Elle dried my tears with a scented handkerchief and took me in her arms, murmuring pacifying things until my composure returned.
I told her I felt awful for having kept such a secret from her these past weeks, given what close friends we’d become.
She said, “We all have our secrets, Hannah. I’ve kept things from you, too, secrets about this place and those of us who live here.”
As she said that, I was reminded of the many little enigmas I had encountered at Grotte Cachée—the bird named Darius who “didn’t care to be thought of as a pet,” the hallucinatory magnetism in the cave and bathhouse, Elic’s unnatural sexual stamina, the erudite Elle’s willingness to believe that a Venetian courtesan named Galiana Solsa was a bloodsucking demon…
Humans like to think they know all there is to know about the world and the beings who populate it, Elle had told me, but they don’t, nor do they really want to, most of them.
Humans, she’d said, not we humans. They and them, not we and us.
And then, of course, there was what I’d seen in la Chambre des Voiles et des Miroirs when Inigo’s breeches had slipped down. Since then, it had dawned on me how much he resembled the lusty satyr in the bathhouse statues, even as regarded his build, his facial features, and those tight corkscrew curls— although Inigo’s hair was much longer than that on the statue, effectively hiding the horns and ears.
“Is Inigo a…” I felt foolish saying it, but I plowed ahead. “… a satyr?”
I’d asked it in order to gauge Elle’s reaction. She should have burst out laughing. Instead, she stared at me for a second too long before looking off across the lawn with an uncharacteristically tight little smile. Pushing the swing back and forth with her foot, she said, “What an extraordinary question.”
“I saw his tail with my own eyes,” I said, with as much certitude as I could muster. “And I think I saw something that might have been horns, and pointed ears.”
“Whom have you told of this?” Elle asked. Not You can’t be serious, but Whom have you told?
“I asked the other novices if they’d noticed any unusual body parts on Inigo. Of course, they all laughed and pointed out the obvious. I told them what I’d seen, or… thought I’d seen. I asked if he’d ever removed his breeches in their presence. He hadn’t. I asked if they’d ever felt anything unusual on his head. They all said he hated to be touched there, or even to have his hair stroked.”
“Did they believe you about the tail and so forth?” Elle asked.
“Sibylla and Lucy thought I was imagining things. Bianca wasn’t so sure. She truly believes in… what she calls Folletti— incubi and the like. She was talking in the carriage on the way here about the strange phenomena at Grotte Cachée that her sister told her about—and the strange beings. She said something about Elic and Inigo not being ordinary men, and how there’s a hermit who lives in the cave and can take the shape of animals.”
“Did she.”
“What are you, Elle? Are you a dusii?” I asked, recalling her slip of the tongue in the library when she was talking about her need for carnal sustenance. No one woman could ever satisfy me.
“The singular is ‘dusios.’” She looked away again with that forced smile. “How on earth did we end up talking about this?”
With quiet gravity, I said, “I’ve never betrayed a confidence either, Elle, upon my faith—never.”
Taking my hand, she said, “I believe you, Hannah, but if I were what you suspect I am, can you not understand how dangerous it would be to confide in any human, even one in whom I have the utmost trust? There are still many places where Follets are being burned alive as witches, even those who’ve done no harm to anyone. Were such beings to find a safe haven, such as Grotte Cachée, they would be loath to jeopardize it by making their presence here known, would they not?”
I opened my mouth to pursue the subject, hesitating when I noticed her gaze shift to something over my right shoulder. Turning, I saw a figure in the distance walking with a slightly halting gait along the gravel drive leading from the gatehouse to the stable and carriage house tucked away in the woods. Domenico Vitturi was wearing his usual black doublet and breeches, and he had a book in his hand.
“Where does he go when he wanders off like that?” I asked, more to myself than to Elle.
Ever since the afternoon he’d summoned me to the Training Room, Vitturi had become virtually as reclusive as the Duke of Buckingham. He rarely ate with the rest of us, and when he did, he was uncommunicative. According to the other novices, the last time he was intimate with one of them was in the bathhouse that first night, and Elle told me he hadn’t touched her since London. When in the castle, he often holed himself up in the library. Most of his time, however, was spent somewhere off in the woods with his books. He no longer observed our training sessions with les professeurs de l’amour—or rather, the other novices’ training sessions. Over the course of the past four days, I had learned to hunt with hawks, paint landscapes, discuss political matters intelligently, and a host of other things, but although my fellow novices continued to receive erotic instruction, not once had I been required to observe or participate in it.
Nor, of course, had I been required to “compensate” Signor Vitturi for his patronage in any way. I realized at that point that he could have obliged me to perform any number of acts that would have gratified him sexually without compromising my virginity, but he had not done so.
“Perhaps you should tell him what you’ve told me,” Elle said, still gazing at the spot where Vitturi had disappeared into the woods.
“Tell him why I’m really here? Nay!”
She looked at me. “He’s Buckingham’s friend, Hannah. He may know why the duke accused your uncle of treason. Is that not what you came here to find out?”
That, and if luck smiled on me, to convince the duke that it had been a mistaken accusation. The possibility that Buckingham might have confided to Vitturi the grounds for that accusation had never occurred to me. After all, Vitturi was Venetian; he would have little interest in political intrigues between England and Spain. Still, if there was a chance he might know something…
“You’re right,” I said. “I should question Don Domenico, but in an offhand manner, as if I were simply discussing current affairs. I absolutely cannot let him know I came here under false pretenses. He would almost certainly send me back to England, and if that happens, I shall have no hope at all of swaying Buckingham. Surely you can see the wisdom in that.”
Elle acknowledged reluctantly that she did.
I said, “All that remains, then, is for me to contrive a private little tête-à-tête with Don Domenico. ’Twill be easier said than done, given what a recluse he’s become.”
Elle regarded me in silence for a moment with those radiant blue eyes that seemed to see everything. With a knowing little smile, she said, “Is this Buckingham business the only reason you want to be alone with Domenico?”
“Oh, honestly, Elle.” I looked away so she wouldn’t see me blushing. In truth, the notion of being with him in a secluded place filled me with a jittery excitement that had nothing to do with Buckingham and everything to do with the memory of Vitturi’s warm mouth on mine.
Elle said, “You asked before where he goes when he wanders off like that.”
I sighed. “’Twas a rhetorical question.”
“I know where he goes.”
I turned to look at her.
“I asked him yesterday. He told me. If you’d like to know, I’ll tell you.”
“I thought you’d never betrayed a confidence in your life.”
“He didn’t ask me not to tell,” she said. “He just assumed I wouldn’t.”
“Because it never occurred to him that you would,” I said, beset with misgivings.
With a vexatious groan, Elle said, “Very well,” and stood, puffing up her skirts. “If you don’t care to know, then—”
“Where does he go?” I asked as I, too, rose from t
he swing.
“There’s a path through the woods behind the carriage house—a network of paths, actually. One of them leads to a place called the Nemeton. ’Tis a clearing in the woods that was a place of worship for the Gaulish tribe that once lived here. They conducted rituals there, some of which amounted to sexual orgies.”
“My word.”
“They chose that spot because oak trees were sacred to them, and that area of the forest is mostly oaks. Only very special visitors are permitted to see it. I took Domenico there several years ago because I felt he would appreciate it, and he did.”
“Is it very far?” I asked.
“Only eight or nine hundred yards from here as the crow flies, but over a mile by foot along the paths. ’Tis a rather tortuous route, the better to keep the Nemeton away from prying eyes. ’Tis rare that someone stumbles upon it. The directions are fairly complicated.”
“You’ll share them with me?” Was I “special” enough?
“But of course.” Elle smiled. “I shall explain them on the way to the kitchen.”
“The kitchen?”
Taking my arm, she said, “Come along.”
I paused on the path, a blanket over one arm and a basket of food and wine over the other, when I spied an open, sunlit area up ahead. Looking down, I saw that my blue satin gown had gotten slightly dirty around the hem, but was otherwise unscathed after my mile-long trek along the web of narrow forest trails that led there. I wished, not for the first time since setting out, that my bodice didn’t reveal an eight-inch swatch of bare skin, but there was no help for that; I had to wear what I was given.
Taking care to walk silently, I approached the clearing, stopping just short of it to have a look around. The oak trees surrounding the Nemeton looked to be very ancient, and many grew in strange, twisted shapes; birds chattered and sang within their branches. The grass was neatly shorn, indicating that someone took the trouble to come out there with a scythe on a regular basis. I saw the carved stone altar Elle had told me about, and a fire pit that looked to be long disused.
I did not, however, see Domenico Vitturi. Filled with disappointment, I stepped into the clearing, squinting against the sun… and stopped when I saw something black hanging from a branch of a massive oak about five yards to my left: a doublet.
I took another two steps, and there he was, sitting in his shirtsleeves—it was a warm day, after all—on a squarish boulder at the base of the tree, which he lounged against as he read his book. My view was of the injured side of his face. It wasn’t quite a full profile, as he was facing slightly away from me, which would be why he hadn’t noticed my presence; the silken rustle of my skirts might have been taken for a breeze drifting through the trees.
The early afternoon sun filtered through the leafy branches overhead, painting him with a lacework of light and shadow. He turned the page with an expression of fierce absorption that made him appear almost angry.
I licked my dry lips. “Don Domenico,” I said.
He looked sharply in my direction. For several seconds, he just stared at me.
I curtsied.
As if suddenly remembering his manners, he leapt to his feet and bowed. As he pressed his right hand to his chest in the Venetian manner, it appeared to dawn on him that he was greeting me in his shirt.
“Pray, pardon my state of undress,” he said as he took the doublet off the branch and shook it out. “I wasn’t expecting—”
“Nay, signore, please don’t trouble yourself,” I said, but he was already shrugging it on. As he did so, his gaze lit on my bosom, so brazenly exposed by the gold-laced opening in my bodice. For a moment, he seemed almost transfixed, which surprised me—he’d never been one to leer. A prickly warmth crawled up my chest and throat to my face.
Redirecting his attention to the buttons of his doublet, he pushed them one by one through their loops. “Elle sent you here?”
I shook my head. “She just told me where to find you.”
He looked up, his gaze shifting from my eyes to the items I was carrying.
Eager for something to do to with the nervous energy trembling through me, I put down the basket and set about laying the blanket out on the grass.
“What is this?” he asked, taking a few steps in my direction to peer into the basket.
“Um, wine and food,” I said as I knelt on the blanket, smoothing it out, making the corners lie flat. “Some cheese and bread, fruit pastes, tarts…”
“You came all the way here just to bring me dinner?”
I stopped my pointless fussing and sat staring at a rumpled corner of the blanket. Feeling starved for air, I said, “Nay,” but it emerged as a barely audible whisper.
The ensuing silence was absolute. Even the birds seemed to have ceased their chirping.
KEPT MY GAZE TRAINED on the blanket as Vitturi came and knelt before me, a bit awkwardly because of his bad leg.
He said my name very softly—not “Mistress Leeds” this time, but “Hannah.”
He reached toward my face, hesitating with his fingertips a hairsbreadth away.
I took his hand and pressed it to my cheek, closing my eyes. His palm was very warm as I leaned into it, savoring his touch.
He curled his other hand around the back of my head, tilted it up, and kissed me with a sweet, hot hunger that was more thrilling than anything I’d ever experienced. We crushed our bodies together, kissing at such length, and with such passion, that when our mouths parted for a moment, we both gasped, laughing in astonishment.
The sky reeled drunkenly as we fell upon the blanket. He kissed me again and again, his hands roving everywhere, squeezing, caressing, plucking the pins from my hair, untying the gold cord that laced up my bodice.
Sitting astride me, he yanked the cord through its eyelets and flung it aside. He opened my bodice and gazed upon me, his hair disheveled from my hands, a feral glint in his eye. Yet his touch, as he trailed his hands over my breasts, was gentle as a whisper. I gasped when his fingertips brushed my nipples, which instantly stiffened. He stroked them very softly— maddeningly so—as I writhed to his touch, my sex growing damp in response.
They say he has the gentlest hands in Christendom.
I unbuttoned his doublet. He tore it off and whipped his shirt over his head. His torso was lean, but muscular, the epitome of masculine beauty save for a long-healed gouge from his right shoulder to the bottom of his rib cage.
He lowered himself onto me and kissed me again, his bare chest pressed to mine, our hearts pounding in unison. We moved together in a primeval rhythm; even through my skirts and his breeches, I could feel his arousal. Without breaking the kiss, he pulled my skirts up and caressed me with those deft, probing fingers until I was moaning and clutching at the blanket.
“Make love to me,” I whispered.
“God, how I wish I could. I can’t. I can’t, Hannah. We can touch each other, pleasure each other, but if you’re to be a maiden when you arrive in Ven—”
“That doesn’t matter. I’m not… I… I don’t care about that. I just want to make love to you.”
He searched my eyes as he pondered that. “This has naught to do with…repaying my patronage?”
“Nay! ’Tisn’t that, I promise you. I want you to be the first, no one else, just you.”
He gathered me in his arms and kissed me again, groaning into my mouth when I stroked him between his legs. I unbuttoned his breeches and closed a hand around his erection. It felt impossibly hard, like skin stretched over marble.
He caressed me intimately until I was delirious with lust, and then he pushed a finger into me, igniting a climax that shuddered through me so long and so hard that I thought my heart might burst.
He kissed me as the tremors waned, murmuring how beautiful I was, how exciting it was to watch me come apart. “Your maidenhead is already torn,” he said, still stroking me from within.
“How is that possible if I’ve never been with a man?”
“It happens,”
he said, lying on his back to strip off his breeches, hose, and boots. “’Tis a good thing. ’Twill be easier for you.”
He undressed me more slowly than he had himself, kissing and stroking every inch of skin he uncovered, and then he lay atop me, cradled in the juncture of my thighs. When I reached between his legs, he pulled my hand away, saying “I’m too close as it is.”
I tensed when I felt his fingertips part my sex and seat his own within it—just the tip, but it felt far larger than I had expected, like the hard round head of a club pushing into me.
“Shh, cara,” he whispered against my lips as he stroked my hair. “Easy, easy. Let me in.”
I felt a burning as he stretched me open, using shallow, measured thrusts. It was a slow and steady incursion, made more bearable by the fact that I was so wet—no doubt this had been his purpose in bringing me to orgasm beforehand.
So this is what it feels like to be possessed, I thought when he was finally buried deep inside me. Despite the discomfort, I wanted to stay that way forever.
I could feel the strain in his body as he made love to me, every muscle quivering. I realize now that he was trying to hold himself in check so as not to hurt me. His undoing came when I wrapped my legs around him and raised my hips to meet his, as I had seen Sibylla do with Elic in the bathhouse.
“Dio mio.” He thrust harder, his hands tangled in my hair, then stilled. A grinding sound rose from his throat. I felt goose bumps rise up all along his spine, and then his sex jerked inside me over and over again, the pulses gradually diminishing until he sank upon me, heavy and spent.
“Don’t become a courtesan.”
I had just nodded off in Domenico’s arms, the two of us curled up naked in the afternoon sun, when his soft-spoken entreaty brought me fully awake.
I lifted my head to meet his eyes.
Stroking a tendril of hair off my face, he said, “I can’t bear the thought of you entertaining a different benefactor every night of the week. I only want you to be with me.”
I rolled onto my back, an arm across my eyes to shield them from the sun. Dear God, please don’t let this hurt him as much as it’s going to hurt me.
In the Garden of Sin Page 10