DELUGE Read online

  Where do these hair pins come from, exactly? I had to find out.

  “Giacinta, I saw Isabella snitching cakes from Cook’s shelves yesterday.” The image of the round-cheeked, sweet girl with hair as red as her mama’s made me smile. She’d actually lifted a small finger to her lips, sealing me into a wordless secret. And I’d laughed. The girl was all of four years old and as bold as her young mother.

  “What?” she said, staring at my reflection with dismay.

  “I did,” I said ruefully. “I’ve seen Cook take a switch to the squires for doing the same. I thought you’d wish to warn her. No doubt the girl has simply learned from the other children.”

  “I’ll take a switch to her myself, the little imp,” she said, shaking her head as she worked to attach the net to my tapestry cap, worn on the top, back side of my scalp. I winced as she tugged and the hair pulled. “Forgive me,” she muttered, pulling anew. I wasn’t fooled. She didn’t feel a bit sorry. She took pride in the fact that she seemed to be the only one in Castello Forelli who could tame the lady’s hair and was gunning to keep that glory. Whereas most days I opted for a quick braid I could do myself, I knew I’d be subjected to this several more times in the next week as the feast came and went, and dignitaries and neighbors came to visit.

  “There,” she said at last, standing back, hands on hips.

  “Grazie mille,” I said, turning to one side and then the next, viewing with satisfaction the neat coils, knowing they’d stay for a while. A thousand thanks. I rose and smoothed my skirts, casting one more anxious glance to my swelling form.

  Marcello came in then and caught me staring. “Ah, my Gabriella,” he said, coming over and taking me into his arms from behind. Giacinta left without a word. He bent and kissed my bare neck, from behind. “The best part about Giacinta seeing to your hair in this fashion,” he said, kissing upward, sending shivers down my shoulders and arms, “is your throat covered, and yet all this delightful skin at the nape of your neck…”

  I squirmed away from him, turned, then wrapped my arms around him, bringing him close for a kiss. “Thank you, husband,” I said. Just when I was feeling fat…

  “For bestowing the finest of kisses?” he said, quirking a brow.

  “For being you,” I said. I gave him a quick peck on the lips and pushed him away when he tried to pull me closer for something more. “Nay, nay,” I said, with mock chastising. “If you continue, we’re more apt to end up undressed instead of ready for our journey.”

  “Would that be so awful?” he asked, pulling at my hips and giving me a sultry look. “I could send Luca to give Rodolfo my apologies.”

  I smiled and gave in to another long, searching kiss, then leaned back to look up at him. “Oh? And what would you say?”

  “Brother,” he said, crossing his arms and looking to our ceiling, as if dictating, “Please accept my most sincere apologies. I dearly wished to join you to sup this eve. But I found I could not resist the desire to instead bed my wife.”

  I pushed him away with a laugh, the heat of a blush at my cheeks. “That would be a fine letter for him to read in the company of my sister and parents.”

  “Nay?” he said, arching his brow again. He pursed his lips and sighed, looking me slowly up and down. “Ahh, well. Later, then.”

  I moved to fetch a handkerchief, but he caught my wrist. I turned back to him.

  “Later?” he repeated huskily, all seriousness, his dark eyes running up the length of my arm, my neck, my face, as if he were kissing every inch.

  “Later,” I agreed with a satisfied smile. “But right now, I need to go write those letters I promised you.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  EVANGELIA

  “So, what’s up with you two?” Gabi said lowly, edging her horse closer, looking at me over her shoulder. “I haven’t seen Luca so sad and serious since we battled the Fiorentini assassins.”

  We were on the way to Castello Greco, having just passed the riverbed. Knights flanked us on the front and rear, as well as to either side of us. But I was reasonably sure no one else could hear her. Still, I stole a glance forward to Luca, six riders away. He hadn’t even looked my way when I entered the courtyard. Celso was the one who helped me mount, his face telling me he had been assigned the task and felt awkward performing it.

  No one but Luca had helped me mount my horse in months.

  “He’s angry with me,” I muttered at last.

  “Why? What have you done?”

  I felt a flash of anger wash through me. “Maybe it was something he did.”

  “Okay,” she said slowly, clearly not believing me. We both knew that Luca would do anything to please me.

  “He’s pressing me. For a wedding. Soon.”

  She faced mostly forward in her sidesaddle, swaying with the gait of her horse, and I admired her profile, the new confidence in her. Marriage agreed with her. Peace, too. Maybe even being pregnant. Why couldn’t I share her sense of adventure? Her gambling spirit? Why did I have to think it all through, over and over again, until I had uncovered every tiny little problem—and the biggies too?

  “You two have been together a long time,” she whispered, giving me a shrug. “You know, by medieval standards.”

  “I’m only seventeen,” I said, hating the whine in my tone.

  “Almost eighteen. The same age I was when I wed Marcello.”

  “And, yeah, look how that turned out,” I said, gesturing toward her stomach.

  She looked a little wounded, her brown eyes searching mine. Then she looked up and around us at the trees, the dry autumn leaves practically crackling in the breeze. “So that is it, isn’t it? You don’t want to get pregnant, like me?”

  I bit my lip. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t hurt her. Or bring up things that would make her stress out. Which wasn’t good for the baby…

  But what was I to do, lie? Fear of pregnancy was at the heart of it. I loved Luca. I did. But if I married him now, we could have two children by the time the plague rolled through. And knowing him, maybe I’d even be pregnant with number three. He was a gentleman with me, always, never pressing me for more than kisses. But there was a heat in those kisses that promised of much more…

  My eyes settled on the strong, straight line of his shoulders, covered in the leather breastplate he and the other knights wore any time they left Castello Forelli. His dark blonde hair had grown out a lot since I cut it; the ends now curled and brushed the high neck of his formal Forelli-gold tunic.

  “So you’ll break his heart,” Gabi hissed at me, nodding toward him then looking back at me. “Just to avoid the potential of your own heart breaking?”

  I scowled at her, not wanting Mom and Dad to overhear. The way she said it made me sound a coward rather than cautious. “I think you’ve risked enough on all our behalf, don’t you?” I snapped back.

  Hurt washed across her brow, and I wished I could take back the words. But I couldn’t. What was it about sisters that made us free to share both the harshest and kindest words? “Gabs,” I said with a groan.

  “Nay,” she said, lifting a hand. “No more, Lia.”

  I sighed again and looked over at the forest, in the full glory of autumn, with all her colors of gold and pumpkin and sage. I loved it here, I did. But I was feeling stifled. Trapped. And all this marriage talk made it worse. “I think I need to get out,” I said.

  She made me wait for an uncomfortably long moment. “Out?” she asked, her tone icy.

  “Just for a bit. Out of Toscana. What if…what if we went to Venezia? Before you’re too far along to travel? Before…” I let the rest of my words drop. She would understand.

  Gabi didn’t turn me down right away, but I knew it was a long shot. Mom wouldn’t be wild about her taking so long a journey over rough roads. Exposing herself to God-knew-what in a port city. But we were still a year and a bit away from the start of the plague…

  “If we don’t go now, when would we?” I muttered.


  She stilled and then looked at me, the warmth returning to her expression, a glint of excitement in her eyes. “Do you think? Do you think we could convince them?”

  Together, we looked back at our parents, who rode behind us.

  “Uh oh,” Dad said to Mom, catching our glance. “I’ve seen that look before. What are you two cooking up?”

  “Nothing,” I said, the pull of a smile at my lips.

  “Uh-huh,” Mom said doubtfully. She looked so regal in her navy gown. So beautiful beside our handsome dad, as fair in her Danish heritage as he was with his dark, classic Italian genes. I felt the urge to demand they stop, then and there, so I could sketch them, and later paint it, filling in the backdrop of the swelling forest in all its pretty colors. But Mom and Dad had forbidden me to sketch or paint any of us. We were in the wrong time and place. They wanted no record in the history books, rudimentary as they might be. It was enough that historians were sure to write of our presence. To tell tales of the She-Wolves…

  But they looked right, dead-on glorious here, in medieval garb, atop their horses. At ease in their own skin. They filled their days with collecting artifacts and unearthing the Etruscan tombs and finishing the castello expansion project. But they loved it, absolutely loved it all. Tuscan bliss, they called it, as they’d always called it, but now it meant so much more…

  I wished I could give in to the same. Trust that this ancient past wasn’t going to somehow obliterate my future.

  “Lia?”

  I started, realizing Gabi had said something.

  “When would you want to go?” she repeated.

  “Uh, the sooner the better, right? For you?”

  “Right,” she said, thinking. A lovely smile spread across her face as she looked to her husband, riding beside Luca. Evidently, she had an idea in mind on how to convince him. Luca, on the other hand, would likely have some concerns. Or become an outright block. After all, if he wasn’t bending over backward to please me, he could become the worst sort of stonewall. The man was as blastedly stubborn as Gabi…

  It mattered not. All I had to do was convince Gabi, and the rest would fall in time. That was the way of our family now. Perhaps, I mused, it’d always been the way.

  We were crossing the wide riverbed, now nothing more than a foot-wide trickle with little algae-covered ponds here and there, the boundary line between Castello Forelli and Castello Greco. It had once meant we were crossing into Paratore territory…

  “You all right?” Gabi asked, pulling her horse closer to me. She knew this always brought back some fears in me—it did for her, too—even though our old enemy was dead.

  “I’m all right,” I whispered. “It will be better now that it’s Rodolfo’s and Alessandra’s, you know?”

  She nodded. “Let’s make this the start of a memory makeover campaign,” she said with a smile. “Take all those rotten memories with Cosmo Paratore and replace them with better ones with the Grecos.”

  “That’d work.”

  I saw Luca at the lead, on the top of the hill just before the road turned and disappeared from sight. He was looking back at me, as if he was wondering the same thing as Gabi. If I was all right. We might not be on speaking terms at the moment, but I felt his love, his care.

  What was I doing?

  Was I driving away my hope at future happiness?

  And yet, if he truly loved me, why could we not simply continue on in our courtship and marry after the plague was well past?

  I needed to get out of here, to clear my head. A break from Toscana and, in particular, one handsome, sandy haired Tuscan with bright green eyes…

  GABRIELLA

  I liked this idea of Lia’s very much. And I was especially glad for it as we passed the Etruscan tomb field, winding our way up the hill and spying the hulking lines of Castello Greco. It kept me from thinking too much about Rodolfo Greco. How it would be to see him again. If it would be weird or awkward between us. If it would be strange, watching him with his new wife, Alessandra.

  Marcello had my heart in total, but Rodolfo had been a fling, a serious attraction that died harder for him than it had for me. It had been a challenge every day he was in the castle to maintain a proper distance, to be a friend to him and give him nothing he might misconstrue as hope. I’m talkin’ serious boundary lines. But we’d made it work.

  If Marcello ever sensed either of us edging near those lines…No, I had to get my mind off it. Rodolfo was kind of like an ex-boyfriend. The road not traveled. And I loved my Road, I said to myself, staring at the shoulders and profile of the man I adored most in the world as he shared a smile with Luca, then laughed outright. His laughter came more readily of late—especially when he was away from his desk—and his joy and contentment was contagious. He loved his life as lord of the castello, loved this lasting, meandering, stretching peace with the Fiorentini; loved me, loved our baby growing steadily in my womb. Satisfaction practically seeped from his pores. Only the thought of resignation from the Nine seemed to trouble him. But there was nothing for it—we had to make a way for him to steer clear of the city, considering what was to come. If he was still at the helm when that ship sailed, he’d ride straight into Plague-o-rama.

  As the tall gates of Castello Greco opened and we rode through, memories of the battles we’d fought here with Paratore washed over me again. But they felt distant, resolved, in a way. Healed, or at least healing. And now that Lord and Lady Greco were home, it was the perfect time for a sojourn to Venezia. Rodolfo could see to any serious political issues that might arise. Send word to us if there was a problem. In this fleeting season, we might actually be able to simply be tourists, soaking up more of medieval Italia…I knew Mom and Dad would be over the moon at the prospect.

  Rodolfo came into view. I hated my sudden nervousness.

  “Greetings,” he said, standing beside his lovely wife. He grinned up at Marcello and after my husband dismounted, they took each other’s arm and pulled closer, sharing a kiss on both cheeks. Marcello turned to aid me in dismounting, and I caught Alessandra’s eye, smiling in welcome. Her short hair had been slicked back and tucked, creating the illusion that it was much longer; but I knew it couldn’t be longer than her shoulders. She came over to greet me and Lia, and I could see a new measure of joy in her eyes. Peace.

  Alessandra: the girl who once hated Greco and then came to love him. I was glad for him. For both of them, really. And with her father disowning her, we were all the family she really had.

  “You look well, my friend,” I said. “Marriage agrees with you.”

  She laughed and blushed. “As it agrees with most during the earliest days. Now that we begin our real life—”

  “It will be as good for you as it is for Gabriella,” Lia said, dismissing her concerns.

  Lia and I turned to Rodolfo and nodded. “M’lord,” we said in unison, giving him a brief curtsey.

  “M’ladies,” he said, with a slow, elegant bow. As he rose his dark eyes rested on mine for just a second before he flicked them toward Lia. “Thank you for welcoming us home.”

  “You were missed,” I said. “The boars have all grown fat and lazy, sitting out in the open without you and your lady hunting them.”

  Rodolfo glanced at his wife with a grin. When he smiled, he was frightfully handsome. And he was hers. Hers. Just as Marcello was mine. I was totally good with it. It was just…weird.

  Alessandra grinned and laid her arm on her husband’s. “Well, we shall have to remedy that at once, shan’t we? Remind those boars whose lands they roam.”

  “Indeed,” he said indulgently, turning her toward the castle keep. “Come, my friends, come. The table is set, and we shall feast and properly christen the castello with Sienese wine and delicacies.”

  Marcello offered me his arm, and I settled my hand atop his. We were right together. We’d battled through much to get to this place, this stage of life and contentment. And as we entered the castle, Rodolfo and Alessandra’s home, I felt everythi
ng had at last come together. Settled. Except…

  “What are we going to do about Luca and Lia?” I whispered to Marcello.

  “We are not going to do anything about them. Let them be, Gabriella. They shall find their own way.”

  “Nonsense,” I whispered back. “My little sister needs assistance. So does your little cousin.”

  “Your little sister and my little cousin are full grown. And in full command of their decision-making faculties.”

  “Hmm. Mayhap.”

  “Gabriella…” he groaned.

  “Trust me. I won’t meddle where I needn’t.”

  He shot me a playful warning look as we entered the Great Hall and separated. We women went directly to the cavernous hearth, where a huge fire crackled and spit and danced over a solid bed of red embers. It radiated warmth, and we sank gratefully into chairs set in an arc, ten feet back. Mom and Lia were on one side of Alessandra and I was on the other.

  I lifted my chilled hands toward the flames and felt my cheeks begin to thaw. A steward came and offered us earthen mugs full of mulled wine and the others accepted it. Quietly, I asked for some warm cider instead.

  “Brr,” Lia said, rubbing her upper arms. “I hadn’t realized I had become so chilled.”

  “We left in summer and returned to deep autumn,” Alessandra said.

  “A proper time away, I think,” I said. “It seemed you were away for a very long time. Tell us! I want to hear all about it.”

  She smiled, a bit embarrassed.

  “Well, not all about it,” I said slyly. “Where did you go? Did you run into any…trouble?” I was careful to not use the word Fiorentini, well aware that Alessandra’s broken ties with her kinsmen would certainly still chafe. The fact that her father had disowned her—believing the lies the Fiorentini had told of her—still ached within my own heart. I had no idea how she could tolerate it. My eyes shifted to Dad, laughing and talking with Rodolfo, patting him on the back. We’d gone back in time to save him. I hoped somehow, some way, Alessandra would one day be reunited with her own father.