Read Online Death in the Palazzo by Edward Sklepowich - Free Book Online Page A

hope. If she had, it would have been against the wishes and advice of her mother, who, despite her regard for Luigi, would not want a husband for her daughter who had little more than his medical degree and a good heart to recommend him.
    Then Luigi said a strange thing.
    â€œTonight during dinner Lydgate will spill wine all over the front of his shirt.”
    I started to laugh, but caught myself when I saw Luigi’s stern look. I remembered then that he had an interest in hypnotism and the power of suggestion, and had often entertained me with stories of how by the power of his own silent will, he could occasionally affect a response in people’s behavior. To me it was all nonsense and coincidence.
    It didn’t occur to me that I was being inconsistent, considering my own superstition about the Caravaggio Room.
    We were a relatively small group for dinner—just my parents and myself, Luigi, Signora Zeno, Renata, Bambina, Lydgate, and half a dozen assorted cousins and friends. Little Gemma was in the kitchen with the staff. A storm had swept in on us from the sea, and the rain was beating against the windows of the dining room. It seemed to make us enjoy the comforts of our table even more.
    I had Lydgate on my right and Bambina on my left. Bambina wasn’t her Christian name, of course. She had been baptized Cesarina, but had always been called Bambina by friends and family. What started as an endearment soon became her name, and as inextricable a part of her as her round little body and sharp mind.
    As sometimes happens in siblings, Bambina and Renata were as different as different could be. Bambina was rosy-cheeked and plump, with dark Medusa locks that she tossed in her enthusiasms—and there was a considerable amount of tossing because she was full of enthusiasms. Ten years later, when I was still unmarried, she turned some of these enthusiasms toward me, but without any result. Perhaps she will still find a suitable husband.
    At my mother’s gala, her enthusiasms were all for Lydgate, however. Placed as I was between them, her clever comments either flew past me to their intended target or artfully rebounded from me to him. I enjoyed her display, for she was intelligent, with a knowledge of history and art. She also had some talent as an artist and had kindly made my mother a hostess gift of a charming sketch of our cat, Principessa. She insisted that Mother have it fetched so she could show it round.
    â€œAbsolutely beautiful,” Lydgate said. “Look at those eyes. You can almost hear her purr, can’t you?”
    But as he spoke, he wasn’t looking at the sketch in his hands but across it at Renata. She returned his look with a smile.
    Bambina suddenly hurled herself into an extended account of the life of Petrarch, who, it seems, was also a cat lover, and was about to recite one of that poet’s sonnets to his beloved Laura.
    Renata, however, interrupted her, not very graciously. She said that her sister’s head was full of silly thoughts. She indicated the sketch of the cat and with a cruel smile said that it was good that Bambina had made a sketch of her beloved Dido, since she had lost the cat itself.
    â€œSo unlucky in things you love, Bambina dear,” she said and then smiled at Lydgate.
    Tears came into Bambina’s eyes. She grabbed her sketch from Lydgate and excused herself. She didn’t come back for the rest of the meal. Renata’s behavior had revealed a cruel streak that a lover should take note of. I certainly was fast revising my original opinion of Renata, which, like so many strong emotions of its nature, was based on limited contact. But Lydgate appeared as infatuated as ever, and joined in Renata’s laughter.
    Luigi stared morosely at Renata. She seemed annoyed and said, “If you wear a face like that with your patients, Luigi, you’re going to scare them to death, not cure them.”
    It was to Lydgate’s credit that