Gladly Beyond

by Nichole Van

  Would I only see death and horror? Or did other life experiences merit a regression too?

  The other times, I had been caught unawares—tossed into the past before I could process what was happening.

  But now . . .

  Claire pushed the door open and, holding it with her foot, reached for my elbow, helping me forward.

  Across the threshold.

  Lights flickered on.

  I glimpsed a hallway leading to a larger space with high, gilded ceilings.

  And then everything faded.

  The world spun. My taped hands and legs released.

  Suddenly, I was walking through the doorway.

  Same high, gilded ceilings. French paper and carved moldings on the walls. Herringbone wood floor. No furniture.

  A young woman sat directly ahead, wrapped in a pool of light from the open window behind her.

  At last, I thought. I have found you, my angel . . .

  Eleven

  Doctor Ethan MacLure walked a few steps into the room, staring at the ethereal sight before him.

  Feeling like a man deep in his cups, head floating in that odd combination of euphoria and bonhomie.

  A woman sat in a simple slat-backed chair, facing away from the window. Brilliant sunlight washed over her, wrapping around the white of her muslin, high-waisted dress and turning her hair into molten honey.

  She braced one hand against a large, paper-draped board on an easel, chalk in the other. Sketching. Like a goddess . . . Athena in her bower. All she lacked was an owl of wisdom on her shoulder.

  His eyes skimmed the length of her straight nose, rose cheeks that ended at a pointed chin.

  Did even heaven itself possess such an angel? How had this creature found her way into this place?

  Ethan walked farther into the room. The angel-woman didn’t raise her head, her attention absorbed.

  An older woman in a mobcap and apron did notice him, however. She raked his figure from top to bottom and then returned to her stitching. The angel’s chaperone, no doubt.

  The noise of the salon drifted through the open door behind him. Voices chattering in a garbled mixture of English, French and Italian. A couple wandered into the room walking past Ethan, perhaps intent on moving through to the room ahead.

  He looked back at the woman seated before the window. Aching to know everything about her.

  Or, barring that, her name at the very least.

  He should wait for an introduction. That was only proper.

  But the rules of propriety felt far away here. This was no London drawing room. Not even Edinburgh and home with his mother and sister.

  The light enfolded her body, turning her into gold-rimmed curves and valleys. What was it about her that drew him so insistently?

  Unbidden, the words flitted through his head again:

  At last, I have found you, m‘aingeal.

  His heart pounded out of his chest. Like a courser, eager to be let loose and given its head.

  And still the angel-woman sketched. Ignoring the world around her.

  Who was she?

  Most high-born visitors to Florence found their way into this house eventually. Even the not-so-high-born ones, like Ethan himself. All and sundry wanted a tale of the elderly Countess of Albany to take home.

  The Countess held salons, famed as much for what they did not provide, as for what they did.

  A footman paused at Ethan’s elbow, holding out a tray of small crystal dishes, each sporting a tiny silver spoon nestled against a perfectly round, pale pink ball. With a polite nod, Ethan took a dish from the tray.

  Refreshment was part of what the Countess did provide. That and scintillating conversation.

  However, such was the beginning and end of her hospitality.

  Ethan held the dish carefully as he surveyed the room.

  It was just like the room behind him and surely the same as the room ahead.

  Beautiful architectural creations with carved moldings and soaring vaults. Expensive Venetian wallpaper and polished wood floors. Marble-mantled fireplaces flanking each end.

  Not a stick of furniture in sight. No carpets. No drapery. Nothing. The rooms were utterly bare of furnishings of any sort.

  The Countess reserved her spartan collection of mis-matched chairs for herself and a few old cronies. Their cackling laughter drifted through the open door.

  Visitors had to make do with standing—including chaperones, judging by the woman upright in the corner—ensuring that no one stayed long enough to wear out their welcome.

  Except, apparently, the angel in front of the window who had also procured a chair for her comfort while drawing.

  Again, who was she?

  Still holding his dish, Ethan crossed the room to her. The sunlight curled around her head, threading through the ringlets framing her face. Her hair was more brown than golden, he noted as he drew near, but the light played tricks with its color.

  She focused on her work with dogged intent, biting her bottom lip between her teeth in a gesture that surely had vexed more than one governess. Why did that simple act feel so achingly familiar?

  “If you mean to offer me the mattonelle, I must refuse,” she said, setting her chalk down and studying her work. “They are far too dangerous for one of even my skill.”

  She spoke without raising her head. Her cultured English wrapping through the quiet room.

  Confused, Ethan glanced behind him. The other couple in the room were turned away.

  “Yes, I am speaking to you,” she continued as he turned back. Still without raising her head.

  Well.

  His heart triple-skipped. He added flirtatious and charming to her list of angelic attributes.

  Hallelujah.

  “Mattonelle?” he asked, grin tugging at his lips.

  She lifted her head (finally) and fixed him with the bluest eyes . . . the color of a frozen loch in January. Ethan found himself quite unable to breathe for a moment.

  She motioned toward the dish he still held. And then bent back over her work, studying some aspect of it.

  Oh.

  He glanced down at the dish. The small pink ball appeared frosted on the outside, despite the warm June weather.

  “I am just arrived in Florence,” he said. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to aid a traveler in a foreign land?”

  She raised her head and raked him again with those diamond-blue eyes. And then primly folded her hands in her lap, pressing her lips together.

  “Though your appeal has not fallen on deaf ears, I must maintain my neutrality.”

  “Ah. Like Florence with Napoleon?”

  “Precisely. I am merely preserving a long-held tradition. The mattonelle are more of an . . . initiation. A rite of passage, if you will, to unite you and your fellow travelers.”

  He raised a skeptical eyebrow, his grin widening.

  “This?” He raised his dish.

  “That.” She nodded.

  He made a production of studying it, lifting the dish into the sunlight, sending shards of prism rainbows across the room.

  “It appears quite harmless.”

  She said nothing in reply.

  “Is the danger in its taste?” he asked.

  “I would not dream of spoiling the surprise.”

  She matched his eyebrow. It had a decidedly challenging edge.

  Ethan’s grin widened. “Well, I canna say I have ever been one to back down from a dare. No self-respecting Scotsman would.”

  With a salute, he picked up the small silver spoon and dug emphatically into the round ball.

  Mattonelle.

  Or whatever it was.

  But as soon as his spoon jabbed the frosted pink sphere—

  The ball shot out of the dish. Bounced loudly against the gilded wainscoting. Thumped twice on the wood floor. Before coming to rest at the lass’s feet.

  Ethan froze, spoon poised in one hand, dish raised in the other.

  The angel-woman laughe
d. A joyful peal of sound.

  “I see,” he said, lowering both items.

  “Welcome to Florence, sir.” She gave him a grin, which could only be described as impish. Infectious.

  He added captivating to his list.

  Smiling himself, Ethan bent and carefully picked up the matonelle, placing it back in his dish. It was very cold to the touch.

  “Mattonelle means tile in Italian,” she said. “The Countess finds it amusing to freeze ice cream to the consistency of marble and feed it to the unsuspecting.”

  “They are quite dangerous.”

  “Indeed. A Prussian count nearly took out the eye of the Sicilian ambassador last week with a mattonelle missile. The Countess only pretended to be horrified. I fear she will start another war with them one day.”

  Ethan laughed. “She will be known as the Ice Cream Tyrant of Europe.”

  The angel-woman returned a smile. Utterly charming. “Once they melt sufficiently, they are actually quite delicious. I believe today’s matonelle are infused with rose petals, as they are finally in season.”

  Who was this creature? She was obviously familiar with the Countess and these salons.

  His heart continued its painful thumping, demanding he do something about the emotion scouring his veins.

  He swallowed. “I should not be speaking with you. ’Tis not proper.”

  The angel-woman laughed again. “Ah, yes. We would hate to provide fodder for the scandal sheets, if there were such a thing in Florence. Surely tomorrow they would run a scathing report, ‘While at the Countess of A’s salon, the infamous Lady C was caught in un-introduced conversation with the noble Mr. . . .’?” Her voice trailed into a question mark.

  “Doctor M,” Ethan supplied with a grin.

  “Oh. Doctor M. Most excellent.”

  “At your service, Lady C.” He bowed.

  Their eyes met and held. And held.

  A lengthy pause ensued.

  A thousand emotions flashing.

  Though now a well-educated doctor, Ethan’s entrance into this world had been much more humble. Perhaps too humble to fix his attentions on a woman such as this.

  But he had clawed and crawled to this point in the world. And he was Scottish to his core; he would never back down from a challenge.

  “Well,” Ethan nodded. “I fear we must brave the report of nonexistent scandal sheets, Lady C. I find it difficult to readily quit such charming company.”

  Lady C returned his gaze, delighted and warm, eyes dancing with humor.

  With an answering nod, Ethan stepped around her, placing the crystal dish with its dangerous ice cream projectile on the windowsill. There was no where else to set it, other than the floor itself.

  He turned around. And then froze, staring at the drawing on the board before him.

  Lady C quickly flipped a hanging sheet of paper over her sketch, shooting him a prim look.

  The covering sheet of paper was a drawing of Florence from the vantage of Forte Belvedere. Demure. Sedate.

  Which in no way described what the sketch underneath had been.

  Taking a step back to her, he carefully lifted the top paper away, revealing what she had been drawing underneath. A sketch in its beginning stages. But, by Jove, the subject matter of the drawing—

  Swirling motion. Sinuous lines. The suggestion of bodies twisted and turned and bent. Naked, male bodies.

  Which was not too scandalous, in and of itself. Florence abounded with naked male figures, starting with Michelangelo’s statue of David in front of the Palazzo Vecchio which Ethan had passed by the day before.

  But it was scandalous for a young, unmarried lady to sketch them.

  He shot her a questioning eyebrow.

  She shrugged.

  Ethan was not an expert in art, but he knew some. And, as a physician, he definitely understood human anatomy. It seemed unlikely this work was hers alone.

  “Your composition?”

  “No. A copy. The Battle of Cascina by Michelangelo.”

  “Ah, yes. I have heard of this.” He looked back at her drawing.

  “I have just begun the composition. It will take some time to get the shapes right.”

  “But you do not copy from a physical drawing?”

  “No. I copy from memory.”

  “Impressive. You sell your talents short. ’Tis remarkable how you have captured the lines here and here.”

  “Thank you. You are too kind.”

  “Not kind. Honest,” he said.

  She turned her face up to his. Afternoon light raked the fine bones of her jaw, gleamed across her skin.

  Ethan’s breath stuck in his throat.

  Heaven’s above but she was lovely.

  But it was somehow more than just the sum of a winsome smile and a pretty face.

  I know you, his heart whispered.

  Was it that she represented home and hearth and all those things he had left behind?

  Something in her eyes, their depths . . . it shot through him, jagged and cleansing.

  A sense of familiarity. Of belonging. Of kindred.

  Mine.

  Despite Ethan’s lowly origins, he was well-employed now as the personal physician and aide to the Duke of Blackford, a powerful member of the Scottish peerage. Ethan had transformed himself into a learned, refined gentleman.

  A part of him felt that all those years of work and sacrifice and struggle had been for this very moment.

  So he could stand on equal terms with this mysterious Lady C and actually contemplate a life with her. Dream of keeping this angel at his side forever.

  Lady Caro studied the tall, handsome Scot standing beside her easel. Many, many men passed through the Countess’ salon each year. It was easy to blur them all together . . . one hardly different from any other.

  But something about Dr. M . . .

  Perhaps it was the trace of brogue when he talked. The way his long fingers had clutched the small crystal dish. The curl in his dark hair. The good-natured humor in his brown eyes.

  Or maybe it was the sense of careful strength about his large frame—that he could compact all that size and power into the smallest gesture of kindness.

  Something in him called to her. A sense of kinship.

  You. It’s you. At last. I have waited so long . . .

  He studied her drawing a minute longer. She was painfully aware the subject matter was decidedly not de rigueur for gently-bred ladies. But the composition compelled her. It always had. All those bodies in motion . . . that moment right as the battle engages . . .

  “This piece calls to you, m’lady?”

  Ah. He read her like a book. How delicious to be . . . read.

  Dr. M rested his warm gaze on her, sending a thrum down her spine.

  She locked eyes with him, helpless to look away. He was life and absolution and hosanna.

  She wanted to weep. Of course such a man would arrive too late.

  “Yes,” she finally said, forcibly turning her head back to her drawing. “I appreciate how Michelangelo captured the moment. How the composition is frozen and yet still pulses with energy.”

  He looked at the drawing again, studying it. And then turned back to her, no judgment in his eyes.

  “I remember reading about the actual Battle of Cascina at university.” There went that burr again, tugging at her senses. “It was fought outside Pisa against the walls of an abbey. Didn’t Machiavelli say it was the quintessential example of the problem of mercenary armies? It wasn’t about winning or losing. It was about keeping the pot of trouble thoroughly stirred. War and politics . . . they were all a game.”

  “Well, naturally, of course. If a battle was decisive, the condottieri would find themselves unemployed.”

  Dr. M chuckled.

  Caro could feel Mary’s gaze in the corner, studying them, ever the diligent chaperone. Fortunately, she would say nothing to the Countess. Mary had once been Caro’s nursemaid, but now Caro just considered her a dear friend.<
br />
  “The mercenaries rose to great heights, did they not?” Dr. M let the scene of Florence fall back over the Michelangelo copy. “I thought I saw several monuments to them as I strolled through the Duomo yesterday. Many weren’t even Italian.”

  “Indeed. John Hawkwood is buried there. He was one of the generals involved in the Battle of Cascina itself—” Caro stopped herself. Would he think her a bluestocking and far too educated for a woman?

  “Truly? How remarkable.” Said without a trace of irony or condescension. “You enjoy history then?”

  “Exotic foreign battles, princes and dukes vying for power . . . such things always tempt the imagination.”

  He smiled again. Wide and charming. Brown eyes dancing.

  It made her stomach fluttery.

  “Fascinating,” he murmured. Leaving her to wonder exactly what he found fascinating.

  A painful joy cascaded through her chest.

  When was the last time a man had actually listened to her? Spoke with her as an equal? Regarded her as something more than just a . . . thing to be admired or acquired?

  How glorious to be truly seen.

  “Ah, there you are, Doctor. Lady Caro.” A cool, aristocratic voice accosted them.

  Both Caro and Dr. M froze.

  And then slowly pivoted around to greet the Duke of Blackford, strolling across the room toward them.

  The doctor came instantly to attention, giving his grace a deep bow. Caro rose and curtsied.

  Blackford nodded, stopping in front of them.

  Nearly twenty years older than her own twenty-five years, the Duke still retained his youthful looks, mostly attributed to his shock of thick brown hair. He was not a large man, but he exuded the arrogant confidence of someone who did not understand the meaning of the word No.

  “Lady Caro, I see you have made the acquaintance of my personal physician, Dr. Ethan MacLure.” Blackford gestured to the man at her side.

  “Of course,” she whispered.

  Of course, Dr. M would be in your employ.

  Of course, how foolish to think I could keep him for myself.

  “Doctor, this is the charming lady I told you about. The Countess of Albany’s ward, Lady Caro.”

  “Of course.” Dr. MacLure’s of course echoed her own.

  Caro heard what he did not say: