A Shadowed Fate Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Titles by Marty Ambrose

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Titles by Marty Ambrose

  The Claire Clairmont mysteries

  CLAIRE’S LAST SECRET *

  A SHADOWED FATE *

  The Mango Bay mystery series

  PERIL IN PARADISE

  ISLAND INTRIGUE

  MURDER IN THE MANGROVES

  KILLER KOOL

  COASTAL CORPSE

  Other titles

  ENGAGING

  HEAT WAVE

  * available from Severn House

  A SHADOWED FATE

  Marty Ambrose

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2019

  in Great Britain and 2020 in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2020 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  eBook edition first published in 2019 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2019 by Marty Ambrose.

  The right of Marty Ambrose to be

  identified as the author of this work has been

  asserted in accordance with the Copyright,

  Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8992-8 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-662-3 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0361-8 (e-book)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

  are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described

  for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are

  fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,

  Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  For Jim – my dear hubby

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I always have so many people to thank for helping me realize my dream of creating historical fiction that I hardly know where to begin. But I have to start with my husband, Jim, who learned Italian, drove me from coast to coast on the Autostrada, and translated when I was doing primary research on this book in Italy. Grazie mille, amore mio. Secondly, I have to give my endless gratitude to my mom and sister, E.A., who have always provided me with such loving encouragement on my writing/life journey.

  Also, I’m so appreciative of the beautiful Italian people. As we traveled around the country, everyone was patient and generous, making Jim and me part of their lives as if we were family. In particular, many thanks to everyone at the Terme in Bagni di Lucca – especially Vergilio, the town historian who shared information about Byron and Shelley, which provided many insights for my research.

  On the publishing side, I would not have been able to continue this trilogy without the support of my amazing agent, Nicole Resciniti, and the lovely people at Severn House: Kate Lyall-Grant and my editor, Sara Porter. You are all the best!

  Lastly, it’s been a labor of love to write about Claire Clairmont, the missing voice of the Byron/Shelley circle.

  Era già l’ora che volge il disio

  ai navicanti e ’ntenerisce il core

  lo dì c’han detto ai dolciamici addio;

  e che lo novo peregrin d’amore

  punge, se ode squilla di lontano

  che paia il giorno pianger che si more;

  Now – in the hour that melts with homesick yearning

  The hearts of seafarers who’ve had to say

  Farewell to those they love, that very morning –

  Hour when the new-made pilgrim on his way

  Feels a sweet pang go through him, if he hears

  Far chimes that seem to knell the dying day

  Dante, Canto of the Purgatory

  Purgatorio: Canto VIII

  ONE

  ‘My Paradise had still been incomplete.’

  The Prophecy of Dante, I, 27

  Florence, Italy

  July 1873

  It hardly seems possible that one’s entire existence can be completely upended in the blink of an eye, but it happened to me, so I know it to be true.

  During one balmy Florentine evening, in a moment hovering between past and present, I experienced a shift that made me see my life anew – a vision of the future that dawned with bright and previously unimagined chances. I cannot say for certain where all this newfound optimism would end, but my world had changed, and I now looked toward the coming days as full of possibilities that I could scarcely have even dreamed about a week ago.

  I, Claire Clairmont, dared not do so.

  Living in genteel poverty in Florence with my niece, Paula, and her daughter, our lives had become a constant cycle of budgeting our lire and scheming for new ways to keep our shabby rented rooms at the Palazzo Cruciato from falling into complete disrepair. It took all the wily craftiness that I had learned over a long life to maintain some semblance of respectability in this ancient Italian city, but I was nothing if not resourceful.

  In my youth, I had traveled the world by my wits alone – seen Mount Vesuvius at dawn, survived a frigid winter in Czarist Moscow, flirted with Frenchmen in my cottage at Montmartre. Always looking for another adventure. Always seeking another way to survive. But having entered my eighth decade, in truth the penury had begun to wear thin. My daily existence seemed to stretch on without any promise of a new dawn, causing me to make my will, pay for my funeral, and anticipate the time when I would see my beloved deceased daughter, Allegra, in heaven. The next world seemed to beckon with whispers about the Great Beyond – the sweet hope of my adopted Catholic religion.

  But that had all changed when I learned that she might still be alive.

  Allegra.

  Allegrina – as she was called by her Italian nursemaid so long ago – and the light of my life.

  My daughter by one of the most famous (and infamous) literati of his era: George Gordon, Lord Byron, the Romantic poet whose reputation had soared ever higher during the fifty-or-so years since his death fighting for Greek independence at Missolonghi.

  Brilliant, charming, outrageous, and cruel.

  Byron could be all of those things – and more. I had mourned his death – as I did for my stepsister, Mary Shelley, almost three decades later when she departed this world, feted and famous, from her home in England, surrounded by a loving family. She and I had outlived the men who enchanted and betrayed us.

  Byron – my lover. Percy Bysshe Shelley –
her lover and husband.

  Their names now caused awed silence to descend, but I knew them when they were young and passionate and careless. Profoundly talented, of course. But when Byron headed off to the doomed mission in Greece, and Shelley foolhardily took his sailboat into the Bay of Lerici near La Spezia during a violent storm, they never had a thought about those left behind.

  Byron. Shelley. Mary.

  All of them gone.

  Yet I lived on.

  I was the last member of our magic circle from that ‘haunted summer’ of 1816 in Geneva, when we would gather each night as the thunderstorms rolled in, and the lightning danced around us with a wild ferocity. We told ghost stories huddled around the firelight at Byron’s Villa Diodati in the evenings – frightening ourselves with deliberate intent. For that brief time, we shared an interlude that defined the rest of our lives: Shelley and Byron created poetry of unparalleled beauty; Mary first penned Frankenstein; Byron’s erratic physician, Polidori, wrote The Vampyre, and I conceived my daughter with Byron.

  We lived with a heated intensity that I’d never experienced again until a few days ago when I was held at gunpoint by a killer, and my old friend Edward Trelawny had arrived unexpectedly in Florence as part of my rescue. Afterwards, he revealed the bare details about the truth of my daughter’s fate – she had survived the typhus epidemic that swept through her convent school. He had kept that secret from me for many years even as he professed to care deeply for me. His treachery cut deep. It had taken me days to summon the strength to see him afterwards.

  Eventually, I relented, and he arrived at the Palazzo Cruciato during teatime with a bouquet of white roses and a shamed expression.

  ‘Claire, thank you for agreeing to see me. I promised to tell you everything that I knew about Allegra, and I am here to do just that. I have no excuse for my behavior, but I ask you to listen and not condemn me,’ Trelawny entreated me as he strolled across my sitting room – still a handsome, imposing figure with broad shoulders and silver-streaked hair that flowed to his shoulders. But his bearded face bore the weathered traces of his age and days at sea with its rough, reddened skin and feathering of lines that radiated from his piercing eyes. He also had a slight stoop from a musket ball being lodged in his upper back, courtesy of an assassination attempt during the Greek War of Independence.

  An aging corsair, still lethal in his own way – and ever conscious of the swath he cut through the society of women with tales of his wartime adventures.

  Such an intriguing mixture of courage and vanity.

  Irresistible in his own way.

  Except that he had added ‘deceiver’ to his repertoire of qualities, something not easily accepted.

  From my wingback chair near the open window that overlooked the Boboli Gardens, I scanned the features of this man at once familiar and distant to me. I, too, had fallen under his spell long ago. Trelawny. I once believed him to be my friend and supporter – and I had not seen him in several decades, though we had always corresponded. I first met him in Pisa in 1822 when he had presented himself to the Shelleys and me as a retired naval lieutenant (not exactly true) who could teach Shelley the complexities of handling a sailing boat (mostly true). A self-styled Byronic hero who edged around honesty as if it were a thorny wood, but I had always liked him. That made his deception even more heart-wrenching.

  ‘You have hurt me with your lies,’ I began, trying hard to keep my voice calm and even.

  ‘I know.’ Just that – nothing more. What else could be said?

  ‘It has been so long since we have met – and much has just happened – but I will withhold judgment about your deception until I hear what you have to share.’ I gestured for him to take the matching chair across the tea table from me. ‘I must warn you that things have changed in the last few years; my circumstances have been greatly reduced after my disastrous farming investment in Austria. I am wary of those whom I cannot fully … trust.’ It had been a poor financial choice to help my nephew, a risk that had depleted the last of my Shelley bequest. But my family could always make me abandon common sense.

  ‘When did a lack of money ever matter to us?’ He slid on to the well-worn velvet cushion, stretching out his long legs encased in breeches and riding boots. ‘Possessing the richness of spirit and soul greatly outweighs actual wealth.’

  ‘So true, but bills cannot be paid with good intentions.’ I lifted a brow in irony as I shifted my glance toward the kitchen where Paula was occupied in making afternoon tea. ‘I have the welfare of my niece and her daughter, Georgiana, to consider now … and the world is not always kind to those who have entered their autumnal years.’ I knew only too well from my mirror’s reflection that my Mediterranean charms had faded somewhat – my olive skin bore a few wrinkles and my dark curls had threads of gray, though I fancied the sparkle in my eyes remained undimmed.

  But I was no longer a young woman.

  ‘You will always be that spirited beauty I met in Pisa – so full of life, so vivacious – with the voice of an angel.’

  I smiled, smoothing down the folds of my yellow cotton dress with its tiny, carefully mended holes in the fabric. All of my dresses had seen better days, to say the least. ‘The lessons of life have changed me, as you might expect. A woman of my station is relegated to her place – no matter what – and living in Florence has taught me the added lesson that money is both the great blessing and bane of our later existence. I cannot afford to make … mistakes.’ My glance met his squarely. ‘You and I played with life and put ourselves – and others – in jeopardy at one time, but no more. People connected with the secrets about Allegra’s fate have already died, and we must not allow any further bloodshed.’

  Of course, I meant Father Gianni, my priest and confidant who had been stabbed at the Basilica di San Lorenzo only about a fortnight ago. He had been assisting me in my search for the truth behind Allegra’s fate, researching old records from the convent at Bagnacavallo where she had supposedly died when she was still a child. It turned out that his killer was our landlord, Matteo Ricci – a thief and rogue – who wanted to profit from the valuable Byron/Shelley memorabilia that I had shared with Father Gianni on my quest. After his arrest, Matteo had confessed that his gambling debts had driven him to such an evil act when Father Gianni tried to stop him from stealing my correspondence. Truly, I would never have involved my priest if I had known about Matteo’s desperation, but it could not be undone.

  I would always feel regret for my actions.

  And sadness.

  ‘From what the police told me when I stopped by the commissariato di pubblica sicurezza this morning, Matteo will pay – murder is punishable by death. And by God, he deserves to be hanged for such a heinous act.’ Trelawny’s face hardened into deep, harsh crevices. ‘He will be damned in the next world – if one believes in that kind of thing.’

  He did not, as I knew only too well.

  My hand covered the small gold locket hanging from a fine chain at my neck – my mother’s last gift to me, given to her by my father, whom I never knew. I treasured it, even though my mother never approved of me – or my life. ‘Perhaps Matteo deserves no mercy from us, but divine forgiveness may still await him.’

  ‘Not likely.’

  In truth, I could not disagree. ‘Sadly, Father Gianni was not able to receive word from Bagnacavallo, so all I know is that Allegra did not die at the convent and, for some reason, you and Byron hid that fact from me – along with a valuable piece of artwork that could have greatly relieved my poverty.’ Almost choking on the words, I pointed at the pen-and-ink sketch on textured paper that lay on the tea table. It depicted the Egyptian obelisk that stood in the nearby Boboli Gardens, drawn by the famous Italian artist, Giuseppe Cades – given to me only recently when it was discovered by Polidori’s nephew. A Florentine landmark, the needle-shaped granite monument had been erected in ancient Egypt and brought to Italy, eventually finding a home behind the nearby Pitti Palace. It held special meaning
for me because Byron and I met there for the last time in 1822 – and secretly buried a memento of our daughter at its base. ‘I would like to know why you both lied.’

  His face shuttered with shades of contrition. ‘May I first say how sorry I am? I never meant to cause you harm.’

  I did not reply.

  ‘My only defense is that Byron swore me to secrecy.’ He took in a deep breath and picked up the sketch, tracing carefully the edges of the drawing. ‘When he gave this to me, it was with the promise that I never reveal it, or Allegra’s true fate, to you – and I followed his request.’

  ‘More’s the pity that you agreed to such falsehoods,’ I said sharply, feeling a mixture of anger and bitterness. ‘It is the worst type of betrayal – separating me from my own daughter when I was basically alone in the world and would have cherished every moment with her. To be honest, if I did not want to know the whole story that you came to tell me, I would never want to see you again – ever.’

  Wincing, he glanced down briefly. ‘You have every right to be angry with me, but Byron made his case so strongly that I dared not go against his wishes. It seemed the best way at the time to protect both you and Allegra …’

  Moments passed in silence as I contemplated all of the time that I had missed with my daughter. Moments that a mother cherished – the smiles and the tears. When I bade farewell to Allegra, she had been only two, and my memories had grown hazy, though not forgotten. Time had blurred some of the past.

  I never wanted to give her up, but as a woman of twenty who was alone without resources, it made sense for her to live with Byron; he had wealth and social standing in Italy, not to mention fame. I did not anticipate that he would not allow me to see her when he lived in Ravenna, and I in Pisa.

  I had hated him for that.

  ‘Do you still think about him?’ Trelawny’s voice threaded through the quietness. He did not need to say his name: I knew.