The Bellini Card

93

She walked ahead of him, with an aching grace, holding the candelabra in her right hand and the train of her skirt in her left.

They entered a corridor, where she paused at a door.

“This is my room,” she said.

The candlelight filled the room with shadows. On one side stood a magnificent bed, with richly carved posts and hangings of figured damask. At the end of the bed was a broad, low sofa, covered in tattered silk, which Yashim guessed had come from Istanbul. The floor was covered in a soft Turkish carpet.

On the wall opposite the bed, between two full-sized portraits, hung a small curtain.

The contessa gestured to the portraits. “My parents.”

Yashim’s heart was thumping.

Lucia d’Istria had been a very beautiful woman. Her daughter had inherited her fair hair and even her smile, but Carla’s eyes belonged to the count. They were blue, steady-and a little hard.

Yashim’s own eyes flickered to the curtain.

The contessa put a hand to his shoulder. “Do you want to see it very much?”

“Yes.”

“Ask me, then. Say it.”

He turned his head and regarded her curiously. “I want to see the painting very much,” he said.

She gave a crooked smile, reached out, and tweaked the curtain pull.

“There.”