mouth over his.
“Damn you! Do you think I will be satisfied with my brother’s leavings?” He shoved her away, disgusted with her. Disgusted with himself—with the desire that still heated his blood. “Come, Madonna, I will take you back.”
Bianca lowered her eyes as they returned to their mounts. But not because she felt shame. She had seen the heat in his eyes and she knew that he would be back. He would be hers.
Sarah sat up with a cry. As she covered her face with her hands, she felt the wetness of tears. She’d dreamt this dream so many times. This dream and all the others. But tonight it had touched her so deeply that she felt a physical ache in her chest.
These dreams had been part of her life for so long—no, she corrected, they had been her life. She had always wanted to know why they came to her—these wonderful, terrible, erotic dreams that were everything that her life was not. The desire to know had grown and grown until now it had become a need.
The cold in the dingy little room had her shivering, and she lay down again and pulled the covers up to her chin.
Tomorrow, she reminded herself. Tomorrow she would begin her journey. Tomorrow she would be on the way to Florence. Perhaps she would find an answer there.
Closing her eyes against the drabness around her, Sarah willed herself back to sleep, hoping that another dream awaited her.
Chapter One
Florence, Italy
February 1888
Sarah had not dreamt since she had come to Florence. For as long as she could remember she had lived for her dreams of Florence and the unhappy lovers that visited her night after night. Now that she was here, they eluded her.
By day, too, the Florence of her dreams evaded her.
With increasing desperation she tried to find it behind the curtain of fog and rain. Where was the Florence of a sunlight so bright it hurt one’s eyes? Where was the Florence of a scorching, inexorable heat that made one’s blood run quick and ready for all manner of passion?
She shivered in the early twilight as the rain trickled off the straight brim of her dark brown hat and down the collar of her coat. Of course she’d known—in her mind—that winter in Florence could be as miserable as any foggy, chill day in London. But in a corner of her heart she had expected—and hungered for—the Florence of her dreams.
She’d seen nothing of the churches, the museums, the historical places she had marked in the margins of her frayed guidebook with her careful handwriting. Instead she wandered the damp, cold streets from dawn to dusk, searching, searching.
Because her sensible, frugal nature needed an excuse, she’d told herself that it was her heritage she was searching for. The heritage of the feckless, handsome musician who had seduced her mother and who had appeared at odd times throughout her childhood, just long enough to make a shy, serious child adore him for the brief flash of color he brought to a dull gray life.
But deep inside she knew that it was the dreams that had brought her here. No, not merely brought but persuaded, compelled. Why else would she have spent a good portion of the small inheritance she had unexpectedly received to come here, when she could have used the money to live a modest life at home, finally independent of people who expected her to be at their beck and call at all hours of the day or night? The compulsion to come here had been so strong that she had not even been able to wait until spring.
Looking around her, she saw that she had strayed farther than she had planned from the small, shabby pensione that was just around the corner from the church where Dante had watched and worshiped his Beatrice. Now, she realized with a start, she was lost in the rabbit warren of narrow streets and alleyways on the other side of the Arno.
Quickening her steps, Sarah turned down another narrow street and then another. But all she found at the end was yet another dark street, lit only by the meager light that spilled out of the open door of some artisan’s studio.
Sporadically she heard voices from behind the doors and shuttered windows, but instead of reassuring her, the muffled sounds made the deserted street even more eerie. A burst of laughter somewhere behind her echoed off the stone walls. A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold slithered up her spine, but, refusing to give in to the sudden blind desire to run, she kept to her brisk, even pace.
Austere houses, black with dampness, rose like the sheer walls of a canyon on either side of her. Ribbons of fog drifted down between them, blurring the contours, hiding the uneven, refuse-strewn cobblestones. She gasped when the toe of her shoe struck something metallic and sent it clattering. An answering screech stopped her so suddenly that her feet almost slipped out from under her. Her hand pressed against her racing heart, she watched a cat’s black tail swish once, then disappear into the mist.
She wanted to laugh at the jolt of fear she had felt, but the sound that emerged from her throat was more a sob than laughter. Taking a deep, calming breath, she waited for her heartbeat to slow, but the creak of a door opening behind her sent it galloping again. Stubbornness, pride and annoyance at her own fear caused her to turn toward the rectangle of yellowish light, and she reminded herself that she was a sensible, independent Englishwoman who ran from neither black cats nor creaking doors.
“Signorina?”
Sarah looked at the tall man silhouetted in the doorway of what was — judging from the smell of varnish and rosin and the long, melancholy sound of a bow being drawn across the strings of a cello—apparently a violin maker’s shop. The man’s face was half in shadow, but the chiseled features and the eyes of a blue so bright, so startling that even the somber light could not mask it looked so familiar that she found herself taking a step closer toward him.
She should continue on her way, she told herself. She knew better than to speak to strange men on dark streets, didn’t she? Didn’t she? But instead of turning away, Sarah stood there, her breath uneven, hardly aware of the wetness seeping into her shoes, the dampness of her clothes.
Through the mist, which rose like whitish smoke, she peered at the perfect profile, the sensual mouth. It was the face, she thought as her heart took off on another race. It was the face that, night for night, sought her out in her dreams. No. She shook her head. It wasn’t possible. Or if it was, then perhaps she was dreaming now.
“Signorina, passo aiutarVi? Vi siete perduta?” The man moved forward, his mouth tilting in a charming smile, which was echoed in his eyes.
Sarah stared at the man, even as his words registered in her brain. She opened her mouth to tell him that she did not need his help, that she had not lost her way, but then he stepped to the side, making room for her to enter the shop. He bowed, his hand tracing a gesture of welcome.
“Entrate, prego.”
His graceful bow seemed meant for her personally, with nothing of the obsequiousness of a tradesman seeking custom. The wariness that had become second nature to her forgotten, Sarah found herself accepting his invitation and moving past him.
Inside, the smell of varnish was stronger but not unpleasant. Even though the warmth of the stove that stood in a corner of the small, high-ceilinged room beckoned, she remained standing near the door. Now, in the light, she could see him clearly. No, she thought with something akin to disappointment. It was not the same face. But because it was a beautiful face nevertheless, she found herself unable to take her eyes away from it.
“Siete inglese?”
There was laughter in his eyes and, embarrassed that she had been caught staring, Sarah looked away and concentrated on brushing the raindrops off her coat. Suddenly she was painfully aware of how threadbare and shiny the old coat was. Just as she was aware that the man in front of her looked like a young god and she was a plain, thirty-one-year-old spinster.
“Yes,