by Speer, Flora
“But not soon enough for me,” Rosalinda muttered.
Bianca was a bit more sympathetic. But then, Bianca knew more about Rosalinda’s true state of mind than their mother did.
“Some days I think I will go mad.” Rosalinda paced back and forth in Bianca’s bedchamber. “Why doesn’t Andrea come? He said he might.”
“Might is not the same as will, “Bianca noted.
“Or Luca.” Rosalinda turned when she reached the window and began prowling back to the bed, where Bianca sat. “If Luca comes, he may have a letter for me from Andrea. Or, at least, a message of some kind.”
“Do sit down,” Bianca said. “If you go on this way much longer, you will make yourself ill. You are growing thinner by the day.”
“I can’t sit. I can’t eat, nor can I sleep. Where can Andrea be? Is he safe? Why hasn’t he returned?”
“Rosalinda, he has left.” Bianca was beginning to be irritated. She spoke slowly, as if trying to impress an unwelcome fact upon a child who did not want to hear it. “Andrea is gone. Very likely he will not return for a long time, if at all. Why should you think otherwise? And why would Luca know anything about Andrea?”
Rosalinda stopped her nervous pacing, telling herself she should have been more careful. In her worry and frustration, she had said too much. Now she would have to make an explanation without betraying her promise to Andrea.
“Please don’t tell Mother.” Rosalinda sat down beside her sister. “I suggested to Andrea that he could leave a letter for me with Luca, so Luca could deliver it the next time he visits us.”
“Luca Nardi has more important things to do than carry love letters to silly girls,” Bianca scolded, sounding remarkably like her mother. “Can’t you see how dangerous it could be, if a note to you were intercepted?”
“Luca is always careful,” Rosalinda said.
“What are we to do with you?” Bianca cried. “You have never fully appreciated how careful we must be to stay hidden. I really ought to tell Mother about this proposed correspondence between you and Andrea.”
“No! Don’t,” Rosalinda begged. “Bianca, if there were someone you loved and you were longing to hear from him, you would have done the same.”
“I would have sense enough to be more cautious,” Bianca said with her nose in the air.
“Would you really?” Rosalinda asked. “Or would you forget caution in the name of love?”
“If Mother could hear you, she would forbid you ever again to read Petrarch, for it must be from his sonnets that you are getting these dangerous ideas.” Bianca’s delicate features were set in hard lines. “Since there is no man who loves me, we will never know if I would forget caution, will we?”
“You’re jealous,” Rosalinda said, the realization dawning only slowly. “You wish there were someone to love you, too. Oh, Bianca, I do hope you have not fallen in love with Andrea.”
“Of course I have not. While I will admit that he is a handsome and charming young man, so far as we know he has no wealth or title and no prospects. Therefore, he is most unsuitable for any relationship except that of casual friend. I do rather think, Rosalinda, that you are not as deeply in love with him as you imagine. I suspect Andrea may be attractive to you because, except for the sons of the men-at-arms, he is the only young man you have ever met.”
“He is also the only young man you have ever met. You are jealous.”
“I,” said Bianca, as if to close the subject, “am the heiress to Monteferro. Unruly passions are beneath my dignity.”
This statement did not have its desired quelling effect on Rosalinda’s accusations. The words were scarcely out of Bianca’ s mouth before Rosalinda gave a hoot of disbelieving laughter and rolled over on the bed, holding her sides.
“Just wait,” Rosalinda said, trying her best to subdue her first bout of real laughter since Andrea’s departure, “wait until you meet a man who moves your heart as Andrea moves mine. Then we will see how unruly your emotions can be.
“But let me warn you to take care, dear sister,” Rosalinda went on, completely sober now. “Do not let that man be Andrea. For if you were to love the man I love, that would be the one thing that could end the affection that has lain between us all of our lives.”
* * * * *
Andrea did return, at the end of March, but he came in such secrecy and haste and he left again so quickly that Rosalinda almost missed seeing him. She was on her way to the kitchen to help Valeria when she heard his voice, followed by Bartolomeo’s deeper, more mature tones. The two were in Bartolomeo’s office, with the heavy door not quite closed.
Rosalinda paused, wanting to break in upon them but knowing it would be far more polite to wait until their discussion was over. She had learned a few hard lessons in self-control over the past three months and so she reined in her impatience and stood quietly by the office door.
“Madonna Eleonora will be pleased with what you have accomplished,” Bartolomeo said. “She will want to speak with you herself. You may stay the night in one of the rooms on the upper floor where no one will see you. I will carry food and water to you myself.”
“Perhaps that arrangement would be best.” Andrea paused. “How does Rosalinda fare?”
“I think she misses you,” Bartolomeo answered. “Andrea, let me emphasize that I am housing you in an attic room because it will be best if no one but Madonna Eleonora and I knows you are here. That way, we will have to answer no awkward questions. You know how inquisitive Rosalinda can be. And how persistent.”
“I suppose you are right, but I was looking forward to seeing her again.” Andrea’s sigh was loud enough for Rosalinda to hear it out in the corridor where she stood listening. “I ought to leave before daylight tomorrow. When shall I speak to Madonna Eleonora?”
“I will take you to the room now and see you settled,” Bartolomeo said. “Then I will tell Madonna Eleonora in private that you are here. As soon as she can leave her daily chores without causing comment, she will join you. A signal will prevent you from opening the door to some wandering servant. Either she or I will knock twice and pause, then knock twice more.”
“Very well.”
Hearing the scrape of a chair from within the room, Rosalinda ducked around a corner and into a window niche. She heard Andrea and Bartolomeo walking quickly along the corridor in the opposite direction from where she stood, toward the narrow stairs that led upward to the topmost floors. The rooms up there were servants’ quarters, but they were not used at present, except for storage. For security reasons, the men-at-arms and their families all lived in the outbuildings. At night, after Bartolomeo locked the doors, only Eleonora, her daughters, Valeria, and Bartolomeo were left in the house.
On this night, Andrea would also sleep in the villa. Rosalinda could not imagine what business he had with her mother that would prevent him from seeing her, too, but she was not going to let anything stop her from spending at least a few minutes with the man she loved.
It was all she could do to hide her excitement from the others, especially from Bianca, who was always aware of her moods. She managed it by the simple strategy of keeping silent. It did occur to Rosalinda that, without wanting to, she was learning the ways of courtiers and of intrigue as Eleonora had described those skills to her daughters out of her own youthful experience. There was much to be said for the patience and silence that Eleonora recommended, though Rosalinda did regret the loss of freedom involved in thinking carefully before she spoke and in waiting patiently for something to happen when she much preferred to take immediate action to make things happen. She told herself a private visit with Andrea would be worth her efforts during the day.
At last the ladies and Bartolomeo retired for the night and the villa was silent. Rosalinda waited a bit longer, just to be sure everyone was asleep. When she thought it was safe, she wrapped a heavy shawl around her shoulders over her linen nightgown and took up a lighted candle.
Walking in her bare feet for quietness,
she made her way along the corridor, tiptoeing past the suite of rooms used by Eleonora and the smaller suite where Bartolomeo and Valeria slept. At the end of the corridor, the door to the servants’ stairs swung open on well-oiled hinges. Rosalinda stepped onto the landing, pulling the door partly shut behind her but leaving it unlatched for a quieter exit.
In front of her, the stairs led down into the darkness of the lower level of the house. To her right they proceeded upward. Gathering the skirt of her nightgown in one hand so she would not trip on it, and holding the candle high in the other hand, Rosalinda began to climb.
There was no door at the top. The steps simply opened out onto a hall. Rosalinda knew this uppermost floor of the villa well, for she and Bianca had often played there when they were children, and periodically Eleonora decided the rooms must be cleaned and her daughters must help. Rosalinda looked along the floor of the hall, seeking a sign of candlelight showing through a crack at the bottom of one of the doors leading to servants’ bedrooms. She found what she sought beneath the third door on her left. Going to it, she rapped twice, waited a moment, and rapped twice more, giving the signal to open as she had heard Bartolomeo describe it to Andrea.
She heard a sound from within, as though someone was startled at being disturbed so late at night. Then, very quietly, the latch was drawn back and the door opened.
Poised to defend himself, Andrea was holding his dagger with the red-and-gold hilt. He wore only his linen shirt, and his hair was in such disorder that Rosalinda decided he must have pulled the shirt over his head in haste before opening the door. The candle in her hand threw light upon his cheekbones and his high-bridged nose. He looked freshly shaven and he was so sharp-eyed that Rosalinda knew he had not been asleep. He stared at her as if he could not believe she was standing before him.
Rosalinda took advantage of his surprise to push past him and into the room. He peered into the hall behind her. Apparently satisfied that no one else was with her, Andrea turned back to find her firmly planted in the middle of the room. Her candle sat beside his on a small table next to the bed, the twin flames sending flickering light and shadow across the whitewashed walls. Andrea laid his dagger on the table, ready to his grasp should he need it. Rosalinda caught her breath at the silent implication that he believed danger lurked even here, in his Spartan room.
Then his eyes met hers. They gazed at each other in silence until Rosalinda spoke, forgetting the caution she had learned since first meeting him, forgetting everything save her love for this man, and her anger at him.
“Why am I not supposed to know you are at Villa Serenita?” she demanded in a harsh whisper. “You promised to return to see me, yet now that you have come back, you keep your presence a secret from me.”
“Rosalinda.” He lifted one hand as if to touch her cheek. Before he made contact with her skin, he pulled his hand back, clenching it into a fist at his side. “Surely you know what you risk by coming here to me, at so late an hour, wearing only your nightgown?”
“And a warm shawl.” She pulled it more closely about her shoulders. Her bare feet on the wooden floor were cold. She told herself that was why she was trembling.
“You must leave at once,” Andrea said. “If anyone heard you prowling about and followed you, your reputation will be in ruins before morning.”
“No one followed me. Even if someone had, there is no person in this house who would spread gossip about me.” She glared at him, fully aware that he could see how she was shaking. But it was all from anger now. Furious at his chilly reception when she had expected a warm embrace and words of affection, she spoke with her own calculated coldness, each word falling separate and distinct into the space that separated them.
“Do not attempt to change the subject, Andrea. If I had not accidentally heard your voice this afternoon, I would never have known about your secretive visit.”
“You were eavesdropping,” he accused her. “How else could you know the signaling knock Bartolomeo suggested?”
“Not eavesdropping. Waiting for you. As I have been waiting for almost three months. Waiting for you to tell Bartolomeo that you intended to see and speak to me, no matter what he said. But it seems that you will speak to him, and to my mother, but not to me. Why, Andrea?”
“You don’t understand,” he protested.
“That is what I have just said. Explain to me what I do not understand.”
“I cannot.” His mouth was hard, closing tightly on the clipped words.
“You do not trust me. You think I am a foolish girl who will tell everything she knows to anyone who asks a question of her.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he insisted. “It’s because I have sworn an oath not to speak to you or Bianca about what I am doing.”
“You told me that what you were doing was seeking your brother’s killer.” Rosalinda halted on an indrawn breath, because one of his words had just rung a warning bell in her mind. “An oath, you say? And it is intended to protect Bianca and me? Then it must have been sworn to my mother.”
“I owe her a great favor,” he said, “in return for taking me into her house and saving my life.”
“It was I who brought you inside,” she reminded him. “Everyone else thought you were a wild beast. The others would have left you to die outside, in the cold. I think the favor you spoke of is owed to me. You may repay it by speaking honestly.”
“I haven’t forgotten what you did, Rosalinda. But even for you, I cannot break my word to the Duchess Eleonora.”
“The duchess? Oh, Andrea, what have you discovered and what have you promised to do?” She sank down on his hard, narrow bed. “Shall I tell you what I think?”
“Please, let it go. Don’t say anything more.” He went to the single window and rested his hand on the latched shutter as if he would fling it wide to gulp the fresh outside air.
“Better not open that,” Rosalinda warned. “Someone might see the candlelight and wonder who is in the servants’ quarters.”
Andrea could not have missed the blatant sarcasm in her words. With a muttered curse that expressed deep frustration, he left the window to kneel before her.
“Go now,” he commanded. “For your own good, return to your bed and say nothing about my presence here.”
“You know who we are,” she said, refusing to respond to his order. “You have seen my father’s portrait in the sitting room. You have recognized my mother as the Duchess Eleonora. I am amazed that you were allowed to leave Villa Serenita alive.”
“Your mother had -” He stopped.
“Yes, she had extracted your oath of silence. Furthermore, she had a mission for you. That is why you were sent with a letter to Luca Nardi. You see, I am not a complete fool. I can reason as well as anyone else in this house.” Rosalinda’s mouth twisted with her disdain for all secretive intrigues. She could not bear to think of Andrea caught up in a plot that would put his life in danger, and the idea that he was keeping secrets from her was even more distressing.
“Why don’t you tell me the truth, Andrea?” She watched his face as she spoke, seeking confirmation of all she knew to be fact and, in addition, what she so far had only guessed at. She did not miss the way he quickly hid his feelings behind a bland expression.
“Everyone who knows her knows my mother’s dearest dream,” Rosalinda said. “That dream is to take back Monteferro from those Guidi upstarts, then to marry Bianca to a strong man who will hold the city with Bianca as his duchess. Are you to be that man, Andrea? Are you to be the next Duke of Monteferro, with my sister for your wife?” she demanded, her voice rising out of control.
“No! Be silent.” Andrea clapped a hand over her mouth, cutting off her too-loud words. Rosalinda struggled, but there was no real contest. Andrea was far stronger than she. The most she could do was pull him down until he sat awkwardly beside her, his left arm across her shoulders, his right hand still on her mouth.
“Will you be quiet and let me explain before
you rouse the entire house?” he demanded.
Rosalinda was tempted to bite the side of his hand, but he was looking at her so beseechingly that she did not have the heart. She nodded her agreement instead and Andrea took his hand away.
“I remain bound by the promise of secrecy I made to your mother,” he began. “So I will say only that you have guessed a part of the truth.”
“My mother has set you the task of taking back Monteferro for her. The message you carried to Luca Nardi was her order to Luca, telling him to give you the money you will need to raise an army, and also to give you any information he may have that will help you succeed.” Rosalinda’s heart was aching as she worked out the details of the scheme. “I suppose Mother has also promised you shall have Bianca as your wife, so that after you conquer Monteferro you can hold it legitimately in Bianca’s name.”
They were sitting side by side, their faces turned toward each other, their noses almost touching while they hissed and snarled their claims and accusations, trying to keep their voices low yet unable to do so because they were both fighting emotions that threatened to break through and overpower them.
“I don’t want Monteferro,” Andrea growled. “Nor do I want Bianca. What do I have to do to make you believe me?”
“I am not sure I can be convinced,” she told him. “In fact, I am beginning to believe that everything you said to me on your last night here was a lie.”
“I do not tell lies.” Andrea’s face flushed at the insult and he spoke through gritted teeth. “Especially not to you.”
They were so close, with their shoulders and thighs touching. Rosalinda was aware of his warmth. He had not stopped to pull on his hose before he answered her knock, so his legs and feet were bare beneath his shirt. He moved as if to rise from the side of the bed, and his foot brushed against Rosalinda’s ankle.
She caught the front of his shirt in her fist, holding it so he could not pull away from her without tearing it. He paused with one knee on the bed and his other foot on the floor. Something told Rosalinda that if she let him go now, he would be forever lost to her. They were both so angry, she at the truth of the secret she had inadvertently uncovered, and he that she had dared to seek him out and then to challenge him, that a desperate act was required to salvage the sweeter emotions that had risen between them during the early winter. An ancient, atavistic female knowledge woke in Rosalinda’s heart, telling her what she must do, spurring her next actions.