The Ruby Ring (39 page)

“I am destroying the last of what might harm Margherita.”

“But his works . . . they are irreplaceable!”

“They are private sketches of her, and the
mastro
would want her safe at any cost—even this.”

Elena went to him and drew his gaze. Only then did he sigh, and for a moment they held one another. Adversity brought them closer to each other than they had ever been, but neither felt comforted or passionate. They felt only the unspeakable sorrow of something tragic and impending.

“Is there no hope for him?”

He drew in a painful breath, unable to look at her any longer. “None at all. The doctors say it is only a matter of days.”

“Ges, Madre Maria!”
she cried. “What shall become of us all once he is gone?”

40

“M
Y SON, RENOUNCE HER, I BID YOU,” BIBBIENA MURMURED
gravely. His deeply cultured voice, like an incantation, came on the wings of a dream, and Raphael struggled to open his eyes. But it was no dream. “Renounce what you have done, lo these many years, dearest boy, so that I may at the least offer you absolution.”

Elena stood back from the bed as the cardinal had ordered her to do, but with Margherita and Donato still gone, she would not leave the room. Like a jackal waiting to attack, Cardinal Bibbiena had arrived at the precise moment when Raphael would be alone, and thus at his weakest.

Raphael’s eyes opened slowly onto the gaunt face of a man whose own cold and piercing eyes were wide with expectation. The cleric had actually dared come here into this place, where all of Rome had said sins were so openly committed.

“Never!” he rasped. “I would rather burn forever in the fires of hell than do that to her . . . ”

“And so you shall, if you do not listen to reason!”

Bibbiena sank onto the edge of the bed where Margherita had been only hours before. He waited a moment, collected himself, then began again. “I have loved you, Raphael, as a son. And, indeed, there was a time when you nearly were that, until—” He paused again, glancing heavenward, seemingly to mutter a prayer. “That is, of course, in the past now. Shall you not, Raphael, my dear son, clear your soul now with me?”

“I would not do it . . . ,” Raphael breathed with great difficulty, his gray pallor gaining a slight hint of color from his conviction, “if you were the last priest on this earth!”

“And indeed I may well be!” Bibbiena growled, then glanced at the door through which every cleric in Rome but himself had refused to pass for the sin that had taken place in this room.

Maria Bibbiena’s rival was notorious and despised all over the city, and in that there was some cold comfort to the cardinal, who had done all that he could to see them parted. The only thing he had not considered until now was their parting by death.

“Can you not see that no respectable man of God will enter here? And with the Holy Father delayed in Florence, he will not be able to marry you. He will
never
marry the two of you!”

“It was his promise.”

Bibbiena’s eyes were cold. “Well, he did not mean it. As you did not mean your promise to Maria.”

Raphael reached out suddenly to grip Bibbiena’s arm. His hand was surprisingly strong. “Then
you
marry us, Your Grace! If you care a whit for my immortal soul, as a good and pious cardinal, declare us and our love respectable as a favor for our past affection. Do this for me!”

Bibbiena arched a sharp gray brow of surprise. “I understood no one but the Holy Father was acceptable for that task.”

“We both know I will not live to see his return from Florence.
Per favore,
let me die in peace, having made her my wife . . . knowing, thus, that she will be safe, protected by your power and grace.”

“I am afraid I cannot do that,” Bibbiena calmly replied. “You are not well enough with that fever to consider properly such an auspicious step. Once you recover from this, if you—”

“I am not going to recover!” Raphael weakly groaned. “You know that, as do I!”

“I shall certainly pray for that nonetheless, as well as for the future of your immortal soul, my boy.”

“I am sorry I did not love your niece the way you had hoped, Bernardo,” Raphael admitted with the familiarity he and the cardinal once, long ago, had enjoyed. But it was too late for many things, and nostalgia was among them.

“
Allora,
we all make costly choices in this world,” said the cardinal. “And indeed, you certainly seem to have made yours. One that shall live with you through all eternity now.”

M
ARGHERITA
covered her head as she and Donato entered the cool, shadowy sanctuary and absolute stillness of the small parish church of Santa Dorotea, into which she had not passed in over a year. Warm and gentle memories of another lifetime came at her swiftly amid the heavy fragrance of incense and candle wax, enveloping her like a familiar, warming shawl. It quickly gave her a sense of safety, peace, and protection she had not felt for a long time. Both of them made the sign of the cross before they advanced to the altar where the kind old cleric, Padre Giacomo, stood lighting long white candles.

She was embraced tenderly by the old man, who had always refused to remind her of how notorious she had become. “Is it true what they are saying, child, that the great man is very near his end?” he asked.

Margherita stiffened. Even the suggestion of it was intolerable. “He is ill, it is true, but he will recover,
padre.
I must believe that.”

“Then why have you come here if not for prayer and solace?”

“To recall the favor you promised years ago. I implore you now, I
beg
you, to come to the Via Alessandrina and secretly marry the two of us!”

Now it was he who looked stricken. He touched the tarnished silver crucifix hanging at his chest and shook his head. “Impossible, my child.”

“But why? I have known you all of my life, Padre Giacomo! You have dined in my home, celebrated together with me! You shared my grief as we buried my mother, and my good fortune at Raphael’s love!” She pressed him with the greatest determination, for her life seemed to depend upon it.

“And there is no one else in all of Rome who will do it?”

She lowered her eyes for a moment, then she looked up again and touched his arm. “No. And so I beg you. We wish to marry quietly, we
must
marry, in order for me to have any voice at all in his treatment! The papal physicians can find no other option to fight this fever, and thus insist on bleeding him repeatedly, which is only stealing the last of his strength! He needs another course of treatment, I can feel it, and yet the physicians will not even speak with me! And now that they believe the end is near, none of the other clerics will consider marrying us so that I can help him, for the risk to their reputation!”

“Do you value
my
reputation less than theirs?”

She struggled for a moment with the notion that she had insulted him. “I had hoped our family connection might be worth the risk to you! And you promised Raphael himself!”

“It was a courtesy offered at a very different time, Margherita.”

“Then I will pay you whatever you ask!”

“Margherita.” His voice was controlled. He spoke as if she were a small child requiring his utmost patience. “Cardinal Bibbiena is my superior. He controls all. I would be ruined, or worse yet, sent abroad for defying him. Surely you understand that neither your money, nor Raphael’s, would be of help to me then.”

“But before the cardinal, are you not first a disciple of God—one who must answer to what is right and good in His eyes?”

The old parish cleric put an arm across her shoulder and began to lead her back toward the door with Donato. His head was somberly lowered as he silently followed behind them, the crucifix on his chest swaying with each step. “A disciple of God,
s.
It is that for which I strive each day of my life. But I remain only a weak man.”

“You truly are our last hope.”

“Forgive me, Margherita, but I am not strong enough to battle all of them, and give you your desire. Yet there is one thing it is within my power to offer you. A refuge . . . a place to go if you should find yourself in need. The convent of Sant’Apollonia. They have been known to take in young women who, in a troubled time—”

She knew it well. It was the convent across the street from Raphael’s own workshop. The bitter irony of that was too much just now. “Speak no more of that! I will not run away from this!”

“But what will you do then?”

“He will
not
die!” she declared. It felt entirely disloyal to her to think otherwise.

Padre Giacomo tried to take her hand. “But what if he does, child? Must you not make some provision for that? Think at least of the convent of Sant’Appolonia as a refuge if you find no other. I bid you, keep that option close to your heart.”

She drew away in anger. “I have no future without Raphael, so it would not matter what would become of me if he were gone!” Those words were spoken to him but resonated within her. Her life truly was over if Raphael died. That would be the end of her. She simply could not go on without him.

The old cleric must have seen that in her eyes, because he reached out again and clamped a hand firmly onto her shoulder. His words came as gently and full of meaning as a caress. “Consider that you
are
married to one another,
cara mia.
Such is the great depth of your love for one another. Consider that God sees you as the bride of Raphael already, and only men have kept you from a legal union which He has already sanctioned.”

“Oh, will you not consider marrying us?” she pleaded, tears of desperation spilling onto her cheeks. “For all of the years and friendship between us!”

“I wish I could make that matter more than my own fears,
cara.
I truly do. In that, I am sorry I am not a better man, and a better priest.”

He did not wish to hurt her, she knew, and yet his refusal had been as deep and cutting as any knife wound. Everyone had turned their backs on her. She had flouted convention, and now she would be made to pay for it. But none of that mattered at all, because there was no higher price to pay than losing Raphael to death.

M
ARGHERITA
came soundlessly into the small studio beside her bedchamber. Her heart ached with a wrenching pain, knowing that she could do nothing to help him. As she moved beyond the door, she saw Giulio and Elena. They were standing together in a deep embrace.

“What are we to do?” Elena was asking in a low tone.

He murmured something in reply that she did not hear, and then they were silent.

What Giulio and Elena felt for one another was not a surprise, nor did it upset her. But it was the sight of so many torn drawings and sketches being tossed into a roaring fire that drove her forward, her hands gnarled into fists.

“Cease this!” Margherita cried out. “I forbid you to speak of
Mastro
Sanzio as if all hope were lost! Giulio, you are his dearest friend! He will recover from this, and when he does, he will need all of our love and support! How can you—”

“Forgive me,
signora.
” He bowed reverently to her. “But because he is so dear to me, I must honor him now. I
must
protect him, and all that he values, when he cannot do so for himself.”

“Destroying his work is protecting him?”

“It is protecting
you.
” He touched her shoulder in a supportive gesture that was very like the one that had come from Padre Giacomo. “Many of them are private sketches of you,
signora
—the woman Rome sees as having brought this illness about. They will not be so tolerant of you once he is gone.”

She covered her face with her hands. The pain was so great that she almost could not bear it. “I love him more than my own life, Giulio,” she said softly, achingly. “Do they not know that
he
loves
me
?”

“They care not who or what he loves. Raphael always knew that. They care only for his creations . . . his great talent. To them he is not a man but an artist.”

“May the Good Lord forgive them, for I never will!”

“I bid you on his behalf,
signora
—go to your family. Speak with them. Protect yourself,” Elena pleaded. “If the
mastro
does survive this, there will have been no harm done, and you will return to him.”

Margherita hung her head, her lungs so constricted with grief so that she could not breathe. “I cannot go back, Elena. None of us can
ever
go back.” They did not want her back now. They had made that clear. Margherita glanced up at the two of them before her, their faces mirroring the sorrow she felt, her sister’s declaration from years ago creeping now back into her mind. It was the moment she had realized she could never go home to the bakery or the life she once had lived there.