Page 59 of Vengeance in Venice
Still, he willed Alvise to row faster.
Entering the Palazzo Zulian, he went straight upstairs without questioning the servants and strode through the private sitting room to their bedroom.
It gave him a small shock to see Elena Savelli there in the chair by the bed. But his attention was all on his wife, who looked considerably brighter. She was still terribly pale and the great shadows around her eyes would take time to fade, but her eyes sparked once more in the way that told him she had much to discuss.
“Solomon,” she said, holding out her hand at once.
He went to her, sitting on the bed to take her hand and kiss it. “Have you eaten more?”
“Yes.”
“She ate almost an entire bowl of soup,” Elena said, rising to her feet, “and should be congratulated. I must go.”
“Will you come back tomorrow?” Constance said.
“If you wish.”
A friendship had begun to form between the two women, and that made him uneasy. Because Elena was still a suspect in her husband’s murder, if not the attack on Constance. And because of what Bianca Premarin had said about Giusti. It was Constance’s instinct to befriend and defend other women, which had proved dangerous on at least one other occasion.
Of course, Solomon bowed to Elena and thanked her for coming. But he was glad to be alone with his wife.
“How are you? Are you tired?”
“No, I am doing nothing but sleeping and eating and talking. I’ve had a most interesting hour with Elena.”
“I’ve had quite an interesting time with Bianca Premarin.”
“Have you indeed?” As he settled beside her again, she leaned against him, her arm across his waist. “Elena says she lies.”
“She probably would say that. Bianca says she saw Giusti on his way back from the Savelli Palace on the night of the murder.”
Constance’s eyes widened. “Is that what she’s not telling me?”
“Who?” Solomon asked, confused.
“Elena. She sleeps poorly, and I’m sure she saw something, someone, that night that she doesn’t want to admit. We thought that before, but now I’m sure. If what you’re saying is true, then she saw Giusti. Old loyalties are keeping her silent. It makes sense.”
“Or she could be lying because it was her husband she saw when she stabbed him.”
Constance shook her head. “Or Bianca could be lying. From what Elena said, Bianca talks sometimes as though her fantasies are real.”
“As though she’s lying to herself,” Solomon said. “Thatis probably true. She began by trying to make me believe she was some sophisticated temptress, that she had indulged in someaffair with Savelli, going to his house every night. But from what she said later, she only ever stood outside the front of the house, watching pathetically for a glimpse of him. She never even spoke to him. But she says she was there on the night he died.”
“Can we believe her?” Constance said doubtfully.
“Not without corroboration. The other thing to consider is…the girl is unstable. What she told me could easily be another fantasy to hide the fact that she went by boat to the back of the house and killed Savelli for ignoring her, or rejecting her, or for some other reason the rest of us will never understand.”
“Do you think she is mad?” Constance asked uneasily.
“I would say she’s on the verge of it. Would Premarin protect her?”
“That’s the other thing,” Constance said. “Premarin proposed to Elena first, but she chose Savelli.” She sat up straighter. “Bianca could have told her husband any old story that might have made him jealous enough and angry enough to kill.”
“But did she? Why would Constance protect Premarin or Bianca?”
“It has to be Giusti,” Constance said unhappily. “I really don’t believe she would have killed her husband. She thought both too much of him and too little.”
Solomon raised one eyebrow. “What does that mean?”
