Better to remain silent and keep her counsel. Yet, willful as a child, the words tumbled forth.
“The brothers were always quarreling. In the end, Innocenzo drew his blade.” She wondered how much she dared tell him. Never the whole of it, that much was certain. “The night it happened, Casimiro was…angry with me. Innocenzo overheard the disturbance, and…flung himself into it. Later, I testified before the inquisitor that the death—the deaths—were accidental.”
For she could never confess that, even while Casimiro loomed over her, battering her with his fists, she’d seen behind him Innocenzo’s deadly rush. Seen her husband’s death yawning in his brother’s cold black eyes, but said nothing to warn the Devil she’d married. Nay, in the heartbeat she had to react, she’d thrust Casimiro backward into his reach.
While other women gave birth to innocent babes, she spawned only grief and disaster.
Joscelin pulled her to a stop, peering down at her with an uneasy blend of fascination and concern. “And so? Your brother-by-marriage killed him?”
“At the last moment, Casimiro twisted aside. The blow he suffered was not immediately—fatal.” The icy fog of memory closed around her, making her shiver. “Santa Maria, they battled like tigers, overturning furniture, smashing the mirrors, cursing and snarling like beasts—”
“God-a-mercy!” His brow furrowed with honest outrage. “What manner of knave draws his sword before a defenseless woman?”
“Defenseless?” Guilt stabbed through her. “Signor, don’t deceive yourself. No woman could survive that marriage without learning to defend herself. I was taught by a master, you may well believe.”
Indeed, it was self-defense that had driven her to Italy’s most feared assassin. For the Hand of God would not refuse her, of all women living.
She resumed walking, turning away from the sincerity that could weaken her. But he kept pace, steadied her when her foot slipped on the ice.
“Casimiro buried his sword in his brother’s belly,” she said. “Gutted him like a fish in our own bed. But Innocenzo managed to wound him, and it…festered.”
How could it not, when the Hand of God had given Innocenzo the adder’s venom that poisoned his blade? Casimiro had never stood a chance—no more chance than he’d ever given her, when he raised his fist.
“The count died in agony,” she whispered. “If God is just, his soul is still burning.”
Compassion and skepticism battled in his features. “Didn’t you inherit the Grimaldi gold—you and your children?”
“I took not so much as a ducat when I left! After six years of servicing the demands of a brute and a sadist, I left that house with the gown on my back. And you may be certain I bore no child.”
Nay, she’d done what she must to ensure she would not quicken. Her deadly knowledge of herbs had wrought that much good, at least.
In silence, they reached their destination. Now the courtiers clustered around a bear-baiting—one of the king’s favorite amusements. The chained beast roared as it swung massive claws at the hounds that harried it. Blood dripped from the bear’s flanks to spatter the ice.
Despising the senseless cruelty, Allegra shuddered and looked away.
Only moments until this interlude must end, both risk and opportunity lost. Swiftly she thought of Lorenzo Campeggio with his malice and his knowing smiles. The Boleyns stood close to Henry’s ear—none closer.
Could she dare to hope this open-faced knight, penny-poor but blazing with honor, would take her part when the cardinal slandered her? Should she arm Sir Joscelin Boleyn with the weapon of truth? For he could wield it to her benefit, or turn it against her.
“No doubt you’ll hear it said I was questioned for my husband’s murder.” She skipped over the words, as though the ordeal were of no account. As though she would not carry the scars until the day she died. “But they could find no evidence, as dead men tell no tales, and I declined to confess.” She flung back her head with a spark of defiance. “In truth, I was relieved by his death. Am I not wicked to say so?”
Doubt and distaste furrowed his features. Now he would despise her—as he should, as he must. For she was as guilty as Bathsheba of her husband’s death, though it was Innocenzo’s act that killed him, and the Hand who delivered God’s justice. She had not even urged him on—except in her heart. Her hands were bathed in blood, and she could never be cleansed, no matter what penance the priests assigned her.
“If this is so,” Joscelin asked, “how did you escape?”
“Oh, Don Maximo entered my life,” she said bitterly, her gaze sliding away. “He…discovered me in prison, one could say. It suited him to arrange my release.”
Allegra left it there—let him tumble to the obvious conclusion and be diverted from the dangerous truth. Don Maximo came to Genoa to hire an assassin, but she could never tell Joscelin that.
“So he whisked you from your cell and installed you in his bed? And now you serve Spain. The very nation that tramples yours under its boots?”
Her pride flashed forth to meet his, like dueling blades that clashed in battle.
“My nation of birth is La Serenissima! Great Venice—the mightiest of all the Italian states, and free of all foreign masters. If Spain and France choose to bicker over Genoa, that thieves’ den of penny-pinchers and usurious bankers, what is that to me?”
“You’re a countess, signora, by marriage if not by birth! Where is your pride, to tumble in one night from a noble title to the Spaniard’s bed?”
“Oh, why not say it outright?” Now the cold fire of rage kindled in her blood—she, who never allowed herself the luxury of emotion. “How can I descend from contessa to whore?”
“Oui!” He all but shouted the word, reddening beneath his sun-browned skin. “Faithless and fickle some women may be, swerving from bed to bed if it betters their lot. But you had a title and estates, a place others would kill to occupy. Whatever manner of man your husband was, at least you had your honor. Now all men call you the Spanish Ambassador’s mistress—and that when they show restraint. How can you be contented with that?”
“Contented?” The word was acid on her tongue. Men called her whore and worse. Indeed, her husband had been the first. She’d thought herself resigned to it, part of the price she paid for her mistakes, until this bitter flood of anger stole her strength. Fiercely she wrenched her arm free. “What makes you think I have a choice in the matter?”
Surprise flickered across his face, checking the words he’d begun to fire back. He pushed a hand through his hair, and had the grace to look chagrined. “Signora, I—”
“Never mind, Sir Joscelin,” she said wearily. “My tangled life is none of your affair.”
Awareness of her surroundings came rushing back, the prickling sense of heads turning toward this unlikely spat between the bastard Boleyn and the Spaniard’s mistress. She donned her glittering court mask and smiled.
“I must thank you for your escort and your assistance with the wolf,” she said coolly, her gaze sliding past him. “I should return now to the palace.”
“Attendez!” He reached for her. “Contessa, wait.”
Tucking away her regret with all the other dangerous emotions this man stirred in her, she dipped into a curtsey. “Arrivederci, signor. This is how Italians say good-bye.”
“Wait, damn it!”
But she spun away, knowing he’d be unwilling to create a spectacle—he, a diplomat newly come to court, his position not yet secure. She hurried across the ice with her false smile pinned in place, past the ranks of staring faces.
Santa Maria, what had possessed her to fly at him in such a fashion?
God save me from Maximo’s wrath when he hears of this.
Chapter Five
When Allegra returned to the palace, Don Maximo’s summons was waiting.
One level glance into Fausto’s hollow eyes, burning with a messiah’s fanaticism, and she knew the Spanish priest had tailed her. He’d witnessed her ill-timed quarr
el with Sir Joscelin Boleyn and hurried to spill the story into his master’s ears.
She found the don in the courtyard putting his Andalusian stallion through his paces. Waiting for his acknowledgement, she watched the pair in motion: muscles rippling against the stallion’s ebony coat, fringed hooves the size of dinner plates delicately striking the earth.
In his saddle, the don perched lightly as a sparrow on a twig, his poniard a streak of cruelty at his belt.
He was showing off for someone, she thought, as he coaxed the black into a sinuous sidestep, forelegs crossing one before the next. She glanced around the courtyard at the guards in livery manning the gates, the functionaries bustling importantly about, the cluster of admiring courtiers who watched the Spanish Ambassador work his prized mount.
With an unpleasant start, she came to the truth—he was showing off for her. The tangled web of deception and hatred bound them tight together, but the throbbing vein of passion ran deep between them too. His desire to possess her, and her fervor to be free of him.
As the Andalusian curvetted before her, Don Maximo drew rein against the arched neck.
“So, my treasure. A passamezzo last night, and a different sort of dance this morning with the Boleyn bastard. Already the gossips are saying you’ve bewitched him.”
A bolt of dread sank her stomach to her shoes. Spurred by fear, she spoke with convincing contempt. “The gossips will say anything, especially when I’m the subject. Our scandalous arrangement makes certain of that.”
“Yet I find it curious, my pet, that knowing my interest in Boleyn affairs, you have not seen fit to mention this one.”
“Would you have me proclaim every mongrel knight who asks me to dance?” She voiced a careless laugh. “Santo Spirito, next you’ll have me thinking you’re jealous.”
His silver eyes sliced through her like stilettos, stopping her heart. With icy precision, he brought the Andalusian to a prancing halt.
“Your Boleyn is a newcomer here,” he said, so quiet she could barely hear him. “You had better warn him, my Allegra, that you are a dangerous woman to woo.”
With a sidelong glance toward their observers, she laid her hand against the stallion’s velvet nose. Liquid brown eyes met her gaze, the beast harnessed as surely as she to his master’s bidding.
“You wanted me close to the Boleyns.” She stared into the horse’s eyes. “Indeed, you insisted on it. I pursue your ends, Excellency, but my tactics are my own.”
“You pursue my ends…after a fashion. Despite your troubling reluctance to do what the Hand of God trained you for—and your avoidance of my bed.”
“We made a parley when I joined your service.” Nausea churned in her belly. “I slink and spy and serve your ends, but my bed is my own.”
“You have nothing of your own, Allegra Nerezza Grimaldi.” His whiplash voice made her flinch. “I own you, body and soul.”
“No.” She felt sickened. He held her tether—the cord that bound her family to his perilous mercy. He need only tighten his grip to choke her.
“We appear to be drawing an audience, my dear.” He glanced at the curious spectators. “Come up and ride before me. Let Polyphemus show you his new tricks.”
Allegra stared with loathing at his extended hand. White teeth gleamed in his goatee as he waited, calmly certain of his advantage.
“You are the Devil,” she whispered, placing her hand in his.
“And you the Devil’s Mistress.” Gracefully he swung her up before him, cream velvet skirts spilling down the Andalusian’s shoulder. “Therefore, we are admirably suited.”
He nudged the stallion to a rippling trot, smooth as water pouring over rock. While they circled the courtyard, Allegra held apart from his lean deadly length. The dark spice of ambergris made her stomach heave.
Bowing the stallion’s neck into a perfect arch, the don placed a hand at her waist—controlling both his creatures with a touch. Allegra stared straight ahead, impassive. He thought her indifferent to his charms, and that was her only shield. If he ever discerned her revulsion, he would never cease tormenting her.
The don breathed in her ear, hot as the breath of Hell.
“Did I ever tell you, my pet, when I first learned to admire you? It was during our first interview in your prison cell…while the air still stank of burning flesh, and the walls still echoed your screams.”
Allegra closed her eyes against the surge of memory. The long-healed scars on her palms and soles ached dully.
“I remember,” she whispered.
“Your inquisitors were waiting, do you recall, to resume their business when we concluded? Yet you dared to bargain with me over terms. Any other woman would have snatched up any offer, and praised God on her knees for it.”
“You agreed to those terms.” She kept her voice level. “I consented to become your hunting hawk, flying to the lure, spying out the land, then returning tamely to your hand. I abandoned all dignity to masquerade as your mistress, to explain my presence at the Tudor court—abandoned my honor and reputation, in exchange for my life. At the time, it seemed a fair bargain.”
“How smoothly you gloss over my achievement. Lest you forget, I deprived the cardinal and his inquisitors of the supreme pleasure of burning you at the stake. No easy feat, as they were quite set upon it.”
“I am hardly likely to forget.” She felt desperate to escape him. “The stink of this English barnyard is making me sick. I wish to dismount.”
“Yet you dared to put me off,” he marveled, “until I agreed to your conditions. ‘Mistress in name only’ was what we agreed, though I did fancy you’d succumb to my charms. Now it appears I’ve purchased an assassin in name only as well.”
So, they came to the heart of his discontent—a choler that could prove deadly. Somehow, Allegra managed to speak calmly.
“I made an attempt on her only last night, Your Excellency. Now we must wait, let her watchdog of a brother lapse back to complacence—”
“You have until Twelfth Night.” Don Maximo touched his whip to the Andalusian. The stallion shifted to a canter, rocking her back against the don.
“Twelfth Night!” she cried. “Santa Maria, you’re mad. I need more time to plan—”
“You have eleven days,” he said, indifferent. “Now that our cardinal has come, Henry will be after him night and day to render judgment. While I consider it possible—even likely—that Rome will rule against the divorce, I do not care to leave the matter to chance.”
“If I succeed, you’ll be the prime suspect. With so little time to plan, I can’t arrange a complex diversion.”
“Why, my dear Allegra.” He leaned into her, his hand intimate at her waist. “I have already conceived of one. Tell me truly now, how do matters stand between your new admirer Sir Joscelin Boleyn and his full-blooded kin?”
Oh, be wary. Prickles of alarm ran through her. The casual malice in the don’s question put her on full alert.
“Mistress Anne treats him coolly,” she said. “I’ve not yet seen him with the others.”
“Our chevalier George spews out spite to his intimates. Clearly, he feels threatened by his father’s affection for the bastard. While our haughty Lady Rochford considers her husband’s by-blow a perfect disgrace. Where do you suppose I am taking this, Allegra?”
Instinct whispered the answer in her ear. “I can’t imagine. You are too sly for me.”
“Oh, come now, you are a quicker pupil than that. Why will the discord between this half-French mongrel and his English kin serve our purpose?”
She could no longer pretend to miss his meaning. Shivers worked through her, knotting her muscles. The wind cut through her gown like an assassin’s blade.
“You think to poison Mistress Anne,” she said, “and frame Sir Joscelin for the crime.”
“Precisely.” His breath hissed. “Thus we slay two French birds with one stone. The king’s Great Whore to her coffin, and Boleyn’s bastard to the scaffold. Then two more heretic
s shall burn in Hell. Not a poor day’s work for our Savior, is it?”
Appalled, Allegra struggled to show nothing. Gesù, why should she be shocked? The don was a rigidly orthodox Catholic who abhorred any hint of heresy. But what great wrong Sir Joscelin had committed to draw the don’s particular ire she could not imagine. The man had done nothing to deserve so foul a fate, of that she was certain.
No matter. For I will not do it. The very thought of betraying the forthright, plain-spoken man who’d saved her life put steel in her spine. But Don Maximo held all the cards, and the deck was stacked in his favor.
“Your scheme is chancy.” The wind snatched her words away. “It’s not so simple to frame a man for murder—even for a Borgia. Why would the man slay his own sister, the very stepping-stone for his rise?”
“Ah, but she dislikes him. Perhaps she’s spoken against him to Henry, and the bastard considers her an impediment.”
“How utterly absurd,” she said coolly. “No matter their family squabbles, the Boleyns stand together against all others.”
“They’ll turn on the bastard quick enough, with Henry wild to lop off heads.” The don curbed his stallion to a prancing walk. “In his grief and fury, the king will never heed the voice of reason. Even if Sir Joscelin manages to escape the scaffold, his shining reputation will be tarnished forever. God willing, the allegation alone will destroy him.”
And why is that important to you? So far as she knew, the pair had never crossed paths. Don Maximo might despise the Boleyns, but he was an exceeding pragmatist, a devout adherent to that scribbler Machiavelli and his cold-blooded treatise.
When Maximo Montoya deployed her dark arts to fly arrow-swift to the target, his motives were never personal.
“Allow me to alight, if you please, Excellency. You’ve given me a great deal to arrange.”
“Very well, my pet, but do not drag your feet about the matter. You have until Twelfth Night to achieve my bidding.”
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