The dark-haired man reached her side. “Bella,” he said, slightly out of breath. His hand grazed her lower back. “It is poor form to make a man chase after you, do you not know that?”
Cass moved just out of his reach. “Mi dispiace,” she said coolly. “I am looking for someone.”
“I, too, have been looking for someone.” He tossed a curtain of hair back from his face. “And I have found her.”
“You must be mistaken,” Cass said, taking another step back. “I don’t know you.” There was something disconcerting about the man’s piercing gaze. His eyes were too big, too dark.
He reached out toward her, and Cass’s whole body went rigid. “I wasn’t looking for a friend. I was looking for the most beautiful woman in the room.”
Cass began to turn away from him when she noticed he was wearing a ring—a six-petaled flower inscribed in a circle. Blood began to pound in her ears. Finally: the symbol of the Order of the Eternal Rose.
She tucked her shaking hands into the folds of her gown. She couldn’t just ask about the ring. It might make the man suspicious. She cleared her throat and forced a smile. “My friends dragged me along tonight,” she said. It was, to a certain extent, true, although Donna Zanotta was certainly not a friend. “I do not even know who is hosting this party.”
His eyes lit up. “You’re not familiar with Palazzo della Notte? Then perhaps you will let me show you around, Signorina . . . ?”
“Livi,” Cass said. Her dead friend’s name had just come to her. She wasn’t even sure why she had lied. “And your name is?”
“Piero Basso.” The way he smiled, and the clump of dark hair that fell forward over his masked eyes, once again reminded Cass of Falco. An ache bloomed inside of her.
“I know that look,” Piero said.
“Oh?” Cass scanned the room behind Piero, studying each masked woman in an attempt to locate Hortensa.
“It is the face of a woman who deeply desires something.” He moved closer to let a pair of guests slide behind him, his hand reaching out to casually touch her arm. “Something I can give to you.”
Cass wished it were that easy, that Piero could become Falco just because she wanted him to. She imagined his hand moving from her arm to her waist to her back, his other hand ripping off her bonnet and twining itself in her hair.
Piero’s lips twitched, like he could read her mind. He signaled a woman in white. The woman floated over and curtsied. She handed him two glasses of a dark muddy liquid. Piero offered one to Cass.
“I insist,” he said, pressing the glass into her hand. “It helps with the anxiety.”
“Do I seem anxious?” Cass asked. She sampled the liquid hesitantly. It had a surprisingly sweet taste.
Piero tucked a tendril of hair behind her left ear. “You seem enchanting.” His hand lingered at the area where her jaw became her neck. His fingertips were points of cool pressure against her flushed skin.
“But you can’t even see my face,” Cass protested. She wanted to turn the conversation away from herself and onto Piero’s ring, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t think. She was losing control.
Piero caressed the back of her neck. “Beauty isn’t simply one’s face. It’s much more than that.” He leaned in close to whisper in her ear. “I see all of you.” His lips grazed her earlobe and she trembled.
For a second, the portego blurred before her eyes. The other guests melted into the wisps of smoke, and the room went dead quiet. For a second the whole world was her and Piero, with only the sound of their breaths whispering between them.
Cass blinked hard and the room returned to normal. She took a step back from his touch and blurted out the first words that came to mind. “What do you do here in Florence?”
“I’m a physician,” he replied. “A doctor in residence for a woman who lives just outside of town.” Piero’s pupils widened, and for a second Cass thought she might pitch forward right into his eyes.
The wineglass trembled in her hand. “Is she quite ill,” Cass asked, thinking of Agnese, “to require a full-time physician?”
“She is”—Piero paused—“a woman most concerned with staying well.”
Before Cass could ask what that meant, she caught a glimpse of who she thought was Hortensa moving through the crowd. She was on the arm of a tall, broad-shouldered man with silky blond hair. He was definitely not her husband, Don Zanotta. Cass was torn. Piero was wearing the ring of the Order, but she couldn’t figure out how to subtly probe him for more information, especially when he seemed more interested in seducing her than talking. Hortensa, however, had most certainly lied in accusing Luca. And Cass would have no problem asking about that.
“I’m sorry,” she said abruptly. “I must go.”
“But—” Piero began to protest.
“Mi dispiace,” Cass apologized again. She made her way across the room and followed Hortensa up another winding staircase.
At the top of the stairs, Cass hung back behind a large potted plant. She quickly dumped the remainder of her drink into the soft soil, and then set the empty glass on the floor. The hallway was narrow, lined with three doors on each side. Cass watched as Hortensa and the man entered one of the far rooms.
She inched her way down the hall. The door to the room remained open a crack. Cass pressed her face to the opening. Someone had lit the fireplace, even though the air was warm. Dancing orange flames illuminated the outline of two bodies in the dark. They stood in a loose embrace in the middle of the room, almost as if they were dancing.
The man bowed, pressing his lips lightly to Hortensa’s wrist. She turned her back to him. Cass watched with fascination as the man reached out and began to undo the laces of Hortensa’s bodice. Hortensa held her hands out in front of her, and the man slipped the satin garment over her arms. His hands went to her waist, and Hortensa’s vivid scarlet skirts landed on the floor with a dull thud. The donna stood there in just her stays and her chemise.
Cass felt a sudden surge of fear. She told herself she was overreacting. Hortensa was an adult, fully capable of deciding who she did and didn’t want undressing her. Cass couldn’t see the look on the donna’s face, but her body seemed relaxed, completely willing. As the man began to unlace Hortensa’s stays, Cass couldn’t help but think of the couple she’d seen at the brothel back in Venice.
She’d been investigating with Falco, looking for the identity of a missing courtesan. Falco had left her alone for a moment, and Cass had gone exploring the dark hallways of the brothel. She’d stumbled into a room where a prostitute and a patron lay naked on a mattress. Cass had stood, frozen, watching their figures twist and rock together until eventually the prostitute had caught her spying and invited her to join them.
Cass’s face burned. She shouldn’t be watching this moment, just as she shouldn’t have watched back then, but she couldn’t help it. The brothel in Venice had seemed so wild, so savage. Hortensa and the man here were different. Controlled, almost formal, as if they were strangers instead of lovers.
Hortensa stood frozen in the center of the room, as if she were a doll someone had posed. She stared straight ahead as the man disappeared from view. He reappeared with a glass of the same muddy liquid Piero had offered Cass. The donna raised the glass to her lips and drained it. Her arm dropped to her side. The man’s hands had returned to her back. Cass held her breath as Hortensa’s stays fell to the floor.