The Secret of the Glass (19 page)

“No, I am…that is…” She wanted to kick herself at her own weakness, at her inability to defend herself. “My family owns one of the largest glasswork factories on Murano.”

Sophia raised her chin with as much defiance as she could muster; sure that her financial position, at least, was far superior to one or two of these haughty women.

The four companions said nothing; their shared, withering look—one of disdain and dismissal—was ill-disguised. In unison, they turned with steely silence, and flounced away.

The heat rose on Sophia’s face like the summer sun in the eastern sky, her hands balled into tight, clenching fists. The obfuscating behavior of these people, her homeland’s royalty, baffled her. She had learned her lesson for the night; noble blood was not the precursor to a decent human being. Her malefic, penetrating stare bore into the backs of the rude courtiers as they strode away from her. She lost them in the crowd, spinning away on her heel—and stopped.

She felt his gaze first, like the brush of a butterfly’s wings if they passed too close to the tender skin of her cheek, a touch that wasn’t a touch at all but jarring nonetheless. She turned to it, drawn by it, and saw him. His chiseled features towered over every other head in the room. He seemed to scowl at her, yet a small, almost secretive smile played upon his full lips. Did he mock her as the noble women had or was that smile a beacon of tenderness in this unwelcoming sea?

Sophia retreated from its allure, as much afraid of it as everything else about this night. By way of a lace-curtained, double glass door, she slipped from the room as unnoticed as the first waves of the changing tide.

Out on the columned and arched loggia overlooking the lagoon, Sophia ambled down the wide, marble-floored passageway, alone in the cool breeze, finding a still place within herself and away from the people and the life they represented in the room beyond. She brightened as she remembered her evening’s work in the
fabbrica
, the few precious moments she had stolen after the workers had gone home and her preparations for this night had begun. She had completed almost all of professore Galileo’s pieces, had done so with great proficiency, and longed to return to the warmth of the furnaces and finish them. The pieces for the scientist were important, and in making them, she became important, more than an object to be acquired and commented upon, then discarded with complete negligence.

“You musn’t let them bother you.”

Sophia spun in fright, one hand clamping her parted lips to squelch her own squeal.

“
Mi scusi
, signorina. I had no wish to frighten you.”

The tall young man stepped out of the shadows and into the warm golden light cast through the large council room window, his senatorial robes rippling about his long, firm body in the briny breeze blowing off the water. Sophia recognized him immediately, knew the eyes that had touched her with such power.

“Signore, I…”

“Gradenigo.” The young man took her hand, drawing her eyes to the long, lithe fingers that held hers so tenderly. “Teodoro Gradenigo.”

He bowed gracefully over her hand, his penetrating perusal never leaving her face.

The mesmerizing eyes were a scant few inches away and Sophia could not wrench her fascination from them. They weren’t black, as they first appeared, but blue, a deep, dark smoky blue, like the deepest ocean, a blue to swim in, to drown in.

A lopsided grin tilted across Teodoro’s full mouth.

“And…you are?”

Sophia shook her head. “Oh, I’m sorry. I am Sophia. Sophia Fiolario.” The memory of the women’s rude dismissal was too fresh in her mind and a sneering tone crept into her voice. “And no, I am not of noble blood.”

Teodoro leaned in close, his mouth beside her ear, its warm breath fluttering her curls as something fluttered deep within her.

“I promise not to hold that against you, if you promise not to hold that I am against me.”

Sophia thought he provoked her but as he fell away, she saw the small but revealing grin still upon his lips and the gentleness in his eyes surprised her. There was something compelling about that slight smile—it said so much for such an understated gesture. Sophia lowered her head, releasing her attitude with a shake of her head and a light laugh at her own contentiousness.

“My apologies, signore—”

“Teodoro.”

Sophia looked up at the friendly face. His smooth beige skin appeared flawless under the shaggy cap of russet hair fringing onto his forehead, down near to his brows and along the nape of his muscular neck.

“My apologies, Teodoro. I am unaccustomed to such discourteous conduct. I don’t know how those women were raised, but surely nobility doesn’t preclude one from common decency. If my mamma—” A terrible thought stole her breath and stilled her flapping tongue. She was aghast at her own unfamiliar verbosity and the rude mistake she may have just committed. “Are any of them y-your wife…your betrothed?”

Teodoro threw back his large head and laughed, a thoroughly masculine, thoroughly charming laugh.

“No, Sophia—may I call you Sophia?” he asked with a lilt in his deep baritone, continuing unabated after receiving her nod of acquiescence. “No, I’m afraid there is no future wife for me, in that room, or any room for that matter.”

Sophia’s brow creased, her head tilted to one side in confusion.

“I am a
Barnabotti
. It is the place of my home and the way of my life.”

Sophia was taken aback; she had never heard a resident of the poor parish of San Barnaba call themselves by the less-than-flattering term.

“My family’s fortune has long since disappeared,” Teodoro continued with a careless shrug of his wide shoulders, attention locked on the gloom just out of the torch light’s glow. “If I were to marry we would lose our government’s assistance, such as it is. No, my brother will be the only one to marry and produce an heir. I will happily serve the
Serenissima
as a council member until I outlive my usefulness, like the monk in a monastery. In truth, the
fratellanza
is not much different. It is where I live, where I will most probably live out my days.”

Sophia had never encountered a resident of a
fratellanza
, the inelegant male boarding houses where sons discouraged from marrying went to live, devoting their lives to government and diplomacy. With no wives or families to return home to after a long day’s work, these men filled Venice at night, finding their release and relaxation in the brothels and gambling houses, the dens of pleasure found on every
calle,
every
fondamenta
. At first glance it was a glamorous, carefree life; on deeper inspection it was a sad and hollow existence.

“You do not seem too disappointed.” Sophia searched his features for the base emotion behind the banal expression.

“Ah, but there you are wrong.” Teodoro turned back to look her squarely in the face, all pretext gone, cast out to the sea before them. “I am greatly disappointed. I know these rich nobles can be quite insufferable at times, but I would gladly surrender my manners to be one of them, to live their life of affluence and luxury.”

Sophia answered his stare with her own. His naked honesty bewildered her. If sincere, he was an enigma, a conundrum amid a race of men who fought so ferociously for their veneer of virility. How strong must this man be to so blatantly flaunt his own flaws? She couldn’t look away from him, couldn’t break the bond his confession had created between them.

Teodoro’s sad eyes creased with a hint of satisfaction.

“But enough whining. I am a lucky man to serve under Doge Donato. It was perhaps the greatest moment of my life to be one of the forty-one to elect him.”

She willingly allowed him the shift. “I thought the entire Council elected our Doge?”

Sophia possessed no more than a superficial knowledge of her government’s inner workings; she knew little more than the laws binding her own life and those of all glassmakers, but thought it imprudent to mention them at this moment.

“Are you telling me that you don’t know the ingenious method by which we elect our ruler?”

Teodoro’s mocked distress made Sophia laugh and she shook her head with a giggle.

“Then it will be my pleasure to enlighten you.”

Teodoro pushed off the balcony they both leaned on, to stand upright before her, a student about to recite his lessons.

“You must remember that Venice’s greatest fear is for one person, one family, to gain absolute power,
sì?”

Sophia nodded, already amused by his tutorial manner. Not for a moment did she wonder if Pasquale searched for her; not for a moment did she care.

“
Bene
. Then we begin. On election day, the youngest member of the
signoria
, the inner council, prays in the Basilica at dawn’s first light. After his prayers, he steps out the door and stops the first young boy he sees. He takes this youngster, now called the
ballatino
, to this very chamber.” Teodoro gestured through the window they stood before and into the Grand Council Chamber. “In attendance are all the members of the Maggior Consiglio under the age of thirty, for a man must be older than that to become
Il Serenissimo
. All their names, hundreds of them, are put on slips of paper. The
ballatino
then picks thirty names from an urn. Those thirty men are reduced to nine and those nine vote; the first forty men among them with seven nominations continue. Are you with me?”

“Yes,” Sophia said. “And those are the men to choose the Doge?”

Teodoro released a bark of laughter.

“Not hardly. Those forty are reduced to twelve by drawing, those twelve vote and the first twenty-five receiving nine votes continue. Then these twenty-five are reduced to nine, again by drawing.”

“And
they
decide the Doge?” Sophia asked as Teodoro paused for a large gulp of air. She hoped his tutelage continued; she took great pleasure in listening. His voice was like warm, thick cream.

He waggled a finger at her and she laughed.

“Don’t get impatient. Those nine vote and the first forty-five with seven votes each continue. From these men, the
ballatino
draws eleven names.”

“You’re making this up,” Sophia said amidst their laughter, a comically quizzical expression twisting her features.

Teodoro shook his head, struggling to catch his breath between his laughter and his lecture.

“These eleven men now vote and the first forty-one of them to each receive seven votes, remain.” Teodoro paused dramatically, throwing up his arms with a flourish. “These forty-one men, if they are still awake, elect the Doge.”

The new acquaintances fell against each other, weak with laughter. As their mirth subsided, they separated, unmindful of their familiar behavior.

Sophia tutted, a hand hugging her cheek in disbelief.

“How do you get anything done?”

Teodoro huffed.

“Luckily all other decisions are made with a little less convolution, though not much.”

Sophia studied him, his serene, enchanting smile, and those eyes that held her so rapt in their thrall. Who was this man that amused her so? A veritable stranger with whom she shared a kinship, as if their spirits had already met long ago. Her thoughts frightened her; she twitched her glance away with reluctance and stared through the window into the
Sala del Maggior Consiglio
. The dancing had begun and the resplendently attired couples flashed across the pane, a whirlwind of color and opulence as they executed the leaps and twists of
il canario
.

“So you pride yourself as a lawmaker?” she asked.

“Yes,” Teodoro answered with sincerity. “I do.”

“Then explain this to me, sir. Are not the nobility under the rule of the sumptuary laws?”

Teodoro followed her stare and saw what she did, the lavish clothes, the large jewelry, the piles of gourmet food and an embarrassed, crooked smirk formed on his lips.

The Venetian government believed wealth led to luxury, luxury to idleness, and idleness to inertia. The sumptuary laws attempted to curb all excesses by the wealthy, but it was a relative restraint in a land that prided itself on possessing the best of everything. What, by outsiders, was considered ostentation was the everyday standard of life within the boundaries of the
Serenissima
.

Teodoro saw the incongruity as clearly as she did; he nodded with a sardonic smile and answered with blatant honesty. “Yes, they are.”

Sophia and Teodoro laughed together once more, a conspiring gentle laughter at the nobles’ expense. It drew them together, the poor noble and the wealthy commoner, both out of place in the glittering world, and united them.

Thirteen

T
he emerald silk gown lay draped in a glimmering heap across the chair in the corner, forgotten and eagerly abandoned. Clad once more in her simple gray muslin work dress, Sophia wore her own skin again as well and found strength and purpose in the familiarity. She held the
ferro
tenderly yet masterfully in her hand, held the molten material at the perfect angle over the fire. Deep in the hub of the flames, she glimpsed the hot, intense blue heart, and in the blue, she saw his eyes.

So much of the night she had pushed from her memory, so much of the pain and embarrassment she had endured she had discarded like mental refuse, refusing to dwell on it or to feel it again. She had found Pasquale later in the night, when Teodoro had reluctantly begged her leave and she had reluctantly given it. He had taken her hand again in parting, their gaze meeting with an undeniable crash. The essence of his light touch still tingled upon her skin.

Pasquale had not questioned her, on what she had done all evening or whom she had done it with, and Sophia didn’t offer. The opposite of love was not hate, as she had once thought, but complete indifference, and she found she shared his apathy. Her future husband had returned her to his servant, who saw her returned home, with little more than a grunt of goodbye, and she had dismissed him as easily as he had her. But thoughts of Teodoro she could not relinquish and in truth, had no desire to. She finished the pieces for Galileo, working her magic while memories of the night’s enchantment played over and over again in her mind’s eye. She recalled distinctly not only every detail of how the engaging and exciting young man looked, but how he had looked at her. His gaze was an embrace, one that warmed and excited her, and she willingly stepped into it with every thought of him.