Rose Red

by Speer, Flora

  “You knew that Andrea would leave at some time,” Bianca said.

  “I thought the time would not come until the winter was over and all the snow had melted from the mountain passes,” Rosalinda whispered.

  “I know you well, dear sister.” Bianca’s hand rested on Rosalinda’s. “You dared to dream that when Andrea left, he would take you with him.”

  “I should have known it was only a foolish girl’s misplaced hope.” Rosalinda’s low voice was choked with tears. “Mother will never permit either you or me to leave Villa Serenita. And while Andrea may be fond of me, he does not care enough to defy Mother.”

  “Few people ever do dare to defy Mother,” Bianca murmured.

  “What shall I do?” Rosalinda asked.

  “I cannot tell you how to do it. You have more experience of private meetings with lovers than I.” There was the faintest tinge of envy in Bianca’s whispered words. “But if I were in your place, I would send my lover away knowing exactly what my feelings for him were.”

  “Come, girls.” Eleonora broke into this quiet discussion. “You must have finished that game by now, and whispering in front of others is rude, as you very well know. Andrea has agreed to play the lute if the two of you will sing.”

  “Yes, Mother.” At once Bianca rose from the table. “We will be glad to sing, won’t we, Rosalinda?”

  After that there was nothing Rosalinda could do but assent to her mother’s request. If she refused, she would appear to be sulking as Bianca had accused her of doing.

  The rest of that festival day, which should have been a happy one, passed all too slowly for Rosalinda and at the same time, all too quickly. While she ached to escape to the privacy of her own room, which she knew her mother would not permit until bedtime, Rosalinda was sadly aware that every hour brought Andrea’s departure closer.

  Even with Bianca’s whispered words of support it was agony for Rosalinda to stay in the sitting room after she finished singing, to play yet another childish game as if it were a year ago at the same time, as if no changes had occurred since then in her life or her emotions.

  At last the short, midwinter day did draw to a close and the first stars of evening began to sparkle in a cloudless sky.

  “It seems the storms are over for a while.” Bartolomeo turned from the window to look from Eleonora to Andrea, who was reading aloud from a book of Petrarch’s sonnets. “A determined man might well make his way out of the mountains and down to the Lombard plain before the snows begin again.”

  “I have been watching the skies, and I think the same thing,” Andrea responded, closing the book of poetry. “I have no baggage to pack so, Madonna Eleonora, if you will lend to me that sturdy riding horse you promised, I will be on my way early tomorrow.”

  Rosalinda stopped breathing, and beneath the table where she sat with Bianca, she clenched her hands into tight fists. How could Andrea say so lightly that he would be gone on the morrow and out of her life forever? She did not believe he would return. There was something in the way he looked at her mother and at Bartolomeo that frightened Rosalinda. She watched her mother and Bartolomeo exchange glances. Significant glances. Something more was happening than Andrea’s departure. Rosalinda was sure of it.

  “Since you have all agreed that the weather is clear,” she said, leaping to her feet so quickly that she almost upset the table and the game board, “I am going to walk on the terrace for half an hour.”

  “It’s bitterly cold,” Bianca objected. “You will freeze.”

  “I cannot stay inside another moment,” Rosalinda exclaimed.

  “Shall I go with you?” Bianca asked, rising to join her.

  “No.” From somewhere in her aching heart Rosalinda dredged up a tearful smile for her sister. “I know you hate the cold, and I am poor company, I fear.”

  “Wear your cloak,” Eleonora said in an absent-minded way, as if she was thinking of something else entirely. “And don’t forget your gloves.”

  Out on the terrace, the cold almost took Rosalinda’s breath away. She welcomed the scorching sensation in her lungs when she drew in a mouthful of the icy air. She paced along the terrace and down the steps to the well-trodden path leading toward the stable.

  “Who goes there?” A man-at-arms challenged her, and Rosalinda knew she would have to get control over her emotions so she could answer him.

  “Giuseppe, it’s only me,” she said. “I want some exercise.”

  “Be careful and don’t slip,” Giuseppe warned. Like all the men-at-arms, he was too familiar with Rosalinda’s vigorous habits to expect her to remain indoors, however cold it might be. With a brisk, “Good evening, madonna,” he continued on his rounds.

  Rosalinda reached the stable, intending to go inside to see her horse. While Bianca loved doves and kittens and puppies while they were small, Rosalinda had always preferred full-grown dogs and horses. On this unhappy night she thought she might find a little comfort in stroking her horse’s silky coat and rubbing its soft nose. But when she pulled the small side door open a crack, Rosalinda heard voices within. A man and a woman were murmuring and laughing, their voices low and tender. Quickly, before they noticed her, Rosalinda closed the door again. She would not disturb lovers. Let someone else be happy, if she could not. Having no place else to go, she headed back to the villa.

  “Rosalinda.” A cloaked shape moved toward her on the path.

  “Andrea?” Rosalinda stood still, waiting for him.

  “I told your mother I would find you and see you safe inside before you are completely chilled.”

  “I don’t care if I freeze to death,” she informed him with a childlike petulance she immediately regretted.

  She stood facing him in the starlight, while their breaths formed misty clouds around them. Andrea made an impatient movement. Rosalinda caught his ungloved hands and held on tight, to keep him with her for a little while, at least.

  “Why are you going away so suddenly?” she asked. ‘Tell me, please. I must know. Perhaps, if I can put a reason to what you are doing, then I might be able to bear your absence.

  “Forgive me,” she said when he did not respond. “I know I should not speak this way. Mother would scold me if she could hear. Perhaps I am only a silly girl, who read too much into a few kisses and a single caress. Andrea, if our embrace that day in your room meant nothing to you, then tell me so right now. Do not leave me wondering what it meant to you.”

  “You are unlike any other woman I have known,” he said, pulling her hands to his chest and holding them there. “No other lady would speak so directly.”

  “I am neither mild-mannered nor dignified enough to be considered a true lady.” Her breath caught on a choked-back sob. This was not the way Bianca, who was a true lady, would have handled the situation. Rosalinda was far more straightforward than her sister. “Answer my questions, Andrea. What am I to you?”

  “You are all the world, and more,” he said. “You are my heart, the blood that flows in my every vein. You are the air I breathe. You are the very breath of freedom, of sunshine, of warmth and goodness, of innocence in a wicked time.”

  “If that is so, why are you leaving me?”

  “Because I must.”

  “But why?”

  “The reason is a secret,” he said.

  “What secret? Andrea, are you leaving here to return to another woman? Are you betrothed? Is your wedding day set? Is that why you are so eager to go?”

  “There is no other woman than you to whom my heart is pledged,” he said. ‘‘That has been so since the first moment I saw you riding among the mountains as if those peaks and valleys belonged to you alone.”

  He fell silent and Rosalinda waited, sensing that there was more he wanted to say. Finally, he asked, “Can you keep a secret?”

  “Tell me anything you want,” she said. “I will not repeat a word of it, not even to Bianca.”

  “I hear someone in the barn. Let us walk, so no one can overhear us.” He d
rew her along the path and into the garden, until they stood in an open space. “Rosalinda, give me your word of honor that you will never reveal what I am about to say.”

  “You trust the word of a mere woman?”

  “I trust your word. Swear to me, Rosalinda, knowing that my life, and yours, may depend on keeping your word.”

  “I do swear that I will repeat to no other person what you say to me now,” she said solemnly.

  He put his arm around her, drawing her close, so they stood as one figure. Rosalinda’s head rested on his shoulder while Andrea spoke softly into her ear.

  “I have nothing in this world to call my own, except my dagger,” he said. “Even my brother has been taken from me.”

  “I did not know you have a brother.”

  “He is dead.” Andrea’s voice was bleak. “The two of us were with a dear friend. I became separated from the others. Later, while I searched for them, I discovered a blood-encrusted dagger on the path. It was my brother’s dagger. I think he fought for his life, and was killed. When the murderer took his body away or concealed it, the dagger was left behind. I searched, but could find no other sign of brother or friend, either alive or dead.”

  “Oh, Andrea, I am so sorry.” Rosalinda could not bear to think of what she would feel should Bianca be taken from her by violence.

  “I vowed on that bloody dagger to seek out and punish my brother’s killer,” Andrea went on. “As I said, I have nothing, no property, no funds, not even a horse of my own.”

  “Why should that be?” Rosalinda asked. “You are plainly a nobleman.” She was going to ask about other family members who might be willing to help him when Andrea interrupted her thoughts.

  “Why it is so is unimportant to this story,” he said. “Rosalinda, do be quiet and listen. We may not have much time before your mother sends someone to look for us.”

  “I won’t interrupt again.”

  “Your mother has asked me to carry a letter for her, to Luca Nardi in Monteferro. In return for this favor, which she says is an important one, Madonna Eleonora will ask Signore Nardi to grant a loan to me. With that money to live upon and to use as payment for information, I will be able to search out my brother’s murderer. I am hoping that Signore Nardi will also provide recent news on the whereabouts of certain people whom I suspect of complicity in the deed, news that will make my search for the actual killer easier.

  “You must understand, Rosalinda, that until this final obligation to my brother is fulfilled, I cannot give myself to any other purpose.”

  “I do understand,” she said. “But why must the search for your brother’s killer be a secret?”

  “For reasons of her own, your mother does not want it known that she is helping me. Both she and Bartolomeo insisted that I should swear an oath of secrecy before they made any offer of aid to me.”

  “I know why they did that,” Rosalinda said. “It was to keep the secret of where we are living. Mother is afraid that someone who means harm to us, perhaps an agent of the Duke of Aullia, whom she believes is the source of all our troubles, will discover our whereabouts.”

  “The Duke of Aullia is dead,” Andrea said in a harsh voice.

  “Yes, I know. Luca told us last autumn that he was assassinated. But I think Mother fears that someone attached to him, perhaps even the notorious Niccolo Stregone, will still want our lives.” She stopped because Andrea’s arms had tightened around her.

  “Bartolomeo did mention Stregone.” Andrea’s voice was harsher than before. “And it was shortly thereafter in our conversation that he said I must never discuss the location of Villa Serenita or the names of its inhabitants.”

  “I understand now why you must go and why you have been so secretive,” Rosalinda said. “I wish you well and I will pray constantly for your safety. But, oh, Andrea, I will miss you every day.”

  “No more than I will miss you. I will come back as soon as I can. I do not want to give you false hope of my return,” he went on, “but it may be that Luca Nardi will have a response to your mother’s message and will ask me to bring it to her before I set out on my own quest.”

  “Then, you might return in just a few weeks?” Rosalinda’s voice held all the joy she felt at that prospect.

  “I can make no promises on the matter,” Andrea said. “It will depend on Signore Nardi.”

  “I know, but it is a hope. Thank you for telling me all of this. Thank you for trusting me.”

  “There is much more I wish I could say,” he told her. “Words too deep for utterance now, when I am pledged to another purpose. But if I am successful—”

  “When you are successful,” she corrected.

  “When I am successful,” he repeated, “then I will have a declaration for you to hear that I cannot voice tonight. And a question, which I will want you to answer only after careful thought. It would not be honorable of me to say more at this time.”

  Rosalinda’s heart was so full that she could make no response except to put her arms around him and hold him tight. When she lifted her face to his, Andrea’s mouth at once found hers. It was a chaste kiss at first, a sealing of Rosalinda’s promise of silence on the subject of his secrets, and Andrea’s promise of a nearer, more profound relationship between them when the time was right for it.

  Then Rosalinda sighed and pressed herself more closely against him, her lips opening to him without warning. Andrea’s tongue plunged into her mouth, seeking out the velvet heat of her tongue and stroking it. His hands found their way beneath the edges of her long cloak, to catch her hips and pull them firmly forward. Through the silk of her best gown, Rosalinda felt for the second time in her life the eager, thrusting hardness of a fully aroused man. The heat she had known only once before flared again, more powerfully this time, making her weak with longing. She gasped against Andrea’s mouth and then went soft in his hands, letting him mold her body as he wanted.

  Her breasts were crushed against his doublet, her arms encircled his waist, and she held on to Andrea as if she was drowning and he was her lifeline. She threw back her head so he could kiss her throat. The motion pushed her breasts harder into his chest. Andrea’s hand slipped to her thigh, lifting one of her legs, pulling her closer still. She realized with a shiver of pleasure that his palm was on the bare flesh of her thigh, that the edge of her skirt was up around her hips. She felt the cold night air on her skin, but it did nothing to cool the growing fire inside her.

  She was intensely aware of Andrea’s hardness pressing against her aching heat, and of Andrea’s fingers slipping between their bodies to touch her where she was just beginning to notice an unusual moistness. Something marvelous was about to happen, something earth-shaking. All it would require was for Andrea’s hand to move a little higher, to slide a little deeper into the liquid warmth inside her. Rosalinda could feel her body tensing, waiting....

  The terrace door opened and Eleonora stepped out.

  Beneath the cover of Rosalinda’s cloak Andrea withdrew his hand and smoothed down her dress. He kept his other hand at her waist, supporting her, for Rosalinda was trembling so uncontrollably after his passionate onslaught upon her senses that she could not stand unaided.

  “Thank your mother,” Andrea whispered, kissing her cheek on a breath of husky laughter. “Without Madonna Eleonora for chaperone, I might have taken you in the snow.

  “If ever you doubt my affection,” he went on in a voice only slightly calmer than before, “think of this evening and of that time in my chamber when we first embraced and know that I want you with all that is in me. So long as I live, I will never stop wanting you.”

  And when the time is right, he vowed silently, I swear I will tell my entire strange story to you, Rosalinda, my dear.

  “When you leave here tomorrow, you will be riding into danger,” she said, clinging to him for a moment longer.

  “Just being alive is dangerous,” Andrea replied, thinking of the tasks that lay ahead of him over the next few months. He ha
d not told Eleonora all of his reasons for accepting her proposal, and he was not fool enough to believe that Eleonora had told him everything, either. There were bound to be unpleasant surprises in store for him. But Rosalinda had just shown him how great the rewards would be if only he could win them.

  Chapter 7

  “It appears that you are growing up at last, Rosalinda, my dear,” Eleonora said. “Valeria tells me you are spending more time with her each day, learning how to manage a household.”

  “I am happy if you are pleased, Mother.” Rosalinda could not tell her parent that she had asked Valeria for extra chores so she would not have time to brood about Andrea.

  A few days after he had left the villa, the winter storms had begun again. Rosalinda hoped that Andrea had reached one of the cities on the plain and found shelter before he was overtaken by the snow. Lacking any news of him, she could only pray for his safety. She grew quieter during those days, her usual bright eagerness becoming subdued as she kept Andrea’s secrets and waited for his return. However, there was one question she could not resist asking of her mother.

  “Do you know when Luca will come to visit us again? Valeria said she wasn’t sure of the date.”

  “It will not be until the snow melts.” Eleonora frowned. “Why are you so eager to see Luca?”

  “He promised to bring me a new book.”

  “Are you so bored that you want to sit still and read?” Eleonora placed a hand on her daughter’s forehead, then put one finger under her chin, lifting her face and making Rosalinda look directly into her eyes. “You don’t appear to have a fever. Is there something you want to tell me, Rosalinda?’’

  “You already know everything I have to tell, Mother,” Rosalinda snapped with a bit of her old spirit. She pulled her chin from her mother’s grasp. “You are quite right. I am bored. I want to go riding.”

  “Not in this weather. Have patience, my dear. Spring will come soon enough.”