could finish her words, there was a noise from outside the luxurious chamber. The clatter of heavy booted footsteps, dogs barking, the deep rumble of masculine laughter. The door flew open and a golden giant of a man strode inside.
Isabella was sure this was Caterina’s brother, her own cousin Matteo, for he had his sister’s tawny hair. But where Caterina was pale and slight, he was tall and broad-shouldered, exuding an exuberant energy. He wore a plain dark doublet and tall, mud-splattered leather boots, his pack of dogs crowding close behind him as if he had just come in from hunting.
‘This must be our fair cousin, arrived at last!’ he said, his voice booming incongruously in the delicacy of his sister’s chamber. ‘Isabella, Caterina has been able to speak of nothing but your arrival for weeks. ’Tis good for her to have a companion at last.’
‘And I am most pleased to be here,’ Isabella answered, a bit flustered at his sudden arrival. She had only really glimpsed Matteo in the past; he was always a moving blur of laughter and raw energy. Today was no different. He was a large, sunny presence, seeming to take over the whole space.
He seized her hand and raised it to his lips, holding on to it tightly for a moment longer than she would have expected. He had the gift of making a woman, of making anyone, feel they were the one he most wanted to see at that moment. Isabella wondered how she would paint him. As Apollo, dragging the sun behind him? No, Hercules, conquering the world.
For some reason, she thought of her dark rescuer, the mysteries in his eyes. These two men seemed so different, but which would be more dangerous?
‘And so pretty, too,’ he whispered with a laugh. ‘Florence needs more pretty ladies.’
‘No teasing our poor cousin, Matteo,’ Caterina said. ‘I am taking her to Signor Botticelli’s studio this afternoon, so she can meet our friends.’
‘Va bene. Mayhap he will want to paint her, as he has you, sister.’ Matteo threw himself down on a chaise longue and reached for the pitcher of wine. His dogs tussled at his feet as Caterina gave them a disapproving glance. ‘We will find you a husband while we’re here, shall we, Isabella? A rich condottierre, mayhap?’
Isabella laughed. She had long known marriage was not for her. Art was everything. A husband would surely only get in the way. ‘I look not for a husband now,’ she said. She would never repeat her parents’ mistakes, the grief that came from loving too much.
‘You cannot steal her away from me just yet, Matteo, and give her as a prize to one of your friends,’ Caterina said, reaching for a sweetmeat to nibble. ‘There will be time for marriage later.’
‘Sì,’ Matteo muttered. He studied Isabella over the rim of his goblet with a strange glint in his eyes. She had the strangest sense that her cousin, for all his exuberant good humour and charm, was not entirely to be trusted. ‘Later...’
* * *
‘You saw the lady to her destination?’ Orlando asked as his guardsmen came into the sitting room of his lodgings. He stared down at the street below his window. The bustling crowd moved past on their usual early evening errands, full market baskets over the arms of maidservants, courtesans tottering on their high-heeled pattens, gangs of young men with garish-striped hose and clanking swords.
They all went by as if it was merely an ordinary day. As if something hadn’t cracked and shifted, changing beyond recognition.
‘Nay, my lord, she found her party again and rejoined them,’ one of the guards said. ‘She seemed safe with them.’
Orlando watched a lady in black drift past, like a ghost. Or a dream, like the young dark-eyed woman had been. ‘You were not seen by them?’
The man snorted. ‘If we have no wish to be seen, my lord, then we are not seen.’
Orlando gave a wry smile. He glanced back over his shoulder at the cluster of men hovering in his doorway. It was true—they were most adept at blending into any crowd, with their dark clothes and bearded faces. Neither handsome nor plain, too grand or too ragged. Perfect for his own purposes. That was why he employed them, to help him keep an eye on the shifting loyalties of Florence.
And, it seemed, to help him rescue fair maidens.
He reached for a bag of coins and tossed it to them. ‘My thanks. You did a good deed for your souls today.’
The guardsman grinned, revealing cracked teeth. ‘’Twould take more than that to save our souls, my lord.’
Orlando had to laugh. His soul, too, was irreparably stained, beyond hope. Yet there had been something in that lady’s eyes as she looked up at him, an openness, a light that seemed to pull him up...
‘Is there anything else, my lord?’ the guard asked. ‘Shall we find out where the lady is dwelling? Or track down those thieves and finish them off?’
Orlando shook his head. ‘The thieves will come to a bad end soon enough. And the lady is safe now.’
Especially safe from him. He found he did want to know where she was, far more than he should. That light in her eyes had been so fascinating. But he knew that would not be wise. He was much too intrigued with her after only one meeting. It should go no further.
He turned back to the window. ‘I will send for you if you are needed again.’
They left in a scuffle of fading footsteps, the metallic click of their swords and daggers, and Orlando was alone again.
The sudden fight in that quiet square had made his blood hot, made it sing through his veins as it once did when he was a high-tempered youth. Tavern brawls held little attraction for him now. Such fights were a waste of his energy when far more serious matters pressed in around them. But when he came upon those filthy villains circling the lost, frightened lady, the old Orlando had surged back to life and a fury such as he had rarely known of late came back upon him.
And those eyes of hers, the delicacy of her hand as he helped her to her feet, aroused a lust just as sudden and fierce. He had wanted to kiss her, hard and deep, feel her body against his, as the furious rush of life carried them away. The tremble of her fingers, the wary gratitude on her face, held him back. He had done a fair deed; he couldn’t ruin it by scaring her all over again.
Now the anger and the desire had ebbed away, leaving him cold again. But the memory of her wouldn’t be erased from his mind. She wasn’t beautiful, not really, not in a city full of golden courtesans, but there was something much more than beauty in her face. Something he wanted to read.
So, nay—he should not find out where she lived. He should not see her again, for the sake of her as well as himself.
There was a knock at the door and his hand automatically went to the hilt of the dagger at his waist. The guards would not return without his summons. ‘Yes?’
The manservant who usually watched the door below came in with a low bow. He held out a sealed letter. ‘A message from the convent of St Clare. You asked that any word from them be brought to you right away.’
Orlando nodded and reached for the letter to break the seal and hastily scan the neatly penned words. He half-feared every time he heard from the convent that something ill had befallen little Maria. An illness, an accident—perhaps even a kidnapping if Matteo Strozzi discovered her existence. Little Maria was always in his thoughts, his plans.
But the message was only an account of Maria’s progress since he last visited. Her lessons in music, languages and her religious instruction went on well. She was a quick, bright child, as well as a beauty. Just as her mother had once been.
Orlando carefully refolded the letter. His sister’s dark despair, her terrible love for a villain who was nowhere near worthy of her shining spirit, had taken her away from her daughter. Maria Lorenza would never hear her child’s laughter, see her run through the sunshine. Everyone had betrayed her in the end.
Orlando would not.
And