Only then, when he halted for the tiniest span of time, enclosing her hand tightly in his, as she drew close to his body and smelled the sunlight in his hair, and saw his chest moving with a breath that seemed too fast, when she caught the soberness beneath his laughter, only then did she feel again the foreboding, mixed with sharp yearning.
In him. In her.
But then he tugged her hand and they tumbled down the hill to the orchard, laughing and free and young under the gold sun of Tuscany, so far away from all she had known or would ever know again.
For this time, she would live only in the moments he offered in their perfection.
Chapter 3
Basilio washed and dressed for dinner with all his nerves burning. His cologne stung the newly shaved rawness of his jaw. His scalp tingled with the bristles of his brush, his legs prickled at the touch of his breeches; even his feet in their boots were more aware than usual of the feeling of stockings, leather, a hard heel.
Dangerous. When he had finished, he went to stand in the doorway that looked down to the courtyard and paused. There below stood the reason for his distress: Cassandra, cloaked in that uncommon stillness. She looked out toward the valley, only the bright tendrils of loose hair moving. He wanted to touch that stillness, as a man would put his hand in the water to make it shimmer.
What made her so watchful? With a catch in his throat, he thought of the way her eyes—so distrustful!—
had shifted to joy when he made his simple offering of plums. It made him feel protective, that distrust and the vulnerability below it. Her letters had hinted of dark times, but he did not know what they had been.
He did not know her at all. How much of a life could one pour into a few lines on a page?
She raised her face to the breeze and he found himself breathing in with her, filling his lungs with the air she took in.
How much of one's life could go into those lines? Very little. But his soul had gone into his, into the letters and the poetry and essays he'd dared to send her. In some matters, she held more knowledge of him than any person on earth. And while there had been more reserve in her words, he believed she had given the same to him: knowledge of her secret wishes for herself, for her work, for the world.
And if she had been the woman he'd imagined, his Cassandra-of-the-Letters, who wrote such earthy and witty essays, there would have been no trouble. Cassandra-of-the-Letters was middle aged and barrel-bosomed, bawdy of tongue and quick of gibe. She had carved by her will a place in a world that did not wish to make room for her.
The image made him smile. He would have loved her in that form. He would have taken joy in showing her his world, lighting her laughter, feeding her, and giving her adventures to write about. He did not know how she had so captured him, but Cassandra-of-the-Letters had made him more himself than he had been in five years, ever since his father had insisted that Basilio leave his studies and travel on behalf of his business. Neither of his brothers had the command of languages that Basilio claimed, so he'd had no choice.
In those years he'd discovered new wonders about the world and had uncovered a gift for travel writings, but his poetry had languished, frivolous, forgotten.
Until he began corresponding with Cassandra-of-the-Letters. He couldn't say why it returned to him then
—could not have pointed to a particular word of encouragement she'd offered, or a moment he had decided it was time to see again what he might write. It had simply trickled back to him, a word here, an image there, until the music of poetry ran again beneath every moment of every day, as it had when he was a boy, giving a sheen to ordinary moments, a polish to painful duties.
Yes, Cassandra-of-the-Letters had given him that.
The real woman was so much more astonishing. Not merely her beauty, which pierced him as it must most men. But the poise that was so rare in one so young; a protective bearing that spoke of disappointments, and hidden away somewhere deep, fear.
Her youth and beauty dismayed him. Even without the letters, he would have been drawn to such a woman. That his beloved friend's soul and mind should be so enclosed was a greater danger than any he could have imagined for himself. Had he known, he would never have issued his invitation. He wasn't sure how he would resist the temptation of devouring her, of nibbling through that thin skin to let the passion flow into him. He did not know how he could stop himself from that, from making love to the woman who had captured his mind, and now would snare his soul if he could not find some way to resist the lure.
But resist he would. For honor, he must.
Resentment burned in him. Resentment at God, and his father, who had put him here where he did not belong, shouldering a mantle meant for his brother. Resentment that it would now steal from him the one happiness he might have claimed.
For he did not lie to himself in this. He would have moved the earth to claim her.
But because his freedom had been stolen, he would instead spend his life married to the woman his father had betrothed him to. A political marriage, uniting two families, a marriage to continue the proud and ancient Tuscan line to which he belonged. A marriage that would take place in one month.
In spite of his resentment, he knew he must do as he was bid. Not for his father, whom he had always hated, but for his mother—who had loved the girl, Analise, and had always been pro-tective of her. A strange, otherworldly child who had seen visions before she was six, and who was too beautiful to be allowed to be a nun when her father could gain so much from her marriage, Analise had been in need of a champion. Basilio's mother had nearly badgered his father to make the betrothal between Giovanni, his oldest brother, and Analise. When his brothers died, the obligation fell to Basilio.
Though he was not a religious man, he crossed himself and asked for assistance from the Virgin Mother, to resist the woman of his heart, to be strong in the face of temptation. To go and laugh, and give all of his mind and all of his soul if he wished, but no more.
No more.
They dined alone in the courtyard, not even servants to disturb them except to be sure there was wine enough, and bread enough, and a soft musky cheese, and delicately shredded meat. It was food they ate with their fingers, lazily.
Cassandra marveled at all of it—the simple pleasure of the food, the warm scent of the air, Basilio himself. As they sat there the sun dropped toward the sea, a blazing violet and yellow ball sinking lower and lower into the distant water.
She realized, in a slow way that seemed to go with the way the air hung in rose gauze around them, that she had not fidgeted. She felt no need to leap up or move a foot or tap her fingers on the glass. It was enough to sit here, listening to birds and drinking her wine, and grazing on the feast Basilio had ordered for them.
"Look at the birds," he said, pointing. "They're busy drawing the curtain of night."
"Ah, the poet emerges!"
His eyes glittered. "Perhaps." Pushing away his plate, he leaned back comfortably, crossing one ankle over his knee. "But I was thinking, it is our first day, and perhaps we should begin with why we have gathered here to tell our tales."
"Mmm," she said, pleased at the reference to Boccaccio. "I am afraid I have no entertainment to offer, sir. I came only out of greed, because I was promised a glimpse of rare manuscript pages."
"No tale at all from a woman who makes her life with her pen? How did she come to love the feel of that pen in her hand, I wonder?"
She smiled at his challenge, then sipped her wine, peering out to sea. "I have not seen the sun disappear that way, swallowed by Neptune, since I was a child." She cut a glance at him to see if he noticed she, too, could capture an image.
The wide dark eyes tilted up at the corners a little in acknowledgement. "And why not?" He picked up his own glass and settled back.
"When I was a girl, my mother died in the islands, in Martinique. My father did not want to return to England, where he had been happy with her, so he sent for us: my brother and my two sisters, and my
cousin who lived with us."
"So many of you!"
"And we added two sisters and a brother before we finished." She lifted her brows. "It's a great blessing that we all lived, in spite of the fevers and the travel."
That soberness, that hint of deepest sorrow, moved over his dark eyes. "Yes."
Too late, Cassandra remembered he had lost his brothers and mother to fevers only a short time before.
She put her hand on his sleeve without thinking. "Oh, I have been thoughtless! Forgive me."
He looked at her hand and Cassandra wondered if she ought remove it, if it was too familiar. But selfishly, she wanted to touch him, feel the shape of his forearm beneath the fabric of his coat. A small, guilty pleasure.
And because he seemed captured by the sight of her hand against his sleeve, she was free to drink in his face without fear of giving the wrong impression. Each time she was caught by some new detail. It was his lashes now, not long, but very lush and thick and black. When he abruptly lifted those lashes, they trimmed the depth of darkest irises with a kind of extravagance that made her unwilling to shift her gaze.
He put his hand over hers. "It should not be only sorrow that comes when I remember them," he said quietly, "for while they walked here, they gave me great joy. There is where my heart should go when I think of them."
Such large eyes for a man, so expressive and deep. Cassandra peered into them, feeling no oddity in her need to see within, no need to turn away even when the moment stretched to two and three and four, the world quiet but for the simplicity of looking directly into his eyes—and allowing him to look back into hers. His index finger traced the shape of her thumbnail.
Then—she was aware of the shift, a flicker, perhaps, in those eyes—it seemed they drew a little closer, then apart again at nearly the same instant. She took her hand away and put it in her lap.
"Tell me your tale, Cassandra. And then I will tell you mine."
So she told him of the long, terrifying journey to Martinique when she was six and believed in sea monsters. They'd been caught in a terrible storm for three days, where the ship pitched and rocked dangerously, threatening hourly to spill them into the hungry waves. But they had survived and gone on to the island, where they discovered the rest of her father's family—Monique, the slave who had been his mistress before he returned to England and married, and then again when his heart was shredded in grief over the loss of his wife in childbirth, and Monique's children: Gabriel, the eldest of all of them, and Cleopatra, the youngest.
In Martinique, Cassandra had discovered books and words and writing, and the pleasure of her own company. Away from the strictures of English country life, Cassandra had made up her mind that she, too, would be a writer.
"So, you see, I have good memories of myself when I see the sun sink into the sea. Memories of what I saw before the world saw something else."
"Ah, bravo! That's a very good story to begin. Thank you."
"And now yours, sir." She allowed him to pour another splash of wine into her glass, though she knew she should halt it soon. It was heady wine, musky and rich, and she could feel it tingling in her blood.
"How came you to be sitting here tonight? How came the poet to his words?"
He let go of a humorless laugh. "I am no poet, madam."
She regarded him steadily. "Ah. I see I am to protest and insist you do not know the worth of your own talents. Shall I beg for a couplet?"
A hand flew to his chest. "The lady's tongue is sharp!" That glitter returned to his eyes. "As sharp as a hidden dagger."
"Sharp as the knock of a creditor on a poet's door."
"Sharp"—he paused, eyes shining—"as the blue edge of lightning on a summer's eve."
Cassandra laughed, and it felt as if something were breaking free within her, as if the laughter were washing away some barely acknowledged miasma. "Your story, braggart!"
"It is only very simple. And sad, too."
"Melancholy makes a story sweet."
"So it does. I am the third of three brothers. Giovanni was the oldest, five years more than me. Then Teodoro, my father's favorite. Then me, the favorite of my mother."
"Poor Giovanni!" she said. "Left out."
"Oh, no. Because he was the favorite of the ladies."
"Ah! I see."
"We grew up very rich, very happy. Giovanni was glad to be the heir, for he loved figures and counting and playing Count in his cape. Teo, though, he was very smart. With my father, he doubled our fortune, in times that were not good." He frowned. "He had no compassion, I fear, but he was a very good businessman."
"A common coupling."
"It is true of my father, as well." A quick, dismissing lift of a shoulder. "The first thing I remember is lying in a bed, listening as my mother read poetry to me by the light of a candle. Every night, she allowed me to open her book to any page I wished, then she would read aloud that poem." He spared a glance at her.
"It was her intent to lull me to sleep, but often, she read three or four or five poems."
Cassandra imagined him as a small boy, those dark eyes even more enormous in a child's soft face, the tumble of curls in disarray, and understood how a mother would find her favorite in such a boy.
"This did not please my father. I do not know why he hated me, but I felt it even when I was small."
"Hate?" Cassandra echoed. "Surely that is too strong a word.
A slow shake of his head, a small frown. "No. It is true." A brush of his hand. "It did not wound me, I did not like him."
Cassandra smiled. "You had your mother."
"I did. She did not like to leave me in his care when she traveled, and since their marriage was not a happy one, she often traveled to Florence and Milan, and took me with her. We went to the opera and to the playhouse and lectures, and when it came time to decide what profession I should take, it was my mother who fought for me to go to university. I was very happy there, but my father wished for me to work with him, traveling for his interests." He gave her a bland look. "You do see where my story goes?"
She nodded sadly.
"The fever swept through the countryside like a scythe. My father fell ill with it first. Then Giovanni, then my mother, then Teo. My father was out of his wits for days and days, and could not think for a long time after. And when he awoke, all that was left of his family was the son he loathed."
"Did you sicken?"
He bowed his head a moment and sighed. "No. I had been in Venice on my father's business." He straightened, signaling an end to the tale. "It was a year after those terrible days that I read your essay and found there was laughter in me still." He smiled. "And I wrote that letter, so now I sit in the dark with you."
"Have you mended matters with your father?"
He stood to light a brace of candles in an iron candelabra. "We do not speak unless we are required. He must have an heir, after all, and there is no other but me." With a hand he encompassed the villa and courtyard. "This place he saved for Teo, and it burns that he was forced to give it to me, and that eventually I will also hold his other properties. But what can he do?"
Cassandra remembered his bitterness in one of his letters, his rejection of his riches and the position of a noble. "Do you still loathe it so much?"
Candlelight flickered over his brow, sharpened his nose as he looked toward the horizon, lost now in the darkness. "This land belonged to my mother. It was her dowry, so I am glad to keep it safe for her. And I loved my brothers. If I do not keep the trust, their lives will have had no meaning." He sighed and waved both hands in a gesture that brushed it all away. "Enough! I have no wish to think of sorrowful things this night. In payment for your good story, allow me to show you one of the Boccaccio manuscripts."
Moving on an instinct she did not question, Cassandra rose and went to him, putting a hand on his chest.
"They would be proud of you, Basilio."
He pressed her palm close to his heart, and a button on his waistcoat made an
imprint on her flesh. He made a soft pained noise; touched a wisp of hair with his other hand. "You are far too rich a temptation, my Cassandra," he said softly. "I am trying to think of only what lies behind this mask of beauty, but the mask is a wonder."
She wanted to kiss him. The desire came to her suddenly, fiercely, and with such power that it made her momentarily dizzy.
No. She could not bear to discover that Basilio was like all men in his baseness. Better to preserve the illusion that he was honorable and beautiful of spirit. Closing her eyes, she swallowed and stepped away, taking her hand back.
Quietly, he said, "Friends to lovers is an easy leap. Lovers back to friends—" he lifted a shoulder. "Not always so simple."
In a voice that held more betraying breath, she said, "Yes." She swallowed and looked up at him.
"Forgive me." She paused, wondering at her own boldness—but this was Basilio, the friend of her heart, and if she could not be honest with him, there was no truth in the world at all.
"You are too rare to be lost to me. A friend is so much more precious than a lover."
His face broke in a brilliant smile. "Yes!" He captured her hands and kissed them happily. "Friends we began; friends we will remain." With a light flirtatiousness, he inclined his head. "Though I hope you do not expect me to ignore the pleasure of attempting to capture your beauty in my poetry."
"I suppose I shall simply have to make peace with immortality."
He laughed and took her hand. "Come. Boccaccio awaits us."
In the broad, cool room, lined with shelves full of books and furnished only with a large heavy desk and two chairs, Basilio kept his treasures in a locked trunk. Along one wall hung his collection of rapiers, and Cassandra moved to them. "Are you a swordsman?"
He lighted a brace of tallows from the candle he'd brought with him. "I am."
"My brother Gabriel is a master—some have said he's one of the greatest swordsmen in Europe."
"Perhaps one day I will meet him—I should enjoy such a challenge." He gestured for Cassandra to take the heavy chair that sat before his desk. With a quirk of her lips, she settled, like a queen awaiting her subjects. Her gown, green and gold, glittered in the light, and her breasts and throat were white as cream.
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