“Thank you!” Lucy dropped into a little curtsy, then frowned and rushed over to the window as a roll of thunder sounded. “The storm sounds like it’s getting closer.” She peered out through the curtains. “I sure do hope it doesn’t rain. Everything will be completely ruined if it rains!”
“We’ll just perform the scenes inside,” Kate said, preoccupied. She was checking the way her new earrings—dangling gold loops with little crystals—looked with her dress. As Lucy had promised during their afternoon of shopping, they matched perfectly. “Anyway, better to have rain tonight for the dress rehearsal. It might clear up in time for the party tomorrow.”
“I suppose so.” Lucy stared out at the trees, which were beginning to whip around in the deepening twilight. She shivered and let the curtains drop closed.
Kate was looking in the mirror above her dresser and brushing on another layer of mascara as carefully as a surgeon performing a delicate and dangerous operation. But even in the midst of her concentration, she could sense Lucy moving restlessly behind her, walking over to her bedside table to pick up a book Kate had been reading, putting it down with a sigh, wandering to the other side of the room to examine a watercolor on the far wall, then tacking back to sit on the end of the bed for two whole seconds before jumping up again and—
“What is wrong with you?” Kate asked. She put down the mascara and turned to look at Lucy. “Are you nervous about your scene?”
Lucy and Benno had been struggling in rehearsals, most notably because Benno couldn’t seem to remember any of his lines. But Dan had taught Lucy, who knew every word by heart, the useful art of cuing someone else under her breath, and their performance had become, if not riveting, at least coherent.
“Oh, no, we’ll be fine,” Lucy said. “Even if Benno forgets all his lines, I figure I can just jump to the last line and we’ll be done.”
“That’s one way to finish the scene quickly,” Kate admitted.
“Exactly. And I bet hardly anybody will notice anyway.” Lucy plumped herself back down on the bed, looking so pleased with her solution that Kate didn’t have the heart to tell her that Romeo and Juliet’s first meeting was one of the most famous scenes in literature and that everyone would notice. In her shoes, with Benno as her Romeo, Kate would have been tempted to do the same.
“So if you’re not worried about the acting—” she prompted.
“Oh! Right!” Lucy jumped up again and rushed over to Kate. “So, Kate, can I tell you something? Something really secret?”
“Of course.” Kate uncapped her new lipstick and turned back to the mirror.
“And you swear you won’t tell?”
“‘If I lose mine honour, I lose myself,’” Kate remarked absently.
“No, Kate, say it in your own words, this is important.”
Her attention caught by Lucy’s tone, Kate stopped in the middle of cautiously trying out her new lipstick and looked over. “Of course I won’t tell. What is it?”
Lucy took a deep breath, let it out and then said simply, “Look.”
She held out a paper.
“A letter?” Kate asked as she took it. “What, from the box of Juliet letters upstairs?”
“No! A letter for me! I found it under my door this morning, I’ve been dying to show it to you all day, but there was never a moment.” Lucy’s hands were clasped in front of her. She looked excited, happy, and—Kate looked at her more carefully—a little scared. “Go ahead, read it!”
So Kate did.
“Well? What do you think? Isn’t it wonderful?” Lucy’s voice trembled.
“Yes,” Kate said dully, her eyes still fixed on the familiar handwriting. “Wonderful.”
“From a secret admirer,” Lucy said dreamily. She kept gazing at the letter as if she couldn’t bear to put it away. “Why do you think he didn’t sign his name?”
Because he’s a sneaky, underhanded, duplicitous, deceitful . . . Kate ran out of words. It didn’t matter anyway. It didn’t help much to just think the words. What she wanted to do was scream them from that damn balcony, rampage through the villa yelling them as she pulled over furniture and tore down tapestries, scrawl them on the walls with her brand-new rosy pink lipstick.
Instead, she said evenly, “The last line said something about seeing you tomorrow night. I imagine he wanted to see your face when he revealed who he was.”
“Oh, do you think that’s it?” Lucy took a few dancing steps toward the door. “I don’t think I can wait until tomorrow night! I think I’ll spritz on a little perfume before I go downstairs. I’ll meet you in a few minutes?”
“Sure,” Kate said. “I’ll see you down there.”
Alone, she stared at herself in the full-length mirror. Why had she thought this tan color looked good with her hair? It actually made her blond hair look dull. Her eyes no longer sparkled. And the dress itself looked positively drab.
She blinked a few times as she looked at her reflection. Then she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and resolved to get through this dress rehearsal with her dignity intact. After all, she only had to get through two more days, then she would be getting on a plane for the United States.
No. She did a quick calculation in her head. Less than two days. Only forty hours left until the plane took off and she could leave Italy behind. Forever.
Kate almost made it.
She danced in the ballroom with her skirt swirling gracefully around her and never missed a step. She managed to smile at Tom and Benno when she moved through the dance and was partnered with them. When the dance brought her back to Giacomo, she stared at his collar and concentrated on projecting an air of cool, unapproachable dignity.
When Silvia and Tom dueled, she stood with everyone else and applauded at the end. And when, finally, it was time for her to do the balcony scene with Giacomo, she dutifully recited her lines to a spot six inches above the top of his head.
She was aware of puzzled glances from the others. Her father pulled her aside at one point to ask if she wasn’t feeling well, so she pleaded a headache.
“Well, you’ve been working hard, it’s no wonder,” he said. “Be sure to get enough sleep tonight, all right?”
She had nodded and moved through the evening with her chin held high, clinging to the thought that soon it would all be over.
She had just slipped away to go to her room when Giacomo intercepted her in the upstairs hall. He wore a severely cut maroon jacket with silver buttons, black pants, and tall, polished black boots. His hair had gotten a little longer in the last month, and it was pulled back in a short queue and tied with a black ribbon. Kate thought he looked dashing and rakish and dangerous, an impression that was only reinforced when he gave her a quick smile, then caught her hand and bent down to kiss her.
He loves Lucy, she reminded herself. Not you. She pulled her hand away from him and regarded him coldly.
“Is everything all right? You didn’t seem like yourself tonight.” His dark eyes looked concerned.
Of course they do, she thought furiously. He’s a wonderful actor when his words don’t mean anything.
“Everything’s fine.”
He smiled slightly. “I think our director would tell you to keep working on your delivery. It didn’t sound quite truthful.”
Kate caught her breath at the sheer outrageousness of this statement. He had the nerve to say she wasn’t being truthful?
Of course, she wasn’t, but that was not the point.
“Really, I’m fine.” Her excuse to her father came back to her. “I’m just tired and—and I have a headache. That’s all.”
And everything would have been fine if he hadn’t reached out to touch her arm, if he hadn’t smiled at her in that private way that said they shared a secret, if he hadn’t murmured, “Why don’t we take a little walk? The evening air is supposed to be very good for headaches.”
“So is aspirin.” She jerked her arm away. “And I’m sure there are other girls you’d much rather tak
e for a moonlight stroll, so why don’t you go ask them?” Well, so much for her vow to treat him with cool, dignified contempt.
He looked at her as if she were insane. “What are you talking about? What girls? Where?” He made a great show of looking around the hall, as if perhaps he had misplaced an entire flock of girls.
“That isn’t funny,” she said through gritted teeth, and started to stalk off to her room.
But he was standing between her and the last flight of stairs. Beyond him lay her room and sanctuary—but she couldn’t see any way to get to it without brushing against him in the narrow hall.
“Have I hurt you in some way?”
For the first time in her life, Kate understood what a “beseeching” look was. Giacomo looked upset and worried and just faintly cross. It was the crossness that almost made her almost believe the rest; that, at least, seemed absolutely authentic.
She hesitated, and as if he could sense her wavering, Giacomo stepped forward and put his hand on her waist. He leaned forward to whisper something; she could feel his breath on her ear; she caught her breath and then—
“Oh, hey, there y’all are!” It was Lucy, tripping down the hall from the other direction, daintily holding up the skirt of her blue spangled dress. “Come downstairs, Professoressa Marchese has refreshments for everyone and we’re having such fun!”
Giacomo turned to Kate. “Shall we?”
She gave him a bitter, knowing smile in return. “You two go on,” she said. “Have a great time.”
Then she picked up her own skirts, ran down the stairs, and fled into the night.
The storm broke just as she ran through the villa’s courtyard, tears streaming down her face.
She had to plant her feet and pull to get the heavy wooden door to open it. Then, just as it did, her father and Francesca Marchese came in, arm in arm. She had a blurry impression of seeing her father’s face, looking startled and somehow secretive. She heard him call out, “Kate! Is something wrong?” She noticed that Professoressa Marchese still had the ghost of a smile on her face, as if she had been interrupted in the midst of laughter. Then Kate pushed past them, stumbled, and began running.
Behind her, she could hear her father’s voice calling to her, getting fainter and fainter until finally she didn’t hear anything except the rain pelting on the sidewalks, the occasional crash of thunder, and the sound of her fancy high-heeled shoes clattering along the street.
Her thoughts whirled around her mind in time with her footsteps. I’m so stupid, she was thinking. I looked like an idiot, just the way Silvia and Benno wanted me to! After I swore that I would never, ever make a fool of myself because of love!
Lightning streaked through the sky. Kate jumped, her heart pounding, and turned another corner at random. She didn’t know where she was running, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Her face was wet, and she couldn’t tell the difference between the tears and the rain.
The thunder crashed, only seconds after the lightning. Good, the storm was getting closer. Kate wanted it to break right over her head, she wanted the earth and heavens to shake, she didn’t care if it killed her—
Well, actually, she did care. Even in her distraught state, a tiny part of her mind whispered, “Why should lightning strike you? Let it kill Giacomo!”
She almost smiled at the thought, until she remembered who she wanted dead.
Giacomo the betrayer. Giacomo the liar. Giacomo, the false friend, who whispered sweet nothings that were exactly that, nothing, in fact they were less than nothing. . . .
Now she was crying so hard she couldn’t keep running; she could barely breathe. Her long skirt clung to her legs, sodden with rain. Gasping, she dashed under the portico of a building. It was a store of some kind, shut up for the night.
Kate wiped off her face, took a sobbing breath, and tried to get her bearings. She had run along the river, she remembered that much, but she had no idea how far she had run. She could smell the fresh scent of the rain, which was falling in sheets; it was as if the skies had opened and water was flooding the entire world.
She blinked, and the building across the street came into focus. Santa Lorenzo, where Giacomo went to church with his grandmother. She wanted to moan with despair, but she hiccupped instead. It was such a ridiculous sound, she might have laughed—but no. Tragedy had visited her life, it had come to stay, and she would never laugh again.
“Ciao, bella! Come mai ti trovi qui stasera?” a man’s voice said with a definite leer.
She jumped and turned to see two older men leaning against the wall, smoking cigarettes and eyeing her up and down. The one who had spoken tossed his cigarette to the ground, stepped on it, and started toward her, grinning suggestively. “Devo dire che stasera sono proprio fortunato di ricevere la tua visita, bella ragazza che sei.”
Kate didn’t know what he was saying, and she didn’t want to know. She plunged out into the rain and ran on.
Silvia was pedaling her bike as fast as she could, as if she could outrace the rain. Which was rather ridiculous, since the jeans and T-shirt she had changed into after rehearsal were now drenched. Still, she pumped harder on her pedals, shot around a corner a little faster than she meant to, and almost tipped over. She threw her weight to one side and managed to stay upright, but she had barely regained her balance when someone came dashing into the street, right in front of her.
Silvia swerved, slammed on her brakes, and managed to stop with her front wheel only inches from the idiot who had almost made her crash. Panting, she still had enough breath to let forth with an imaginative stream of curse words.
“I’m so sorry.” Kate was leaning over, her hands on her knees, breathing hard. “I didn’t see you.”
“That much,” Silvia said frostily, “is quite obvious.”
Kate looked up. “Silvia,” she said. “Oh, good. Now my night is complete.”
“I did not want to run into you, either,” Silvia said pointedly. “Or rather, I did not want to almost kill myself trying not to run into you!”
Kate clearly wasn’t listening. She straightened up and glanced down the deserted street, looking as bewildered as if she had just appeared from another world. “I’m lost,” she said, almost as if she were talking to herself. She had lifted one hand to push her wet hair out of her face, and now stood motionless, still holding her hand to her head.
This was not the superior Kate of the seminar room, or the radiant Kate who had been making Silvia’s plot develop far more successfully than she had hoped. In fact, this Kate looked miserable and frightened and—
“Completely lost.”
Silvia bit her lip in exasperation as a small, and most unwelcome, spark of compassion flickered in her heart. “No, you’re not,” she said crossly. “I’ve found you, haven’t I?”
“I can’t go back to the villa!” Kate was sitting in Silvia’s room, wearing one of Signora di Napoli’s robes and sipping a cup of tea. She felt much better after drying off, eating a bowl of soup in the family kitchen, and being fussed over by Silvia’s mother and grandmother. “Not while he is there.”
Silvia felt that little spark of fellow feeling flare brighter. No need to say who he was. So, Giacomo had broken Kate’s heart. How like him.
Looking at Kate’s face, however, Silvia felt a small twinge of . . . well, she couldn’t quite identify the emotion, but it was most unwelcome.
She hurried on. “He is a terrible person,” she agreed, and waited.
After a few moments, it was clear that Kate was going for dignified reserve instead of a girlish heart-to-heart. Fine. Silvia didn’t have to hear all the details; she could imagine them readily enough. In fact, her imagination supplied the pictures in a series of widescreen, high-definition close-ups.
And, as she heard Kate give a little heartbroken sniff, she realized that she really didn’t want to know what Giacomo had done. The uncomfortable twinge tweaked her again, harder this time.
“No need to worry,” she sai
d briskly. “My mother called the villa to let your father know you were safe. You can stay here tonight.”
Kate gave her a wary glance over the rim of her teacup. “Really?”
Silvia shrugged. “Because of the storm. It will be easier than going back to the villa.”
“That’s very nice of you.” Kate looked truly grateful. “I’m glad I don’t have to go tonight and see . . . anyone.”
Silvia’s mind flashed back to that moment when her plan to trick Kate into falling in love with Giacomo had popped into her head. It had seemed wonderfully amusing at the time. And really, it was not her fault that Giacomo had behaved so horribly to Kate.
“So. We will go to the villa in the morning, problem solved.”
“One problem solved.” Kate prodded the sodden silk mass that had been her costume for the ball, which was now lying in a heap on the floor. “I think my shoes will be fine once they’ve dried, but my dress is ruined.”
“Mmm, you’re probably right.” Silvia held up the dress and examined it with a practiced eye. “Maybe it could be steamed and pressed, but it will never really look the same.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Kate said bleakly. “I’m not going, anyway.”
She stared down at her empty teacup. Silvia’s heart twisted inside her and, before she knew it, she was saying vehemently, “No, no, you mustn’t give up now, you must go!”
Kate looked up, surprised, and no wonder, Silvia thought, biting her tongue. After all, Kate didn’t know about the prank Silvia had set into motion, so she didn’t know that Silvia was now feeling a very unfamiliar emotion. Remorse.
“I mean,” Silvia added more calmly, “you can always get another dress.”
Desperate to find something to talk about—something other than Giacomo—Kate glanced around the room.
Her attention was caught by a dress hanging on the wall. It was a truly wondrous dress: several shades of rosy pink, fuschia, and gold, with a profusion of ribbons and a double row of glass drops with silver backing.
The Juliet Club Page 22