The Wolves of Paris (35 page)
“Don’t forget my brother’s permission, too. He answers for the family.”
“So get it,” she urged. “Three more weeks to Italy—we could share lodging.”
She delighted in the way Lorenzo’s face flushed when she said these things. In her own way she was teasing him as much as Marco, when the older brother pretended he didn’t understand the urgency. And it was almost more arousing to be so close to her love without being able to consummate it. Almost.
Every time they passed a new village, stopped in to confess and take mass, Lorenzo would bring up the subject with his brother. Marco kept putting him off.
On the tenth afternoon, after another long, tiring day on the road, Marco brought his horse back to where Lorenzo and Lucrezia rode. She’d tired of sitting in a cart, and with no fussy Dominicans around, had even put on leggings underneath her houppelande so as to be able to ride astride the horse like a man. Four of Nemours’s men-at-arms rode behind them, guarding the rear of the train, but she ignored their stares.
“Well, my young lovers,” Marco said. “I received some news from the road ahead that you might find interesting.”
“Does it have anything to do with wolves, Dominicans, or the plague?” Lorenzo asked.
“
Good
news, Brother. Care to guess what it is?”
“Let’s see. We’re still two hours from the next village. My first guess is nothing, but you’re bored and want to kill time by luring me into a guessing game.”
“What? Would I ever do that?”
“All right, get it out. What did you hear?”
Marco reached a gloved hand into his cloak and pulled out a sealed letter. “It’s a letter from Lucrezia’s father.”
“Father!” she said, her heart pounding.
“Ah, ah,” he said, snatching back the letter as she pulled her horse closer and reached out a hand. “It’s not for you, it’s for me.”
Marco turned it over in his hand and rubbed his thumb along the wax seal, not yet broken.
“Dated only six days ago,” he said. “I wonder what it could say. I did send him a letter by fast courier the instant we left Paris. He must have answered the very same day he received it.”
A sudden aching loneliness for home rose in her breast. Her parents and her brothers had written her many times, of course, but conversations took place over months, as mail packets traveled with the next available wagon train for Tuscany. Only once had they indulged in the luxury of a fast courier, and that was to announce the birth of her niece, the first grandchild in the family. Even when her uncle passed away from consumption she’d heard the news three weeks after his Requiem Mass.
She was suddenly tired of the road, of being saddlesore and sleeping in uncomfortable beds with flea-infested bedding, shared with two of her female servants, for warmth rather than economy. One of them snored and the other stole the blankets in the night.
“Are you sure that’s not for me?” she asked, more insistent this time.
“Quite sure. Look, my name is on the letter.”
Marco’s smile spread across his face. Whatever it was, he was pleased with himself. Lucrezia was getting impatient, but Lorenzo looked like he was going to hurl himself from the saddle and tackle Marco to the ground to pry the letter from his brother’s hand.
With exasperatingly deliberate movements, Marco slid his thumb beneath the wax seal and broke it apart. He opened the letter, frowned, held it up as if needing to coax more light from the overcast sky.
“Well?” Lorenzo demanded.
“You’d better read this, Brother. I don’t want to embarrass myself by fumbling over words in front of the two of you.”
Marco held it out, grinning, and Lorenzo snatched it away. The younger brother read it over and his face turned red.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Lucrezia said. “Will you hurry up and read it aloud?”
Lorenzo read it. “I, Tomasino di Lucca do hereby grant permission for my daughter, Lucrezia d’Lisle, widow of the Duc Rigord Ducy d’Lisle of Paris, to marry Lorenzo Boccaccio di Firenze. They may be officially betrothed by authority of the Holy Roman Catholic Church while en route to Italy, with the official marriage to be performed in the cathedral of San Martino in Lucca the following summer.” He stopped, took a deep breath. “And then there’s a whole bunch of stuff here about your family and other things I’m sure you’ll want to read, but . . . look!”
Lucrezia grabbed the letter and skimmed it over to verify it was true. She felt faint with happiness.
“Marco, you clever . . . you kept this a secret,” she said. “Lorenzo, we’re betrothed!”
“Not yet you’re not,” Marco said. “Don’t forget that bit about the authority of the church. We need a priest.” He scanned the road up ahead, and the wagon train struggling to get through the mud. “We’re not going to make it to the village by nightfall, you know. I see you’re scheming to spend the night in each other’s arms, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.”
“The devil you say!” Lorenzo said. “Come on, let’s go.”
He dug his heels into the ribs of the tired horse, which balked at the surprising command, then broke into a trot. Laughing, Lucrezia followed. She almost lost her father’s letter before slipping it into her gown against her breast where it couldn’t flap away. She caught Lorenzo as they galloped past the startled muleteers at the front of the caravan.
Marco shouted for them to wait, then, yelling with exasperation, raced to catch up. He brought up the rear while Lucrezia and Lorenzo raced down the road toward the village. She felt like a girl again, young and foolish and giddy. Lorenzo turned and grinned, then urged his horse faster.
Betrothed. Tonight she would be in his arms, their bodies entwined. She and her love. A man who adored books, who had promised her a library to rival the pope’s. A man who loved her, who would make a home with her in her beloved Italy.
I’m going home,
she thought.
Going home.
-end-
From the Author
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The Wolves of Paris.
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