Liquid Desires Read Online Free

homeliness—stopped and called something to the woman. She continued walking. Gervasio hurried after her.
    Here were two people Urbino didn’t recognize. Catullus, however—usually feisty with strangers—was acting as if he knew the young woman or, uncharacteristic of him, had immediately taken to her. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but Urbino doubted that he had ever seen her before. He would have remembered.
    Slim, with a slightly elongated neck and abundant auburn hair that drifted behind her like a thick cloud, she had a Pre-Raphaelite look that Urbino found attractive. Her features weren’t perfect but they were close to it. Urbino had a good opportunity to take them in as the young woman passed beneath the terrace and turned her face up toward him. Deep-green eyes and generously curved lips were what immediately struck him and he knew he would find it impossible soon to forget them—along with her hair, bronze and gold in the sun and slightly wild.
    But something seemed to be missing from the eyes. He didn’t expect to find recognition there or interest or even curiosity, but he did expect something. Oddly blank, they gave her striking face a lifeless look. Yet, as she strode across the parterre, oblivious of the other guests, there was force, even violence, in her movements. Heads turned, but no one seemed to recognize her.
    The auburn-haired woman went directly to the box garden enclosed by the stone pergola where the Contessa was now talking with Occhipinti. She stood in front of them for a few moments, Catullus docile at her side like a unicorn in medieval paintings of the Virgin. Gervasio went over to the Contessa and bent close to her ear. The Contessa shook her head, and Gervasio left. He rejoined the ugly man, who was still standing at the end of the atrium, and led him to the front of the house.
    Occhipinti peered through his spectacles at the young woman, who was now saying something to the Contessa. An angry look transformed Occhipinti’s features. The woman was smiling and had an unmistakable expression of triumph on her face.
    But the Contessa’s expression spoke the loudest. It was as if something had collapsed inside her and she was doing all she could to put the best face on it. Her attempts at concealment might have fooled almost anyone but not Urbino. She was in distress. Urbino was already making his way down the terrace steps before the Contessa looked at him across the heads of her guests with what was a silent cry for help.
    Urbino was at her side in time to hear the Burne-Jones woman say in low, soft Italian, “Yes, Contessa, I’m your daughter.” She paused, looking briefly at Urbino with her green eyes. “Or I should say that I’m your husband Alvise’s daughter. Didn’t he ever tell you?”
    She reached down to pat Catullus on the head. The dog seemed in ecstasy.

2
    Urbino and the young woman were waiting for the Contessa in the salotto verde . Catullus lay on the Aubusson, his eyes following the woman as she ran her slim hand along the carved and gilded Brustolon and Corradini furniture and glanced at the pastels and miniatures by Rosalba Carriera.
    â€œI know I upset the Contessa,” she said in Italian in a voice that seemed to come from a long way off. “I’m sorry. It’s a terrible thing when someone you love and trust betrays you. Your soul shrivels up. Do you think hers is all shriveled now? But the Conte Alvise da Capo-Zendrini was my father. Don’t you think I look like him?”
    She turned more directly toward Urbino. On closer view her jaw was far from as square nor were her lips as wide as one of Burne-Jones’s languid maidens, but there was nonetheless a resemblance to the painter’s women, perhaps mainly in the abundance of auburn hair. Was this why she had seemed familiar earlier?
    â€œWell, signore, do I look like him or not?”
    Urbino had never known Alvise,