The Contessa's Vendetta by Mirella Sichirollo Patzer Read Free Book Online Page B

slept, I made my way to her side of the bed and put my stiletto to the whore’s throat, signalling for her to keep her mouth shut. I forced her to the ground and knelt upon her chest. I looked down into her eyes and smiled. ‘I won’t not hurt you. All I ask is that you keep your mouth shut.’ She stared at me mute with fear. I gagged her then bound her hands and feet so that she could not move. I took my stiletto and went to him. His face looked so peaceful as I plunged the keen bright blade through the hairy white flesh of his chest. His brown eyes glared wide and imploring, while his heart’s blood welled up in a crimson tide, staining the bed linens with a brilliant burgundy hue. Behind me, his whore moaned out in agony. He flung up his arms and sank back on his pillows dead. I drew the blade from his body, and with it cut the bonds of the Venetian slut. I then gave her the stiletto. ‘Take it as a remembrance of him. In a month he would have betrayed you as he betrayed me.’ She raved like a mad woman and rushed from the room straight to the constable. I was tried for murder, but it was not murder - it was justice. The judge found extenuating circumstances. Naturally! He had a wife of his own. He understood my case. Now you know why I hate that rogue at the Villa Mancini. He is just like the husband I slew. He has the same slow smile and the same child-like eyes. I tell you again, I’m sorry that his wife is dead. It vexes me to think of it. In time, he would have driven her to kill him, of that I am certain.”
    C hapter Six
     

     
    The old woman ’s story turned my blood cold. For our entire married life, I believed that everyone who met or knew Dario, respected and admired him. I could not deny that when my husband’s horses knocked down this old woman, an event he had never mentioned to me, it was careless of him not to stop and at least inquire as to the extent of her injuries. He was young and thoughtless, but I did not want to believe he could be so heartless. It horrified me to think that he had made an enemy of this aged and poverty-stricken wretch, but I said nothing. I had no wish to betray myself to her.
    She waited for me to speak and grew impatient at my silence. “Was it not fair vengeance I took?” she said with childlike zeal. “God himself could not have done better!”
    “ I think your husband deserved his fate, but I cannot say I admire you for being his murderer,” I responded brusquely.
    She turned on me in an instant and flung both of her hands above her head with frenetic motion. “You call me a murderer? How dare you! He murdered me!” Her voice escalated into shrillness. “I died when I saw him asleep with his whore. That vision killed me. It was the devil rose up inside of me to take swift revenge. That same devil is in me now, a brave devil, a strong devil! That is why I do not fear the plague. The devil inside me frightens away death, but someday the evil will leave me.” Her voice sank into a frail, pathetic tone. “ Si , it will leave me and I shall find a dark place where I can sleep; I do not sleep much anymore. You see, my memory is very good, and when one thinks too much, one cannot sleep. Even though many years have passed, I still see my husband every night. He appears before me wringing his hands, his brown eyes piercing. I hear his terrorized moans and see his wretchedness.” She paused, and then like a woman waking from sleep, she stared at me as if she saw me for the first time, and broke into a low chuckling laugh.
    “ What a thing the mind is!” she muttered. “Strange, very strange. See, I remembered all that and forgot about you! You want a new gown and I need to be paid for it. If you do not want the fine gown of the French noblewoman, I will find you something else, but you must have patience.”
    She rummaged through a mound of garments at the rear of the shop. She looked so scrawny and forbidding that she reminded me of an aged vulture stooping