I nodded, as if happy to know of their fate, but in that instant, I knew I wished them dead and gone.
His hands gripped mine. “Gabriella, ’tis the way the Nine wished it to go.”
“I understand.” I raised my eyes to meet his. “But the thought of either of them, free…” I shook my head. “Given what they’ve seen, what they’ve experienced, Lia and I are as much enemy to them as you and Luca.”
He blinked his heavy lashes and then nodded once. “Indeed. It is a grave danger. But I do not foresee them ever threatening you again. They shall be exiled or traded, deep into Florentine territory. Or put to death.”
Put to death. Hanged. Dismembered. Drawn and quartered. Death was a bloody business in medieval times.
I wanted to feel a measure of compassion for them. I wanted to hope that the exile card won out, but I knew that selfishly, I was hoping they would die, never to be a concern for me and Lia again.
“Gabriella, we must speak of something else.”
My eyes moved to his.
“Lady Rossi and her family are arriving on the morrow.”
I studied him, waiting. Knowing I should take him off the hook, release him of responsibility, tell him I was on my way out, that it couldn’t really work between the two of us.
“I shall break our pledge, make it clear to both Lady Rossi and her father that no union shall be formed between our families.”
I frowned, even though my heart pounded with hope. It was not good for Marcello to end his plans with Romana. She wouldn’t go down without a fight; she’d try to bring me down with her. If I can’t have him, neither can you. We’d all suffer her wrath, her father’s wrath.
Marcello was feeling strong, invincible even, after our capture of Castello Paratore, and perhaps it would afford him some protection amid Sienese politics. But didn’t he need every protection possible? If Firenze was to attack, they would surely target a point such as Castello Forelli first. And Castello Forelli needed to know they could rely on reinforcements from Siena. That Siena had their back. Without a marriage between the Forellis and the Rossis, was that truly possible?
Marcello was studying me. “M’lady, do you doubt me? Doubt my fervor for you?” He stroked my forehead, cheek, and stared into my eyes with such love, it set my heart pounding. “’Tis not simply what I owe you as a man loyal to Siena. ’Tis what I owe you as a man. Gabriella,” he said, looking intensely into my eyes, “you own my heart. My life, and all I have in it. You have captured me, m’lady, like no one else. My hours are spent absorbed in thoughts of you, dreams of you. I cannot imagine a life without you in it. Might I dare believe that you would leave Normandy for good? To remain here, with me?”
I stared at him, stricken. There was so much to figure out, ahead of us. “Marcello, you draw me as none other. But I am still pulled by the desire to find my mother, and Evangelia—” I sighed. “She is desperate to continue our search for our mother. I must see to my family’s reunion before I can legitimately consider my future. I am certain you understand.”
I appealed to his sense of honor, family. And it worked.
“Indeed. I must assist you in this endeavor, for I intend to speak to your mother.”
I looked at him sharply. What? How in the heck was that supposed to work out? “Hey, Mom, I want to meet you my Handsome Prince from 1332.”
He narrowed his eyes in my direction and lowered his forehead. “If we are to continue our courting, I must gain her approval,” he whispered.
Ahh, yes. Courting. Going out, in medieval terms. Sweetly conducted with everything in order. Would Lord Forelli bless his younger son’s pursuit? When there was not one whit of political gain to be found from it? Unlikely.
The only thing we had going for us was that Lord Forelli seemed pretty out of it since his last stroke. I doubted he’d even fully absorbed the victory over Castello Paratore.
But if he came to his senses, this news of Marcello breaking his pledge to Lady Rossi and pursuing me would truly send him over the edge. He’d have a full-on heart attack, keel over, and die for sure.
And it’d be on my head.
“I do not know, Marcello,” I said, dragging my eyes to meet his. Stick to the truth, Gabi. “What is between us in unmistakable. In truth, I’ve never felt anything like it.” I looked at him for a long moment. “But both our families look to us to sustain them, into the future. They rely upon us. Promises between us cannot yet be made.”
He frowned and looked at me as if he had not heard me right. “Are you saying…Gabriella, are you saying that you do not want me to break my pledge to Romana?”
It took me a long time, but I finally found the words to say it. “No. Marcello, I want you to break your pledge. Because selfishly, I want you for myself. But I cannot ask it of you. You are a future lord of Siena. And I do not know where I belong, here or Normandy.”
“Here,” he said, squeezing my hands, “you belong here.”
I shook my head miserably. “I do not know that. I wish I did. But I do not.”
His eyes filled with sorrow. “You do not know it? How must I prove it to you?”
“Ah, Marcello. It is not up to you,” I said, reaching up to cradle his cheek this time. “I understand your feelings for me. My heart echoes them. But I need to know we are doing what is right. Or not. That makes me hesitate. I need time. More time.”
“I have no more time,” he said in desperation. “She arrives on the morrow.”
“Then you must carry on as before,” I said. “For the sake of your family, for the sake of Siena.” I shook my head. “I cannot break such a union. Not yet.”
“Not yet?” he asked, broken hopefulness in his voice.
“Not yet,” I said.
CHAPTER 22
I didn’t know what I was thinking. Somehow, I thought it was the good thing, the right thing to do. I thought myself above it.
But seeing Marcello with Romana, after her being out of the picture a while, threatened to rip me to shreds. I actually had to lean a little harder on Lia’s arm when I spotted them together, across the courtyard.
“Gabs,” Lia said, looking over at me with a worried expression in her eyes. She followed my glance across the courtyard and then steered me into an arched doorway, hidden from view. Once I was braced against the wall, she paced before me, hands on her hips, apparently thinking it through. Then she stopped, turned, and looked into my eyes. “All right, I think I’m ready. How bad is it?”
I looked up to where the arches connected, two paths intersecting…then back to her. “Bad.”
She closed her eyes as if pained, then shook her head. “No,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “No, I can’t believe it. Gabi—”
“I’m sorry, Lia. It’s bigger than I am. I don’t expect you to get it—”
“Get what?” she asked, her voice ratcheted up an octave. “That you’ve gone and fallen for a guy you can’t have?”
I glanced out at the courtyard, wondering if anyone had overheard her, and she hushed in volume, if not intensity. “We should go, now,” she said, leaning toward me.
“Go?” I said, gaping at her. It was the first I’d been out of bed for more than twenty minutes. She wanted me to make the journey to the tombs, more than a mile away? And under what pretense? It sounded as if all of Siena was soon upon us. Were we to simply ride by them all, with a smile and a cheerful wave?
Hey there, how are ya? We’re the She-Wolves of Normandy, just on our way back to the place we came from…don’t mind us!
“I knew you had feelings for him,” she said, one hand out. “But I didn’t know you had feeling-feelings for him.”
“Is there a difference?” I asked tiredly.
“I guess not,” she said, bringing an arm to the stone arch and looking out to the courtyard. “I
didn’t know,” she said, talking to herself so lowly I almost missed it. “I mean I knew, but I didn’t know.”
I leaned back and willed myself to find the strength for what was ahead. More people were already arriving. The castle would be filled, every room of it. Additional tents had been pitched outside, more than a hundred, Cook said, to house the others. I wished I could share a word with Cook right now. I needed a woman’s perspective, not my sister’s. But she was a tad too busy to tend to me. To say nothing of the fact that I could hardly lay it all on the line.…
“Let’s go, Gabi. Before this all gets much worse. While we still can. I’ll find a couple of horses, and we’ll get out of here, back to Mom. She’ll know what to do about your wound—”
“Nay.” I looked past her, to Marcello. Romana had gone inside, but he was looking across the courtyard at us, a curious, daring look in his eye.
“‘Nay?’ You mean no?” She reached over and grabbed my shoulders. “You are from the twenty-first century. This is wrong, that we are here, Gabi. A weird hole in some space-time continuum that we fell through.”
There was fear in her eyes. I was torn between the desire to ease her stress and the desire to defend myself.
“Is it wrong?” I looked at her then. Really looked at her. “Or is it, in some divine way, perfectly right?”
She gaped at me. “It’s wrong. Of course it’s wrong.”
It was as if I’d changed somehow, in my extra week in this time. I’d adopted it more fully than Lia had.
She was all about getting back.
I was all about figuring out why I was here in the first place and what I could accomplish if I stayed.
I grabbed her hand, and she frowned at my fingers, then me.
“Lia, I need you to give this a chance. To explore it with me. Please. Don’t rush me. I’m afraid to leave. Because of my wound. Because of Marcello. I’m afraid that if I leave, so much will be lost. So much.”
Her blue eyes, like a stormy sea beneath her furrowed brows, stared into mine for a long time. “How long?” she asked at last.
“Through the feast,” I said. “I think that by then, you can pull out my stitches, bind me in fresh cloths, and we can make it to the tombs.”
“Why through the feast?” she pressed. She stepped closer. “Why not now?”
My eyes trailed from her to the courtyard again. Marcello was striding across to us, his brow now knit in consternation. “Maybe not all the way through the feast,” I whispered. “I just know that today is not the day. All right?”
She hesitated. “All right,” she whispered at last.
But clearly, things were not all right. When Marcello arrived, she bristled and turned, ignoring his friendly greeting.
“She thinks me a coward, unable to stand for what is true,” he said, watching her stride away, then brush past Luca with an angry hand. “She thinks I toy with you, while maintaining a charade with Lady Rossi.”
“Nay, that is not it at all.”
He drew closer. “Come. Tell me the truth.” His brown eyes searched mine.
Okay, try this on for size, Tall, Dark, and Handsome. I won’t be born for almost seven hundred years. How’s that strike you?
I chose a more moderate path. “Marcello, this is hardly the right time.”
He shook his head and stepped away from me, hand to his temple. “I do not know if I can continue to pretend, Gabriella.” He gestured to the courtyard. “She arrives, head full of details for our nuptials, and though it’s been a part of my vision for as long as I can remember, I now cannot fathom standing beside her before a priest.” He reached for my hand and brought it to his chest, nestled beneath his own. “It is a position that cannot be taken by anyone but you.”
I wrenched my hand from his. “Marcello,” I whispered harshly, “what if someone sees?” That’s what came out of my mouth. But I was thinking, Again with the marriage thing! I’m too young! You are too!
“What if they do?” he asked, frowning. “I cannot live this way. Lord Rossi arrives this night. I cannot face him, knowing I do not love his daughter! I love you!”
I tried to swallow. Love? Surely that wasn’t it.
Infatuation. Connection. Maybe a little lust. But love? I shook my head. I had to get out of here. I was going crazy. Overthinking it. Overfantasizing about it. Lia was right. It was drawing me in. Pulling me down.
“Where are you?” Marcello asked, taking my hand again. “Your body is here, but your mind is elsewhere.”
You have no idea.
“Marcello, we must carry through with what we agreed upon,” I said. “There is too much at stake for you. I have no choice but to continue my search for my mother.”
“And I will aid you in that.”
I shook my head. “Lia and I…after the feast, we must carry on. You have more than enough to care for, between your father, your brother, your responsibilities to Siena. I fear that you and I weren’t ever meant to meet, Marcello.”
“How can you utter such words?” he asked, holding tight to my hand as I tried to pull away. “When I believe that our meeting had to be of the hand of God Himself?”
I was finding it seriously difficult to resist him, wondering if we might share just one more kiss before I hurtled away through time.… I wrenched my hand away from his and walked to the other side of the arched colonnade, my back to him. “You must pretend, Marcello,” I said, “I can make you no promises.”
“Gabriella—”
“Nay,” I bit out, tiredly, feeling the sweat pour down my back. “It is what it is.”
Not that it should be at all.
I hid away that afternoon in my bedroom, skipping lunch, and sleeping through crazy dreams in which I was forever saving someone—or getting saved. But by evening, a good third of the guests had arrived, all “clamoring” to meet the ladies of Normandy, the warriors, the “she-wolves,” Siena’s “saviors,” and I was roused.
People didn’t seem able to tell them no. I wasn’t able to tell them no. So I rose, on Lia’s silent, brooding arm, and together we walked across the courtyard and into the Great Hall.
When we entered, the entire room rose. I mean, every one of them came to their feet. And the place was packed. They cheered, clapped, smiled.
And we did our best to be gracious and smile. But what I was able to fake on my own seemed triply hard beside Lia. She kept sending me angry, frustrated glances, until I feared everyone near us had figured out that something was seriously wrong between us.
I tried, best I could, to keep my eyes from straying to Marcello and Romana, but again and again, that was where they landed. She returned my look, dolefully staring my way, plainly wondering what was to become of us all now. Marcello had told her he’d sent me away because I was attracted to him and it was safer for us to be apart; and yet, now here we all were again, one big, happy family, celebrating Sienese victory.
Pleading exhaustion and weakness, not all that far from the truth, I excused myself from the table on the dais as soon as I could. Lia and I were halfway across the courtyard when Lady Rossi’s voice stopped us.
My sister groaned, frozen. I paused, gathering myself, and then turned, forcing a smile to my lips. “M’lady,” I said, as kindly as I could.
She reached us, with two ladies-in-waiting at her side. They were newbies. Had the others defected, refusing to endure the treacherous ride to this outpost again? She curtsied, deeply, prettily, and her ladies followed suit.
I glanced at Lia and resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Please, m’lady,” I said, embarrassed by her show of deference.
She rose slowly and dragged her pretty brown-green eyes up to meet mine. “M’lady, I am indebted to you and your sister, as is all of Siena.”
I shook my head. “We did only what we could. What you yo
urself might have done, in the moment.”
It was her turn to shake her head. “I think not,” she said, raising one brow and smiling. “You and your sister are indeed uncommon.”
I made the introductions then, between her and my sister. To her credit, Lia managed to hold her own, like she was playing a part in a medieval play. I then excused her, and Romana did the same with her ladies-in-waiting. Arm in arm, like two old friends strolling the park, we moved off, with me trying to act like I wasn’t dying, both from the pain in my side and the pain in my heart.
“I am to leave as soon as I can, Lady Romana,” I said. I dared to glance into her eyes. “I only need a few more days to heal, and then I believe I can endure the ride to Normandy.”
She nodded, staring ahead, as if weighing my words, deciding if she believed them. “I know you were most severely injured.”
“Yes,” I said. Most severely. My heart has been lacerated. Split open. Or is it my brain? I don’t seem to be thinking clearly.
She stopped and turned toward me, taking my hand in her two small ones. “Lady Betarrini, my father believes he has a credible witness—that your mother is known to have been in Pistoia.”
I pulled my head back, hoping I didn’t appear as doubtful as I felt. My mother, here? Could she have found a way to travel through the tomb? Or had she found another portal? Was it not far more likely that Romana simply wanted to get me away as soon as possible? To Florence’s north, deep beyond the border? I smiled, leaping on this tidbit, a tiny path out of our sinking sand.
“Truly?” I said, squeezing her hand. “Oh, that is good news. We’d be off today if it weren’t for this wound.” I gestured down to my side.
“Nay,” she said, “You mustn’t endanger yourself. You have already suffered much. But my father has already sent four men on the journey there. They should return soon with news.”
“That is more than kind,” I said. I shook my head. “You don’t know what it would mean, to be reunited.” I stared at her, hard. “And then we can be off. Back to Normandy.”
“Oh?” she said, lightly. I had to give her credit. Had our roles been reversed, I would have been offering to help her pack, pushing her out the door, promising that my father’s men would meet her on the road in between.
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