I nod and look back over the crowd, grateful to see Antonia no longer there. “That is a good belief, Signor di Rialto. You are a smart man.”
“Thank you, Signorina.” He pauses, perhaps to watch the crowd as well, and then says, “And please, call me Niccolo.”
His husky whisper is at my ear. I flinch in surprise and turn to see he’s covered the distance I put between us. He takes the radish from my hand and replaces it with a pear, grinning at me as his finger traces a lazy circle across my palm. I yank it back, my heart pounding in my chest. I shakily lift the fruit to my mouth and turn back to the crowd, frantically searching for Lorenzo.
But he’s already found me.
“Lorenzo!” I squeal, surprised and relieved to see him suddenly appear at my elbow. “I was looking for you. I am so glad you’re here.”
I drink in his dark-green doublet jacket, shockingly set off against his golden curls, and all the worries of the night and the creeptastic vibe rolling off Niccolo disappear. Lorenzo looks dashing and regal and all those other adjectives used to describe heroes in classic novels—but as I grin into his chocolate-brown eyes, I notice he’s not equally enamored of my presence. In fact, he’s not even looking at me. He’s nailing Niccolo with a lethal stare.
Niccolo’s previous grin vanishes as he meets Lorenzo’s hostile glare.
“Um, Niccolo was kind enough to instruct me in my first Italian dance,” I say, trying to break the tension. “And I only managed to step on his toes twice—okay, maybe a little more than that, but considering the public debacle at Antonia’s house, I’d say that’s an improvement.”
Not even a twitch of a smile from Lorenzo at my rambling self-deprecation.
The two of them remain locked in their silent challenge. Having a guy act jealous over me, ready to defend my honor, is not an experience I ever expected. And honestly, it sucks. If the two of them break into a brawl right now, it’ll ruin my aunt’s night. Not to mention whatever deal my uncle’s working on.
Lorenzo’s nostrils flare, and I put my hand on his tense arm. I don’t get it—Niccolo was acting skeezy and inappropriate, but he’s way too old for Lorenzo to honestly think of as competition!
Niccolo breaks the standoff and puts his hand on my elbow, a muscle jumping in his jaw when he sees my hand on Lorenzo’s arm. “Patience, I shall leave you now.” The words are directed at me, but he’s speaking straight at Lorenzo. “I have business to discuss with your uncle, but I will see you again tomorrow.”
He delivers that last word with a weird twinge to his voice and a sardonic smile. Then with a light squeeze on my elbow, Niccolo walks away.
Lorenzo’s chest rises rapidly as he watches Niccolo make his way alongside the edge of the dance floor to my uncle. Tension stiffens Lorenzo’s shoulders as Uncle Marco enthusiastically greets Niccolo, clapping him on the shoulder like an old friend.
This is so not how I envisioned the night going.
“Lorenzo?” I ask, trying to regain control of the situation. “Are you mad at me for something?”
His eyes, a stormy, roiling sea, snap back to me, and a shadow crosses his face. He shakes his head and closes his eyes, breathing in deeply. When he exhales audibly, his eyes open—sad but softer, the storm within subsided. “I am the one acting disagreeable. Nothing is your fault.” He takes a step back, his head hung low. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment.”
After a few more steps, he attempts a smile. Then the crowd swallows him.
I stare, dumbfounded, at the space he disappeared from, and then play back the last few minutes.
Did that really just happen? I blink and shake my head, but nothing changes.
“You certainly know how to keep things entertaining, cousin,” Alessandra says, walking up beside me.
“Less, did you see that?” I tear my gaze from the dance floor and throw my hands up in confusion. “What the heck just happened? Did I miss something? I mean, Niccolo’s flirting was borderline gross on a massive scale considering his age and all, but I don’t think Lorenzo even saw that. What is his deal?”
She wraps her arm around me. “I believe this is where your unfamiliarity with our time is most evident,” she says, casting a glance around to see if anyone is within listening distance. “Niccolo is held in high esteem by all of society. He is quite wealthy and pays his servants more than their share.” I cross my arms and lift my shoulders, not seeing how any of that connects to what just went down, and she heaves a sigh. Leveling me with an exasperated look, she explains, “Cat, Niccolo is at the age where he is ready to be married. A fact of which our young Lorenzo is quite aware.”
I laugh—hysterically. I can’t help it. It’s probably from exhaustion as much as mystification.
“Lorenzo cannot think Niccolo would really want me. I’m, like, less than half his age! That’s just…disgusting,” I tell her, wiggling my shoulders at the thought.
Alessandra shakes her head. “You are not thinking like a maiden from the sixteenth century. Niccolo has known my family for years, and I have secretly wondered if he would find me an agreeable match. But I am only fourteen, and so not yet of the age for marriage.”
I decide to let that revolting thought slide for now and ask, “Surely I’m not marriage age yet, either, right?”
In reply, Alessandra lifts her chin toward the open courtyard where the Stefani clan stands together. “Antonia is sixteen as well, and I believe she and her family have had designs on Signor di Rialto for quite some time.” I promptly choke on air, and she grins. “So you see, while it may not be the way things are done in the future, in my world, you are of a perfectly acceptable age for matrimony.”
“Yeah, well,” I sputter, scanning the dancing crowd again, this time seeing the age differences among the couples. My gaze lands on my aunt and uncle. I never really noticed or cared, but Uncle Marco’s easily into his fifties, and Aunt Francesca can’t be older than mid-thirties. I swallow and turn back to Alessandra. “You’re right. That is not how things are done where I come from.”
The song ends, and a horde of people swarm the refreshment table. We step to the side to make room, and I throw my pear on the tray for trash. I can’t eat. My appetite left with Lorenzo.
A young man separates himself from the group and walks up to Alessandra, looking shy and awkward. “Eh, m-may I have the pleasure of this next dance, Signorina D’Angeli?” he asks, his voice squeaking at the end.
Her pale white neck turns crimson as she nods. She turns back to me and widens her eyes. I raise an eyebrow and mouth, “He’s cute.” She flattens her mouth in a nervous grimace, and I give her a push. With a squeak, she lets him escort her to the floor.
A new dance begins, this one mostly involving a lot of walking back and forth and pausing before turning in a circle. To keep from thinking about Lorenzo, I watch the couples dance in unison. The circular patterns they make and the array of colorful skirts swishing across the floor are interesting at first, but as they repeat the same steps over and over, I grow incredibly bored incredibly fast. My thoughts turn back to my Renaissance hottie, as they have so many times the last few days. I wish he’d come back. Now that I know why he reacted the way he did, I can kind of understand.
He was still a hothead, but at least an understandable hothead.
Near the end of the song, I get my wish. I spot him making his way toward me. He bites his lip, looking sheepish, and any annoyance I still hold vanishes instantly. I smile at him, and the etched lines in his face disappear.
“You are an angel, a vision sent from Signore,” he says, repeating the line he gave me at the marketplace. He grins and looks at the ground. “When we first met, I thought you could never be more beautiful—but I was wrong.” He lifts his head, and warmth pools in my belly. “Tonight, you shine brighter than any diamond.”
Now this is more like it.
A passing couple bumps into Lorenzo from behind, and the two men share apologies. He waits until they have walked away before sayin
g, “I must apologize for my reprehensible behavior earlier. I thought—” He breaks off and shakes his head, then meets my gaze. “It matters not what I thought. I acted dishonorably toward your guest, and it is my prayer that you can forgive me.”
I place my hand on his arm. “There is nothing to forgive.”
The intense look he gives me makes my breath catch. “I would ask for the honor of the next dance, but I must confess I have never been very good at it. I fear Signore graced me with two left feet.”
I look out at the dancers as they repeat the same boring, silly steps again and shake my head. “You know, back home we have a much simpler dance.” I stop as a crazy idea takes shape in my mind. Stepping closer, I whisper, “Meet me outside by the garden.”
He furrows his brow, and I smile, then I take off through the crowd.
Outside, the cool air is a welcome relief to the crowded room fueled by body heat. There are pockets of people milling about, but I know the perfect spot. Tucked away in the back of the courtyard is a garden filled with large shrubs and fragrant flowers, where the sound of the music still hangs in the air. The glow of the candlelight just reaches it, but it is dark enough so we can avoid discovery.
As I wait for Lorenzo, I consider which dance to teach him. One option is the good old “press your bodies together and sway” bit that most couples do at school dances, but as much as Lorenzo flaunts society’s rules when it comes to flirting with me, that may just scandalize the poor boy. So instead, I decide on the waltz.
Dad taught it to me when I was a little girl standing on his feet, and since then, it’s been our thing. He loves putting on his old records—yes, the man still owns records—and coaxing me off the comfortable sofa to dance around the living room. And although I don’t believe in falling in love or getting married, as we dance, I always pretend it’s my wedding day. When I was younger, my groom was always my dad, and as I grew older, the groom morphed into whatever teen celebrity was hot at the moment. But waltzing with Lorenzo won’t be a game of pretend.
My heart pounds in excitement.
“Patience?”
Lorenzo’s cautious voice cuts through the night air, and I step out from the darkened space. “I thought we agreed you’d call me Cat,” I tease in a playful voice, suddenly feeling a bit seductive.
Back home, I’ve never trusted a guy’s motives for approaching me. It’s always been about my parents—who they are, the connections they have, and what people assume I’ll be like because of them—so if and when a guy did approach me, I pushed him away with witty comments or casual indifference. I assumed that if I had been built with the flirtatious gene everyone else seems to have naturally, my non-use made it die a slow and painful death.
But being with Lorenzo has woken something inside me. When I’m with him, I feel nervous and giddy, desired and sexy. I don’t want to push him away—I want to pull him closer and closer.
Maybe I inherited a bit of that temptress side from Mom, after all.
Lorenzo’s perfectly shaped lips kick up into a smile. “My apologies, Signorina.” He looks around my secret rendezvous spot and rubs his palms together, almost as if he’s actually nervous, and my pulse pounds harder. “Whatever do you plan to do with me in such a hidden place, Cat?”
I stare at those perfect lips, remembering our kiss.
Oh, I have a few ideas.
Aloud I say, “I’m all dressed up, and I want to dance. With you.”
He starts to squirm, and I can’t help but giggle. I grab his right hand and wrap it around me so it rests on the middle of my back. He’s so close I can feel his warm breath fan across my face. My eyelids flutter, and I inhale his woodsy male scent and get drunk on his nearness.
It’s funny. I tried all day to get a good buzz to take the edge off my nerves, and all I needed was Lorenzo. This natural high doesn’t relax me, however. It electrifies me.
Lorenzo pulls me closer, then looks at my mouth and bites his lip. My knees go weak, and all I want to do is grab the back of his head and kiss him until I can’t see straight—but I’m determined to have my vision play out. There will be plenty of time for that later.
“I thought I’d teach you a dance from where I come from,” I tell him. “One that’s much easier than that multi-step mess inside.”
I place my left hand on his shoulder and slip my right one into his. I pause to listen to the music floating over the tinkling voices and bubbling fountain, then begin counting the three-beat tempo. “One, two, three. One, two, three.”
I stand still, only my head moving, slowly nodding with my words so he can hear the rhythm.
When his head begins subtly bobbing with mine, I show him how to add his feet. He takes a tentative step forward with his left while I step back with my right, then we sidestep, close, and repeat the steps with our other feet, all while I lightly whisper the beat count.
The breeze picks up, blowing my skirt and skimming my veil across the back of my neck. Chills run down my spine, but the warmth coursing through my veins from being in his arms provides a delicious contradiction.
Lorenzo continues nervously darting his eyes to our feet, but he is dancing. As he relaxes into the movement, his shoulders rising and falling with the steps, the confidence he always seems to exude creeps back onto his face, and he tightens his hold around me. Our faces are kissably close, our lips a hair’s breadth away from touching.
I stare into the chocolate depths of his eyes, and the rest of the ball fades away. The only music guiding our steps is my light whisper and the erratic rhythm of our breathing. Time slows. Lorenzo grins.
“I think you got it,” I say breathlessly, running my hand along the soft fabric of his shoulder, feeling the rock-hard muscles underneath.
My body curls inward, pressing against his. The proper form for the waltz is a straight spine and shoulders back, but if there was ever a time to break the rules, this is it. I lay my cheek against his chest, hearing the staccato beat of his heart. My hand slides up the length of his arm, over his shoulder, and around his neck. His breath catches, but he slips his other arm around my back, pressing me even closer. Longing makes my stomach swirl, and I’m lost in unprecedented want.
Our steps slow until we are standing still, holding onto each other. I raise my head, and Lorenzo’s gaze travels from my eyes, to my mouth, and back again, asking for permission.
I lick my lips, and he draws in a breath.
One of his hands travels slowly across my waist, inching up the soft silk of my bodice to my chin. His other hand skims along my arm, and he cups my jaw in his hands, the tips of his fingers buried in my hair. Tilting my face toward his, he leans down and trails a line of soft kisses from my forehead, to my feathered-closed eyelids, to the tip of my nose, and finally to my mouth.
Our second kiss is gentle and passionate, tentative and hungry, all at once. My fingers thread through his curls and clasp around his head, tugging him to me. He tastes like the wildflower-honey pastries inside, sweet and intoxicating. I explore his mouth, starting with his soft lips, and when he deepens the kiss, the warm cavern inside. I sigh against him, and a tremor rocks my body. He breaks away from the kiss, his dazed eyes meeting mine, making sure I’m okay before he kisses me again and again—our lips settling into the rhythm of a different dance.
His thumbs draw light circles along my cheeks. I suck on his lower lip, and the moan that escapes his throat makes me ache.
A rough cough breaks our trance. Lorenzo rips his lips away from mine and pulls me behind him, shielding me with his body. He looks out into the darkness, searching for anyone who could be spying on us. After a few moments, and after my breathing has almost returned to normal, he slowly turns to look at me. His lips are swollen and flushed crimson. I lean on tiptoe to kiss him again, but he steps back with pain in his eyes.
I shiver, instantly colder without his body heat. I wrap my arms around my chest and look at the ground.
Did I do something wrong?
“I could not live with myself if we were to be discovered,” he says, his fingers lacing through mine. “Your reputation could be ruined.” I shake my head, not caring about reputations or discovery, and he presses a gentle kiss to my hand. “Cat, trust that I do not wish to leave your arms tonight. Not ever. But this is a ball in celebration of you, and I will not be the cause of your ruination. Now make haste back to the ballroom. I shall wait a moment, then follow so we will not appear to have been together.”
The whole cloak-and-dagger scenario seems ridiculous, but I see the determination in Lorenzo’s eyes, along with the fear. Nodding regretfully, I smooth down my dress to make sure I don’t look rumpled. I pat my hair and breathe deeply. I take a step and turn back, leaning in to press a final kiss against his lips.
Then I flee to the party, running away while I still can.
In the candlelit courtyard, I make my way to the crowded ballroom with my head down. As I pass the fountain, my thoughts are on Lorenzo and the amazing feelings shooting throughout my body, and I fail to pay attention to my surroundings.
“Having an agreeable time, Patience?”
I look up into Antonia’s smirk, and for the first time, I get what Lorenzo was so worried about. Did she see where I came from? I quickly glance back, telepathically begging Lorenzo to stay hidden just a little while longer.
“Of course; everything’s perfect,” I say, walking away and hoping she’ll follow.
The smirk never wavers as she slowly falls in step behind me. We are almost to the wall of doors leading inside when she looks back, just as Lorenzo scampers out from behind the garden. He sees us standing together and freezes, eyes wide.
Bowing uncomfortably, he says, “Ladies.” When he stands back up, I see the panic in his eyes. Of all the people to discover us, Antonia has to be the worst.
She chuckles as she watches him dash inside. “My, my, my. Tonight has certainly been enlightening. It’s a pity so few have come outside to enjoy the fresh air—you could say the real night’s entertainment is here.”
My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century Page 15
