“Attilo overheard Benito’s plans.” There was time enough to reveal the rest later. First, he had to know she was truly all right. He kissed her lips, tasting the salt of recent tears. It bothered him that she had suffered from Benito’s cruelty and Renzo’s heavy hand. And his stomach twisted every time he thought of the one man she trusted, Father Damiani, who turned on her in her time of need. “Come, let me take you home.”
“Do I have a home?”
Yesterday morning replayed in his mind. “It is I who should beg your forgiveness and ask that you share my home and my life.” He slid his hands up and down her arms. “I am sorry I could not be truthful with you.”
“You have naught to apologize for. I have had much time to think about what has happened since I came to Naples. I truly understand your reason for keeping your secret.”
Dante smiled. And just as quick, he lost it when he noticed her bloody wrists.
“I fear I did this to myself. I thought I would be free from the rope if I cut through flesh and bone. Alas, the pain was more than I anticipated.”
His lips compressed to a bloodless line at the awful sight. “We must get you home so Agata can tend to your wrists.” Gently, he touched the discoloration on her cheek and jaw and frowned.
Nary another word was spoken. Together they walked away, Dante’s arm draped around her shoulders. He was afraid to let her go.
Away from the craters, Alessa’s voice broke through Dante’s thoughts. “I will have you know I was not meant to die just yet.”
“Do I dare ask how you gained that knowledge?”
“The musician has stopped coming to me.”
“So?”
“So, my handsome husband, I believe he was not showing himself to me to draw me into harm. He was warning me.”
If that was how she perceived her spared life, he’d not argue. “So be it. The musician is your friend.”
“As are you.” She hopped up on tiptoes and kissed him squarely. “When we arrive at your castle—”
“Our castle,” he corrected, loving the smile it brought to her lips.
“Our castle, I will hear the entire story of how you saved the queen, confiscated the gold and rescued me from near death.”
He issued a playful discourse. “But you said you knew you were not meant to die.”
She pulled a childish face, incongruent with the seductive look emanating from her eyes. Dante held his breath, realizing this woman was his to have any time or place he desired and no secrets would lie between them ever again.
“Think you a romantic story would end without the brave knight saving his lady? Besides, it is my tale, and I will write it anyway I choose.”
He swept her up into his arms, and forced his eyes to look into hers instead of the bruises on her face. “Mayhap you will allow me to read your work when you are finished?”
She ran her fingertip the length of his jaw and followed it with a feathery kiss. He shivered with delight. “I will, yet I am not certain how my tale will end.”
His brows drew into a V. “With the brave knight saving his woman. Did you not say so?”
She pouted irresistibly. “How does the knight truly feel about his woman?”
Dante grinned. “He will pledge his undying love to her for all eternity.”
“And the lady will pledge her love for longer than eternity.”
Their lips connected in a sweet kiss, sealing their love. Perhaps he and Alessandra had come together under lies and secrets. But he’d not want to change any of their past. Their future was all that mattered now. Out of dire circumstances grew two hearts beating as one. For that, Dante would be forever grateful.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Six months later
The change in the Santangelo Castle was remarkable. Dante hired six more servants and cooks and, at Alessandra’s urging, made Agata in charge of the household servants. A routine was restored, meals served at the appropriate times of the day, linens laundered regularly, the store filled generously. Dust was beaten from the old tapestries, rushes were laid anew daily, and the family silver sparkled for the first time in years. At last, the castle had been returned to the splendor of Dante’s childhood.
Attilo now lived with them while Fabroni and Amalia awaited their fate in a French prison, along with Beltane. Attilo, as it turned out, was adept at working the soil. Dante had put him in charge of the herb and vegetable gardens as well as seeing to the revived orchard of olive and orange trees.
Dressed in a royal tunic and black velvet surcoat, Dante stared out the window in his bedchamber. Alessandra’s family would soon arrive, and he wanted to make a good impression. It mattered not if they approved of him, but for his wife’s sake, he had done what he could to give them no reason to dislike him or her new home.
Glancing over his shoulder, he frowned at the tub of water turning cold. Alessandra hadn’t come up for her bath yet. In fact, he’d been so busy seeing to the last details of his attire that he lost track of her since the morning meal. Worried, and a little perturbed, he left the chamber. Now was not the time for her to go on one of her infernal adventures.
“Agata!” Dante crossed the well-appointed solar and barged into the kitchen where Agata was overseeing the food preparation for the coming feast. “Where is my wife?”
The maidservant finally learned to face his thundering commands and questions calmly. “I cannot say, my lord.”
“You cannot say, or you will not break your loyalty to the little minx?”
“I am her maidservant, my lord.”
“And I am your lord. Now, where is my wife?”
“She is here,” Alessandra said in a soft voice.
Dante spun around and blanched when he saw her pale face. She leaned against the door leading from the herb garden. She didn’t look well. When she swayed, he caught her mere moments before she fainted to the floor.
“What ails her?”
Agata stepped up beside him and folded her arms over her chest, making her annoyance clear. “Naught that many women before her have not suffered through.”
He gave the maidservant a puzzled look.
She shook her head. “Why is it men are the last to realize when a woman is with child?”
Dante froze. Child? “You are certain?”
“Ask her yourself when she wakes up, my lord.” A tight frown formed around her mouth as she returned to help the cooks.
Scooping Alessandra up into his arms, he cradled her to his body and hurried through the solar into the great room. Intending to carry her up to their bedchamber, he ceased his flight abruptly when their guests began pouring in. This was not how he envisioned meeting Alessandra’s family.
They spread out in a solid line, gawking. Dante’s mouth twitched into an uneasy smile. “Buon giorno.”
No one moved. Except the tall Medici, to whom Dante would always be grateful for helping him rescue Alessandra.
“Apparently Alessandra has taken ill,” Cristiano announced.
“So say you.” A slender woman with hair as pale as a lily flower stepped forward. “I am Bianca, Cristiano’s wife. You must be Dante. If not, then I would ask that you release my cousin immediately.”
Cristiano compressed his lips and cut the woman a knowing look. “You cannot protect her any longer. She is Signor Santangelo’s responsibility now.”
Dante found his voice and his nerve. “I apologize for greeting you in such an inappropriate manner. My wife fainted and—”
“Well, of course she did,” Bianca snapped. “Ofttimes a woman does when a baby begins to grow in her belly.”
The sudden din of excited voices and congratulations from people he’d never before met overwhelmed him. Alessandra stirred and came to. The instant she saw her family, she sported a grin as wide as her features and slipped out of his protective hold. Her face blossomed with color.
“Oh, I am so glad you are finally here.” Tears of joy fell endlessly down her cheeks.
She mad
e a miraculous recovery, Dante mused as he watched her embrace one family member after another, then squat to hug a little girl and a toddling boy. Lost in her giddiness, he jumped when Cristiano gave him a hearty slap to his back.
“Trust me, my friend. There is much you have to learn about this family.”
“Dante, come meet everyone.” Alessandra brought forth her mother and father, and Cristiano’s family which consisted of his wife, mother and two children. Then there was Bianca’s father, her sister and husband with their baby of about eight months, and Bianca’s brother and his new bride.
Daunted by the many new faces, Dante’s head whirled. He smiled until his face muscles hurt. Through it all, he couldn’t understand how Cristiano’s wife knew Alessandra was pregnant. Attilo entered with an armful of wood for the hearth, though the air was too pleasant for a fire. When Agata appeared and announced the meal would soon be served, everyone converged on the long table like a swarm of bees to a honey pot. Dante held his wife back.
“You are all right?”
She smiled at his concern. “I am more than all right, my lord.”
His brows drew downward. The formal address sounded odd, more so when Alessandra spoke it. He had resisted the title of baron for so many years, believing he was not deserving of it. He had wanted to prove himself as a man without the help of a family inheritance and title. He supposed the time was right to embrace rather than forsake his birthright. Being of noble birth was naught to be ashamed of. Once, he had felt the title a burden to wear. No longer did he turn his back to it. Neither would he deny his children their due.
“Think you lying abed might be better than the enticement of mingling with your family? They will be our guests for a fortnight.”
“Truly, Dante, I am well.”
He brushed the back of his fingers along her warm cheek. “I am your husband, Alessandra, and I say you need your rest.”
She wiggled her way into his embrace and snuggled close. “And well you know I will do as I please.”
He tried not to grin at the sweetly spoken truth, but he couldn’t hold it back. “Then promise me this. The first inkling you have of fainting, you will go up and lie down.”
She reached up to whisper beside his ear. “Only if my lord will come up with me.”
Out of sight from their guests, she slipped her hand down his belly, lower and lower. Dante’s breath hissed in between his clenched teeth as she closed her fingers around his bulge. Heat spread out from his groin, growing hotter with each caress. He closed his hand over hers and pulled it away, breathing easier without her sweet torture.
“You know I love you, and I would do anything for you. But I’ll not explain to your father why we cannot join him for our first meal together as a family.”
“Think you he’ll not understand?”
Bedamned. She dropped her other hand and slid it up and down his growing manhood. “Alessandra,” he warned.
She released him and circled his neck with her arms, drawing his lips close to hers. “Then kiss me, my love, before I melt from the fire you have created in me.”
Dante wasn’t about to indulge his wife with her family newly arrived, but the instant their lips met, he was lost. Behind him, a roar of good cheer flared, reverberating off the stone walls. Perhaps he had much to learn about her family, but he had already learned that marriage to Alessandra would never be dull.
He lifted her off the floor, deepening his kiss, tasting her as if she were the nectar of a rare fruit. Consumed by his undying love for his wife, he broke off the hot, sultry kiss and buried his face in her neck.
“Almighty,” she murmured, holding onto him tightly.
He was the moth drawn irreversibly to her flame. No matter what their future held, he was certain of one thing. He’d thank God every day for bringing Alessandra into his life.
A word about the author...
Born in New York, Jannine Corti-Petska came from an Old World Italian family, which is the reason she began writing medievals set in Italy.
She lives in Southern California with her husband of almost forty years and three demanding Rat Terriers.
Find out more about Jannine at
www.jcortipetska.com
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Dante's Flame Page 25