The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence

by Alyssa Palombo

  “I…” I began, not knowing what to say.

  “Do not bother to deny it—I can see that this was drawn from life,” he said, brandishing the paper in my face. “I know your body, after all, do I not? I am your husband. I am the only one who has any right to see it. But now I see that I am a cuckold after all, and that this painter has drawn what he has intimate knowledge of, though he has no right.”

  “How dare you,” I said, rising from my chair. “He has no such knowledge. I have posed for him, yes; and in the nude, yes; but I have not lain with him.”

  But Marco seemed not to hear me. “You who were so high and mighty, who rejected Giuliano de’ Medici out of hand, and called me a pimp—you are a whore after all!” he cried. “One of the richest men in Florence was too good for you, it seems, so you have sullied yourself with a common artist from the gutter.”

  “How dare you speak to me so!” I cried. “You are wrong, wrong about everything! Sandro is not my lover, we have never—”

  “Oh, it is Sandro, is it?” he demanded. “You know him well enough to use his Christian name, at least.”

  “Yes, I do, because he is my friend, as I told you,” I said. “I call Lorenzo de’ Medici by his Christian name; do you accuse me of taking him as a lover, as well? Do you think I am betraying you and my friend Clarice all at once?”

  Marco shook his head wildly. “That is not the point. Dio mio, that you should still deny … when I have the evidence right in my hand…” He glared down at the sketch once more, then crumpled it in his fist.

  “No!” I gasped, lurching toward him.

  He drew away, staring at me in astonishment as he stepped back out into the bedchamber. “Your actions belie your words,” he said. “Can you truly not see that?” He opened his fist and looked at the now crushed drawing. “What woman lets a man other than her lover see her like this?”

  “As incredible as it seems to you, it is true,” I shot back. “I would swear on whatever holy relic you want that I am not Sandro’s lover, Marco. Yet it does not seem that would help. You are determined to see me, your own wife, as a whore, even though I vow to you that it is otherwise!”

  “Women are liars, all,” he growled. “It has been thus ever since Eve tempted Adam in the garden.”

  I threw up my hands, nearly screaming in frustration. “Suddenly so pious, Marco! If you had had your way, I would have been a whore at your own hand long ago. And now you dare—”

  “Enough!” he shouted, causing me to flinch. “I will not stand for you to speak to me so. This is how it shall be, Simonetta. Henceforth, you do not leave the house without an escort—either myself or my manservant. That maid of yours is not to be trusted; no doubt she has been assisting you in your harlotry all along.”

  “Indeed!” I cried. “I will not be condescended and dictated to as though I were a senseless child! I am—”

  “And most importantly,” he continued, “you are never to see that painter again, am I understood?”

  “I will not—”

  “You will do as I say!” Marco cut me off before I could go any further. “You have proven that you cannot be trusted, and so you will abide by my will as though it is law. I am your husband and I say that my word is the law.”

  “Get out!” I shrieked, beyond all patience, beyond trying to reason with him and make him see his error. “Get out of my chambers this instant! I cannot bear the sight of you, you false friend!”

  Surprisingly, he did in fact move to leave. “No doubt it is best that I am gone before I do something I will regret,” he snarled. “But you will heed me, Simonetta, or, so help me God, you will be sorry.”

  With that, he stalked out, slamming the door of the bedchamber so hard behind him that the very walls rattled.

  I remained where I was, trembling with rage and anguish. Moments later, I heard the main door slam downstairs. I hurried to the window just in time to see Marco stalk off down the street, practically running in his haste to be away from the house. From me.

  It had come to this. Our marriage, our life together, all our hope and love and pain and struggles, had come to this. Who knew if we would ever put it right? Though I had stopped loving Marco long ago—if indeed I had ever loved him in the true sense of the word—it filled a part of me with sadness all the same.

  We might not have the time to put it right. I might not have the time to put it right.

  But the rest of me could not care. The majority of my heart did not want to set eyes on Marco ever again, did not want to have to put up with this farce of a marriage for another instant.

  Did not want to remain in this house—his house—for another moment, even though he was not here. Even though he had forbidden me from leaving. What did I care for that now? Did he mean for me to spend the rest of my life—whatever was left of it—trapped in here like a prisoner?

  I refused.

  Scarcely thinking about what I was doing, I strode back into the dressing room and pulled out a cloak. I exited the bedchamber, flinging open the door Marco had slammed in my face. I half fell, half flew down the stairs in my haste to be away.

  I had not taken for myself the one thing, the only thing in all my life that I had truly wanted, truly yearned for, despite multiple temptations. I had resisted, and yet I was to be blamed and scorned and punished and shamed just the same as if I had not.

  Might I not have him, then? Might I not make myself happy, while I still had the chance?

  Just as I reached the front door, I heard a man clear his throat behind me. “Ah … Madonna Vespucci…”

  I spun around to see Giovanni, Marco’s manservant, step into the entryway. “Yes?” I asked impatiently. “What is it?”

  “Allora, you see, your husband, he … he has given me instructions that I am not to let you leave the house,” he said. “Or that, if you tell me where you are going, I am to accompany you.”

  I laughed at him outright before turning back to the door. “This is absurd, Giovanni. I shall leave this house if I choose to.”

  “I … I am afraid I cannot let you, Madonna. Your husband, he—”

  I whirled around to face him. “Oh, you cannot, can you?” I demanded. “Tell me, Giovanni, what are you going to do to stop me? Will you lay hands on me, and bodily restrain your master’s wife from leaving her own house? Is Marco’s temper so fearsome that you would mistreat me so, so as not to disobey him?”

  His moment of hesitation told me all I needed to know.

  “No,” I spat. “I thought not.”

  With that, I yanked open the door and stepped out into the chill evening air.

  37

  I had never been out alone in the streets of Florence after dark before. I should have been nervous and on edge, jumping at every sound and shadow, yet my mind had no space for such things. I nearly ran the entire way to Sandro’s workshop, so intent was I on getting there.

  A part of me wondered what I would do if he was not home, or if his apprentices and assistants were there with him.

  Yet it was almost as though he knew I was coming, as though he had been waiting for me. When I arrived he was all alone, working on a painting with candles lit all around him—some commission or other.

  I stepped inside without knocking, and he turned at the sound of the door opening. I must have looked quite a sight, for he dropped his paintbrush on the floor with a clatter at the sight of me. “Simonetta,” he said, concerned. “What—Are you well? Is everything all right? What are you doing here?”

  “Yes, I am well,” I said. “And no, everything is not all right. Nothing is.” I drew a deep, shuddering breath. “But it can be.”

  We stared at each other for a long moment, then I moved forward toward him, even as he came to meet me. I flung myself into his arms, and his lips descended on mine as he crushed me to him. My mouth opened underneath his, and I moaned deep in my throat as his tongue slid hungrily into my mouth.

  It had been so long that we had resisted, so long that we had g
one without so much as touching each other in any intimate way. So long that we had gone without even a kiss. Now, finally, that long-awaited kiss had come, and I felt that the world around me was suddenly rendered in even more brilliant colors, as though we had stepped into one of his paintings and away from our own imperfect world.

  Yet even such a kiss was not enough. Mouths still working, I shrugged off my cloak and let it fall to the floor. He lifted me easily in his arms, and I wrapped my legs around his waist as he took me to a small pallet against the wall—no doubt a place where one of his assistants slept when they worked late into the night.

  But as he laid me down on the pallet, sudden doubt overtook me, an almost paralyzing fear—not for myself, but for him. “Wait,” I cried out. “I…” I struggled to catch my breath, to form the words I knew I needed to say. “If we do this, we are both adulterers,” I said. “And even if no one ever knows of it, your soul will be—”

  He leaned over me and placed a finger across my lips. “Don’t,” he said roughly. “I do not care, not if you do not. It is worth my immortal soul to spend one night with you.”

  We spoke no more.

  It had been too long that we had waited, and we could wait no longer. I hastily unlaced his breeches, and he pushed them down even as one hand pushed my skirts up around my waist. His mouth met mine again as he lowered himself atop me. I clutched him to me hungrily and arched against him as he thrust into me. I cried aloud with joy and pleasure and relief simply at the feel of him inside me.

  He moaned as he entered me, as he began to move within me. “Simonetta,” he said, his voice ragged. “Simonetta, my Simonetta.”

  I wrapped my legs tightly around his waist, drawing him deeper and deeper inside me, feeling the warmth building within me, ready to shatter me. “Yes,” I sighed. “Yes, Sandro. Please.”

  In the next instant, pleasure wracked my body, a pleasure so acute and consuming it was almost painful. My voice felt ripped from my throat in an animalistic cry, and I did not care who may have heard, nor could I have stopped it had I tried.

  As I surfaced, I felt him shudder against me as he reached his own pleasure, heard my name as he groaned it in my ear. Then he was still; we were both still for a long moment as I held him to me as tightly as I had as we made love, holding him inside me. Then he lifted himself off of me and rolled onto his back, wrapping his arms around me and drawing me tightly against him, as though he could not bear to let me go. I laid my head on his chest, and I could hear the rapid pounding of his heartbeat, not yet slowing down.

  I do not know how much time passed before he spoke. “Oh, Simonetta,” he said. “My Venus, my goddess. What have we done?”

  I drew away slightly so that I could see his face. “Do not tell me you regret this.”

  “Never,” he said immediately. “And though I might burn in hell for it, it was worth it. I shall laugh in Lucifer’s face when he greets me.”

  I smiled at the image, blasphemous though it was.

  “No,” he went on. “That is not what I meant at all. I mean that I … I have been with women before. But never was it like this.”

  My eyes, inexplicably, filled with tears. “Nor for me.”

  He kissed my neck. “It is because neither of us has ever loved anyone the way we love each other,” he said. “They call it the act of love, but it has never truly been so for me until this moment.”

  “Nor will it ever be for me again,” I said, “unless I am with you.”

  * * *

  We lay there for some time, our arms and legs loosely entwined, hands lazily roaming over each other’s bodies. Finally, I drew myself into a sitting position. “You know, Sandro, it is not quite fair,” I said.

  He propped himself up on one arm. “What is not?”

  I reached out and pushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. “Why, you have seen me wearing nothing at all,” I said. “Many times. And yet I have not had the same privilege. I have not seen you.”

  An irresistibly alluring smile curled around his lips, the one that always transformed his already handsome face. The smile that I loved so much. He leaned forward and kissed me, then rose from the pallet. “Come, then,” he said. “And I shall show you all you wish to see.” He pulled me to my feet, kissing me again. “And it is only right that I make love to you in a proper bed,” he said, drawing me through the workshop and toward the staircase in the back, snatching a branch of candles off one of the tables in the workshop as we went.

  I giggled. “That improper bed seemed to serve us well enough.”

  He led me into his bedroom at the top of the stairs. It was a simple, small room, the size of my dressing room. A large, roughly hewn bed took up most of the space, but even here sketches and bits of parchment were scattered all about.

  I did not care. Dante had never visited such a paradise as that room was to me.

  He shut the door behind us, though there was no one to discover us. Somehow, just that simple act made everything seem much more intimate: we were alone together in his bedroom, a room that I had never before entered but had imagined many times. Just us.

  He set the candles down on a small table beside the bed. “As you wished,” he said, smiling. He pulled his shirt off over his head and dropped it on the floor. The flickering candles created shadows in all the lines and planes of his lean chest. I stepped closer to him and ran my hands over his bare skin, feeling the hard muscles beneath.

  He drew in his breath sharply as my hands touched him. “Careful now,” he murmured. “Or I shall never be able to remove the rest.”

  He pushed down his breeches, and I saw that his manhood was already swollen and erect again. I could not resist; I stepped closer again and took him in my hand.

  He groaned. “Simonetta, please.”

  I smiled and stepped back, slowly withdrawing my hand. “Very well,” I said. “Though this time, I confess that I shall need your help.”

  He chuckled, and I turned my back to him so that he could unlace my dress. I let it slide to the floor and faced him again. I drew my shift off over my head, as I had done so many times before in his presence.

  Yet this time was different, still. This time his eyes took me in as carefully, as hungrily as ever, but I knew that soon his hands would trace the path his eyes had taken. I closed my eyes, feeling heat bloom between my legs.

  When I opened them, he was kneeling at my feet. “My goddess, my Venus,” he whispered again. “I worship you just as surely as if you were a goddess in truth, and not mortal at all.”

  “No,” I whispered. “I am as mortal as you, Sandro. And perhaps we are luckier than the gods, for we are but a simple man and woman who love each other.”

  He rose to his feet and stepped close to me, and this time his hands traveled slowly all over my body, cupping my breasts, moving down my waist to my back, my buttocks. His hands traced fire in my skin as they moved. He toyed with my hair, letting it slip through his fingers like silk.

  It was everything I had imagined and dreamt of so many times, and better. And I could not bear much more of it. I stepped away from him, moving toward the bed. “Do not make me wait much longer, please,” I whispered. I was as hungry for him as I had been when I had first walked in his door. More so.

  I lay back on the bed and drew him down to me, but he was determined to torture me a bit more. He kissed my neck, my breasts; his mouth closed around one nipple, teasing it with his tongue as I gasped and writhed beneath him, then he switched to the other one even as he moved one hand between my legs, and he slid two fingers inside me. Sweat broke out on my skin, and I thought I could bear it no longer when he suddenly withdrew his hand. “No,” I moaned. “Oh, please.”

  He eased himself atop me, and this time he slowly slid into me, keeping his eyes locked on mine as he did so. Our gazes never broke even as he moved within me, gently at first, then faster as his breath and mine began to come in short gasps.

  Not once did we look away as our bodies moved together to
ward ecstasy, so that it seemed that he was not simply making love to me, nor I to him. We were making love to each other’s souls, could see each other deeply and clearly as we joined completely.

  We reached our pleasure at the same time, and it ripped through me with even more force than before. I saw my pleasure reflected in his eyes, watched his own move through him. We cried out together, our voices mingling in one perfect moment that seemed to go on and on, and even so it was over all too quickly.

  Oh, far too quickly.

  Afterward, he held me as I wept silently. I did not need to explain. He understood.

  * * *

  We slept for a time. When I awoke, rain was pounding on the walls and roof of the building. I wanted to huddle back within the blankets; curl up against Sandro’s side and stay there. I wanted to never leave, and damn the consequences.

  Yet I knew all too clearly what the consequences would be, now that my haze of love and desire no longer blinded me. If I did not return home, Marco would look for me here first. And nothing good could come of that. Not for me, not for Sandro.

  When I returned home, Marco—if indeed he was there and not out whoring—would no doubt know where I had been, but he would have no proof. And I would never say a single word. I would never speak of this night to anyone: not Marco, nor my confessor, nor to God himself. It belonged to me and Sandro and no one else.

  Quietly, I slipped from the bed and groped about in the dark for my clothes. The candles had burned out long since, so it was something of a struggle to get into my shift once I found it, before my eyes adjusted somewhat to the dark.

  “Simonetta,” Sandro said in a whisper behind me. “What are you doing?”

  “Dressing,” I said simply. “Help me, please.” I stepped into my dress and turned my back to him so that he might do up the laces.

  Reluctantly, he rose from the bed and did as I asked. “You are not leaving?” he said.

  “I have to.”

  “It is pouring rain outside, Simonetta,” he said. “You will be soaked, and then you will take ill again. Stay. Stay until it passes.”