Still Star-Crossed (9 page)

Rosaline laughed and gave her sister a shove toward the door. “Leave the dramatics to the stage players. Just tell him I am sick and can receive no visitors.” This was the reason she gave for becoming a hermit these last few days, and no one would publicly contradict it. Only a few Montagues and Capulets knew the truth about the betrothal the prince was trying to force on her—her uncle and the prince had not announced it publicly. In this, at least, they were wise. If Verona society knew a Capulet maid had spurned a Montague suitor, House Montague’s humiliation would know no bounds.

“That’s dull,” Livia’s voice floated back from the corridor.

Shortly Rosaline heard the scrape of wood from the front hall as Livia hauled the front doors open. Her sister’s voice rose and fell in polite tones, though from her bedroom Rosaline could not make out the words. Then another voice answered. A woman’s, but not the genteel, courtly accent of a Capulet lady. This voice was loud, and common. Rosaline frowned. It almost sounded like—

Rosaline threw her sewing behind a chair, pulled her hair out of its pins, and had just enough time to toss the covers aside and jump into bed before the door flew open and Juliet’s nurse burst in.

“Good morrow, Rosaline dear,” she said. “I heard you were sick.”

Livia, trailing in after her, shot Rosaline an apologetic glance over the nurse’s shoulder. “Dear nurse, I told thee, the doctor has said Rosaline is to receive no one—”

“And quite right he is too.” The nurse plumped her prodigious bulk down on Rosaline’s bedside and began searching around inside a large sack that smelled strongly of cabbage. “Ah, my dears, I pray you never know the torture of my corns. A stream of bothersome visitors? ’Twill do naught for your health. ’Tis just what I always told your mother when you two were small. I’d say, dear lady, you go and attend the princess, leave the pretty wretches with the old nurse when they’ve caught fever. I’ll soon make a physic so hot ’twill burn the fever out of them.”

Rosaline could see Livia trying not to laugh. Indeed, the nurse’s homemade medicines had been the terror of their
young lives. As children they’d rarely been at home; they were either with their mother at the palace or playing with Juliet at House Capulet. They’d spent so much time with their cousin as children that the nurse had come to consider them nearly as much her charges as her beloved Juliet, and she was especially fierce when any of them fell sick. Her medicines tasted so vile they required immediate recuperation.

“Your color’s good,” she said, taking Rosaline’s chin in a critical hand and turning it side to side. “Of course, so they say ladies in a consumption look just before they die.”

Rosaline sighed. “I am not in a consumption, nurse.”

“No? Good. We’ll soon have you right, then. I cured every fever and cough dear Jule had from the day I weaned her. Dost thou mind when I weaned her? I laid the bitter wormwood on my dug”—the nurse gave her breast an affectionate squeeze—“and she did scream! Thou wast then a little puling thing of six, Rosaline.”

Rosaline’s eyes narrowed. The nurse’s lethargy of the night at House Capulet had given way to a frantic energy. What had caused so great a change in mood? Her contemplation was interrupted by the glug of the medicine bottle as the nurse poured out a dose. “Truly, there is no need—” Rosaline’s words dissolved into sputtering as a spoonful of horror was shoved into her mouth. She sat up, the burning from the brew racking her with coughs.

“There, you see? You’ve more spirit already.” The nurse brandished a jar of murky liquid. “Just you drink a dram of this every hour and you’ll soon be on your feet.”

“Worry not,” Livia said with a wicked gleam in her eye. “I’ll see she takes it.” Rosaline shot her a glare.

“Good,” said the nurse. “I’d stay here and attend to her myself, but my lady has much need of me.”

“How does my lady aunt?” said Rosaline, in a desperate attempt to distract the nurse from the second spoonful she was pointing Rosaline’s way.

A strange look crossed the nurse’s face. “She is well,” she said, then pressed her lips together.

“Is she? I thought that she was still abed since Juliet’s death.”

“Aye,” the nurse said uneasily. “She’s very well, for one that has not left her bed for grief. ’Twas that I meant.”

Rosaline blinked and said, “Ah.” It had never been profitable to try to follow the paths blazed by the nurse’s brain.

“Well,” the nurse said. “I must away. See you take your medicine, ladybird. My lord is very anxious you should get well, that you may wed that handsome fellow.” She frowned as she stood, brushing off her skirts and absently licking a stray drop of medicine from her hand. “Not that I hold with the marrying of Montagues, mind. If I’d only kept my Jule from their clutches …” She crossed herself. “Well. She’s with God now, and the Montagues will surely get their punishment in the hereafter, so I suppose you may as well marry one in the meantime. ’Twould certainly be better than wasting your beauty in a nunnery.” Next to the bed, Livia went very still.

“No waste will it be,” Rosaline croaked. She found her poor scorched throat needed no encouragement now to
make her sound as if she were at death’s door. “What waste is there in dedicating my life to God and helping the poor?”

“Hmph. Nunneries are for ugly girls. Good day, my dears.”

When she had gone, Rosaline gave a sigh of relief and got out of bed. “Thank heaven. I thought she would cover me with leeches next.”

“Mmm.” Livia had shut the door behind the nurse; she lingered with her hand on the doorknob. Finally she turned back to her sister. “Rosaline …”

Rosaline was taking up her sewing again. Throwing it down like that had tangled the thread terribly. She tensed, having some idea of what was coming. Why had the nurse mentioned the nunnery in front of Livia? This was not how she wanted her sister to learn of her plans. “Yes, dearest?”

“Is it true, what she said?” Livia curled up in her chair. “About taking holy orders? Uncle Capulet mentioned it on one of his visits, but I thought ’twas but a way thou didst seek to escape this match.”

Rosaline winced. She’d been lucky to avoid this conversation for so long; it wasn’t one she looked forward to. “Well … no. I truly do wish to go into a convent.”

Livia picked at a loose thread in the hem of her gown. Rosaline waited for expressions of horror that Rosaline could be thinking of adopting a way of life that included neither dancing nor young men nor the latest hairstyles, but Livia said nothing.

“I know it may seem strange,” Rosaline said. “But ’twill take me away from all things Montague and Capulet forever, and I have no dearer wish than that.”

Livia did not look up. Finally she said, “When meant you to tell me?”

“I’d hoped to see thee betrothed first,” Rosaline said. “There seemed no need to mention it before— Oh God’s teeth, not again!”

The boom of the door knocker was sounding through the house once more. Livia went to the window, where she could lean out and see who was at their gate. “It’s one of Uncle’s servants.” She called down to him, “What is your will?”

“I’ve a message from my master,” the man yelled up. “His niece Rosaline is to unbar her doors and come to his house forthwith. I’ll not budge from your threshold till she does.”

Rosaline peeked over Livia’s shoulder. Sure enough, the man had sat down and made himself comfortable outside their door. “Lord. I’ll go down and chase him off—”

“No need,” Livia said. She turned away from the window. “I’ll go to Uncle’s house in your stead. Perhaps if I speak to him, he will leave us alone.”

“Thanks,” said Rosaline. Livia’s dress was askew from sitting in various unladylike positions all afternoon. Rosaline reached out to straighten it. “But really, Livia, thou need’st not involve thyself—”

“Nonsense,” Livia said, tugging her dress away from Rosaline’s helping hands. “After all, you are soon to take holy orders. Your thoughts should be with God.” She smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt, lifting her hem to examine the loose thread she had been worrying at before. “Your family should not be such a distraction.” She broke the thread off with a snap.

Escalus thought that Capulet might die.

The man’s face was as red as Mars and sweat was pouring off him in rivers. His horse, unused to such a nervous rider—or perhaps not used to one that weighed the same as at least two normal men—danced sideways, and Capulet’s bulk jiggled in time.

“Are you well, sir?” Escalus asked.

Capulet nodded as he waved off the prince’s concern with one hand and mopped his streaming face with the other. “Oh yes, sire. ’Tis very—” He had to pause for a racking cough. “Very invigorating.”

Escalus hid a smile. It was considered a great honor to accompany the prince on his daily ride outside the palace walls. Capulet would never have dreamed of turning down the invitation, nor would he dream of complaining now. He had no choice but to endure his discomfort as long as the prince wished.

Which was exactly why the prince had invited the man in the first place. He was not well pleased with the head of the Capulets.

“I am glad you are enjoying yourself,” he said. “Trot on, Venitio.” He heard a deep sigh behind him as Capulet urged his horse to follow. “Now,” Escalus said, “I believe you were telling me you have no idea who hung that Montague dummy in the town square.”

Capulet shook his head. “My lord,” he said, “upon my life,
’twas no man of my family. Or if it was, I have been unable to discover it. And I’ve tried.”

“Mmm. Capulets are not known for their willingness to bring their guilty before me for justice.”

“ ’Tis this sort of villainy that slew my child,” Capulet said. “If this poison lives on in my house, I would cast it before Your Grace the instant I found it.”

“Good,” said the prince. “I assume that means you are still making all efforts to see your niece married to Benvolio.”

His companion groaned. “As Your Grace well knows, she will not leave her house! What am I to do, marry them through the window?”

The prince frowned. “Her door is yet barred?”

“Aye. She claims she is sick. And old lady Vitruvio is no help.” Capulet’s face managed to go even redder at the thought of his mother-in-law. “She says if we mean to make her ward a match without consulting her, then surely we do not need her aid to accomplish it.” He dropped his handkerchief, and his horse promptly trod it into the dirt. He cast a longing glance at the road back toward Verona’s gates. “This very day did I once more command her to come to my house. I ought to go back, in case she has obeyed at last.”

Not likely, but the prince had tortured his vassal long enough. “Go on back,” said Escalus. “I do not wish our pleasure to keep you from your duties.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Capulet’s voice held the first real gratitude Escalus had heard all afternoon. He turned his horse back to the city.

Escalus thought about following. It was time he returned—Penlet was surely making little coughs of distress at his absence. But on impulse, he turned Venitio in the opposite direction, spurring him into a run away from Verona’s walls.

A good hard ride usually cleared his head. Vineyards and houses and streams flew by as his horse’s hooves thundered under him. But run though he might, the cares of his city followed him.

What was he to do about Rosaline?

He could go into her house and drag her out, of course. But dragging a screaming girl to the altar was hardly likely to cool tempers on either side.

And, he was reminded by the part of himself that was still allowed to care for things other than the city’s best interests, it would make him a right bastard.

There was her sister. Livia was just as much a Capulet as Rosaline. But Escalus had meant what he told Rosaline: He had chosen her to marry into the Montagues because he knew she was up to the task. Even when they were children, she was by far the cleverest of them. Since then he’d seen little of her, but he’d found himself listening closely whenever she was mentioned. When Verona society spoke of the eldest lady of Tirimo, after her misfortunes and her beauty, it was her wit they mentioned. Besides, the steady hand with which she’d kept herself and Livia free of entanglements in the feud spoke for itself. His valet’s niece served the Duchess of Vitruvio, and the servants gossiped that before Romeo had fallen under Juliet’s thrall, he had nursed a brief passion for Rosaline. But unlike her cousin, she had refused him.
Young Rosaline hid more wisdom behind those assessing eyes than most graybeards. Livia was clever too, but all Verona knew she had absolutely no rein on her tongue. Juliet had caused a bloodbath; Livia would start a war.

Which left him right where he’d been for the last fortnight. With a Montague groom and no Capulet bride to wed him.

It was then that he remembered Isabella’s injunction:
“You must hold a feast for me.”