Читать книгу Twice Upon Time - Nina Beaumont - Страница 14

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.

“I ask you to excuse me now.” He felt ridiculously relieved that his voice sounded normal. “I have much to do.”

As he spoke, his mind raced. Was he going mad? Where had the smell of blood come from? Was it connected to the wisp of a vision that he could not even have described? A vision that had suddenly turned the crimson color of blood?

His innate skepticism came to his aid and he thrust the questions aside as one thrusts aside an importunate beggar on the street. He was a logical, sane man, he assured himself. Such men did not have visions, nor did they smell blood where there was none. But he knew that he had to get free of this room.

Alessio was almost at the door when Ugo called out his name.

Because the heavy brass handle of the door was within reach now, he could steel himself to turn around. “What is it?” he snapped.

“Did Madonna Bianca like the gift I sent her?”

“She sends you her thanks.” The image of Bianca as she had stood, proud and tall, in the small courtyard had his muscles tensing.

“Did she try out the mare?”

“Yes, she is an excellent horsewoman.”

“Good. Excellent.” Ugo grinned. “I, too, ride well.” His lascivious laugh left no doubt as to his meaning. “Then we are well matched.”

Tension had gathered in a tight ball in the pit of Alessio’s stomach and he knew that if he did not leave this moment, he would launch himself at his brother and wipe that smile off his face with his fists.

“You will excuse me now, Ugo.” Alessio jerked open the heavy studded door and dragged in a lungful of the cool air of the vestibule. Thank God, he thought as he let his eyes fall closed for a brief moment. It did not carry the smell of blood.

“Alessio?”

Alessio spun around on his heel.

“I do not command you, but if I ask you as a brother who needs help to do me another favor, will you do it?” Ugo made clever use of the scar that bisected his right cheek, making his smile seem merely wry instead of twisted.

Alessio sighed, remembering how his brother had held his small hand as they had stood at their father’s graveside.

“Yes, Ugo.” His voice was resigned as he nodded. “I will do it.”

As Alessio bent his head to pass the low door of the cantina, Antonio Rossi raised his hand in greeting and gestured to the innkeeper to bring another cup.

Alessio tossed his cloak over the plank table and sat down on a bench across from his friend.

“Well, you look cheery today.” Antonio clicked his stoneware cup against Alessio’s. “Drink up. A few cups of wine and you will forget whatever it is that is marring your fair brow.” He trailed the tips of his fingers over Alessio’s forehead in a comically melodramatic gesture.

Alessio’s only answer was a black scowl. But Antonio did not take offense. Instead, he grinned and took a generous swallow of the mellow red wine made from the grapes that grew on the hills to the south of the city.

“Is she a virtuous virgin or someone’s wife?” He grinned again. “What’s her name? Maria? Lucrezia? Ginevra? Do not worry, my friend.” He chuckled. “If you put out the candle later—” he gestured toward the stairs that led to the upper floor with his eyes “—you can call her by any name you please.” Antonio gave him a friendly cuff on the shoulder. “In the dark, all cats are gray.”

“Why don’t you shut up and let me get drunk in peace.” Alessio emptied the cup and refilled it but did not drink again.

“Go ahead and get drunk, my friend.” With a smile, Antonio settled back to wait. “But not too drunk.”

He had seen Alessio brood often enough to know that he would not be hurried. When he was done, he would look up and laugh or curse at whatever had been plaguing him and that would be that. And then they would while away the night with wine and dice and a soft woman.

But tonight Alessio sat and stared, unmoving, into his wine cup as though there were something that had bewitched him within it. Minutes passed. A half hour. And still he sat, as motionless as if he had been turned to stone.

Antonio cast an impatient glance toward the stairs. With a sigh, he signaled the innkeeper to bring more wine.

He could not get it out of his head. No matter how he tried, the misty image that had surely been an illusion conjured up by his tired brain stayed with him. An illusion, he repeated to himself. An illusion, damn it. And yet it had been real. So real. Even now, hours later, he still felt as if he were a small boat adrift in a dark, unfriendly sea, lurching about in a storm. And he did not care for the feeling.

For the hundredth time, he picked through those brief moments, carefully, methodically. Surely, if he examined what he had seen closely enough, he would understand. He swore again, silently, viciously. What good did method do when he had seen next to nothing? But he had felt. And known.

The tension in his gut built to a new height. He had known that behind that hazy barrier he and Bianca had been lovers. Lovers of the flesh. Lovers of the heart. That knowledge had been as real as the white curtain that had turned crimson. As real as the smell of blood, which had nearly overwhelmed him.

He was not a fanciful man, nor was he a squeamish one. Why then did this ghost of an image not leave him in peace? Why did it torment him until he no longer knew if he was seeing the image again or merely the memory of the image? Until he was certain he was going mad?

No, he was not a fanciful man. But something that took such hold of him had to have a meaning. And he’d be damned if he did not find it.

Alessio lifted his head, his eyes wild. With a curse he swept his arm across the table, sending cups and bottles crashing onto the brick-tile floor.

Unperturbed, the innkeeper approached and matter-offactly started picking up pieces of stoneware and glass. Antonio started to make a jest, but the grin froze on his lips, the words stuck in his throat as he saw something he had never seen before—not when they had ridden into battle, not when they had faced a naked sword in a dark alleyway. In Alessio’s eyes he saw pure, unadulterated terror. And behind the terror was an emotion so deep, so intense that he did not know how to read it.

The noise jarred Alessio back to reality, and yet some part of him still remained caught in that illusion. He shifted his gaze from the havoc he had wrought to Antonio, and yet he saw neither.

Instead he saw Bianca’s face. The look of a little girl lost. The look of a temptress sure of her triumph. And he knew that all the rough, hurtful, mocking words they had said to each other today had changed nothing, meant nothing. Only one thing he had said today had been completely true—she belonged to him.

For a fleeting moment he was filled with the certainty that unless he made that an irrevocable reality, something terrible would happen. The certainty dissipated, but the compulsion to act remained.

“I have to ride back, Tonio.” Already he was reaching for his cloak.

“Back? Back where?”

“Monte Nero.”

“Back to the Merisi villa?” Antonio stared at his friend as the terrible truth began to dawn on him.

“I see,” he said slowly. “So I wasn’t so far wrong before. Just wrong about the name.”

As Alessio turned to go, Antonio finally managed to get his body to obey his mind and leapt up, reaching across the table to grab a handful of Alessio’s black velvet doublet.

“What of the curfew? The fines are stiff if you run into a watchman,” he babbled. “And the city gates will be closed by now.”

“I will find a way. For enough fiorini I can buy myself a way through the gates of heaven. Or hell.”

Antonio breathed a sigh of relief as he saw Alessio’s arrogant grin. This was the Alessio he knew. This was the Alessio he could talk some sense into. Still holding on to Alessio’s doublet, he scooted around the table.

“Listen to me. This is insane.” He gripped Alessio’s shoulders and shook him. “You cannot do this. She is betrothed to your brother.” He shook him again. “Your brother, damn it.”

“You don’t have to remind me, Tonio.” His voice was dull.

“And you would still take her?” Antonio’s hands fell down to his sides. He was as cynical a man as any. He knew that rules were made to be broken. Most rules. But there were some rules a man did not break. “Take your brother’s bride and leave him to find used goods in his marriage bed?”

“Is that what you think of me?” Anger flared in his eyes. “Is that what you think I will do?” But as Alessio said the words, he remembered that that was just what he had almost done on the beach only hours ago. No, he thought. He had done it. Perhaps he had only taken her mouth, but with that kiss he had possessed Bianca as surely as if he had spilled his seed into her body.

“Isn’t it?”

“I want her, Tonio. I wanted her long before she was betrothed to Ugo.”

“So why didn’t you seduce her then? Or marry her yourself?”

“A younger brother with no prospects marry?” Alessio laughed shortly, mirthlessly. “And the other alternative? Seduce the virgin daughter of good family?”

“Would that have been worse than seducing the virgin daughter of good family who is betrothed to your brother?”

“No.” Alessio met Antonio’s eyes and held them. “I will not seduce her.” It crossed his mind that if anyone would practice seduction, it would not be him.

“So.” Antonio crossed his arms over his chest. “So you ride fifty miles in the middle of the night to do what? Will you serenade her? Will you play a game of chess with her? Or perhaps have a philosophical discussion?” he scoffed, bis good-natured face grim.

“Don’t forget I’ve known you all my life,” he continued, “and I’ve seen you with more than your share of women since we shared our first girl the year we turned thirteen.” There was a touch of envy in his laugh. “You are to women what a flame is to dry gunpowder.”

“I tell you I will not bed her.” Alessio wondered what Tonio would say if he knew that he had never bedded a virgin. He had bedded cheap whores and expensive courtesans, peasant girls and highborn wives. But never a virgin.

“I need to talk to Bianca. Something happened today—” He broke off. How could he put into words something that had happened only in his head? Tonio would think he had gone mad. And perhaps he had.

“She will break the betrothal.” His hands fisted. “I will make her break the betrothal.”

“Break the betrothal?” Antonio parroted. “I imagine old man Merisi will have something to say about that.”

“The betrothal will be broken, I tell you. It’s been done before.”

“Alessio, Alessio.” Antonio shook his head. “Think with your head and not with what’s between your legs.” He slung his arm around his friend’s shoulders. “Would it be worth the trouble? I do not deny that lying with a woman is one of the great pleasures of this earthly life, but would it be worth it? At some point, they all grow fat or ill-humored. Or both. Besides—” Suddenly, he shivered. “Besides, Ugo would kill you if you do.”

No, he will kill me if I do not. The words were so clear in Alessio’s mind that for a moment he thought he had spoken them aloud. As he stared at Tonio’s face, he wondered where the words had come from.

Then, because he was first of all a man of action, he threw off the introspection that had been paralyzing him all evening. As energy and power surged through him, he cast Antonio a dazzling smile.

“Drink a cup of wine to my good fortune, Tonio.”

“I would drink a barrel if I thought it would do any good,” Antonio said morosely, but Alessio’s sudden confidence was so contagious that he, too, smiled. “Forza, Alessio, e buona fortuna.”

Alessio’s smile wavered for a moment as he remembered that those had been his exact words to Bianca that morning. Then, deciding to take that as a good omen, he laughed. He withdrew a handful of coins from his purse and tossed them on the table. Then he took a silver lira and, gesturing with his chin toward the shards that still lay on the floor, flipped it in the direction of the innkeeper.

The man caught the coin deftly and bowed low, well pleased. The coin was worth more than the bit of broken crockery. But then, Messere Alessio was always generous.

With another smile, Alessio gave Antonio a slap on the back. Then he took the stairs two at a time, unbarred the door and stepped out into the night.