[Barbara Samuel] Night of Fire(Book4You) (6 page)

But she did not stop. She read it all, with no shift in her tone to speak of either coquetry or embarrassment, and he was surprised by her again. He turned.

She raised her eyes. "It is so much more beautiful in Italian. The translations are often dry. I would like to convey the spirit of this, the…" She narrowed her eyes, not seeing him. "… the lushness. I love the bawdiness so much," she said. A smile, thoughtful and distant, touched her lips.

More than the world, he wanted to fling himself across the small distance between them and bring to fruit another kiss, like that of the wife and her lover. His flaw had ever been his own delight in his senses, and they roared now with a clamoring unlike any he had known, for she offered a feast for eyes and mouth and hand and ear.

But if he allowed indulgence in this moment, he would mortally offend her, offend the freedom she felt in speaking to him thus. So he considered his reply, taking something blindly from the trunk, then dropping casually into the other chair.

"Yes," he said, "I like his passion—the passion to affirm life, after so much death from the plague. It is the most natural thing—to celebrate that which brings new life."

Her smile of connection and happiness was gratification enough, that she was truly free with him, to discuss even that forbidden topic. "Exactly! It must have seemed the world had nearly ended. I cannot even imagine." She picked up the next page and grinned, for it was part of the Third Day's stories—the subject of her essay that had made him laugh. She read it aloud, and again shook her head. "It cries for better translation! Don't you agree?"

"I have not read English translations," he admitted.

"Oh, of course not. Well, I can give you an example." She took the page and began to read in very stilted English that captured little of the flow of the Italian. " 'And then, and then, and then…'" She sighed.

"Terrible. You would be far better."

He gave a mock shudder. "I intensely dislike translation work."

"Ah, but you'd bring poetry to it."

"So will you."

She shook her head, smiling as she touched the words on the page again, her eyes following the path of her finger. "I am only clever, Basilio I have not the fire of a poet, that gift of song."

"There is more poetry in you than you recognize."

She rose impatiently, restlessly. "No. I am gifted enough to earn my way in the world with my pen, but my passion has ever been for study." She shook her head, a quizzical expression in her eyes. "There is a moment, when one has been steadfast in piecing together some subject, that a single detail falls into place, and there is suddenly a whole picture, an understanding. Enlightenment. Do you know what I mean?"

His heart swelled—God! Such an intelligent woman—what a rarity! He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. "I wanted to be a great scholar," he said. "But I can never stand far enough from the work, from my own thoughts on it, to make that picture you speak of. But sometimes, when I am writing, I feel something similar."

"Yes? What brings it?"

He narrowed his eyes, thinking. "I am not certain. It is in part what you say—one must be persistent, dedicated, through all the frustrating moments when it all seems a hopeless endeavor." He looked at her intently. "Perhaps it is a matter of detail. The single small word or phrase that pulls it into focus."

"And do you see the whole in those moments? Or something else?"

"Joy," he said, surprising himself, and laughed. "I see joy." He lifted rueful brows. "For me, it
is
the moments—suddenly I have captured one moment, and whatever is there on the page is not only for me, but for whatever reader comes."

"Like your letters." Her skirts rustled as she moved toward him. A hint of a smile. "They brought Tuscan sun to my cold winter days."

He smiled at her. "I was hoping I had done that."

She sank to the floor by his knee in a puddle of green and gold, her head titled up to him. "You are very good at it."

She was so close, so relaxed and natural. In his imagination, he put his forehead on her neck, breathed the scent from her skin. "What do you wish most to do?" he asked, then answered himself. "Ah, I know it already: you burn to translate Boccaccio."

"I do," she admitted, and laughed a little breathlessly. "I am only terrified that I could not do it justice—

and that even if I did, it would be scorned as the work of a woman."

Basilio hesitated, then gave in to his impulse and brushed one finger over her cheek. Just once, then away. "Do it," he said softly. "I will slay your detractors for you when you have finished."

There was a danger in her eyes, suddenly. A heat turning their brown liquid, like chocolate left in the sun.

He looked away and caught on her shoulders, an endless span of warm flesh he could kiss for hours. His blood stirred, and he raised his hand again to her face.

Her cheek was small against his palm, the cheekbone and jaw as fragile as the bones of a bird, and that evidence of her mortality pained him. She blinked, slowly, like a cat, and turned her face ever so slightly into his palm.

He suddenly felt he should confess to her that he was betrothed, that he could not give himself to her even though he wished it more than breath. Perhaps if she knew, they could steal this small time, seal their hearts, one to the other. Perhaps she would not mind, if he explained that his duty required his marriage.

But just as swiftly, he knew she would mind very much—that at heart, she was honor-bound to the plight of women, as he was bound to the duty of land and family. He could not ask her to make that choice.

As she leaned softly into his palm, as he took that small offering with the same inner trembling as that of a boy touching his first breast, he regretted bitterly that life had brought his love to him only when he could not claim her.

If he had been a stronger man, he would have lightened the moment with a jest or a smile. Instead, he lifted his other hand, to put it on her other cheek so he could touch her whole face. "Thank you, Cassandra," he whispered. "You have blessed me by coming."

She put her hand over his. "As I have been blessed by coming."

In silent agreement, they only smiled, like the most beloved of friends, then stood up.

"I am suddenly quite fatigued," she said, smoothing her skirts. "I must retire."

"Of course. We have much to see tomorrow."

"Is it terribly far to the sea?"

"You would like to go?"

"Very much."

"Consider it done." He gave her his arm and they walked, each in their own thoughts, to her chamber.

There she paused, then stood on her toes, and pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek. "Thank you, Basilio, for sharing all of this with me. I had a glorious day."

He forced himself to pat her hand and step away, bowing courteously. "My pleasure, dear lady."

Cassandra rose early the next morning, excited by the promise of a ride to the seaside. Beyond her balcony the light was gray, and she was ready to be disappointed, but when she flung open the doors, she halted in stunned delight. Rushing out on to the balcony in her nightrail, she leaned on the thick stone balustrade, inhaling the soft air, scented with new, exotic things.

She had never seen fog like this. It was thin and silvery, draped around the tree limbs in wisps. Mufflers hid the tops of the mountains and the greens and blues of the landscape were deepened, intensified. But what made it so beautiful was the promise that it would not last. The heated, buttery sun pressed down upon that mist, breaking through here and there in soft pillars that illumined a tree or a hidden valley or the path to the sea, glittering in full sunlight between the breaks in hills. A noise from below caught her attention and she looked down to the courtyard to see Basilio come out, wearing only a simple white shirt with those extravagantly full sleeves and a pair of breeches. In her excitement, she cried, "Good morning!"

He lifted that extraordinary face, and Cassandra saw his startlement, his pleasure, before he smiled and waved. "Come down! Have breakfast with me."

She felt like Juliet, daring and wild and free in her sleeping attire, with her hair uncombed on her shoulders. She leaned on the rail, feeling her hair tumble over the edge. "Will you feed me more of your plums?"

He laughed. "Yes! And more besides. Hurry!"

She raced inside, splashing water on her face, tossing off the nightrail as she searched for some easy thing to don. She tugged a chemise over her head, and a simply cut shepherdess's gown over that. Later she would call her maid to help her into all the proper accoutrements of a lady, the corsets and stockings and other fripperies.

For now, she brushed her hair and left it loose, stuck her bare feet into her slippers, grabbed a shawl against the chill, and hurried down to join him.

The sensation of her unconstrained breasts moving inside her chemise as she raced down the stairs made her feel deliciously free. She embraced the slightly wicked pleasure of her loose hair on her arms, and her skirts swishing around her bare ankles. When she sailed through the glass doors into the courtyard, breathless and happy, a burst of sunlight suddenly cut through the mist to fill the square with a golden wash—a beneficent approval of this new lightness in her, this new spirit of joy. She halted and tilted her face into it.

"Open your mouth," Basilio said, close to her ear.

She startled, dropping her shawl as she spun to look at him. He stood dose, a hint of a smile on his lips, and appreciation in his eyes as his gaze brushed over her face and throat and even her breasts. She realized suddenly that she had wanted to see that look in his eye, that darkening, that faint flare of the nostrils.

I want him.

She didn't even question that fierce whisper in her mind, only gazed at him for a long moment, letting him see that she wished to put her hands in that glossy tumble of black curls, wanted to taste his lips. Then she closed her eyes and opened her mouth. She hoped it would be his tongue she tasted, and the thought sent shocked but delicious anticipation through her.

Instead he pressed a supple roundness against her lips, and she bit into a plum with a happy laugh, sucking on it for a moment before she opened her eyes.

He wants me.

It was there in the piercing focus of his atten-tion, a naked expression of longing as he looked at her mouth. With a little shake of his head, he said, "You must have left a path of shattered men in your wake."

A ripple of disappointment touched her, but she could not have said why. Because he had allowed his desire to show, when she just had done the very same thing? Unsettled, she bent to capture her shawl and moved away, speaking over her shoulder. "To the contrary. They're quite terrified of me." She bit again into the plum she'd taken from him. "Men do not like a woman who is smarter than they are."

His hands settled on his hips. "You are not smarter than me."

She grinned. "We shall see, won't we?"

He inclined his head with measuring eyes and a hint of a smile. "So we shall."

After breakfast, they rode down a narrow track to the sea. The sun had burned through the mist, and Basilio insisted she wear a hat to protect her fair skin, and a shawl over her shoulders. Sweat prickled on her brow and under the shawl, but she endured it for the promise of the beach.