Page 20 of Fangs, Frost, and Folios
Giovanni held up the letter. “Clever of you to tell her I am my own grandson.”
“Two generations makes the resemblance a little less alarming.” He chuckled. “That and failing vision helped the ruse.” He shifted in his seat. “Read the last bit again.”
“Not the first paragraph about her fond memories of—”
“No, that’s quite enough of that.” Caspar cleared his throat.
“Are you blushing, old man?”
“At least that means my blood’s still flowing, you fossil.”
“So little respect…” Giovanni picked up the letter and skimmed down to the last part. “‘You’ll remember my dear old aunt Rosalind and her antics in the forest. She was always stealing Orlando’s poems and hiding them in the wrong trees. So silly of her that Love’s wit became her Face in Ben’s best story.’”
“The last part makes absolutely no sense,” Caspar said. “Rosalind? I’m assuming she’s referring to her aunt who dressed like a young man in order to act on the stage—”
“A clear reference to Rosalind inAs You Like It,” Giovanni said. “The second part of it though…”
“Stealing Orlando’s poems?”
“The play perhaps? Orlando was Rosalind’s lover. Is she implying that her ancestor and Shakespeare were lovers?”
“It would explain why he gave her the play.”
Giovanni looked up from the letter. “I wonder if there are reports of which actors played Rosalind at the Globe. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if the actor playing Rosalind was a woman dressing as a man, playing a woman pretending to be a man?”
“My God, what a tangled web.” Caspar burst into laughter. “She’s laughing at the both of us, Gio.”
“I know she is.” Giovanni shook his head. “Incorrigible Penny.” He tapped the letter. “What do you think of this bit though? ‘…stealing Orlando’s poems and hiding them in the wrong trees.’ Trees could imply wood. Wood makes bookshelves?”
“So she’s hidden Orlando’s poems in the wrong bookshelves?” Caspar nodded. “It works. But the last part…”
“It’s obviously code for something, but I can’t relate it to anything in Shakespeare.” Giovanni stared at the note. “Love’s wit. Love… face? Is that a name? I can’t remember.” He turned when he heard Beatrice coming through the door. “Love’s wit, dearest wife. Does it bring anything to mind from Shakespeare’s work?”
Beatrice was strapping on a pair of daggers under her jacket. “Love’s wit?” She frowned. “I don’t… Shakespeare? Are we sure it’s Shakespeare?”
He spotted the daggers. “Why the blades?”
“Protection.” Beatrice was a water vampire of considerable power, but she did enjoy a good sword, particularly when abundant water sources weren’t around. “Don’t forget who our accomplice is.”
“Accomplicemakes it sound so…”
“Illegal?” She grinned. “Hello, Caspar.”
“Who is your accomplice this time?”
“Gemma’s nephew,” Giovanni said. “The French one that belongs to Guy.”
Caspar leaned toward the screen. “Are you speaking of René du Pont? Didn’t he try to kill Benjamin on multiple occasions?”
Giovanni lifted both his hands slowly. “I feel that one is open for debate. According to Tenzin—”
“Wait.” Beatrice stopped him. “When did René try to kill Ben?”
The switch from relaxed thief to dangerous mother was swift.
“As I said, according to Tenzin, it was all in good fun. He saved their life in Romania. I think.”
Beatrice narrowed her eyes. “You get your information from Tenzin, and she tells you” —Beatrice pinched her fingers together— “approximately ten percent of the truth and forty percent what she’d like the truth to be.”
