Moon
Dark
by
Patricia Barletta
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE:
Historical Romance
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
Lady
Sabrina Dunfield is desperate. Widowed and destitute, she must rely
on the dubious benevolence of her secretive uncle, an art collector
living in Venice. Determined to make her way and provide for her
young son, Sabrina is forced to take on clandestine and dangerous
errands for her tyrannical relative. But when a mysterious shadow man
saves her from an assassin’s blade, she knows she must do
everything in her power to keep her son safe.
Alessandro
D’Este, Prince of Auriano, is cursed. Doomed to live a life half in
shadow, he is determined to free himself and his family from the evil
that stalks them. When Alessandro saves the English woman’s life,
he is captivated by her beauty and shocked at her ability to touch
him in his shadowy form.
When
Sabrina meets Alessandro in his human form, heady attraction sparks
between them. She has no idea he is her shadowy savior, and she
wonders what her life might be like with this charismatic man.
Alessandro has never met a woman who affects him this way. Although
life has taught him to trust only family, Sabrina might be the key
that could deliver him from the diabolical darkness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt:
Venice,
1797
Someone—something—was
following her.
Lady
Sabrina Barclay hurried between the close-set houses of the humble
sestiere of Santa Croce. She caught movement from the corner of her
eye—down that narrow alley to the right, another to the left, even
across the slippery tile rooftops. The motion was too quick, too
nimble for a human. A shuddery twinge tiptoed down her back.
The
alley opened into the Campo di Rigali, ringed by the plain stucco
walls and dark windows of the houses. She halted in the shadows. Her
destination was the chapel across the tiny square. Anxiety gripped
her as she thought about crossing the open space to get there.
She
peered into the deepening twilight. Nothing moved in the dusk. A line
of laundry strung between two windows hung motionless. She could see
no one lurking in the shadows. Of course she was alone. Everyone was
out on the canals or celebrating in the Piazza San Marco. This was
the time of the spring Carnevale.
Sabrina
picked up her satin skirts and hurried across the cobbles, past the
carved stone well. At the chapel’s wooden door, she glanced over
her shoulder. As she did, her half mask caught on the hood of her
black wool cape. She wanted to pull off the frippery of green velvet
and yellow feathers, but instead, she pushed her hood back. No one
went unmasked during Carnevale, and she had been told to remain
anonymous. If anyone learned her identity or discovered the purpose
of her errand, her son’s safety, her entire world, would be in
peril.
Something
skittered in a dark corner. Her hand tightened on the door pull of
the chapel, the decorative ridges digging into her palm. She peered
into the shadows. Only a rat. She grimaced in distaste.
An olive
oil lamp flickered on in one of the small windows. Its pale light
cast the animal carvings on the stone well into relief and threw the
well’s shadow across the paving stones. She pressed back against
the door and hoped no one could see her. With a click, shutters
closed over the light. Stillness. Gloom. Yet she sensed eyes
watching. Not from the windows. From somewhere else. She glanced up
to the roofline of the houses but saw no silhouette against the dark,
ethereal blue of the Venetian sky. An owl winged silently away into
the night. The distant snap of a Carnevale firecracker startled her,
prompting her to move.
Uneasy,
she slipped into the chapel and leaned against the plain wood of the
closed door. The sense of watching eyes receded, and she forced a
breath into her lungs.
The
chapel was small and dim and appeared to be deserted. The backless
benches marched in formation to the sanctuary, where the carved white
marble altar and the altarpiece behind it seemed to be waiting in
holy repose. The sanctuary light glowed like a benevolent red eye.
But she felt no sense of peace.
Gathering
her courage, she pulled up her hood and hastened to a bench halfway
down the aisle. Her soft dancing slippers made no noise on the marble
floor. The muted swish of her satin skirt and petticoat sounded loud
in the quiet. She had dressed as if she were attending a ball.
Instead, she was here in this dark chapel on an errand that she had
to complete.
The
scent of incense and beeswax hung heavy in the air, still chilly
despite the warming days of early summer. She shivered and hugged her
woolen cloak closer as she sat. Pulling off her gloves, she folded
her hands in her lap, bowed her head, and pretended to pray.
Her
errand was to be conducted in secret. If someone followed her . . .
No, she would not think of that. She must focus on what she had to
do: Retrieve the note. Deliver it.
But
first she needed to be sure she was alone. She listened for a
footstep, a whisper, a breath—anything that would indicate
another’s presence in the shadows. She heard nothing.
Sabrina
glanced around in the dim light. The chapel was tucked into a quiet,
working-class corner of Venice. No songs of gondoliers, no greetings
of acquaintances passing on the canals, no shouts of Carnevale
merrymakers reached her here. The silence was unnerving, but it
assured her of solitude. A bank of votive candles cast a soft glow to
the left of the altar. Shadows flickered along the frescoed walls and
made the saintly figures portrayed there appear to dance. The stained
glass windows, which would have sparkled like jewels during the day,
were dull and dark, foreboding. Instead of safety and refuge, the dim
chapel held an air of menace.
She
turned from those unsettling walls and windows to the altar and the
crucifix hanging there as if she were beseeching the Almighty, but no
prayer formed on her lips. She waited, forcing herself to be patient,
her fingers curling into her skirt. She just wanted to be done with
her errand. Furtively, she glanced left and right. She saw no one.
She ran
her fingers beneath the rough wood of the bench until she touched a
small piece of folded parchment affixed to the underside. Prying the
small square from the wax, she rolled it into the palm of her hand.
Her errand was almost complete. She released a silent breath.
About to
bow her head again, she saw the candle flames jump from a draft. The
hair on the back of her neck prickled. Someone else was here. She
sensed a presence that curled icy tentacles around her heart. A
presence that triggered a frail wraith of memory: Evil.
Run. The
word exploded in her brain.
She
gasped, snapped her head to the right. A shadowy black figure stood
beside her. Before she could move or think, it lunged and shoved her
off the bench. She cried out as she landed with a teeth-jarring thud
on the marble floor. The breath in her lungs whooshed away.
A
stiletto skimmed past her ear and thunked into the bench before her.
It quivered in the wood, mere inches from her nose. The metal blade
gleamed black and menacing. She scuttled back, only to be blocked by
the bench behind her.
The dark
figure had moved to the aisle and seemed to hover inches above the
floor. It was a human-shaped shadow, but more—denser, blacker,
canceling all light within its outline. Its eyes glowed like molten
gold. They stared directly at her, and for a moment, she could not
move. Could not breathe. Those eyes were frightening. Beautiful.
Hypnotic.
She
tried to suck in enough air to scream. Only a whimper emerged from
her throat.
The
figure pointed to the door. Run. There is danger here. The words
growled loudly inside her head.
With a
leap, the figure rose into the darkness of the vaulted ceiling and
disappeared.
Sabrina
gaped up and blinked. Shock froze her. She tried to gather her wits,
blinked again. That shadow thing had pushed her aside, saving her
from the deadly blade and certain death. Her blood went cold.
Run. The
shadow’s voice jabbed through her head again.
As she
scrambled up, she realized she had dropped the message. Frantically,
she searched for the little white square. She had to retrieve it. She
shook out her skirts, skimmed her shaking fingers beneath the bench,
over the cold marble of the floor.
Nothing.
The note was gone.
Abandoning
her search, she picked up her skirts and fled to the door. Behind
her, she heard a strangled cry and a sickening thud, like a body
hitting the floor from a great height. Then silence. The sense of
evil snuffed out.
She
escaped into the deep twilight of Venice. The sky still glowed
cobalt, but the city was dark. The sliver of moon shed little light.
Shadows were deeper, blacker. Sabrina rushed back across the square
and entered an alley so narrow that the stucco walls of the houses
were barely far enough apart to allow two people to pass each other.
She checked over her shoulder. Someone could easily trap her. She
hurried on, wanting only to reach her gondola.
In this
modest part of the city there was little Carnevale celebration, so no
one strolled the alleys, no old men sat outside to chat. She was
alone. The solitary patter of her footsteps seemed much too loud as
she hastened to the canal where her gondolier waited. The relative
safety felt very far away.
Somehow,
someone had learned of her errand. The errand that was to be
performed in secret—to collect the note and deliver it to the uncle
of her late husband. She had failed him. He would be displeased.
Sabrina didn’t want to imagine what form that displeasure might
take, but she would do everything she could to protect her son from
him, the man who allowed her to live beneath his roof.
And she
would protect her son from the person—the evil—who had tried to
kill her.
But
someone—something—had saved her life. A shadow with eyes of
molten gold who could speak to her inside her head. The creature
intrigued her, awed her, captivated her. Frightened her with its
strangeness.
Her
stomach lurched. Fear from what was behind her overcame her
apprehension of the scalding reprimand that lay ahead. Damning her
voluminous skirt and petticoats, she raced the rest of the way to her
gondola.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR
Bio and Links:
Patricia
Barletta always wanted to be a writer. That was right after she
realized that becoming a fairy ballerina or a princess wasn’t going
to happen. But being a writer meant she could go places in her head
and be other people as much as she wanted. She could even be a fairy
ballerina or a princess!
As a
native of the Boston area, Patricia has been inspired by its history,
which influenced her stories, and probably had an impact on her
decision to become a high school British Literature teacher so she
could pay the bills. She received a Master of Fine Arts in Creative
Writing degree at the fabulous Stonecoast program in Maine. And now
she’s an author writing about dark heroes, feisty heroines, magic,
and other fantastical things.
Find out
more about Patricia Barletta and her books on her website:
www.patriciabarletta.com.
Connect
with Patricia Barletta on facebook: Patricia Barletta on facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/patricia.barletta.3?ref=br_rs
Buy
Link:
Lachesis
Publishing: http://lachesispublishing.com/?product=moon-dark
No comments:
Post a Comment