The Devil in Music (30 page)

Julian
felt himself blush like a schoolboy.

She
asked, "What is Beatrice in English?"

"Spelled
the same, but pronounced differently." He said it for her. It
sounded clipped and harsh, compared with the Italian Bay-ah-TREEchay.

"I
prefer the Italian."

He
looked into her great, dark, sparkling eyes. "So do I."

There
was a short, sharp clatter. Her bracelet had come unfastened and
dropped on the floor. It was the one she always wore on her right
wrist, made up of strings of seed pearls attached to a large oval
gold clasp set with a ruby. Julian bent to retrieve it for her, and
saw for the first time what was on the inner side of the clasp. It
was a miniature portrait of a young man with dark eyes and a black
moustache. He wore a green uniform with red facings and gold
epaulettes, and a brass helmet with a leopard-skin turban and a black
crest. Julian had seen that uniform in paintings of battles seen it,
too, patched and ill-fitting, on veterans begging in the Paris
streets. The portrait that Lodovico Malvezzi's wife kept hidden
against her wrist was of an officer in Napoleon's elite company of
lancers.

Julian
looked up and found her regarding him with a faint, inscrutable
smile. She was not a whit disconcerted. He wished he could say the
same for himself. "Who is he?"

"He
is Major de Goncourt, my first husband."

"I
didn't know you'd been married before."

"It's
never spoken of now. He was one of Napoleon's officers. He came on
a mission to Milan and fell in love with me, and my father took that
opportunity to make a French alliance. Napoleon had held Milan for
so long that even patricians like my father were becoming resigned to
his rule. Of course Lodovico, who was a close friend of my father's,
violently opposed the marriage."

"For
political or personal reasons?"

"Oh,
only for political reasons in those days. I was the merest child to
him. Even if he had been in love with me, Isotta, his wife, was
still alive, and he would never have been so dishonourable as to
seduce me before I was married. No, it was simply that he hated the
French and all they stood for. But my father was determined on the
match, and so on my eighteenth birthday I became Madame de Goncourt."

Julian
looked again at the major. He was very handsome, or at least the
painter had made him so. He hardly appeared old enough to have
commanded a regiment, but of course many young men had advanced
rapidly in the Grande Armee. "You loved him," he said.

"How
romantic you are. I was fond of him. And he loved me, though there
was someone else he loved more."

"Who
was that?"

"His
emperor. Philippe wasn't one of those aristocrats who embraced
Napoleon out of necessity while secretly despising him. He
worshipped Napoleon. He asked nothing more than to be allowed to die
for him, and he had his wish. He was killed at Waterloo."

"I'm
sorry." After a pause Julian asked, "How did you come to
marry Lodovico?"

"After
Philippe died I returned to Milan, and found my father frantically
trying to ingratiate himself with the Austrians. My French marriage
was a terrible embarrassment to him. At first he hid me away even
tried to persuade me to take the veil. Then he saw how the Austrian
officers flocked around me, and began to push me forward. I saw that
he was disposed to force an Austrian husband on me as he'd once
forced a French one. I liked Philippe, but I wasn't sure I would
like the next foreign alliance so well. So I determined that this
time I would choose for myself.

"I
had no lack of admirers, but none of them spoke of marriage. I was
poor, you see. Philippe had given all he had to the Emperor's cause,
and my father would do nothing for me unless I married as he wished.
But now that I'd been a married woman, I could take a lover if I
liked. Since my return from France, Lodovico had made it unmistakably
clear that he no longer saw me as a child. He wanted me; I liked him
and needed a protector. It was very simple. Some months later,
Isotta died, and he made me his wife. It was generous of him. There
was no reason why my being his mistress should have obliged him to
marry me."

Julian
was moved by her story all the more by the matter-of-fact way she
told it. He sensed a profound loneliness in her the solitary vigil
of the cynic watching over her vulnerable heart, lest anyone surprise
it into trust or tenderness. But had she always been so wary? Or
had she learned from bitter experience not to open herself to love?

He
asked, "Why do you still wear de Goncourt's portrait on your
wrist?"

"Isn't
it better than wearing it against my heart?" Seeing him so in
earnest, she went on more gently, "Philippe gave me the bracelet
soon after we were married. He was often away on campaign, and he
said he wanted me to have his portrait always by me, so that I
wouldn't forget him while he was gone. I think he would want me to
go on wearing it, now that he's gone so much longer." She held
out her right hand, palm upward. "Will you put it on for me?"

He
complied. As he was doing up the clasp, MacGregor came in. He
stopped on the threshold in some confusion, seeing Julian holding the
marchesa's hand.

The
marchesa rose, unruffled. "Thank you, Signer Kestrel. I think
the clasp will hold now. Good evening, Signer Dottor. I'll leave
Signer Kestrel to you, shall I? I've been too long away from my
other guests."

She
glided out. MacGregor gazed after her, a little nonplussed, then
looked tartly at Julian. "Was that some new form of
interrogation?"

"That
was a courtesy to a lady, whose bracelet had fallen off."
Julian sat down at the piano and began playing the Appassionato
again. "I'd just been interrogating her."

"You
had, had you?" said MacGregor sceptic ally "What have you
found out?"

"I've
found out she had a husband before Lodovico Malvezzi. His name was
Philippe de Goncourt, and he was a loyal officer of Bonaparte. She
spoke of him with great detachment, but I wonder if she cared more
for him than she admits."

"Is
that important to the investigation?"

"It
is if she feels any sympathy for the cause in which he died. In
England, we think of Bonaparte as a despot and conqueror, but here he
symbolizes liberation and the unifying of Italy. If the marchesa
loved de Goncourt and blamed Bonaparte's enemies for his death, she
might have been tempted to throw in her lot with the Carbonari."

"But
she married Lodovico Malvezzi, who hated the Carbonari and the
French."

"Thus
placing herself above suspicion, and gaining an entree to the highest
government circles, where she could pick up information useful to the
secret societies."

"Do
you think she was in league with Orfeo?" MacGregor asked
eagerly. "That trip she made to Belgirate it might have been in
order to help him escape!"

"I'm
more inclined to link that with de la Marque, who was also in
Piedmont at the time."

"You
think there was something hole-and-corner between them?"

"In
the way of a love affair, or a murder?" Julian asked.

"Well,
the one might lead to the other."

"Not
in Italy. Why should it? An arnica is expected to have a husband he
gives her countenance. De la Marque would have had no reason to kill
Lodovico unless he wanted to marry the marchesa." Julian left
off playing to consider this. "That's actually a likely
ambition for de la Marque, who strikes me as something of an
adventurer. The marchesa is beautiful and of high birth, and
Lodovico's death left her well provided for. The trouble is he
didn't marry her. Is it possible he offered, but she refused?"

Neither
of them knew the answer. Julian went back to playing the piano.
"What piece is that?" MacGregor asked.

"Plaisirs
d'amour."

"Pleasures
of love, eh? I might have known it would be some frippery thing."

The
words ran through Julian's mind. The pleasures of love last only a
moment; the pains of love last all your life. He shut up the piano
and went over to the window.

MacGregor
looked after him with misgiving. "This flirtation between you
and the marchesa "

"
is nothing to be concerned about. I have a tight rein on my
feelings. I must. Because if I didn't, that woman could do anything
she liked with me."

Julian
had solved the problem of being served large English breakfasts at
the villa by eating a little less of them each day, until by the
fourth morning, the kitchen was sending him a typical Italian
breakfast of coffee and rolls. Dipper brought it to his room with
his shaving-water at eight o'clock. Julian, who was not yet out of
bed, eyed Dipper's broad grin disapprovingly. "You know that I
object to high spirits at this hour. If you don't immediately put on
a face suitable for a funeral, I shall draw the bed-curtains and
sleep until noon."

"Yes,
sir." Dipper looked so grave that Julian could not help
laughing, and resigned himself to getting up.

As
Dipper was helping him into his dressing-gown, he said, "I
suppose I have Nina to thank for this unseemly elation of yours?"

"No,
sir Guido."

Julian's
brows went up. "I've never known your affections to range quite
so widely as that."

"I
mean, sir," said Dipper patiently, "I've smoked out
something about him for you. You know I've been trying to suck his
brains, but he ain't been come-at-able."

Julian
nodded. Even losing to Guido at dice and cards had failed to loosen
his tongue.

"So
I've been touting what he keeps about him," Dipper went on.
"He's got a gold watch and some rum booze, 'most as good as his
master drinks. In his pocketbook there's a roll of banknotes as
thick as your fist, a couple of wafers, a pencil, and some papers
with writing on 'em."

Julian
stared, then asked in a dangerously soft voice, "How do you know
what Guido keeps in his pocketbook?"

Dipper's
gaze strayed off. "I might've eased him of it, sir, just to
twig what was in it, then left it for him to find, so he'd think it
fell out of his pocket."

"Hell
and damnation! Didn't I warn you to go gingerly to work with Guido?"

"But,
sir "

"Do
you realize what would have happened if he'd caught you out? A
Neapolitan attacked by a thief wouldn't trouble a magistrate to deal
with him he would simply draw his dagger and stab him out of hand."

"It
ain't as if I was going to be caught, sir," said Dipper, a
little hurt.

"I
can't afford to take that chance. I haven't time to hunt up a new
manservant because the one I brought with me had daylight let into
him unexpectedly. So you will oblige me by not trying such a trick
again. Do you understand?"

"Yes,
sir."

Julian's
face relaxed. "Still, as long as you've hazarded life and limb
to find out what was in Guido's pocketbook, we may as well make what
we can of the information."

He
went to the washstand and splashed his face with water, then scrubbed
it vigorously with a towel. Emerging from behind it, he said, "Let's
begin with the cache of banknotes. Guido might have won it at dice
or cards, though with such a run of luck as that, his fellow players
would do well to look up his sleeves. Then again, Carlo may be
paying him uncommonly generous wages, in which case we have to wonder
what extra duties he's performing to earn them. A third possibility
is that he's working on the sly for someone else."

"The
Carbonari, do you mean, sir?"

"Possibly.
But I should think the government of one or other of the Italian
states would pay him better. Carlo is a noted liberal and
Bonapartist. Perhaps the Austrians planted Guido on him to keep them
apprised of his activities. But it's hard to believe that Carlo
would be taken in by such a ruse. He must be able to recognize a spy
as readily as you would a Bow Street Runner."

He
draped the towel around his neck, over his bottle-green silk
dressing-gown. Opening his shaving box, he took out his silver
handled razor, touching the blade lightly to be sure it was sharp
enough. He always shaved directly he got up, because he felt the
world had him at a disadvantage if it caught him with a night's
coating of stubble on his face. He worked some soap into a lather
and applied