The Dark Heart of Florence Tasha Alexander (novels for beginners .TXT) 📖

back downstairs, where I found Signore Corsini with my grandfather and his friends in the loggia. Their conversation fell silent as I approached, and I was quiet, too, struck dumb by a fresco on the wall behind the table around which they sat. It was obviously painted by Botticelli and depicted the Three Graces with Venus, who was handing a gift—flowers, but I knew they represented more—to a lady. The face of the middle Grace, who stood immediately to the left of the goddess, was mine, taken from the sketch the artist had done of me on that night so long ago, when I’d dined at the Medici palazzo.

“Have you recovered from your adventure, Mina?” my grandfather asked, beckoning me to join them. I did as he wished, but could hardly tear my eyes from the fresco. The Graces and Venus looked so much lighter and nimbler than the mortal. Would her stiff form alter and bend once she took the flowers from the goddess? Would she welcome into her world lofty ideas and beauty?

The men were all staring at me. I realized I hadn’t replied. “I have, thank you,” I said. “I owe a great debt to Signore Corsini.”

“As do I,” my grandfather said.

“Neither of you owes me a thing,” my rescuer said. “The swooning compliments I’ll be getting from ladies for months after they hear of my feats will be more than enough.” He smiled at me, then tilted his head and squinted, looking as if he were seeing me for the first time. He turned to the fresco, then back to me. The other men paid no further attention, returning to their discussion, something about Alcibiades, but Signore Corsini continued to stare at me.

“A muse of Botticelli’s. What a lucky man I am to have rescued you.”

I looked at him, alarmed.

“Fear not,” he said. “I’ve no romantic designs on you. I’ve long been an admirer of the artist, and now he will be indebted to me for saving you. He may even agree to paint the chapel in my palazzo.”

 Florence,

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The light from my candle made the grisly scene of Lena’s death all the more eerie, its flickering flame mirrored in the dark, pooled blood. “Go back upstairs,” I said to Cécile. “Find the police. We’ll need Colin as well.”

“Monsieur Hargreaves did not want the police involved,” my friend said.

“It would be impossible to keep this from them, given where the poor girl died. I’ve no idea where Colin is at the moment, but we can’t let her body stay down here indefinitely.” The cloying smell of blood in the small space almost made me retch. I wanted nothing more than to return upstairs, run outside, and breathe fresh air. “Leave an urgent message for him at the house and fetch the police.”

“What about Signore Bastieri? He needs to know his daughter is dead.”

“I wouldn’t want him to see her here, like this, would you? We will inform him as soon as she’s been taken to the morgue and cleaned up.”

Cécile nodded. “You are right that he should not see this. I will do as you ask, but, Kallista, you cannot stay down here alone.”

“I’m not the one in danger from being alone. She was.” Hot tears stung my eyes. “I should have taken her more seriously.”

“Now is not the time for lamentation and regret,” Cécile said and gave my arm a little squeeze. “We had no reason to suspect something like this would happen.”

I nodded, but couldn’t find my voice to reply. She squeezed my arm again and set off to do as I’d asked. The room felt even closer with her gone, the smell more oppressive, but I forced myself to examine the scene. Lena lay on her back, her head turned to one side. She had faced her attacker and would have had nowhere to run, no way to flee. The narrow stairs could easily be blocked by an ordinary-sized man.

A single gash in the left side of her neck had severed her jugular. I wondered if she had raised her right hand in an attempt to protect herself from the knife. Regardless, she could never have changed the outcome. A man capable of causing such a wound with a single strike was no amateur. He knew how to kill.

I forced myself to kneel next to her so that I could search the contents of her coat pockets. She had left the envelope behind at her father’s, but not the message within. If she’d brought it with her to the Sagrestia Nuova, she no longer had it. There was nothing in any of her pockets. I gently tilted her so that I could see if there was anything under her body—her reticule, at least—but again found nothing. Her murderer must have taken all her personal effects.

I rose to my feet, wobbling a bit, and inspected the cell-like room. Its ceiling was arched, surprising for a space so small. Why had the architect given a tiny cellar such a beautiful detail? I stepped closer to the walls to better see the charcoal drawings that covered them. Many of them were figures of men, life-sized, the rest sketches of parts of buildings. The style was so reminiscent of Michelangelo that I wondered if he had used the room while working in the chapel above. I studied every mark, hoping to find something that might provide a clue as to why Lena had come here. Graffiti, like that in the palazzo, or a symbol from the coat of arms on the seal, but there were only the drawings, which, no matter how I tried to bend it around in my head, I couldn’t connect to anything to do with Lena or Marzo.

I’d scrutinized every inch of the room. There was nothing left to do, so I removed my jacket, draped it over Lena, and sat next to her on the floor. One of her hands remained uncovered. It looked so small, so fragile. I touched it and