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“Grazie ai santi, thanks be to the saints,” Lia exclaimed with a loud sigh. “Whatever it is, you still have your maidenhead.”
“How would you know?” Bianca narrowed her eyes. “Or have you suddenly developed the sight?”
Lia laughed and folded her hands on her stomach. “I know you too well. Do you think I wouldn’t see it in your eyes if you had lain with a man?”
“Go away, you silly old woman, and spare me your insights.” She turned away again, her mouth sulky. Just the thought of lying with Alessio was enough to send her blood racing.
“So that’s it.” Lia laughed again, the sound rich and bawdy. “You itch and he hasn’t scratched yet.”
Without turning around, Bianca made an ill-mannered gesture more suited to the fish market than a patrician villa.
Suddenly, despite the warmth of the afternoon, Lia felt a shiver slither down her back and she wondered if someone had stepped on her grave. Or Bianca’s.
“Don’t do it, child.” The words spilled out in one breathless rush. “Take him as a lover later if you must, but come to your marriage bed a virgin.”
She gripped Bianca’s arm with both hands. “If it was anybody else, I would help you.” Her voice lowered. “There’s more than one way to feign virginity. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to play games with Messere Ugo.”
Lia shivered again at the thought that her beautiful child would lie beneath that monster. How long would it take for him to break Bianca’s free, willful spirit? She herself had not had an easy life, she thought, but at least she had had a young and handsome lover to bed her the first time.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bianca grumbled, and, pulling away, wandered out of the courtyard to the portico that ran along the front of the villa, ignoring Lia, who followed her.
The grapevines that trailed up the redbrick columns and twined through the latticework above were already covered with tender green leaves. Bianca sat down on the low stone wall and looked out over the countryside, which spread out below her like a painting.
The road curved to the right at the bottom of the hill and then lost itself in the trees, but she could see a trait of dust just above the treetops. Alessio must be riding like the very wind to have gone that far already, she thought. Suddenly she felt impossibly touched, as if with that cloud of dust he had sent her a message.
But what message would he send her? she asked herself as the joy dimmed. He had left her with anger and desperation in his eyes. With contempt in his heart. Would he have despised her any less if she had surrendered to him?
But as her eyes followed the progress of that thin cloud of dust, she felt emotion blaze through her. It was not the soft, melancholy yearning she had felt earlier. No, it was as strong as a lightning bolt, filling her to overflowing with light and heat and a kind of power she had never felt before. She was his, she thought. Alessio had been right when he had said that she belonged to him. She would never belong to anyone else. Ever.
What was wrong with her? She threaded her fingers through her hair and fisted them, seeking the pain as confirmation that she was here and everything was as it had always been. But no confirmation came. Instead, images from the past hours drifted in front of her eyes and she knew that nothing was as it had been. What had happened to her? Was she going mad? Had she been cursed? Was she possessed?
“Do you believe in ghosts, Lia?” she asked abruptly, still staring out over the treetops but seeing the woman on the beach. “Do you believe that ghosts can just appear out of nowhere and bewitch you?”
“What are you saying?” The nurse crossed herself and then, with forefinger and little finger, made the sign against il malocchio, the evil eye, for good measure.
“Nothing.” Bianca lapsed back into silence. Said aloud, it sounded absurd. Besides, even if ghosts existed, surely they did not appear in broad daylight.
“Come inside, piccolina.” Lia stroked her hand down her charge’s wind-tangled black hair. “I will make you some spiced milk and a cool compress and you will rest.”
“I need to be alone. I need to think.”
“You can think inside. Come away now.” Lia frowned down at the trail of dust as if it were an enemy. He was a handsome man, Alessio was, she thought. And, behind the posturing that all males seemed to have in common, he had a good and noble heart. Under ordinary circumstances she would have spared no pains to bring him to Bianca’s bed. But she would kill him before she allowed him to bring misfortune upon the head of her beloved child. And he would, she thought. He would.
“Come now,” she repeated.
Bianca’s eyes widened as the image of the dark-clothed woman rose again. It grew until it filled her field of vision so completely that she saw nothing else. Then, just as suddenly, the image faded, leaving her as tired as if she had traveled for miles and miles, years and years.
Because she did not seem to have the strength to prevent it, Bianca allowed Lia to lead her inside.
The shadows had grown long and the light was becoming soft and rich when Bianca climbed up to the room at the top of the tower. All afternoon, Lia had alternately cosseted her and bullied her into eating, drinking and resting, but now she needed time alone. And she hoped that the narrow spiral staircase would, as usual, discourage anyone from disturbing her.
She skirted around the table she had had brought up here. A pile of books lay there, and ink and paper, but it was the windows that drew her. They were tucked so high under the eaves that she needed a stool to be able to look outside and, as always, she wondered what it would have been like to stand at one of the windows with bow and arrow or harquebus and aim at an attacker.
Each side of the square tower had three windows, allowing her to look in any direction. She was not a woman with a great capacity for stillness, but here, she had been surprised to find that she could stand at the windows for hours and soak in the vista spread out beneath her.
She had fought her father when he had banished her to the villa for flouting conventions once too often. He would not allow her, he had shouted at her, to jeopardize her approaching marriage to one of the richest men in Florence. But here, in the tower room, she had barely missed the amusements and temptations of the city.
Lia had teased her that up in the tower she felt like a queen beholding her kingdom. But Bianca knew that it was more than that. She had been alone here but had not been lonely. She had spent her days in waiting and yet had felt no impatience. The silent power of the world she saw from her tower room had nurtured her, although she could not have said why.
Lifting her skirts, she climbed up on the stool, which stood under the windows that looked out toward the sea, forgetting that that very morning she had watched the sunrise from the windows that lay opposite.
The orange sun was already edging down toward the water as she put her arms on the sill and rested her chin on her linked fingers. The only movement outside was that of the swallows and black martins and sea gulls gliding and swooping for their dinner. The only sounds were their raucous calls.
From the top of the hill where the villa stood, the sand was only a narrow yellow ribbon alongside the dark blue sea, whose surface was gilded by the setting sun. For a moment, she wished herself down there, where she could sit on the rock, listen to the rushing sound of the evening tide rolling in and imagine herself free to sail away to foreign lands that smelled of flowers and spices.
But she knew if she went down to the beach, her thoughts would not be of strange, exotic lands. Would she ever be able to walk on the beach again and not think of Alessio? For as long as she lived, she would remember what it had felt like to have his mouth on hers. She would remember his taste, his scent mingled with the salt and tang of the sea. And she would want.
What would her father say, she wondered, if he knew that, here, her coming marriage was in far greater jeopardy than it could ever have been in the city? In the city there were many men who vied for her attention, showered her with compliments, serenaded her under her window and wrote sonnets praising her beauty. And she did not care a fig for a single one of them. Yet here, where she had no one but Lia and Angelica and a few servants for company, a single visit from Alessio had been enough to upset her world.
No, she corrected herself, her marriage was not in jeopardy. Hadn’t she told Alessio that she intended to marry Ugo? And she’d meant it. Damn it, she’d meant it. Angrily, she blocked out the doubt that sliced through her as easily as a hot knife slices through butter.
And Alessio bad not upset her world. Granted, he had tilted it a little, but she would deal with that. She had dealt with worse, after all, she told herself, remembering the birth of Cecilia’s bastard child in the squalid little room behind the Mercato Vecchio. Remembering what it had felt like to hold a bundle of life in her arms, to carry it through dark and narrow streets and leave it at the foundlings’ hospital like an unwanted puppy. She had sworn then that someday she would have enough money, enough power to do something, to change things. And because she was a woman—her mouth curled in disdain at her own weakness—the only way she could do this was through a rich and powerful husband.
The sun had almost reached the water, the last golden rays slanting across the narrow strip of beach to glance off the glittery specks in the pile of boulders that were just visible from the tower. The memory of how she had been pressed between those rocks and Alessio’s body swept through her like a storm wind, obliterating every other thought, obliterating her awareness of the world around her. She did not hear the footsteps on the stairs or on the brick tiles behind her.
“What do you see when you look out there, Bianca? I’ve looked, but I cannot understand it.”
Surprised, Bianca frowned at the sound of her sister’s even voice. Jumping down lightly from the stool, she went toward her.
“You’ve been up here?” She cupped her sister’s colorless cheek with one hand. “I thought you—” she paused to soften her words“—didn’t like the stairs.”
“I don’t,” Angelica said. She stepped away from Bianca’s touch, resenting as much that her sister had moderated her words as that she had remembered her fear of the stairs. They had both taken a tumble down the ladder from a hayloft long ago. Bianca had been back up the ladder moments later, and she had never quite forgiven her for it. “But I decided that I wanted to see what it was that kept you up here for hours.”
“And did you?” She felt that her privacy had been invaded and her words were clipped, not hiding her irritation.
“No. In the city you can’t sit still for five minutes of needlework. And here you stare outside where nothing moves but a few birds.” She didn’t add that when she had looked outside earlier that afternoon, she had seen plenty of movement on the beach.
Not waiting for an invitation, Angelica sat down and smoothed her skirt of serviceable wool. “What happened to you today? You frightened me. I’ve never seen you faint in your life.”
“Don’t you start in on me, too.” Bianca made no effort to hide the impatience in her voice. She’d come up here to be alone and not to listen to Angelica’s questions and platitudes. “Lia is bad enough all by herself. I really wish you would—” Bianca stopped, not quite understanding the sudden impulse to keep silent. It was not her way to check her tongue out of kindness.
“Go away and leave me alone. Wasn’t that what you were going to say?”
Bianca saw her sister cast down her eyes and finger the rosary that hung from her waist. A stab of guilt that those had been her exact words provoked her into giving her sister’s hair a light stroke in passing, but she did not deny the accusation. She was rarely in the habit of denying the truth, unless it suited her purposes.
“Or were you putting on a little performance for Messere Alessio?”
“What?” Bianca’s skirt belled as she turned to look at Angelica.
“Well, were you?” Angelica sent her a sly, curious look from beneath her pale lashes.
“You ask me that? You?”
Because her emotions were so raw, the anger rose too quickly for her to control it, even had she wanted to. There was bitterness born of countless childhood hurts. There was fury at being suspected of doing something that was so far beneath her dignity that she would never have even considered doing it. There was fear because she remembered much too well the image that had caused her to faint.
“You, the one who never thinks of a man unless he has a ‘Santo’ in front of his name? You, the only one of us who has lived up to her name? You, the angelic one, while I, named for the color of innocence, I—” she brushed the tips of her fingers at the black curls that fell over her shoulders “—have black hair to match my black soul.” Words she had never meant to say aloud tumbled out of her mouth. “Wasn’t that what Papa always said?”
Angelica stared at her sister in openmouthed surprise. Anger from Bianca she was well used to, but where had this hurt, this bitterness come from? This fear?
“Bianca—” She rose and reached out, her plan almost forgotten.
“Get away from me, you hypocritical little goose. You spend your time on your knees and then you come with your eager questions.” The anger crackled around her like drops of water hissing on the surface of a hot stove. “I thought you were too chaste to notice what games men and women play.”
“Be fair at least.” Her spine as stiff as a poker, Angelica folded her hands at her waist. “It was not such a question that you can accuse me of prurience. If I had known you would revile me thus, I would have asked you instead what games you and Alessio were playing on the beach this afternoon.”
The heat of anger left her as suddenly as it had come, and in its place a chill enveloped her as if she had descended into a cold, damp cellar.
“So that’s why you came up here,” she said slowly. “To spy on me.”
“No.” Angelica lifted her hands palms outward as if to ward off her words. “No, truly. It was as I said. But then—” she looked away “—then I saw you galloping along the beach and I could not look away.” She said nothing of the razor-sharp envy she had felt, or of the idea that had taken root in her mind and bloomed.
“You watched us?” Bianca jerked Angelica around to face her. “The whole time?”
Suddenly afraid of the wild, unfocused look in her sister’s eyes, she could only nod.
“Did you see her?”
“Her?”
“The woman on the beach.” Even as she said the words, even before she saw Angelica shake her head, she knew it was for naught. Whoever that woman had been, ghost or real, she had been intended for her alone.
“Go away.” Bianca’s voice was dull as her fingers loosened from around her sister’s arm. “Go away and leave me alone.”
Angelica backed away. This Bianca of the blank, staring eyes was much more frightening than the Bianca emanating angry sparks could ever be. She turned and fled, forgetting everything, forgetting even that the steep spiral of a staircase frightened her.
Only when she had reached the bottom did she remember that she had not done what she had come here to do. She had not told Bianca of her plan. The plan that had been ripening within her all afternoon. She had not told her that for once in their lives she would have something Bianca wanted.
Up in the tower room, Bianca stood very still as her sister’s footsteps clattered down the stairs, faded and then were silent. Appalled at her own weakness but unable to fight it, she buried her face in her hands and wept.
Chapter Six
“I ask you not to burden me with more such errands in the future, brother.” Feeling an exhaustion that was more a weariness of the mind than the body, Alessio strode into his brother’s study without greeting. “They are not to my taste. Besides, I have better things to do with my time.”
Ugo lifted his head from his meticulously kept account books and eyed his brother critically. “Better things than coming to the aid of your brother who raised you?” His voice rose petulantly. “The brother who gave you far more than the younger brother’s share of the Cornaro fortune?”
“Per Dio, Ugo, if you throw your generosity up to me one more time, I will lay every last denaro back at your feet.” He snapped his gloves against his hand, sending up a cloud of reddish dust. “Or better still, give the money to charity.”
“So you’ve said before.” Ugo laughed mirthlessly, “And as I’ve said before, I’ll see you in hell before I let you give away a single fiorino of Cornaro money to parasites who live off the gullibility of a few pious souls.” He laughed again. “Although I’d hardly call you a pious soul.”
Ugo watched his brother pace, as elegant, as dangerous looking as a panther in his clothing of almost unrelieved black, and tasted the bitterness of envy.
“And what is it that you find so distasteful, if I may ask? Madonna Bianca is a beautiful woman. If I remember correctly, you showed some interest in her yourself.” He paused. “Before she was spoken for, of course.”
“What difference does it make?” Alessio moved his shoulders in a shrug as he splashed wine into a goblet of hammered silver that had been plated with gold and decorated with amethysts the size of thumbnails. He drank deeply once, and then again, and refilled the goblet.
“I await your answer.” The twin lines between Ugo’s black eyebrows and the lines that bracketed his mouth deepened. “Or is there a reason for you not to give me one?”
Alessio tamped down on the surge of guilt. He had not acted on the desire that tormented his body at the mere thought of Bianca. He had not acted on it before she had been betrothed and he most certainly had not acted on it since. If he had, he told himself, he did not doubt that she would have fallen into his bed like a ripe plum. And if she had given herself to him, then, by God, he would have found a way to prevent this damnable marriage.
Annoyance that he felt the need to justify himself before his own conscience left a sour taste in his mouth and he tried—unsuccessfully—to purge it with another generous draft of wine.
“Well?” The fingers of Ugo’s good hand tapped an impatient tattoo against the intricate floral pattern in lapis lazuli, jasper and malachite that was inlaid on the marble table.
Because he wanted to spin around on the heel of his boot, Alessio slowly turned to face his brother. Because he wanted to fling the goblet at the next wall, he set it down with utmost care. Because he wanted to slap his hands on the table and lean over until he was eyeball-to-eyeball with Ugo, he remained standing so straight that his back could have been a measuring rod.
“I am no longer the little brother eager to give you exactly the answer you wish to hear, Ugo. No longer the little brother eager to fetch and carry.” With insolent grace he tucked his thumbs behind his belt. “I think it is time you learned that.”
He watched Ugo grip the carved armrest of his chair and push himself upright. The surge of compassion at his brother’s disability died as Ugo’s face contorted with fury and he bellowed, “Answer mel!
“Come to think of it, I was never eager,” he continued, ignoring his brother’s command. “I was simply too young and too weak to do other than what you expected, what you demanded of me.”
“Alessio,” Ugo shouted, already regretting that he had stood and put himself at an even greater disadvantage, “I order you to answer me.”
“I have reached that happy state, Ugo, when I need take only those orders I choose.” The corners of his mouth tilted marginally upward. “But I will tell you this. Madonna Bianca may have the face and body of a woman, but she is a spoiled, willful child.” His beautiful mouth curved in a derisive smile. “I wish you much joy of her.”
Yet as he spoke the words, Alessio felt the need flare in his belly and, with it, the rage that it was his brother who would taste the pleasures she offered. For a moment he wondered that the words did not turn into serpents in his mouth.
“Ah, do not fear, Alessio.” Ugo smiled, his fury forgotten as quickly as it had risen. “There is more than one way to tame a willful woman. I may be a cripple, but my male rod is a reliable instrument and my good hand can wield a whip well enough if need be. Or a dagger.”
Alessio felt a jolt deep inside him, as if two parts that had been separate had suddenly linked. Although he was aware that Ugo was still speaking, his voice had become an indistinct, faraway murmur. Although he was aware that he faced his brother in a dark-paneled room lined with ledgers and books, his eyes saw another chamber.
The image was blurred. He narrowed his eyes to better see it, but the image remained stubbornly misty, as if it were shrouded in layers and layers of white gauze. But it mattered not. He knew. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, he knew that on the other side of the mist were he and Bianca, wrapped around each other as only lovers can be.
As a fire burns its way through dry pine needles, the knowledge seared its way through him to lodge in his belly. Yes, he knew. He knew that they lay body to body and skin to skin. He knew that they lay soul to soul, essence to essence.
Something—barely perceptible at first—shifted inside him, opened. Like a pebble rolling down a mountainside suddenly turns into an avalanche, so this small movement sent him tumbling out of himself, tumbling head over heels until—
Needing to see, to understand, he raised his hand to tear the barrier away, but his band passed through it and it remained as diaphanous as before and just as unyielding. Then, without warning, color seeped into the white—a trickle first, a trickle that quickly became a flood until the curtain between him and the chamber was a bright crimson. A single, hideous scream turned the blood in his veins to ice.
“What was that noise?” As Alessio spoke, the image dimmed and disappeared so quickly, so completely that the only thing to remind him of it was the icy trail along the length of his spine.
“Noise? There was no noise.” Ugo’s brows drew together, unsure of what to make of his brother’s odd behavior. Within a single moment his gaze had turned as glassy as if he had taken a drug and he had flailed his arm as if warding off a demon.
“What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Alessio fought off a desperate need to reach for the wine goblet and empty it to the dregs. “Ghost?” he said, amazed that he could speak at all. “There was no ghost. I don’t think a ghost would dare show itself in your well-ordered household, Ugo.”
Discreetly, he drew a deep, cleansing breath. But while the air filled his lungs, it turned his stomach, for it was as fetid with the coppery smell of blood as a slaughterhouse.
