The Rossetti Letter (v5) Read Online Free Page B

placed her at the center of events, had given her adequate credit for helping to maintain the Venetian Republic’s independence. Claire thought of Alessandra as a sort of Italian Joan of Arc, and she harbored a secret hope that her dissertation would elevate the courtesan to a more prominent place in history.
    If Andrea Kent doesn’t beat me to the punch, she thought as she brushed the last crumbs of her sandwich from her lap. That the Cambridge professor was a woman was especially worrisome; there was a greater possibility that she, too, would write about the conspiracy from Alessandra’s viewpoint, making Claire’s dissertation completely redundant. Her only hope was that Andrea Kent was having as much trouble finding information on Alessandra Rossetti as she was.
    Two years and countless hours of research, and still Claire’s knowledge of the courtesan was sketchy, full of holes that she could fill only with question marks. In general, even the most illustrious Venetians of the time did not leave behind numerous records, documents or other accounts of their personal lives—and women, generally, left behind fewer than men. By researching wills, tax declarations, and an odd collection of personal correspondence, Claire had been able to piece together a biography of sorts. She took out her notes and looked them over once more.
    Alessandra Rossetti: born 1599, died?
daughter of Fiametta Balbi, of a noble family; and Salvatore Rossetti, a Venetian citizen. No confirmed birth dates for FB or SR. F. Balbi died circa 1608?, cause unknown. A merchant specializing in goods from the Levant, Salvatore Rossetti died 1616 (with Alessandra’s elder brother, Jacopo, born 1597) in shipwreck off Crete.
    With the deaths of Salvatore and Jacopo, Alessandra was left alone at the age of seventeen. The only honorable options for a woman of her station—a Venetian citizen, from a well-to-do merchant’s family—were marriage or the convent, but Alessandra didn’t choose either. The mystery of why she didn’t marry was easy enough to solve; when the sea claimed her father and brother, it also took her family’s fortune, including her dowry. As for the convent, Venetian girls rarely chose it of their own accord. Claire was fairly certain that Alessandra had entered into a close relationship with a man named Lorenzo Liberti, her father’s business associate and the executor of Salvatore’s diminished estate. Claire had come across a letter by Liberti in which he’d written that Alessandra had “bewitched” him, not only with her beauty but with her agile mind. Barely a year after their liaison had begun, Liberti was stricken with cholera and died.
    Not long after Liberti’s death, Alessandra became a courtesan. By some accounts, she was one of the most sought after women in Venice. It must have been a momentous time for her; less than twelve months later, in March 1618, Alessandra wrote the letter exposing the Spanish Conspiracy.
    And then she disappeared.
    The Rossetti Letter was the last known document written by Alessandra Rossetti, even, from what Claire had found, the last document that referred to her. So far she hadn’t been able to discover Alessandra’s fate. Had the letter placed her in danger? Had she died during the bloodbath that followed the revelation of the Spaniards’ plot? If she’d managed to escape with her life, why couldn’t Claire find any mention of her after March 1618?
    Claire set her notes on her desk and sighed. Sometimes she worried that she’d never find the answers to the questions that preoccupied her: How did Alessandra learn of the Spanish Conspiracy? And what had happened to her after the conspiracy was revealed?

The Wheel of Fortune
    18 April 1617
    T HE BELLS OF San Salvador were ringing as the gondola left the narrow confines of the Rio San Giovanni Crisostomo and sailed into the Grand Canal. Alessandra leaned out from the felze, the black baldachin that covered the boat’s midsection,