DELUGE

by Lisa T. Bergren

  It was the first time I’d gone there. I mean, as hot as Luca Forelli was, as much as he made me laugh and turned my crank, I’d never really accepted that I wanted to be his, completely. And I did.

  He wrapped his arm around me, pulling me closer. “Evangelia Betarrini,” he moaned, “I cannot wait until you are mine.”

  “And I,” I said, kissing him, covering each bit of his lips, “cannot wait to be wholly yours.”

  “Truly?” he said, pulling away slightly, running a warm hand over my shoulder and down along my arm.

  “Truly,” I said.

  Then he took a deep breath through his flared nostrils and drew back. Slowly, he reached for the lace on the table and settled it over my head and between our lips, a little swollen from the kissing.

  “Soon,” he said, kissing the tip of my nose, “you shall be mine, Evangelia. From the tips of your toes to the top of your head.” He leaned forward until his head met mine. He lifted a brow in mischief. “And everything in between.”

  I huffed a laugh. “You speak of my eyebrows, right?”

  “Yes, your eyebrows,” he said, one side of his mouth quirking in a smile. “That is what I speak of.” He leaned forward and kissed one and then the other, through the lace.

  “And my boney elbow?” I asked. “Which will undoubtedly poke you in your sleep?”

  “And yes, that,” he said, lifting it up, and tentatively bowing to give it a kiss as if in homage.

  I felt my blush deepen as I thought of going on. “Mayhap we should stop such imaginings. Such thoughts are best explored on our wedding night, not before,” I said.

  “Indeed,” he readily agreed, straightening. “It’s the sweetest form of torture, to fill my mind with such thoughts before I can act upon them. But rest assured, my soon-to-be-wife,” he said, leaning forward to peck me on the lips again, “I shall act on them. Every delicious one of them.”

  Now I was blushing for sure, and he laughed in delight.

  “The saints bear witness,” he said, taking a step away from me, rubbing the back of his neck. He reached out to take my hand. “That I am the most blessed man in all of Toscana.”

  “Just as I am the most blessed of women,” I said, covering his hand with my other and smiling into his eyes.

  And I truly felt that way. I couldn’t wait—every fiber of my being longed to be in Luca Forelli’s arms forever.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  EVANGELIA

  The next two days were filled with fittings for my gown, completion of my veil, and as much touring about Venezia as we could. But Mom and Dad made better headway in the crowded streets without us, since the Venetians tended to recognize me and Gabi now, swarming us with all their well-wishes. Mom had acquired tons of bottles of oils and of packets of dried herbs, which I knew she meant to use as treatments for people back home. Just the thought of it made me long for the castello, which felt good. For so many months, I’d itched to leave. Now I only wanted to return. As Mrs. Luca Forelli.

  If the Venetians were excited at the thought, the Sienese would be over the moon. And those of Castello Forelli? They’d be crazy-wild. Only Luca’s sister, Adela, would be furious with us, for not waiting so that she could take part.

  The morning of the wedding, Gabi and I played in a room with the puppies, laughing as they tackled and rolled over each other, wincing when their sharp teeth bit down on our hands. The dogaressa swept in and tsked-tsked me for, “being down on the floor like a commoner,” and for “letting those vile things mar your hands.”

  Like your awful pet squirrel is any better…

  She gestured in irritation for us to rise, and we did so, feeling like chastened children. “Come along,” she said, over her shoulder. “We have work to do to get you prepared.”

  I gave Gabi a look of alarm, and she gave me a wide-eyed glance in return. But there was a smile on her face, and she tagged along, which reassured me. Together, we could do anything. Would that change when I married Luca tonight? Things had shifted after she married Marcello…but we’d found our way.

  She reached for my hand and squeezed it as we walked the long, dark hallway, following the dogaressa and her ladies, our Forelli knights padding along behind us.

  “Why do I feel like I’m going to the principal’s office?” Gabi whispered.

  I smiled, not daring to respond as the two ladies in front of us sent a reproving look over their shoulders. Apparently, walks down the hallway were meant to be done in silence. Gabi stuck her tongue out at their backs, which made me want to burst into giggles. I covered my laugh with a cough, which made Gabi fairly wheeze with her own laughter, and cough as well. At last we arrived at a doorway, and the dogaressa turned to face us.

  “The servants inside here will see to your bath. I will see you afterward, once they are at work on your hair.”

  “Thank you, Serenissima,” I said with a quick curtsey, super glad that I was going to score a bath on my wedding day. When I’d asked about it earlier, my maid had seemed confused and said she’d inquire.

  “Are there any other doorways into this room?” Celso asked one of the ladies.

  “Only the servant’s entrance,” she said.

  With a nod, Celso dispatched Otello to take position at that door, while he turned to guard this main entrance. I noted that Luca had assigned the burliest of our knights to my guard duty. Maybe because it was our wedding day? I smiled. He was taking no chances that anything might come between us.

  We entered the room, which appeared to be an official sort of bathroom, with a ceiling lower than most in the palazzo, perhaps to preserve heat. It featured a large window, open to the lagoon, and two hearths blazing with crackling fires, heavy pots hanging above them. Servants were filling two copper tubs with hot water, and others were setting exotic-looking bottles and bars of soap on a table between them. There were thick cloths meant for towels, so thick they almost looked like the soft Egyptian cotton towels we remembered from home.

  But all the women in the room made me shift uneasily. I gazed at Gabi in fear. She’d told me of Rome and how the women had pretty much scrubbed and bathed her in preparation for her almost-wedding to Lord Greco. Knowing my preference for modesty, she gave me an I’ll-handle-this look and turned to the women behind her.

  “I shall see to my sister’s needs myself. If you all will finish filling the tub and then depart, we’d be most thankful.”

  The oldest of them frowned at her. “You do not wish for us to see to her hair at least?”

  “Nay. The lady prefers privacy.”

  The woman clamped her lips shut, offended, and then turned to yank the last pail from the fire and dump it into the tub. Then she shooed the others out and closed the door behind her. Otello gave us a nod before he, too, disappeared from sight.

  “At least she didn’t slam it,” Gabi whispered.

  “You’d think I’d robbed them of their jobs or something.”

  “Most likely bragging rights for getting a She-Wolf ready for her wedding,” she said.

  “We’ll have started new rumors,” I said with a sigh. “Tales of me not wanting to be seen naked, lest my wolf tail be visible.”

  “Or that you’re really a man,” she whispered, gently turning me around and unlacing my overdress. “Don’t worry over it. If you want privacy, you get privacy. It’s your wedding day. And they’d talk, regardless of what we’d done.”

  “True,” I said, slipping my gown from my shoulders.

  “Lucky girl,” Gabi sighed, wistfully staring at my full tub. “A bath sounds divine.”

  “There’s another tub right there,” I said. “Why not fill it and join me?”

  “You think I could?”

  “Why not?” I asked her, squaring my shoulders. “This is my wedding day,” I smiled, repeating her own statement, “and if I want my sister to not smell like B.O., then it’s my right to make it happen.”

  She laughed. “All right,” she said, turning toward the hearth and grabbi
ng a cloth to take hold of the iron handle of another pail. “I’m not one to mess with a wolf on her wedding day.”

  I finished undressing as she continued filling her tub. As I slipped into the blessedly hot water, any tension I’d felt earlier seemed to melt from my muscles. I went under, holding my breath as I looked up, watching the blurry, painted ceiling dance with the moving water. When I came up, Gabi was just stepping into her tub. Shyly, I hurriedly looked away from her rounding form.

  “Oh,” she breathed, as the water covered her bare shoulders. She pulled the pins from her hair as I had. “Wish I could make it as hot as yours. But Mom says that’s bad for the baby.”

  “The baby, the baby,” I sighed. “Don’t you get weary of worrying over the baby?”

  “I do. And I don’t. It’s all good.” She dipped under then, wetting down her long, dark curls. She wiped her eyes and reached for the nearest bottle, uncorking it to smell it, making a face and setting it down. “It’s like God shifts your heart once you’re pregnant,” she said, lifting a bar of soap to her nose. Pleased, she settled back against the curved side of the tub and began building a lather in her hands. “Before, you only think of yourself, your husband, your family. But once there’s life,” she paused thoughtfully, “well, it’s like we’re built to preserve the next generation. To protect and nourish them. It’s like my whole life, I was always meant to have this baby. Have Marcello’s baby.”

  “Aren’t you scared?” I asked, taking the bar of soap from her.

  “Of having the baby? Sure. But Mom will be there. And you.”

  I shuddered. “I dunno, Gabs. You know how I get a little squeamish…”

  “You’ll be there,” she said, lathering her hair. “It’s what medieval chicks do. Tend to each other. Sew up wounds, if necessary.”

  I sighed and began soaping up my hair. “I don’t want to get pregnant. At least not right away…”

  “Well, you can try the natural methods. But you see how far that got me.”

  I nodded. “I will. I guess it’s all in God’s hands.”

  “Is that what made you finally ready to say yes to the dress?”

  I grinned at her and went under again, rinsing my hair. This wedding was so different than any TV show had ever prepared me to have, it wasn’t even funny. When I rose again to the surface, I leaned over the edge of my tub.

  “God plopped us into medieval Italy. Found us boys to love. Helped us save Dad. I guess I can trust the Big Guy with whatever comes, baby or not. All I know is that I want to make the most of this precious time before the…you know.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “Me, too.” She studied me with her big, chocolate brown eyes. “Do make the most of it, Lia. You’re marrying an amazing guy today. That’s its own kind of fantasy, you know.”

  “True that,” I whispered back. Luca Forelli was going to be mine…mine and mine alone.

  A scuffle at the servant’s door made us both freeze. There was a bam against it, visibly making the wooden panel shudder, then the sound of grunts and hits. “Gabs…” I said.

  She was already rising, wrapping herself in a towel and reaching for her shift. The girl was quick, even preggers. But neither of us had weapons.

  She pulled on her shift, tossed mine to me and I’d just managed to pull mine down to my thighs—struggling with the fabric that wanted to cling to my wet skin—when they burst through. Four men, one of them dripping blood from his nose, another limping, a gash at his side. But we could see Otello on the ground in the servants’ hallway.

  “Celso!” I screamed.

  The door handle moved up, and I could hear him press against the bolted door. “M’lady?”

  “Celso, get help!”

  The men entered, circling around us, wearing Palazzo Ducale uniforms, but none of them were familiar to us. Thoughts of the men we’d encountered last year in Toscana—Fiorentini assassins—filled me with terror. How I longed for my bow! Even a dagger!

  They were silent, and their silence was oddly creepier than any taunts might have been. I pulled my shift away from my wet skin as the nearest looked upon my bare, dripping legs with lust in his eyes. But these men clearly weren’t here to rape us. They were here to kill us. Only that would make this mad attempt worthwhile.

  “Celso! Help!” Gabi screamed, reaching for a pail as the men drew wicked-looking daggers. They’d blocked her way to the main door, and it was bolted for privacy. The door shuddered as Celso rammed his shoulder against it, again and again. We could hear him shouting, his voice muted through the cursedly thick door.

  “The She-Wolves of Siena,” grunted the man in front of me. “You look more like enticing maidens, fresh from your baths, than fearsome warriors.”

  “You might be surprised,” I said, laying hold of a metal pail as my sister had done, our only semblance of a weapon.

  “Come now,” he said, scoffing at my pail. “Let us see to our business of killing you, and we’ll do it cleanly. Die easily, or die in a bloody mess of ribbons, but this day, you shall die, She-Wolf.”

  Another knight joined Celso outside and together, they rammed the door again. It shuddered, and we heard a crack, but it held. There was much shouting outside, directions to go around—

  “Now,” snarled the leader, and all four attacked us, Gabi and I battling two each.

  I dipped right as the nearest man lunged at me, his dagger missing my arm by an inch. But I swung my pail around at him and managed to ram the back of his head. He sprawled out on the floor.

  The other grabbed hold of the pail and wrenched it away, tossing it to the corner, and I backed away, snatching bottles and throwing them at him. Then it hit me. “Bottles!” I cried to Gabi.

  She seemed to have thought of it at the same time, because she’d leaped to the table already. She tossed me one, and I turned and slammed the end of it against the wall.

  A stinky, overly flowery perfume filled the air, and I whirled, sending the substance into my attacker’s face. He cried out like it burned him, and blinked at me, looking more fearsome than before. His face turned into a sneer.

  The bottle had broken poorly, but it had a jagged edge. Dimly, I knew I was cut and bleeding, but my eyes never left my attacker.

  The main door shuddered with one slam after the other. Why would it not give way? “Gabriella!” came Marcello’s voice. “Evangelia!”

  Neither of us answered. We were too focused on staying alive. I heard Gabi grunt and gasp and the sound of more breaking bottles.

  But my heart surged with hope at the thought of Marcello—and maybe Luca—being so close. Hurry, hurry, love. I can’t keep this guy at bay much longer. Behind him, the other was rising, rubbing his head.

  My attacker jabbed at me with his dagger, stepping toward me, backing me into the corner.

  “Come now, She-Wolf. Let’s end this. Today Siena shall know the power of her enemies, and her powerlessness against them.”

  “I think not,” I grit out, taking a swing at him with my broken bottle.

  Gabi cried out, and I gasped, worried for her, for the baby…I dared to glance her way.

  He pounced, then, grabbing hold of my wrist and slamming it up against the wall, the pain of it stealing my breath. Then he slammed my head against it as well, once, twice. I blinked, my vision swimming, trying desperately to focus. The room was spinning, but with a sudden centeredness I wished I could deny, I felt the dagger’s edge come across my neck and press in.

  “Imagine the story I’ll tell,” he panted, leaning full against me, driving the breath further from my lungs. “Of slicing the throat of a nearly naked She—”

  I heard the arrow coming and closed my eyes, wondering if it would hit me or him.

  Heard it enter his skull and emerge through the other side with sickening clarity.

  Felt him stiffen and then slump, sliding down and away from me.

  Forced myself to open my eyes and prepare for the next man’s attack, knowing it wasn’t yet safe, and yet find
ing it hard to focus…

  I heard men fighting, knew that we were no longer alone, there were reinforcements, help, but we weren’t free yet—

  Gabi. She was blocking one man’s dagger with her dented pail and kicking at the other. There was blood on her shift…I turned to walk woodenly toward her, operating in a sort of dream-scape, knowing I had to help her, somehow. But I lurched sideways, unable to keep my balance. My head…

  But then the men were turning to fight more knights, our knights. And the second door gave way at last, more of ours spilling in, Marcello at the front. And Luca was there in front of me, cradling my face, looking wildly afraid, mouthing words, words that seemed slow to reaching my ears. His hands moved to my shoulders and he shook me a little, and I could guess what he was asking—if I was hurt.

  “I’m fine, fine,” I said in English, looking over his shoulder to Gabi. She was safe too, in Marcello’s arms. Celso had one of the would-be assassins on his knees in front of him, hands on his head, yelling at him. But it was like I was under water, and couldn’t make out the words.

  Luca bent and picked me up and carried me from the room. Past Matteo, the one who had saved me, still holding his bow. Out the servant’s entrance from which the assassins had arrived, down the hallway and into another. We emerged just outside my room, and he entered, passing the servant with her mouth gaping wide in shock. He carried me to the bed and covered me with blankets, touching my face again and again.

  Gradually, I could make out what he was saying. The room ceased spinning. I knew my parents were there, in and out, probably going to Gabi’s room too. Ducale knights and servants. The dogaressa. In and out, in a dim, agitated processional.

  Through it all, Luca remained. Perched on the edge of my bed, alternately stroking my hand and cheek. Speaking lowly, reassuringly to me.