Viviana painted on a weak smile for it was all she could muster as terrified as she was. “We know that’s not true, but just this day I need your eyes.”
Angelo squeezed her hand. “They are yours, mistress.”
She tapped lightly on the wood with the hand wrapped in cloth.
“Enter.” Lorenzo’s authoritative tone sounded through the doorway and made her heart jump. He had been good to her since Fioretta died, so why was she so afraid to face him?
Viviana hid her injured hand in the pocket of her smock, raised her chin, and entered the dimly lit study. Angelo focused on the two men sitting opposite each other in Lorenzo’s plush chairs beside the empty hearth, both enjoying a bit of drink as if they were old acquaintances. The loose laces of Laird Kraig’s pale undertunic gave him a lewd appearance as did the sleeves he’d rolled to his elbows. Booted ankles crossed, he raised his goblet and had the audacity to wink. He was certainly pleased with himself, and she doubted she would share his enjoyment.
“Come, Viviana.” Lorenzo rose from his chair, holding together the seams of his tabard. “You may go, Angelo.”
The boy held firm to her hand. “I promised—”
“It is fine, Angelo. Thank you for the escort.” As desperately as Viviana wanted Angelo’s eyes, she didn’t dare allow him to argue, lest he be cast out of the palace.
“But, mistress—”
“Angelo, go. You have been dismissed.” Viviana took one last look at the gloating Goliath before she released Angelo’s hand and slipped into darkness. Her chin fell to her chest and a sudden chill washed over her. Damn him.
The soft click of the door made her feel hollow, alone. She hugged herself around her middle.
“Ye are bleeding.” The concerned statement had not come from her guardian, but the man who threatened to alter her life.
Heavy footfalls strode across the floor, and then he touched her. Gooseflesh instantly rose over her forearms as hues of gray surrounded by a purple haze appeared behind her eyes. She watched him uncoil the bandage she’d wrapped around her finger. “It is naught, m’laird. You need not feign concern.” She stuffed the tail of the bandage into her fist and directed her attentions toward Lorenzo.
“My concern is sincere, but if ye would rather bleed to death, than suffer my attentions, so be it.” Laird Kraig started to leave her side, but she placed her hand atop his muscular forearm and stilled him.
He gathered an audible breath and drew up beside her. His hot palm flattened overtop her hand causing unwanted heat to flush her skin. The intimacy of touching him in front of Lorenzo felt indecent, but she wanted his sight.
“I presume I need not introduce you to my guest.” With piercing black eyes, Lorenzo looked down his flattened nose at her and rested his weight against the desk.
“We have met.” Surprisingly, Viviana maintained a vision of Lorenzo instead of herself. It had taken her a fortnight to teach Angelo not to look at her, but everything around him. Laird Kraig seemed to understand the importance of where he focused his attentions. Either that, or he had no interest in her this eve as her smock was tied tightly around her neck.
“Laird Kraig has asked for your hand in marriage.”
Annoyance grabbed hold, forcing her spine to lengthen. The Scot was bold. “I trust you have declined his offer. I cannot ask you to provide me with a third dowry.”
Laird Kraig cleared his throat. “I have informed your guardian that I do not seek financial gain by taking ye to wife.”
Viviana quelled the desire to roll her eyes. Instead she drew in a deep breath. Lorenzo’s precious manuscripts lining the walls of the study laced the room with a stale odor, but didn’t hide the smell of licorice clinging to the man beside her. She ground her teeth, knowing Laird Kraig had spent his afternoon at the bordello.
“Viviana,” Lorenzo began and pushed himself off the desk. “I promised your sister I would act as your guardian and fulfilled that obligation when I provided you with a villa on my estates in Girlando. I found you not one but two husbands.”
“You have been most gracious with your coin, Your Magnificence,” she addressed him by his epithet.
“As your legal guardian, everything you own belongs to me, including the stone you wear around your neck.” Lorenzo ran his fingers over an alabaster bust of his grandfather. “Laird Kraig has offered to take you to wife in exchange for this stone, and I am inclined to accept his offer.”
Viviana’s heart pounded inside her chest. “But the stone’s value must be more than ten times the coin you provided Radolfo and Luciano. You cannot mean to just give it to him.”
“He tells me it is cursed.”
She squeezed his arm, wanting to dig her nails in and draw blood. A quick glimpse of herself through his eyes interrupted the vision she’d had of Lorenzo. Oddly enough, she looked quite calm; smooth face, even brows. One would never guess the hostility building inside her.
The caress of Laird Kraig’s thumb gentled her hold as she waited for him to again look at Lorenzo.
“Surely a man of your intelligence does not believe such a tale. It is foolishness.”
“Is it?” Lorenzo’s dark eyes narrowed on her before he clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing. The man’s every action commanded respect. “Your sister, God rest her soul, was a young, beautiful woman. Fioretta was an ornament on my brother’s arm. Giuliano was infatuated with her, but she held no status to strike a marriage with him.”
Viviana hardly needed reminded she and Fioretta were raised in an orphanage, nor did she appreciate Lorenzo degrading Fioretta’s name. Spedale degli Innocenti didn’t produce princesses or women of status. “It certainly didn’t stop him from forcing a child on her.”
“Still your tongue. Giuliano was positioned for greatness. Educated to be a leader in the reggimento or the church. My grandfather would have seen him as Pope had Fioretta not turned his head. For nearly a decade I have questioned why the Medici empire has been struck with such misfortune.”
“You cannot possibly believe the amulet has anything to do with—”
“Silence!” Lorenzo took two broad steps, placing himself directly in front of her. “I could have died alongside Giuliano. Fioretta died giving birth to my nephew,” Lorenzo seethed, his breath a harsh hiss on her face.
Laird Kraig pulled her back a step.
Viviana didn’t need reminded of the heinous event. She relived the massacre everyday in her mind. “He is my nephew as well, and you would send me away never to see him again?” Viviana argued, knowing Giulio had little to do with her. Her nephew, like many others, chose to regard her as nonexistent. As if being blind made her invisible.
“You spend more time with that garzoni, Angelo, than with Giulio. Do not pretend to hold affections for your nephew now.”
Viviana tucked her chin to her chest. She was at Lorenzo’s mercy. If he chose to give her over to another abusive lecher then she would have no choice but to accept his decision.
“I will always provide for Giulio. I have raised him alongside my own children and will continue to do so out of respect for my brother. I am a generous man and am willing to give you a choice. Laird Kraig is willing to take you to wife and rid the Medici Palace of this evil stone.”
Tuscan natives were a superstitious lot. Viviana started to point out that Lorenzo’s beliefs clouded his judgment, but the man left no pause for her rebuttal.
“You may choose to accept Laird Kraig’s offer or not, but regardless of your decision, the amulet is going back to Scotland.”
Laird Kraig’s body slumped beside her, while Viviana clutched her chest. “I, too, have been part of the Medici family. Do you care so little for me that you would send me half way across the world with a man you have only just met?”
Laird Kraig leaned into her ear. “I’m not a savage. I can offer ye more than just marriage.”
She tilted her head to the side. “What can you offer me that is grander than what I have here at the Medici Palace?”
>
“I will be your eyes for the rest of your life if you would let me.” He caressed her arm.
Salty tears stung her eyes. Why did he console her? He’d already won the amulet. Why would he burden himself with a useless widow?
“He is a leader in his country, Viviana. A man of rank,” Lorenzo continued. “You entered my home a pleb, a member of the lower guild. I have raised you up from that status, but fear it is becoming more difficult to find you a suitable husband.”
“Because all of Firenze believes me barren or because I’m blind.” She removed her hand from Laird Kraig’s arm and accepted her flaws.
“Ye are barren?” Laird Kraig questioned.
While she had no desire to discuss the state of her womb in front of either of these men, Viviana saw the topic as a means to aid her cause. As the leader of his clan, he would want sons—sons she would be unable to provide him. “I have been married twice, yet have no babes. You tell me.”
“How in the name of Zeus could I possibly know whether or not ye are barren?”
“Would it make your choice simpler if I was?”
“I’m a mon of my word. My proposal of marriage stands.” Laird Kraig answered without hesitation.
“Fioretta would have wanted to see you happy,” Lorenzo added. “It is what I want as well. Consider Laird Kraig’s offer. I can make the arrangements to have you wed at the Duomo on the Sabbath.”
“And what is to stop Laird Kraig from killing me the moment we leave Italy? He only wants the amulet. He has no use for me.” Viviana grasped any reason to free her from this entrapment.
“I can assure you, I will do no such thing,” Laird Kraig scoffed. “I have a soul.”
As did Luciano. And she hoped his soul was burning next to Satan’s in Hell. A tear fell over her cheek, and she didn’t even bother to wipe it away. Memories of Radolfo and Luciano tainted her opinion of marriage. To her, it was a punishment greater than the darkness she lived in.
She lifted the heavy chain from her neck along with the amulet and held it out to Laird Kraig. “Take it.”
“Nay. Wear it to our wedding.” Laird Kraig argued and pushed her hand back.
“There will not be a wedding.” She shook the chain to hide her trembling. “Take it and leave Firenze.”
The chain left her grasp and part of her went with it, creating a void inside her. “I have made my decision. May I be dismissed, Your Magnificence?”
“Sì.” Lorenzo’s tone lost its edge.
As quickly as she could, she mapped out the steps to the entranceway.
“Viviana, wait,” Laird Kraig called out behind her, but she fled the study, slamming the door behind her. With one hand trailing the stone wall, she found her way to the artist’s chamber and grabbed hold of the most destructive tool she could find.
Miocchi barked in the corner as she raised the heavy mallet over her head and pummeled the sculpture of Goliath. A loud thud told her she managed to separate a rather large chunk of marble.
She fell to her knees, cupped her worthless eyes, and sobbed. ‘Twas the cruelest of tricks God had played on her. To have been blessed to see through Angelo and cursed to see through Laird Taveon Kraig.
* * *
Taveon pulled on his doublet and leaned against the stone wall in the corridor. He twirled the purple tear-drop stone between his fingers, entranced by the torchlight reflecting off its many surfaces. His mind strayed for a brief moment, but in that fleeting second an image passed swiftly behind his eyes. A man fornicated with a blonde woman on a rock—the same rock that sat in the center of the burial ground at Ravenhurst.
Taveon shook the image out of his head. ‘Twas no doubt his imagination painting a picture of the tales passed down through the decades.
The stone flickered. Flashes of purple winked at him, reminding him of Viviana’s eyes—eyes he stole from her.
“Ouish. Why was she so stubborn?”
Music sounded in the courtyard to his left, but it was the blackened corridor to his right that drew his attention.
He should leave. He should return to the bawdy house, collect Remi and Monroe and return to Ravenhurst. He pooled the amulet into the pocket of his doublet and stared into the darkness to his right.
She would have made him a good wife. The curse only took the women who carried Kraig blood. As a barren woman, Viviana would be protected. He would never have to lose her and suffer the way Da did.
A longing he’d never felt before swirled in his gut.
But she rejected him.
Lorenzo gave her a choice, and she declined his proposal. Taveon ground his teeth together. Her refusal angered him far more than it should have. If she truly believed a marriage to him would be worse than a lifetime of darkness, then so be it. He shook his head. He didn’t come to Italy to find a wife. He came for the amulet.
Why then was he compelled to take the steps to her chamber?
He turned to the left toward the courtyard.
His heart hit him in the chest as if to disagree with his decision. A chill came over his skin, which was odd considering his garments were soaked beneath his doublet.
“Damn-it-to-Hell!” Taveon spun on his heel and strode toward her bedchamber through a dark and empty corridor. Mayhap he should talk to Lorenzo about his lack of security within the palace walls. Any deviant could slip into the palace and snatch Viviana straightaway from her bed. He frowned and wished the thought of Viviana in a bed was not so appealing to him.
He stopped outside the archway of the chamber where he’d first met her. A cloud of dust puffed into a gray haze of twilight over the sculpture she’d been working on—a sculpture that no longer had a head. His Venus was curled into a ball at the base of the stone with Miocchi at her side.
Shite! She was crying. “Viviana.”
She snapped upright, grabbed a mallet, and threw it at him. He didn’t have to move to avoid being hit. Unfortunately, the heavy tool shattered a pitcher and bowl sitting atop a sideboard.
Miocchi spurred to his feet, whimpered, and trotted toward Taveon.
“Leave me. You have what you came for.” She stood, snatched up a chisel from a workbench, and pitched it in his direction as well. The tip stuck into the plaster wall a meter away.
Taveon squatted and held his hand out to Miocchi. “She is angry, aye?”
The beastie whined and licked Taveon’s hand in reply. He propped himself against the door frame, crossed his arms and ankles, and watched her throw every sculpting tool at her fingertips. When those were depleted, she hurled a cuttie stool across the room.
“Are ye quite done?” he asked, watching the rise and fall of her chest.
She fisted her hands and growled between clenched teeth. “Did I hit you even once?”
“Nay.”
She sighed.
Taveon shook his head. He didn’t know why he was so damn attracted to her, but just looking at her made his blood rush beneath his skin. There were women at the bawdy house—lots of women. Madame Bianca constantly shoved girls in his lap.
But he didn’t want them, he wanted Venus.
What he was about to do was half-witted at best, especially considering her mood was about as stable as a single mast ship in a hurricane. He crossed the chamber and wove his fingers through her hair. He tilted her head just so, and brought his lips against hers, drawing the bottom one between his teeth, then the top.
She rose up on her toes, curled her hands around his wrists, and returned his kiss with a fury. Their teeth scraped together and their tongues waged war inside her mouth.
He moaned.
She whimpered at the same time.
Miocchi whined and fled the chamber in a series of clicks.
“Sweet Venus,” he whispered into her mouth and pulled away, but wasn’t inclined to release her. She was everything he was not; soft, feminine, strong of will. He held her against his chest and trembled like a lad pressed against his mum’s bosom. “I do not want to take the stone from ye,
but I have no choice.”
When she pushed out of his arms, he saw the blood smudged over his wrist. She wrapped her hand in her smock and turned away. “I’m certain the amulet is worth a great deal of coin. I hope you use it wisely.”
Taveon raked his fingers through his hair and retrieved a scrap of cloth from a bin in the corner. “Is there another source for water near?”
She pointed, but he had no idea where. “There is a small cistern in the corner.” Her voice cracked.
After filling a bowl of water, he lifted her wrist with caution and inspected the gash at the tip of her index finger in what little light dusk offered him. “The stone’s financial worth is of no import to me. I need it to save my kin.”
Her somber frown pulled at his heart. She turned her head, no doubt hiding the tears gathering in her violet eyes. “Why this stone? How did you even know to come to Italy? To come to me?”
“A woman directed me here. Her name is Noreen. She lives on patch of ground between my land and the MacKaskill’s.” Taveon inhaled. Viviana might think him wowf, but he intended to tell her the truth. “Noreen is a soothsayer of sorts.”
“A witch?” Viviana’s tone didn’t hold the slightest hint of mockery.
“She does not like to be called such with all the women being executed for heresy. She puts leaves in sugar water and stares at them until she is granted a vision. Noreen has revealed more about the curse through her ‘visions’ than any of the stories passed down through the generations. She sent me here, to Italy and to you, to obtain the amulet. She knew your name and what ye looked like. While I questioned her skill at the time, my desperation to find the stone outweighed my skepticism.”
“Why now?”
“My sister-in-law will deliver my brother’s first child in the fall. She will die during childbearing. The same as my mum did, and the same as my gramum did.” He dipped her hand into the bowl of water.
“Why?”
“Because of the curse. The woman I told you about. The one who cursed the chieftain.”
“Elise?”
“Aye.” Taveon’s lips lifted ever so slightly, impressed Viviana remembered the woman’s name. “When Elise found her husband entwined with another woman, she used the amulet’s power to curse him and all those who shared his blood. In doing so, she unknowingly cursed herself as she was carrying the chieftain’s bairn at the time.”
My Cursed Highlander Page 4