Read Online Silent In The Grave by Deanna Raybourn - Free Book Online Page A

end of it.
    Then I thought about her remarks—that I needed an adventure, that Brisbane was more of a challenge than I could handle, that he would not think of me again. And suddenly I felt angry, reckless, desperate to do something to change myself and the course I was on toward a staid old age of boredom and bread puddings.
    “Then let us begin,” I replied firmly.
    Portia’s eyes sparkled as she began to detail her plans. I was only half listening. I knew that I would give her free rein and that she would do exactly as she pleased with me. Her taste was impeccable, and I had little doubt that I would turn out better at her hands than I had from Aunt Hermia’s or Edward’s.
    She chattered on about coiffeurs and corsets, but I was still thinking of Nicholas Brisbane’s dark eyes and cool manners. A year would pass before I saw him again. And it was then that the adventure truly began.



THE SIXTH CHAPTER
    For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
—William Shakespeare
    “Sonnet 94”
    O f course, it did not seem like anything of an adventure at the time. Despite Portia’s efforts with my appearance, I still spent most of my time at Grey House, reading to Simon, listening to Aunt Ursula detail her newest remedy for constipation, or waiting for Val to return home from his ever-growing number of social engagements. My year of widowhood was nearly at an end and I was beginning to chafe under the restrictions. I had not been to the theatre or the opera since Edward’s death. I had not entertained, and had been invited to only the most intimate of family parties. I felt sometimes as though I might as well have been locked up in a Musselman’s harim considering how little I was actually outside of Grey House.
    As for Portia’s suggestion that I take a lover, the very idea was laughable. I saw few men, save those I employed or to whom I was related by blood or marriage. I had only the notion of Italy to sustain me. I had mapped out my plans to the last detail, dispatching letters to delightful innkeepers and receiving particulars on their accommodations. I had applied myself diligently to the study of Italian, and with Simon to tutor me I made rather good progress. He had always had a good ear for languages, and was enormously patient with my mistakes.
    “You are a natural,” he told me more than once. “I could close my eyes and believe you were Venetian.”
    “Liar,” I said happily.
    And we were happy, I think, in spite of his bouts of breathlessness and the fevers that left him too weak to hold a book. I used to look up quickly and catch him, a hand pressed quietly to his chest as he stilled his jagged breathing. But even then he would not forgo our lesson.
    “It is all up here, my darling,” he said, tapping his brow. “Now, tell me, how would you say, ‘these gardens are beautiful’?”
    “ Questi giardini sono belli, ” I replied.
    “Very good. Now ask what sort of tree this is.”
    “ Che albero è questo ? But Simon, I’m not terribly interested in trees, I’m afraid.”
    He smiled up at me, his face pink with exertion and pleasure. “Ah, Julia. You are going to Italy. You must be interested in everything. You must be open to every possibility.”
    Strange that both he and Portia should parrot the same theme. Change, possibility, opportunity…but as I looked at Simon, I remembered that this particular opportunity would not come my way until he had passed from my life.
    I think he remembered it, too, for he looked away then and told me to begin counting, a skill I had mastered a month before.
    It did not matter. It was something safe to speak of when we dared not speak of other things.
    “ Uno, due, tre …”
    And so the year passed away, dully, though not entirely unpleasantly, until the April morning I decided to clean out Edward’s desk. I had not entered his study in months, certain that the maids were keeping it tidy, but now, as