The Stargazer Read Online Free

extent of her distressed beauty, then went on to her finale. “I am all alone in the world; no one cares for me. I can trust no one, rely upon no one, am loved by no one.”
    “Of course we love you. Everyone who sees you must love you.” Her brother mounted a protest as soon as he had regained the power of speech. “And it is not so bad as you say, cara , the girl is dead, the threat to us is gone. Think of the money we shall have, the beautiful clothes I shall buy you.”
    She waved his comment aside with a sneer as if he had insulted her by mentioning such mundane concerns. “The money is nothing. I don’t want money. I want revenge.” Her eyes were hooded, unreadable. “You don’t care about my happiness any more than he did. You are nothing to me.” She left the divan and approached the visitor, her manner changing, softening as she neared him. She took a hand and stroked his cheek, then let it move down over his torso.
    She knew what this one liked, and how to control him. “You, my little angel, you are all my hope that is left. You will help me destroy that preening count, won’t you, angelic one? You will find the body for me?” She filled her gaze with promises she knew he could not resist. The young man felt himself growing warm and had trouble finding his voice to respond to her.
    When he did, he smiled up at her, a beautiful, beatific smile. “I think I already have.”
    “Come help me with my bath,” she said, taking his hand and leading him out the door.

Chapter Three
    “Lucia’s eyes, will this pen not stay sharp?” Bianca glared down at the quill in her hand and then at the half-finished drawing in front of her. She never drew well when she was tired, and the forty-eight straight hours she had spent cloistered with Isabella’s body had left her completely drained. But she was determined to finish before the hazy gray day was plunged again in darkness. Exhausted as she was, she was still excited by the wealth of material she had been able to gather. Not only had she learned much about the crime, but Isabella’s body provided her with the first opportunity to draw the anatomy of a young woman. Her only female corpses before had been the poor old women of Padua who died without enough money for a proper burial. Isabella’s healthy young corpse was a dream come true, from a scientific standpoint.
    Her debts to Isabella seemed to mount even after the young courtesan’s death, Bianca mused philosophically. A few more drawings and her book would finally be ready to go to press, revealing the female body accurately for the first time. She could almost sense her triumph as she proved to those stubborn men in Padua that women had their own perfect anatomy and were not just flawed versions of men. Wandering wombs, hah! she thought to herself. She remembered hearing of her father’s debates on the subject with Andrea Vesalius when he was first starting his brilliant career, and she smiled as she imagined her book on a shelf somewhere as a companion to his. A vision of her future stretched invitingly before her—she would teach courses on female anatomy, study the female body and its cycles, do public demonstrations. It would be idyllic, truly. Except for this mockery of a betrothal.
    She knew that once announced before the Senate, a betrothal bore the mark of law and was virtually impossible to revoke unless both the people agreed to end it, or one person was shown to be unfit. Had she realized what Ian had actually been proposing all those hours—was it really only hours?—ago, she would never have agreed. Or probably not. Maybe. The Conte d’Aosto had always had a strange effect on her. From her first night out in Venetian society nine months before, he was the only man she always noticed, or at least, she noticed his absence. But that was probably because he was also the only man who never paid any attention to her. He had not even known who she was when they met at Isabella’s, she