Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

saw him before he departed for England, I wept, begging him to take me with him. He refused. He left me to fend for myself.
    “Although Julian had already left the city, the rumors spread. Venice is a small town, and it was even smaller back then. Soon the whole town was chattering about it, and il vecchio pedofilio found out that I was a ruined woman.
    “The only people who had not heard about the scandal were foreigners. I found an Englishman named Thomas Harcourt, who seemed like a fine prospect for a husband, although in reality I knew nothing about him. I was a good enough actress that I could counterfeit love, enough to fool him into thinking I was a virgin. That part was easy. A little slit of my hand, a few drops of blood on the sheets. Harcourt did the gentlemanly thing and married me.
    “Once he took me back to England, I saw another side of Harcourt that was far from genteel. A cruel, perverse side that was drunken and harsh, that thought nothing wrong with beating me until I bled. But in those times, if a man had wanted to beat his wife, there was nothing she or anybody else could do about it.
    “And it was all for nothing.
    “As soon as I left Venice, Carlotta was married to the decrepit old pedophile in my place. Il vecchio pedofilio had gotten his beautiful bride in the end, after all. One that was even younger than he had hoped for. My sister was only twelve years old.
    “I had thought I would have time to figure out a way to help her. But I was wrong.
    “In Venice in those days, marriage was often delayed into the twenties, not like it had been in earlier centuries. My sister’s wedding was not illegal. But to me, my parents had committed an act of monstrosity. In hindsight, it was an act of desperation.
    “The old pedophile was every bit as bad as I had feared. As the years ticked by, Carlotta’s innocence ripened into maturity. She was no longer the child bride the old pervert had paid for. He took to frequenting whores, the younger the better. He contracted a bad case of syphilis and passed it on to Carlotta. She suffered a string of miscarriages due to the illness. She wrote me letter after letter detailing her misery, but there was nothing I could do. I was helpless, trapped beneath Harcourt’s petty despotism.
    “Ten years after I had come to England, I ran into Julian Ascher in a ballroom in London. I hated him, but I hated Harcourt more. I threw myself on Julian’s mercy. Begged him to kill Harcourt in a duel. I had thought it would be a sure thing. My drunkard husband was normally incapable of walking a straight line, much less shooting straight. But the duel didn’t go as planned, and both men were killed.
    “I buried Harcourt and bowed my head at his funeral, as a good widow should. But I did not truly mourn him. Nor did I feel badly for Julian. I didn’t regret the way that he died, nor the fact that his death solved my greatest problem.
    “I rushed home to Venice, hoping to finally help Carlotta. She was heavily pregnant again with a child she thought would survive. But I was too late.
    “She died in childbirth, and the baby died shortly after taking its first breath.
    “I survived for a year after that, a free woman at last.... Until Harcourt clawed his way out of hell and strangled me.”
    The sun began to creep over the horizon, spilling light into the room and washing over his face. She saw the tiredness in his eyes; she was tired, too. Too tired to recount anything more. There was too much, too many years…
    “What happened then?” he pressed. “How did you get out of hell? How did Carlotta end up at the brothel?”
    “That’s a story for another day, caro. You asked why I hate Julian Ascher so much, and there is your answer. Tonight, we have already run out of time. The rest will have to wait for the future.”
    The future. What a ridiculous notion, she chided herself. The idea of a time between them that would be peaceful enough for the telling of stories…that was more nonsensical than a fairy tale. She reminded herself, Demons don’t live for the future. Not a real future. We might be greedy for something we want. But mostly, we are trapped in the past. Or we live for the moment. But if we are swayed by considerations of the future, those considerations have only to do with revenge.
    “Come with me. You know you can. It’s the right thing to do.”
    “I can’t just waltz out of Venice with you,” she laughed softly, laying her cheek on his broad