Inamorata by Megan Chance Page B

bird calling from a nearby cage went suddenly silent.
    With all my strength, I forced the darkness back. Antonio took a deep and shuddering breath, and I said, “Take me to San Maurizio. And quickly, before mass begins.”
    He nodded, still looking puzzled, and it was all I could do to control the gnashing inside me. When we arrived, the organ music was already drifting from the simple white stone edifice, and the campo with its huge square wellhead was nearly empty. I went to the door of the church, peering into darkness. I heard the creak of the organ bench as it was pushed aside, a few words exchanged, a pleasant voice, and then footsteps.
    The man who came out was red haired, blue eyed, pale and lithe and lovely. I saw the expression I loved on his face—startlement, then awe and desire—as I stepped into the light.
    “Was it you who played?” I asked him.
    “Y-yes,” he stammered.
    I smiled. “It was wonderful. I knew I must come and discover who had such talent.”
    He flushed. I felt a sudden stab and bit back a gasp as I put out my hand. “I’m Odilé León.”
    He took my fingers in his, caressing my hand as if he’d waited his whole life to do so. “Jonathan Murphy.”
    In the end, for me, there was only this: desire and addiction and hunger, a craving that made the world look hard-edged and brutally lovely.
    “Would you have a glass of wine with me?” I asked Jonathan Murphy.

S OPHIE

    T he police kept me for two hours, though I had nothing to do with the body or with the place it had been found. The landlady was hysterical, and I was not much better. Marco was the one who sent for the police, and Marco was the one who drew me gently away from the courtyard after they’d asked their questions, firmly ending the interview, leaving them with my name and situation in the event they had need to contact me again.
    But as I watched the oily, dusky reflections on the water glide by on the way back to the Danieli, I could not shake the vision of that body in its pool of blood, or stop hearing the buzzing of flies.
    Marco frowned as he helped me disembark. “You should rest, padrona .”
    I smiled at him—I felt how strained it was. “I will. But you must promise to come back tomorrow—I won’t take that place after all, you know. I couldn’t bear it.”
    He looked alarmed. “No, you must not, of course! Not with such an angry ghost.”
    “An angry ghost? But it wasn’t a murder. It was a suicide.” That was what the police had decided. The pool of blood was from his wrists, which had been neatly and fatally slit. The landlady had said, He looked ill, that is true. I begged him yesterday morning to eat more. He said he had no need of food, that love kept him alive.
    Not anymore, the inspector had said in distaste.
    “An unhappy ghost then,” Marco said to me now.
    “Whether there was a ghost or not, I would never be able to go into the courtyard,” I told him. “You will be here tomorrow? There are other places to show me?”
    “A hundred places, padrona . You can rely on Marco.”
    I managed to keep my composure as I left him and walked through the grand lobby of the Danieli—full now with people returning from their day trips, looking to rest before they went out again for the evening—but I couldn’t manage to smile or talk to anyone. By the time I finally reached our rooms, the day had caught up with me; I could not stop trembling.
    Joseph was already there. He was lounging on the bed, barefoot, sketching, leaving charcoal dust all over the coverlet. When he saw me, he looked up, smiling. “I think I’ve found the way in.”
    I swallowed, trying not to show my distress. “Have you? So quickly?”
    “I told you I would. I met him this morning. A poet. He’s been in Venice for a while. He knows Henry Loneghan, Soph. Loneghan. They’re friends.”
    “Loneghan? Oh . . . that’s very good.” I sat on the edge of the bed, drawing off my gloves, which stuck to my sweating palms. My