The Ruby Ring (33 page)

33

A
S RAPHAEL STOLE QUICKLY AWAY FROM THE HOUSE,
heading alone toward the stables, someone suddenly jerked him back. Giulio held fast to both of Raphael’s shoulders. A short, pearl-handled rapier glinted from Raphael’s hand in the last of the afternoon sunlight.

“Leave me, Giulio! This does not concern you!”

“If you go, it would be a fool’s journey that would only lead to your ruin,
mastro!
”

Raphael’s face blazed with murderous intent as he threw off the firm hands of his assistant. “That does not matter as long as Sebastiano is ruined along with me!”

“You cannot harm him!”

“Harm? I mean to
kill him!
”

“You cannot!”

“Stand aside!”

But Giulio only clamped his hands more tightly. “I will save you as you have saved me!”

“I thank you for your fidelity,” Raphael said, his chest heaving, and his face gone red with anger and exertion, “but these are two very different things! I will do this to avenge Margherita!”

“You will be doing it
to
yourself!”

“Let me go, Giulio!” Raphael growled, still struggling.

“I cannot,
mastro.
Do not ask that of me!” They struggled for a moment more, there on the street, but Giulio would not relent. “Go back inside,
mastro.
Signora Luti needs you now far more than you need to do this!”

“Giulio, step aside!”

“
Per l’amor di Dio,
think of Signora Luti!”

“I shall ever think only of her!”

“Then do not leave her alone! What sort of existence would she have without you to protect her?” When he did not respond, Giulio leveled his gaze upon Raphael with great seriousness. In that moment, things had turned and the student had become the master. “Be with her,
mastro.
Go upstairs and be with her. Signora Luti needs that now—she needs
you
far more than she needs revenge!”

T
HE PUNCH
came out of nowhere. Antonio Perazzi was catapulted up and backward through the air, then landed sprawling in a pile of straw in the Chigi stables. One of the huge horses whinnied in response and pawed the ground, and the bag of oats Antonio had been feeding them sprayed the ground. It took a moment for his vision to clear and another to realize that the blow had been delivered by his own brother, Donato.

“What the devil was
that
for?”

“For Margherita, you lout! I would kill you myself to avenge her if the damage were not already done!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, brother,” he lied, rubbing his jaw and struggling for the breath that had just soundly been knocked out of him.

“Spare me the lies,
brother!
The fishmonger’s daughter boasted of it all herself. She was so proud to have her former rival put in her place!”

“Anna would never—”

“Never what? Betray you? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, they say—or for that matter, a woman preceded by another in the heart of the man she loves!”

Antonio struggled to stand but stumbled back onto his knees. “This is preposterous.”

“Is it? I would have said it was preposterous that my own brother would actually betray his childhood friend—and mine—for the sake of revenge! That is what
I
would have thought preposterous!”

“It was not for revenge, it was—”

“It was what, Antonio? Why would you do this?”

“Because I wanted her to know suffering as I did!” Antonio spat, unapologetic. “Are you pleased now?”

Donato shook his head, lowered it, and stepped back. “That is pure evil.”

“How can you side with
her?
I believed we would be married! That
I
would share her fortunes
and
her life! She always loved me! Always obeyed me, only to torment me in the end!”

“You are wretched, brother! Any woman was always fair game to you! It was that way since we were boys! If you wanted it, you took it! It mattered not a whit who you hurt or how! You were the papal spy all along!”

“And I would have succeeded as well, if not for the great Raffaello!”

“If he had just
used
Margherita, you mean, and not fallen in love with her?”

“
S,
as he did with countless other women before her!” Antonio declared, his hands extended in a pleading gesture. “I had it all planned out!”

Again, Donato shook his head. “I see that you did. But plans change.”

Antonio’s expression suddenly went cold. “Better to escape with some pride, than to consign myself to sniffing after her and doing her bidding for the rest of my life!”

“As I do, you mean?”

“Strike me again, if you will, but
s,
brother, precisely as you do!”

“I might have hit you again for Margherita’s honor.” Donato paused a moment as if contemplating his next move. His face compressed into a frown of open disgust. Then, instead, he simply turned and walked away. As he moved to leave the stables, pushing through the crowd of men who had gathered, Donato made one final volley.

“But I find now that you are not worth the effort. You deserve what you get!”

34

M
ARGHERITA WATCHED RAPHAEL PACE THE LONG ROOM
like a caged animal, still violently angry. The rage at their betrayal—men for whom he had toiled and sweat, men with whom he had broken bread, laughed—prayed, brought forth in him a kind of dark rage she had never seen before.

“Talk to me,
mio dolce amato,
” she softly bid him from the bed to which he had carried her himself and lovingly lay her. He had removed her gown, and covered her over with rich bedding. He came now and sat beside her, but the tension did not leave his face even as he took her hands in his own.

“We must leave Rome. I must be away from this place. There is no other answer!”

“Amore,”
she soothed.

Giving in to her touch for only a moment, he then pulled away. “You shall not pacify me in this. I will never forgive what they have done!”

“Raphael, your talent is too great. Do not allow this incident to be the focus of your life.”

“
You
are the focus of my life!” He thumped a fist onto the table beside their bed. “And they knew it!”

“They wanted you to themselves. Their wish is the magnificent art they know you will create. They lost sight of their good sense in the face of that.”

Again he began to pace, his body still taut with anger. “They made their choice, Margherita. They chose art over honor, and I choose
you
over all else!”

“And yet you cannot leave here. You are needed to glorify this city, to leave your mark on history as it is meant to be.”

“If I ever do feel like painting again, I can do that anywhere. Florence was very good to me before I came here. Perhaps I will return and help to beautify Florence instead of Rome.”

“Is Michelangelo not there?”

“As we have seen, I have rivals everywhere. But I shall not be a fool with your safety now.
Dio mio,
if anything else were to happen to you, I—”

“They would not dare to visit any more harm upon me! Surely I am safe now that this has occurred.”

He shook his head. “But I feel such hate! I know that if I remain, my work for all of them would be as dark and ominous as my heart!”

“Unless they could repay you. Some sacrifice on their part like the ones you have made for them . . . ” She paused as the thought went on forming in her mind.

“Nothing could ever fully do
that.
”

“Nothing at all?” She glanced up at the open-beam ceiling and paused, willing herself not to mention a marriage between them, even though she wanted it desperately. When that day came, it must be his doing entirely. “Consider it at least,
amore mio.
You are meant to be here in Rome, to work, to paint as you have. There is a sense of rightness with you and this place, with your assistants, and all that you have accomplished. I feel that in my heart as strongly as the love I bear for you. Do not let me be the reason for that to come to an end.”

Raphael went to her then, took her in his arms, and held her. She kissed his cheek tenderly, then moved her lips onto his, their mouths brushing tentatively. Yet swiftly, the tender kiss between them changed. The desire powerfully intensified. A moment later he stopped, pulling forcefully away.

“It is too soon for you.” he declared, standing to back away a step from the bed. “You must rest.”

“I feel quite well. Honestly, I do.” She smiled sweetly, holding out her hand to him, feeling him shudder. “I want us to be as we were.
Just
as we were.”

“I could not bear to . . . What I mean, is that I am afraid to hurt you in some way . . . ”

“That would not be possible. I adore you,
mio dolce amato.
”

Again he sat beside her and ran a hand along her cheek, then down the length of her arm. Breathing heavily, he searched her upturned face with his eyes, his heart thudding. “Are you certain?”

“Entirely.”

A moment later, consumed completely with her assurance, his mouth bore down on hers, as though something wild within him had been unleashed. Aching for the familiar ecstasy of her warm, silken flesh joined with his, a low, agonized groan tore from his throat and he cast the heavy brocade coverlet away from her, then pressed her back into the spray of downy pillows.

Raphael slid his hands along her hips to draw up the muslin nightdress she wore. His restraint abandoned now with her loving approval, Raphael’s mouth traveled hungrily down the column of her neck to the swell of her bare breasts, the small, tawny nipples. As he tasted her skin with his tongue, he strained to stave off the intense release that was taunting him at the very moment he entered her. Yet the flood of familiar and reassuring sensations was his undoing, and he was powerless against the overwhelming rush. Her scent, her touch, the feel of her heart beating wildly beneath his was emotional ambrosia.

“No one shall
ever
hurt you again, I pledge you that! Not ever!” he heard himself declare on a deep and ragged breath at the very moment she wrapped her legs over his thighs, and he lost the very last shred of his own fragile control.

Afterward, as they lay quietly together, Raphael felt reborn. There was only the sensation now of complete and total peace. The excruciating uncertainty, and the pain of the past weeks, were behind them both. They spoke softly, kissed, and held one another into the early hours of the morning, then made love again, neither of them wanting to be a part just yet of the outside world that had tried to separate them.

Finally, as dawn drew near and the room was flooded with shades of fuchsia, pink, and gold from the sunrise, Margherita turned and, with the tips of her fingers, tenderly touched his face where the small, neat beard now grew fuller. “Did you truly ever believe that I had left you for someone else?” she gently asked him.

“It was not unbelievable to me that another man should want to steal you away.”

“But my heart is here, Raphael.” She touched his bare chest, and her lips gave a tender smile. “For better or worse, my life will be forever bound with yours.”

“For better or worse?”

“Which of us knows the future,
amore mio?
” Margherita said. “But no matter what lies ahead for us, I wish only to be always by your side.”

“S
HE WAS RETURNED
to him?” Maria Bibbiena gasped at the news. “Traitorous fools! My uncle promised me he would never forsake our cause!”

“I am sorry,
signorina,
” declared Alessandro, the Tuscan guard who now accompanied her everywhere. “Yet it is so.”

“I allowed myself to believe—for the briefest of moments—that with her gone, Raphael might actually come to . . . ” She did not speak the words that she had allowed herself to hope for his love. She sat alone in the gardens of Cardinal Bibbiena’s garden on the Via dei Leutari, surrounded by bare trees, prepared for winter.

“He will start those wild ravings about marrying his baker’s daughter again. My uncle will be exceedingly angry!”

“Perhaps it is time you see the future for what it is . . . and what it is not?”

“Who are
you
to advise me?” she cried angrily. “You are a servant in this house!”

“I am indeed,
signorina.
” He nodded gallantly. “I have forgotten my place.”

Maria immediately regretted her tone. She was weary and frustrated, and she had lost that valued thing for which she had fought for many years. “No. Forgive
me,
Alessandro,” she bid him sincerely. “It is
I
who have managed not to see the future right before my eyes, for how I have allowed the past to blind me.”

“It is the letting go that is the most difficult.” His eyes glittered at her. “Unless you are letting go of one thing in order to cleave to another.”

Their eyes met. His gaze held her powerfully. There was so much calm control about him, she realized fully only then. His dominance over her had been gradual, subtle—and complete.

“Do you mean something in particular, Alessandro?” she dared finally to ask.

“Of course, it would not be proper for a guardsman to advise a lady.”

“But for just a man to tell
just
a woman?”

“Would that those were our circumstances—Signorina Bibbiena.”

He touched the back of her hand as it rested on the arms of the black iron garden chair. He had never actually touched her before.

“And if they were,
caro
Alessandro? What might you say to me then?”

He waited for a moment, considering well his reply. “If the circumstances were different, I might say that giving your full heart to someone who does not desire it is closing it off to someone else who might.”

A
S THE SUN SET
on the city and its ancient ruins, a cold winter rain brought a new pressing chill to the air. Elena lay another log on the dwindling fire in the massive hearth that dominated the
mastro
’s bedchamber. He and Margherita were downstairs at dinner. The flames flared as Giulio Romano closed the door behind himself and sank onto a rush-seat stool beside her, his face bathed in the umber light of the fire glow.

“That was most kind of you to want to accompany Signor Raphael and me yesterday as you did,” Giulio said in a voice rich with admiration.

His eyes sought hers with the greatest tenderness as Elena prepared Signora Luti’s sleeping garments.

A gentle smile played at the corners of her lips when she saw how he looked at her. “Signora Luti has always said there are few in her new life whom she can trust. She trusted me, so I could not forsake her.”

“You were meant in this world to concern yourself with dancing and parties, and making a good match. Not with making up beds and arranging nightclothes.”

“I have told you before, those are fanciful dreams from the past, Giulio. Believe me, I am grateful for what I have here.” She tipped her head to the side as she looked at him. “And I never thanked you properly for what you did for me with the
mastro.
You should never have risked your own place with him because of me.”

“There is nothing in the world I would not do for you.”

“Or for Raphael?”

He stood and took a step toward her, closing the modest gap between them. He placed a hand over hers on the bed, atop Margherita’s silk-and-lace nightdress. She did not turn her head, did not acknowledge the powerful connection she felt between them. “Do you ever think about him that way now?” Giulio asked her with a blistering openness that surprised her.

“Never. Nor, I imagine, does he.”

“Then do you yet think of me?”

Only then did Elena turn her lovely plump face, with her expressive gray eyes, to his. Through them, she saw an open admiration that both startled and frightened her. Yet he was still beyond her reach. The most trusted assistant to the famed Raffaello. A brilliant artist himself. She must not allow herself to believe that there could be the same sort of magical ending for her that there had been for Signora Luti.

“Do not,” she murmured softly, as he took her hand very tightly in his own and tried again to kiss her. “You deserve better than me.”

He lifted a hand to touch her hair, then fixed her with a pure and honest gaze. “We, all of us, are scarred in some way by this life, Elena. Different wounds perhaps, but the same effect on the soul.”

It was painful to look at him. “I have told you, no good man should want me now.”

“
I
want you, Elena. I want you very dearly—as my wife.” Leaning forward, Giulio brushed his lips against her soft face. The tenderness she felt from him just then nearly broke her heart. “But I am content to wait until it is what you desire as much as I do.”