[Barbara Samuel] Night of Fire(Book4You) (10 page)

They were suddenly at the stables. "Here we are," Basilio said. He quickly dismounted and went to Cassandra's side. "Allow me to assist you, my lady."

"Assist me?" she echoed softly, and put out her hand. He put his hand on her waist as she swung free, and felt the muscles of her side move, beneath flesh, beneath silken fabric. He closed his eyes.

She slid down, very close, closer than she needed to be, and instead of alarm, he felt the world align itself. Of course it would be this way, with dawn hovering on the edges of the landscape, with fog-muffled silence deep around them, her hair the only brightness in the world. He felt her against him, her breasts, her shoulders; her breath on his neck, her hair fluttering loose over his hand. Next to him, she felt very small. Her hand slid from his shoulder to his neck, her palm open against his throat, then against his jaw.

He looked down, dizzy with wine and with passion, and saw the white oval of her face in the night, her eyes large and dark and sober. He raised a finger and touched her red, red lips, helpless to resist.

"Do not say a word, Basilio," she said, her voice throaty. "This moment, this instant, I choose joy. I choose bravery." He felt the press of her breasts, the stiffness of her bodice, against his chest, as she lifted on her toes and put her hands on his face. "I choose one memory," she whispered, and pressed her mouth against his. Just once, very lightly and chastely—and all the sweeter for it.

He'd only begun to smell her hair when she pulled away, smiling. "In the morning I will regret my boldness, and will be very angry with you if you remind me of my rashness."

Holding himself very carefully, he said, "Not a whisper." Pulling away to ease the temptation, he took her hand and tugged her toward the villa. "But in return, you must promise not to be a blushing Englishwoman about it and want to hide your face."

She laughed. "A fair arrangement."

At the courtyard she paused, looking toward the orchard. Sunlight now leaked quiet softness into the stirring day. "I think, for a little while, I would like to be alone."

He let her hand go. "Of course."

She took a step, then looked back. "Thank you, Basilio, so much."

Her hair trailed in a tangle of curls over her silk-clad arm, and her mouth was pleased but serious, and Basilio felt the hardest, deepest catch in his chest that he'd ever known.

"It was my honor," he said softly. Before he could act, before he shamed both of them, he whirled and left her.

Finally, his heart was clear. With wild haste, he broke for his chamber, shedding his hat and cloak as he took the stairs.

Of course. The answer was so very plain.

Basilio bolted up the steps two at time. Tossing his coat on the bed, he sat at his desk, dipped his quill and wrote:

Father,

I cannot marry Analise.

I know how you will receive this news, and be sure that I mean what I say. I will not marry her. It
is a choice of honor that I must make.

Please inform her father, and know that I will gladly arrange any compensation he feels is
required. As she is a young and by all accounts beautiful girl, there should be no difficulty in
finding her another husband.

Basilio

His breath was hurried and his hand shook as he sealed the letter. He took out a second sheet.

My dear Analise,

You must take your vows at the cloister immediately. I cannot marry you, but I know your true
wish has always been the life of a nun, and you should have that. Not even your father can break
the vows you give to God. Do it immediately, Analise, for your safety and protection. When all is
settled and clear, I will visit and we can speak of this at length.

Your servant, Basilio, Count Montevarchi

He sealed that, then ran from the room to find a servant. He pressed the notes into a footman's hand.

"Post these immediately," he said. His father was in Genoa and would not receive the letter for perhaps a week or two, but Basilio could not act until he had absolved the duty. His mother had only wished the girl to be protected—she had not said how.

Then, his heart pounding, his blood sizzling and burning in his body, he went in search of Cassandra. She was not in her chamber, where he had expected to find her. Nor in the courtyard, though he found his gardener there, walking through. "Have you seen the Lady Cassandra?" Basilio asked.

The old man grinned and dipped his head toward the orchard. Basilio clapped him on the back and ran, his heart in his throat, ducking branches and leaping over roots and rocks.

Then he saw her, reaching for a plum in a tree, her hair unruly from dancing and the hands of little girls.

She saw him and must have sensed his intensity. In concern, she took a step toward him. "Basilio, what is it?"

He had thought that a poet in love should deliver the most beautiful of first kisses. But there was no grace in him now.

Without speaking, he moved to her, a sense of something beyond heat, beyond desire, rushing through him. It seemed as if the air crackled, as if she glowed. He reached for her, and putting his hands on her face, bent and kissed her.

Kissed her full on the mouth, with all the longing he'd hidden. A roar came into his ears, the hugeness of his need for her, for the taste of those lips, and the smell of her and the feeling of her hands flying up around his neck.

He wanted to be skilled and patient and kind, but it was impossible. The kiss blazed, igniting him and her, and they kissed with hungry, open-mouthed need, inexact and brilliant.

When dizziness overwhelmed him and he had to breathe, he pulled back and put his forehead against hers. Her hands fell to his wrists and he heard her breathing, felt it on his chin.

He closed his eyes and opened them and she still stood there, and he was flooded with a sense of deepest gratitude, a sense of relief so vast it nearly buckled his knees. He had very nearly let her go.

"I am not married yet," he said, thinking of her vehement feelings about husbands. "And we have this little time, yes? None will be harmed if we are lovers." He pressed his mouth to hers again. "I cannot bear to let you go so easily."

She pressed back, making a soft cry. "Basilio, there are things you should know of me, if we are to take this path."

"No. This is all I need to know." He bent to capture her mouth again, softer this time. "That I have been looking for you all of my life, and God brought you to me." Swaying with relief and passion, he kissed her again, slowly, inviting her to meet him. He put his hands in her hair, breathed her breath. It was too deep for words, so he said none, only kissed her, and kissed her, and she kissed him back, there under the pale silver dawn.

And then, suddenly, he felt her drawing away. "Basilio," she whispered, a protest. She stepped completely out of his embrace and backed away from him. A hand fluttered to her chest. She stared at him, her eyes unreadable, a flush high on her cheekbones. "I… this…" She shook her head. "This is rash.

We should sleep."

Basilio swallowed, reining in his sense of urgency. "Of course," he managed. "Forgive me. I lost my head."

"No forgiveness," she whispered. "I… only… I must sleep just now."

Before he could speak again, she fled, disappearing into the fog. He watched until the last of her hem swept over the lawn, disappearing beneath a shrub.

Had he been too rash? It was a failing of his, as his mother had often told him. He wandered through the trees, plucking leaves like a lost boy. Did she not return his feelings? Perhaps wine and passion had made him a fool.

Head down, he came into the courtyard and looked up to the balcony of her room.

Where she stood, her hair loose over the arms of her dressing gown, looking down at him. She was as straight and slim and pale as a candle. He stopped, stricken. She gazed at him for a long, long moment, then bent over the balustrade and held out a hand to him, a gesture of invitation.

He had frightened her! So simple. What grown man rushed like that to kiss a woman, after all?

He would wait. Let sleep cool his ardor a little. Putting his hand over his heart, he put his other to his lips and sent the kiss flying up to her. She kissed her own hand and sent one back to him. And still he only stood there, drinking in the sight of her until she drifted in, to that gold embroidered bed where he wished to be. * * *

A bird, whistling from the balcony, woke Cassandra. The sight of it, pretty and small and black, singing on the stone rail, a backdrop of greens behind it, seemed so much an image from a dream that for a long time she only blinked at it, lazy and comfortable on her stomach in the big bed.

She did not move so much as a toe, letting everything slide slowly back into her head. A head, she noticed with some pleasure, that did not hurt at all, but only danced with vivid images from the festival.

Basilio.

A ripple went through her, an echo of the fierce, startled hunger she'd felt, seeing him hurtle down the hill so intent on her, his hair and sleeves flying behind him. And then his strong hands with their calloused palms hard on her face, and his mouth urgent and hot and tasting of woodsmoke from the bonfire. Never in all of her life had a man looked at her that way, as if he would die if he did not kiss her.

Shifting in the nest of covers that were as rumpled as if she'd had a lover in her restless bed with her, she reveled in the strange stinging sensation the memory brought with it, living it over and over in her imagination.

After a time, she washed and called for breakfast. A servant brought chocolate in a silver pot and fresh bread, which she carried to the little table by the window.

It was very warm, despite the breeze coming through the open French doors. Feeling wickedly free, she shed her dressing gown and sat eating, clad in only her nightrail. Through the windows she could see the hills, and a thick, hazy light hanging over them. She thought of the festival last night, and Basilio kissing her in the orchard, and the plums he carried to her from those trees… and suddenly felt the most glorious sense of happiness that she wanted to laugh out loud. Or dance. It was a pure, uncomplicated happiness, asking only to be embraced, today.

Humming under her breath, she found her box of writing materials and cut a fresh point on her pen.

Sipping chocolate, nibbling on the rich, crusty bread, she began to write, intending at first only to capture her impressions, so she might collect the notes later into something more coherent. She couldn't even think what, just now—perhaps a letter or an article, or even a simple journal.

But as she jotted notes about this thing and that, she lost herself in each one. The sea water swirling over her toes, and how close she'd felt to her father, the delightful food Basilio kept feeding her, and then the festival last night, which had been one of the most beautiful, stimulating things she'd ever seen.

I feel quite unlike myself
, she wrote,
and the change is quite exciting. I feel I can do anything, be
anyone I chose to be. Or perhaps it is only that I feel fully myself for the first time in many years,
as if that brave child I once was, who did not mind her own company, and crept through the
forest to watch slaves dancing, has returned, stretching her limbs in readiness for anything,
anything, that might occur. She embraces strangeness, the girl in me, embraces beauty and light
and even the possibility of love and even sex. Sex as I dreamed it might once be, not as it was
revealed
.