Bewitched. Letter to Reader Title Page About the Author Dedication Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Author Note Copyright

Bewitched.

For the hundredth time, the word filled Bianca’s brain to the exclusion of all else. She was bewitched. She had to be. Otherwise she would not feel this overwhelming need to give Alessio what he wanted. What they both wanted.

“You wanted to besiege me, Alessio. Wasn’t that what you wanted? Just like one of your fortresses.” She felt the anger rising from the pit of her stomach and welcomed it. “To besiege me until I became weak. Until I surrendered.”

Her eyebrows rose with annoyance when he laughed.

“Ah, Bianca. When you and I become lovers, it will have nothing to do with surrender.”

She knew she should say something now. Something caustic, something clever, but she seemed to have lost the power of speech....

Dear Reader,

With Twice Upon Time, her second Harlequin Historical time-travel novel, author Nina Beaumont skillfully places her characters in a dangerous world of wealth and power as they struggle to balance the future with the past and prevent a sibling rivalry from turning into the curse that has haunted generations of their descendants. Don’t miss this exciting tale of a passion too strong to be denied.

In the third book of Suzanne Barclay’s Lion Trilogy, Lion’s Legacy, a Scottish warrior is hired to protect a castle from English raiders, but discovers that his benefactor has nothing to give him in return but the hand of his unwilling granddaughter. And in Emily French’s Illusion, the growing love between an ex-soldier and an heiress who have been drawn into a marriage of convenience is threatened by embezzlement and extortion.

Diamond, the fourth title for the month, is the first in Ruth Langan’s new Western series. The Jewels of Texas, which features four sisters who think they are only children until the death of their father brings them all together at his ranch in Texas.

Whatever your taste in reading, we hope that Harlequin Historical novels will keep you coming back for more. Please look for them wherever books are sold.

Sincerely,

Tracy Farrell

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

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Twice Upon Time

Nina Beaumont

www.millsandboon.co.uk

NINA BEAUMONT

is of Russian parentage and has a family tree that includes the Counts Stroganoff and a Mongolian khan. A real cosmopolitan, she was born in Salzburg and grew up in Massachusetts before moving to Austria, where she lived for twenty-five years.

Although she has relocated to the Seattle area, her European ties are still strong, so she plans to stick with the exotic settings she has had the opportunity to get to know firsthand.

Books and music are her first loves, but she also enjoys painting watercolors and making pottery.

To Mutti, Brigitte, Heinz, Markus (who looks like the

hero of this book), Martha, Matthias and Lukas, my

family-in-law, who will always be family.

Prologue

Sarah Longford lay dreaming.

The sea, so calm, so azure that it seemed like a painting, stretched alongside the flat, sandy beach. The two riders emerged from the forest of umbrella pines at a wild gallop that sent a spray of pale sand up behind them.

Bianca, her unbound black curls streaming behind her like a banner, her scarlet dress a dazzling contrast to her mount’s white coat, turned slightly, a smile on her lips. A smile perfectly calculated to provoke, to arouse. Her gaze swept over Alessio with approval. His black clothing blended with the glossy black hide of his stallion so that the man and his mount looked like one fabulously pagan, virile animal.

Alessio, his face dark with annoyance and the promise of passion, spurred his horse forward.

Bianca saw Alessio’s mount move closer, and her hands tightened on the reins as she urged her mare onward. With a whinny, her horse reared up, and the reins slipped through her fingers. With a cry she tumbled off the saddle onto the sand.

Disoriented, she lay still for a moment, both arms flung outward. The black stallion thundered to a halt a few feet away. As Alessio, his face dark with rage, leapt off his mount, she struggled up. Stumbling to a nearby rocky outcrop, she turned to face him, bracing her palms against the rocks behind her.

Alessio’s hands were rough as they closed on her shoulders.

“What were you trying to do, damn you?” He shook her so violently that her teeth clacked together. “Break your neck?”

“No.” She was still breathless. “I just wanted to see how fast Sultana could go. And I was racing you,” she added with a taunting smile. “And I would have won, too, if you hadn’t startled me.”

“So it’s my fault, then?”

She met Alessio’s eyes. They were the same color as the sunlit sea, which stretched out behind him. The remains of his anger were there. And the desire she recognized because she had seen it often enough in other men’s eyes.

“Isn’t it always?”

“Damn you”

Bianca curved her lips upward in a mocking smile, then parted them as if in invitation. She felt his hands tighten and a low laugh rose in her throat. “Now I suggest you let me go, Messere Alessio. Or do you wish to mark my skin?”

“By God, if you keep playing your role of Circe, I will do more than mark your skin.” But even as he said the words, his hands eased and began to stroke where they had gripped before.

The linen of her shirt, the velvet of her gown lay between Alessio’s hands and her skin, and yet Bianca could feel his touch as if she were naked beneath it.

The heat his hands generated spread over her skin and spiraled down to her belly. Her young, ripe body grew hungry. So hungry that she could imagine giving in to its demands. Now. Here. Her body swayed toward him, until she could feel his hard body against hers.

“Strega. You are a witch, Bianca.” His hands slid up from her shoulders and into her hair. As they fisted in the wind-tossed strands to hold her, he lowered his mouth to hers.

“No.” She turned her face aside, as much to hide the satisfaction she knew would be in her eyes as to toy with him.

Alessio stared down at her. Impatience and anger melded with desire and his hands tightened in her hair.

“No, let me go.” Her temper rose and she began to fight him.

“Why so coy today, madonna?” he demanded. “There have been days when you were more than eager to feel my mouth on yours.”

Bianca’s eyes narrowed. “Let me go, Alessio, I command you.” His grip on her hair was just short of painful—and yet she found that it aroused her. Aroused her so much that she needed distance from him and needed it quickly. With no compunctions she fired off her most powerful weapon. “Do you forget that I belong to your brother?”

“No.” His eyes flashed with blue flames. “You are betrothed to my brother. But you belong to me.”

Alessio felt his fury, which she seemed to provoke so effortlessly, rise another notch. There was no love lost between Ugo and himself, but did a man dishonor his own flesh and blood for a woman?

“You know as well as I do that you belonged to me long before I touched you for the first time. Do you remember?”

Her mouth sullen, Bianca remained silent. Because her pride demanded it, she kept her gaze steady on his.

Her silence goaded him, and Alessio’s grip tightened and remained so, even when her barely perceptible wince told him that he was hurting her.

“Do you remember how you looked down from the tribunal as I was awarded the victor’s wreath after the tournament?” His body sprang to life at the memory. “You looked at me and we both knew that you were mine, as if you had already spread your legs for my body.”

In counterpoint to his crude words, his hands released her hair and cupped her head, his fingers rubbing her scalp lightly, as if to soothe the discomfort that he himself had caused. He lowered his head.

“Open your mouth for me now, Bianca,” he murmured. “Open for me and let me kiss you.”

His hands were gentle where they had been rough before. His lips coaxed where they had demanded. Drawing in a deep breath, she inhaled his scent with it — horseflesh and leather and aroused male. Her senses began to swim. Before she lost herself to the moment, she took control and filled Alessio’s mouth with her tongue.

Alessio felt her warm, wet tongue slip into his mouth, and for a moment he remained as motionless as if he had been struck by lightning.

She watched him as she moved her tongue against his in erotic invitation. Then she retreated and, in a final siren’s call, brushed her open mouth against his. When she let her head fall back in ostensible surrender, triumph was in her eyes.

Slowly Alessio lowered his mouth to hers, half inch by half inch. His lips hovered over hers, then descended until they were separated by no more than a breath.

Her mouth, as sweet and lush as a ripe peach, beckoned. And still he did not take. Instead he touched his mouth to her full lower lip. Then, his eyes on hers, he drew it into his mouth.

For a moment Bianca stopped breathing with the sheer pleasure of it. Because she could not speak, she moaned.

Alessio stilled. Then, knowing that now they were both the vanquished, both the victors, he plunged into her mouth.

They feasted on each other until they were full of each other’s taste. They drank from each other until they were drunk with pleasure.

Their nerves humming, their breathing ragged, they pulled apart.

“And you dare to say that you do not belong to me?”

His breath was hot on her face, and Bianca leaned back. The rocks bit into her back and she was glad of the pain that helped her control the need to reach for Alessio again. And to take. To take everything.

“Answer me, damn you.”

Bianca pulled herself back from the sensual whirlwird where he had flung her. She wanted him so badly that her body ached with the wanting. But she wanted the wealth and power this marriage was offering her even more.

“No.” She forced herself to meet his eyes. “I can never belong to you. And you and I both know it.”

“You dare to deny it?”

“What would you have me do? Break a betrothal signed and sealed?”

“Why did you agree to this accursed betrothal in the first place?” His voice carried both anger and pain. “You knew that we belonged together.” He gripped her shoulders and pulled her against him. “You knew.”

“I had no choice but to agree, and well you know it.”

Alessio looked into her eyes for a long time before he spoke. “And you would have agreed to this marriage even if you had had a choice, wouldn’t you?”

Bianca stared back at him in silence.

The rage took him as he recognized the truth. “Wouldn’t you?” he shouted.

And still, Bianca remained silent.

“So.” His beautiful mouth curled in contempt. “For wealth and power you are willing to let yourself be ridden by a man deformed in body and spirit?”

“You speak so of your brother?”

“I speak the truth whether I speak of my brother or a stranger.” His eyes turned dull as they rested on her. “And you will marry him.”

“Yes, I will marry him.”

Alessio’s gaze slid away from her face.

“Alessio.” She reached up and, cupping his chin in her hand, moved his head until their eyes met. “The first night will be his, but then—” She stretched upward to brush her mouth over his.

“Damn you! Do you think I will be satisfied with my brother’s leavings?” He shoved her away, disgusted with her. Disgusted with himself—with the desire that still heated his blood. “Come, Madonna, I will take you back.”

Bianca lowered her eyes as they returned to their mounts. But not because she felt shame. She had seen the heat in his eyes and she knew that he would be back. He would be hers.

Sarah sat up with a cry. As she covered her face with her hands, she felt the wetness of tears. She’d dreamt this dream so many times. This dream and all the others. But tonight it had touched her so deeply that she felt a physical ache in her chest.

These dreams had been part of her life for so long—no, she corrected, they had been her life. She had always wanted to know why they came to her—these wonderful, terrible, erotic dreams that were everything that her life was not. The desire to know had grown and grown until now it had become a need.

The cold in the dingy little room had her shivering, and she lay down again and pulled the covers up to her chin.

Tomorrow, she reminded herself. Tomorrow she would begin her journey. Tomorrow she would be on the way to Florence. Perhaps she would find an answer there.

Closing her eyes against the drabness around her, Sarah willed herself back to sleep, hoping that another dream awaited her.

Chapter One

Florence, Italy

February 1888

Sarah had not dreamt since she had come to Florence. For as long as she could remember she had lived for her dreams of Florence and the unhappy lovers that visited her night after night. Now that she was here, they eluded her.

By day, too, the Florence of her dreams evaded her.

With increasing desperation she tried to find it behind the curtain of fog and rain. Where was the Florence of a sunlight so bright it hurt one’s eyes? Where was the Florence of a scorching, inexorable heat that made one’s blood run quick and ready for all manner of passion?

She shivered in the early twilight as the rain trickled off the straight brim of her dark brown hat and down the collar of her coat. Of course she’d known—in her mind—that winter in Florence could be as miserable as any foggy, chill day in London. But in a corner of her heart she had expected—and hungered for—the Florence of her dreams.

She’d seen nothing of the churches, the museums, the historical places she had marked in the margins of her frayed guidebook with her careful handwriting. Instead she wandered the damp, cold streets from dawn to dusk, searching, searching.

Because her sensible, frugal nature needed an excuse, she’d told herself that it was her heritage she was searching for. The heritage of the feckless, handsome musician who had seduced her mother and who had appeared at odd times throughout her childhood, just long enough to make a shy, serious child adore him for the brief flash of color he brought to a dull gray life.

But deep inside she knew that it was the dreams that had brought her here. No, not merely brought but persuaded, compelled. Why else would she have spent a good portion of the small inheritance she had unexpectedly received to come here, when she could have used the money to live a modest life at home, finally independent of people who expected her to be at their beck and call at all hours of the day or night? The compulsion to come here had been so strong that she had not even been able to wait until spring.

Looking around her, she saw that she had strayed farther than she had planned from the small, shabby pensione that was just around the corner from the church where Dante had watched and worshiped his Beatrice. Now, she realized with a start, she was lost in the rabbit warren of narrow streets and alleyways on the other side of the Arno.

Quickening her steps, Sarah turned down another narrow street and then another. But all she found at the end was yet another dark street, lit only by the meager light that spilled out of the open door of some artisan’s studio.

Sporadically she heard voices from behind the doors and shuttered windows, but instead of reassuring her, the muffled sounds made the deserted street even more eerie. A burst of laughter somewhere behind her echoed off the stone walls. A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold slithered up her spine, but, refusing to give in to the sudden blind desire to run, she kept to her brisk, even pace.

Austere houses, black with dampness, rose like the sheer walls of a canyon on either side of her. Ribbons of fog drifted down between them, blurring the contours, hiding the uneven, refuse-strewn cobblestones. She gasped when the toe of her shoe struck something metallic and sent it clattering. An answering screech stopped her so suddenly that her feet almost slipped out from under her. Her hand pressed against her racing heart, she watched a cat’s black tail swish once, then disappear into the mist.

She wanted to laugh at the jolt of fear she had felt, but the sound that emerged from her throat was more a sob than laughter. Taking a deep, calming breath, she waited for her heartbeat to slow, but the creak of a door opening behind her sent it galloping again. Stubbornness, pride and annoyance at her own fear caused her to turn toward the rectangle of yellowish light, and she reminded herself that she was a sensible, independent Englishwoman who ran from neither black cats nor creaking doors.

“Signorina?”

Sarah looked at the tall man silhouetted in the doorway of what was — judging from the smell of varnish and rosin and the long, melancholy sound of a bow being drawn across the strings of a cello—apparently a violin maker’s shop. The man’s face was half in shadow, but the chiseled features and the eyes of a blue so bright, so startling that even the somber light could not mask it looked so familiar that she found herself taking a step closer toward him.

She should continue on her way, she told herself. She knew better than to speak to strange men on dark streets, didn’t she? Didn’t she? But instead of turning away, Sarah stood there, her breath uneven, hardly aware of the wetness seeping into her shoes, the dampness of her clothes.

Through the mist, which rose like whitish smoke, she peered at the perfect profile, the sensual mouth. It was the face, she thought as her heart took off on another race. It was the face that, night for night, sought her out in her dreams. No. She shook her head. It wasn’t possible. Or if it was, then perhaps she was dreaming now.

“Signorina, passo aiutarVi? Vi siete perduta?” The man moved forward, his mouth tilting in a charming smile, which was echoed in his eyes.

Sarah stared at the man, even as his words registered in her brain. She opened her mouth to tell him that she did not need his help, that she had not lost her way, but then he stepped to the side, making room for her to enter the shop. He bowed, his hand tracing a gesture of welcome.

“Entrate, prego.”

His graceful bow seemed meant for her personally, with nothing of the obsequiousness of a tradesman seeking custom. The wariness that had become second nature to her forgotten, Sarah found herself accepting his invitation and moving past him.

Inside, the smell of varnish was stronger but not unpleasant. Even though the warmth of the stove that stood in a corner of the small, high-ceilinged room beckoned, she remained standing near the door. Now, in the light, she could see him clearly. No, she thought with something akin to disappointment. It was not the same face. But because it was a beautiful face nevertheless, she found herself unable to take her eyes away from it.

“Siete inglese?”

There was laughter in his eyes and, embarrassed that she had been caught staring, Sarah looked away and concentrated on brushing the raindrops off her coat. Suddenly she was painfully aware of how threadbare and shiny the old coat was. Just as she was aware that the man in front of her looked like a young god and she was a plain, thirty-one-year-old spinster.

“Yes, I’m English,” she answered in the slow, careful Italian she had learned in stolen hours over the years. “How did you know?”

The sound of his laughter, as melodic as a song, rippled over her skin.

“Only the English come to Firenze in the winter.”

Her gaze skittered back to him, and again she froze. No, it was not the face of her dreams. But the eyes. Surely it was not possible that there could exist another pair of eyes of just that color. The color of the sunlit sea amid ever golden islands.

“Who—who are you?”

“Guido Mercurio.” He bowed again. “At your service.”

Sarah closed her eyes and shook her head to clear it. But when she opened them again, he was still there, smiling at her as if she were a treasured guest. When was the last time anyone had smiled at her like that? Had anyone ever?

“Guido Mercurio,” she repeated. “Like Mercury, the messenger of the gods?”

“Exactly.” Pleased, he smiled. Perhaps she was the one. The one he had been waiting for. “Come. Sit down and tell me your name.”

Sarah found herself moving toward a sofa, although she had no sensation of moving her limbs. A force at her back seemed to be propelling her, supporting her. When she reached the sofa she could have sworn that she felt a small push so that she plopped down on the worn velvet with a little bounce.

Looking up at the young black-haired man, she wondered if he was the statue of some mythological god come to life. “Sarah Longford,” she managed to say. “My name is Sarah Longford.”

“Benvenuta, Sarah Longford.”

On his lips her prosaic name seemed to acquire a number of extra vowels, making it sound like poetry.

“Here, drink this.” He pressed a silver cup filled with wine into her hands and sat down opposite her in a straight-backed chair. “Drink.”

She wanted to tell him that she could not possibly drink this. She was already dizzy. And besides, proper Englishwomen did not drink wine with strangers who reminded them of their dreams. But then she found herself taking a swallow of the rich red wine. It tasted of the sun, and she drank again.

“Now tell me, Sarah Longford, where were you going?” He touched a matching silver cup to hers and drank, as well.

“No place in particular.” Somehow, with the warmth from the wine moving through her, it did not seem odd to admit that. “I was just walking.”

“You were looking for something.”

His words struck her with their simplicity, a matter-of-fact statement that had no inflection of a question, and her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Why do you say that?”

“I can see it in your eyes.” He sent her a strangely sweet smile. “Do not worry. I will help you find it.” He covered her hand with his, “I will show you.”

Sarah felt a small flash of excitement. As she looked down at his olive-skinned, elegant hand on her pale one, she allowed herself for a moment—just a moment—to take pleasure in the feeling of his fingers on her skin. When his hand began to stroke lightly over the backs of her fingers, she pulled her hand back as quickly as if she had been burned.

Was this how her father had seduced her mother? With wine and sweet Italian words and gentle touches? A quick spurt of anger flared, but it flickered out just as quickly, and she found herself feeling empty and wanting. At least her mother had had that, while she, Sarah; had had nothing.

“I have to go.” Snatching up her gloves, she started to rise.

He lifted his hand to stop her, and although he did not touch her, she found herself sitting back down.

“I’m sorry, I did not mean to frighten you.”

“You didn’t frighten me.” She sat very straight, clutching her gloves so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

“No, I didn’t, did I?” Guido smiled that sweet smile again. “You frightened yourself.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she protested, but without heat, because she knew he spoke the truth. For a moment she had felt the passion that slumbered inside her stir, like the first, barely audible rumbling of a volcano about to erupt.

“No matter.” He brushed away her words with an elegant gesture of his long-fingered hands. “Now, you sit for a moment and drink your wine, sì?”

Sarah took a swallow of wine and then another. Suddenly she began to laugh. “I do not believe this is happening. Here I am in Florence—” her hand lifted to her mouth as if to smother her laughter “—sharing a cup of wine with a stranger.”

He gave her a quizzical look. “And that is bad?”

“I don’t know.” Sarah felt a lightness she had never, ever felt before. No, she thought, that was not quite right. She felt the lightness in her dreams. That was why all her life she’d waited for the night to fall. Because if she was lucky, the night would bring her the dreams. Dreams of Florence. Dreams of Bianca and Alessio and their illicit love.

She looked down at the cup she still held. The wine had gone to her head, she thought. Or perhaps it contained something that made her forget all caution, all sense, like the waters of the river Lethe. She felt her blood stir again. “I don’t want to think about whether it is good or bad.”

Leaning back against the worn red velvet, she sipped her wine and let her gaze wander around the small, windowless shop, crammed full of string instruments in various stages of disrepair. It was then that she saw the lute.

It was obviously an old instrument. The red-and-blue decorations painted on its pear-shaped body had faded to just a hint of color. It hung from the wall on a braided leather strap cracked with time.

Sarah rose and went toward it. “May I touch it?” Even before she heard his affirmative answer, she was running her fingers along the smooth wood.

Guido watched the Englishwoman run her fingers over the lute as tenderly as she would touch a lover. He watched her take it down from the wall and coax a melody from the old catgut strings. And he smiled because now he was certain that she was the one he had been sent for.

Sarah felt her fingertips tingle as the instrument came to life under her stroking. Raising her head, she smiled across the room.

“My father brought me a lute once. He put it in my hands and I began to play it.” She laughed softly as she remembered. “It was like a miracle.”

When she had hung the lute back on the wall, she returned to the sofa but did not sit down. Guido had tilted his head up to look at her, and suddenly she had an insane vision of herself cupping his face, running her fingers through his short black curls. The heated promise of passion rippled through her and she wondered what it would be like, just once, to give in to it.

“I have to go now.” She linked her fingers tightly.

“Si.” Guido stood and ran his knuckles over the fingers she had clasped together so cruelly. “You have to go, Sarah Longford.”

Sarah hesitated for a heartbeat, then she stepped back from the temptation, from the touch she wanted so badly. “I’m staying at the Pensione Bartolini near the Church of San Martino. Can you tell me how to get there?”

“I will accompany you.”

“It’s not necessary,” Sarah protested. She had been strong enough to deny herself a moment ago. Would she be strong enough again? “Truly.”

“But it is.” Picking up a cloak, he slung it over his shoulders. “I must show you the right way.”

“Is it that hard to find?”

Guido shrugged. “There are many ways, but only one right way.”

Sarah shook her head at his cryptic words. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t you remember? I told you that I would help you find what you are looking for.”

“How do you know what I am looking for?” she cried out. “How do you know I have not found it yet?” She almost—almost—ceacbed out for him.

“Lo so. I know it.” He touched his fingers to her cheek. “You have not found it yet, Sarah. But soon, very soon.”

Sarah fought the fierce desire to turn her face into his hand, just as she fought the feeling of disappointment at his words, telling herself that there was no reason for her to feel like a child at Christmas who opens a beautifully wrapped box and finds it empty. She took a step back and then another.

He opened the door and a wisp of mist swirled in, dissipating in the warmth of the room. It was a symbol, Sarah thought. A symbol for an hour she had spent. For a precious gift she had been given. She smiled. So the box had not been empty after all.

Looking up at him, she met his eyes. He gave her a small nod, as if giving approval to her unspoken thought. Together, they stepped outside.

It had grown completely dark while she had been in the shop, but the rain had stopped. They did not speak as they walked through the narrow streets, but it was an easy silence, as if everything that needed to be said had been.

They turned down a street bardy wider than an alleyway and found their way blocked by a wagon piled high with goods. A thin, tall man called out while he threw back the sailcloth to reveal a hodgepodge of furniture, paintings, boxes and crates.

In the light of torches, which had been placed in round metal holders on the walls of a house, several burly men silently began unloading the wagon. The only sound was the sharp, raspy voice of the gaunt, sallow man as he moved from one side to the other, giving instructions, admonishing the men to be careful of the treasures they were carrying.

The flames of the torches created stunning contrasts of brightness and shadow, making an ordinary scene into a primitive picture of the grotesque and the beautiful that could have been painted by Caravaggio. How different the scene would have been, Sarah mused, viewed by the pale, civilized light of London gas lanterns.

Strangely drawn by the jumble on the wagon, she moved forward, her hand outstretched to touch. Then she stopped like a well-behaved child and, folding her hands at her waist, looked over her shoulder at her companion.

“Go ahead.” Guido smiled and gave her a nod of encouragement.

Excitement gripping her, Sarah took a step forward and then another.

“Buona fortuna,” Guido whispered, although he knew she did not hear him. He watched her for a moment longer before he stepped back into the mist.

A corner of a marble-faced cabinet, its surface inlaid with lapis lazuli and amethyst and jasper in a wondrous pattern of flowers and birds, peeked over the backboard of the wagon. Sarah tugged off her glove and reached out to run her fingers over it.

The cold surface seemed to warm beneath her touch. Then, suddenly, as if the cabinet’s surface had become a mirror, she saw it standing in a large, high-ceilinged room. A woman in a dress of emerald-colored velvet bent over it as she pulled out one of its many drawers, and her waistlength black hair spilled forward to hide her face. Bianca, Sarah thought. She had hair just like Bianca.

“Buona sera, signorina.”

The vision disappeared at the sound of the gravelly voice. Disoriented, Sarah focused her gaze on the man who was scrutinizing her through the narrow space between the side of the wagon and the wall. He inclined his head and pulled his mouth into a grin, revealing a set of large teeth that reminded Sarah of yellowed piano keys.

“Buona sera.” She looked back at the cabinet, half expecting to see the vision again. The vision that had been a reflection of the dreams she had come to Florence to find. But all she saw was the marble surface with its lovely pattern. “You have some very beautiful things here.”

“Ah, sì,sì. Look at what you will.” He rubbed his hands together briskly at the prospect of business. He had taken note of the young woman’s shabby coat, but then he had seen more than one eccentric Englishman who dressed like a servant to cheapen the price.

“In a few moments everything will be unloaded and you can look at your leisure.” He gestured toward the shop. “I make a good price for you. An excellent price.”

“Oh, I don’t want to buy anything.” Regretfully Sarah took a step back, although she longed to touch the cabinet again. Longed to see if she could summon the vision once more.

“They all say that.” His laugh did not animate his saturnine features. “Then they look and they buy. You come in and look, signorina, and then —” he raised his bony shoulders in a shrug “— vediamo.”

“Grazie.”

Wanting to share her discovery with Guido, Sarah turned, but all she saw was swirling mist made luminous by the flames of the torches.

“Mercurio?” she called. “Guido Mercurio, where are you?” She turned around in a circle, once, and then again, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Signore,” she called out to the owner of the shop. “Did you see where the man who was with me went?”

“Man?” He gave her a curious look. “I saw no man.” Perhaps she was pazza, he thought. But then all these foreigners were a little pazzi.

Sarah saw the odd look the shop owner gave her. Had the encounter with the man called Guido Mercurio been a figment of her imagination, she suddenly wondered? A dream? A vision like the image of the woman she had seen when she’d touched the cabinet?

She rubbed her hand over her forehead. Was she going mad? Was all this a dream, perhaps? Would she wake up and find herself back in the wretched little room above a cookshop where she had lived during her last weeks in England?

She looked over her shoulder, but all she saw was the incandescent mist that was closing in on her. Enveloping her. Unnerved, she turned away from the wagon—to look for Mercurio or simply to flee, she was not certain.

But then she looked back one last time. The dull gleam of a small writing desk, its decoration sadly battered by the years, pulled at her as surely as if she were a puppet on a string. Surrendering, she knew that she had been taken captive.

One of the men pulled the desk away just as she stretched her hand out to touch it, but her sound of disappointment turned into one of delight as a small chest, which had been hidden beneath it, appeared. With its vaulted lid and a surface that alternated between metal—intricately patterned with scrollwork and dragons—and squares of wine red velvet, it looked like a treasure coffer. Surely, she thought, it would contain strings of luminous pearls or glittering precious stones or perhaps gleaming gold florins.

Smiling at her fanciful thought, she curved her fingers over the backboard of the wagon, Guido Mercurio and her interrupted flight and fears almost forgotten. It was as if these things, these leftovers of somebody’s life, were calling to her, speaking to her in a language only she and they could understand.

Only a few things remained in the wagon now and she felt an agitation grip her. There was something there, something she could not define, something important. But it was slipping away from her. If she did not reach out for it, hold it, it would be gone.

Her breathing grew uneven. Her palms grew damp. Her nerves vibrated like taut strings being plucked by a rough hand. As she watched the men remove the last crates and the desk she had admired earlier, she drew closer to the wagon and closer still, until she could feel the wooden slats of its side pressing against her chest. Even when the wagon was empty but for some straw and a few blankets, she remained standing there, unable to move. Only when she felt a jolt did she let go, realizing that the men were pulling the wagon away.

Her hands by her sides, she watched the wagon move down the alleyway. As it was swallowed by the mist, she felt some of the agitation drain away. She stood very still, her gaze fixed on the path the wagon had taken. She could go now, she thought. She could find her way back to her pensione, where the fire in the common room would be burning brightly. Where the smells of the evening meal cooking would be welcoming. Where she could have some civilized, boring conversation with the minister from Blackpool and his wife or the widow from some small town in Yorkshire.

But instead of moving forward, she deliberately shifted her gaze toward the shop. The owner stood there, watching her. His spare frame almost filled the narrow doorway, and for a moment Sarah could see him in old-fashioned armor, guarding the entrance to a great treasure—or the throne room of a prince. This time he said nothing, but merely stepped back until he stood in the shadows of the dim interior.

Without knowing how or why, Sarah understood that she was being given a choice. Slowly she turned and moved toward the shop. For a moment she paused. Her gaze fell on the metal-and-velvet casket that had charmed her earlier, and still she did not move.

Then she felt the power. It was there, inside the shadowy shop. It did not pull at her, but she knew that it waited for her.

For the second time that evening, she stepped over a threshold.

Chapter Two

The shop smelled of petroleum and old dust. It must have already been full before the wagon had been unloaded, Sarah thought. Now crates and boxes were heaped one on top of the other, tables stood on cabinets, chest was piled upon chest, leaving passageways between the stacks just wide enough to squeeze through.

She felt a rushing in her ears. Was it wind? Was it a discordant chorus of voices? Was it the sound of her own blood racing through her veins? The agitation she had felt earlier was back, her heart pumping so hard that her breath grew uneven. But she moved forward, drawn into the labyrinth of furniture and bric-a-brac like a hapless wanderer being sucked into quicksand.

“All this belonged to the Cornaro family.”

“What?” Sarah jumped at the man’s words, her reflexive movement jarring a pile of furniture, making it wobble dangerously. She felt a flash of terror as intense as if he had said that it had belonged to the devil. “Cornaro?” she whispered. “Did you say Cornaro?”

“Sì. Some distant relation in France ordered everything sold after the last of the Cornaros threw himself from the top floor of his palazzo.” He smiled grimly. “The Cornaro curse. Now it is over”

“Curse?” Sarah felt her mouth go dry.

“For centuries they have had more than their share of violent death—in every generation. They were rich and powerful, but the curse was in their blood and drove them to be vicious to others and to themselves.

“A woman was the cause.” The man’s lugubrious voice grew animated, as if the bloodthirsty tale gave him pleasure. “The curse began long ago when two brothers wanted the same woman and spilled blood over her.”

Two brothers and one woman! Sarah opened her mouth to ask if their names had been Alessio and Ugo. If they had loved a woman named Bianca. But no sound emerged.

No, she thought wildly, it could not be. It was beyond all reason that the dreams that had visited her all her life had a basis in fact, wasn’t it? She felt a flash of pure terror.

And if it was indeed so? Was this why she had been compelled to come to Florence? Was this why she had been led here, to this street, to this shop, at this very hour?

The questions careered through her mind like stampeding horses, making her dizzy. The world around her spun faster and faster until it was only a blur. But in her mind was a perfectly clear image of the lovers whose passionate lives she knew better than her own—perhaps because she had but a ghost of a life herself. Oh, surely they had not been cursed, her heart cried out. Surely they had found happiness together. Surely fate could not have been so cruel to punish them for their love, no matter that it had been guilty and sinful. And if it had punished them, she did not want to know it.

“The beautiful Bianca married Ugo.”

The man’s voice snapped her out of the vertigo as effectively as if he had slapped her.

“But she took Alessio as her lover. Ugo found them together—”

“No!” Sarah raised her hands to block her ears.

“And butchered them with Alessio’s own dagger.”

Too late. The words penetrated her mind and the knowledge settled around her heart like a lead weight.

“Are you all right?” The man bent down to her and peered into her face. “Here, sit drown.”

He shoved a half-open crate that stood on a chest to the side and half helped, half pushed Sarah to sit next to it. “I will get you something to drink.”

“It’s not nec—” she started to say, but he had already disappeared down the passageway toward the front of the shop.

Still stunned, she rubbed the heel of her hand against her chest as if she could ease the weight there. At the same time, her rational mind battled with the realization that the dreams that had accompanied her life had been of people who had lived and breathed, loved and died. And died so horribly. She shuddered.

Her eyes filled, and as the tears spilled down her cheeks, she rocked back and forth and mourned.

Time passed — minutes or hours, she could not tell. When the tears were spent, she leaned, weak and exhausted, against the crate that stood next to her.

Its top was half-pried open, and among the jumble of small objects wrapped in newspapers and rags, a twinkle of color caught her eye and she reached inside the crate. With a feeling that bordered on reverence, she picked up a bellied jar made of cobalt blue Venetian glass, its stopper shaped like an open fan, and held it in the palm of her hand. Who had held it as she was holding it now? Bianca or one of the descendants to whom she had bequeathed the Cornaro curse? What had it contained? Medicine? A cosmetic? A love potion? Poison?

Even as the questions formed in her mind, her own reflection on the dark blue surface dimmed and transformed into the image of another woman, her lovely face framed by a cloud of dark curls as she lifted away the fan-shaped stopper and poured a liquid into a bowl. As the image faded, Sarah could have sworn she smelled the sweet fragrance of jasmine.

Her fingers trembled lightly as she touched the fan of clear blue glass. She tried to remove it, but the years had glued the stopper and the jar together. Curiosity driving her, Sarah plucked a pin from her hat and carefully, with infinite patience, scratched at the stopper until it loosened and she was able to work it out.

She hesitated, remembering the brief image of a moment ago. No, her practical mind protested. It would carry no smell. All this was simply too weird, too fantastic to be true. Resolutely she brought the open jar to her nose and took a deep breath.

When she breathed in the faint scent of jasmine, she cried out softly and her fingers slackened. Horrified, she saw the jar tip over and roll from her hand. Unable to move, she watched helplessly as it fell to the floor and shattered.

“Signorina?”

Her head snapped up as she heard the steps of the owner returning. Oh God, she thought as panic rushed through her. What had she done? She would never be able to pay for such a priceless piece. Her fingers trembling, she tore off her hat and swept the shards into it with the hem of her coat.

She would hide, she thought. Hide until the man was gone, and then she would escape. Escape and pretend this whole evening had been an illusion, a nightmare. Perhaps with time she would come to believe it.

Even as the thoughts tumbled chaotically through her brain, she grabbed the oil lamp and rushed blindly through the passageway toward the back of the shop.

“Signorina.”

Just as she heard him call out again, the passageway widened and she saw a door that stood ajar. Pushing it open, she slipped inside the room. Leaving the door open a crack, she pressed her back against the wall.

The owner called out again. There was a crash, followed by pungent swearing at the extinguished lamp.

Sarah glanced at the offending lamp, which she had placed behind the door, and pressed her hands against her mouth as hysterical laughter threatened to erupt.

She heard a stream of invectives about foreign women who acted like lunatics when they heard an interesting story, and a giggle escaped her.

Then she heard a door slam, a lock grate, and she knew that she was alone.

Counting the minutes, she waited. When she was sure he would not return, she took the lamp and crept back through the passageway.

The door was locked, but she had expected that, she told herself as she suppressed a shiver. Patiently, methodically, she began to search for a spare key.

She found a key and then another and another, but none of them fit the rusty old lock on the door. When she finally capitulated, she almost gave in to the tears that were pricking her eyelids.

As she rose from crouching in front of the door, she caught a glimpse of her dirt-streaked face in an old, obscured mirror. She stiffened her back, as if the grime on her face were a badge of honor. She had done what she could, she thought. Now she would wait until morning.

She was used to dealing with adversity, she reminded herself without bitterness. When you could not change what life meted out, you accepted it and dealt with it as best you could. Was spending one night in a dingy little shop worse than growing up the illegitimate child of a weak, whining woman? Was it worse than being a miserably paid companion to people who thought you were a lower form of life? Was it worse than hiding a soul that was brimming with need and hungry for passion in the body of a spinster?

Her gaze fell on the unusual casket of metal and velvet and her resignation gave way to a flurry of excitement. Approaching it as carefully as she would a sleeping animal, she ran a cautious finger over the ruby-colored velvet. It had once been richly patterned, but the years had thinned the nap of the fabric so that it was almost bald in places.

Because no image rose before her, she bravely tilted up the vaulted lid.

Telling herself that she had no right to be disappointed that the casket was empty, she dipped her hands inside and ran her fingers over the velvet lining, which was of the same wine red color as the decorations on the outside. Her hands began to tingle and she tried to pull them back, but some unseen power held them there.

Alarm rippling through her, she stared down at her thin, chapped hands. The image blurred and then cleared again to hands that were soft and white and scented with precious oil of jasmine. Hands that were plunged into a fabulous profusion of jewels.

A chain of square-cut sapphires was carelessly tossed aside. A collar of rubies and diamonds followed. Nimble, capricious fingers plucked out a long rope of pearls the size of mulberries. Again the image shifted and Sarah saw a figure in a fine white nightgown, the pearls dripping from one hand like oversize drops of water, the woman turned toward a man who stood in the shadows.

The image faded and Sarah found herself staring down at her own hands again. This time there was no resistance when she lifted them and pressed them against her face. She was going mad, she thought, as the memory of a dream that could only be the continuation of what she had just seen played before her closed eyes.

She saw Bianca take Alessio’s hands and lead him from the shadows to the bed with its crimson canopy and curtains. She saw her twist the rope of pearls around his hands until they were effectively manacled by the jewels. She saw the lovers tumble onto the bed.

With a cry she dropped her hands and opened her eyes, unsure of what she would see, where she would find herself. When she realized that she was in the grimy antique shop that was filled to the eaves with the rubble of generations of Cornaros, she was not sure whether to be relieved or terrified.

She would somehow unravel this knot, she assured herself. If she could just sit down for a little while, surely her methodical mind would find a way to order and explain all this. And once that was done, she would deal with it.

Gingerly, she snapped the lid of the casket shut. Suddenly drained of all energy, she propped her hands on the desk on either side of the casket. Wondering if this contact, too, would call up an image, she found herself holding her breath. But nothing happened, and she relaxed a little, allowing her damp palms to rest fully on the surface with its exquisite marquetry work in shades of brown from gold to cinnamon. For long minutes she stood there and waited for her breathing to subside enough for her to be able to move.

As her breathing quieted, she straightened, running her fingers along the delicate scrollwork around the outer edges as she did so.

The soft click, followed by a louder sound of wood striking wood, had her heart racing again.

Sarah slid her hand into the narrow space between the right side of the desk and the cabinet that stood next to it, only half-aware of the uncanny sureness of her movements. When her fingers were blocked by an obstruction, she knew instinctively that it was a secret compartment.

Her hands trembling with terror and excitement, she hooked her fingers under the front of the desk and jerked it forward. As soon as she had pulled the desk free, a drawer sprang from the side.

Shifting the lamp closer, Sarah looked into the shallow compartment. A thin portfolio lay there, the leather cracked with age, its once rich color bleached to the faded green of winter grass.

She reached out for it, but pulled her hand back at the last moment, afraid of what new image would lie in store for her. Still her fingers itched to touch it.

There was only a thin layer of dust on the portfolio. Perhaps it had been here for only a short time, she mused. Perhaps it had belonged to some Cornaro to whom she would feel no connection. Perhaps, perhaps she could just take a small peek inside.

With only the very tips of her fingers, she undid the crumbling ribbon and opened the cover. The top sheet of thick vellum was yellowed with age, but the black ink was still dark and legible.

Her hands pressed against her racing heart, she bent closer and began to read.

Bianca, vita della mia vita, cuore del mio cuore. Bianca, life of my life, heart of my heart. Sarah closed her eyes as the words struck a chord within her that reverberated with a sweet melody. And she knew that she would take the portfolio and read, no matter what images came to badger her.

Cautiously she picked it up and stood very still as she waited for some image to haunt her. A teasing wisp, a shadowy glimpse of a man and a woman entwined in an embrace, floated by her mind’s eye, but it was gone before she could recognize it. She saw nothing but piles of furniture. She heard nothing but the scurrying of a mouse. Taking the lamp with her, she returned to the back room.

She had been blinded by fear when she had been in the room before. Now she saw that it was almost filled by a large bed, its canopy awry, the curtains of crimson velvet missing on one side, the stuffing spilling out of the vandalized mattress.

Horror wound through her and Sarah retreated a step and then another and another until she collided with the door. She wanted to close her eyes, to look away, but she could not.

This was the bed she had seen so many times in her dreams. The bed where Bianca had given her virginity to the husband who had repulsed her with his malformed body and his cruelty. The bed where she had sought and found solace and passion with her husband’s brother. The bed where—Her eyes widened as certainty told her that the crimson of the curtains had disguised the bloodstains, that the slashes in the mattress had come from Alessio’s dagger wielded by Ugo in his rage of hatred and vengeance.

Her initial reaction was to flee. But the same stubbornness and pride and irritation at her own fear that had prevented her from fleeing from Guido Mercurio earlier prevented her from fleeing now.

No, she thought, she would not run. Perhaps this bed was the key to all the bewildering, enigmatic things that had happened to her tonight. The key and the ultimate test of her courage.

Her movements were as careful and measured as if she were performing a ritual while she placed the portfolio and lamp on a heavy carved chair and pushed it next to the bed. Then, surrendering herself to whatever lay in store for her, she sat down on the mattress and waited for her heart to begin to race, for her breath to grow ragged as harbingers of a bombardment of images.

But there was none of it. Instead she felt odd vibrations, which transferred themselves to her nerve endings, to her heartstrings. Yes, she felt the violence. Yes, she felt the passion. But, most overwhelmingly, she felt the love.

Reaching for the portfolio, she turned up the wick of the lamp and began to read the letters and poems of a man who had loved beyond all measure, beyond all reason.

The lamp was beginning to flicker by the time she was done. Her cheeks damp with tears, she closed the portfolio and set it aside. How would it feel to be loved and desired as Alessio had loved and desired his Bianca? Had her love for him been as great? Perhaps it had, she thought sadly, but her ambition and her greed for power had been even greater.

The flame of the lamp shot up one more time and sputtered out. Sarah felt no fear. No, she welcomed the darkness. Suddenly unspeakably weary, she lay down. Her eyes closed and she drifted into sleep.

And for the first time since she had been in Florence, she dreamt.

Chapter Three

The flat, sandy beach and the stretch of calm, azure sea, barely troubled by a breeze, were familiar. Even before she saw the two riders gallop out of the forest of umbrella pines and move toward her like faraway, dark specks against the pale sand, Sarah recognized the dream, which she had dreamt many times before.

With joyful anticipation she settled down to dream as one settles down in a theater to watch a beloved old play.

But tonight there was something subtly different about the dream. Oh, everything looked the same. The sunlight was as bright, the water as blue. But something felt different.

Tonight the dream was even more vivid, even more lifelike than usual. So vivid that she could almost feel the warmth of the spring sun on her face.

Sarah felt the short hair at her nape flutter. Startled, she raised her hand to the back of her neck and felt the cool breeze stroke her fingers. A ripple of disquiet had her inhaling a deep, calming breath. A breath that carried the scent of the sea.

Confused, she looked up and down the beach. It was as it always was, wasn’t it? Then what were the tricks her senses were playing on her? The tricks that made her feel as if she were standing in the middle of her dream instead of watching it from the side?

She turned in a full circle and saw not only the beach and the sea but the green hills behind her. Something shifted beneath her feet and she looked down and noticed that the toes of her black high-button shoes were buried in pale sand, which was speckled with crushed shells.

She was not watching the dream tonight. She was in it. Even as the thought brushed her mind, Sarah denied it. No, she told herself, tamping down on the razor-sharp shaft of panic. Of course she was not in it. It was impossible, absurd. It was only a mirage, a flight of fancy. Her image had simply crept into the dream, the effect of nerves overwrought by tales of blood and vengeance.

A gust of wind blew in from the sea, snapping the dark coat around her ankles, bringing the taste of salt to her lips. Again she felt alarm streak through her. But then the riders recaptured her attention, and the incongruities that had put her off-balance faded.

The riders had drawn closer, still riding abreast of each other. She could not see their faces yet, but they were close enough now so that she could recognize the colors. It was as it always was, she reassured herself with a small sigh of relief. This was Bianca, her unbound black curls streaming behind her like a banner, her scarlet dress a dazzling contrast to her mount’s white coat. And this was Alessio, his black clothing blending with the glossy black hide of his stallion so that the man and his mount looked like one fabulously pagan, virile animal.

They drew closer still, the horses’ hooves thundering on the sand as the white horse took the lead by a head. Sarah pressed her hand to her heart, which was echoing the pounding rhythm.

She wanted to warn them to beware. To beware of each other. To beware of their fate. She wanted to stop them. No, she had to stop them. Now that she knew what lay in store for them, she was responsible. She cried out to them, but no sound emerged from her throat.

They were close now, so close that she could see their faces. She saw Bianca turn slightly and send Alessio a smile. A smile perfectly calculated to provoke, to arouse. She saw Alessio’s face, dark with annoyance and the promise of passion, and she remembered the heartbreaking beauty of the letters and sonnets he had written for the woman who had not loved him enough.

How could you do it? Sarah heard her voice in her head, crying out in desperate reproach, but she knew that she remained mute.

How could I do it? She cried out silently again, and even as she wondered at the bizarre tricks her mind was playing on her, she understood. With all the suddenness of a shaft of bright, strong sunlight piercing a fog, she understood.

It was she who had lived as Bianca. It was she who had caused death and destruction and so much suffering by putting ambition and a greed for power before love.

They had almost reached her. Another moment and they would be past. Then it would be too late. The thought shot into her mind like a flaming arrow and quivered there. Too late for what? she cried. And what could she do? What?

Suddenly Sarah remembered that she had stood at the threshold of the shadowy shop and felt the power that had lain waiting for her inside. She reached for it now and it filled her. Her head high, her step sure, she moved squarely into the path of Bianca’s mount.

The world tilted and whirled around Sarah as if a giant, invisible hand had picked her up and spun her head over heels like a toy. Then she crashed against something, the impact robbing her of her senses, but only for a moment.

She lifted her hand to her hair and, instead of a severe bun on the back of her head, she found a mass of wild curls streaming back in the wind. She looked down at her clothing and saw, instead of a threadbare coat of dark wool, a gown of rich scarlet velvet. Beneath her she felt the vibration of the powerful animal as it pounded over the sand.

Even as panic flashed through her, she told herself that it was a dream. Just a dream. She struggled to awaken, but she was held fast, as if she were bound by strong cords.

Gradually comprehension seeped into her and her struggles subsided as she understood—and accepted—that the dream had become reality. She understood that in some mystical way her spirit had merged and melded with Bianca’s. And she understood that she had been given the chance to live her life as Bianca one more time. To live it again, knowing the tragedy, the mistakes. She had been given a second chance to do it right.

In an act that was both surrender and conquest, she let Sarah go, freeing her to pass to some shadowy realm. Sarah slipped away wraithlike, taking her life, her memories with her. But, like a precious gift, she left behind her a vein of knowledge to live in Bianca like the melody of a once heard, never forgotten song.

April 1528

Bianca felt a jolt, as if she had collided with something. It left her breathless, but only for a moment. She turned in the saddle and looked back to where, for a moment, she had thought she had seen a thin woman wearing outlandish dark clothes. The figure was gone, but a pile of what looked like rags lay on the pale sand.

Involuntarily, her hands tightened on the reins. Her mount reared up with an annoyed whinny and, still distracted, Bianca allowed the reins to slip through her fingers. With a cry she tumbled off the saddle onto the sand.

Disoriented, she lay still for a moment, both arms flung outward. The pounding of hooves on the sand caused her to struggle up onto her knees. Frozen with a sudden terror, she watched the black stallion thunder straight at her. Even when the animal reared to a halt several feet away from her, she felt as if her heart had stopped beating.

She watched Alessio, his face dark with rage, leap off his mount. Suddenly, the abject, nameless terror of a moment ago changed to a specific fear of this man. She struggled up and stumbled to a nearby rocky outcrop.

She felt dizzy and helpless. But more than anything else she was annoyed. It wasn’t like her to be so clumsy or to feel such panic as she had a moment ago. She tilted up her chin and turned to face him, bracing her palms against the rocks behind her.

The taste of the panic he had felt when he had seen Bianca fall still lay on Alessio’s tongue, as bitter and metallic as the taste of blood. Because the desire to take her into his arms was so strong, his hands were rough as they closed on her shoulders.

“What were you trying to do, damn you?” He shook her so violently that her teeth clacked together. “Break your neck?”

“No.” She was still breathless, but temper was beginning to burn away the confusion in her eyes as she threw back her head. “I just wanted to see how fast Sultana could go. And I was racing you,” she added with a smile. “And I would have won, too, if that woman hadn’t startled me.”

“Woman? What woman?”

Suddenly bewildered again, Bianca glanced toward the spot on the beach where she had thought she had seen the woman. Where she had seen the pile of dark rags. But there was nothing there now but the pale yellow sand.

“I thought I saw a woman standing right in front of me.” Her voice petered out and she frowned, still looking past Alessio down the beach. “I must have imagined her.” She shook her head. She was not someone given to visions and imaginings.

Alessio scowled down at her. He wanted to shake her again for her willful recklessness, but for a moment she, whom he had never seen other than vibrant and proud, looked so lost, so pale that his hands gentled.

Bianca pushed away the odd feeling that still wound through her. The feeling she could not have described if her life had depended on it. But then, it had never been her habit to indulge in introspection.

“It was probably just the mussels I ate giving me indigestion.” She purposely said the prosaic words, needing something ordinary to balance out this—this bizarre apparition.

Alessio looked behind him at the spot Bianca’s gaze had gone to. He saw nothing but the sand, which stretched for miles up the coast. But she had seen something. She was not a woman to pale at some phantom of the mind. He turned back to her.

“What did you see?”

She met Alessio’s eyes. They were the same color as the sunlit sea, which stretched out behind him. The remains of his anger were there. And the desire she recognized because she had seen it often enough in other men’s eyes. But there was something else there that she had never seen before. Was it tenderness? Concern? She was not a woman easily disquieted, but whatever this was, it disquieted her now and made her want to look away. She was not a woman easily touched, but this touched her now and made her want to hold his gaze.

“Nothing.” She shrugged, the gesture meant as much for herself as for him. “Now I suggest you let me go, Messere Alessio.” Her mouth curved in a smile that both mocked and invited. “Or do you wish to mark my skin?”

The look of a little girl lost had faded. Instead the temptress was back. The temptress who had tantalized him months ago and then allowed herself to be betrothed to his brother like a mare sold to the highest bidder. And yet he still wanted her. Despite the rage that churned within him, he wanted her with a desire so hot, so strong that every woman he made love to was but an instrument for his release. A release that brought a slaking of a physical need but no true pleasure.

“If you keep playing your role of Circe, I will do more than mark your skin.” But even as he said the words, his hands eased and began to stroke where they had gripped before.

The linen of her shirt, the velvet of her gown lay between Alessio’s hands and her skin, and yet Bianca could feel his touch as if she were naked beneath it.

The heat his hands generated spread over her skin and spiraled down to her belly. Her young, ripe body grew hungry. So hungry that for a mad, heady moment she could imagine giving in to its demands. Now. Here.

Because a voice she had never heard before seemed to call to her, because the voice spoke of shame and dishonor, she tried to shift away from Alessio’s touch.

“Strega. You are a witch, Bianca.” His hands slid up from her shoulders and into her hair. As they fisted in the wind-tossed strands to hold her, he lowered his mouth to hers.

“No.” She turned her face aside.

Alessio stared down at her. Did she think he was a plaything to bat around like a tennis ball? Did she think she could treat him as if he were a fawning Venetian cicisbeo, content to worship from afar?

Impatience and anger mixed with desire and his hands tightened in her hair.

“No, let me go.” She began to fight him in earnest, not quite understanding why she felt compelled to do so when she wanted to give in to him so badly.

“Why so coy today, madonna?” he demanded. “There have been days when you were more than eager to feel my mouth on yours.”

Bianca said nothing because she did not have an answer to his accusation. His accusation that was nothing less than the truth.

“Let me go, Alessio, I command you.” His grip on her hair was just short of painful—and yet she found that it aroused her. Because she needed distance from him and needed it quickly, she fired off her most powerful weapon. “Do you forget that I belong to your brother?”

“No.” His eyes flashed with blue flames. “You are betrothed to my brother. But you belong to me.”

Alessio felt his fury, which she seemed to provoke so effortlessly, rise another notch. Yes, it troubled him that he so desperately wanted this woman, who would, in a few months’ time, be his older brother’s wife. It troubled him far more than he cared to admit. There was no love lost between Ugo and him. But did a man dishonor his own flesh and blood for a woman?

Perhaps not for any woman, he thought as his gaze traveled over Bianca’s face with its perfect features. The eyes so dark that they were almost black, with their tiny flecks of gold, which made them look like live coals. The lush mouth the color of raspberries, which promised all the pleasures of paradise. Perhaps not for any woman, he repeated, but for this woman he would sell his immortal soul to the devil. Perhaps he already had. An ache wound through him. An ache that had nothing to do with the ache in his loins.

“You know as well as I do that you belonged to me long before I touched you for the first time. Do you remember?”

Her mouth sullen, Bianca remained silent. Because her pride demanded it, she kept her gaze steady on his.

Her silence goaded him, and Alessio’s grip tightened and remained so, even when her barely perceptible wince told him that he was hurting her.

“Do you remember how you looked down from the tribunal as I was awarded the victor’s wreath after the tournament?” His body sprang to life at the memory. “You looked at me and we both knew that you were mine, as if you had already spread your legs for my body.”

In counterpoint to his crude words, his hands released her hair and cupped her head, his fingers rubbing her scalp lightly, as if to soothe the discomfort that he himself had caused. He lowered his head, and instead of taking her mouth as his body demanded, he brushed his lips over hers once and then again. For some reason it seemed important that she give him what he could so easily take.

“Open your mouth for me now, Bianca,” he murmured. “Open for me and let me kiss you.”

His hands were gentle where they had been rough before. His lips coaxed where they had demanded. Drawing in a deep breath, she inhaled his scent with it — horseflesh and leather and aroused male. Her senses began to swim. Surely there would be no harm in one kiss. Just one kiss. She could feel her lips slackening, parting of their own volition. No, she thought. If she gave her mouth to him, she would give it.

She opened her mouth and slid the tip of her tongue between Alessio’s lips.

Alessio felt her warm, wet tongue slip into his mouth, and for a moment he remained as motionless as if he had been struck by lightning.

She watched him as she moved her tongue against his in erotic invitation. Then she retreated and, in a final siren’s call, brushed her open mouth against his. When she let her head fall back in ostensible surrender, triumph was in her eyes.

Because his needs were coursing through him with an urgency that was just short of uncontrollable, Alessio lowered his mouth to hers slowly, half inch by half inch. His lips hovered over hers, then descended until they were separated by no more than a breath.

Her mouth, as sweet and lush as a ripe peach, beckoned. And still he did not take. Instead he touched his mouth to her full lower lip. Then, his eyes on hers, he drew it into his mouth.

For a moment Bianca stopped breathing with the sheer pleasure of it. She would beg now, she thought as the last rational thought fled her mind. She would make a fool of herself and beg, and she cared not. Because she could not speak, she moaned.

Alessio stilled. Then, knowing that now they were both the vanquished, both the victors, he plunged into her mouth.

They feasted on each other until they were full of each other’s taste. They drank from each other until they were drunk with pleasure.

Their nerves humming, their breathing ragged, they pulled apart, the terrible knowledge in their eyes. They had shared much more than a kiss. They had possessed each other. Possessed each other as surely, as completely as if they had shared the ultimate embrace.

“And you dare to say that you do not belong to me?”

His breath was hot on her face, and Bianca leaned back, uncaring that the rocks bit into her back. She was trembling, but not with weakness. And she needed all her control not to reach for Alessio again. To taste him. To experience the wild surge of his arousal—and hers.

She would never be the same again, she thought as she let her eyes fall closed. Never.

“Answer me, damn you.”

Bianca pulled herself back from the sensual whirlwird where he had flung her. She wanted him so badly that her body ached with the wanting. But could she give up the wealth and power this marriage was offering her for a blaze of passion? How long would it take for the passion to burn itself out and then she would have nothing? All she had to do was look around her to see how transitory passion was.

“No.” She forced herself to meet his eyes. “I can never belong to you.” Her heart rent in two and began to bleed as she spoke the words, but unused to giving heed to her heart, she did not notice. “And you and I both know it.”

“You dare to deny it?”

“What would you have me do? Break a betrothal signed and sealed?”

“Why did you agree to this accursed betrothal in the first place?” His voice carried both anger and pain. “You knew that we belonged together.” He gripped her shoulders and pulled her against him. “You knew.”

“Agree?” she repeated in a barely audible whisper. “Agree?” The word broke out of her throat in a cry.

“Just how much do you think I had to say about it when Messere Ugo Cornaro sent his go-between to my father? When he not only offered for me despite the paltry dowry but offered my father enough money to rebuild our company to what it was before the pestilence killed the silkworms and almost ruined us?”

Bianca flung up her arms, thrusting Alessio away. “Just how do you think I could have guarded myself against that? What do you think my father would have said if I had told him, ‘I want Alessio Cornaro instead because his body is straight and his face beautiful and I care nothing that he is a pauper and his brother rich as Croesus’? ”

Alessio looked into her eyes for a long time before he spoke. “And you would have agreed to this marriage even if you had had a choice, wouldn’t you?”

Bianca stared back at him in silence.

The rage took him as he recognized the truth. “Wouldn’t you?” he shouted.

Alessio reached for her again, but she shoved him back with a blow to his breastbone that took his breath away.

“Don’t touch me. Don’t you ever touch me again.”

Alessio went very still. “You’re serious.”

“Yes.” Because the incredulous, wounded look in his eyes tore at her, she stiffened her back, “Yes, I am,”

“So.” His beautiful mouth curled in contempt. “For wealth and power you are willing to let yourself be ridden by a man deformed in body and spirit?”

“You speak so of your brother?”

“I speak the truth whether I speak of my brother or a stranger.” His eyes turned dull as they rested on her. “And you will marry him.”

Bianca shivered, as if icy fingers had traced their way up her spine, but she raised her head in defiance. “Yes. I will marry Ugo Cornaro, and the wealth and power I will have to help my family and others will sustain me.”

“Forza, madonna, e buona fortuna. Go to it and good luck.” He sketched a bow and extended his arm to her as coolly as he would have to a stranger. “Come, madonna, I will take you back.”

In silence they returned to their mounts. In silence they rode back to the villa.

And, her heart cold and desolate, Bianca wondered how she would bear it.

Chapter Four

By the time they had reached the steep, cypress-lined road that led to the villa, Bianca had managed to turn the bleak desolation that lay upon her soul like a mourning cloak into a bracing anger. Just who did Alessio think he was to treat her like a leper for consciously making the decision to marry Ugo when she would have been forced to accept the marriage whether she wanted it or not? Who did he think he was to make her want him so badly that she would have given herself to him on the beach? Who did he think he was to touch her soul as it had never been touched before with the wounded look in his eyes?

She stole a look at Alessio, who rode beside her in stony silence. What would it have been like, she wondered, to look forward to marriage with this man instead of with his brother? What would it have been like to have a husband whose back was straight, whose face was unmarred? A husband who sent a fevered heat coursing through her blood instead of cold revulsion?

There would be scant difference between the two, she reminded herself grimly, remembering the confidences her friend Cecilia Sandrini had shared with her. The only difference, Cecilia had said, was that the young lover who had seduced her and planted a child in her belly had dragged out the painful ritual of coupling for hours, while her aged husband came to her bed seldom and, when he did, was done in minutes.

But Alessio would have been different, a secret voice inside her whispered. For all his callous words, for all the violence that was as much a part of him as his skin, he had touched her with tenderness. He had coaxed when he simply could have taken. No, she thought as the yearning drifted through her like a beautiful, melancholy song. Alessio would not be a rough or uncaring lover.

Her carefully constructed armor of anger was disintegrating, she realized with a start. And this longing that surfaced from beneath it was something she had never felt before. A longing that had nothing to do with the physical desire that still had her body tingling. The desolation she had felt on the beach crept back, and she fought against it, impatient with this sudden surge of emotions and sensibilities that had never plagued her before today. Emotions and sensibilities that made her vulnerable.

Before today, life had always been simple for her. She’d wanted. She’d taken. It had been as basic as that. And since she had been a small child she’d understood very clearly that power was something she coveted. Yes, for what she could do with it—she thought of the foundlings’ hospital where she had left Cecilia’s baby—but also for its heady taste alone. And she would have power once she became Ugo Cornaro’s wife.

Despite her attraction for Alessio, up until today she had never once doubted that this was what she wanted above all else. Where, then, did this sudden confusion come from? She’d had enough encounters with power to know that it had a taste she would relish. So why this sudden dread that she would find the taste stale and bitter?

A wayward, eerie thought pushed its way into her consciousness, suddenly clamoring for attention. Had that woman on the beach, who had appeared out of nowhere in her odd, dark clothes and disappeared just as quickly, been a kind of avenging angel come to strike her with these emotions, these doubts, as one is struck by pestilence? Had she been sent to punish her for the ruthless selfishness with which she had always taken everything she wanted?

It occurred to Bianca with no little irony that this time she would not be able to take. No matter how badly she wanted Alessio, she would not be able to take.

Tossing back the hair that had fallen forward over her shoulder, she pushed away the emotions that were pulling at her so insistently. She did not want to feel them. She did not want to think about them. She would not allow it, she told herself with arrogant pride. She would simply not allow herself to feel anything that would stand in the way of what she had chosen for herself.

The square tower of the villa appeared above the dark green cypresses. Suddenly desperate to be alone, Bianca spurred her mount forward.

Servants rushed to take their horses as they rode through the arch into the small, intimate courtyard.

Bianca tossed the reins of her mount to a groom. “See that you bring back Messere Alessio’s mount as soon as you attend to it. He rides back to Florence immediately.”

As her gaze brushed over Alessio, her eyes narrowed at his provocative smirk.

“Is there something you wish to say, Messere Alessio?” Her voice was low, furious.

“There is no need to prod me, madonna.” Alessio gestured with his chin in the direction of the stables. “Believe me, I seek no commerce—” he paused to emphasize the double meaning “— with women who sell their bodies for a palazzo and rich jewels and think they are better than those who sell their bodies for a piece of bread.”

Even as he said the words, his sense of fairness rebelled. How much choice had she really had? Maidens were supposed to accept with good grace the marriages arranged for them. But surely she, he thought sullenly, she, who had already flouted every existing rule regarding the behavior of an unmarried female of unsullied reputation, could have avoided a betrothal with Ugo. If she had wanted to.

“Thus, Madonna Bianca, I have no wish to linger in your company.” Even as he spoke, he felt the fire in his belly and knew he lied.

Now it was Bianca’s turn to curve her mouth in a taunting smile, for she had seen the fire reflected in his eyes. The fire that belied his words.

“No?” The smile paired with that single word was more effective than any insult she could have hurled at him.

“You mock me?” Like a half-wild horse straining at the bit, his temper flared.

“Is it only allowed that you mock me?” she demanded. “I wager if I were a man armed with a rapier, you would not dare insult me thus.”

“If you were a man, I would have no need to insult you,” he snarled. “Men do not sell themselves in marriage.”

Bianca slipped her hands, which she had curled into fists, into the folds of her skirt. She would not give him the satisfaction of goading her into losing her temper.

“Indeed, what you say is true.” She paused to make certain her eyes were squarely on his. “Men sell themselves to kill instead.”

Alessio well understood the inference to his days as aide to condottiere Giovanni delle Bande Nere. It crossed his mind to remind her that in their day and age war was considered an art and the profession of condottiere was an honorable one. Because he was, in essence, a just man, it also crossed his mind that she could remind him that it was considered just as honorable for a girl to be an obedient daughter as she would later be an obedient wife.

She stood there like a pagan goddess, head high, eyes flashing with temper, her midnight hair flowing down her back like an ebony waterfall, and he again felt that jolt of desire in his belly. But this time it was accompanied by admiration for her wit. Her clever remark had hit the bull’s-eye and, perversely, it amused more than irritated him that she had turned the tables so neatly. Giving in to the amusement, he laughed, his teeth very white against his bronze skin.

“Your logic is impeccable.”

Annoyed by his laughter when she had expected, no, wanted fury, Bianca frowned. “I’m glad my impeccable logic amuses you so excellently, although I must admit it was not so intended.”

“And well I know it.” He laughed again. “That, too, amused me. To blunt the point of your lance.” Because he wanted to touch her, to feel her skin vibrating with annoyance, with the exertion of the ride, with life, he busied himself with his gloves.

“You have a clever tongue, madonna. Take care that it not be too clever.”

His suggestive smile made Bianca forget that they had witnesses. She took a step toward him, her hand swung back. When she brought it forward, Alessio’s fingers closed around her wrist cruelly enough to leave marks.

“That is not a good idea, madonna. ” The laughter was gone from his eyes. “I am not one to turn the other cheek.”

“I do not fear you.” She spat the words at him like a furious cat. “Not you.” She threw up her chin in defiance. “Not anyone.”

“No?” His eyebrows curved up in question like the wings of a raven. “Perhaps it would behoove you to do so.”

“Behoove me to fear you?” Although a quiver crept along her spine, her mouth curled in derision.

“No, not me. I do not soil my hands with punishing capricious, spoiled children.” He shrugged insolently. “My brother, on the other hand—” He paused. “I suspect my brother will be less lenient.”

She opened her mouth to give voice to the sharp retort that lay on the tip of her tongue. Even as she began to speak, the world around her dimmed and blurred to an ashen mass.

In the midst of the grayness, the only spot of color was a huge bed with crimson canopy and curtains, its white sheets tangled by the man and woman who still lay entwined upon them. A noise that sounded like the cry of a wounded boar had them starting up, bewildered, spent from passion sated. A dark figure lunged forward to snatch the jeweled dagger that lay beside the bed. Their arms around each other, they remained frozen, immobile, as the figure lifted an arm and began to thrust the dagger into their bodies with an almost methodical bestiality.

Because the softness of Bianca’s skin made Alessio want to caress it, because he wanted to put his mouth on the pulse that beat so quickly, he let her hand fall. As he did, he saw her sway and begin to crumple.

“Bianca!” The same sharp panic that had flashed through him on the beach when she had slid off her mount streaked through him now.

Picking her up as easily as if she were a child, he carried her to the well that stood in the center of the courtyard and set her down on the wide step that ran around it. Keeping his arm around her shoulders, he knelt on one knee beside her.

“Water!” he barked, but a servant was already bending down toward him with a large wooden ladle in his hands.

The self-possession Alessio had learned as a soldier stood him in good stead now. His fingers were steady as he dipped them in the cool water and traced them over Bianca’s face and neck, but his heartbeat was not. It raced and pounded as he watched the last of the color leach out of her cheeks.

He would have known how to bind a battle wound, he thought, but he had no idea how to deal with a woman’s fainting spell. If they had been alone, he would have put his mouth on hers and brought her back to consciousness with his passion alone. Because they were not, he wet his fingers again and again and dribbled drops of water over her mouth.

When she finally opened her eyes, he saw the same confusion, the same fear he had seen in them on the beach, but only for a moment.

“Let me go.” Bracing her hands against the bottom rim of the well, she struggled to sit up straight. As suddenly as it had blurred, the world around her was back in focus. But the terrible, bloody tableau she had seen remained with her, as if it had been etched onto her mind.

Alessio’s arm remained around her shoulders, his touch reminding her that the lovers in her vision had had her face—and his. “Let me go,” she repeated, her voice rising hysterically as she pressed her back against the damp stone of the well.

Amid anxious cries and much fluttering of hands, two women rushed down the short staircase at one side of the courtyard.

“Carina, are you all right?” A pale-haired young woman in a simple gown of blue wool knelt at Bianca’s other side, only to be pushed away unceremoniously by an older woman, wearing a wimplelike headdress.

“Piccola mia.” She cupped Bianca’s face in her plump hands and saw both confusion and fear. She had cared for her since she had been but an hour old, she thought, and these were two emotions she had never seen in her charge’s eyes before.

Turning to Alessio, she cuffed him on the shoulder with a fist. “What have you done to her?” She cuffed him again. “Bestia!”

Bianca struggled up from the confusion and terror that swirled around her like fingers of a pernicious fog. If she could have plucked the image from her mind, she would have. Since she could not, she would deal with it. She swore silently. Later, when she was alone, she would deal with it.

It took her to the limits of her strength, but she managed to block the vision from her mind and sit up straight. “Don’t fret, Lia.” She took the older woman’s hands. “I’m all right.”

“What did this animal do to you to make you faint, child?” Lia demanded. “You’ve never fainted in your life. Nor have you ever looked like—”

Bianca gripped her nurse’s hands more tightly and gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. “What words you use to speak of my future brother-in-law,” she scolded lightly. “I apologize to you for my servant’s impudence, Messere Alessio.” She allowed her gaze to barely brush him. “I must have overexerted myself while trying out my new mount.”

Lia pressed her lips together to keep herself from reminding Bianca that she had seen her disguise herself as a one of her father’s couriers and ride from Florence to Pisa and back in one day.

“Oh, thank God, you’re all right,” the pate-haired young woman cried out as she crossed herself. “When I saw you fall—” She covered her face with her hands and began to sob.

“There’s no need to cry, Angelica.” Bianca tried to curb the impatience she heard creeping into her voice. “Come now.” She patted her sister’s shoulder.

Even as Angelica’s shoulders shook harder, she watched Bianca through her fingers and did not miss the quick heavenward roll of her younger sister’s eyes or the exasperated glance she exchanged with the nurse. Beneath the concealing hands, her lips thinned. It had always been the two of them against her. Always. From the very beginning.

“Take her inside, Lia,” Bianca instructed, “and give her a cup of wine.”

Alessio watched the scene, his annoyance growing in proportion to the color that returned to Bianca’s face. What kind of game was she playing? he asked himself. Now that the roses were back in her cheeks, he could almost believe that what he had witnessed had been a scene staged and played for his benefit. But why? Why?

When Lia had led the sniffling Angelica away, Bianca stood, ignoring the hand that Alessio held out to her.

“I thank you for your care, Messere Alessio.” Keeping her eyes lowered, she brushed at the wrinkles in her gown. “I do not want to delay your return to Florence.”

“Do not think that you can brush me away like a pesky fly, Bianca.” His tone was low and urgent as he stepped close enough to her so that no one could overhear them. “I saw you go as pale as a ghost and faint. And I will know the reason. And while you’re at it, you can explain what happened on the beach.”

She devoted herself to the creases in the scarlet velvet, as if that were the most important task in the world. “You presume too much.” She kept her tone light.

“I will have my answers, Bianca, I warn you.” Alessio shifted still closer to press home his words with his body.

It occurred to him to ask himself why he felt an almost physical need to have answers. He desired her, he told himself, and he despised her. Why did he feel compelled to know things he should not have cared a fig about?

“I warn you.” His patience tore like a frayed rope and he circled her wrist again with his fingers.

“You warn me?” Temper made her careless and she lifted her face toward him.

The bloody image slipped past the block and into her consciousness. Her eyes grew unfocused as she saw Ales sio’s face, not as he stood before her, but as he had been in the vision, holding her while a madman raised the dagger again and again. “Perhaps I should warn you, Alessio.” Her voice began to slur, but she did not notice. “Warn you that you will—”

The color had washed out of her face again, bringing back the nameless panic that cut off his breath.

“Bianca!” He shook her, no longer caring what answers she gave him and what she kept secret. He only wanted these bizarre happenings to stop.

But even as he called out her name, her eyes focused and her color returned so quickly that for a moment he doubted what he had seen.

She looked down at her wrist, which he still held. Slowly, his fingers loosened and let go.

Alessio stared at the imprints on her wrist, which were already beginning to darken. The words of apology froze on his lips as he looked at her and found her mouth curved in a mocking smile.

She flicked a glance at her wrist, where his gaze had rested a moment before, and looked back at him, half expecting the horrible vision to appear again. When it did not, she released a small sigh of relief.

“I thank you for your care, Messere Alessio,” she said tauntingly echoing her words of just moments ago. “I think it is past time that you go now.”

“Yes, perhaps you are right: ”

It was easy to step away from this woman whose mouth was curved with a coldly mocking smile that was echoed in her eyes. And yet he remembered that this was a woman with secrets. Secrets that made her vulnerable. Secrets that could turn an artful seductress into a soft lover. Which one was she? Which one? Even as he asked himself this question, he knew.

Something shifted within him. He did not recognize it, and if he had, he would have denied it. But love took root in his heart and began to grow.

“I send my thanks to my betrothed for the gift of the mare.”

Bianca’s words brought him back to reality, that softer, gentler moment already forgotten. Anger bloomed again, but it had a desperate edge.

“I will relay madonna’s message to my brother.” Alessio stepped closer and bowed over the hand that Bianca extended. “Remember what I said to you about being ridden. Perhaps the symbolism of my brother’s gift will not escape you then,” he murmured.

She said nothing, but the way she jerked her hand away from his gave him an unreasonable amount of satisfaction.

He bowed and swung himself onto his mount, his short cape flaring out behind him. Without looking back, he spurred his horse out of the courtyard.

Chapter Five

Bianca stood in the courtyard and stared after Alessio long after the dust his horse had raised had begun to settle. Damn him for his last words. Damn him for reminding her what price she would have to pay for the power she wanted. Damn him for showing her just how much she moved him—to passion, to anger, to violence. To tenderness. She let her eyes fall closed. Damn him most of all for showing her just how much he moved her, for touching something inside her she had not known existed. Something that threatened her and made her doubt things she had never doubted before.

“What’s wrong with you today?”

Bianca heard the worry clearly in Lia’s voice, although it was disguised with impatience.

“Nothing. I told you—” she began.

“You lied.” Lia interrupted her with the ease of long familiarity. “You cannot fool me.”

“Taci, be quiet,” Bianca remonstrated gently. “You keep to your business, old woman, and leave me alone with mine.”

“You are my business and have been for nigh on seventeen years.” Lia’s voice softened. “I know you better than I know myself, and I have never seen you as you were today.” She slid her arm around Bianca and rubbed her hand in circles on her back. “Tell me, piccolina, what is it?”

“There’s nothing to tell.” She shrugged off Lia’s hands. It would be much too easy to turn her face into her nurse’s plump shoulder and let everything spill out. Every mystic fying, terrible, wonderful thing.

“You know there is nothing you cannot tell me. No trouble I would not help you with.”

Bianca only shook her head. She had to deal with this and she alone.

She had to deal with the visions that had been sent to her or that she had conjured up.

She had to deal with her attraction to Alessio. Attraction? She almost laughed aloud at the mild word. Desire, hunger, need. None of them even came close, she realized.

And she had to deal with the fact that she was going to marry his brother—with his wealth, his deformed body and, so rumors whispered, his cruelties.

Needing to do something, she walked over to the well, dipped the wooden ladle into the pail that hung from the decoratively turned wrought-iron tripod and sipped at the water she did not want. She knew that Lia was not going to give up even before she heard her footsteps behind her.

“Look at me, child.” Lia’s grip was gentle but firm as she turned Bianca around to face her. “Is there trouble between you and Alessio?”

“I told you to leave me alone.” Bianca turned aside and tossed the dipper back into the pail with a splash.

“Is there trouble because of Alessio?”

Bianca gave no answer.

Used to Bianca’s willfulness, Lia, with the stolid doggedness of a Tuscan peasant, took the girl’s chin between thumb and forefinger and drew her back so that they were face-to-face.

Halfheartedly, Bianca slapped her nurse’s hand away, but it was a matter of pride that she did not turn her gaze aside as the older woman scrutinized her.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she demanded testily. “Have I sprouted horns? Turned into a Hydra?”

“Grazie ai santi, thanks be to the saints,” Lia exclaimed with a loud sigh. “Whatever it is, you still have your maidenhead.”

“How would you know?” Bianca narrowed her eyes. “Or have you suddenly developed the sight?”

Lia laughed and folded her hands on her stomach. “I know you too well. Do you think I wouldn’t see it in your eyes if you had lain with a man?”

“Go away, you silly old woman, and spare me your insights.” She turned away again, her mouth sulky. Just the thought of lying with Alessio was enough to send her blood racing.

“So that’s it.” Lia laughed again, the sound rich and bawdy. “You itch and he hasn’t scratched yet.”

Without turning around, Bianca made an ill-mannered gesture more suited to the fish market than a patrician villa.

Suddenly, despite the warmth of the afternoon, Lia felt a shiver slither down her back and she wondered if someone had stepped on her grave. Or Bianca’s.

“Don’t do it, child.” The words spilled out in one breathless rush. “Take him as a lover later if you must, but come to your marriage bed a virgin.”

She gripped Bianca’s arm with both hands. “If it was anybody else, I would help you.” Her voice lowered. “There’s more than one way to feign virginity. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to play games with Messere Ugo.”

Lia shivered again at the thought that her beautiful child would lie beneath that monster. How long would it take for him to break Bianca’s free, willful spirit? She herself had not had an easy life, she thought, but at least she had had a young and handsome lover to bed her the first time.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bianca grumbled, and, pulling away, wandered out of the courtyard to the portico that ran along the front of the villa, ignoring Lia, who followed her.

The grapevines that trailed up the redbrick columns and twined through the latticework above were already covered with tender green leaves. Bianca sat down on the low stone wall and looked out over the countryside, which spread out below her like a painting.

The road curved to the right at the bottom of the hill and then lost itself in the trees, but she could see a trait of dust just above the treetops. Alessio must be riding like the very wind to have gone that far already, she thought. Suddenly she felt impossibly touched, as if with that cloud of dust he had sent her a message.

But what message would he send her? she asked herself as the joy dimmed. He had left her with anger and desperation in his eyes. With contempt in his heart. Would he have despised her any less if she had surrendered to him?

But as her eyes followed the progress of that thin cloud of dust, she felt emotion blaze through her. It was not the soft, melancholy yearning she had felt earlier. No, it was as strong as a lightning bolt, filling her to overflowing with light and heat and a kind of power she had never felt before. She was his, she thought. Alessio had been right when he had said that she belonged to him. She would never belong to anyone else. Ever.

What was wrong with her? She threaded her fingers through her hair and fisted them, seeking the pain as confirmation that she was here and everything was as it had always been. But no confirmation came. Instead, images from the past hours drifted in front of her eyes and she knew that nothing was as it had been. What had happened to her? Was she going mad? Had she been cursed? Was she possessed?

“Do you believe in ghosts, Lia?” she asked abruptly, still staring out over the treetops but seeing the woman on the beach. “Do you believe that ghosts can just appear out of nowhere and bewitch you?”

“What are you saying?” The nurse crossed herself and then, with forefinger and little finger, made the sign against il malocchio, the evil eye, for good measure.

“Nothing.” Bianca lapsed back into silence. Said aloud, it sounded absurd. Besides, even if ghosts existed, surely they did not appear in broad daylight.

“Come inside, piccolina.” Lia stroked her hand down her charge’s wind-tangled black hair. “I will make you some spiced milk and a cool compress and you will rest.”

“I need to be alone. I need to think.”

“You can think inside. Come away now.” Lia frowned down at the trail of dust as if it were an enemy. He was a handsome man, Alessio was, she thought. And, behind the posturing that all males seemed to have in common, he had a good and noble heart. Under ordinary circumstances she would have spared no pains to bring him to Bianca’s bed. But she would kill him before she allowed him to bring misfortune upon the head of her beloved child. And he would, she thought. He would.

“Come now,” she repeated.

Bianca’s eyes widened as the image of the dark-clothed woman rose again. It grew until it filled her field of vision so completely that she saw nothing else. Then, just as suddenly, the image faded, leaving her as tired as if she had traveled for miles and miles, years and years.

Because she did not seem to have the strength to prevent it, Bianca allowed Lia to lead her inside.

The shadows had grown long and the light was becoming soft and rich when Bianca climbed up to the room at the top of the tower. All afternoon, Lia had alternately cosseted her and bullied her into eating, drinking and resting, but now she needed time alone. And she hoped that the narrow spiral staircase would, as usual, discourage anyone from disturbing her.

She skirted around the table she had had brought up here. A pile of books lay there, and ink and paper, but it was the windows that drew her. They were tucked so high under the eaves that she needed a stool to be able to look outside and, as always, she wondered what it would have been like to stand at one of the windows with bow and arrow or harquebus and aim at an attacker.

Each side of the square tower had three windows, allowing her to look in any direction. She was not a woman with a great capacity for stillness, but here, she had been surprised to find that she could stand at the windows for hours and soak in the vista spread out beneath her.

She had fought her father when he had banished her to the villa for flouting conventions once too often. He would not allow her, he had shouted at her, to jeopardize her approaching marriage to one of the richest men in Florence. But here, in the tower room, she had barely missed the amusements and temptations of the city.

Lia had teased her that up in the tower she felt like a queen beholding her kingdom. But Bianca knew that it was more than that. She had been alone here but had not been lonely. She had spent her days in waiting and yet had felt no impatience. The silent power of the world she saw from her tower room had nurtured her, although she could not have said why.

Lifting her skirts, she climbed up on the stool, which stood under the windows that looked out toward the sea, forgetting that that very morning she had watched the sunrise from the windows that lay opposite.

The orange sun was already edging down toward the water as she put her arms on the sill and rested her chin on her linked fingers. The only movement outside was that of the swallows and black martins and sea gulls gliding and swooping for their dinner. The only sounds were their raucous calls.

From the top of the hill where the villa stood, the sand was only a narrow yellow ribbon alongside the dark blue sea, whose surface was gilded by the setting sun. For a moment, she wished herself down there, where she could sit on the rock, listen to the rushing sound of the evening tide rolling in and imagine herself free to sail away to foreign lands that smelled of flowers and spices.

But she knew if she went down to the beach, her thoughts would not be of strange, exotic lands. Would she ever be able to walk on the beach again and not think of Alessio? For as long as she lived, she would remember what it had felt like to have his mouth on hers. She would remember his taste, his scent mingled with the salt and tang of the sea. And she would want.

What would her father say, she wondered, if he knew that, here, her coming marriage was in far greater jeopardy than it could ever have been in the city? In the city there were many men who vied for her attention, showered her with compliments, serenaded her under her window and wrote sonnets praising her beauty. And she did not care a fig for a single one of them. Yet here, where she had no one but Lia and Angelica and a few servants for company, a single visit from Alessio had been enough to upset her world.

No, she corrected herself, her marriage was not in jeopardy. Hadn’t she told Alessio that she intended to marry Ugo? And she’d meant it. Damn it, she’d meant it. Angrily, she blocked out the doubt that sliced through her as easily as a hot knife slices through butter.

And Alessio bad not upset her world. Granted, he had tilted it a little, but she would deal with that. She had dealt with worse, after all, she told herself, remembering the birth of Cecilia’s bastard child in the squalid little room behind the Mercato Vecchio. Remembering what it had felt like to hold a bundle of life in her arms, to carry it through dark and narrow streets and leave it at the foundlings’ hospital like an unwanted puppy. She had sworn then that someday she would have enough money, enough power to do something, to change things. And because she was a woman—her mouth curled in disdain at her own weakness—the only way she could do this was through a rich and powerful husband.

The sun had almost reached the water, the last golden rays slanting across the narrow strip of beach to glance off the glittery specks in the pile of boulders that were just visible from the tower. The memory of how she had been pressed between those rocks and Alessio’s body swept through her like a storm wind, obliterating every other thought, obliterating her awareness of the world around her. She did not hear the footsteps on the stairs or on the brick tiles behind her.

“What do you see when you look out there, Bianca? I’ve looked, but I cannot understand it.”

Surprised, Bianca frowned at the sound of her sister’s even voice. Jumping down lightly from the stool, she went toward her.

“You’ve been up here?” She cupped her sister’s colorless cheek with one hand. “I thought you—” she paused to soften her words“—didn’t like the stairs.”

“I don’t,” Angelica said. She stepped away from Bianca’s touch, resenting as much that her sister had moderated her words as that she had remembered her fear of the stairs. They had both taken a tumble down the ladder from a hayloft long ago. Bianca had been back up the ladder moments later, and she had never quite forgiven her for it. “But I decided that I wanted to see what it was that kept you up here for hours.”

“And did you?” She felt that her privacy had been invaded and her words were clipped, not hiding her irritation.

“No. In the city you can’t sit still for five minutes of needlework. And here you stare outside where nothing moves but a few birds.” She didn’t add that when she had looked outside earlier that afternoon, she had seen plenty of movement on the beach.

Not waiting for an invitation, Angelica sat down and smoothed her skirt of serviceable wool. “What happened to you today? You frightened me. I’ve never seen you faint in your life.”

“Don’t you start in on me, too.” Bianca made no effort to hide the impatience in her voice. She’d come up here to be alone and not to listen to Angelica’s questions and platitudes. “Lia is bad enough all by herself. I really wish you would—” Bianca stopped, not quite understanding the sudden impulse to keep silent. It was not her way to check her tongue out of kindness.

“Go away and leave me alone. Wasn’t that what you were going to say?”

Bianca saw her sister cast down her eyes and finger the rosary that hung from her waist. A stab of guilt that those had been her exact words provoked her into giving her sister’s hair a light stroke in passing, but she did not deny the accusation. She was rarely in the habit of denying the truth, unless it suited her purposes.

“Or were you putting on a little performance for Messere Alessio?”

“What?” Bianca’s skirt belled as she turned to look at Angelica.

“Well, were you?” Angelica sent her a sly, curious look from beneath her pale lashes.

“You ask me that? You?”

Because her emotions were so raw, the anger rose too quickly for her to control it, even had she wanted to. There was bitterness born of countless childhood hurts. There was fury at being suspected of doing something that was so far beneath her dignity that she would never have even considered doing it. There was fear because she remembered much too well the image that had caused her to faint.

“You, the one who never thinks of a man unless he has a ‘Santo’ in front of his name? You, the only one of us who has lived up to her name? You, the angelic one, while I, named for the color of innocence, I—” she brushed the tips of her fingers at the black curls that fell over her shoulders “—have black hair to match my black soul.” Words she had never meant to say aloud tumbled out of her mouth. “Wasn’t that what Papa always said?”

Angelica stared at her sister in openmouthed surprise. Anger from Bianca she was well used to, but where had this hurt, this bitterness come from? This fear?

“Bianca—” She rose and reached out, her plan almost forgotten.

“Get away from me, you hypocritical little goose. You spend your time on your knees and then you come with your eager questions.” The anger crackled around her like drops of water hissing on the surface of a hot stove. “I thought you were too chaste to notice what games men and women play.”

“Be fair at least.” Her spine as stiff as a poker, Angelica folded her hands at her waist. “It was not such a question that you can accuse me of prurience. If I had known you would revile me thus, I would have asked you instead what games you and Alessio were playing on the beach this afternoon.”

The heat of anger left her as suddenly as it had come, and in its place a chill enveloped her as if she had descended into a cold, damp cellar.

“So that’s why you came up here,” she said slowly. “To spy on me.”

“No.” Angelica lifted her hands palms outward as if to ward off her words. “No, truly. It was as I said. But then—” she looked away “—then I saw you galloping along the beach and I could not look away.” She said nothing of the razor-sharp envy she had felt, or of the idea that had taken root in her mind and bloomed.

“You watched us?” Bianca jerked Angelica around to face her. “The whole time?”

Suddenly afraid of the wild, unfocused look in her sister’s eyes, she could only nod.

“Did you see her?”

“Her?”

“The woman on the beach.” Even as she said the words, even before she saw Angelica shake her head, she knew it was for naught. Whoever that woman had been, ghost or real, she had been intended for her alone.

“Go away.” Bianca’s voice was dull as her fingers loosened from around her sister’s arm. “Go away and leave me alone.”

Angelica backed away. This Bianca of the blank, staring eyes was much more frightening than the Bianca emanating angry sparks could ever be. She turned and fled, forgetting everything, forgetting even that the steep spiral of a staircase frightened her.

Only when she had reached the bottom did she remember that she had not done what she had come here to do. She had not told Bianca of her plan. The plan that had been ripening within her all afternoon. She had not told her that for once in their lives she would have something Bianca wanted.

Up in the tower room, Bianca stood very still as her sister’s footsteps clattered down the stairs, faded and then were silent. Appalled at her own weakness but unable to fight it, she buried her face in her hands and wept.

Chapter Six

“I ask you not to burden me with more such errands in the future, brother.” Feeling an exhaustion that was more a weariness of the mind than the body, Alessio strode into his brother’s study without greeting. “They are not to my taste. Besides, I have better things to do with my time.”

Ugo lifted his head from his meticulously kept account books and eyed his brother critically. “Better things than coming to the aid of your brother who raised you?” His voice rose petulantly. “The brother who gave you far more than the younger brother’s share of the Cornaro fortune?”

“Per Dio, Ugo, if you throw your generosity up to me one more time, I will lay every last denaro back at your feet.” He snapped his gloves against his hand, sending up a cloud of reddish dust. “Or better still, give the money to charity.”

“So you’ve said before.” Ugo laughed mirthlessly, “And as I’ve said before, I’ll see you in hell before I let you give away a single fiorino of Cornaro money to parasites who live off the gullibility of a few pious souls.” He laughed again. “Although I’d hardly call you a pious soul.”

Ugo watched his brother pace, as elegant, as dangerous looking as a panther in his clothing of almost unrelieved black, and tasted the bitterness of envy.

“And what is it that you find so distasteful, if I may ask? Madonna Bianca is a beautiful woman. If I remember correctly, you showed some interest in her yourself.” He paused. “Before she was spoken for, of course.”

“What difference does it make?” Alessio moved his shoulders in a shrug as he splashed wine into a goblet of hammered silver that had been plated with gold and decorated with amethysts the size of thumbnails. He drank deeply once, and then again, and refilled the goblet.

“I await your answer.” The twin lines between Ugo’s black eyebrows and the lines that bracketed his mouth deepened. “Or is there a reason for you not to give me one?”

Alessio tamped down on the surge of guilt. He had not acted on the desire that tormented his body at the mere thought of Bianca. He had not acted on it before she had been betrothed and he most certainly had not acted on it since. If he had, he told himself, he did not doubt that she would have fallen into his bed like a ripe plum. And if she had given herself to him, then, by God, he would have found a way to prevent this damnable marriage.

Annoyance that he felt the need to justify himself before his own conscience left a sour taste in his mouth and he tried—unsuccessfully—to purge it with another generous draft of wine.

“Well?” The fingers of Ugo’s good hand tapped an impatient tattoo against the intricate floral pattern in lapis lazuli, jasper and malachite that was inlaid on the marble table.

Because he wanted to spin around on the heel of his boot, Alessio slowly turned to face his brother. Because he wanted to fling the goblet at the next wall, he set it down with utmost care. Because he wanted to slap his hands on the table and lean over until he was eyeball-to-eyeball with Ugo, he remained standing so straight that his back could have been a measuring rod.

“I am no longer the little brother eager to give you exactly the answer you wish to hear, Ugo. No longer the little brother eager to fetch and carry.” With insolent grace he tucked his thumbs behind his belt. “I think it is time you learned that.”

He watched Ugo grip the carved armrest of his chair and push himself upright. The surge of compassion at his brother’s disability died as Ugo’s face contorted with fury and he bellowed, “Answer mel!

“Come to think of it, I was never eager,” he continued, ignoring his brother’s command. “I was simply too young and too weak to do other than what you expected, what you demanded of me.”

“Alessio,” Ugo shouted, already regretting that he had stood and put himself at an even greater disadvantage, “I order you to answer me.”

“I have reached that happy state, Ugo, when I need take only those orders I choose.” The corners of his mouth tilted marginally upward. “But I will tell you this. Madonna Bianca may have the face and body of a woman, but she is a spoiled, willful child.” His beautiful mouth curved in a derisive smile. “I wish you much joy of her.”

Yet as he spoke the words, Alessio felt the need flare in his belly and, with it, the rage that it was his brother who would taste the pleasures she offered. For a moment he wondered that the words did not turn into serpents in his mouth.

“Ah, do not fear, Alessio.” Ugo smiled, his fury forgotten as quickly as it had risen. “There is more than one way to tame a willful woman. I may be a cripple, but my male rod is a reliable instrument and my good hand can wield a whip well enough if need be. Or a dagger.”

Alessio felt a jolt deep inside him, as if two parts that had been separate had suddenly linked. Although he was aware that Ugo was still speaking, his voice had become an indistinct, faraway murmur. Although he was aware that he faced his brother in a dark-paneled room lined with ledgers and books, his eyes saw another chamber.

The image was blurred. He narrowed his eyes to better see it, but the image remained stubbornly misty, as if it were shrouded in layers and layers of white gauze. But it mattered not. He knew. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, he knew that on the other side of the mist were he and Bianca, wrapped around each other as only lovers can be.

As a fire burns its way through dry pine needles, the knowledge seared its way through him to lodge in his belly. Yes, he knew. He knew that they lay body to body and skin to skin. He knew that they lay soul to soul, essence to essence.

Something—barely perceptible at first—shifted inside him, opened. Like a pebble rolling down a mountainside suddenly turns into an avalanche, so this small movement sent him tumbling out of himself, tumbling head over heels until—

Needing to see, to understand, he raised his hand to tear the barrier away, but his band passed through it and it remained as diaphanous as before and just as unyielding. Then, without warning, color seeped into the white—a trickle first, a trickle that quickly became a flood until the curtain between him and the chamber was a bright crimson. A single, hideous scream turned the blood in his veins to ice.

“What was that noise?” As Alessio spoke, the image dimmed and disappeared so quickly, so completely that the only thing to remind him of it was the icy trail along the length of his spine.

“Noise? There was no noise.” Ugo’s brows drew together, unsure of what to make of his brother’s odd behavior. Within a single moment his gaze had turned as glassy as if he had taken a drug and he had flailed his arm as if warding off a demon.

“What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Alessio fought off a desperate need to reach for the wine goblet and empty it to the dregs. “Ghost?” he said, amazed that he could speak at all. “There was no ghost. I don’t think a ghost would dare show itself in your well-ordered household, Ugo.”

Discreetly, he drew a deep, cleansing breath. But while the air filled his lungs, it turned his stomach, for it was as fetid with the coppery smell of blood as a slaughterhouse.

“I ask you to excuse me now.” He felt ridiculously relieved that his voice sounded normal. “I have much to do.”

As he spoke, his mind raced. Was he going mad? Where had the smell of blood come from? Was it connected to the wisp of a vision that he could not even have described? A vision that had suddenly turned the crimson color of blood?

His innate skepticism came to his aid and he thrust the questions aside as one thrusts aside an importunate beggar on the street. He was a logical, sane man, he assured himself. Such men did not have visions, nor did they smell blood where there was none. But he knew that he had to get free of this room.

Alessio was almost at the door when Ugo called out his name.

Because the heavy brass handle of the door was within reach now, he could steel himself to turn around. “What is it?” he snapped.

“Did Madonna Bianca like the gift I sent her?”

“She sends you her thanks.” The image of Bianca as she had stood, proud and tall, in the small courtyard had his muscles tensing.

“Did she try out the mare?”

“Yes, she is an excellent horsewoman.”

“Good. Excellent.” Ugo grinned. “I, too, ride well.” His lascivious laugh left no doubt as to his meaning. “Then we are well matched.”

Tension had gathered in a tight ball in the pit of Alessio’s stomach and he knew that if he did not leave this moment, he would launch himself at his brother and wipe that smile off his face with his fists.

“You will excuse me now, Ugo.” Alessio jerked open the heavy studded door and dragged in a lungful of the cool air of the vestibule. Thank God, he thought as he let his eyes fall closed for a brief moment. It did not carry the smell of blood.

“Alessio?”

Alessio spun around on his heel.

“I do not command you, but if I ask you as a brother who needs help to do me another favor, will you do it?” Ugo made clever use of the scar that bisected his right cheek, making his smile seem merely wry instead of twisted.

Alessio sighed, remembering how his brother had held his small hand as they had stood at their father’s graveside.

“Yes, Ugo.” His voice was resigned as he nodded. “I will do it.”

As Alessio bent his head to pass the low door of the cantina, Antonio Rossi raised his hand in greeting and gestured to the innkeeper to bring another cup.

Alessio tossed his cloak over the plank table and sat down on a bench across from his friend.

“Well, you look cheery today.” Antonio clicked his stoneware cup against Alessio’s. “Drink up. A few cups of wine and you will forget whatever it is that is marring your fair brow.” He trailed the tips of his fingers over Alessio’s forehead in a comically melodramatic gesture.

Alessio’s only answer was a black scowl. But Antonio did not take offense. Instead, he grinned and took a generous swallow of the mellow red wine made from the grapes that grew on the hills to the south of the city.

“Is she a virtuous virgin or someone’s wife?” He grinned again. “What’s her name? Maria? Lucrezia? Ginevra? Do not worry, my friend.” He chuckled. “If you put out the candle later—” he gestured toward the stairs that led to the upper floor with his eyes “—you can call her by any name you please.” Antonio gave him a friendly cuff on the shoulder. “In the dark, all cats are gray.”

“Why don’t you shut up and let me get drunk in peace.” Alessio emptied the cup and refilled it but did not drink again.

“Go ahead and get drunk, my friend.” With a smile, Antonio settled back to wait. “But not too drunk.”

He had seen Alessio brood often enough to know that he would not be hurried. When he was done, he would look up and laugh or curse at whatever had been plaguing him and that would be that. And then they would while away the night with wine and dice and a soft woman.

But tonight Alessio sat and stared, unmoving, into his wine cup as though there were something that had bewitched him within it. Minutes passed. A half hour. And still he sat, as motionless as if he had been turned to stone.

Antonio cast an impatient glance toward the stairs. With a sigh, he signaled the innkeeper to bring more wine.

He could not get it out of his head. No matter how he tried, the misty image that had surely been an illusion conjured up by his tired brain stayed with him. An illusion, he repeated to himself. An illusion, damn it. And yet it had been real. So real. Even now, hours later, he still felt as if he were a small boat adrift in a dark, unfriendly sea, lurching about in a storm. And he did not care for the feeling.

For the hundredth time, he picked through those brief moments, carefully, methodically. Surely, if he examined what he had seen closely enough, he would understand. He swore again, silently, viciously. What good did method do when he had seen next to nothing? But he had felt. And known.

The tension in his gut built to a new height. He had known that behind that hazy barrier he and Bianca had been lovers. Lovers of the flesh. Lovers of the heart. That knowledge had been as real as the white curtain that had turned crimson. As real as the smell of blood, which had nearly overwhelmed him.

He was not a fanciful man, nor was he a squeamish one. Why then did this ghost of an image not leave him in peace? Why did it torment him until he no longer knew if he was seeing the image again or merely the memory of the image? Until he was certain he was going mad?

No, he was not a fanciful man. But something that took such hold of him had to have a meaning. And he’d be damned if he did not find it.

Alessio lifted his head, his eyes wild. With a curse he swept his arm across the table, sending cups and bottles crashing onto the brick-tile floor.

Unperturbed, the innkeeper approached and matter-offactly started picking up pieces of stoneware and glass. Antonio started to make a jest, but the grin froze on his lips, the words stuck in his throat as he saw something he had never seen before—not when they had ridden into battle, not when they had faced a naked sword in a dark alleyway. In Alessio’s eyes he saw pure, unadulterated terror. And behind the terror was an emotion so deep, so intense that he did not know how to read it.

The noise jarred Alessio back to reality, and yet some part of him still remained caught in that illusion. He shifted his gaze from the havoc he had wrought to Antonio, and yet he saw neither.

Instead he saw Bianca’s face. The look of a little girl lost. The look of a temptress sure of her triumph. And he knew that all the rough, hurtful, mocking words they had said to each other today had changed nothing, meant nothing. Only one thing he had said today had been completely true—she belonged to him.

For a fleeting moment he was filled with the certainty that unless he made that an irrevocable reality, something terrible would happen. The certainty dissipated, but the compulsion to act remained.

“I have to ride back, Tonio.” Already he was reaching for his cloak.

“Back? Back where?”

“Monte Nero.”

“Back to the Merisi villa?” Antonio stared at his friend as the terrible truth began to dawn on him.

“I see,” he said slowly. “So I wasn’t so far wrong before. Just wrong about the name.”

As Alessio turned to go, Antonio finally managed to get his body to obey his mind and leapt up, reaching across the table to grab a handful of Alessio’s black velvet doublet.

“What of the curfew? The fines are stiff if you run into a watchman,” he babbled. “And the city gates will be closed by now.”

“I will find a way. For enough fiorini I can buy myself a way through the gates of heaven. Or hell.”

Antonio breathed a sigh of relief as he saw Alessio’s arrogant grin. This was the Alessio he knew. This was the Alessio he could talk some sense into. Still holding on to Alessio’s doublet, he scooted around the table.

“Listen to me. This is insane.” He gripped Alessio’s shoulders and shook him. “You cannot do this. She is betrothed to your brother.” He shook him again. “Your brother, damn it.”

“You don’t have to remind me, Tonio.” His voice was dull.

“And you would still take her?” Antonio’s hands fell down to his sides. He was as cynical a man as any. He knew that rules were made to be broken. Most rules. But there were some rules a man did not break. “Take your brother’s bride and leave him to find used goods in his marriage bed?”

“Is that what you think of me?” Anger flared in his eyes. “Is that what you think I will do?” But as Alessio said the words, he remembered that that was just what he had almost done on the beach only hours ago. No, he thought. He had done it. Perhaps he had only taken her mouth, but with that kiss he had possessed Bianca as surely as if he had spilled his seed into her body.

“Isn’t it?”

“I want her, Tonio. I wanted her long before she was betrothed to Ugo.”

“So why didn’t you seduce her then? Or marry her yourself?”

“A younger brother with no prospects marry?” Alessio laughed shortly, mirthlessly. “And the other alternative? Seduce the virgin daughter of good family?”

“Would that have been worse than seducing the virgin daughter of good family who is betrothed to your brother?”

“No.” Alessio met Antonio’s eyes and held them. “I will not seduce her.” It crossed his mind that if anyone would practice seduction, it would not be him.

“So.” Antonio crossed his arms over his chest. “So you ride fifty miles in the middle of the night to do what? Will you serenade her? Will you play a game of chess with her? Or perhaps have a philosophical discussion?” he scoffed, bis good-natured face grim.

“Don’t forget I’ve known you all my life,” he continued, “and I’ve seen you with more than your share of women since we shared our first girl the year we turned thirteen.” There was a touch of envy in his laugh. “You are to women what a flame is to dry gunpowder.”

“I tell you I will not bed her.” Alessio wondered what Tonio would say if he knew that he had never bedded a virgin. He had bedded cheap whores and expensive courtesans, peasant girls and highborn wives. But never a virgin.

“I need to talk to Bianca. Something happened today—” He broke off. How could he put into words something that had happened only in his head? Tonio would think he had gone mad. And perhaps he had.

“She will break the betrothal.” His hands fisted. “I will make her break the betrothal.”

“Break the betrothal?” Antonio parroted. “I imagine old man Merisi will have something to say about that.”

“The betrothal will be broken, I tell you. It’s been done before.”

“Alessio, Alessio.” Antonio shook his head. “Think with your head and not with what’s between your legs.” He slung his arm around his friend’s shoulders. “Would it be worth the trouble? I do not deny that lying with a woman is one of the great pleasures of this earthly life, but would it be worth it? At some point, they all grow fat or ill-humored. Or both. Besides—” Suddenly, he shivered. “Besides, Ugo would kill you if you do.”

No, he will kill me if I do not. The words were so clear in Alessio’s mind that for a moment he thought he had spoken them aloud. As he stared at Tonio’s face, he wondered where the words had come from.

Then, because he was first of all a man of action, he threw off the introspection that had been paralyzing him all evening. As energy and power surged through him, he cast Antonio a dazzling smile.

“Drink a cup of wine to my good fortune, Tonio.”

“I would drink a barrel if I thought it would do any good,” Antonio said morosely, but Alessio’s sudden confidence was so contagious that he, too, smiled. “Forza, Alessio, e buona fortuna.”

Alessio’s smile wavered for a moment as he remembered that those had been his exact words to Bianca that morning. Then, deciding to take that as a good omen, he laughed. He withdrew a handful of coins from his purse and tossed them on the table. Then he took a silver lira and, gesturing with his chin toward the shards that still lay on the floor, flipped it in the direction of the innkeeper.

The man caught the coin deftly and bowed low, well pleased. The coin was worth more than the bit of broken crockery. But then, Messere Alessio was always generous.

With another smile, Alessio gave Antonio a slap on the back. Then he took the stairs two at a time, unbarred the door and stepped out into the night.

Chapter Seven

Several hours of his time and most of the contents of his purse were spent before Alessio was on the road leading to the coast, but neither point disturbed him. He still had half the night to get to Monte Nero and money was the means to an end for him—no more, no less.

The sky was turning an opalescent gray when the breeze brought him the first scent of the sea.

By the time he reached the crossroads that led up the hill to the Merisi villa, the first streaks of pink and pale blue were coloring the sky, but he rode past. He could hardly turn up and demand entry when dawn was just breaking. So he turned his mount toward the beach. Perhaps, he thought, the morning sea would quiet the thoughts that had turned turbulent again in the last hour.

He felt an unreasoning flash of irritation when he saw that he did not have the beach to himself. A boy, his chin resting on his bent knee, was sitting on the rocks, and although he sat very still, his gaze directed out to sea, the presence of the slender figure annoyed Alessio.

A split second before he turned his mount toward the other end of the beach, a movement caught his eye and, not knowing why he did so, Alessio remained where he was. The boy played with his hair, which he had pulled to one side. Then he lifted his head and tossed the hair over his shoulder so that a wealth of black curls flowed down his back. And Alessio knew that the lone figure watching the dawn was no boy but Bianca.

He looked up and down the beach for a servant, a man-at-arms. When he saw that she was truly alone, he felt a spurt of unreasoning anger even as he told himself that it was none of his concern. Still, despite the anger, he understood that he was intruding on a very private moment, and he might have retreated without making himself known to watch over her from afar. But his mount chose that moment to scent Bianca’s mare and whicker nervously. He urged his horse forward.

Bianca knew she was not alone. For a moment, but only for a moment, she thought that Lia had detected her absence and sent one of the servants after her. Even without turning around, she knew that it was Alessio who watched her.

She could feel his presence as surely as if he were touching her. Only his eyes rested on her, yet she could feel the warmth of his hands against her skin, trailing down in a lazy caress with the promise of passion. Already she could feel her body softening like wax against a flame.

Needing to break the spell, she tossed her hair over her shoulder. But there was no help for it. Still his gaze lay on her like a lover’s touch. Then she heard the horse whinny, and the sound of its hooves on the sand. Because she wanted to turn toward the sound, she laced her hands tightly around her legs and stared stubbornly out to sea.

“Have you taken leave of your senses?” Alessio reined in his mount directly in front of Bianca. Because his hand was heavy, the horse pawed the air in protest. “I could have been an outlaw come to rob or rape you and you sit there on your rock as unperturbed as if you were invisible.”

Bianca, her chin still resting on her knees, returned his gaze without any outward sign of the turmoil within her. He looked rougher than he had yesterday. He wore finely tailored velvet the color of the sea at nightfall, but the top buttons of his doublet were open and the laces of his shirt hung untied. The night wind had tangled his hair and his face was shadowed with a day’s and night’s growth of beard. And yet it was just that roughness, that wildness that accented the chiseled beauty of his features. It was just that roughness, that wildness that drew her.

“So.” She schooled her voice to sarcasm to mask the longing that had sprung up within her. “Have you appointed yourself my guardian now, Alessio? I am indeed touched.” Straightening, she kept her hands laced just below her knees, not trusting herself to restrain from reaching out for what she wanted so badly.

“Your fears are ungrounded. At dawn, all self-respecting outlaws are asleep after their night’s work. Besides, I have a trusted companion.” Her mouth curving in a suggestion of a smile, she withdrew a dagger from the sheath at her side just far enough that he could see that it was a true weapon and not a jeweled trinket for a lady’s hand.

“A man with but a whit of skill would have you disarmed in moments.”

“Perhaps.” Her voice remained even, but her generous mouth thinned. “Perhaps not.” She thrust the dagger back in the sheath with more force than necessary.

Alessio leapt off his horse and onto the rock she sat on so quickly that her hand was still on the hilt when he pushed her back. Bianca twisted to the side, managing to free the dagger. As she turned back to face him fully, she brought up one knee.

He was so close to her that she could feel the length of his hard, warm body along hers. He was so close to her that when she drew in a breath, she inhaled his scent. The sudden pleasure was so keen that she almost closed her eyes with it.

Her split second of hesitation was all the advantage he needed to shift away from her knee and to fetter both her wrists with his hard fingers.

“You were saying, madonna?” His tone was insolent, but his grin was more boyishly brash than arrogant.

“If I had not hesitated, you would have had my dagger between your ribs.” Bianca drew in a breath that was not quite steady. “And my knee between your legs.”

“Indeed, you are right.” He grinned again. “Why did you hesitate?”

Despite her ignominious position, his grin had her lips twitching with the beginnings of a smile, and she pressed them together. “It did not appear seemly to have my future brother-in-law’s blood on my hands.”

He raised a black eyebrow at her prim tone. “And what of the second?” He leaned into her, pushing the hand that still held the dagger down to the rock and pinning her legs with his so that they lay body to body.

With only the barrier of his clothes and her thin shirt and breeches between them, she could feel the imprint of his body against hers. She felt the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. She felt the pressure of his awakening flesh against her thigh.

“No answer to my question, madonna?” He laughed, but only to hide the catch in his breath from the dizzying speed of his arousal.

Her eyebrows lifted in a mocking curve. “It seemed a shame to maim what is apparently such a fine specimen.” Already she could feel his heat stealing through her, making her weak, and she began to struggle. “Let me go, damn you.”

“I think not.” He pried open her fingers so that the dagger slipped out of her grasp.

He was playing with fire, he thought as he looked down at her. Her hair was spread out to the side, inviting him to bury his face in the black curls. Her breasts rose and fell quickly beneath the thin white shirt, inviting the touch of his hands. The breeches and hose revealed her curves, inviting his body to fit itself to them.

“I didn’t come here for this.” Even as the words left his mouth, he pressed his body against hers. “I swear to you, Bianca, I didn’t come here for this.” His hands released her wrists and slid down to cover her breasts. “It is the truth,” he whispered, and lowered his head and took her mouth.

The moment that he tasted her, everything changed. The desire that had been quick and hot and simple was transformed into something infinitely greater. What had been quick became slow and languorous. What had been hot became hotter still—a quick-burning blaze that became the eternal sun. And what had been simple became infinitely complicated as Alessio felt his heart open to Bianca.

Had she ever felt anything like this? His hard body cleaving to hers as if they were one? Hands that fit her breasts so perfectly? A mouth that caressed, tasted, tempted? Had she ever wanted, needed so badly that the desire was as painful as a thorn in her flesh? A minute, she thought. Another minute and she would tear the clothes from her body and beg him to take her now, here, on this rock, with the dawn breaking in the east.

They were meant for each other. The thought struggled through the haze of passion, a single pure lily in a field of florid blooms. It was no longer a mere matter of two bodies that fit together as a hand fits its glove. It was a meeting of hearts. No, it was as if there were a single heart that beat between them, making them one.

It could not be. The realization of what was and what could never be came together, and she pulled away. This time, when she began to struggle, he let her go.

Bianca rolled away from him. Because she wanted to curl up into a ball and weep, she sat up and, with her last bit of strength, recast her tears as furious words meant to conceal her new, terrible understanding.

“What a sorry excuse for a man you are, Alessio! You warn me of outlaws who would rape me and then you do naught but attempt the same thing yourself.”

Remorse, which lay like ashes on his tongue, turned to fury, but he stayed the hand that would have lashed out at her. Once he had touched her, he knew, the anger would turn into passion as surely as ice would turn to water in the heat of the summer sun.

“If I had joined my body to yours, Bianca, you know full well that it would have been your doing and your wish as much as mine.” He shifted closer to her. “Look into my eyes and deny it.”

She met his gaze squarely. “I would have lain with you, Alessio, because my body wanted yours. And it would perhaps have been my doing, but not my wish.”

“Do you truly speak the truth, madonna, or only what you would have be the truth?”

Bianca turned to look out to sea, wanting the water to chum and roil to match the upheaval of her own emotions, but the pale gray water was stubbornly placid as it lapped against the sand. Turning back, she met his gaze again.

“Can something be both truth and lie at once?” Her hands moved in a baffled gesture. “It would have been my wish because I wanted to he with you as I have not wanted aught else in this life.” She saw the flare of triumph in his eyes and raised a hand against it.

“But it was not the wish of my mind or my conscience.”

And your heart? a voice within her whispered. Was it not the wish of your heart?

Her words touched off an echo within him. “Nor did my mind wish it, Bianca. Or my conscience.”

“That makes us even, then.”

“No.” Alessio shook his head. “Do not make it less than it was. It was not merely the desire of a male body for a female one. It was the desire of this man for this woman. Alessio for Bianca.” His mellow voice lowered to a seductive whisper. “For no other.”

“Did I deny that?” She glared at him. “Did I? It was the desire of your body for mine, my body for yours. No more and no less.”

“Why do you demean it?” Bleakness threaded through his anger, blunting its edge.

“There is no ‘it,’ Alessio. You cannot demean what does not exist.” She threw up her chin. “There is nothing between us. Nothing!” She heard the desperation in her own voice and hated it.

“Nothing?” His voice was deceptively soft.

“All right,” she snapped. “A kiss, then. I gave you a kiss, naught else.”

“Bianca, if I had pushed you this much—” Alessio held up thumb and forefinger with barely a space between them “—you would have given me anything. Anything.”

She battled down the thought that she had already given him far more than she had reckoned with.

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