Riana waved a hand. "What will be will be." She laughed and touched Cassandra's bare shoulder. "Now stop scandalizing me"—a wicked lift of her brow, since Adriana had caused enough scandal for ten women—"and come downstairs."
"All right."
When Adriana had left her, Cassandra stood in the middle of the room, wrapped only in the coverlet.
Sunlight poured in on her from the glass doors, and she remembered another morning, in Basilio's chamber, high in the villa.
She closed her eyes and let the coverlet drop to the floor. Sunlight bathed her naked body and she remembered the love that had poured over her, through her, from her. Last night's single kiss had left the smell of him on her hands, her body, and she did not want to wash it away. Yet it was beyond wickedness not to. It had been wrong to kiss him, and she was shamed this morning at her lack of control. She pinned up her hair, put on her clothes, and left the secret of Basilio carefully in her chamber, where no one could disturb it.
She would not see him again.
The situation was clearly impossible and wrong, and would tear them both to shreds if it was not ended.
Perhaps she could go to Ireland with her sisters for a little while, or spend a few weeks at Brighton. Julian had said that running would make her run forever, but the truth was, she had no will to resist Basilio, and no wish to betray Analise. Even the thought of the sweet, earnest child gave her a pang.
She closed her eyes, a hand over her heart.
What a coil! If she were the sort of woman who prayed, she would have asked forgiveness for her weakness the night before, for not being able to make him leave her.
She would depart London this very day, but before she left, she intended to make one thing right. She would teach Analise how to love a man. No, not a man—to love Basilio. Analise was beautiful and kind, and in time, Basilio would forget the headiness of what had transpired during the season they had shared, but it would make Cassandra happy to know he was being well-tended by his wife.
She arranged her face to hide her heart, and went downstairs to join her sister and celebrate the happy news.
Word was sent around to Julian and Gabriel, who joined Cassandra and Adriana for tea in mid-afternoon. The day was mild and sunny, the sky as blue as a length of silk. A white wrought-iron table was set on the lawn. Overhead birds sang cheerfully and bees whirred, and Cassandra discovered that she was quite content, in a sleepy, almost lazy way, to admire the world and everything in it, especially her beautiful siblings.
Julian, his fair good looks given an air of mystery by that air of haunted tragedy lurking behind the gray eyes; Adriana, as blond and radiant as a painting; Gabriel so rakishly dashing with his lush hair and caramel complexion, the green eyes catching color from his emerald green coat.
Cassandra sipped her tea and thought of standing with Basilio on the beach in Italy, water washing over her toes as she told him of her siblings.
Then she thought of the long hours they had spent talking, talking, talking. She missed that now—the long, rambling conversations they'd had. She thought of him crying out in mock outrage as they discussed a particular work of literature, disagreeing exuberantly with her as they ate olives and grapes beneath a soft, star-studded sky.
"Ah, look at her," Adriana said. "Do you think our sister is in love?"
Cassandra looked up, aware suddenly that she had been drifting in memory with a soft smile on her face.
She straightened and rolled her eyes. "Don't be absurd. I'm not the type."
Gabriel laughed and leaned close to Adriana. "Do you know she arrived at my door at the crack of dawn one day, demanding a book of poetry?"
Cassandra felt heat at the top of her ears and hoped they were not as red as she suspected. "It was hardly the crack of dawn. It was past ten!"
"Poems?" Adriana said. "What poems?"
Cassandra took the offensive. "Basilio de Montevarchi," she said. "An Italian count. He's quite the rage at the moment." She avoided their eyes by plucking a thread off her skirt. "Quite beautiful work, really. I heard him read at Court yesterday."
Only then did she spare a glance at Julian. He gave her the barest nod of encouragement. "I've read them, as well. You'd like them, Riana— they're very much the sort of thing you've always swooned over."
But Riana knew too much. Her eyes brightened. "Is it the same poet you visited in Italy, Cassandra?"
She raised her chin coolly. "Yes. Which is why I was so eager to have a copy of his book when I heard it had been published."
Gabriel leaned back, his hands steepled in front of his mouth. Cassandra was not at all sure if Julian or Adriana had read the travel essays, but she knew Gabriel had. He'd complimented her on it. Now speculation lit his eyes.
Damn. Julian knew, because he'd been with her at the opera when she fell apart.
And this morning Adriana had caught her naked, and though she'd not had her lover there, Adriana would certainly not be convinced of that.
She narrowed her eyes. "Do not," she said. "Do not spin little plays in your head about my life. I will not tolerate it."
Gabriel winked and Adriana chuckled. Only Julian seemed to hear the panic in her voice.
Smoothly, he leaned forward to pluck a tiny sandwich from the plate. "On another subject, Cassandra has been urging me to bring the girls to Court in the fall. What do you think, Riana? Is it time?"
Adriana let herself be distracted. "More than, I'd say."
"Tell him how much work there is to this, Riana. He will not listen to me."
"I have been enquiring," he said. "We will begin next month, I suppose."
"What, exactly," Gabriel said with deceptive laziness, "do you intend to do with Cleo? They cannot be presented as equals, and she will be wounded."
"I have been giving that some thought," Cassandra said. "I believe we shall find her a good husband in your set, brother dear. We'll bring them to my salon, and she will find men of color and good standing there."
"I don't think this is going to be as smooth as you think," he said, and a rare flash of anger tightened his lips. "She has been coddled and treated like a princess her entire life. She'll not easily settle for a tradesman when Ophelia marries a duke or an earl."
"Surely there is someone more suitable than a tradesman," Cassandra protested. "A scholar or a vicar."
Gabriel looked at her. "Cleo, a vicar's wife?"
"Well, perhaps not." She was a vain, pretty thing, with a taste for clothes. "Then guide us, Gabriel. What shall we do?"
"I don't know," he said, and stood, his back to all of them. "I cannot curse our father for his goodness, but it would have been better if Cleo had been prepared for the life she truly will lead."
Adriana sighed. "We've all known this day would come. Your mother will guide her; Monique is not a fool. We shall heed her advice." She settled her cup. "At any rate, it cannot be avoided. They must find husbands and 'tis better to do it now."
Gabriel nodded, but his mouth still held grim-ness. "This has been a worry in my heart since our return.
I'd not wish on her my own discoveries."
Julian rose. "She has us all, Gabriel. And you." He gestured toward the house. "If we are to arrive at Hartwood Hall before dark, we must be on our way. Are you coming, Cassandra?"
"Not today," she said. "I'll ride down in the morning. There is some business I must attend this evening."
He nodded. As he passed, he put his hand briefly on her shoulder in understanding and strength.
Cassandra touched his fingers, just as briefly, in gratitude.
It was not a lie. She did have business. At supper, she donned a dark blue silk cloak that cov-ered her hair, and walked to the address she had gleaned from an acquaintance.
Standing across the street in the shadow of a doorway, she waited patiently until Basilio emerged and climbed into a waiting carriage. After the vehicle was out of sight she moved briskly, tossing off her hood as she crossed the busy thoroughfare.
> A servant in red livery opened the door to her. "Good evening," Cassandra said, "I am the Lady Cassandra St. Ives, and I've come to call on the Countess."
He let her into the house, which smelled of oranges and a spice she didn't recognize, and into a small parlor fussily decorated in the Chinese fashion. "Wait here," he said. "I'll see."
As she had expected, it was Analise herself who entered, her face showing her eagerness. "Lady Cassandra!" she cried, coming forward to kiss her on both cheeks. "I am so happy to see you! Would you like some wine, some food? Please, come into the garden."
Until now, Cassandra had managed to keep her guilt and love carefully separated. But now even allowing herself to love Basilio seemed monstrous. Dressed tonight in a modest gown made of gray silk, her hair tucked under her cap, the girl was so painfully young and eager that Cassandra's heart wanted to break.
Somehow she would make this right, and pray that her perfidy was never discovered. With a bright smile, she took Analise's hand. "I would enjoy that very much."
The courtyard was bricked and neatly lined with beds of flowers, and Cassandra paused a moment.
"This is quite Italian, isn't it?"
"Yes! I suspect that is why my husband chose this one. I have spent much time telling him about the gardens at the convent, and this is quite like it."
"He is a very kind man."
They settled and Cassandra accepted a glass of wine. They spoke lightly of gardens and Cassandra's travels in Italy, and a little gossip.
Finally, Cassandra said, "I hope you will not think me too bold, Countess, but I have come with a purpose tonight."
"I suspected that you had." She folded her small hands in her lap. "Please—share what you like. I will not think you bold."
Cassandra took a breath. "I would like to speak to you about your husband."
Analise looked a little surprised, but she inclined her head. "Why?"
"I have been thinking about what you told me," she said. "That he has not… required you to attend the marriage bed."
Analise smiled. "But I think has a lover. I… felt her this morning when he returned."
Ah, guilt, guilt, guilt. "Oh, surely not."
"I do not mind," Analise said placidly. "Men have needs, no?"
"I suppose." This was not going the way she had expected. "But why not you? Of all the husbands God could have given you, he is quite rare."
The girl frowned, looking at the flowers before them. "His heart is given to another," she said. "I have known that since the beginning, since the first night, when he cut his finger and put blood on the sheets, then spent the whole night writing poetry." Her face was sober as she raised eyes the color of a pansy. "I sometimes sense that he is despairing when he writes like that."
Cassandra swallowed, her heart aching at this vision of Basilio—despairing and sorrowing, thinking of her. Could it be that they were all locked in some monstrous mistake? Some terrible prank by the gods?
What if her actions here tonight sent it all careening out of control?
And yet what choice was there? Carefully, she asked, "What do you do at such times—when he is despairing?"
"I leave him alone. If I find him asleep, I cover him with a blanket. Sometimes I take him food."
"I think," Cassandra said quietly, "you must go to him, then. In his grief, he will turn to you."
Analise leapt up. "I cannot!" From a pocket in her skirt, she took out a rosary that she worked between her fingers as she paced, back and forth, in front of the little sparkling fountain. "I do not wish—"
"Does it frighten you?" Cassandra asked. "I was once very frightened of it, too. I learned a gentle man can create beauty from it. Basilio strikes me as gentle."
"No. He is too passionate. I would not like that."
It wasn't fear in her at all, Cassandra realized, but a very different sort of resistance. Stubbornness.
Watching the girl pace back and forth, back and forth, she asked suddenly, "Do you mind if I ask why you were so intent to be a nun?"
Analise stopped and turned. "You will not believe me," she said with a faint smile.
"I might."
With an expressive little shrug, Analise said, "When I was a little girl, about four, I saw a vision of Mary.
No one believed me, and I learned to never speak of it. Twice more she came to me, and all three times she said that I should go to the island cloister."
Cassandra carefully kept her expression blank. She did not believe in visions.
"The third time, I was six. It was summer," Analise said. She extended her hands, the rosary beads looped around one wrist. Her palms were white and surprisingly strong. "My hands bled for three days.
My father was furious, but my mother took me to the priest, who said it was a miracle and they should thank the heavens for my calling."
Stigmata. Cassandra was startled and uneasy. She disbelieved miracles even more than she disbelieved visions. "Weren't you frightened?"
Analise lifted her face, and a radiance came from her. "No. I knew it was a way for the saints to convince my father to let me be a nun. At least it convinced him to let me go to the convent to be schooled."
"But—" Cassandra frowned. "Why you?"
"I don't know," Analise said. "Why is anyone chosen for anything? Why does my husband write such beautiful words? Why does one person sing sweetly and another tend children? We are all called to serve in some way. This is mine."
Cassandra resisted the sense of fate inherent in those words. "But I was not born for anything in particular," she said.
"Of course you were. We all are."
"Men, perhaps," she said. "Not women, Analise. We are at the mercy of men's will."
"But God is greater than men's will." She said it with such assurance that Cassandra was bewildered.
The whole conversation had slipped out of her control. A strange ball of tension and confusion settled in her chest, and she struggled to remember why she had come—to urge Analise to be a proper wife to Basilio. Squaring her shoulders, she said, "If that is so, if God leads you to a marriage He did not prevent, then is it not His will that you should be a wife, not a nun?"
Her eyes grew troubled. "I don't know. I have thought this over many times, and have no answer. If I were meant to be a wife, would not my husband have insisted upon our joining?"
Cassandra's confusion grew. "But if that husband knows you do not wish to indulge him, and he is kind, then how do you know you are not thwarting God's will?" She frowned at the convoluted logic of her words, but could not think how to fix them.
Analise began to pace again. "I want to be dutiful," she said. "But to whom do I owe my highest allegiance?" She halted. "It must be God, but I do not know His will for me in this. So who, then, should I obey? My father? My husband?" She rubbed a thumb over the beads with agitation. "Dare I even choose?"
"You are married, Analise," Cassandra said around the lump in her throat. "God allowed the marriage, and there must be some plan in it. So your allegiance goes to your husband, toward being his wife."
Analise bowed her head. "I had not thought of it that way."
The child made Cassandra feel a million years old, and inutterably jaded. "Think on it," she said. "Speak to a priest."
"I wanted so little," Analise said suddenly, and her voice was fiercer than Cassandra would have expected. "I wanted to spend my days worshipping God. Why could not such a simple thing be granted?"
"I don't know," Cassandra said honestly. She held out a hand. "Come. We'll speak no more of it."
Inspiration struck. "I have another matter I'd like to speak of, and I would like your advice. You seem very wise for one so young."
"I will be glad to listen," Analise said. "What is it?"
So Cassandra told her about her sisters, Ophelia and Cleopatra: one blond and more beautiful than any woman in London; the other as beautiful as midnight but of mixed race, and doomed to disappointment on the London social scene.
&n
bsp; From there, they moved to other subjects, until darkness forced Cassandra to take her leave, wishing she had met this wise, strange girl in any other way but this.
By morning, it would all be done. To quell the rising grief she felt, she walked briskly, her cloak billowing out behind her. Her actions were guided by love, a love large enough to be unselfish, and she could take some small comfort in that.
Why then did she feel so dirty?
Basilio had been restless all day, trying to think of some answer to his problem. He had to con-tinue his protection of Analise; he could not live with himself if he did not. Which meant that Cassandra could never be his wife.
But he could not believe such a love had been visited upon them only to be taken away. There was an answer, he only had to convince Cassandra it was the right one.
As he walked toward her house, anticipation made his heart light. His blood sang Cassandra's name, his heart sang her song. He felt foolishly lightheaded, and glad to be alive.
A carriage stood before her door, and he saw her come out, dressed for departure in her violet traveling coat. He rushed forward, heedless of how it might look.
"Cassandra!"
She saw him and stiffened. For a long moment she only stood on the step, her face very white in the darkness. She directed the servant to carry her bag to the carriage, then walked with cool purpose toward Basilio. Anger rose in him—how could she turn her emotions on and off this way? Love him, leave him, so easily?
"Where are you running now, Cassandra?" he asked harshly.
"We cannot betray your wife this way, Basilio. I cannot bear the guilt."
"We are betraying nothing! You know this, you heard it from her own lips. I do not lie with her. She has not been wife in any form. I married to protect her, and I will continue to do that. But you"—he took her arm—"you are my true wife, and you know this."
"So what do you suggest, Basilio?"
"You are a widow. I am tied by family to a woman who will never be a wife in truth to me." He slid his hand to hers, then lifted it to his lips. "Ours is so common a situation as to cause no stir anywhere. Who would fault us?"
Night of Fire Page 20