Starling (41 page)

Seraphina said.
Rosannah smiled at the girls before turning back toward the door,
revealing a mouth of rotting teeth and gums. She inched her way
along the path, one tiny step at a time. Cass watched her slow progress. She couldn’t imagine ever getting that old. The poor woman—a
strong breeze might crumble her to dust.
“Who was that? “Cass asked, once Rosannah was safely out of
earshot. “Octavia’s mother?”
Seraphina snickered. “Not officially. Rosannah is the courtesan
of choice for certain men who prefer older women.” She cleared her
throat meaningfully. “
Much
older women.”
“Really?” Cass asked. “But she’s so . . .”
“Hideous?” Seraphina offered with a wink. She lowered her
voice. “I’ve heard she has a client or two who make her bathe in
chilled water so they can pretend she’s a corpse.”
Cass almost fell off her bench. “That’s horrible. Do you have clients who make you do things like that too?”
Seraphina shook her head. “One or two have wanted to slap me
around a bit, but Octavia always says we don’t have to be with anyone we don’t want.” Seraphina sighed. “Of course it’s always the most
wealthy men who want to get a little rough, and I hate to turn them
and all their gold away.”
“So you let them hit you?” Cass asked incredulously.
“
Santo cielo,
no,” Seraphina said. “There are a few different
tricks that we use. My mother was a courtesan too, and she said a girl
from the Orient taught her this. If you run both hands down the sides
of a man’s face and find the places under his jaw where you can feel
his heartbeat, pressing on both of those areas will cause the blood to
stop inside of him, and he will pass out.”
Cass lifted her own hands to the sides of her neck, feeling for the
pulsing of blood beneath her fingers.
“Don’t do it,” Seraphina said. “It works. I promise you. A couple
of the girls here like to do it after they finish entertaining their men
so they can steal from their purses, but I do it only when I can’t stand
to be around a client any longer.” She tilted her head to the side. “It
helps if they’re drunk too. That way they stay unconscious longer
and don’t really remember much when they awaken.”
“And they don’t suspect anything?” Cass asked.
Seraphina grinned. “Men, they think we are weak. It would never
occur to them that a woman could overpower them, with her brain or
her hands. And even if it did, they’d never report it. Can you imagine
a man going to the
rettori
with a story of how he was fooled and taken
advantage of by a woman?” She laughed a tinkly little laugh.
For a moment, Cass envied Seraphina, her spirit and her confidence. Being a noblewoman in Venice meant either marriage to a
man of your family’s choosing or a life at the convent. The girls at
Palazzo Dolce had been born with less, and yet had perhaps carved
out a better path—one that gave
them,
not men or society, the power
over their lives.
It was completely different from everything Cass knew. She had
been raised to believe she would remain pure until her wedding
night, at which time she would let the husband her parents chose for
her do whatever he wished. Cass had never worried about being
treated roughly. She knew Luca was kind and decent. She just hadn’t
been sure she would ever welcome his advances.
But at some point that had changed. Madalena had once told her