There was to be no tender death-bed reconciliation. The count was too stubborn and too accustomed to having his own way for that. There could never be love between them, nor even affection, but a mutual parting was finally, reluctantly, agreed. The papers which would free Giovanni from his heritage would be drawn up the next day. The count refused to discuss who would inherit now that Giovanni had confirmed he would not. With an echo of his old self, he cackled derisively when his son suggested the establishment of a suitably worthy charity might be an appropriate solution. ‘Bribe my way into the Almighty’s good books, you mean? It is a little late for that I think.’ Giovanni resigned himself to ignorance. His father was stubborn but not a fool. He had had fourteen years to form an alternative plan for the continuation of his name.
‘So, you will return to England?’ the count asked as he rose to take his departure.
‘I have no fixed plans.’
‘I heard that you were much in demand. Do you not have a list of anxious clients awaiting you?’
Giovanni shook his head. ‘I have no fixed plans,’ he repeated. He was mid-bow when Count Fancini made the astonishing request. ‘You want me to take your likeness?’ he repeated in disbelief.
‘A parting gift,’ the old man said with a toothless smile, ‘I do not want to be remembered like this. Do you think you can make of this withered visage a thing of beauty?’
Giovanni laughed. ‘Still, you doubt me. I shall prove you wrong.’
‘Do not expect to be paid. It is a father’s last request of his errant son.’
‘Then I shall honour it. And in doing so perhaps I might finally please you.’
But Giovanni never did get the opportunity to find out if he had, for the count died before the portrait was completed, and in any case, it was a painting done to please himself. This canvas had all the truth of the one he had left for Cressie. An old man, once powerful now fallen, admired but bereft.
One gift the count granted him. Not his final words, but his last words to Giovanni. ‘It was a lie that those fisher-folk washed their hands of you,’ he told his son. ‘They wrote many times begging to visit, to see you just once more. I forced them to write, saying that they wanted you to cease communication.’
‘Bastardo!’
Count Fancini laughed. ‘Look at you. When I see you like that, I know you are indeed my son. Unclench those fists, boy, you can do nothing to hurt me now. I am already dead.’
‘But my letters? I wrote to them …’
‘Every week. And every week, I had them burned.’
‘Knowing you, I should have guessed.’
Count Fancini’s smile was as vicious as Giovanni remembered it. ‘You were always too trusting.’ His smile faded, his mouth settling into its usual sneer. ‘You never took my name,’ he said. ‘Di Matteo. The name of those commoners. That is how you are known, not Fancini.’
‘I did not think you would wish such a venerable name as yours associated with such a menial trade as mine.’
‘I did not think you would make such a success of it.’
Did the count really think him a success? Giovanni had framed the question when he saw the look in his father’s eye. His silence denied the count a last opportunity to deride his profession. Whatever were the old man’s true thoughts on the subject, he took them to the grave. When next Giovanni returned to the palazzo, his father was unconscious.
He took the unfinished canvas back to his lodgings and completed it there. He attended the funeral, keeping a discreet distance from the other mourners as the count’s body was interred in the magnificent family crypt. Taking his customary evening stroll along the banks of the Arno at the end of that momentous day, idly speculating about the path his future might follow, Giovanni realised with a start that for the first time in his life he was truly free. Free of his past. Not exactly washed free of his sins, but cleansed all the same. He had done what he had done. He had been wrong. He had paid a heavy price. Now he was free to choose his future. And he could not contemplate any future which did not involve Cressie.
Cressie, who deserved better than he, but whom, he also realised with a blinding flash as bright as the sun’s rays on the stained glass of Brunelleschi’s Duomo, he had not actually allowed to choose for herself. He had decided for her by leaving. He had nobly decided he would not inflict himself on her, but what if he was wrong? He had not asked her. Dio, what if he was mistaken?
He ran through the narrow streets of Firenze towards his lodgings. He must pack. He must return to England. Pronto. He ran as if his very life depended on it. Which in fact it did.
The late afternoon sun cast its golden rays through the dormer windows of the attic, a dimple in one of the glass panes sending shards of light shimmering on to Cressie’s dress. In the weeks since Giovanni had left Killellan, summer had arrived, Bella had continued to grow thinner, Cordelia had remained incommunicado save for a brief note to reassure her sister that she was quite well, and Cressie had tried very hard not to pine. Giovanni was gone. At times she was angry at him, but most often she simply felt regret. He loved her. She had only to look at the Cressie portrait to see that but loving her and wanting to be with her were two different things. He had been gone months, without a word. Being in love did not necessarily mean being together. It was a tragedy, but she had to accept it for reality. She had her proof in his silence. She was, after all, a mathematician.
Looking up at the wall above her writing desk where the drafts for her soon-to-be-published geometry primer lay waiting to undergo final corrections, for her practical experience had paid its dividends in persuading Mr Freyworth to publish, Cressie studied the framed triptych. She had been tempted to have them hung in the portrait gallery, but not even the anticipated horror on her father’s face, if he ever returned from Russia, could persuade her to make them public. If Giovanni had wished them to be seen by anyone other than her, he would have taken them with him, or told her so. This, rather than embarrassment, was why she had decided after much thought not to submit them to the Royal Academy on his behalf. The portraits told their story, hers and Giovanni’s. So she had hung them here in the studio where they had been painted, where their story had been played out, and claimed the attic for her study. She had thrown herself into her work, for there was nothing else for it.
The boys’ new governess had taken up her position last week. Cressie had insisted that Freddie, George, James and Harry have a say in the selection process, and her brothers had taken to Miss Langton, who had five brothers of her own, immediately. She was teaching them from Cressie’s newest primer. The publishing firm, which would print the first, was already clamouring for the second. It seemed that Cressie had hit upon quite a gap in the market for school books. Lord Armstrong knew of none of these developments. He would return expecting a new son, to find instead a new governess, two departed daughters and most likely a newly independent wife. Almost, she wished she could be here to see it. Almost.
Cressie pushed her chair back and roamed restlessly over to the window. The arrangements for her visit to Celia were also in train. Her eldest sister made no promises, but she was encouraging. And touchingly, lovingly eager to be reunited with Cressie.
The crunch of gravel through the open window alerted her to the arrival of a carriage. Most likely Lady Innellan, who had become quite a bosom-bow of Bella’s. Looking out, she saw not the Innellan barouche, but a travelling coach. The door of the coach was thrown open and a familiar long, trousered leg appeared. The occupant leapt to the ground without waiting for the step to be lowered. Cressie felt faint. The blood thrummed in her head. It couldn’t be, it simply couldn’t, could it?
He was tanned. His hair had grown. Abandoning what little decorum she possessed, Cressie leaned precariously out of the dormer window and cried out to him.
‘Giovanni!’
He looked around in confusion.
‘Gi-o-vann-i!’
He looked up. He smiled, that particular smile he saved for her.
And then he ran across the carriageway, up the steps and into the house.
She met him at the door to the attic and threw herself at him. He didn’t hesitate, he didn’t recoil or make the least show of resistance. He swept her up into his arms, carrying her over the threshold of the attic as if she were a bride. He had not shaved. His chin was blue-black with stubble. He looked tired, but also different somehow. She couldn’t put a name to it. She stopped trying when he set her down and pulled her tight against him, and kissed her.
‘Cressie.’ He kissed her again. ‘Cressie, Cressie, Cressie.’
He kissed her again. His stubble grazed her skin. His lips were soft on hers, his mouth warm. She stood on her tiptoes to twine her arms around his neck. He smelt of dust and travel. Of the lemon soap he always used. Of sweat a little and of Giovanni a lot. She closed her eyes and breathed him in, saying his name.
He was kissing her forehead now, her eyelids, her brows, her cheeks. He was kissing her ear, pushing her rebellious hair back to nibble on her lobe. She wanted to climb inside him, wrap him around her, make of them one skin which could never be separated again. ‘I missed you,’ she said, almost laughing at the inadequacy of the words. ‘You never sent word, and I missed you terribly.’
‘Cressie, I have so much to tell you, so much I need to say.’
‘You came back, that’s all that matters.’
Giovanni lifted his head to look deep into her eyes. ‘But there is one thing of paramount importance I need to say.’
‘You have already said it. You said it there, though I would very much like to hear the words.’ She pointed at the triptych. Giovanni gazed at the framed paintings as if he had not seen them before, then he smiled again, a slow, sensual smile that wound its way around her heart.
‘I did not realise it was so obvious.’
‘I am very glad it was,’ Cressie said. ‘It is all I had to cling on to.’
‘I love you, Cressie.’ Giovanni pulled her back into his arms. He touched her forehead. Her cheek. Her throat. She almost cried with the bliss of it. ‘I love you more even than that painting can say. I don’t deserve you, but …’
‘Don’t say that, Giovanni.’
‘What I was going to say, if you would let me finish, tesoro.’
‘Tesoro? What is that?’
‘Darling. My darling Cressie, I know that I don’t deserve you, but I am asking anyway. I went to Italy to—to confront my past. I saw my father. No, later I will tell you all. I saw him, I made my peace with him and with myself.’ He took her hands and placed them over his heart. ‘This is yours if you will take it, Cressie. Ti amo.’
She could feel his heart beating beneath her hand. She could see now what was different about him. He no longer carried the long shadow of unhappiness with him. ‘I don’t care about the past, Giovanni. We have both done things we have regretted. We’ve both wasted a lot of time trying to be what others wanted from us. I would not wish it undone, for I would not change you, and really, I don’t care. All I’m interested in is the future.’ Cressie took his hand and placed it over her own heart. Feverishly beating, it fluttered in her breast as if trying to escape. ‘Ti amo, tesoro. I love you so much, Giovanni.’
This time his kiss was crushing, his lips hungry, famished, feasting on hers. Their tongues touched, igniting the fierce flame of passion which had smouldered between them too long unsated. His hands framed her face, his fingers tangling in the wild curls of her hair, tugging it free from its ribbon, spreading it out over her back.
He gathered her close, sinking his face into her hair and breathing deeply. ‘Lavender. And Cressie. How I have missed that.’ He kissed her mouth again, tenderly this time, then with increasing passion. His hands were feverish, on her back, on her waist, on her bottom, on her breasts. He was trembling. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said, with a lopsided smile. ‘I feel as if—it is stupid. I feel as if this is the first time. I don’t know what to do.’
His words, the way he looked at her, heated, loving, and yet almost bashful, she thought she might actually faint with the depth of her love for him. She felt like laughing hysterically, like crying, like declaiming her love from the attic window. ‘Make love to me, Giovanni,’ she said, ‘that’s all I want. That’s all you have to do.’
With a confidence she was far from feeling, Cressie locked the door of the attic and led Giovanni over to the Egyptian chair and pushed him down on to it. She glanced over at the image of herself hanging on the wall. Cressie. Fingers shaking, she wrestled with the hooks of her gown. It was not the most elegant of undressing, but she had no doubt of how it was being received. Giovanni was riveted as she shrugged herself out of her dress. Standing in her undergarments, she played his words from the whispering gallery over in her mind.
‘Corsets,’ she said, placing herself before him. His breath was warm on her nape as his fingers struggled with the ties. When she turned around, his pupils were almost black. Colour slashed his cheeks. His breathing was ragged. She slipped out of her petticoats. Turning sideways, she propped one leg on a footstool, and leaned over, feeling her pantalettes stretch tight over her bottom, rewarded by Giovanni’s sharp intake of breath. The line of beauty. She slipped off her shoe and rolled down her stocking. She had never seen a face so stark with passion. It made her feverish, damp with anticipation. The knot in her belly was aching. She turned to repeat the process. Bend. Shoe. Stocking.
She had only her chemise and pantalettes now. Quickly, she dispensed with them. A glance at the portrait—not that she needed to be reminded. He caught her looking, and a smile dawned. Cressie lay down on the chaise-longue. She stretched her arms over her head. She arched her back. Her nipples were hard. She turned her head to smile. Cressie’s smile. It came to her so easily, looking as she was at the man she loved. Seductive. Provocative. Confident.
Giovanni was on his feet now, casting clothing wildly across the room, yanking so hard at his shirt that the buttons flew. Cressie held out her hand to him. Naked, his chest heaving, his eyes wild, his erection jutting up thick and heavy, he looked at her as if she were …
‘Beautiful,’ Giovanni said, kneeling before her. ‘Tesoro, sei bellissima. I do not think I have ever seen anyone so beautiful as you. Cressie. My very own Cressie.’
She thought she had never seen anyone so beautiful as he as he leaned over her to kiss her. She thought she had never been so happy as she was now, as his lips touched hers, as she opened her mouth to him. She was so hot and so tense and every bit of her tingled and throbbed, she thought she would climax, just from him kissing her. Then he kissed his way down to her breast and took her nipple in his mouth, sucking slowly, a gentle tugging pull that made her cry out, and Cressie stopped thinking altogether.
An aeon he spent kissing her breasts, stroking them, cupping them, crushing his face between them. She was writhing, struggling to hold herself in, when he kissed his way down her stomach. ‘Softest,’ he murmured, reverently parting her legs, pulling her over on the chaise-longue, tucking his hands under her bottom to lever her towards him. ‘Softest,’ he said again, his voice husky with passion as he kissed her thighs, licked the yielding flesh.
Heat built inside her. She thought she had experienced passion with him before, but this was quite different. His touch inflamed her, made her want to scream her frustration, to surrender to the fire which he was kissing into an inferno, and yet she didn’t want to surrender to it just yet. When his tongue touched the damp folds of her sex, she whimpered. Though he was gentle, a mere whisper of a feather-light touch, she could hardly bear it. She arched her back, dug her heels into the chaise, her hands into his shoulders. ‘Giovanni.’ His tongue was rougher now. ‘Yes. Please. Oh, Giovanni.’ And yet more. She came like a tempest, great rolling waves gripping her, squeezing her, shaking her, turning her inside out.
She could hear herself crying out, but it was such a strange sound and she was so far away, riding the crest of her orgasm, that she couldn’t associate it with
herself. As she shuddered, he licked her again, until she thought she could bear no more. Sliding on to the floor beside him, twining her legs around him, her arms around him, she pulled him on top of her, panting, pleading.
He kissed her hard. He angled himself against her. Then he hesitated. ‘I’m afraid,’ he said in a strangled voice. ‘I have never wanted anything so much. Just watching you, I am so … I’m afraid I won’t be able to … I don’t want it to be over.’
‘Giovanni, it’s never going to be over until we die. Please,’ Cressie said desperately, ‘make love to me.’
‘Cressie, in truth I think I may die if I do not.’
He kissed her swiftly and entered her slowly. Delightful. Delectable. Delicious. Luscious. Nothing was sufficient to describe it, the slow penetration as he slid into her, gradually merging his body with hers. Braced above her, his chest glistened with sweat, heaving with the effort of restraint, she thought she had never seen him more beautiful. He kissed her again, holding himself still inside her. She could feel the blood pulsing through his shaft. It made her muscles pulse, an echo, a summons. They were the same. The same.
He withdrew slowly, breath rasping. She gripped him tight. He pushed his way into her again. Stars exploding. They couldn’t be, but they were, right behind her lids. She forced her eyes open. His face was starkly beautiful, his eyes focused on her face. She arched up. He swallowed. He thrust. Not so slowly this time. Then he thrust again. Harder. Frisson. Friction. She hadn’t ever. ‘Haven’t ever,’ she gasped in a vain attempt to tell him what he was doing to her. He thrust again and she shuddered. It was different but the same, this climax. More violent. Not just hers. Claiming. It rolled over her, gripped her, made her grip him, made her clutch at him, cry out his name wildly as he thrust one last time and fell on top of her with a harsh cry just as wild as her own.
‘I painted his portrait, before he died,’ Giovanni said much later, when they had wrapped themselves in each other and were sprawled on the chaise-longue, their bodies dappled with the light of the sinking sun and he had told her of the reunion with the count which was not a reunion. ‘I will show you it later. I think it is good.’ Giovanni stroked her hair. ‘He asked me, but I didn’t really paint it for him, I painted it for me.’
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