Venice Vampyr - The Beginning

Venice Vampyr: Final Affair (#2)





Chapter One




Venice, Italy - early 1800s

At first, she’d thought her physician had made a mistake.

Three months—the doctor had given her only three more months to live. During the last two she’d likely be confined to her bed with blinding pain.

It wasn’t possible.

Just days earlier, her governess had warned her that, despite her pretty face and graceful figure, her outspoken manner and outlandish ideas were scaring away potential husbands. Viola hadn’t cared. She’d figured that if a suitor couldn’t stand up to her, then she’d rather not be married at all. Plus, she was barely one and twenty, and while she was still on the shelf when it came to marriage prospects—which was due to her impetuous nature—she had her whole life ahead of her. So she’d thought.

Three months wasn’t a life.

Yet, despite her brain tumor, she’d make the most of it.

At first, she’d thought to prove her physician wrong. She’d already traveled to Switzerland—leaving in the dead of night and without a chaperone—and consulted another expert. But the answer remained the same: she was dying.

That’s why she’d come to Venice. No longer to prove him wrong, but to live.

She hadn’t told her family where she was going: they would have stopped her. They would have called her foolish and scandalous. But she would not be stopped. Viola had accepted that she would die, but there was one thing she wanted to experience before she left this world.

She refused to die a virgin.

But she was also practical: a scandal wouldn’t serve her family. Already, her sudden disappearance would have to be covered up, something her over-eager mother was more than capable of handling. She would simply let everybody know that Viola was staying in the countryside to tend to an elderly relative. There were plenty to choose from.

Viola had decided to go where nobody knew her or any of her relatives, where her scandalous behavior would not have any repercussions for her parents. She had sent them a letter from Switzerland, telling them that her condition had worsened and that she was confined to a hospital bed. She had also told them in no uncertain terms that she wanted to be left alone and be remembered for who she was before her illness had started.

She had threatened to create a scandal in Florence should her wishes not be respected. Her threat would ensure that her mother complied with her wishes and impressed upon Viola’s father not to make any attempts to fetch her. Besides, her mother was probably happy to be rid of her. After all, Viola had never been able to live up to her high expectations. By rejecting the first—and only—suitor who’d ever dared to court her, Viola had extinguished any goodwill her mother had ever felt toward her.

Viola had arranged for her parents to receive a letter in three months, indicating that their daughter had passed away peacefully. Of course, it would be a lie, because she would take her life much earlier. Once she had accomplished what she’d come to Venice for.

Once she was no longer a virgin, she would take the pistol she carried in her bag and end her life before the pain would debilitate her. She had no intention of suffering a long and painful death.

Viola smoothed a hand over her skirts and righted her cloak. Filling her lungs with a deep breath, she pushed the heavy oak door open.

The place she entered was a club of sorts. According to her information, gentlemen who were looking for female companionship frequented the surprisingly clean establishment. While it was not a brothel, many of the women who joined the men at the club to seek carnal pleasures did so for money. However, the man who’d guided her to this club had assured her that on occasion women of the higher classes were seen there to find diversions their respectable husbands wouldn’t indulge their wives in.

She hoped the man had been correct and the story she had rehearsed would be believable. The last thing she wanted to do was to draw attention to herself. It was hard enough to overcome her embarrassment at having to approach a stranger and ask him to bed her. Being sent on her way without achieving her goal would be worse. Because there was one rule the men at the club insisted on despite their debauchery: nobody was to bed a virgin.

The place smelled of cigars, alcohol, and perfume. Viola took a shallow breath and let the door snap in behind her. A burgundy curtain of heavy velvet separated the foyer from the main rooms behind. Music and laughter drifted to her. She took a step forward when a hand on her arm held her back.

Her breath caught in her throat as she snapped her head to the side.