“I will see what I can find,signora,” the dressmaker said. “But do you not want your handsome bridegroom to be teased by a hint of your face beneath the veiling?”
“I am Florentine, not Venetian,” Bianca said primly. “It does not matter that this is my second marriage. I will not flaunt myself before all of Venice on my wedding day until after the marriage is celebrated. In Florence, such a thin veiling would be considered immodest. My mother would be very upset with it. You are fortunate she is not here.”
Agata and Francesca stifled their laughter. Both knew that Bianca told a bald-faced lie, but under the circumstances the dressmaker could not complain or deny her.
And when the woman and her assistants had departed, Agata locked the door of the bedchamber behind her. Then she and Bianca helped Francesca into the wedding gown to see what alterations would be needed, if any. But to their relief and the younger girl’s delight the gown fit perfectly but for the bosom, which could be easily and quickly fixed.
Francesca preened before the long glass mirror in her sister’s dressing room.
“It’s a perfect gown,” she said excitedly. “I shall be the envy of every girl in Venice for it, and for capturing Enzo Ziani as my husband.”
“You are a very fortunate girl that your sister understands your passion for this young prince, and will help you attain your heart’s desire,” Agata said sternly. “Now let us get you out of this gown before you damage it.”
“Then go and make a loud fuss above of how ugly I will look,” Bianca teased.
“Nonnowill be very angry when he discovers what we have done,” Francesca said as she stepped out of the gown’s skirts.
“Yes, he will,” Bianca agreed, “but it will be too late then. Neither he nor the Ziani family will want to be more of a laughingstock than this trick will make them seem. They must laugh with the rest of Venice about it. AndNonnowill have a difficult time of seeking another husband for me after this. But, Francesca, are you certain this is what you want to do? Just because I don’t want to marry Enzo Ziani doesn’t mean you have to take my place at the altar.”
“No,” Francesca replied. “Enzo is the man I want, and now I shall have him. But, Bianca... what if your prince doesn’t come for you? What will you do then?”
“He will come,” Bianca said. But where was he? she wondered. Surely by now he had reached Istanbul and was already preparing his return. He had to be. It was less than a month until the wedding. She wanted to be gone before that day. She didn’t want to put Francesca into the position of becoming a bride at such a young age. Francesca didn’t understand that while marriage was of course the fate of every respectable girl, she had time before she must settle. Time in which to be courted by several suitable men. Time that Bianca hadn’t had. But if Amir didn’t come soon, Francesca would marry Enzo Ziani, and their grandfather would probably send Bianca back to Florence for playing such an incorrigible jest on two families.
The doge himself was coming to the ceremony. He had invited the families to have the ceremony performed in one of the chapels at San Marco’s. It was an honor that could not be refused. Alessandro Venier purchased a new gondola, and commissioned two artists to decorate the vessel that would carry the bride to the ceremony and bring the newlywed pair back to his palazzo for a magnificent wedding feast. The gondola, while black, had a cabin that was gilded in gold and had stained-glass windows. The inside of the cabin was upholstered in velvet and silk brocade. On the wedding day it would be filled with flowers, along with the bridal couple.
“You had nothing like this at your first wedding,” their grandfather said to Bianca.
“No,Nonno, I did not,” Bianca agreed. “Nor was my gown as fine as the one being finished for me. I thank you for it.”
“You will not be unhappy with Enzo Ziani, Bianca,” Alessandro Venier said, speaking to her for the first time in kindly tones. “He is the perfect husband for you. I have had luck when choosing husbands for my daughters and granddaughters,” he told her proudly. “Your own mother, though reluctant, has been happy with your father.”
“Oh, she is,Nonno,” Bianca agreed.Of course she is,the young woman thought.He allows her to have her way in just about everything. But you will not get your way in this,Madre. I will have the man I love, even if you could not.
August ended and the September days seemed to fly by. Suddenly it was the day before her wedding, and Amir had not come for her, nor had she heard any news of him at all. Bianca was struggling with herself not to panic. Francesca was almost sick with excitement, especially as she dared not show it to anyone. Even her own maidservant, Grazia, had not been included in Bianca’s plot, for Grazia was one of the Venier servants. She had not come from Florence with Francesca. Her first loyalty was to her master, so Grazia could not know what would happen tomorrow, for fear she would expose their carefully laid plans.
“Go home and visit your sister’s new baby,” Francesca told her servant. “And you might as well remain for a day or two. I shall want no company tomorrow when my sister marries the man I love. I shall probably lie abed the whole day.”
Grazia was delighted to accept her young mistress’s offer. Francesca had not been good company ever since Bianca’s betrothal had been announced. Tomorrow she would probably be a horror, weeping and bemoaning an unkind fate. Grazia was grateful to escape the scenes that were sure to follow over the next few hours and days. She was unaware that the plotters needed her out of the house so they might dye Francesca’s glorious red-gold hair dark so the ruse would not be so easily discovered. The younger girl did resemble her older sibling enough that with dark hair she could easily fool even her family for a short time.
Bianca had given strict orders that no one but Agata was to serve her on her wedding day. When her grandfather tried to interfere, she pretended to have a tantrum so he would let her have her own way. Then together she and Agata dressed Francesca in Bianca’s wedding finery. The younger girl was faint with her excitement.
“Are you certain you want to do this?” Bianca asked Francesca once again. “I can always simply refuse to dress and get in the gondola.”
“No! No!” Francesca replied. “I want to marry Enzo!”
“So be it,” Bianca said, drawing down the heavy half-veil that would shield her sister’s features from early recognition.
Agata peeped out the window. “Your grandfather has just gotten into his gondola. He looks quite elegant today in his deep blue velvet robe. It is trimmed with gold and pearls like your gown. Ahh, here is the bridal gondola come up to the palazzo quay. ’Tis a good thing neither of you is sensitive to flowers, for I have never seen so many before.”
Bianca hugged her sister gently. “Thank you for helping me,” she said.
“Helping you?” Francesca laughed softly. “You are helping me, dear sister, and I shall be forever grateful.”
“I will escort the bride downstairs,” Agata said. “Stay hidden here, mistress, until I return, and the wedding party is gone.” Then she opened the door to the apartment that the two sisters shared, and leading the bridal figure, she descended the stairs into the beautiful circular entrance hall. Agata was dabbing at her eyes with a scrap of linen, and the other servants who gathered to see the bride nodded to one another, touched by her devotion to her mistress. Agata, they knew, would be going to Enzo Ziani’s palazzo in another day to serve her mistress in her newly wedded state.
Once the bride and her servant were outside the palazzo and on the quay, gloved and liveried footmen helped the bride into her flower-bedecked transport, spreading the skirts of her gown so they would not wrinkle. The big gondola pulled away from the quay, and led by her grandfather’s vessel, glided down the small canal and into the Grand Canal. Francesca looked out the glass windows, enchanted by the beautiful sunny September morning, made even more beautiful by the colored glass. The cityscape on either side of the water appeared magical. Since her arrival in Venice a year and a half ago, she had hardly been out of her grandfather’s palazzo and garden except for a few important and formal events at which Prince Alessandro wished to display his soon-to-be-marriageable granddaughter.
Francesca’s heart was beating with excitement. In less than an hour she would be married to the man of her dreams. If he was disappointed at first, her love for him would erase that disappointment quickly enough; she was absolutely certain of it. She would be Enzo’s wife, and she would devote herself to making him happy, bearing his children, and raising them beautifully, as her own mother had done. Bianca was a fool to throw away such a wonderful future by waiting for a man who would probably never return for her. Her older sister would probably be sent back to Florence to mitigate the brief scandal that would arise from this day’s events. Heaven only knew what their mother would do to her. Francesca giggled, quite pleased with herself.
