His hands closed hard on hers. He looked down at them, his jaw taut. Outside, birds sang and chattered in the trees, but his face was set in winter cold. "Did they tell you that I killed the Englishman?"
"Yes," she said steadily.
For a long moment he stared down at their hands. "You loved him," he whispered.
She pushed her fingers between his, locking them with hers. "Love?" She felt tears slide down and fall onto her wrists. "I didn’t know what it was until I lost you."
"I’m no loss to you, Princess." He broke away. In the corner of the room he stopped and turned, bracing against the wall. "There’s been peace since I left Monteverde, has there not? You’ve even tamed Franco." He squatted down on his heels, taking up some lengths of rope coiled on the floor. "All the way to Genoa there’s talk that any man who raises his hand against you will be cursed, and perish of some dreadful death of fire. The Visconti can field no soldiers now who will dare it."
"If it’s so, Monteverde has you to thank."
"Yes," he said, rolling the pallet and blanket together. "I have a talent for striking terror in the hearts of decent men."
She watched him as he knelt. "Perhaps there’s peace in Monteverde." She stood still, refusing to recognize what he was doing. "But it is not whole."
"What’s missing?" he asked ironically. "Is there not enough evil left for your liking?"
"What is missing," she said slowly, "is a man who has given any price—even his soul—for those he loved. And received nothing in return."
He paused. He looked up at the painted ceiling. Then he turned his face down and slid a length of rope under the roll of bedding.
"If you depart," she said, "I will go with you."
He shook his head. "Don’t speak like a fool. You’re the Prima."
"I told them to elect another."
He stopped his work. He looked at the hem of her dress, not lifting his eyes beyond.
"I prefer to play morra," she said with a shrug. "I prefer to be with you. In grievous sin, if there is no other way."
He dropped the ties and rose slowly. "Hell-cat," he said incredulously. "You told them to elect another?"
"They made a resolution that the Prima di Monteverde could not wed into Navona or Riata. So they can now find another to hold that office, for I mean to wed you."
He closed his eyes. "Witless babe."
"Even if I must seize you and force you to my will. Don’t think you can justly complain, for you did the same to me. So I’ll serve you the like, if I must go out and command Dario and Zafer to bind you hand and foot to do it." She felt heat in her face and neck. Her heart was beating strongly. She stood between him and the doorway, in full resolve to stop him if he tried to leave.
He gave her such a lethal look that she quailed inside. But she held still, breathing fiercely, daring him. She threw away Monteverde, but she had learned how to stand her ground. Before Franco and the council and ambassadors, before the threat of treachery and poison; in the face of everyone who said she could not do what she resolved, because she was weak and a woman and full of absurd ideas.
But to hold sway over crowds and courtiers seemed an effortless task, compared to facing Allegreto. In the simple chamber the leopard looked back at her, dark-eyed and beautiful, creature of inhuman haunts. She dug her fingernails into her hands until they hurt.
He moved. He walked to her and put his hand behind her neck. His breath warmed her lips. "Oh, you have learned to live perilously, hell-cat. For one who wanted so well to be safe."
"There is no safety," she whispered. "You told me so."
His lips parted a little, showing his teeth. "Not with me," he said.
"Then peril is what I choose."
His fingers tightened. "You would give it all up? Monteverde and your place?" he asked. "When you know what I am?"
She took a deep breath, swallowing tears. "Will you never understand? Allegreto—it’s you I won’t give up, no matter what you are."
His hold on her slackened. "No, I don’t understand," he said helplessly. "I can’t."
"Then take it as a gift. Without understanding." She looked up into his dark eyes. "Like grace."
He stood still. But she felt the tremor in him, deep and silent. He blinked. Then the tension in his body seemed to fail him. With infinite slowness, like a wounded animal sinking to rest, he bent his head into her shoulder. "Elena," he said in a harsh whisper. "I’m afraid."
She lifted her arms around him, pulling him close. His fingers dug deep in her skin, holding her tight as he breathed against her throat. She could feel his heart beating fast and hard.
"Afraid!" she said, pressing her cheek to his. She turned and kissed his ear. She leaned on him, consuming the scent of him, the essence of him, with every breath. "You don’t know how fortune smiles on you. Emperors and dukes stand begging at the gates for my hand."
"Fools," he said into her skin. "You would cut their hearts to ribbons."
"Well for me, then," she whispered, "that you don’t have one."
He made a groan, catching her closer to him. He rocked her without lifting his face. "You want to wed me?"
"At any cost," she said.
He held her away. He shook his head, closing his eyes. His fingers opened wide on her arms, as if to set her from him—his beautiful manslayer’s hands, clean and perfect, with no trace of blood on them now. Outside the door a raven croaked, its great shadow passing across the chamber wall and vanishing.
Elena gripped the loose fabric of his sleeves, in dread that he would pull away and turn from her again. She looked up at him, drawing him toward her with a steady pressure. He set himself against it.
"Warrior," she murmured, lowering her lashes. "Will you make me command you?"
He gave a harsh laugh. "My queen." He jerked her close. He slid his hands up to her throat. "You want me?" His voice had a break in it, almost wistful.
She reached up and tangled her hands in his hair, tugging at it. "I will drag you before the priest," she said fiercely.
He stared down at her. His hands barely touched her skin, resting lightly over her pulse "No, I cannot." He stepped back, breaking from her. "Go back. They aren’t so half-witted as to elect another. They’ll fall into turmoil if they try, and Franco will step in."
"Then let them fall!" She sucked in her breath. "They can read Ligurio’s words as well as I. If they can’t live by what he taught, without me to remind them every moment, then let them fall to Franco!"
"No. You won’t let that happen now."
"I have done it," she hissed.
"You must go back!" He turned. "I should never have shown myself. It’s dead, Elena. I am dead to you. Go back."
"No!" she cried. "Why are you doing this?"
He stared down at the clay mug and bowl beside his pallet. He kicked out with a savage suddenness, sending them both smashing into shards and splinters against the wall as the bundle of blanket and pallet unrolled across the floor. "Because I can’t be near you and not have you!" he shouted. "I’m a man, not some block of stone, though God knows I’ve tried to be."
His voice died away in the empty room. A goat bleated in the piazza. Its bell tinkled, soft above the sound of his uneven breathing.
"I told you that I renounced the office," she said quietly. "There’s nothing the council can do to keep us apart now."
"The council be damned," he said. "It’s not them."
"What then?" she demanded.
"I thought I would be absolved," he said tightly.
"You said—"
"I don’t know how that creature could forgive any sins," Allegreto sneered. "He screamed at the clerk—I thought he would have killed the man for speaking my name. And then he looked around at me and turned red in his face and shook like a demon had his throat. He made some sounds and went out, and the clerk told me it was done."
She wet her lips and shook her head, knowing nothing to say.
He leaned his shoulder heavily ag
ainst the wall. "Elena, it was like an audience with the Devil," he said between his teeth. "I think it was the Devil." He stared at the floor as if he saw into the Abyss. "I don’t think God will come to me, not even in the Holy Father."
"No," she said faintly. "It cannot be so."
"I want you to go back," he said. "There is one thing true in my life, and it’s what you’ve done in Monteverde. Don’t let it fail."
"And leave you here as if it made no matter? As if you were some rag that I’ve cast off and forgotten?"
"Yes. Forget me."
"Oh, God." She closed her eyes and gave a laugh. "As well command me to forget to breathe," she whispered.
He made a wordless curse, turning toward her. He spread his hands like a man who didn’t know what to do with them.
Elena walked forward to him. She took the loose cloth of his tunic in her fists and buried her face in his chest. "I will live with you in iniquity if you will not let us wed."
"No," he said. "I won’t drag you down to Hell with me." But his arms came up around her, searching into the coil of her braids, denying what he said.
She lifted her face for his kiss, knowing it would come. She opened her mouth and arched her body into his, greedy for the feel of him, for the hard way he dragged her against him, for his taste and his heat, for everything they did together in shameless sin.
"It’s too late." She let her lips drift over his. "Take me down."
"I cannot bear it." He released an agonized breath, turning his head a little away. But still his body denied his words. She could feel him hard for her; in the empty chamber, his hands pulled at her skirts, taking them upward to the curve of her back. He let them fall and ran his palms up her sides and under her breasts. He set her back, but only to look at her, his gaze hot.
She lowered her lashes and traced her fingers along the skin below his ear. He gave a harsh breath, leaning into her hand. His mouth held a derisive curl. He closed his eyes and bared his teeth like a man wounded, pulling her down with him, one step from the wall to the floor.
She spread her legs as they went down to the pallet, rose on her knees over him in a tangle of skirts and blanket. He leaned back on his hands, thrusting his tongue in her mouth. His heavy groan vibrated under her, against her breasts. He arched his head back as she drew her lips down his throat, tasting him, kissing the pulse beneath his skin.
He held against her, resisting as she pressed forward, shoving at his shoulders. She slid her hands down his arms, feeling the shape of his dagger and the arm-guards beneath the cloth. He lifted himself to turn her beneath him, but Elena locked her hands in his and kissed him, leaning her weight on him until he gave way and let her push him down.
For a moment she hung over him, holding his arms spread, her hands braced on his wrists.
He looked up at her, his chest rising and falling, darkness and male heat at her command. His shaft pressed against her naked thigh under her skirts, with only the thin veil of his tunic between them.
She leaned forward over him and felt the tunic fall away. The tip of his cock touched her bare skin. He shuddered under her. The contact was intimate and secret, hidden between them.
"Elena—" His arms tightened where she held him. "The others are outside."
She smiled. "They can’t see," she whispered wickedly.
"Hell-cat." He swallowed, panting.
She spread her legs and pushed down on him. "Come into me."
He strained, his body arching upward for release, but she didn’t let him go; she held him pinned as she rolled her hips to take him deep inside. She held herself just above him, feeling the muscles across his chest work as he shoved himself up into her.
She sat back then, bringing his hands to her breasts, closing her eyes and reveling in the thick intrusion, in the sharp sensation in her belly from holding him at such a slant. He plunged his hands under her skirts, running his palms up her bare thighs to her hips. He held her down as he thrust upward, moving in her in a way that brought her instantly to gasping. She licked her lips and whimpered, riding herself down on him, feeling his legs come up behind her to force him deeper, so deep that it exploded at once with a cry of ecstasy from her throat.
He rolled with her, pulling her under him down on the pallet. He came over her and thrust inside again, ramming up hard in her body. He braced above her, his throat exposed. She arched up and felt a throbbing climax come on her again as he groaned and held himself forced deep, a sound of agony and pleasure. He jerked and shuddered, his teeth bared, and then dropped his head to her shoulder.
Elena clasped her arms about him. Her ability to reason slowly returned—she saw the room again; the painted ceiling above, the web of shadows on the wall from the branches outside.
She held him in her, as if she could keep him that way, and feared when he pushed up on his elbow. His hair had fallen loose. It brushed her cheek, and she turned her face into it, breathing deeply.
He bent down and brushed his lips gently at her forehead. "You see," he said softly. "I can’t be near you."
Elena squeezed her eyes shut. Then she opened them and stared up at him. "I see only that you lie when you say you love me. That you’ll use me and then abandon me like a lover with a whore."
"No," he said.
"How not?" She pushed at him, struggling to sit up. "I’m in sin like the lowest prostitute, to lie with you as we have done."
He let her go, sitting with his back to the wall. "Then go and repent of it," he said.
She pushed down her skirts and cast him a fierce glance. "Not without you," she said. "I’ve waited for you."
"Oh, you’ve not been such a fool." He scowled. "Do not tell me—all this time—you’ve kept to that thoughtless promise?"
"All this time." She pushed herself to her feet, shaking her hem. "Yes, I am such a fool."
He sprang up. "You’ve not confessed since we were here before? It’s nigh two years!"
"I’m steeped in mortal sin," she said violently. "I hope that I am! Perhaps then I will see you in another life, since you must go away from me in this one. And it will not be in Heaven."
He put his hands on her shoulders. "Don’t jest of such a thing. Go into the church and do it now!"
She tore away. "Willingly! If you will go before me."
He stepped back against the wall.
"The priest here is a good man," she said despairingly. "If you spoke to him—"
He closed his eyes, resting his head back with a slight uneasy laugh.
"Allegreto—you asked me this once—if I would spare my own soul at the cost of what I love." She lifted her chin as he opened his eyes. "I didn’t know my answer then. But I know it now."
He stared at her, a lock of his dark hair falling down over his temple. His breath grew shallow and uneven, like an animal in distress.
"I’ll risk eternity for you. What will you do for me?" she asked softly.
He looked down at her beneath his lashes, standing frozen, his body pressed back against the wall. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and opened them, as if he tried to see what was before him, and couldn’t make it clear. "Must I go in the church?" he asked ruefully. "I’ll be struck down by lightning bolts."
All the air seemed to slide out of her. She hadn’t known that she feared to breathe. "Then let them strike me, too," she whispered.
"Elena." His voice cracked. "Help me."
* * *
He strode toward the church as if into battle.
Elena had gone before him, to find the priest and make sure he would hear a confession at once. Mad and murderous the Holy Father might have been, but none could doubt the sanctity of the sweet and patient old man who clasped her hands in his blue-veined fingers and smiled with honest joy to have the privilege. She thought he knew Allegreto well; there was a perceptiveness in his face when he looked at her, though he asked no questions.
The priest stood watching for them from the porch. Allegreto went up with light steps, but his dete
rmination seemed to desert him at the door. He paused uncertainly. The old man stepped forward and took him by the elbows. He pulled Allegreto close with a strength that belied his age and pressed a kiss of welcome on either side of his rigid jaw.
Elena stood back. Allegreto looked around for her with an expression that was suddenly distraught, as if he had just realized where he was, but the priest held his arm and guided him slowly under the portal and into the nave as if he couldn’t find his way alone. In truth, she didn’t think he could have.
The priest knelt. Allegreto went to his knee, his head bent, and hastily crossed himself. There were no bolts of thunder or explosions of wrath. There was only the twitter of common birds from outside, and the cool silence of the church, and the harsh sound of his breath, halfway to weeping with fear.
After a moment the old pastor rose, pressing his hand under Allegreto’s elbow. As if he guided a blind man or an untutored child, he took him down the church toward a corner near the altar.
It was too poor a place to have a screen for privacy. Elena made her own obeisance and waited by the font, far enough away that she could hear only indistinct murmurs. She saw the priest touch Allegreto’s shoulder. He dropped suddenly to his knees, his hands gripped together. He bowed his forehead onto his fists. His shoulders were shaking.
In Elena’s life she’d gone through the ritual many times, heard the exhortations and suffered the examination of all her venial sins, even resented the persistence with which the priest at Savernake had insisted on prying into her every thought. But she had never been afraid. She had never thought that Hell awaited her.
She watched Allegreto, too far to catch what he said with her ears, but hearing with her body what his body spoke—courage and despair and shame—his mumbled words tumbling over one another as he began: Forgive-me-father-for-I-have-sinned...He bent down nearly to the floor, his face in his hands.
She tried to say a prayer to aid him, but she found no prayer. She only watched, her fingers clasped hard, as the priest looked over his head and listened. The old man didn’t flinch all through it. He asked no questions. He seemed like a gnarled tree robed in dark vestments, standing still and crooked against the background of the simple altar and the cross above.
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