Isabella laughed ruefully. ‘Like a lost country mouse in need of rescue?’
Orlando did not laugh. He reached out and gently, softly, smoothed back a lock of her hair that had fallen from its pins. The tips of his fingers brushed over her skin and she shivered.
‘Like beautiful artists, who make me see the world in a whole new light,’ he whispered.
Flustered, warm with blushes, Isabella looked away. ‘I think that is what brought me to Florence. To see the world in a new way,’ she said. ‘I want to create art, to see made manifest on a canvas my vision of the world. All the beauty and the fear, too. The transcendence that always seems just beyond reach.’
That was what he was. All transcendent beauty, light and darkness all together. Just like what she saw when she was lost in a painting, falling deep into a whirlpool of aching emotions she could never understand in real life. The realization of it, of him, made her want to cry. She closed her eyes and tried to force the aching tears away.
Suddenly, she felt the soft brush of his hand against her cheek again. His touch was feather light, yet it seemed to leave shimmering sparks across her skin. She jumped, startled, and his palm cupped her cheek to hold her with him as if she was made of the most fragile, precious porcelain.
His touch slid slowly, carefully, down the side of her neck beneath her cloak hood, dislodging it from her hair. His fingertips toyed with the ribbon tie of her sleeve. She felt the heat of his hand through the wool and muslin, and thought again of how he was a god, a Hades, sent to tempt mortals. And he was so good at it.
His other hand came to the back of her head and he drew her even closer. She felt his breath whisper over her skin.
‘So beautiful,’ he whispered. There was no hint of teasing laughter in his voice. The words seemed torn from him, aching. He stared down at her intently, his eyes darkened, and she couldn’t turn away.
She felt suddenly far too vulnerable, as if he was looking again into her deepest heart. But he held her still, his fingers twined in her hair. He didn’t hurt her, yet neither would he let her go.
‘Not as beautiful as you,’ she said hoarsely.
He shook his head, still staring down at her as if he would memorize her. He bent his head and kissed the small, soft, sensitive spot just below her ear. She felt the shocking touch of the tip of his tongue on her skin, the light scrape of his teeth, and it made her tremble with the force of the emotion that rolled through her.
She gasped and clutched at the front of his fine velvet doublet as she tried to keep from falling. Her eyes closed as she fell deep into the hot, swirling waters of sensation. It was just as when he had kissed her before and she knew now it was not merely kissing that made her feel thus—it was only him. He made something so deep and instinctive rise up in her, until she knew only him. The rest of the world didn’t exist.
His arms closed hard around her waist and he lifted her against him to catch her mouth with his. He tasted of wine and that rich darkness that was only him, that she craved far too much. She wrapped her hands around the back of his neck and held on to him tightly. The rough silk of his dark hair curled over her fingers.
She heard him moan deep inside his throat as his tongue slid over hers and she met him eagerly. He was so wondrous, so very warm and alive, and he made her feel as if she was waking up to the real world at last.
He made her feel too much. Too hot, too cold, too scared, too excited. The force of her feelings frightened her, as if the pool that had been so warm, so enticing only a moment before, was drowning her and soon she would vanish into him.
Orlando seemed to sense her sudden rush of fear. His lips tore away from hers and he pressed his forehead against hers. He went very still as their ragged, mingled breath slowed.
Isabella was suddenly aware of the world around them, the laughter of people outside their hidden spot, the rush of the river, the wheeling birds overhead.
‘I—I must go,’ she whispered. She turned away from the piercing, pale light of his eyes and pulled her hood up around her again. If only she could hide her heart so easily. ‘My cousin will be looking for me.’
‘Let me see you home,’ he said, his voice slightly rough.
Isabella remembered how he had disappeared in the cathedral and her confusion increased. What was he about with her? Did he feel as she did? Or was she merely being that country mouse again, unsure of the ways of Florence? ‘I should go alone,’ she said.
‘Then I will watch you until you are safely there,’ he said firmly, as if she would not be allowed to argue that point. ‘No one will see me at your cousin’s home.’
Isabella just wanted to get home, to be quiet and think. She nodded and turned to make her way out of their hidden hollow of the bridge into the crowd again. People pressed close on all sides, drawing her back into the real world.
At the foot of the bridge, she glanced back. True to his word, he was nowhere to be seen, yet she would vow she could feel him watching her. Her dark angel.
At last she reached Caterina’s palazzo. The footman opened the door for her, and as soon as she was closed in alone in the cool marble hush of the hall, she collapsed back against the wall.
She felt a smile tug at her lips, entirely against her will, but it would not be denied. And it was only from him. It was only Orlando who made her so giddy. She lifted the hem of her skirts and ran as fast as she could up the stairs.
* * *
Orlando couldn’t help but laugh as he watched Isabella glance over her shoulder at the door of the palazzo, an anxious look on her face. He knew very well she couldn’t see him, but he revelled in that one last glimpse of her.
Isabella was like no one else he had ever known. There was a light inside of her, a force of life he had rarely glimpsed in anyone else, and that light beckoned him closer and closer. If he came too near, he knew he would fall into her heat and forget everything else. Everything he had worked so hard for, for so long.
Yet he couldn’t bear the thought of staying away from her. Not when there was still so much to learn about her...
Orlando turned and strode away from Isabella’s house. Florence was crowded, as always. Yet the feeling in the warm spring air wasn’t the usual one of festive anticipation, when the season of parties and river pageants arrived, when Lent gave way to Easter. There was a thickness, a tension, one that Orlando could sense but couldn’t quite decipher. It broke some of that heady joy from being with Isabella and reminded him sharply of the knife’s edge his life really was.
He curled his fingers around the hilt of the dagger at his waist and turned towards narrower, rougher lanes away from the river. There, lounging with deceptive laziness beside a shade-dappled fountain, was the man he sought.
One of the guards he employed to keep an eye on this city, who had helped him rescue Isabella from the thieves, watched the crowd flow past as he pared his nails with a knife-point.
Orlando sat down beside him on the stone fountain ledge and he didn’t even blink.
‘What gossip do you hear of late?’ Orlando asked. He crossed his booted ankles and studied the crowded square around them.
The guard shrugged. ‘There is some discontent.’
Orlando gave a humourless laugh. ‘That is like saying the sky is blue in Florence.’
‘Some of the old families say the Medicis have got far above themselves.’
Orlando nodded. ‘The Vespuccis? The Pazzis?’
The guard nodded. ‘Them, and others.’
‘Jacopo Pazzi has long made his peace with Lorenzo de Medici.’
‘Perhaps old Jacopo has, but not his sons and grandsons, mayhap. The younger Jacopo has been ale-shot in many taverns lately, complaining of the Pazzi banks’ losses to the Medici.’
And Matteo Strozzi was friends with the younger Pazzi, the two of them leaving a
path of destruction through the brothels and taverns of the cities. Was Strozzi involved in the complicated tangle of Pazzi and Medici? Surely Strozzi was always spoiling for a fight, swaggering about with his guards and his hired bravos.
Perhaps there was a way Orlando could turn such resentments and quarrels to his own course. Use it to his advantage.
The image of Isabella flashed in his mind, her eyes full of wonder as she looked up at Botticelli’s painting. After their kiss. Was she safe in the Strozzi house, amid these feuds she could not possibly understand? How could he keep her safe?
He pushed away the memory of her eyes and rose to his feet. She would be safe enough, no matter what happened. He would always see to that. He tossed a coin to the man.
‘My thanks,’ he said. ‘Send me word when you hear any more. And have your men keep a close eye on the Strozzi house.’
The man nodded. The sun was high in the sky when Orlando emerged back on to one of the stone bridges over the Arno, but its heat seemed gone. He felt as cold as the depths of winter once again. As cold as the chapel where Maria Lorenza once lay.
Chapter Seven
Isabella dined alone with Caterina in her cousin’s rooms, a quiet evening since Matteo had gone to supper at one of the Medici villas to meet a visiting cardinal. After the empty plates were cleared away and bowls of honeyed sweetmeats left, Caterina took up her lute.
She sat beside the window that looked down on the cobbled courtyard, her golden head bent over the polished wood as she strummed a quiet, bittersweet tune that seemed to fit perfectly with Isabella’s own strange mood.
Isabella sat at the emptied table, turning her Venetian glass goblet between her fingers, letting the music wash over her as she remembered the days just past. Days unlike any other she had ever known, with a man she could not fathom.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Orlando, seeing his face in her mind, the flash of his green eyes, the sudden sunlight of his smile. The way his lips felt on hers, so soft, so—so arousing.
She closed her eyes, seeing again the painting she had imagined of him. She’d teased him about portraying him as a court jester, but that would never do. There was nothing of the gambolling fool about him. The intense way he looked at the world, as if he saw all its hidden darkness...
Nay. He was brooding, watchful, waiting for the perfect moment to capture what he wanted.
Her eyes still closed, the painting took form in her mind like strokes of colour. Black, red, violet, streaks of sudden white. It would be dark, of course, with flashes of shimmering golden light as in Signor Botticelli’s luminous work. Orlando on his towering ebony throne, his dark head leaning back as he surveyed his kingdom. One long, elegant hand curled into a fist, pale against the black velvet of his cloak, the other loosely wrapped around the ruby hilt of a dagger.
How would she paint the texture of the velvet, or the pleated linen draperies of the slave girls who would cluster at his feet? The rays of light streaming from the beautiful, light world above, so close yet so infinitely far away?
Most of all—how would she capture that elusive look in Orlando’s beautiful eyes? The power, the beauty, the infinite sadness and longing that had so intrigued her there in the cathedral. She was drawn so close to him, even as her instincts told her she should run away. Protect herself. With him, she was far too vulnerable. She told him far more than she ever had anyone else. And she knew where such passion led when it was taken away, she had seen it with her own parents.
Half-aware, she traced the edge of her fingernail along the damask tablecloth as she imagined the scene. The sharp lines of the throne, the harsh, elegant angles of his face. The blurred edges of dark tapestries, the gleam of golden goblets. The black waves of his hair. Those sad eyes, so full of infinite emotions yet revealing nothing at all...
‘My dear cousin,’ Caterina said suddenly, her song dying away. ‘I do hope your outings these last few days didn’t tire you. Matteo said you were at the cathedral yesterday, and you were gone again this morning.’
Isabella’s eyes flew open and she glanced up, startled. That phantom painting still clung to her mind, just as the real Orlando did. It was astonishing to be faced with the real, flesh-and-blood world. The luxurious chamber, draped in green-and-silver silk and fine tapestries. The crackling flames in the marble grate, the scent of wine and perfumed smoke from the gold burners. Her cousin’s eyes, watching her too closely, as if she sensed Isabella’s new secret.
But Isabella didn’t want to talk about Orlando, not now. Maybe not ever. He seemed like a dream, like something precious and strange all for herself.
She flattened her hand against the table, feeling the embossed pattern of the cloth press into her skin. ‘I wasn’t tired at all. Florence is a most glorious city, I just want to see every bit of it.’
Caterina smiled gently. Her white fingers went back to strumming the lute strings. ‘It’s true, our city is beautiful and I want to share all I can with you, cousin. But Matteo said he found you alone at the church. You must be more careful.’
Isabella remembered how Matteo looked when he found her beneath the dome, surprised, cautious, and she felt again that flicker of disquiet. She told Caterina, as she had Matteo, that she did have a page with her. ‘But I was enraptured with exploring. Is Florence so dangerous, then?’ She knew it was. But the beauty almost overcame the fear.
A frown whispered over Caterina’s smooth brow and she looked down at her lute. ‘Florence always holds danger, especially among those who have powerful friends, as Matteo does. There are some who are jealous and who would wish him ill. Many undercurrents course here: alliances, hatreds, old quarrels. We must always be wary.’
Wary? Isabella suddenly wished she was back in the country, where life was so simple. She tried to laugh. ‘Surely I am far too insignificant to be the focus of anyone’s jealousies.’
Caterina smiled, but it looked sad. ‘Oh, my dear. Florence may seem large and crowded, but everyone knows everyone here. You would be seen to be our kinswoman, especially after our visit to Botticelli. Apprentices are the greatest gossips of all. And if you hope to make a fine marriage...’
Isabella was startled by the word. ‘Am I here to make a marriage?’
‘I had hoped to find you a match among Matteo’s friends. You are very pretty, Isabella, and intelligent and cultured. You would make a good wife for a wealthy banker or merchant. And I do so love to play Cupid, with my sweet little arrows.’
Caterina wielded her lute like a bow. Isabella laughed, but inside her confusion and unease grew.
‘Do you not wish to save one of those arrows for yourself, Caterina?’ Isabella said.
Caterina shrugged and looked away, her face darkening like a rainy cloud. ‘My health would not make me a suitable wife and I am happy living here with my brother and with my friends. Why should I give up so many admirers for one? And Matteo teases me that Signor Botticelli is my husband of the spirit. I love his work so very much!’
‘So there is none to be jealous of you? Even Signor Botticelli?’
Caterina’s smile returned and for the first time it reached her eyes. ‘Alessandro does not—well, he does not admire women in that way. Not often.’
‘Oh,’ Isabella whispered. She knew of such things, of course. No educated child of a classical scholar could have missed it, the Trojans and Spartans and such. She should have sensed such in the way Botticelli looked at her and Caterina, with only the faintly removed spark of artistic awareness in his eyes.
Not like the look in Orlando’s green eyes. That look that made Isabella feel hot and chilled all at the same time.
‘Oh,’ she said again and laughed.
‘No one talks of such things aloud, of course,’ Caterina said. ‘But Matteo knows my reputation is safe at the studio, there are always other ladies there as Alessandro has
so many muses.’
‘And Giuliano de Medici?’ Isabella said, the words escaping before she could capture them. ‘Does he think you merely a friend?’
Caterina’s smile flickered and she turned away to let the golden waves of her hair cover her face. ‘Giuliano knows I can only be his friend. I have told him so many times. He only likes to flirt with me, tease me, as he does with all the ladies.’
Isabella was very sure that wasn’t all there was to the handsome Giuliano’s feelings for her cousin. She’d seen the way he looked at Caterina, when he thought Caterina couldn’t see. As if she was a goddess come to earth. But Caterina said naught could come of it.
Isabella couldn’t help wondering what she herself would do if Orlando looked at her that way. She sipped at the last of her wine and dared to let herself imagine it.
‘It grows late,’ Caterina said quietly. ‘We should retire, tomorrow will be very busy.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Isabella said, suddenly remembering what Giuliano had said. Remembering the matters of the real world beyond her romantic daydreams, the world of the beautiful city Caterina said held so many hidden dangers. ‘A festival.’
‘On the Prato. Giuliano will meet us at Botticelli’s studio to escort us there,’ Caterina said. ‘It should be very merry! Dancing, music. Giuliano does like to put on a grand show...’ Her voice suddenly faded and she turned away again. ‘We must get our rest.’
She set aside her lute and led Isabella back to her own chamber, where she bid her good-night. Isabella found herself alone for the first time of that long, strange, amazing day. The candles were already lit in their gilded sconces, the bedclothes drawn back. The fine white sheets, sprinkled with lavender, beckoned, promising sweet dreams.
But despite the weariness of the long day, Isabella found she couldn’t lie down just yet. She was seized by a strange restlessness. She pulled the new jewelled pins from her hair and let the heavy black waves fall over her shoulders as she went to the window.
She eased back a corner of heavy brocade curtains to peer down at the street. It was deep into the night now, the sky like black velvet overhead, with only the pearl-like dots of stars and a sliver of moon. In the palazzo across the way, the windows were lit up brightly, as if for a party. She could hear nothing from them. The street was quiet, emptied of the jostling bustle of the day, but somehow that light made her feel not so alone.
Betrayed by His Kiss Page 10