Read Online Traitor Angels by Anne Blankman - Free Book Online Page A

past six years. What if . . . ?” Myspoon clattered into my empty bowl, forgotten. “What if whatever my father hid in his poetry threatens the king’s grip on the crown? That would explain why he’s so desperate to silence my father and spirit him away.”
    Viviani raised his eyebrows, clearly unimpressed. “Your father uncovered sensitive information about the king thirty years ago? That’s when this partnership with my master started, and your king would have been in swaddling clothes.”
    “Then not the current king.” My mind spun. “The king’s father, Charles the First, who was beheaded after the civil war. Thirty years ago, he sat on the throne. Suppose my father found out something about him—something that convinced him to oppose the royalists during the war? Something that could disqualify the entire line of Stuarts—which would include the current king—from the throne?”
    For a moment, Viviani was silent. “It would explain the king’s determination to hide your father—and why Buckingham burned the poem.”
    “We have to find the Italian sonnet as quickly as we can. If we can figure out what my father concealed within it, then we may have a bargaining tool to use to secure his freedom.”
    “He didn’t ask you to arrange for his release.” Viviani set his wineglass down. “You would defy him, Miss Milton?”
    I looked at him steadily. “To save him, I would defy God himself.”
    His laugh rolled out. “I didn’t think Puritans were a bold people. You’re nothing like what I imagined.”
    “Aren’t you the lucky one,” I retorted, picking up the soup bowls.
    When I’d finished the washing up, I led him to the loft bedrooms, insisting he climb the ladder first, remembering that otherwise he’d be able to glimpse up my skirts. As we clambered into the darkness, I could hear the silk and velvet of his clothes rustling together. Somehow the sound seemed terribly intimate. As though it served only to remind me that those same fabrics touched his bare skin. Be quiet , I ordered my brain.
    On the landing, I opened Anne’s door, gesturing for Viviani to go in. I felt him watching me, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.
    “There’s fresh water in the basin,” I said.
    From the edge of my vision, I caught a blur of movement—he was bowing to me. “Thank you. Good night.”
    “Good night.” I rushed into my chamber next door. Leaning against the bedroom wall, I exhaled a shaky breath. Somewhere on the other side of the wall I rested against was Viviani. Mere feet from me. I heard the splash of water in the basin as he washed his face, then the whisper of straw as he lay down. Lying on the same mattress where I had lain when the agony in Anne’s legs chased sleep away and I rested next to her, rubbing her back in slow circles.
    Heat rushed into my cheeks. What a child I was, every particle of my being attuned to the stranger in the room next door.
    Determinedly shoving thoughts of him out of my head, I opened the window shutters. The black sky unfurled above me. There was Cassiopeia, easily recognizable from the W it formed from the points of five stars. They pulsed with a steady brilliance, as beautiful as they were undecipherable. I wondered how far away they were from England. A hundred leagues? More? Andhow they could shine so brightly when they hung in the heavens at such a great distance from my planet? Perhaps these were the same sorts of questions the Tuscan Artist in Father’s poem is asking himself when he peers through his telescope.
    Again I frowned at the bizarre image. Why had Father alluded to an Italian natural philosopher in a poem whose only characters should have been biblical? Maybe it had been a mistake, a slip he eventually would have caught on one of the mornings I read his verses back to him.
    Or maybe it had been another hidden message.
    Stupid , I decided, resting my arms on the windowsill and filling my eyes with the sight of the stars. Father’s