is obliged to entertain according to a schedule of her own devising, not grudgingly, but with true passion and a sense of adventure. The gentlemen who pay for her favors—most generously, mind you—expect to be pleasured in ways their sheltered and pious wives could never imagine. Given your lack of experience in carnal matters, I want to make sure that you understand what will be involved.”