One With the Shadows by Susan Squires

She hoped her voice didn’t show it.
    “Then what drove the jeweler mad?” he asked softly.
    “I … I don’t know,” she admitted.
    “Well, well. Then there are some things that cannot be explained, Lady Charlatan, by what one can see and what one can touch.”
    That had her.
    “Montalcino, signore,” Luigi called. “Shall I stop?”
    “Si, Luigi. All’Osteria de Quattro Fiumi.”
    “Luigi must be terribly tired. Shouldn’t he rest?”
    “I drove through the night while he dozed beside me. Adolpho rode inside with you. And to answer your next question, we stopped three times last night to change horses, so they are not being mistreated either. I know that disappoints you. You like to think the worst.”
    “I’m a realist.” Was all that true?
    He seemed to guess her thoughts. “You slept through everything.”
    “I was … tired.” The carriage now clattered through narrow cobbled streets.
    “I should think you would be. Here we are. You may wish to freshen up.” The carriage rolled to a stop. Adolpho opened the door. Urbano didn’t even speak sharply to him for letting in light. He merely squinted painfully and thrust himself farther into his corner.
    Very well, she thought crossly . So he’s considerate to his servants, to his horses, and to me. That doesn’t mean there isn’t something strange about him.
    The young postboy handed her down from the carriage with a bow.
    “Take in her trunk,” Urbano ordered. “Don’t dawdle.” He pulled the carriage door shut.
    Kate stalked across the early-morning piazza. Women were already queued up at the well in its center to get their morning water. Around her were arched stone houses and shops. Several carriages lined the edges of the little piazza. Towers thrust up everywhere around the town. Eleven, fifteen—there were dozens of them.
    “Signorina,” Luigi called. He and Adolpho carried a leather-covered trunk between them. She hurried after them.
    Luigi bespoke a room. He and the proprietor carried up the trunk and left her alone to her ablutions. Three maids soon arrived with buckets of water for a bath set near a coal fire. No matter how he got his money, she could not regret that Urbano was prone to spend it on luxury. She sank into the hot water gratefully. As the last maid went out the door, Kate glimpsed her lying in a bed, a bloody child in her arms. It was not dead though, thank God. It was screaming in protest. The maid was weeping and crooning to it. The moment was one of extreme joy. The maid had thought that she could never give her husband a child; but here was a boy, healthy and screaming in her arms. The girl felt fulfilled. She herself was in pain, but she didn’t mind that. A man bent over her, murmuring endearments, and kissed her.
    Bloody hell. Another of these blasted glimpses into … into nothing! This was not that girl’s future. This was wishful thinking because Kate herself would never have a child. Enough. She was not going to have these daydreams anymore. She was exhausted, her thoughts muddled. What did she expect, with all that had been happening to her recently?
    As she washed the grime of the journey from her body the gears of her brain got moving again. She could practically feel them chunk into place. Sleep and a bath worked wonders.
    Her thoughts turned to Byron. She had read Don Juan, this afternoon, holding the book up to the channel of light made by raising the window shade an inch. Something was niggling at her. She just couldn’t quite bring it out. Was it about Byron? She was amazed she had never read him before. How like Urbano to be enamored of his muscular, active poetry. Not unpleasing verse, though, on the whole. What was it she had heard about his secretary really writing one of his works? Polidori was the man’s name. Which book? Oh, yes, the one about the vampire. There had been quite a flap because it was quite clearly about Byron himself …
    She froze, the sponge in mid-sweep down her