Rose Red (14 page)

“Bartolomeo did mention Stregone.” Andrea’s
voice was harsher than before. “And it was shortly thereafter in
our conversation that he said I must never discuss the location of
Villa Serenita or the names of its inhabitants.”

“I understand now why you must go and why you
have been so secretive,” Rosalinda said. “I wish you well and I
will pray constantly for your safety. But, oh, Andrea, I will miss
you every day.”

“No more than I will miss you. I will come
back as soon as I can. I do not want to give you false hope of my
return,” he went on, “but it may be that Luca Nardi will have a
response to your mother’s message and will ask me to bring it to
her before I set out on my own quest.”

“Then, you might return in just a few weeks?”
Rosalinda’s voice held all the joy she felt at that prospect.

“I can make no promises on the matter,”
Andrea said. “It will depend on Signore Nardi.”

“I know, but it is a hope. Thank you for
telling me all of this. Thank you for trusting me.”

“
There is
much more I wish I could say,” he told her. “Words too deep for
utterance now, when I am pledged to another purpose. But if I am
successful—”

“When you are successful,” she corrected.

“When I am successful,” he repeated, “then I
will have a declaration for you to hear that I cannot voice
tonight. And a question, which I will want you to answer only after
careful thought. It would not be honorable of me to say more at
this time.”

Rosalinda’s heart was so full that she could
make no response except to put her arms around him and hold him
tight. When she lifted her face to his, Andrea’s mouth at once
found hers. It was a chaste kiss at first, a sealing of Rosalinda’s
promise of silence on the subject of his secrets, and Andrea’s
promise of a nearer, more profound relationship between them when
the time was right for it.

Then Rosalinda sighed and pressed herself
more closely against him, her lips opening to him without warning.
Andrea’s tongue plunged into her mouth, seeking out the velvet heat
of her tongue and stroking it. His hands found their way beneath
the edges of her long cloak, to catch her hips and pull them firmly
forward. Through the silk of her best gown, Rosalinda felt for the
second time in her life the eager, thrusting hardness of a fully
aroused man. The heat she had known only once before flared again,
more powerfully this time, making her weak with longing. She gasped
against Andrea’s mouth and then went soft in his hands, letting him
mold her body as he wanted.

Her breasts were crushed against his doublet,
her arms encircled his waist, and she held on to Andrea as if she
was drowning and he was her lifeline. She threw back her head so he
could kiss her throat. The motion pushed her breasts harder into
his chest. Andrea’s hand slipped to her thigh, lifting one of her
legs, pulling her closer still. She realized with a shiver of
pleasure that his palm was on the bare flesh of her thigh, that the
edge of her skirt was up around her hips. She felt the cold night
air on her skin, but it did nothing to cool the growing fire inside
her.

She was intensely aware of Andrea’s hardness
pressing against her aching heat, and of Andrea’s fingers slipping
between their bodies to touch her where she was just beginning to
notice an unusual moistness. Something marvelous was about to
happen, something earth-shaking. All it would require was for
Andrea’s hand to move a little higher, to slide a little deeper
into the liquid warmth inside her. Rosalinda could feel her body
tensing, waiting....

The terrace door opened and Eleonora stepped
out.

Beneath the cover of Rosalinda’s cloak Andrea
withdrew his hand and smoothed down her dress. He kept his other
hand at her waist, supporting her, for Rosalinda was trembling so
uncontrollably after his passionate onslaught upon her senses that
she could not stand unaided.

“Thank your mother,” Andrea whispered,
kissing her cheek on a breath of husky laughter. “Without Madonna
Eleonora for chaperone, I might have taken you in the snow.

“If ever you doubt my affection,” he went on
in a voice only slightly calmer than before, “think of this evening
and of that time in my chamber when we first embraced and know that
I want you with all that is in me. So long as I live, I will never
stop wanting you.”

And when the time is right,
he vowed
silently,
I swear I will tell my entire strange story to you,
Rosalinda, my dear.

“When you leave here tomorrow, you will be
riding into danger,” she said, clinging to him for a moment
longer.

“Just being alive is dangerous,” Andrea
replied, thinking of the tasks that lay ahead of him over the next
few months. He had not told Eleonora all of his reasons for
accepting her proposal, and he was not fool enough to believe that
Eleonora had told him everything, either. There were bound to be
unpleasant surprises in store for him. But Rosalinda had just shown
him how great the rewards would be if only he could win them.

“It appears that you are growing up at last,
Rosalinda, my dear,” Eleonora said. “Valeria tells me you are
spending more time with her each day, learning how to manage a
household.”

“I am happy if you are pleased, Mother.”
Rosalinda could not tell her parent that she had asked Valeria for
extra chores so she would not have time to brood about Andrea.

A few days after he had left the villa, the
winter storms had begun again. Rosalinda hoped that Andrea had
reached one of the cities on the plain and found shelter before he
was overtaken by the snow. Lacking any news of him, she could only
pray for his safety. She grew quieter during those days, her usual
bright eagerness becoming subdued as she kept Andrea’s secrets and
waited for his return. However, there was one question she could
not resist asking of her mother.

“Do you know when Luca will come to visit us
again? Valeria said she wasn’t sure of the date.”

“It will not be until the snow melts.”
Eleonora frowned. “Why are you so eager to see Luca?”

“He promised to bring me a new book.”

“Are you so bored that you want to sit still
and read?” Eleonora placed a hand on her daughter’s forehead, then
put one finger under her chin, lifting her face and making
Rosalinda look directly into her eyes. “You don’t appear to have a
fever. Is there something you want to tell me, Rosalinda?’’

“You already know everything I have to tell,
Mother,” Rosalinda snapped with a bit of her old spirit. She pulled
her chin from her mother’s grasp. “You are quite right. I am bored.
I want to go riding.”

“Not in this weather. Have patience, my dear.
Spring will come soon enough.”

“But not soon enough for me,” Rosalinda
muttered.

Bianca was a bit more sympathetic. But then,
Bianca knew more about Rosalinda’s true state of mind than their
mother did.

“Some days I think I will go mad.” Rosalinda
paced back and forth in Bianca’s bedchamber. “Why doesn’t Andrea
come? He said he might.”

“Might is not the same as will, “Bianca
noted.

“Or Luca.” Rosalinda turned when she reached
the window and began prowling back to the bed, where Bianca sat.
“If Luca comes, he may have a letter for me from Andrea. Or, at
least, a message of some kind.”

“Do sit down,” Bianca said. “If you go on
this way much longer, you will make yourself ill. You are growing
thinner by the day.”

“I can’t sit. I can’t eat, nor can I sleep.
Where can Andrea be? Is he safe? Why hasn’t he returned?”

“Rosalinda, he has left.” Bianca was
beginning to be irritated. She spoke slowly, as if trying to
impress an unwelcome fact upon a child who did not want to hear it.
“Andrea is gone. Very likely he will not return for a long time, if
at all. Why should you think otherwise? And why would Luca know
anything about Andrea?”

Rosalinda stopped her nervous pacing, telling
herself she should have been more careful. In her worry and
frustration, she had said too much. Now she would have to make an
explanation without betraying her promise to Andrea.

“Please don’t tell Mother.” Rosalinda sat
down beside her sister. “I suggested to Andrea that he could leave
a letter for me with Luca, so Luca could deliver it the next time
he visits us.”

“Luca Nardi has more important things to do
than carry love letters to silly girls,” Bianca scolded, sounding
remarkably like her mother. “Can’t you see how dangerous it could
be, if a note to you were intercepted?”

“Luca is always careful,” Rosalinda said.

“What are we to do with you?” Bianca cried.
“You have never fully appreciated how careful we must be to stay
hidden. I really ought to tell Mother about this proposed
correspondence between you and Andrea.”

“No! Don’t,” Rosalinda begged. “Bianca, if
there were someone you loved and you were longing to hear from him,
you would have done the same.”

“I would have sense enough to be more
cautious,” Bianca said with her nose in the air.

“Would you really?” Rosalinda asked. “Or
would you forget caution in the name of love?”

“If Mother could hear you, she would forbid
you ever again to read Petrarch, for it must be from his sonnets
that you are getting these dangerous ideas.” Bianca’s delicate
features were set in hard lines. “Since there is no man who loves
me, we will never know if I would forget caution, will we?”

“You’re jealous,” Rosalinda said, the
realization dawning only slowly. “You wish there were someone to
love you, too. Oh, Bianca, I do hope you have not fallen in love
with Andrea.”

“Of course I have not. While I will admit
that he is a handsome and charming young man, so far as we know he
has no wealth or title and no prospects. Therefore, he is most
unsuitable for any relationship except that of casual friend. I do
rather think, Rosalinda, that you are not as deeply in love with
him as you imagine. I suspect Andrea may be attractive to you
because, except for the sons of the men-at-arms, he is the only
young man you have ever met.”

“
He is
also the only young man
you
have ever met. You
are
jealous.”

“I,” said Bianca, as if to close the subject,
“am the heiress to Monteferro. Unruly passions are beneath my
dignity.”

This statement did not have its desired
quelling effect on Rosalinda’s accusations. The words were scarcely
out of Bianca’ s mouth before Rosalinda gave a hoot of disbelieving
laughter and rolled over on the bed, holding her sides.

“Just wait,” Rosalinda said, trying her best
to subdue her first bout of real laughter since Andrea’s departure,
“wait until you meet a man who moves your heart as Andrea moves
mine. Then we will see how unruly your emotions can be.

“But let me warn you to take care, dear
sister,” Rosalinda went on, completely sober now. “Do not let that
man be Andrea. For if you were to love the man I love, that would
be the one thing that could end the affection that has lain between
us all of our lives.”

* * * * *

Andrea did return, at the end of March, but
he came in such secrecy and haste and he left again so quickly that
Rosalinda almost missed seeing him. She was on her way to the
kitchen to help Valeria when she heard his voice, followed by
Bartolomeo’s deeper, more mature tones. The two were in
Bartolomeo’s office, with the heavy door not quite closed.

Rosalinda paused, wanting to break in upon
them but knowing it would be far more polite to wait until their
discussion was over. She had learned a few hard lessons in
self-control over the past three months and so she reined in her
impatience and stood quietly by the office door.

“Madonna Eleonora will be pleased with what
you have accomplished,” Bartolomeo said. “She will want to speak
with you herself. You may stay the night in one of the rooms on the
upper floor where no one will see you. I will carry food and water
to you myself.”

“Perhaps that arrangement would be best.”
Andrea paused. “How does Rosalinda fare?”

“I think she misses you,” Bartolomeo
answered. “Andrea, let me emphasize that I am housing you in an
attic room because it will be best if no one but Madonna Eleonora
and I knows you are here. That way, we will have to answer no
awkward questions. You know how inquisitive Rosalinda can be. And
how persistent.”

“I suppose you are right, but I was looking
forward to seeing her again.” Andrea’s sigh was loud enough for
Rosalinda to hear it out in the corridor where she stood listening.
“I ought to leave before daylight tomorrow. When shall I speak to
Madonna Eleonora?”

“I will take you to the room now and see you
settled,” Bartolomeo said. “Then I will tell Madonna Eleonora in
private that you are here. As soon as she can leave her daily
chores without causing comment, she will join you. A signal will
prevent you from opening the door to some wandering servant. Either
she or I will knock twice and pause, then knock twice more.”

“Very well.”

Hearing the scrape of a chair from within the
room, Rosalinda ducked around a corner and into a window niche. She
heard Andrea and Bartolomeo walking quickly along the corridor in
the opposite direction from where she stood, toward the narrow
stairs that led upward to the topmost floors. The rooms up there
were servants’ quarters, but they were not used at present, except
for storage. For security reasons, the men-at-arms and their
families all lived in the outbuildings. At night, after Bartolomeo
locked the doors, only Eleonora, her daughters, Valeria, and
Bartolomeo were left in the house.

On this night, Andrea would also sleep in the
villa. Rosalinda could not imagine what business he had with her
mother that would prevent him from seeing her, too, but she was not
going to let anything stop her from spending at least a few minutes
with the man she loved.