"Oh, God," Cassandra whispered.
Julian leaned closer. "I'm sorry—I didn't quite hear you."
She put her hand on his sleeve, trying to remember how to arrange her expression normally. "Nothing."
In the box across the crowded, noisy room,
Basilio nodded seriously at something, and his hand settled in a quieting sort of way upon the shoulder of the small woman in front of him. She seemed hardly to notice, but even across such a distance, Cassandra read discomfort in her stiffness.
Abruptly, Cassandra stood, her limbs quaking. "Julian, I feel quite ill. I must go."
He leapt to his feet, his arm circling her shoulders. "What is it?"
She waved a hand, bent to pick up her shawl from the seat, and dropped it when her betraying fingers could not hold on to it. She stared at it, the beads glittering along one edge. It looked like water, she thought distantly, the way it shimmered in a pool on the dark floor of the box. It made her think of another shawl, on another floor, and she closed her eyes against the pain of that memory.
How could a week have changed her life so utterly? Ten times—forty times!—that number had passed since then!
Julian swept up the shawl and captured her hands, bending to frown closely. "You're shivering like a wet puppy!" Bracing her elbow, he said, "Let's get you home."
"Yes." She vowed to keep her eyes lowered, but the temptation was too great. One more glance at him.
Only one.
But of course it was the dangerous one. For across that distance, across the milling scores of humanity in the gallery below, Basilio chose that moment to raise his head. Their eyes locked, and Cassandra's heart was flooded with the pain of his gentleness, his passion, his words.
His love. Yes, his love, most of all.
She fancied his face went bloodless, though of course she could not have seen such a thing at such a distance. His hand still rested upon the shoulder of the woman, and she saw him take it away, hastily, as if it burned him.
It gave her courage. Tossing her bright copper head, she said calmly, "Please take me home, Julian."
Below, the orchestra began to play, the violins and flutes setting a soft, sorrowful introduction, and Cassandra wanted to put her hands over her ears. She bustled into the hallway behind the boxes, rushing for the stairs. If only she could get outside, all would be well.
She took the stairs at nearly a run, thinking wildly that Julian would want an explanation and she would have to think of something, but that did not slow her steps. Her skirts flew behind her, and her breath began to be rushed. She rounded the last landing and fled through the opening into the first floor hallway—
"Cassandra!"
She startled with a little yelp, and glanced over her shoulder to see him—oh, God!—so beautiful, so arrestingly himself that she felt herself dissolving. She lifted her skirts and bolted, running for her life for the last set of stairs.
"No, Cassandra, wait!" He ran behind her. She could hear him and it amazed her that she could hear anything above the soft, sobbing sound of her breath, the roaring of blood in her ears, but she could. She could hear his feet, hear—
He grabbed her arm, not gently. "Wait," he said softly. "Oh, please, Cassandra. Listen to me."
She fell against the wall in the isolated stairway, hiding her face, unable to bear looking at him. Her arm burned where his fingers touched her, and she yanked away, putting her hands over her face. They were trembling violently.
He leaned in close, and her body rippled with yearning. "Cassandra, oh, God—"
"You are married."
"Yes."
She had already known the answer. Of course that small, pale child was the woman his father had yoked him to. "Basilio, please go," she whispered. "Leave me a shred of my pride." Tears spilled from her eyes, and she could not halt them.
His hand, so gentle, so achingly familiar, fell lightly against her bare shoulder. His fingers, too, trembled. "I can only think your name, speak it," he whispered, and bent close. "Cassandra. Cassandra." His breath touched her neck.
She closed her eyes tightly, willing herself to remain still, to resist the wish—no, the agonizing need—to turn and fling herself into his arms, to kiss his lips, to hear his voice. She had not believed it possible to miss another human so much. She had not only missed his breath in her ear, and his sweetness around her—she had also lost her friend, the friend who'd made the past winters so rich. "Stop," she whispered.
"I cannot bear it, Basilio."
He dropped his hand, and her body cooled with the absence of his closeness. "Very well," he said. "I will go, if you will turn and look at me. Just let me see your face."
"No." She pressed closer into the corner. She could not look into that beloved face. Could not.
"Cassandra," he said quietly.
Helplessly, she dropped her hands and turned, letting him see her ravaged face, her eyes downcast.
"Look at me," he said, and she heard the raggedness there, his own sorrow.
She raised her chin, then her eyes, and embraced the rushing wish to kiss him—to kiss that mouth, those eyelids, that brow. But she saw that he, too, had suffered. In the end, she could not help raising a hand to the hollowness in his cheek. "Oh, Basilio, you should never have come. Was there not enough pain already?"
"There was joy," he said fiercely, his eyes burning.
At last there were footsteps overhead: Julian coming to rescue her. They drew apart and Cassandra hastily wiped her face with her fingers, hoping nothing showed.
And there was Julian, concern on his face. "Are you all right?"
She managed a nod. Basilio stepped away, made a short, stiff bow. "We are only old friends, sir," he said.
Cassandra realized he thought Julian was her lover. "He is my brother," she said wearily. "Lord Albury.
This is Count Montevarchi, Julian."
They nodded stiffly and Basilio backed away. "I must return to my party. Good evening." His eyes, molten with unspoken words, burned on Cassandra's face. Then he abruptly turned and moved up the stairs, and Cassandra found she could not help staring after him, watching as candlelight gilded the black curls caught in an elegant queue at his nape, admiring the breadth of his shoulders under his coat, the sturdiness of his thighs—
"Come," Julian said. "Let me take you home."
Cassandra nodded, suddenly so depleted she could barely take a breath. She was deeply grateful to him for saying not a single word as he took her arm and led her out, called for their carriage, and settled beside her in the darkness. Once the horses pulled away, he took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her wordlessly.
Only when they were in her salon, and he had poured her a brandy—waiting as she drank a great gulp of it—did he say, "Montevarchi is his name?"
She lifted her head, frowning. "Yes. Why do you ask?"
Julian fastened his hands behind his back. "Perhaps you should know he's published a book of poetry.
Gabriel spoke of it this afternoon. The name stuck with me."
She had not thought it was possible to be even more breathless. "Poetry?"
Julian nodded. "Gabriel was quite complimentary, so I purchased a copy. I'm sure that he is here on the invitation of his patron, a Mr. James."
A book of poetry. She closed her eyes. His name would be on the lips of her entire set. If it were good poetry—and if it was Basilio's, how could it be poor?—they would sing his praises endlessly. Even if it were very bad poetry, the novelty of a Tuscan count publishing poetry would make them talk. Panic made her leap to her feet. "I must go abroad."
"You will flee your entire life, if you begin to do it now."
She halted in her pacing. "But… I cannot face this, Julian. I am not strong enough."
"I will ask him to keep his distance if you like."
Cassandra found she had a smile. "Dear Julian, always ready to defend us." She shook her head. "He did not dishonor me, or even betray me. It would h
ave been easier if he had."
Fresh sorrow rose in her throat. "It was only impossible." She looked at him in her misery. "Oh, Julian, how does one live this way?"
"A moment at a time," he said, and it was too much like something Basilio would have said.
She nodded.
He put his hand on her shoulder in silent comfort, and she was deeply grateful to him for his acceptance.
Adriana would have insisted upon details, and Cassandra could not have borne that.
Analise washed before bed, and sent the maid away. She was relieved to be back in the tall, elegant townhouse that Basilio had procured for them, relieved to be in the quiet and stillness, away from all the confusing voices and questions she could not understand. She said her rosary, and then, clad in her wrapper, went in search of her husband.
Something had transpired at the opera tonight. He had bolted from the box without a word to anyone, and come back looking as if he'd undergone torture, his eyes shadowed with that bleakness she had come to recognize. Many times over the past months, she had seen him fall into a brooding state of mind without warning. It was a faraway place he went at such times, and she sensed great tragedy in him.
Tonight, that darkness had trebled. She did not want to sleep until she made certain he did not need whatever compassion she might offer.
From the beginning, she had sensed powerful undercurrents about this journey to England. The invitation had come from a well-respected English writer who wished to introduce Basilio to his circle, and Basilio had been very pleased when he told Analise about it. It had been the first time she had seen pleasure or joy in his face, and of course she had insisted he must go.
But the elder count had roared and insisted that if Basilio was going to go to England, Analise would go with him. She had been terrified—she did not speak the language, did not understand the customs, and did not like being in the world even in her own country. How much worse could it be in England?
Very much worse, she had discovered. In three days, she had learned new depths of misery. They thought her quaint and foolish and backward. Few of them spoke Italian and she could not speak English, and although Basilio was attentive, she was still often left holding yet another saucer and cup with more tea, sitting alone while the rest of them laughed uproariously and talked earnestly of things she would not have understood even in her own language.
She was desperately homesick. Yet tonight, she wished to make certain Basilio was all right.
She found him in the library standing by the fire, his arms loose at his sides, his head bent in an eloquent posture of defeat. "Basilio, would you like me to call for something?"
He roused himself, turning. "No, thank you."
"Is there anything I might do to ease your discomfort, my husband?"
He closed his eyes briefly. Shook his head. "You are a very kind girl, Analise. And patient. That is enough."
She was not the patient one; it was he who had shown the greatest patience. "Are you certain? Perhaps a little wine, or a tea to help you sleep?"
He smiled a little. "No. Truly."
"Then I will leave you," she said. "Good night."
His attention was already back on whatever he saw in the fire. "Good night."
Analise paused, feeling a powerful sense of illumination here, hovering just on the edges of the night. "Will you not speak of your sorrow, Basilio? Perhaps I may be of some help to you."
He straightened, drew in a breath, and with great effort arranged his face into a gentle smile. "It is only the darkness of a poet's heart that plagues me. Ghosts and shadows. No more than that."
How beautiful he was! In Italy, and now in London, women eyed her husband with avaricious eyes, and Analise could see that he was all a woman could ask. The tumble of curls, that sensual mouth—and most of all, the kindness in his eyes—these things made him an object of great longing.
Why, then, did she feel nothing? He might have been a flower, or a sunset, for all the heat he stirred in her. It was some lack in her femaleness that she did not long to lie with him, and he had thus far not pressed.
Perhaps it was her duty to make it easier for him. Folding her hands neatly before her, she said quietly, "If it would ease you, husband, you may share my bed."
Instantly, she knew it was the wrong thing to say. A shift in the air—no, more than that, a shift in her own inner sense of connection to the forces of spirit in the world—made her understand that before he even spoke.
With troubled eyes, he approached and took her hand. Planting a chaste kiss on her knuckles, he said,
"A generous offer, and one a man would be mad to resist if it were truly offered." He smiled, and this time, the small spark reached his eyes. "But for now, we are chaste, and I will not ask that of you. There is time, Analise. When you are ready, you will know."
She did not deserve such consideration, but a wave of vast relief filled her. "Good night, then."
He let her go. "Good night."
Cassandra was abroad in the streets of London by ten the next morning. Walking amid the peddlers hawking everything from fruit to ribbons, and the clerks bustling on their way to offices, reminded her that life went on its way, after all. By the time she reached the rooms Gabriel kept near St. James Street, much of her tangled sense of tragedy had eased.
Common sense had ever been her hallmark, and hadn't she spent those long, darkening fall days in a state of never-ending gloom? Once was quite enough. Reason was a woman's ally; emotion was her enemy. It appeared she had to discover that lesson again.
It was reason that led her to rap on her brother Gabriel's blue-painted door. He said it reminded him of Martinique, and the neighbors forgave it because he was generous and charming and obviously a fine gentleman, for all that he was mixed race.
Reason had led her to his door, because she had realized she must prepare herself for the next weeks by taking the sting now. She would discover where her brother had purchased the book of Basilio's poems, and go there herself this morning to procure a copy.
In her salon, alone, she would read his words. His poetry. She would do it alone because reason told her that it would upset her, and she wanted to get it over with. She must be braced for the discussions that would ensue. No book or painting or play or opera went undissected in her salons. Soon or late, they would come to the new book by that Tuscan count.
As she stood in the hallway, awaiting the servant's response to her knock, she imagined herself coolly saying to some little group gathered around a divan in her pale blue room, "Oh, yes. Of course I've read it. Extraordinary, don't you think?" and turning to pour tea or bit of port.
Her heart skittered a little at the daydream, and Cassandra raised her head, wondering what was taking so long. Impatiently, she rapped again.
At last the door swung open, and it was no servant at all, but Gabriel himself who stood there, wearing only breeches. His astonishing hair tumbled loose over his arms and back, his pale green eyes blinking in surprise and confusion. "Cassandra!" He stepped back, gesturing for her to enter. "Has someone fallen ill?"
"Oh! No." Cassandra stood in the middle of the broad, sunny room, suddenly realizing it was quite early for Gabriel. The door to his bedchamber stood open a little, and through the gap, she spied the hair and shoulders of a sleeping woman.
Cassandra jerked her gaze away, flustered. Oh, yes. She was certainly behaving with perfect reason in this—coming to rouse her brother at what was the crack of dawn for him! "Forgive me, Gabriel—I did not think… I will come back."
He reached out and snared her sleeve. "Come, sister." Amusement twinkled in his eyes. "Surely you did not believe me celibate." Pushing her into a chair, he calmly crossed the room and closed the door to his chamber.
"No." She tugged on her gloves. Last night,
Julian and an opera dancer, today Gabriel and his paramour. It was more than she wished to know of her brothers' lives. "I am only embarrassed to have disturbed you so early, on so
thin an errand."
"Mmm." He poured a glass of water from a pitcher and offered it to her wordlessly. She shook her head, and he drank it himself. "What errand would that be?" He reached for his shirt, hanging askew on the back of a chair.
Against the sunlight streaming through the long windows, he was a startlingly exotic sight— the pale ocher skin of his chest and arms as satiny and perfect as it had been when they were children, when he often wore only a scarf around his head, a sword belt around his waist, and a pair of aging trousers. The image made her smile. "You look exactly as you did at thirteen," she said.
He tugged his shirt over his head, then plucked an orange from a bowl and sat down, beginning to peel it.
An impish grin flashed. "I don't often feel any different, either. Terrible, isn't it?"
"Not all."
"So what is this mysterious errand?"
"Oh. That." She clutched her gloves, then put them back down. "A book, actually. Julian said you praised it yesterday."
He inclined his head, his eyes sharpening. "You came to ask about a book?"
She straightened and took refuge in her poise. "Yes. A book of poetry by a man named Count Montevarchi?"
"Not Count, I don't think." He popped a section of orange in his mouth and hopped up, going to a table cluttered with books and papers and assorted debris. From a pile stacked neatly to one side, he took a cloth and wiped his fingers carefully before he took a book from the pile. "Ah. I was right. It is Basilio di Montevarchi. Is he a count?"
He had a copy here. In this room. Her palms felt suddenly damp and she clutched her cotton gloves. "I believe he is."
"I haven't read it all, but he's very good." He carried it over and put it in her hands, almost carelessly. "A little more emotional than I like, but strong images, very powerful. I'll be interested to hear what you think of it." He took up his orange again and leaned back, all ease and grace.
Cassandra only held it for a moment, touching the corners and the spine, unable to even look at it. It seemed warm to her, almost too hot to hold close. "May I borrow it, then?"
"Of course." He looked at her steadily, his thoughts hidden behind that ever pleasant expression, and Cassandra realized she ought to be flipping it open—he expected her to be eager to examine a book she had walked two miles for, very early, and awakened him in order to get.
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