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

even if it weren’t, I’m not sure I could have fought to save any of it. Not then. Not when I saw what my son had become. I had destroyed his life, leaving him vulnerable to men like Savonarola. I wanted to tell him who I was, to show him the other half of the medal he wore, but I was too cowardly. I shrank away and said nothing.

The next day, I met with Friar Baldo in a vestry of the Cappelle Medicee. “We have just finished arranging to use this passageway,” he said, pushing a large wardrobe along the wall, revealing a trapdoor below it. He pulled it open and led me down a narrow set of steps into a small room that was stuffed full with items stolen to save them from Savonarola.

“So much,” I said, astonished by the quantity.

“Our work will have a significant impact,” he said. “But that is not what you wanted to discuss with me, is it?”

“No,” I said. I told him what had happened at the party, sparing no detail about Father Cambio’s threats. I told him that I’d then been visited by a Band of Hope, but made no mention of my relationship to the boys’ leader.

“You must be more careful,” he said. “You’ve provided us with information on nearly every fashionable house in the city. Now it is time for you to step back.”

“Even if I do, I’m afraid Father Cambio will still come after me.”

“Why does he despise you so much?”

I looked into his eyes. “Do the details matter?”

“I suppose they don’t, though I am curious,” he said.

“Suffice it to say that he will do anything in his power to hurt me. If I’d known he’d been invited to that dinner, I never would have gone. I hoped he’d forgot about me, but now…”

“Would you consider leaving Florence?”

“Never. It is my home.”

“Petrarch and Dante both survived exile,” he said.

“There’s nowhere I could go.”

“Then the only way to keep you safe is to make the Piagnoni believe you are one of them. Renounce your friends and take up with a new set. You can say that the Band of Hope changed your way of thinking and that you now support Savonarola.”

“Is that necessary?” I asked.

“It’s the only way to stay safe if you insist on remaining in the city.”

And so I followed his advice. I told my friends that after the Band of Hope looted my house, I’d had a vision, and that I now knew we were all on the wrong path. Only Savonarola could lead us to salvation. It was not yet too late for us to repent.

My newfound zeal was off-putting to everyone, especially Bia, who knew how much I’d always despised the friar.

“I don’t believe this conversion,” she said. “It’s absurd. What game are you playing at? It was bad enough when you ruined everything with Signore Corsini, but now, just when you’ve let us reclaim some semblance of an interesting life, you throw it away. Do you have an aversion to happiness?”

“Of course not,” I said. “I—”

“I think you do,” she said. “And I know why.”

She lunged forward and tugged the thin gold chain around my neck, pulling the charm that dangled from it out from my bodice. I strained to grab it back, but she clasped it in her hand and held it high above her head, out of my reach.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” I said.

“Who was your lover and why wouldn’t he marry you? Did my father know what you’d done? No wonder you never had a child of your own. You were left barren as punishment for your sins.”

“It wasn’t like that.” But I was lying. She had it exactly right.

“Did my father know?”

“No.”

“I suppose that’s a slim consolation.” She flung the necklace at me and then stormed out of the room.

I hadn’t noticed Alfia was there, standing in the shadows, until she stepped forward and enveloped me in an embrace. I wept and wept, wondering how one mistake could so completely destroy a person’s life.

 Florence,

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I desperately wished I had some way to surreptitiously contact Colin. Much as I was loath to expose Darius—if my conclusions proved erroneous, his reputation would be irrevocably ruined—I saw no other viable option. Tessa and Cécile already knew, so when we met the others in the loggia, I told Signore Tazzera and Signore Bastieri what I had deduced about the crimes, and asked them to go to Fredo’s lodgings.

“If you find Colin and Darius still there, you must get them to return to the palazzo at once,” I said. “Don’t let either of them know we believe Darius is the murderer. If he feels threatened, he may lash out, and we know all too well how dangerous he is. Tell them I twisted my ankle and you had to bring me home.”

“Should we arrange to have the police waiting at the house?” Signore Tazzera asked. “If there’s no one to arrest him, he’ll be no less dangerous here than at Fredo’s.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking,” I said. It was the best strategy for a good outcome, even if it is was an outcome Colin would have liked to avoid.

“What if they are not at Fredo’s?” Signore Bastieri asked. “Where else should we look?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know.” If Darius had killed Fredo because he feared exposure, would he now feel safe? Or was he hatching another plan to ensure he would never take the blame for his actions? If that was the case—and I strongly suspected it was—I had no idea where he would go next.

“Do not worry, signora,” Signore Bastieri said. “We will track them down. Two well-heeled gentlemen can’t have made their way through a neighborhood like Fredo’s without drawing a certain amount of attention.”

“Cécile, you and Emily will wait for us here, yes?” Signore Tazzera asked.

“No,” I said. “We’re going to the Duomo to see if we can find the treasure in the cupola.”

“Can’t that wait until this other