Page 41 of Vengeance in Venice
“I was not accusing your husband,” Kellar said mildly. “On the contrary, Her Majesty’s government would take a very dim view of any such suspicion.”
Constance remembered her wine with sudden gratitude and sipped it, giving herself a moment to think. “Is that meant to comfort me?”
“I hope so. The local police regard it as a local matter. You really do remind me of someone most strongly. Might I know your maiden name?”
Fresh alarm bells rang in her mind. Had he attended her establishment in the past? She remembered most faces that had passed through over the years, for safety reasons as well as business ones. Guests liked to be remembered and greeted as old friends on return visits. No, she was almost certain he had never been there. He could still know her name, but then, there had never been any point in keeping that secret. She and Solomon had married openly.
She tilted her chin. “Silver,” she said, without dropping her gaze.
His wine rippled in its glass. Around his beard, his face seemed to whiten. Then he laughed softly, as though he couldn’t help it.
“Of course it is. I knew your mother.”
*
As they hadagreed, Solomon was using the reception to learn what he could from the privileged and the knowledgeable. Savelli’s name was certainly mentioned several times in hushed tones, by both Venetians and foreigners, though few brought the subject up directly in conversation.
One who did was Mrs. Collins, the wife of a British wine merchant. “I suppose you will have heard of this shocking murder,” she said almost as soon as they had been introduced. She didn’t trouble to lower her voice. “One of their most prominent citizens, apparently. And to think someone assured me that Northern Italians were so much more civilized that their southern brethren! I told Mr. Collins that I simply refuse to go to Naples.”
Solomon blinked. His instinct was to give a biting rejoinder on the nature of British crime, prejudice, and rudeness. But he doubted either of them would learn anything from such a lecture.
“Were you acquainted with Signor Savelli?”
“He was pointed out to me once.” Her nostrils flared. “By his wife. Oh, we are not friends, of course. I doubt she has many of those, for she is a most proud and disagreeable person. Only the men cluster around her. One can only speculate as to why.”
Startled, Solomon missed his moment to defend the widow, for Mrs. Collins barely paused to draw breath.
“Oh, she is beautiful, I grant you, if you care for that heavy, dramatic look, but I could tell at once she was not the sort of female one ought to know. If you ask me, she did away with her own husband.”
Solomon fixed his gaze to the self-satisfied yet outraged woman beside him. “What makes you think so?”
“She ignored her husband, spent all her time talking to other men.”
Solomon had rarely found the business of investigation so distasteful. But he managed—he hoped—to keep all expression from his face, save polite interest. “Which other men?”
She flapped one dismissive hand, her gaze darting around the room. “Him, for a start.” She indicated the small, bustling figure of Premarin, who had just entered the room with Lampl.“Both of them, in fact. Though they say she had been conducting an affair for years with someone called Justin or something,andwith some common portrait painter.”
“Giusti?” Solomon murmured. “And Rossi? Really? One wonders where she found the time to fit those other gentlemen in.”
She blinked at him several times, as though she suspected him of mockery but could not find the proof. “Foreigners,” she pronounced finally, as though that sealed some argument.
“One finds them everywhere,” Solomon murmured. “Especially abroad.” From the corner of his eye, he saw Constance, talking to the Englishman who kept crossing their path. Kellar. He hoped she was learning something.
“AreyouEnglish?” Mrs. Collins asked suddenly.
Solomon brought his gaze back to find her peering at him quite closely. “On my father’s side.”
She sniffed, as though that were better than nothing. “Mark my words. The wife did it.”
*
“I knew yourmother.”
The words seemed to crash over Constance with all the force of a wave at high tide. Abruptly, Kellar’s hand closed around hers on her wine glass, and she realized she had been about to drop it. She grasped it more firmly, keeping her eyes on his face, and after a moment, he released her hand.
“I startled you,” he said.
That was an understatement. No one admitted to knowing Juliet. Well, no one with any claims to respectability.
