Bianca Read Free

her sister.
    “Ohh, please don’t tell that I eavesdropped!” Francesca begged.
    “I won’t,” Bianca promised. “I’ll say I heard the servants gossiping. Mama will tell me if any such arrangements for my future have been made. She will know.”
    “I don’t want you to marry and leave us,” the younger girl admitted. “I didn’t mean it when I said I’d be glad to have you gone.”
    “I know that, little
ficcanaso
,” Bianca assured her sibling with a small smile. Then she went off to find their mother and learn the truth of what her sister had heard.
    “Your mother is closeted with the master,” Fabia, her mother’s servingwoman, told Bianca. Then she lowered her voice to speak in a more confidential tone. “It is something serious, for I heard your mother raising her voice, which is most unlike her.”
    “I have heard rumors regarding a marriage for me,” Bianca said softly.
    Suddenly the door to her mother’s privy chamber was flung open, and her father, his face dark with anger, strode out and past them, exiting Lady Orianna’s apartments.
    “I will never forgive you for this, Gio!” her mother shouted after him.
“Never!”
Then, seeing Bianca, she burst into tears, turned, and slammed the door shut behind her.
    “I must go to her,” Fabia said.
    Bianca nodded, and left her mother’s rooms. Her mother had shouted. Orianna never shouted. And she had looked positively distraught. Orianna Rafaela Maria Theresa Venier, a
principessa
of the great Venetian Republic, never raised her voice, never allowed her emotions to show, and yet she had done both within hearing of not only her eldest daughter but a servant as well. Whatever was happening was not a good thing.
    Francesca awaited Bianca in her elder sister’s bedchamber. “What did you learn?” she demanded.
    Bianca told her of the scene that she and Fabia had just witnessed.
    Francesca’s blue-green eyes grew round. “Our mother never shouts like some common fishwife,” she said. “And to tell our father she would never forgive him . . . what has he done to incur such wrath from her?”
    “I do not know,” Bianca said, “but I suspect if we are to learn, it will be sooner than later.” A rap sounded on the closed bedchamber door. “Come!” Bianca called out.
    The door opened to reveal their eldest brother, Marco. He stepped quickly into the room, closing the door behind him. “This is all my fault,” he said, taking her two hands in his own. “I must beg your forgiveness, Bianca.” He looked genuinely shamefaced and sorrowful at the same time.
    Both of his sisters looked totally confused.
    Finally Bianca said, “Why must you ask for my pardon, Marco? You have done nothing of which I am aware that would require it.”
    “Sit down,” Marco invited. “Not you, Francesca. You must leave. What I have to say is for Bianca’s ears only, not yours,
bambina
. Go now.” He pointed to the door.
    “I am not a baby. Giulia is the baby. I am ten going on eleven, Marco.”
    He smiled, and gently tugged on the thick golden braid into which her hair was now fashioned. “Don’t listen at the door,” he cautioned her with a mischievous grin.
    “Oh! You!” Francesca huffed as she left the bedchamber.
    Marco watched her go down the wide corridor and around the corner. She turned to stick her tongue out at him before she disappeared, which caused him to chuckle as he turned back to Bianca and shut the door to the room firmly. “Come,” he said, taking her arm by the elbow. “By the window, where the little
ficcanaso
can’t hear us when she sneaks back to listen, which she will.” His face grew serious once again. He looked like a younger version of their father, with curly black hair and bright blue eyes.
    Bianca smiled, amused. “Yes, she will.” They moved to the window, and Bianca said, “What disturbs you, Marco?”
    “My actions have put your future in jeopardy, I fear.” Then he began to explain in low, measured tones.