Twice Upon Time

“There’s no need to cry, Angelica.” Bianca tried to curb the impatience she heard creeping into her voice. “Come now.” She patted her sister’s shoulder.

Even as Angelica’s shoulders shook harder, she watched Bianca through her fingers and did not miss the quick heavenward roll of her younger sister’s eyes or the exasperated glance she exchanged with the nurse. Beneath the concealing hands, her lips thinned. It had always been the two of them against her. Always. From the very beginning.

“Take her inside, Lia,” Bianca instructed, “and give her a cup of wine.”

Alessio watched the scene, his annoyance growing in proportion to the color that returned to Bianca’s face. What kind of game was she playing? he asked himself. Now that the roses were back in her cheeks, he could almost believe that what he had witnessed had been a scene staged and played for his benefit. But why? Why?

When Lia had led the sniffling Angelica away, Bianca stood, ignoring the hand that Alessio held out to her.

“I thank you for your care, Messere Alessio.” Keeping her eyes lowered, she brushed at the wrinkles in her gown. “I do not want to delay your return to Florence.”

“Do not think that you can brush me away like a pesky fly, Bianca.” His tone was low and urgent as he stepped close enough to her so that no one could overhear them. “I saw you go as pale as a ghost and faint. And I will know the reason. And while you’re at it, you can explain what happened on the beach.”

She devoted herself to the creases in the scarlet velvet, as if that were the most important task in the world. “You presume too much.” She kept her tone light.

“I will have my answers, Bianca, I warn you.” Alessio shifted still closer to press home his words with his body.

It occurred to him to ask himself why he felt an almost physical need to have answers. He desired her, he told himself, and he despised her. Why did he feel compelled to know things he should not have cared a fig about?

“I warn you.” His patience tore like a frayed rope and he circled her wrist again with his fingers.

“You warn me?” Temper made her careless and she lifted her face toward him.

The bloody image slipped past the block and into her consciousness. Her eyes grew unfocused as she saw Ales sio’s face, not as he stood before her, but as he had been in the vision, holding her while a madman raised the dagger again and again. “Perhaps I should warn you, Alessio.” Her voice began to slur, but she did not notice. “Warn you that you will—”

The color had washed out of her face again, bringing back the nameless panic that cut off his breath.

“Bianca!” He shook her, no longer caring what answers she gave him and what she kept secret. He only wanted these bizarre happenings to stop.

But even as he called out her name, her eyes focused and her color returned so quickly that for a moment he doubted what he had seen.

She looked down at her wrist, which he still held. Slowly, his fingers loosened and let go.

Alessio stared at the imprints on her wrist, which were already beginning to darken. The words of apology froze on his lips as he looked at her and found her mouth curved in a mocking smile.

She flicked a glance at her wrist, where his gaze had rested a moment before, and looked back at him, half expecting the horrible vision to appear again. When it did not, she released a small sigh of relief.

“I thank you for your care, Messere Alessio,” she said tauntingly echoing her words of just moments ago. “I think it is past time that you go now.”

“Yes, perhaps you are right: ”

It was easy to step away from this woman whose mouth was curved with a coldly mocking smile that was echoed in her eyes. And yet he remembered that this was a woman with secrets. Secrets that made her vulnerable. Secrets that could turn an artful seductress into a soft lover. Which one was she? Which one? Even as he asked himself this question, he knew.

Something shifted within him. He did not recognize it, and if he had, he would have denied it. But love took root in his heart and began to grow.

“I send my thanks to my betrothed for the gift of the mare.”

Bianca’s words brought him back to reality, that softer, gentler moment already forgotten. Anger bloomed again, but it had a desperate edge.

“I will relay madonna’s message to my brother.” Alessio stepped closer and bowed over the hand that Bianca extended. “Remember what I said to you about being ridden. Perhaps the symbolism of my brother’s gift will not escape you then,” he murmured.

She said nothing, but the way she jerked her hand away from his gave him an unreasonable amount of satisfaction.

He bowed and swung himself onto his mount, his short cape flaring out behind him. Without looking back, he spurred his horse out of the courtyard.

Chapter Five

Bianca stood in the courtyard and stared after Alessio long after the dust his horse had raised had begun to settle. Damn him for his last words. Damn him for reminding her what price she would have to pay for the power she wanted. Damn him for showing her just how much she moved him—to passion, to anger, to violence. To tenderness. She let her eyes fall closed. Damn him most of all for showing her just how much he moved her, for touching something inside her she had not known existed. Something that threatened her and made her doubt things she had never doubted before.

“What’s wrong with you today?”

Bianca heard the worry clearly in Lia’s voice, although it was disguised with impatience.

“Nothing. I told you—” she began.

“You lied.” Lia interrupted her with the ease of long familiarity. “You cannot fool me.”

“Taci, be quiet,” Bianca remonstrated gently. “You keep to your business, old woman, and leave me alone with mine.”

“You are my business and have been for nigh on seventeen years.” Lia’s voice softened. “I know you better than I know myself, and I have never seen you as you were today.” She slid her arm around Bianca and rubbed her hand in circles on her back. “Tell me, piccolina, what is it?”

“There’s nothing to tell.” She shrugged off Lia’s hands. It would be much too easy to turn her face into her nurse’s plump shoulder and let everything spill out. Every mystic fying, terrible, wonderful thing.

“You know there is nothing you cannot tell me. No trouble I would not help you with.”

Bianca only shook her head. She had to deal with this and she alone.

She had to deal with the visions that had been sent to her or that she had conjured up.

She had to deal with her attraction to Alessio. Attraction? She almost laughed aloud at the mild word. Desire, hunger, need. None of them even came close, she realized.

And she had to deal with the fact that she was going to marry his brother—with his wealth, his deformed body and, so rumors whispered, his cruelties.

Needing to do something, she walked over to the well, dipped the wooden ladle into the pail that hung from the decoratively turned wrought-iron tripod and sipped at the water she did not want. She knew that Lia was not going to give up even before she heard her footsteps behind her.

“Look at me, child.” Lia’s grip was gentle but firm as she turned Bianca around to face her. “Is there trouble between you and Alessio?”

“I told you to leave me alone.” Bianca turned aside and tossed the dipper back into the pail with a splash.

“Is there trouble because of Alessio?”

Bianca gave no answer.

Used to Bianca’s willfulness, Lia, with the stolid doggedness of a Tuscan peasant, took the girl’s chin between thumb and forefinger and drew her back so that they were face-to-face.

Halfheartedly, Bianca slapped her nurse’s hand away, but it was a matter of pride that she did not turn her gaze aside as the older woman scrutinized her.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she demanded testily. “Have I sprouted horns? Turned into a Hydra?”