The Girl Behind the Mask by Stella Knightley Read Free Book Online Page B

ahead.
    The letters of Luciana Giordano were collected together in a beautiful box, covered in the kind of multicoloured marbled paper for which the master stationers of Italy are justly famous. I opened the box gingerly, unsure how robust it would be. Though it was undoubtedly much younger than the letters it contained, it was still ancient and fragile. I had to take care.
    I automatically held my breath and closed my eyes as I let the hinged lid fall open. I knew that when I opened them again, everything would be different. Because this wasn’t just a box full of old paper to me. I was about to touch something that my heroine had touched, three centuries before. The letters inside this box contained her own true thoughts. The implications were momentous. Luciana Giordano and I were about to make contact across the years.

Chapter 9
    The diary of Luciana Giordano, 11th November, 1752
    I have to write quickly, as in just half an hour Maria will be awake and at her daily business of bothering me to within an inch of my life in the name of preserving my dignity and reputation. What a night! When the household was asleep, I took up, as usual, my place by the window to watch the nightly circus unfold. Truly, I cannot imagine anything the good people of Venezia might see at the Teatro San Benedetto could compare with what happened here on our little canal last night.
    It all began as usual. The husband from the opposite house left at his customary time. I checked his exit against the bells. He kissed his dear sweet wife on the forehead and sent her to bed. He didn’t look up to see her watch from the window to make sure that he had really gone. He never does. Poor fool.
    Fifteen minutes later, the lover arrived. He tied his boat out of sight of the main canal and made his way to her building like a cat sneaking after its prey. Hearing his signal – which is not unlike a cat’s meow; I have been practising it myself – the wife threw her window wide and let down a rope, as long and thick as Rudaba’s hair in the Persian fairytale. Her lover was up it like a monkey and did not even wait until she had closed the shutters to start kissing her and loosening her breasts from her bodice. I have to admit, I was quite aroused by the sight, though I fear it will be a long time before anyone but Maria loosens my stays.
    They only half-closed the shutters this evening – though it’s grown so cold these past few days I would have thought they would catch their deaths – so I was able, if not to see what was going on, to hear what was going on very easily. Such grunts and groans! It’s hard to imagine they were doing something pleasurable. I thought the act of love was supposed to be accompanied by tender sighs and sweet declarations, not howling and curses to raise merry hell.
    Anyway, the grunting and groaning took the usual amount of time and came to its crescendo with a particularly anguished wail on the part of the lover. After that, I heard the wife giggling so I assumed the lover was not hurt. Indeed, he came to the window moments later, throwing the shutters a little wider to let in the air. Frustratingly, he had his mask on. Perhaps he had not taken it off. Maria tells me there are people in Venezia who wear their masks so often that even their friends and relations are unable to recognise them bare-faced.
    My father thinks the practice of wearing masks in this town has gone much too far. My brother says my father disapproves of the widespread use of the mask precisely because it is so levelling and liberating. When everyone is masked, a pauper may talk to a duchess. The Doge can move among his people unknown and thus learn exactly what they think of him. My father thinks masks encourage dishonest behaviour. My brother argues the exact opposite. How can the Doge govern properly if he does not know the true will of the people and how can he know the true will of the people but by being anonymous? Indeed, how can the ordinary