The Dark Heart of Florence by Tasha Alexander (ebook reader screen TXT) 📕

that Savonarola’s supporters would force him to destroy many of the paintings he owned. Those are the things that could have been kept safe here in this house.”

“Paintings, not jewelry.” I pondered the idea. “Or paintings and jewelry. The palazzo might have been a haven for anything to which Savonarola objected.”

“That is just what Renzo deduced,” Cécile said. “Many things could have been hidden here, but, alas, he believes that if that were the case, they all would have been returned to their owners after the friar’s execution.”

“Colin came to a similar conclusion. Does this mean you no longer give credence to the idea that there is any remaining treasure to be found?”

“Far from it.” She removed a small, folded paper from her reticule. “This all but proves there’s something yet to find.”

 Florence,

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I will forever be grateful to Fabbiana for finding me Agnolo, not because he proved a decent husband—which he did—but because marrying him made it possible for me to think about Salvi. In my parents’ house, I was in constant fear of my secret being discovered, but by the second day of my marriage, I realized that had all changed.

The wedding had been like any other that united two wealthy Florentine families. I wore a gown made from the finest silk in the world, the color of a robin’s egg and embroidered with gold thread. The impressive procession—the highlight of which was the magnificent cassoni Botticelli had decorated with scenes from classical mythology—left in awe those gathered on the sides of the city streets to watch. Or so my brothers told me. I went through the motions of the day feeling numb. I hardly tasted the food at our banquet. I felt nothing when Alfia helped me out of my gown and into a filmy nightdress, just as I felt nothing when my husband came to me. Had I managed to summon the energy to consider the details of our encounter, I would have been dumbfounded. How could the same actions result in sensations so entirely different? When Giacomo touched me, every nerve in my body sang. Agnolo’s touch I hardly noticed.

The night before, my mother sat down with me to speak to me about marriage. Not the practical requirements of running a household; those she had drummed into my head for years. Now, she could no longer avoid discussing the more private aspects of the relationship between husband and wife. I had to bite back the reply I wanted to give when she admonished me to submit quietly and expect nothing. The act of love, she explained, was much enjoyed by the man, but nothing to a woman. Past experience had taught me otherwise.

My husband showed me she was not altogether wrong. It was not that he was unkind or insensitive, only that he awakened in me no passion, and, so far as I could tell, I awakened none in him, either. He seemed satisfied enough and I was content to think on it no further.

As Fabbiana had predicted, we spent little time together. He made a point of sitting with me every morning before he started work, but our conversation was largely limited to pleasant banalities. We frequently had guests at dinner, which kept me from having to talk to him. I do not wish to insult him. As I have already said, he was never unkind, not in any way, nor was he uneducated or uninteresting. He was perfectly adequate, but I knew I would never love him.

While he worked, I ran our household, a task I tackled with efficiency and found I enjoyed very much. The servants respected me and Agnolo appreciated me. Still, I was not happy. Alfia, whom my parents had sent to my new home after my marriage, was the only one who knew of my private pain.

I kept with me all the time the half of the golden St. Anthony medal Fabbiana had given me after she took Salvi to the Ospedale degli Innocenti. I wore it on a thin golden chain that I looped through a buttonhole in my petticoat, safely hidden away. I could not risk anyone seeing it; it was well known that charms of this sort were used as segni, marks of recognition for abandoned children. Once, Alfia and I walked past the Ospedale, but I found it too difficult to be so close to my baby and yet unable to see him. I never went again.

Every night, I included little Salvi in my prayers. Every night, I grieved the loss of him. In my parents’ house, the servants would have alerted my mother to my tears. In my own home, I could cry when I needed to. As the weeks turned into months and the months to years, my tears came less frequently. Never, though, did a day pass without me regretting having given away my son.

Alfia said a new baby would lessen my pain. She might have been right, but I was never to know. Three times Agnolo got me with child, but I carried none of them beyond a few months. I never doubted these losses were punishment meted out to me for having sinned so terribly. Why would God give me a child now? I did not deserve one. In the sixth year of our marriage, having abandoned hope that I would ever give him an heir, my husband brought a little girl, Bianca, into our household. Before introducing her, he came to me, alone, and explained that she was his daughter with his mistress. Her mother had died from malaria. Bia, as he called the child, had nowhere else to go. Would I welcome her into our family?

I felt no outrage at his betrayal. I understood that many men kept mistresses. If anything, I was grateful he had found affection and satisfaction elsewhere; I would never be able to give him, either. My heart was too dead for that. And though it was shameful, I hoped he would find another