Free The Visitant: A Venetian Ghost Story by Megan Chance Page B

mess—the burned milk was nearly impossible to scrape from the pan. It seemed to take forever, and when I was done, I was tired and frustrated and cursing Samuel for asking for chocolate. Not that he was going to get it, because there was none anywhere, unless it was in the storage room.
    Now that I’d had the idea, I had to look. Muttering to myself about men who should be content with mugwort tea, I went back into the swirling snow. There was no sign of anyone. It was eerie, how deserted it felt. The snow was beginning to stick now, and my smooth-soled boots were no good on it. Twice, I slid, nearly losing my balance the second time. I made my slow, cold, wet way across the short expanse of courtyard between the kitchen and the receiving court with its storage rooms. There, finally, among barrels of fermenting anchovy and kegs of wine and dangling ropes of garlic and drying herbs, I found a package—chocolate wrapped in blue paper. It was very thick, and hard to break. I had to throw it onto the floor before I got a chunk large enough to use.
    This time, I watched the milk as it steamed and melted the chocolate. A cone of sugar wrapped in brown paper sat on top of a barrel, but I saw no sugar cutters anywhere. I had to hack at it with a knife and a spoon, cursing, until I had a small pile of it mounded on the table, and even then it wasn’t quite sweet enough. It was going to have to do. Already it felt I’d been in this kitchen for an eternity.
    I poured the concoction into a bowl and threw the dirty pan into the wooden sink—let Giulia wash it. I was done with the whole thing. I was sweating from the heat of the kitchen, strands of hair escaped to dangle irritatingly against my cheeks and my throat. It was snowing harder than ever as I went back outside; the other wing and the courtyard stairs were just a dark blur. I held the bowl carefully, but it was steaming, and chocolate sloshed onto my skirt, snow melting into it as I tried to make my way to the stairs without slipping.
    I spilled probably a third by the time I got to the door. I nudged it open with my shoulder and stepped inside, but with my wet boots, the floor was just as slick as the courtyard had been, and so I was slow. I’d left Samuel in the sala, but now I heard laughter coming from his bedroom.
    I rounded the edge of the door, and saw Samuel lolling on the bed, his dressing gown open, a bottle of brandy in his hand, while Giulia, her hair down and wild, giggled as she licked spilled liquor off his chest.
    “What is this?” I cried, stepping inside. Giulia cursed in Venetian, her dark eyes flashing as she jerked away from Samuel, making him groan.
    “What are you doing here?” I demanded. I put the chocolate down and said to Samuel, “What is she doing here?”
    “I should think it obvious,” he said too slowly, as if he were struggling to form his words. I had been gone perhaps an hour and a half, and he was drunk. Blurry-eyed, slurring, unapologetically drunk. I realized too that he’d planned it. He’d tricked me. The chocolate had been nothing but a ruse. Time enough for Giulia to bring the brandy and perhaps, depending on just how long it took, time for other things as well.
    I was furious. Humiliated. Hurt. What was wrong with me that I could not see deception, even when I expected it?
    He lifted the bottle as if in toast. “She brought me petrolio .” He brought it to his mouth again, gulping it.
    I lunged for it, furious. Samuel jerked the bottle away from me. Giulia was still swearing as she climbed from the bed.
    “Get out of here!” I shouted at her as I tried again to grab the bottle.
    She spat something at me, and then, much to my surprise, she actually left, stalking from the room like an affronted cat. Samuel rolled onto his side, taking the bottle with him, so I had to climb onto the bed and reach over him to get it. I grabbed for it again and again, and he kept it just out of my reach, laughing at my efforts.
    “It’s