He
smiled. "You must not be too ambitious; I will not barter my dukedom for
one night's lodging. Come"—his voice was full of a poisonous
softness—"what will you take in return for half an hour?"
He
had released me and I backed away instinctively, my voice as dry as tinder.
"Do not touch me."
"I
will pay you well for it. Here...." Swiftly he stripped the rings from his
fingers, the pomander from about his neck, even his silver sheath knife, and
held them out to me with a little contemptuous gesture. I stared at them for a
long moment, and then they clattered on the flags as I turned my head away.
"You
should have caught them in your lap as the other harlots do, sweet, but I am
skilled enough at lifting petticoats."
The
fetid air filled my lungs as I caught my breath to cry out, and I felt cold
stone strike my back. Domenico's fingers gripped my jaw, wrenching my head
around to face him, and his mouth on mine was a deliberate insult; yet the
trembling that racked me when he lifted his head was not wholly fear. I gave a
little cry of despair, and at once his grip tightened.
"God's
death, what devil frights you to this chastity? Do not try to play the nun with
me; it is your vocation to love me above all others."
"How
can you blaspheme so?" I demanded brokenly.
"Blaspheme?"
His voice sounded odd, and I remembered too late his old nightmare. When I
looked up his expression was remote, his eyes watchful.
"You
take God's office on yourself...."
"I
am God's deputy," he interrupted tightly. "I rule in His name."
"Over
a land stolen from the pope!" Suddenly my bitterness overflowed. "And
now you set yourself up to be greater than God. You keep the knowledge of my
mortal sin from me as if you had power to remit the fault yourself—Lucifer was
cast out of heaven for less insolence!"
A
spark stirred in the dead depths of his eyes. "What sin have I kept from
you? We have done no more than we did at first—it is the same gate, though we
take different paths to it."
I
could not stop the shamed blood staining my cheeks. "I did not mean that.
You know..."
"No,
I do not know what you mean. Is that what has brought about your coldness?
Answer me!"
"It
was cruel to let me stay ignorant when you could have taken another mistress
who was no kin to you." My voice shook. "You could have spared me
when you found out."
"Found
out what?"
Hot
anger swept me. "Do not pretend you do not understand! I have known of the
news your spies brought you for the last four days, thanks to Maddalena
Feroldi. I do not care about knowing my father's name—if he were any other man
it would not matter—but not to tell me I am your father's bastard!"
He
shook me again, jerking my head back so that I saw him through a sparkling blur
of tears. "Did she tell you that? That you are my sister?"
I
nodded and heard him draw a sharp breath.
"The
lying jade—witness," he bent his head to mine, "that this is no
brother's love."
His
kiss almost stopped my breath before he freed me, then led me back up the
twisting stone steps and through the maze of dimly lit passages. I hurried
beside him in silence, aware even through my own misery of the tension in the
harsh grip on my wrist, but it was not until we had reached the privacy of his
bedchamber that he spoke again.
"Tell
me." There was peril in his dulcet murmur. "Did Maddalena say how I
found out who your father was?"
I
answered drearily, "She said you had sent spies to discover who my parents
were. When they brought back the news that Duke Carlo had sired me, she said
you would not tell me because you thought I would not come to your bed."
"Belike
I would not—if her tale were true. I did send, but my servants could find no
trace of who your father might have been."
"And
I am to believe you?"
The
next moment I had nearly jumped out of my skin as a delicate mother-of-pearl
box went smashing to the floor. Domenico turned on me, panting, his color risen
dangerously. "You will believe a jealous harlot without evidence and then
presume to doubt me! In the name of God"— another ornament went
splintering—"you will believe me before this night is over!"
Before
I could guess what he meant to do, he had gone to the door to call. Shivering, I
heard him give orders that Maddalena was to be fetched. "She will be with
Sandro," I said as he closed the door again, and his lips tightened.
"My
brother's name comes more glibly to your tongue than mine."
Strangely
the childishness of that lessened my fear, and I waited almost tranquilly for
Maddalena while Domenico prowled restlessly around the room. Losing patience,
he went to the door again and summoned three soldiers; this time the orders
were long and detailed, and too quiet for me to hear. Moments later Maddalena
came in, disheveled and wary, her lips still swollen from Sandra's kisses. As
she entered the room she looked from me to Domenico and back again, and her
face flamed with such hatred that I began for the first time to doubt her.
"What
do you want?" She spoke not to me but to the duke, and there was a veiled
challenge in her deep voice.
"You
are to attend your mistress." The heavy lids hid his dark eyes.
"Undress her for the night."
She
glared at him, but with a defiant toss of her head she fetched a furred
dressing gown from the closet and began to unlace my gown. I heard her catch
her breath as she saw the marks of Domenico's fingers on my shoulders. He stood
like a silver statue before the empty hearth, his gaze never leaving the two of
us while Maddalena undressed me, holding up the robe for me to slip into it
while she unfastened my petticoats. When the mockery of retiring was completed,
Maddalena turned to look across the room with hungry eyes. "Was that all
you wanted, Your Grace?" She spoke smoothly enough, but no one could
mistake the eagerness that pulsed behind the question.
"You
do not change." The contempt in Domenico's voice would have made me wince,
but it left Maddalena unmoved. "Did you think I wanted you for any other
reason?"
"I
did not know it was you who wanted me." She smiled. "I would have
come swifter."
His
eyebrow arched. "What, do you still hope I may want you back again?"
"It
is not so impossible!" She had moved away from me to confront him like an
antagonist in the center of the room. "I am as fair now as I was when you
seduced me...."
"Would
you call it that?" He sounded clinically interested. "I do not
remember."
Her
eyes blazed. "Domenico, how can you be so cruel to me? I have been rash in
loving you, yes, but that does not matter—you made me yours, and I would be
yours again for the asking!"
"That
news would interest my brother," he interjected softly.
"He
is not important, no more important than that peasant slut there. I would send
him packing tomorrow if you would take me...."
Domenico's
eyes rested on my face. "Listen well, Felicia."
"She
may hear if she likes." Maddalena cast me an angry glance. "She is
too stupid to understand anything. She is an illiterate commoner and was never
worthy of the time you bestowed on her. Domenico, she does not matter! I have
been so miserable...." She took a step towards him appealingly, but still
he did not move.
"And
caused some misery yourself, I hear." He was looking down at her
impassively, his face a mask of almost inhuman beauty. "You have been busy
fashioning lies, lady."
That
stopped her. She stood utterly still, and I could see the sudden fear that
gripped her thin body. "Lies? I do not know what you mean."
"I
have heard a tale of my mistress's parentage"—he spoke slowly, watching
her from between his lashes—"fit to frighten her from my arms, if she
believed it. Did it come from your foul mouth?"
I
saw her square her shoulders, and then she answered him with an arrogance to
match his own. "What if it did? It might be true, as well as not. I would
say anything to win you back again."
I
said urgently, "You were not telling the truth?"
"I
might have been." Her voice was full of malice. "Who knows who your
father was? Do you, Domenico?"
I
saw him tense a little, an almost invisible shifting of his weight, and the
laziness drained from him. He was still looking down at Maddalena with a bored
curve to his mouth, but now his slitted eyes were as hard as slate, black and
watchful.
"No
matter who he was, my concern is with who he was not. This plot is too subtle
to be all of yours, lady—your tricks do not rise above a few weak lies to make
a man jealous or tearing your rival's hair out of her head. Who told you the
way to lull Felicia's doubts, how to make her believe you when she knew you
were jealous of her? And who told you I had sent out to discover who her father
was?"
Maddalena
bit her lip. "Everyone knew you had sent out messengers."
"But
not why I sent them." Domenico's voice was dangerously even. "This
cunning smacks of my damned great-uncle; it is his way to twist what is until
it shows like what is not. So he said he would help you to rid the court of
your rival?"
She
hesitated, then nodded sullenly. "He said if I could keep her from you, he
would have her packed off—to his nunnery in Genoa, or to her death; he did not
care which. He said the business of your marriage made ridding you of her
important."
Domenico's
smile was breathtakingly beautiful, but his devil's look blazed behind it.
"His policy grows something stale, I think. I am not to be duped so
easily."
"Domenico,
it may be true after all!" Maddalena burst out. "You cannot prove she
is not your sister. If you take me..."
"You
wrong me, lady." His tone was almost gentle. "If I must forbear my
sister against my will, I shall not be so far damned as to rob my brother. More
especially I will not rob him of a stale morsel I gave him long ago because he
was hungry."
Maddalena's
thin hands clenched. Then I saw her shoulders shake and realized that she was
crying, as much in anger as in grief. "If I am stale, it was you who made
me so, you and your precious brother! How dare you taunt me with that?"
"You
forget yourself." The words fell icily into the sudden silence. "I am
not to be berated thus."
"I
beg Your Grace's forgiveness!" she retorted bitterly.
His
eyes narrowed, and he moved forward, circling her like a prowling cat, and she
turned with him, warily. I could see her tension from where I sat, but it was
not the tension of fear; it was expectation, even hope, that quickened her
breathing and parted her lips.
"I
marvel you can still weep," he remarked dispassionately. "I thought
you were proof against tears."
"You
give me enough cause." She swayed towards him as he stopped in front of
her, longing lighting her sullen face to a voracious beauty. His bright head
bent, and he smiled into her eyes.
"Not
half so much cause as I shall give you." The wooing, sensuous note in his
voice was against the sense of what he said; he was touching her as he spoke,
rubbing his body against hers so that she melted against him in boneless
delight, heedless of everything but that intimate, insistent caressing. I
wanted to look away but could not.
"You
have been too long at court, lady." The purr in his voice seemed to turn
his speech to tenderness. "And I would not have you here longer, in case
you should infect sound lovers with your own hot itch and coin scabs as fast as
your tongue coins slanders."
I
doubt that she heard him; she was still looking up at him with a sort of
bemused eagerness. Then he bent his head as though to kiss her, and spat
deliberately, full into her open mouth.
She
made a sound like retching deep in her throat, a little wordless cry of disgust
and disbelief. Staggering, she backed away from him with her body contorted
like that of a woman who has been raped; and in her eyes was the look I had
seen in those of a pursued vixen one day when the court rode to hounds. She
tried to speak, but all she could utter were those incredulous, tearing gasps.
"You
are banished." Domenico had turned away from her, quite unmoved by what he
had done. "You will go to the Sisters of St. Francis at Arazzo and learn
to govern the lusts of your flesh—the lepers whom they nurse will not heed your
enticings."
I
sat frozen, my hands clasping each other painfully. I could find no words in
the face of Maddalena's torment and covered my ears as her voice gradually rose
in scream upon despairing scream. Domenico, without sparing her a glance, went
swiftly to the door and beckoned in the white-faced guards. "Take this
jade away and silence her."
I
watched as in dumb show the men took hold of Maddalena and dragged her out of
the room. Domenico still stood with averted head and lowered lids,
contemplating the sparkle of light on one of the scattered rings which lay at
his feet.