Page 4

No one would know that it had been her own uncle—the vile and treacherous Sir Aloysius, who had sought her hand in marriage in order to gain her fortune—who had lured her here, only to exact his jealous vengeance by opening the secret floodgate! Alas! No one could hear her screams as they echoed off the slimy walls of this ancient dungeon. There would be no rescue.

With a despairing sob she fell against the door. And with that, the rusted metal wrenched out of the rotted wood and dropped to the icy floor with a clank⁠—

Wait. No. Not a clank. A splash. After all, Violetta’s cell was already flooding.

Except… a splash wasn’t right either. It sounded so… so anticlimactic. Any pebble could make a splash. An iron bolt was heavy and metallic. And there would be only an inch or two of water on the dungeon floor to break its fall. Was there a word that combined the meanings of “clank” and “splash?” Or said one and suggested the other?

She tried to think. But her head seemed to be as foggy as Portman Square outside, where a freezing mist had been hanging between the tops of the trees all day. All her ideas were clichéd, all her sentences were awkward... and now she couldn’t even think of a word.

Also, how many times had she written alas? She crossed out two of them and set down her quill. Nothing she did was any use, because her book was going to fail anyway. And that was her own fault.

On the table in front of her sat two books. One was the celebrated Norwood’s Historical Guidebook to Venice: Treating Concisely and Thoroughly of the Principal Historic and Artistic Points of Interest Therein. It was full of tiny print and extremely detailed information. In fact, many of its pages consisted of nothing but long lists of all the notable people and titled families who'd owned various famous piece of art over the centuries.

The other book was The Prisoner of San Severino, a gothic novel set in Venice which had caused a sensation last year. She'd read it six times. Her task now was to write an equally thrilling gothic novel, also set in Venice.

Only... she'd never been to Venice. But she couldn't tell her publisher that. Because her publisher—Mr. Wynde, at Thetis Press—believed that Mrs. Brown—that was her pen name—had traveled in Italy. He believed this because she'd set most of her first novel in the Italian countryside—or at least, her completely fictional approximation of it.

Venice had been his suggestion. The reading public, he said, was clamoring for sensational stories set in Venice. She hadn’t dared tell him that she was not a well-traveled military widow at all. Her writing career would be over if Mr. Wynde discovered that she was merely the spinster daughter of a bankrupt viscount.

She sighed, opened Norwood’s Historical Guidebook and gazed, for approximately the thousandth time, at her favorite page of the book: a tinted engraving of St. Mark’s Square. She assumed that artistic license had been involved in the creation of this picture. No real place could possibly be so much like an illustration from the Arabian Nights. But as she gazed at the domed roofs and the lacy stonework, she could almost feel the hot sun between her shoulder blades, and hear the cries of sea birds, and smell the salt air…

She jerked back to reality. She'd scarcely got anything done, and everything that she had done was dreadful. She took a deep breath and forced herself to read over the sentence that she’d just written. Perhaps what she needed wasn’t a word, but a phrase. Something like… “and struck the flagstones with a hollow clang beneath the lapping waves of the deadly rising waters.”

Hm. That was passable.

Or… not utterly terrible.

Her quill scratched as she wrote down the words before she could forget them. For the past few months, she’d found that if she didn’t write something down immediately, it melted out of her fog-filled mind moments later.

She screwed the cap back onto her inkwell, stacked her papers neatly, put her head down on her folded arms, and was too exhausted to think any more.

“Sir Simon will be at the musicale this evening,” said Lady Theodosia, as they sat down to dinner.

A tasteful arrangement of pale green lenten roses and early cream and gold narcissus sat in a silver bowl at the center of the table. Candlelight gleamed on the mahogany of the sideboard and the crystal of the glasses. Lady Theodosia was Pomona’s great aunt. She was also Pomona’s favorite person in the world. They’d been living in this house in Portman Square for over a year now—ever since Lady Theodosia had come back from Germany to rescue Pomona from... well, things.

The footmen served the soup. Sir Simon. Pomona tried to remember which one he was. Sometimes everything outside the pages of her manuscript seemed to blur together. “I believe that I may cry off. I am behind in my work. I am considering giving up all social engagements until I have finished.”

“Giving up all social…!” Lady Theodosia’s eyes widened. “But you scarcely go out as it is! The schedule of work that you have set for yourself cannot be at all healthy.”

Pomona took a large gulp of wine. “I must make a success with this book.”

“And I am certain that you shall. How could you not?” Lady Theodosia studied her fondly. Lady Theodosia and her sister Lady Sophronia—Pomona’s grandmother—were the two daughters of the Earl of Ockham. They had been famous beauties and famous wits in their day. Lady Theodosia had a serene confidence that everything would turn out for the best. “Besides, Sir Simon mentioned quite particularly that he was looking forward to seeing you.”

“Is he the baronet with the pale eyebrows?”

Lady Theodosia gave her a look. “I confess that I have not given Sir Simon’s eyebrows any thought.”

Pomona supposed that she should be ashamed of her superficiality. Still. She’d never cared for pale eyebrows on a man.

“He is kind and well-read—and a generous supporter of the Society for the Advancement of Philosophical Understanding. And of course, he is rich. He is a most eligible match.”

“Well, if he is interested in me, I can only assume that he has not been in town long enough to hear any gossip.”

“Sir Simon does not strike me as the sort of man who listens to gossip.”

“There is no such a thing as a man who does not listen to gossip.”

The footmen came in again to clear the soup and serve the main course. Pomona tried and failed to imagine kissing anyone other than… No. That was not a productive line of thinking.