Which was both good and bad news.
“Might we… might we have a moment, m’lord?”
“Please,” he said, gesturing into the room. “But come and speak with me in an hour, will you?” He gave me a look that told me not to argue.
“An hour,” I confirmed.
He closed the door behind us, and I drew Lia deeper into the room. She enjoyed far more sumptuous quarters than I had been given, but then, Lord Paratore apparently did not have a potential bride in one wing. At least, that I knew of..
“Where have you been?” Lia asked me.
“I could ask the same of you!” I said in a hushed whisper. “I arrived a week ago. Yet I heard that you arrived only two days ago?”
“Right. I landed in that tomb, but you were nowhere around. I wandered over here to the castle….” She gave me a sorry look. “It took me a bit to put it together. I claimed that I’d had a bump on my head.”
Hearing English again was like a hug from home. A step closer to being there! “You told them…you were from the future?”
She nodded, looking embarrassed at her foolishness. “Lord Paratore told me he’d seen you, but you’d been taken away by those terrible Forellis.”
“Terrible? No, they’re wonderful. I-“
“But Gabi, how did you get here so far ahead of me?” she asked, shaking her head in confusion. “We were together, our hands on those prints, and then you were gone a second ahead of me. It was as if you became dust before my eyes. And then when I arrived and you weren’t with me-I thought I’d lost you for sure.”
I shook my head, remembering that moment. “I think it has to do with when we pulled our hands from the prints. My split-second ahead of you was the equivalent of days, almost a week, here.” I grasped her hand. “We need to get back to the tomb, Lia. I think we both need to be there. If we put our hands on the prints again, maybe we’ll fast forward, back to our own time.”
“Or…will we go deeper? Into history.” She shivered and crossed her arms. “I don’t know about you, but this is about as deep as I want to go.”
I smiled. “Can you imagine Mom here? Dad, had he gotten the chance?”
“Oh, they’d go crazy,” she said.
I nodded and my smile faded. “We have to try, Lia. To get back to Mom.”
She nodded too. “You’re right, of course.”
“So how can we get you out of here?”
She frowned. “Get me out? Let’s just tell Lord Paratore we are heading out on a stroll, and make our way down to the tombs.”
“I…don’t think it’s going to be that easy. He’s made you feel a guest in his home. But he is using you as a pawn, Lia. He wants me to betray the Forellis in exchange for your freedom.”
She frowned. “Then we must escape. Right away.” She rose and looked back at me.
I nodded, but couldn’t seem to move.
It took all of two seconds for her to figure out my reason for hesitating. “Oh,” she said, grabbing my hand and sitting again. “You met someone.”
“No. Yes.” I looked at her. “Not anyone I can have, on a hundred different levels.”
“The unattainable. Always the most attractive. He is a knight at Castello Forelli?”
“He is likely to become Lord Forelli in time,” I said miserably.
She sucked in her breath, bringing her fingers to her mouth. “You really gotta stop aiming so high, girl.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s over.”
“But it began?”
“Before it began.” I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. It made me feel sad and weepy, to finally come so close to finding someone I might fall in love with, and then to have to let him go-
“How did you talk him into letting you come here, to his enemy?”
I gave her a sad smile. “You’re my sister. He has a brother. He understood.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Gabs. If I hadn’t come, maybe you would’ve lived happily ever after with him.”
“No, no.” I pretended to whack her across the shoulder. “Stop with the schmaltzy romancy stuff,” I said. “You know I never go in for that.”
“You didn’t,” she pressed, staring at me. “But there’s something different about you, Gabi. Something’s changed.”
“Yeah, we jumped through some time continuum,” I deflected. “It’s gotta change us somehow.”
She lifted her chin, and for the first time, I saw how her cheekbones and jawline were very much like mine-exactly as Lord Vannucci had said. I always thought we were so different, her as blonde as I was brunette. Her straight hair to my curls. I had four inches on her. But we did share the same facial structure.
“You have a lot more connecting you here than I do,” she said. “I’ll gather my things, and we’ll be off. I’d like to meet your lord, anyway, before we leave him behind forever. It will help me spot the right kind of guy for you in our real time.”
I stared at her. “Lia, you still don’t get it. We are in the middle of some of the toughest Sienese-Florentine relations in history. Do you remember what year Siena fell?”
She shook her head. “I never really listened during those tours. I was too interested in the art.”
“Me neither,” I said, rising to pace. “But I’m worried it’s soon. I think Firenze was fully in power when the Renaissance happened, which is around the corner too. Do you remember the year that started?”
She shook her head. “What about the plague? Has the plague happened?”
I felt woozy and quickly took my seat again. The plague. The Bubonic Plague. I shook my head. More than a third of Siena and Firenze had died in those years-I remembered that much.
“No, I haven’t heard of anything like it happening. Fevers, but nothing widespread. Just your typical medieval maladies. So it must still be coming.”
“We have to get out of here, Gabi,” she said, wringing her hands. “It’s one thing to play at this lords and ladies thing, another to take on the plague.”
“I have a plan, but it means you’re going to have to lay low till I come for you. Lord Forelli and his men are going to break you out.”
Her eyes widened in disbelief. Then she strode over to a wall and ran her delicate fingers over two swords and a bow. “I dunno,” she said. “Find me some arrows, and methinks I could fight my way out.”
I smiled at her lame medieval-speak. “I’ve had to do much the same this past week.”
Her blue eyes widened. “You’ve used a sword? In battle?”
“Twice. Tried to bring it with me in here, but they caught me. As soon as you can, secure some arrows to go with that. Tell Lord Paratore you wish to practice. Pretend you’re a beginner, so he has no idea how good you are. Appeal to his sense of pride and generosity. Flirt with him if you have to.”
She shivered. “Ugh. No way.”
“Lia, look at me. You have to do what you must. We are in a fight for our lives, whether you feel it yet or not.”
“I think you’re exaggerating.”
“No, seriously. Trust me. I’ve seen guys die.”
She clamped her pretty lips shut and stared at me. “They will try to kill us?”
“As soon as they realize we have double-crossed them,” I whispered.
“Really? Lord Paratore has been nothing but kind to me. Giving me more food than I want, this room, art supplies-“
“It’s all a ruse. He’d kill you in front of me if he knew it’d make me give him what he wanted.”
She paled, and I regretted my frank words. But she had to know. Had to know what we were up against. Had to be ready. “And… and you’re sure there is no other way out?” she asked.
“Not that I’ve seen yet,” I said.
“Okay, then,” she said, patting her knees and rising. “Hurry, Gabs. The faster you go, the faster you can return to me.”
I pulled her into my arms and hugged her. “Be ready, Lia. Day or night, be ready. All right?”
She nodded.
&nbs
p; I turned from her then, before I gave in to the impulse to take her hand and try and run out of this place together now. I moved down the hall, down the stairs, and back into the den, where Lord Paratore waited for me. He must have heard me coming, but he did not turn from his place in front of the map of Paratore land.
“You will deliver what has been asked of you?”
“I-I don’t know. Is there no other way, m’lord? Nothing else I might give you in exchange for my sister’s life?”
He looked down at the table before him for a long moment, then turned to face me. “There is nothing else, m’lady.”
I wrung my hands. If I showed no hesitation, he might doubt me. In truth, it wasn’t difficult to work up. He looked from my hands, up to my face.
“You and your sister are obviously fine, noble women, and that is unfortunate. But there is no way around it. I must use the tools I have at hand.”
“Women are hardly tools.”
“They are at times. A man will live and die for the right woman.” He moved forward, circling me as Lord Vannucci had. “Sir Forelli…I wager you have caught his eye, have you not?”
“He is promised to Lady Rossi.”
“Lady Rossi represents nothing but an alliance for his family.” He shook his head and rubbed his chin. “Nay, you must have caught his eye.”
“I know no such thing.”
“Don’t play with me, Lady Betarrini. I know men. And I’ve known my share of women. And you aren’t as innocent as your younger sister-I can tell that much.”
I stared straight ahead for a moment, then looked to the ground. “I may have caught his eye.”
“Good, good,” he crooned. “Then he will be blinded by love, never suspecting that I have found a hole in the corner of his chicken coop. Keep leading him on. Use his weakness for our strength.”
I nodded, feigning misery.
He again put a knuckle beneath my chin and lifted it, forcing my eyes to his. “Ahh, he has spun his web around you as well. You are in love with him?” His eyes hardened with suspicion.
“In truth, I fancied myself in love,” I said. I pulled away from his hand and went to the picture window, with its view of the courtyard. “But he sent me away. He said that I was interfering with his alliance with Lady Rossi’s family. There was no other way than for me to leave. The timing, however, was providential. He had no idea I would be coming straight to you.”
He moved over and placed his big hands on my shoulders. “I am sorry for your pain.” Slowly he turned me around, his hands still on my shoulders. I dared to look him in the eye. Was he trying to comfort me?
No, he was testing me, trying to sort out what was truth, what was lie. But I could see he wanted to believe me.
“You shall use your pain,” he said, a sick smile twisting on his lips. “Turn it into anger, vengeance, Lady Betarrini. And you shall get your reward. Not only your sister, but horses, and a chest full of gold to see you safely on your way. I’ll even send four guards with you, as far as Firenze. But we shall wait until Marcello returns home. I want him there to witness it, when I breach his defenses at last. He is the last of the line of Forellis. With him gone, no other can stand in my way.”
I looked back at him, as if considering his words. Then after the right amount of time, I simply said, “Agreed.”
Now let go of me.
Instead, he moved his hands to my neck, caressing it, but the threat was clear enough. He rubbed his thumbs, back and forth across my jugular vein. “M’lady, you do understand that if you doublecross me, I shall hunt you down and kill you. But not before you see your sister suffer in ways that you have never imagined. Evangelia is quite… untried, yes?”
If I’d had a sword I would’ve run the man through right then. But I controlled myself “You dare to lay a hand on her-“
“You are hardly in the position to make threats, m’lady. Do you understand me? Are you ready to serve me as your lord?”
I nodded, unable to speak. For a moment, I considered charging upstairs and trying Lia’s lame plan for escape by fighting our way out. Better to die fighting than to die via torture. But I knew Marcello, too. I knew I could trust him and that he would do everything in his power to get her out of this place. And we’d have a far better chance with the Forelli men beside us.
But he was then ushering me to the door. “Thank you for your visit, m’lady. Return to me with the information I seek, or your sister will be ushered out of her quarters and into a far less appealing room, one with chains and all sorts of unsavory tools.”
I turned toward him, but he shut the door in my face, a smile on his lips. Did he half hope I proved to be his enemy so he could take it out on Lia? I shook my head, trembling at the thought. The hulking knight led my gelding forward and watched me come near. I felt numb, lost in a stupor.
He lifted me into the saddle, tucked my feet into the stirrups, and slapped the horse on the rump. Two more knights opened the gates before me, and I plodded out, glancing back over my shoulder to Lids narrow window. She was there, watching me.
I raised my hand to wave, but then they were shutting the gates.
Shutting me out.
Shutting her in.
The elder Lord Forelli was outrageously angry when word reached him about what had happened in Siena, that I’d been sent away because Marcello deemed me a threat to his union with Romana. He summoned me to the solarium the next day and paced back and forth, sputtering, trying to be gracious in his word choice but too angry to be very successful at it. Fortino stared at me in misery from a corner chair. I believed it was only because of him that I wasn’t immediately shown to the castle gates.
“I have no choice, m’lady,” said the older man. “You must be on your way, as soon as possible. You cannot be here when my son returns. I’m certain you understand. There is simply too much at stake. Far too much at stake.”
The man had no idea.
He wanted to secure his relations with Siena.
I wanted to save my sister.
“I intend to be on my way as soon as possible, m’lord,” I soothed. “It is why I left Siena immediately. I have no desire to interfere with Lord Marcello’s plans nor his coming nuptials.”
He opened his mouth to say something else, but then clamped it shut. “Forgive me, my dear.” He reached up a bent, age-spotted hand to rub his temple. “These are such trying times. Were they not, I would allow love to flourish where it may.” He cast me a sorrowful glance. “You are an uncommon woman, as brave as you are beautiful. Your courage clearly helped save Lady Rossi, and your ministrations have surely rallied Fortino. For both of those things, I shall be eternally in your debt.”
I shared a smile with Fortino. He rose, then, looking shaky, but reveling in newfound strength. “It is little surprise you caught Marcello’s attention. You captured us all.”
“Please,” I said, lifting a hand to stop him. “Truly, I cannot bear to speak of it any longer. All I await is word of my sister, and I shall be on my way.”
Lord Forelli nodded, appearing more as a broken old man than lord of the castle. “I shall have our priest pray for nothing else. Now if you’ll forgive me, I must go and rest.” He reached for a servant’s arm and tottered out of the room.
Luca peeked in. “M’lord,” he said to Fortino, “with your permission-“
“Come, come,” Fortino said wearily, waving him in and sinking back to his chair.
I took a seat beside him, and Luca sat across from us, arms on knees. “Was it truly awful?” Luca asked me conspiratorially.
“About as we suspected,” I said.
Luca and I’d clued in Fortino as to what had transpired in Siena, and of Paratore’s plans. Luca had told me that Marcello’s brother was once one of the most brilliant strategists in Toscana, before he took ill years before. We needed his expertise. And it was his place, as eldest of the Forelli sons.
“Father’s anger and fear are dissipating a bit,” Fortino said. “He believ
es that you intend to leave, Gabriella. But he’ll be beside himself if Marcello returns and you are still here.” He looked at me with regret.
Luca nodded, considering his words. “Marcello will be five miles out, on the morrow. That was our agreement.”
“And Gabriella can go to Lord Paratore on the morrow with her final plan.”
“What plan?” I said, hating the squeak in my voice. “We still don’t have an entry point to suggest to Lord Paratore, right?”
They shook their heads. Fortino rose on trembling legs and went to the fireplace, stirring the cold ashes and then dividing them into mounds. Luca cast me a wise eye and waited-Marcello’s brother was thinking it through.
“Lord Paratore knows you are adept with a sword,” Fortino said, looking at me from the corner of his eye. “He knows you are daring. What if you go to him and tell him the truth-that you see no weakness whatsoever in the castle. But his threats are understandably making you fear for your sister’s life. Propose that you take out the two front gate guards yourself Plunge a sword into one, toss a dagger across at the other. Swing down and open the gate before any others can reach you.”
I opened my eyes wide. “Swing down. Just like that?”
He looked embarrassed to have assumed so much. “Luca said that you slid down a rope one night-“
I held up my hand. “That’s quite a plan. But I am not prepared to kill Forelli men to save my sister’s life.”
“We feign your attack, their death,” Luca said with a shrug, picking up on where Fortino was going. “In the dim, flickering torchlight, it will be easy enough.”
I leaned back, considering it. “Dare he believe it would be that simple?”
He thought it through too. “Cosmo Paratore has never had a spy on the inside of Castello Forelli before. Not since his father’s time has there been such unrest between us. It was he who seized that hill and redrew the property boundary. He is power hungry, willing to do whatever he can to secure his place in Florentine society. If Castello Forelli is breached from the front gates, so much the better. That sort of thing lives long in tales around the table. He’ll glory in the plan, and never suspect that reinforcements might be nearby.”
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