Dante's Dilemma (a Dante Legacy Novella) (4 page)

“I wish you would. Maybe he’ll be able to convince you that I’ll never make a proper nun. He’s certainly told me often enough.”

The instant Serena left the room, Julietta said, “I wish you would let Serena marry Tito. She actually wants him. Plus, I think she understands what it will take to be a good wife to him.”

“Your sister is for the church,” her mother insisted stubbornly. “As for the rest, you’ll figure it out.”

“He won’t stay faithful to me.”

Her mother stiffened. “And how do you know this?”

Julietta ducked her head. “Some of the women I’ve met in Santa Lucia have said things.”

“Men are rarely faithful to their wives,” Maria finally admitted. “What
is
important is that he cares for you, provides for you, and that you care for him, and provide him with children. Preferably male children. Maybe if I’d given your father sons instead of daughters, we wouldn’t have to sell the vineyard.”

“Mamma—”

Maria wiped her hands on her apron and turned to confront her daughter. “Would you dishonor your family, Julietta?” she demanded.

“No, of course not.”

“Breaking off the engagement at this late date would bring dishonor to us all. The Rossi family would not take it well. I don’t want to think what might happen if we were to get on their bad side. Please. I’m begging of you. Be an obedient daughter, Julietta Angelina. Marry Tito.” She wrapped her arms around her daughter and gave her a swift hug. “He’s not a bad man, is he?”

“No, Mamma,” Julietta whispered.

“Has he hurt you in any way?”

She shook her head. “He’s been very kind to me.”

“Isn’t that good enough?”

At one point she might have thought so. But not now. Not after what had happened in the field. The chaste kisses Tito had given her couldn’t begin to compare to the heated exchanges with Rom Dante. With Tito, she’d felt nothing. Not passion, not distaste. Just… nothing. She attempted to imagine how she’d respond if Tito unbuttoned her dress. If he’d tugged aside her slip and caressed her breasts. If he’d kissed her nipples and teased them with his teeth.

And she shuddered in distaste.

No. She couldn’t imagine doing with Tito what she’d done with Rom. It seemed… wrong. Sacrilegious. Glancing down, she realized she’d dug her thumb into the palm of her hand in the exact spot where Rom had burned her with his “Inferno.” It itched, a constant reminder of how she’d betrayed her fiancé. It wasn’t Serena who needed to confess to
il sacerdote.
Her sins were far worse than her sister’s.

What would happen when she confessed she didn’t love Tito, didn’t want him? What would happen when she confessed what she’d done with Rom? What she longed to do again?

“I’m going to hell,” she whispered.

“What did you say?” Maria asked.

Julietta closed her eyes against the press of tears. “I’m not feeling well.”

“We can’t have you sick for your engagement party tomorrow. Go straight to bed. I’ll send up a tray of chicken soup and fresh bread. I’m sure you’ll feel better by morning.”

Probably so. After all, she doubted she could feel any worse. And while she lay in bed, not sleeping, she’d concentrate on erasing all thought of Romero Dante.

If only she could also erase the escalating desire that wove like a ribbon of need through every part of her.

Rom’s family celebrated his return with enthusiastic restraint. While they offered up hugs, kisses, and a table laden with food, it felt like the sort of greeting offered to a guest, not a son of the family. But then, he wasn’t a true son, but a bastard. He didn’t carry the Ranieri name, the name of his stepfather, Luigi, but his mother’s.
Nonno
eased the burden of bearing the Dante name, since he was also one, and Rom had often wondered if his grandfather lived with them for that express purpose, to lend an air of legitimacy and acceptance to his grandson. His presence had certainly eased Rom’s life and given him someone to talk to whenever life became difficult.

In addition to the food, bottles of wine bearing the Ranieri label cluttered the wooden table, as well as his
nonno’s
homemade honey beer. Gossip about nearby friends and relatives flowed as freely as the drink, and he savored every moment of it with a bittersweet delight, aware that where once he’d belonged within the tightly woven fabric of Santa Lucia, on another level he had always stood outside its protective embrace and always would. Still, it was good to hear how the lives of the local villagers had changed or, more often, remained the same.

He dug his thumb into the palm of his right hand while he listened, not that it eased the itch created by The Inferno. If family legend ran true, he’d been changed by his connection to Julietta, just as he’d been changed from the youth he’d been five short years ago when he’d left home, a teenager intent on becoming a jewelry designer like his distant Dante relatives.

The years had branded him, much as The Inferno had, while home and hearth remained as it had always been. Living in
Firenze
—Florence—for the past several years had shaken most of the rustic from his boots. And though part of him remained rooted in the rich soil of his birthplace, another part had been forever altered during his apprenticeship and University studies in the city. He thought of the letter, tucked carefully in his trouser pocket. Soon it would undergo an even more drastic alteration.

Across from him, his mother gasped. “
Santa Maria, Madre di Dio!
”

At first, Rom didn’t understand, not until he saw what had drawn his mother’s attention. He glanced at his hands, at the way he dug his thumb into his palm. “Mamma—”

“It’s the Dante curse. It’s The Inferno.” She burst into tears and crossed herself repeatedly. “Who? Who have you also cursed?”

“No, you don’t understand. It’s not a curse. It’s a…”

The room had gone deathly silent, and his words trailed off. His stepfather glared at him in outrage, his expression mirrored by his three sons. As one, they stood. “Come, Nicci,” Luigi said. He took her arm and helped her from her chair, drawing her close. He paused in the doorway to address Rom. “You will not shame your mother further, is it understood? If you do so, you will no longer be welcome here.”

Rom had no idea how long he sat there, surrounded by the cooling remains of their dinner. He didn’t wake to his surroundings until
Nonno
placed a hand on his shoulder. “Come with me, Romero.”

His grandfather snagged a pair of beer bottles and inclined his head toward his garden. Rom followed, guilt waging a bitter war with defiance. They didn’t understand. None of them. What he felt for Julietta wasn’t a curse. He refused to believe it. Granted, a hint of desperation underscored his passion for her, but all men experienced that in the arms of a beautiful woman. And if his craving rose to a level he’d never known with any other, he refused to believe the connection between them resulted from a curse. Not when it felt so pure. So right.

So eternal.

A waxing moon, fast approaching full, cast a soft radiance over the fragrant garden.
Nonno
paused near his precious herbs, breaking off a bit of tarragon to roll between his gnarled fingers. Its lemony-licorice scent perfumed the night air. He sighed and eased himself on to a nearby bench.

“So. It has happened,” he stated with devastating simplicity.

Rom didn’t bother to deny it. “Yes.”

“You do not seem overjoyed by this event. Is it because of what Luigi and your mother said?”

“No.” He joined his grandfather, stretching his long legs across the flagstones paving the garden walkway and sipping his beer. “Okay, maybe a little. They think it’s a curse. But what I felt…”

“Is more like a blessing?”

“Yes!” He straightened and turned to face his grandfather. “Yes. That is what I feel when I touch her. Like I’ve been blessed.”

“And so you have.”
Nonno
set aside his beer bottle and took Rom’s hand in his, pressing his thumb into his grandson’s palm. “Do you feel this itch? This burn that spreads deeper with each beat of your heart? That is not a curse. It is a message. You must listen to the message or suffer the consequences.”

“What consequences?”

His grandfather’s eyes—identical to Rom’s own—pierced the darkness. “When you listen to The Inferno, when you do as it directs, your life will be blessed. This is why Dantes, other than your poor mamma, call it a blessing.”

“Our Dante cousins say it’s a blessing, too. Only…”

“Only they don’t feel the burn, do they?”

Rom shook his head. “They all have marks on their palm they claim come from The Inferno.”

Nonno
inclined his head. “All Dantes are marked by The Inferno in some fashion. We feel the burn. They receive a mark. It does not matter, because the end result is the same. My cousins are smart. They heed the mark and are blessed. But if you ignore it, if you turn from The Inferno out of fear or ignorance or stubbornness, that blessing becomes a curse. For the rest of your life you will live with regret. If you marry another, one who is not your Inferno mate, that marriage will be a disaster for you both. Hear my warning,
nipote.”

“That’s not what happened with Mamma.”

Nonno
released a gusty sigh. “No, it is not,” he agreed, a wealth of pain bleeding into his words. He hesitated, choosing his words with care. “Your mother was given the blessing at a very young age. Too young. The Inferno is an overpowering urge.”

“She gave in to the urge.” His jaw tightened. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.”

Sadness deepened the lines of
Nonno’s
face. “She did. And she was punished for it. The night you were conceived, she allowed lust to overcome what was right and proper, and her fiancé was taken from her. But no matter what anyone says, your father was a good man, Romero.”

“She never speaks of him.”

“No. To do so would dishonor her husband. Despite outward appearances, it has not been an easy existence for your mamma. Luigi continues to hold Nicci’s disgrace over her head, watching for further weakness in case she brings shame to the Ranieri name. Since he rescued her from an unsavory life, she shows her gratitude by being a model wife and mother. Not that her piety makes him any less critical.”
Nonno
shook his head in sorrow. “That is her curse for not playing by the rules The Inferno sets forth.”

Rom took a moment to digest his grandfather’s words, then asked the question he’d long wanted answered. “Am I like him? Am I like my father?”

Nonno
sculpted Rom’s face with gnarled fingers, as though committing his face to memory. “You have a Dante look about you. Even so, I see much of your father in various aspects. His intelligence. His determination. His interest in the world beyond his small village. He was a man capable of plucking the stars from the heavens if he so wished. I suspect he’d have gone far if he’d lived.”
Nonno
rubbed his chest as though it ached. “Ah, it is so tragic, it hurts to think of it.”

“He was hit by a car.”

“Shortly after leaving your mamma’s arms. Maybe if Nicci had not allowed The Inferno to get the better of her, he would never have died. Eh.
Chissà
.” Pain trembled in his voice, making him sound far older than his years, old and defeated. “Who knows.”

“Do you really believe that?”

A silent tear trickled down
Nonno’s
cheek. “Only the good Lord can say for sure,
nipote
. It is possible he would still have died.” He drew a ragged breath. “I have thought about this for many years. And may God forgive me for my sinful thoughts—I would rather your mamma be disgraced, then never to have had you in my life.”

Rom wrapped his grandfather in a fierce hug and thumped his fist against the old man’s back.
“Ti amo,
Nonno
.
”

“Ti amo,
Romero.”
Nonno
wiped away his tears and regarded his grandson. “Now, listen well. The lesson you must take from this is never to allow the passion you feel toward your Inferno mate to dishonor her. You must wait until your vows are spoken before a priest. Will you promise this to me?”

“I will.”

“And when you have children and grandchildren, you will teach them this lesson?”

“Do you think I wish to have another innocent child suffer what I have?” Rom spoke in a fierce undertone. “When The Inferno strikes a child or grandchild of mine, he or she will wed, willing or not.”

“This is vital. For, once you experience The Inferno, it burns within you for the rest of your life.”

“Do you think Mamma still loves my father?”

“She loves him to this day, though she will never admit it.”
Nonno
rubbed his own palm. “Just as I will love my sweet Nicia from now until the day God delivers me to her, and then for all our time in the hereafter.”

“Mamma still rubs her palm, too. I’ve seen her when she thinks no one is watching.”

“Much to Luigi’s fury. He adores your mamma. But he knows she does not love him. Not the way she did your father. He will always be second best. That is why he will never accept you.”
Nonno
paused, his gaze weighted with regret. “After this visit, you must go your own way, Romero. Though never seeing you again will cause me immense pain, it will be easier for Nicci to walk the road she has chosen, if you were not here as a constant reminder, irritating Luigi.”