“It’s over now, my love.”
“Most of Angel’s memories are terrible like that, but she saw me in the dreams, too,” Falcon said.
“More will come.” Roman sounded so certain. Falcon only wished he were right.
He gave an exasperated sigh. “I haven’t told her yet.”
“Don’t worry,” Amelie said. “Just being with you helps her remember some things.”
“Curtain’s going up.” Roman smiled in that chiding way that was beginning to annoy Falcon.
* * * *
There was a chorus of anticipation on the other side of the curtain in the Teatro di San Carlo. It was a humming not unlike the adrenaline coursing through her veins and just as loud.
Sacha felt wired and ready to spring like the wound coils of the Stradivarius.
The violin was familiar and cool against her fevered cheek. She commanded the notes, but she’d never played for such a large group.
The symphony would be televised. There were cameras flashing everywhere as if this was a movie premiere.
She had already met some of the masters assembled tonight, composers and musicians she had only read about. She had never imagined that one day she would be standing among them in this historical opera house. But this is what she had longed for, to play before such a crowd.
She envied the composure of the musician sitting next to her. His violin rested on his shoulder and he had one leg stretched out, relaxed. He was a musician who had played in the Teatro di San Carlo many times before.
The man’s kind brown eyes crinkled up at the sides like the Maestro’s when he was pleased with her playing. “Feel the notes, Signorina. Block all else from your mind, and you will see that all of heaven and earth will take notice.”
Sacha nodded. Those were words she had heard from the Maestro often in his gruff way. She thought of her last night with the Maestro.
“Angelo di Luce…that is what I call her.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed. “Angel of Light,” she whispered the Maestro’s pet name for her.
“A fine name, eh? And fitting, for she is yours now.”
“Maestro, I couldn’t!”
“You will play the finest houses. When you play, I’ll be listening.”
“But you play the Stradivarius.”
The Maestro snorted. “Not in a very long time.”
“You will play again…”
He put a hand over hers. Warm but rough as his teaching style, and she would not have changed him for the world. “You are ready, Angelo di Luce.”
Sacha looked around, expecting to see the Maestro standing next to her.
The curtain went up and the Teatro di San Carlo’s horseshoe-shaped auditorium with its opulent red and gold interior hushed to expectant silence.
Angelo di Luce. Sacha composed herself. What good is a dream coming true if you are not prepared for it?
The conductor signaled and they played the opening of Arcangelo Corelli’s Violin Concerto No.1. The flowing melody, chromatic in some parts, was similar to the Maestro’s harmonic preferences. He was there, smiling with eyes closed while he enjoyed the music.
Red and gold swirled in the purest blue as the theater gave way to a salon.
Armand sat on a white powdered sofa with blue velvet cushions. He accompanied her … on the Stradivarius. She was sitting behind a white baby grand, her fingers flying over the keys. There was so much joy in their playing together…
Sacha’s eyes flew open. She kept them open now. No longer nervous, she now feared she might have dozed off in the middle of the concerto and dreamed the vision.
I don’t play the piano. And yet the feeling of déjà vu was overwhelming. She knew where Armand sat with her, in the parlor where they played together. They had played this very concerto in that parlor.
The concerto came to an end to deafening applause.
Sacha scanned the dark theatre. Armand and the rest of the family were sitting in the boxes to her left but she couldn’t see much of them.
In front of a crowd of over fourteen hundred patrons, she had to tamp down the urge to get up and find him. She was filled with so many questions that she was crazy to think he had the answers to.
But she had to talk to him.
The conductor signaled.
Sacha wanted to run off stage. However, years of discipline made her automatically reposition the violin. She put her face against the chin rest to begin the Concerto Grosso in G Minor, Opus 6: 8.
The Christmas concerto was scored such that the violins took a break while the cellos played the movement. Sacha had a few moments to compose herself.
The dream in which Armand had asked for her hand in marriage was more than a by-product of her concerns over their relationship. It felt different, like a memory.
Had it actually happened?
Now was not the time to wonder such impossible thoughts. She concentrated on the music. When Opus 1:12 was done, the ensemble stood once more amidst resounding applause.
“Do you see, Signorina? It all comes back to you.” The kind violinist stood next to her when the curtain came down. “When you play with your heart, the world knows.”
“Yes, with your heart…” Sacha was already making her way through the prop room backstage. She felt light-headed with questions.
She had always loved the classics. Even as a little girl, she had played them perfectly. Much too perfectly.
Did the music I love come back to me from some other time? Maybe a time I had spent with Armand?
The two warring muses on her shoulders were lost for words at last. All the questions she had formed in her mind during the performance seemed too fantastic now to speak out loud.
What would Armand think? How will I explain this feeling—no, belief—that I cannot ignore?
“Angel!” Armand scooped her up in his arms. His kiss held no regard for their prior agreement to forgo intimate contact until they knew each other better.
But that seemed such nonsense now. She could not deny him, and suspected they had known each other for a very long time.
Armand leaned his forehead against hers and his eyes held a luminous glow. “Duke Eduardo Falco has invited us to his estate this weekend. After hearing you play tonight, he is so impressed that he is loaning the Colossus to you indefinitely.”
“Really?” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “The Stradivarius will remain with me!” She lowered her voice. “Armand, we need to talk.”
“Bravo!” Her parents were approaching.
Armand put her down in a whirl of black tulle and satin. Surrounded by the family, she would not be able to talk to Armand. She turned to him, and he winked.
“May I steal her away for a minute?” Armand pulled her through an alcove.
“Armand…” She dragged him into a corner under one of the bronze wall sconces. A halo of light fell over them.
Now that she stood before him, she did not know how to begin.
“What’s on your mind, Angel?”
“During the concerto I saw us together. You played the Stradivarius and I played a baby grand. It seemed so real. We were in the parlor.” There was a light in his eyes. Her heart started pumping faster.
“It is coming back to you.”
“It is real, then?” she whispered, though no one was near enough to hear. She leaned back against the wall because she wasn’t certain she could stand on her own. “When?”
“A long time ago.” Armand was looking at something on the wall behind her. A slow smile spread across his face.
Sacha followed his gaze to the painting on the wall. The raven-haired couple was sitting on a white powdered sofa with blue velvet cushions, heads bowed together. The young man in black breeches and a waistcoat bent toward his lady, who wore a long gown. Matching kid slippers peeked out from the lace across her hem in late Baroque fashion.
Tinkling laughter drifted around her as the girl in the painting smiled at her beau.
An inscription un
der the portrait read:
Donated by Duke Carlo Francis Falco
1854 A.D.
“The Marchese Falco had always been a generous patron of the arts,” she murmured, and then put a hand over her mouth. “Did I say that?”
He kissed her. “You certainly did, Angel.”
“Is that us?”
“He was Duke by the time he gave this gift to the theatre, and in his sixties.” Armand said quietly, and then his smile returned. “Your sister was a very talented painter.”
“Sister?”
Armand stared at the portrait. “Such a mischievous Margaux. You haven’t changed, you know. Here at the Teatro di San Carlo, he and his fiancée would always be surrounded by the music they loved.”
“His fiancée? We … they never married?”
His laughter was filled with relief, desire and all the things she loved about him.
Armand put an arm around her bare shoulders. “I’ll explain later, Angel. They’re waiting for us.”
* * * *
Sacha padded barefoot out of the bedroom and plopped down next to him on the sofa. She crossed her legs and the tulle underskirt covered his tuxedo pants.
Falcon kissed her and handed her a flute of champagne. “I was scheduled to return to New York when Granger told me the violin was in Italy. Cara, were it not for my interest in the violin, we would not be together now.”
“I would have gone back to England after the symphony.” Sacha fell silent.
He would be consumed with New York’s unsavory denizens while she carried on with the only love she was aware of, music. But she did not fully understand the import of the violin, so he went on.
“Do you remember when we first met you were familiar to me and I thought I’d seen you before in Asnieres-Sur-Seine?”
“I thought you were remembering how we played together when I was a little girl, and how I loved you.” Sacha drained the flute, and hiccupped. She handed him the glass. “How many was that?”
“Including what you drank at il Ducato?”
“Never mind.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “The celebration is over for now or I’ll be comatose before you tell me everything, and the story will have to wait until the next life.”
Leaning back against the sofa, he wrapped his arms around her. “The night you ran from the apartment, the bump on the head knocked me out. Somehow, I went back to that time in Italy, after … one year after we met and we fell in love.”
“In the time of this king I dream of?”
“In the late seventeen hundreds, aristocrats were not safe in France under the rule of King Louis XVI. The Comte and his family were preparing to leave the chateau when they were attacked. They never boarded that ship bound for England, but were trapped inside the burning chateau. I think you have been dreaming of that fire.”
Angel turned in his arms and her eyes met his. “Margaux…”
He nodded. “Margaux Angelina d’ Avril, the Comte d’Avril’s second daughter. Somewhere inside you there is a memory of that time, and it is coming through in your dreams.”
“Sometimes there is a man talking with this king in my dreams.”
“The Comte was a member of the Estates General.”
“My father and the king,” she whispered.
“We met at the palace in Versailles. I’ve loved you ever since. We were to be married, but two weeks after I asked for your hand in marriage you…died in the fire.”
“Yes… You said you loved me in the garden. How is this possible?”
“I don’t know, Angel, but I know that it happened. There is something else. Margaux played the pianoforte, and Marchese Falco played the violin.”
“The second set of instruments. That is us playing together.” A single tear coursed down her cheek.
“You see, you do remember.” Falcon brushed the tear from her cheek. “After the fire I went back to Asnieres-Sur-Seine, hoping there was some mistake, but you were lost to me. I grieved for so long I didn’t want to live anymore.”
“The Stradivarius you have searched for all this time reunited us.” Angel leaned her head against his. “I am so sorry, my love.”
“It was the Stradivarius that kept me alive—until I went to Forlì.” He told her of La Verità and investigating il Dragone.
“This is how you knew where they had taken me.”
“It is incredible, but a blessing. I would never have found you without having lived through the pain of losing you two centuries ago.”
“Margaux died so young, did Marchese Falco marry another?”
“Her name was Livia, a peasant girl. It wasn’t the match his father had originally hoped for, but he accepted it.”
“You were one of Duke Eduardo Falco’s great-grandfathers. I wish I could remember it all.”
“The dreams are frightening, but they are the key in helping you remember. And I’ll help you.” His lips brushed hers. “Do you forgive me?”
“If you forgive me. I love you so much.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and he carried her into the bedroom.
“We belong to each other, Angel.”
He set her down on the side of the bed in a rustle of black silk. Digging into his pocket, he knelt before her.
“I love you, Sacha Angelina Cardiff, now and forever.” He slipped the canary yellow diamond on her finger. “Will you finally do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
“Yes,” Angel sobbed, and then squealed, “Yes, yes, yes!” She pulled him up on the bed. His tux and her tulle ended up in a pile on the floor.
When Angel was wearing nothing but the huge solitaire that matched her tiger’s eyes, she said. “I’ve missed you so very much.”
He covered her with his body. “Promise that you will never go to bed angry at me again.”
“When you are not there, will you call me, no matter where you are, so that I don’t worry?”
“Deal.”
She giggled. “Let’s kiss on it.”
Her skin drew him, so sleek and warm. He inhaled her scent, wrapping his arms around her, holding her close, enjoying the feel of her nipples against him.
“I don’t suppose we … you know … back then?”
“Margaux wanted to wait until the wedding and Marchese Falco was trying hard to be the noble gentleman.”
“Margaux died a virgin.”
Falcon stopped nibbling her neck. “Do you think the Marchese Falco shirked his duty?” When he thought of that hellish time, he had endured after Margaux’s death he considered it a very real possibility and now felt compelled to explain. “It was an honor, a gift that young women in those days gave their husband.”
“The life together that Margaux and Marchese Falco missed, it is tragic.”
“Margaux would not go against her parent’s wishes.”
“Quite right.” Angel appeared to be mollified by his explanation, but her eyes were filled with mischief. Her hand traveled down. “So, you mean she would not have done this.” She gripped him, stroking her hand up and down.
He groaned, and her lips quirked into a satisfied grin.
“It is … hard … to imagine.” Falcon removed her hand and clasped it on the pillow above her head. “Ah, Angel, love found a way and for that I am grateful because I will never get enough of you, in this life or the next.”
He impaled her on a very hard shaft.
“Ah-h…” was all Angel could manage. In the next breath, she wrapped her legs around him.
Now it was his turn to give her a satisfied grin. But neither of them was satisfied yet, and he was beginning to feel like he was shirking his duty.
Falcon moved in and out of her slowly until that wasn’t enough, until their limbs slammed together in satisfying heat, their bodies’ slick with exertion, until she cried out his name. He rammed into her one last time, pushing her down into the mattress when he filled her.
Chapter Fifteen
There was no reason to wait. The first week of November,
a week after the Arcangelo Corelli symphony and Falcon’s proposal of marriage, they settled accounts with the surly Signor Parisi at the Casa di Città.
Signor Parisi ignored Falcon, but wiped away tears when Angel kissed him goodbye.
Angel was flattered until Falcon explained the difference between what it should have cost her to rent such a small apartment on the Piazza Avellino and what Signor Parisi had charged her.
Inside the Naples airport, Falcon hadn’t yet boarded his flight back to Rome when Angel called his cell. She’d met his mother in Tuscany and they had made their plane. There was no time to spare if they were to put on the wedding of the year in North Yorkshire in one month’s time.
Before he could join the others in England, Falcon still had Darien and his doubts to deal with. Once in Rome, he stopped at headquarters before going to his apartment on the Via Veneto.
Granger met him in the foyer and together they walked down the corridor to his office.
“Is this how it’s going to be when you’re married? You don’t answer your phone anymore? Where you been, man?”
“On a plane, Everett.” Falcon put his bags down on the carpet and walked over to his desk. “What’s going on?”
Granger leaned against the doorjamb. “Alfonso Ruggiero and Luciano Biagi were being transported,”
Falcon rifled through the pile of reports on his desk, looking for the one on Ruggiero and Biagi. Granger had stopped talking.
“Tell me something, Grange.”
“They were in two separate cars, two armed guards with each of them. Luciano Biagi got away.”
Falcon punched the file cabinet. “I should have killed the bastard when I had the chance. What the hell happened?”
Granger shook his head. “All we know is Biagi and one guard disappeared. The other guard woke up in the trunk somewhere between here and the airport. He’s talking weird. Said a black fog surrounded them. It came out of nowhere. One minute it was a beautiful day, the next minute he couldn’t see through the windshield. He’s probably just freaked out.”
Falcon shook his head. “He didn’t just freak out. Tell me exactly what happened.”
“They put Biagi in the car. He made a big deal about his personal effects, saying he didn’t want anybody stealing his ring.”
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