Betrayed by His Kiss

by Amanda McCabe

  Only the knowledge that Isabella was his kinswoman, and that Strozzi was unlikely to hurt her because of his own family honour, held Orlando back from chasing them down and snatching Isabella away from him. But one day he would no longer be able to hold himself back.

  At the end of the wide marble aisle, she paused and glanced over her shoulder. Orlando knew she was too far away to see him, but he stepped back into the shadows anyway, watching her carefully. It would do no good for Strozzi to see him now, not in front of her. Sweet, lovely Isabella. How could she be related to the Strozzi at all?

  She seemed disappointed by whatever she found. She drew her cloak hood over her hair and vanished into the flood of sunlight beyond the sacred shadows of the church.

  Maledizione. He could barely hold himself back from running after her.

  Orlando rubbed his hand hard over his jaw, cursing himself for a fool. Lucretia had told him he was a questing knight, that one day he would find the jewel he sought without even knowing it and he would be lost. He had only laughed at her, called her a romantic. But when he looked into the darkness of Isabella’s eyes, it felt like a sudden flash of just such a thing. Of finding a rare treasure he hadn’t even known he sought, that he had scoffed to think even existed.

  It was startling, enough to almost bring him to his knees. Like a flash of lightning through his body.

  But he did not feel like a questing, gallant knight in some poem. He felt as if he was the court jester Isabella had teased him about, a fool to fate.

  He’d lost his innocence in the taverns of Florence so long ago and the last of his shining, tattered shreds of hope when Maria Lorenza was injured. Matteo Strozzi had seen to that. And now, when he at last felt a glimmer of such rare wonder again, Strozzi was there to snatch it away.

  When he looked at Isabella, he saw a goddess. A saint, wide-eyed with wonder at life. Yet she was kin to Strozzi and lost to him already. That hope was like the glitter of a star, beautiful, entrancing, but impossible to ever touch.

  For he had vowed one day to take his final revenge on Strozzi. And he would wound Isabella in the fulfilment of that promise. One more innocent destroyed by life in Florence.

  ‘Orlando,’ a woman’s voice called, low and musical.

  He glanced over his shoulder to find Lucretia gliding towards him. A sheer purple-silk veil fluttered over her golden hair. The elaborate curls and waves glittered with ropes of pearls and amethysts, sparkling, but her face was solemn.

  ‘Praying for your soul, are you?’ she said with a sad little smile. She held out her hand for him to kiss.

  Orlando tried to smile at her, to show her only the careless face he showed all the world. But she would not be fooled. ‘You know my soul is too blackened for mere prayers. It would take all my fortune to buy enough Masses.’

  Lucretia shook her head. She tucked her bejewelled hand into the crook of his arm and led him out of the shadows. They paused before the Annunciation in the altarpiece. The Madonna’s face, a pale, serene oval, somehow made him think of Isabella and the wonder in her eyes when she looked around the cathedral.

  ‘Shadowed it certainly is, but never as black as you declare. You looked so very sad just then. What has happened?’

  Orlando studied the face of the painted Madonna high above them. She did look like Isabella, with that bright curiosity about the world around her in her eyes. The innocence.

  ‘Do you remember, Lucretia, when you told me I would one day find what I sought? The one thing I am meant to do in the world?’ he said.

  He could feel her watching him. ‘I do. I have long thought that. Have you found it?’

  He shook his head. ‘My purpose was set long ago, come what may. And I have not such faith in myself that I have only been seeking a good purpose to give my life meaning. I have only sought pleasure. And I have always been lucky enough to find it.’

  ‘But something has happened. Something has changed. I see it in your eyes.’

  Orlando was silent for a long moment, still studying the painted Madonna. He saw Isabella’s smile again, the sudden rare gift of her laughter. ‘You know of everyone in Florence, Lucretia. Have you heard of a woman named Isabella, kinswoman to Matteo and Caterina Strozzi?’

  Lucretia tilted her head to one side as she searched her copious memory. ‘Isabella Strozzi?’

  ‘I do not know. She knows Signor Botticelli.’

  ‘I have not heard of any new arrivals named Isabella. Is she young, marriageable?’

  ‘Young, but not of the first youth.’ Wiser and richer than that, but still innocent of the world. Perfect. ‘Artistic.’

  ‘And pretty, I would wager.’ Lucretia laughed. ‘I am most intrigued, Orlando. It has been a very long time since you showed such interest in a respectable lady. Never, I would say.’

  ‘I cannot be interested in her,’ he answered.

  ‘Nevertheless, I have been in search of a project and you have given me one. I will find out what I can about this mysterious Isabella. But what shall you do with this information?’

  Orlando thought again of Isabella’s smile—and the way she took her cousin’s arm. Her cousin, Orlando’s sworn enemy. ‘I do not know what I will do,’ he said truthfully. ‘Yet somehow—I need to know more.’

  Lucretia smiled. ‘You can do nothing more today, Orlando. Come with me to my palazzo. Many of your old friends are coming later for supper. We always have an amusing time. I think you need a distraction from the mysterious lady for an afternoon. I’ve never seen you quite like this.’

  Lucretia was right. He did need a distraction. Isabella was kin to the Strozzi, after all; surely she could not be all that she appeared.

  ‘Very well, fairest Lucretia,’ he said, raising her perfumed hand for a quick, teasing kiss. ‘Distracted I shall be.’

  She laughed. ‘Somehow, I do not believe that.’

  Chapter Six

  Isabella made her way slowly through the market, half-afraid she should turn and dash back to Caterina’s palazzo before she was missed. Before she made even more of a fool of herself. She found her hands were trembling as she drew the hood of her cloak closer.

  Yet something in her wouldn’t let her turn back, something powerful and strong. As magically inexplicable as the dome over the cathedral. She didn’t know where to begin looking. Surely he didn’t even want to be found. Yet here she was, searching none the less.

  It was very early. The sun, creeping higher in the lapis-blue sky, was still a burnt pink at the edges. The merchants were just setting up their wares, laughing and calling out sleepily to each other as they laid out piles of glistening fish, pyramids of jewel-like fruit, bolts of ribbons. She couldn’t quite remember where the art supplier was, yet still she looked.

  Isabella turned a corner in a narrow alleyway and suddenly that miraculous dome soared up into view. The new light of day turned it to a mellow rosy-red, sparkling on the pure white marble beneath. She remembered standing beneath that glorious space with Orlando, his arms coming around her, his mouth covering hers in that soul-stealing kiss. A kiss she had lain awake remembering all night.

  She suddenly swayed, a wave of dizziness breaking over her at the memory, and reached out to lean against the stone wall. Images flashed through her mind like hastily glimpsed paintings, the gilded mosaics in the church, the whirl of people, the hush of the balcony where there was only Orlando and herself, wrapped up in each other.

  That kiss had been like nothing else she had ever known, or could even imagine. The very ground beneath her feet had swollen like the wave of a flooding river and burst, drowning her, and nothing could surely be the same again. It was as if she glimpsed the emotions only evoked by paint or charcoal on canvas.

  Yet then he had vanished, just as he had that day he saved her from the thieves. Disappeared as if he was one of her
dreams, half-hidden, desperately sought, but always elusive.

  She closed her eyes for an instant and in that darkness she saw again the way he looked at her after they kissed. The sadness and longing, the burning fire of passion, that made her want nothing more than to leap into those flames and be completely consumed.

  She knew she couldn’t have been fooled by that glow in his otherworldly eyes. There was no artifice there in that instant, only raw, burning life.

  Yet there was that fathomless darkness, too. That darkness that had frightened her the first time she met him and she saw the depths of anger he held deep inside of himself. That was there as well, fighting with the light of desire.

  She opened her eyes and saw that the sun had risen even higher in the sky, setting the dawn afire. That darkness in Orlando drew her just as the light of his laughter did. She was much too intrigued with him. She had to know more and that was what drew her out so secretly to the market again that morning.

  She whirled around and rushed out of the alleyway, plunging back into the noise and colour of the marketplace. It was more crowded now, customers clamouring to buy the freshest wares, shrieking and laughing with their friends, arguing with the merchants over their prices. Isabella scanned each covered booth until she finally found the art supplier.

  ‘Ah, signora the artist!’ he cried when she ducked into the booth. ‘You have returned. For some of my very fine lapis, mayhap?’

  Isabella laughed. The familiar, comforting scents of the crushed pigments and liquid washes wrapping around her helped to steady her, to remind her of her mission in the market that day. She had to find Orlando. No matter how very much her mind told her she should not see him again, her heart and all her artistic senses pushed her to find him. To figure out what hold he had over her.

  And her heart had been too long ignored in her safe, quiet country life. It wouldn’t be silent now.

  ‘Later, perhaps, when my skills improve,’ she answered. ‘At the moment, I require some information you might have, signor. About the man I met here yesterday, the tall one in black.’

  The man frowned and shook his head doubtfully, his gaze shifting away. ‘I am not very certain...’

  * * *

  Five minutes and a small handful of coins later, and Isabella had the information she needed. She asked directions of a fishmonger and turned towards a quarter of the city nearer the river, where the art supply merchant said Orlando had lodgings.

  As she made her way through the swelling crowds, growing even thicker as the morning slid towards noon, she realized how very little she actually knew about Orlando. What was his family? What did he do with his days? He knew of art and philosophy, and he seemed to see into her heart all too well. Yet what was in his? What was the solemnity, the secrecy, she glimpsed in his eyes?

  She was half-afraid to find out, but she had to. Something had pulled her towards him ever since he saved her that first day she arrived and it drew her still, like a gilded rope between them.

  The neighbourhood the merchant directed her to was not as grand as Caterina’s square of glittering palazzi. But neither did it hold the air of cracked neglect like the deserted square where she nearly came to grief before Orlando appeared like an avenging angel. It was bustling, crowded, prosperous, with an air of energy and purpose. Bright boxes of spring flowers gleamed outside open windows, while laundry snapped in the breeze and children ran past, laughing.

  Surely anyone who lodged in such a street could not hide anything too sinister, Isabella thought as she looked around her. It seemed so—ordinary, so everyday, next to Orlando’s mystery and beauty.

  She found the house where he was said to have his lodgings, yet she found she didn’t have to summon up the courage to knock on the door after all. She glimpsed a tall figure in black through the crowd, appearing and disappearing between the hurrying figures. She almost called out to him in a sudden surge of joy at seeing him, but something held her back. She cautiously made her way closer and was glad she didn’t follow her first impulse. It seemed Orlando was not alone.

  A lady held on to his arm, laughing up at him as he smiled at something she said. It was not merely any woman, but quite the most beautiful woman Isabella had ever seen. Her golden hair was twisted atop her head in elaborate, jewel-twined braids, barely concealed by the sheer lavender silk of her veil. Her face was a pale, perfect oval set off by arched blonde brows and the shimmer of amethyst earrings. She held on to Orlando’s arm easily, casually, as if she knew him very well.

  And he smiled at her, one of those perfect sun-flash smiles that were so rare.

  Isabella’s burst of elation seemed to collapse in on itself and she shivered. Yes, Orlando had kissed her, talked to her, intrigued her, yet truly she did not know him.

  She felt like a fool for trying to seek him out.

  She started to turn away, to lose herself once again in the crowd, but the beautiful woman suddenly turned her head and saw Isabella there. Her eyes widened, as if she somehow recognized Isabella, and she tugged at Orlando’s arm so that he turned as well.

  There was no running away now.

  His smile wavered, vanished, but then it returned full force. Isabella went up on her toes, as if her body would run to him even against her own will, and she had to force herself to stay where she was. To not look away from him and thus reveal all the foolish hopes that drove her that day.

  He murmured something to the woman, who nodded. She gave Isabella one last quizzical glance and disappeared into the crowd. Orlando hurried towards Isabella and she was glad she hadn’t run away after all. His smile was worth staying to see.

  ‘This is a fine sight for me this morning, Signorina Isabella,’ he said lightly. ‘Are you in search of art supplies again?’

  ‘I—think perhaps I took a wrong turn somewhere,’ Isabella murmured, dazzled as she looked up at him. There was no darkness in him at that moment, no hint of anger. Just that alluring smile, a bright light in his eyes that drew her in all over again. ‘I should not take you away from your companion...’

  Orlando glanced over his shoulder and Isabella saw that the golden woman had vanished. ‘Lucretia is an old friend. I think we are well met today, you and I.’

  A friend only? Isabella wanted to believe that, wanted to believe he was as happy to see her as she was him. His smile seemed to speak the truth of that. ‘Are we indeed?’

  ‘Aye. I thought much last night about our time in the church,’ he said, his smile flickering into solemnity. ‘I should not have left you as I did. It was most ungallant.’

  Isabella remembered how puzzled she had been, how she had wondered about him. Yet seeing him again seemed to erase all doubts. ‘I had met with my cousin. I was surely in no danger again.’

  ‘But we were not able to finish our tour of Florence’s beautiful sites,’ he said with a flash of a smile, a roguish one now that made her laugh.

  How very changeable he was, she thought. From darkness to sunny light in an instant. It made her feel quite dizzy. ‘Where would you recommend I look next, then?’

  ‘If you have time, perhaps a walk by the river? Then I will see you safely home. You remember how unpredictable the city can be.’

  Isabella nodded. The thieves he had saved her from that first day had indeed been fearsome, but she was now quite sure the greatest danger in Florence was him. At least for her. His kiss had made her forget, yet now she remembered the blonde woman who smiled at him. He was a part of this city, this world, and she was not.

  But still—still she wanted to look at his smile just a little longer. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘A walk sounds perfect on such a lovely day.’

  His smile flashed again. ‘Come, then, let me show you.’

  He offered his arm and Isabella laid her hand lightly on his velvet sleeve. She could feel the strength and heat of him under
her touch and it made her smile.

  Orlando told her of the sites they passed, the churches and fine palazzi, until they reached the river itself. They strolled out on to an arched stone bridge and found a quieter, more private niche that looked down at the water. The noise and clamour of the city faded away there.

  Isabella leaned over the stone edge of the bridge to gaze down at the water. The fresh, pale golden sunlight sparkled on the rippling waves, dappling the boats that passed beneath. It all looked so enchanted, bathed in rosy-gold light, yet still dark at the edges. Just like Orlando.

  ‘Have you always lived here?’ she asked. She glanced over at Orlando just in time to see a shadow flicker over his handsome face. But it was gone quickly, hidden by that smile.

  ‘My father’s estate was near Umbria,’ he said, perfectly calm, perfectly impersonal.

  ‘Was?’ she asked, curious.

  ‘It is still there, but I seldom return to it. I had a sister, you see, who was very dear to me. She died there, and I—do not like to be reminded of her and what happened to her,’ he said, still so horribly quiet. ‘The distractions of the city suit me better now.’

  Isabella studied the houses and church spires before her, so golden, so beautiful, so perfectly suited to hiding all secrets. It did seem the perfect place to escape grief and sorrow. Her heart ached that the sorrow was his. ‘I can see that. I also wanted to escape my home, to see more of the wide world. But I miss my father’s house, I miss knowing I belong there, what will happen next. Here, I never know at all.’

  ‘There are too many memories at my father’s house now,’ Orlando said softly. He looked away from the vista before him and suddenly smiled again. ‘Here, everything is like new with every fresh day. I never know what I will see or who I will meet. It is an adventure.’