Perfect?
A wholesome widower and a deceitful whore?
Twenty-five
Smoke was starting to wisp out around the carved larchwood jut of the fireplace hood. Luca looked across at Luigi and drew in a long breath. The old man’s forehead was deeply furrowed as he bent over a copper pot that was hanging above glowing embers. Luca saw that the hand holding the long iron spoon was shaking, and little splashes of gravy were falling and staining the brick floor.
Luca closed his eyes for a moment, opened them again and said, “Luigi, you must be tired. Why don’t you rest now? I am quite happy to finish off the meal. You’ve worked so hard over the preparation—it’s just a matter of waiting an hour or so now…I’m really very grateful for all your help.”
For a moment, Luigi appeared not to have heard, but then he turned and gave one curt nod. “If you are happy, then, Signore, I will go. I am a little tired, you are quite right.” He frowned at the long spoon in his hand as though not quite sure why he was holding it, then put it back into the pot. Nodding at Luca once again, he shuffled across the kitchen in ill-fitting shoes and, fumbling for the handle, left by the side door. Luca turned his face up to the ceiling and pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes, his fingers in his hair. “Oh God!” he groaned. “Heaven knows what this hideous potful will taste like—she will probably never speak to me again!” He picked up the spoon, raised it to his mouth, and blew gently across the steaming contents. Tasted it. Pushed his bottom lip out in surprise and relaxed a little. He added salt, however, and pushed a large, rather twiggy bunch of rosemary down into the bubbling sauce; he then put a lid on the pot.
Luca spent the next few moments moving between kitchen and sala, laying the table for his meal with Francesca. He opened the credenza and took out one of three white linen cloths, which he flapped out and smoothed over the table. On this he placed a basket of cut bread and a big, white, tin-glazed fruit bowl. This was filled with peaches, grapes, apricots, and a handful of cherries—a couple of which Luca now picked out and ate, spitting the stones into his palm and then throwing them into the fireplace. He laid two places: knife, small two-pronged fork, and glass for each person. Then three candles in brass holders in a line along the center of the table. Standing back, he examined the effect, leaned back in toward the table and straightened a fork.
Two places.
No sign of either of the boys. Luca hoped Francesca would not think poorly of him for not letting her know in advance that they would be dining alone.
It was cool enough this evening for a fire. Luca ran down to the back door and collected an awkward armful of logs; after carrying them back up to the sala, he busied himself for a moment laying and lighting a fire. The evening being still and quite windless, it took time and the careful application of the bellows to get it to catch, and there was a soft haze of smoke hanging up near the ceiling by the time Luca was able to leave the fireplace and return to his bubbling pot of peposo.
Luca tasted his stew again. He sliced and laid out a plateful of tomatoes. He shredded and dressed a salad. Cursing quietly when he caught the end of his finger with the knife, he sliced the ends of a dozen stems of asparagus and laid them out ready to be placed in hot water at the last moment. He poured himself a glass of red wine, sat down at the kitchen table, and sucked in a long mouthful. His heartbeat was quick in his throat as the Angelus struck outside.
Some moments later, he heard a soft knock at his front door.
She was accompanied by her manservant. As he opened the door, Luca saw her turn to her companion and smile, saying, “Thank you so much for walking me, caro.”
“Do you want me to come back and fetch you?” the man said in his heavy Roman accent. Luca coughed and interrupted before she could answer. “Thank you, Signore—please don’t trouble yourself. I will be delighted to walk the Signora home.”
The dark eyes rested on his face for a moment, with an expression he could not read, and then Francesca said, “There you are, I told you he would.” She smiled at her companion, who nodded, turned, and began to walk back up the street.
Luca watched him until he turned the corner and was lost from view, then he took Francesca’s hand and kissed her fingers. “How lovely to see you,” he said over her knuckles.
She smiled and said, “I’ve been so looking forward to tonight.”
Luca stood back to let her in. “Come upstairs,” he said. He took her coat from her and laid it over a chair, then held her hand and moved to the staircase. “The fire is lit, the room is warm, and the food is almost ready. I’ll find you a chair, and then I must check that our stew isn’t burning.”
“Have you cooked it yourself?”
Luca smiled. “My cook is getting rather elderly,” he said, a little conspiratorially, “and his…grasp of seasonings is becoming…somewhat unsubtle, shall we say. I’ve suggested he might like to go to bed and leave me to finish the preparations.”
Francesca laughed. “I am very impressed that you feel able to tackle such an undertaking, Signore.”
“I’d save your admiration until after you’ve tasted it.”
They went together into the sala. “Oh, what a lovely room!” Francesca said. “Such beautiful tapestries. Where did you find them?”
Luca paused before saying, “My late wife made them.”
“Oh.” Francesca hesitated. “How grateful you must be to have them.”
For a second, Lisabeta’s presence—and her absence—hung in the air between them, unwelcome to Luca for the first time since her death. He silently apologized to his memory of his wife and changed the subject. “You are walking more freely—is your ankle mended?”
“Oh, yes, almost completely. Thank you.”
He held Francesca’s gaze and found himself suddenly aware of how difficult swallowing had become. She smiled at him, and for a moment Luca was unable to speak and found that he had to think quite carefully about the mechanics of breathing.
She was wearing the same blue dress he had seen her wear at San Domenico. Perhaps it was the only one she had for special occasions—again, he reminded himself, he had no notion of the circumstances in which her late husband had left her. It was certainly a pretty dress, but it struck him now that a woman this beautiful should not be wearing something so…so understated. She should wear silks and silver, he thought, fabrics that glittered, and—
“The table’s only been set for two. Where are your boys?” Francesca’s voice broke into his musings. “Are they not coming? I was looking forward to meeting them.”
Luca started. He said, “I’m so sorry—I should probably have sent word…there has been no sign of them so far. I’ve rather given up on them for this evening. I do hope you don’t mind that it will just be the two of us. You may think it improper…I’m so sorry…”
Francesca smiled. “Not at all.”
Luca breathed in, and the smells from the kitchen reminded him of his duties as cook. He said, “I should really check the food. Can you excuse me for a moment?”
“Of course—I shall be very happy taking stock of all the lovely things you have in your beautiful sala.”
Luca smiled at her and hurried to the kitchen. He put splayed hands on the kitchen table and leaned his weight on his arms. Closing his eyes for a moment, he breathed slowly through his nose.
“You are behaving like a bloody child!” he muttered to himself. “She’ll think you’re a complete idiot.”
He placed the asparagus into a small pot of boiling water, then tasted the peposo again, added a pinch more salt, and threw in a handful of chopped parsley. He ladled it carefully into a large maiolica pot, onto which he placed a lid. Steam rose pleasingly through a small hole in the lid. Luca put the pot onto a wooden tray, along with the plate of sliced tomatoes, the salad, and another plate. Draining the now-cooked asparagus, he placed
this onto the empty plate.
He backed out of the kitchen with the tray in his hands and crossed into the sala. Putting the tray down on the top of the credenza, he saw that Francesca was standing by the fireplace. The shadows on her face were slate blue against the warm peach of her flame-lit skin and her eyes were enormous. An orange dot glowed in the center of each of the pearls hanging from her ears. An insistent hunger for her quite smothered Luca’s appetite for his meal, but he smiled at her nevertheless and said, “I think the food is as ready as I can manage. Would you care to come and eat?”
“I should love to. I put a couple of logs on the fire, I hope you don’t mind.”
“Very sensible. Come—sit down.”
He pulled a chair out for her and then ladled some of the peposo onto her plate.
“It smells wonderful.”
Luca sat down with his own plateful, reached across and passed Francesca the basket of bread.
“Mmm. What’s in this?” she said, tasting the stew. “It’s lovely.”
“Nothing exciting—beef, pepper, garlic, possibly too much red wine, and a great deal of rosemary.”
“Exciting or not, it’s delicious.”
Luca watched her take her next mouthful, saw the tip of her tongue picking up a stray drop of gravy from her lip, thought to himself how very, very much he would like to leave the table right now, pick Francesca up in his arms, carry her out of the sala, and up to his bed.
“Tell me about the university, Luca,” she said, wiping the corner of her mouth with the tip of her little finger and then sucking it, a torn piece of bread in her other hand.
Luca pulled his gaze from her mouth and said, “I’m not sure where to start.”
“Well, tell me about your teaching.”
“Oh, dear, there really isn’t much to tell. I have weekly meetings with various groups of usually disenchanted young men, who have vague hopes of becoming advocates. I describe to them the nitpicking details of aspects of the law that have not yet occurred to them; they more or less retain what I tell them, and then they regurgitate it at a later date to prove their academic prowess.”
Francesca laughed. “I am sure you do yourself a disservice. It must be such a horribly difficult subject to teach…”
“Not at all. Things are only difficult if they are unfamiliar.”
“I suppose so.” She paused, frowning and then shook her head. “But…no. I’m not sure I agree with that. Surely some things are, by their very nature, just more difficult to understand than others.”
Luca considered. “I’d say that familiarity unravels most tangles, but I suppose I’ll accept that it might in fact take longer to become familiar with some subjects than others.”
“I don’t think it’s as easy as that. There are many things in life that I can’t imagine I could ever learn to do, however familiar I was forced to become with them.”
She ate another mouthful, her gaze still on his.
Luca puffed a soft laugh in his nose. “I doubt that that’s true.”
Francesca smiled at him and his insides turned over again. Struggling to keep this from showing on his face, he said, “How are your little girls?”
The smile widened. “Oh, let’s see…they are charming, entertaining, exhausting, constantly hungry, and seemingly endlessly energetic.” She counted the girls’ attributes off on her fingers.
Luca raised an eyebrow. “That’s not quite what I meant,” he said, “but I suppose what you say is unsurprising—how old did you say they are?”
There was a momentary pause as Francesca swallowed another mouthful of wine. “Nearly nine,” she said.
“As you say, an age of endless curiosity and boundless energy—I remember it well with my own two.”
“How old are your boys now?”
“Twenty, and almost eighteen.”
“Very grown-up. Do tell me about them—is there anything I should know before I meet them?”
“Well…” Luca began.
Francesca lifted her glass and drank the last mouthful it contained.
Seeing this, Luca paused and said, “Would you like a little more?”
Francesca nodded, smiling her assent. Luca reached across the table for the bottle, but in doing so, caught the edge of the bread basket with the underside of his sleeve. Snagging on the fabric, the basket flipped up to the vertical and a dozen pieces of bread cascaded across the table, past Francesca’s plate, and onto the floor. Francesca gave a little gasp.
Silently cursing himself for his clumsiness, Luca jumped to his feet and hurried around the table; Francesca slid off her chair and knelt, her blue skirts crumpling around her legs as she began to collect up the scattered morsels.
“Here—let me do it!” Luca said, crouching down beside her. He looked sideways at Francesca; his eyes were on her face as he reached for the bread, and his fingers touched not the crust he expected but the back of Francesca’s hand.
They both froze.
She turned toward him, twisting her hand up inside his own until they were pressed palm to palm. Holding Luca’s gaze, she ran her fingertips down the length of his hand and traced a circle, moving across his palm until he felt his thumb being softly wrapped inside her fist. She squeezed and pulled his thumb gently upward and Luca held his breath. He leaned toward her, his eyes on her mouth.
Then Francesca tilted her face up.
And Luca kissed her.
She laid her hand on his cheek and, while Luca kissed her mouth with a slow and careful deliberation, he felt her fingers stroking in and around the folds of his ear. He moved his lips down onto her neck, and Francesca’s head tipped back; she rested her forearms on his shoulders and Luca slid one hand up into her hair at the nape of her neck and put the other around her waist, pulling her in toward him. He lipped the soft skin beneath her chin and breathed in the warm scent of her hair.
A movement by the door startled him.
His mouth still on Francesca’s throat, Luca looked past her, across the room.
Gianni stood in the doorway, eyes wide with shock.
The two of them stared at each other for several long seconds, then Gianni turned without a word and shut the door behind him.
“Damn!” Luca said softly.
Francesca opened her eyes. “What is it?” she said.
“My son. I didn’t hear him come in. He was watching us. I don’t know how long he had been there.” He ran a hand over Francesca’s hair, and kissed her mouth again. “I should go and talk to him.”
Francesca stared up at him. “Do you want me to go home?” she said.
“Dear God no!” Luca said, cupping both hands around her face. “If the truth be told, I don’t ever want you to go home, but you must certainly not go now!” He pulled her in toward him and wrapped his arms around her. “It was a shock for him, I suppose. I haven’t so much as looked at a woman since his mother died, let alone kissed one, but he’s not a child any more…he will just have to accustom himself to changes.”
“I’m sorry if—” Francesca began, but Luca interrupted her.
He held her upper arms. “Sorry? Sorry for what? Listen, I have been wanting to kiss you since I first set eyes on you at San Domenico. I have been trailing around my house like a lovesick schoolboy for days, wanting you so much that I’ve been good for nothing. Don’t apologize, Francesca! I’m the one who should be apologizing.”
“You? Why?”
“For rushing you—I’m sorry—you might not—”
“You haven’t rushed me.” She hesitated. “You…you are not the only one who has been good for nothing for days.”
There was a long pause.
Then Luca said, “Can you bear to stay here for a moment while I go and find Gianni? I need him to come and meet you properly.”
“Don’t worry—he’ll love you, cara. It was just the shock.”
Francesca did not seem reassured. She said nothing.
“I won’t be a moment.” Luca hesitated. He badly wanted to keep kissing Francesca, but saw in his mind Gianni’s shocked stare and knew he should go to his son. “Please—don’t worry. He will understand. I just need to speak to him.”
Francesca nodded.
***
Gianni was folding a doublet. A large, painted chest stood propped open under the window, and his coat and saddlebags lay across the end of the bed; the contents of the bags were strewn untidily across the covers. Gianni’s face was pale, his eyes huge and black in the fitful light from a single candle.
“Gianni—” Luca began.
Gianni ignored him. Turning away from his father, he placed the doublet into the chest, then reached across the bed, picked up a crumpled linen shirt, and began to fold that.
“Signora Marrone is my friend Filippo’s cousin. We met at that play at San Domenico.”
Gianni turned back and stared at him. The shirt hung from his hands. He said nothing, but Luca felt the anger and accusation as clearly as though his son had hit him. A picture of Carlo’s bleeding nose flickered across his mind.
“She is waiting in the sala, Gian. I should like you to meet her.”
“Signor di Laviano’s cousin?” Gianni said. His voice shook.
“Yes. She was widowed a while back. Has two daughters.”
“Oh, has she? And just what else do you know about her?” Gianni dropped the shirt and glared at his father, and Luca felt a sudden wave of irritation at his son’s aggressive tone.
“What else do you want me to know? What is this? What the hell is the matter with you, Gianni? Why are you interrogating me like this? I’m sorry you saw what you saw just now, but for God’s sake, Gian, you’re not a child! I’ve finally met someone I like very, very much. It’s a long time since your mother died, and—”
“It’s not that!” Gianni said scornfully.
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