Courtesan's Lover (24 page)

Francesca frowned for a moment, then smiled and nodded. “I have promised to visit Signora Parisetto earlier in the day, if you remember, but I shall be home long before the evening. Thank you—I should very much like to come and eat with you and your boys,” she said.

“Good. Come at about the hour of the Angelus, then. Will you need to bring the little girls with you?”

“Oh, no—it would be far too late for them and they will probably be tired after playing with Signora Parisetto's children. They can stay here with Ilaria.”

“As I say, my boys will both be back from their various activities by Saturday and they'll eat with us. They'll be so pleased to meet you.”

He explained his address to her and described the simplest way of finding it.

“I will look forward to it very much.” Francesca smiled at him again.

She showed him to the front door and they bade each other farewell.

Just as he turned to step down into the street, Luca saw the stocky man with the black eyes walk up into the hallway from somewhere at the back of the house. Francesca flicked a glance back at the man, nodded, and then turned back to smile and wave to Luca as he left.

Luca's head buzzed with a confusion of conflicting thoughts as he walked slowly home.

The Parisetto's house is small and new and, as I was told at San Domenico, it is only a short distance from the sea. Its pale stone front gleams in the sunshine as the twins and I stand on the step, and the bright, salt-smelling air around us is full of the vulgar laughter of gulls and the slap of water against stone.

“Can I knock?” Bella asks.

“Go on then.”

She reaches up and bangs the wood with her knuckles, looking back at me for reassurance as the noise she has made sounds out into the quiet. Straight away, a flurry of activity sounds inside. Feet hurry toward us. A crash is followed by a wailing sob, and a fumbled scrabble at the fastening on the front door. Then the door opens, and Serafina Parisetto, rather pink in the face, smiles at the three of us, a howling baby astride her hip. He is little more than a year old, but even so, being so small, she has to lean away from his weight to balance. The older boy stands behind her, clutching her skirts and peering around at us, wide-eyed.

Away toward the back of the house, visible through a vista of two or three doorways, several other women and an immensely tall, roughly dressed young man are busily occupied, taking no notice of our arrival. The clatter of their activities and the hum of their conversations punctuates the exchanges between me and Serafina. The tall boy, a large flat tray tucked under one arm, edges past us without a word and leaves the house. Beata's and Bella's heads swivel to watch him as he goes, clearly impressed by his height.

“Oh, Francesca, how lovely to see you. I'm so sorry—” Serafina gazes affectionately at the screaming infant. “Poor Benedetto fell over on the way to the door.” She kisses the top of the baby's damp head. “Please, come in. Oh, you must be…” She pauses, smiling at the girls.

I say, laying a hand on each head as I speak, “Beata and Isabella.”

Serafina says to them over the howls. “I expect you must get very cross with people telling you how alike you are.”

They both look up at her and nod seriously.

Serafina stands back and we step into the house.

“Come upstairs,” she says. “Piero's mother, and her”—she rolls her eyes—“her
retinue
will be in and out of the
sala
and the kitchen, so perhaps we can sit out on the belvedere and hope that we won't be too badly disturbed.” We follow her and the little boys upstairs. We go in to the
sala
, which is large and brightly lit by the sun. Half a dozen elderly ladies are busy with embroidery frames and—by the sound of it—with a great deal of gossip. They look up at us, mouths a little open, needles held up in bony fingers, pausing in their chatter as we pass through. Serafina speaks to them briefly, and their heads bob a brief acknowledgment of the presence of newcomers to the house, but otherwise they make no attempt at conversation. I wonder briefly at the reaction to my presence that would ensue were they to guess my real identity. At this thought, a nasty twinge of guilt stabs at me accusingly—Serafina's friendship is open and welcoming and yet I am deceiving her. She would be appalled at the truth.

I glance around the room as we pass through. It's very pretty. It looks out over the light-flecked harbor, and its walls—and indeed the old women—are all dappled with beautiful, shifting water patterns. An open door in the farthest wall leads out onto the
belvedere
; Serafina shepherds us all across and out onto this sun-filled balcony and pulls the door closed behind her.

The
belvedere
is beautiful: wide and long, roofed over but airy—and fragrant with orange blossom from trees which are fairly bursting from several large terracotta pots. Three or four carved animals lie on the floor. Seeing them, the baby on Serafina's hip curls backward away from his mother, bending precariously, stiff arms stretched in entreaty, though he says nothing. Serafina sets him down on the floor and he staggers across to them, rolling from foot to foot like an aged seaman. He plumps down onto his bottom, gathers a wooden horse into his arms and begins to suck its muzzle, the last of his sobs still shaking his fat little shoulders.

Smiling, I glance at the twins. They are staring at the baby, fascinated.

“I'm so glad you were all able to come,” Serafina says. “Girls, I have some games you might like to play.” She steps back into the
sala
, and comes back a moment later with a wooden box, inside which proves to be a velvet bag, closed with a drawstring. “Do you know how to play
Zara?
”

Both girls shake their heads.

Serafina lays on the floor a square chequered board like a chess board. “Open the bag and tip the pieces out,” she says, and Bella obeys. A scattering of wooden stars, circles, and squares of all colors plinks down onto the tiles. Benedetto, the baby, immediately puts down his horse and crawls over to see what he is missing; he reaches out with splayed, shrimp-like fingers, grabs a star, and puts it straight into his mouth.

“Spit out,” Serafina says firmly, and Benedetto opens his mouth, letting the star drop back down onto the floor. The older child sits near the twins. He scoops up a handful of the colored pieces, one eye on his little brother, whose face immediately crumples as he sees this; he sucks in a long breath ready for a new sob.

“Girls,” I say quickly. “Why don't you lay the pieces out in patterns? The little boys might like that.”

Beata and Bella start ordering the shapes along the edges of the tiles. Noticing these two new small strangers properly for the first time, the boys' attention is caught and they watch the twins with rapt fascination, their heads swiveling from one to the other, obviously startled by their intriguing similarity. Serafina comes to sit down in the chair next to mine.

“They are so pretty, your two girls,” she says.

I smile. “And your two are quite charming.”

Serafina raises a skeptical eyebrow and does not reply. I laugh.

“Now, quickly—while we have a moment's peace—would you care for something to drink and eat? Piero brought up a couple of bottles of wine from the cellar this morning for us, and I made some bread earlier on. We need to eat that while it's warm, as any bread I make seems to be quite inedible within a matter of hours!”

She busies herself as she speaks, pouring out two glasses of a tawny-colored wine and passing one of them across to me. The bread proves to be light, salty, and quite delicious.

“Oh, goodness, that's better,” Serafina says, taking a mouthful from her glass, tipping her head back and closing her eyes. A brief moment of sweet-scented respite from the endless chaos of her boys. A second or two later she opens her eyes again and smiles at me. “Now,” she says, reaching across and laying a small hand on my arm. “Now that you're here, I have something to confess.” She lowers her voice and glances across to the closed door to the
sala
.

“I have to admit that I spent quite a bit of last night wondering about what your secret can possibly be.”

My heart jolts up into my throat. With difficulty, I swallow the piece of bread I am chewing, which suddenly seems to have doubled in size and dried to the consistency of old carpet.

“Secret?” How can she know?

Serafina raises her eyebrows at me and nods; there is a gleam in her eye and she suddenly reminds me of Bianca, about to reveal some tasty titbit of gossip. It is not a reassuring image.

“Yes. Your secret. I've had a lot of time to think about it—you see, my little Benedetto was perfectly horrible last night—weren't you,
carissimo
?” She smiles fondly at her smaller son. “And of course I ended up spending simply
hour
s trying to settle him to sleep, and, while I sat there beside his crib, I found myself thinking about you.”

Her smile is frank and open, and her eyes are dancing—but my pulse-beat is now painfully fast.

“Because,” Serafina adds, in a lowered voice—little more than a whisper, “I think you had quite an effect on my lovely friend, Luca, the other night.”

It is as though boiling water is rising up inside my face. My eyes begin smarting. “L…Luca?” I say.

“Luca,” she agrees, smiling more broadly. “Bless him, he seemed to be having terrible trouble dragging his eyes from your face all evening. Do you know, I don't think he took in a single word of that play or thought for more than a second about his food! Do you normally have that effect on people?”

Oh, God. What do I say to that?

“Erm,” I stammer, feeling horribly sick. “Erm…I really don't know…”

But even as I speak, Serafina's eyes widen and her smile fades.

She puts her fingers up over her mouth. “Oh,
cielo
!” she says. “Oh, dear, I must be the most tactless person in the whole of Italy! In all the excitement, I quite forgot—oh,
Dio
! How simply dreadful of me! You must think me
so
unkind.”

I am now completely bemused. “What do you mean?” I say.

“To ask you something like that…when you are so recently out of mourning. How
could
I? What must you think of me?”

Mourning? Oh, dear God—I had almost forgotten my “widowhood” myself—thank
God
she reminded me! I say, “Please, don't trouble yourself. It's—”

She interrupts me. “It's unforgivable, that's what it is. Oh, if Piero knew what I'd just said. I said something just as stupid to Luca a few days ago, too—I am
so
thoughtless.”

All four children, hearing the distress in her voice, stop what they are doing and look across at her.

“Please,” I say again. “Stop it—don't think of it. I should be flattered, rather than insulted, after all, by what you've just asked me, shouldn't I?”

Serafina gives me a rather wan smile. “You're really not offended?”

“No. Not at all. Honestly.”

The children return to their activities with the wooden
Zara
pieces.

Serafina says, “Thank goodness. Because I
did
think it remarkable. Luca is such a lovely man. S
uch
a good friend, and I do worry about him—he has been on his own for so very long, and then last night he seemed quite different to how he has been, and I couldn't help noticing, and I was so pleased, Francesca!
So
pleased. I thought to myself—Oh, this is just what Luca needs, and…”

She trails off, clearly embarrassed at her outpouring. I feel fairly certain that she is longing to ask me if I have any reciprocating feelings for Luca—perhaps to validate her desire to broker a suitable match for her friend—but she says nothing; instead she reaches for her glass.

Wanting to reassure her, but afraid of giving away too much, I say carefully (and untruthfully), “I cannot say that I noticed what you've described, the other night.” I pause, and then add, “But…if…if Luca were indeed to be interested in me, I…I think it would be fair to say…that I don't think I should be too displeased. He…” I hesitate. Feeling somehow that I am allowing out something very tender and naked and vulnerable, I say, “He's invited me to his house for supper this evening. To meet his sons.”

Serafina draws in a delighted breath and reaches for my hand again. “Oh, Francesca—I am
so
pleased. Oh, that is wonderful! You are
so
perfect for each other.”

Perfect?

A wholesome widower and a deceitful whore?

Smoke was starting to wisp out around the carved larchwood jut of the fireplace hood. Luca looked across at Luigi and drew in a long breath. The old man's forehead was deeply furrowed as he bent over a copper pot that was hanging above glowing embers. Luca saw that the hand holding the long iron spoon was shaking, and little splashes of gravy were falling and staining the brick floor.

Luca closed his eyes for a moment, opened them again and said, “Luigi, you must be tired. Why don't you rest now? I am quite happy to finish off the meal. You've worked so hard over the preparation—it's just a matter of waiting an hour or so now…I'm really very grateful for all your help.”

For a moment, Luigi appeared not to have heard, but then he turned and gave one curt nod. “If you are happy, then, Signore, I will go. I am a little tired, you are quite right.” He frowned at the long spoon in his hand as though not quite sure why he was holding it, then put it back into the pot. Nodding at Luca once again, he shuffled across the kitchen in ill-fitting shoes and, fumbling for the handle, left by the side door. Luca turned his face up to the ceiling and pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes, his fingers in his hair. “Oh God!” he groaned. “Heaven knows what this hideous potful will taste like—she will probably never speak to me again!” He picked up the spoon, raised it to his mouth, and blew gently across the steaming contents. Tasted it. Pushed his bottom lip out in surprise and relaxed a little. He added salt, however, and pushed a large, rather twiggy bunch of rosemary down into the bubbling sauce; he then put a lid on the pot.

Luca spent the next few moments moving between kitchen and
sala,
laying the table for his meal with Francesca. He opened the
credenza
and took out one of three white linen cloths, which he flapped out and smoothed over the table. On this he placed a basket of cut bread and a big, white, tin-glazed fruit bowl. This was filled with peaches, grapes, apricots, and a handful of cherries—a couple of which Luca now picked out and ate, spitting the stones into his palm and then throwing them into the fireplace. He laid two places: knife, small two-pronged fork, and glass for each person. Then three candles in brass holders in a line along the center of the table. Standing back, he examined the effect, leaned back in toward the table and straightened a fork.

Two places.

No sign of either of the boys. Luca hoped Francesca would not think poorly of him for not letting her know in advance that they would be dining alone.

It was cool enough this evening for a fire. Luca ran down to the back door and collected an awkward armful of logs; after carrying them back up to the
sala,
he busied himself for a moment laying and lighting a fire. The evening being still and quite windless, it took time and the careful application of the bellows to get it to catch, and there was a soft haze of smoke hanging up near the ceiling by the time Luca was able to leave the fireplace and return to his bubbling pot of
peposo
.

Luca tasted his stew again. He sliced and laid out a plateful of tomatoes. He shredded and dressed a salad. Cursing quietly when he caught the end of his finger with the knife, he sliced the ends of a dozen stems of asparagus and laid them out ready to be placed in hot water at the last moment. He poured himself a glass of red wine, sat down at the kitchen table, and sucked in a long mouthful. His heartbeat was quick in his throat as the Angelus struck outside.

Some moments later, he heard a soft knock at his front door.

She was accompanied by her manservant. As he opened the door, Luca saw her turn to her companion and smile, saying, “Thank you so much for walking me,
caro.”

“Do you want me to come back and fetch you?” the man said in his heavy Roman accent. Luca coughed and interrupted before she could answer. “Thank you, Signore—please don't trouble yourself. I will be delighted to walk the Signora home.”

The dark eyes rested on his face for a moment, with an expression he could not read, and then Francesca said, “There you are, I told you he would.” She smiled at her companion, who nodded, turned, and began to walk back up the street.

Luca watched him until he turned the corner and was lost from view, then he took Francesca's hand and kissed her fingers. “How lovely to see you,” he said over her knuckles.

She smiled and said, “I've been so looking forward to tonight.”

Luca stood back to let her in. “Come upstairs,” he said. He took her coat from her and laid it over a chair, then held her hand and moved to the staircase. “The fire is lit, the room is warm, and the food is almost ready. I'll find you a chair, and then I must check that our stew isn't burning.”

“Have you cooked it yourself?”

Luca smiled. “My cook is getting rather elderly,” he said, a little conspiratorially, “and his…grasp of seasonings is becoming…somewhat
unsubtle
, shall we say. I've suggested he might like to go to bed and leave me to finish the preparations.”

Francesca laughed. “I am very impressed that you feel able to tackle such an undertaking, Signore.”

“I'd save your admiration until after you've tasted it.”

They went together into the
sala.
“Oh, what a lovely room!” Francesca said. “Such beautiful tapestries. Where did you find them?”

Luca paused before saying, “My late wife made them.”

“Oh.” Francesca hesitated. “How grateful you must be to have them.”

For a second, Lisabeta's presence—and her absence—hung in the air between them, unwelcome to Luca for the first time since her death. He silently apologized to his memory of his wife and changed the subject. “You are walking more freely—is your ankle mended?”

“Oh, yes, almost completely. Thank you.”

He held Francesca's gaze and found himself suddenly aware of how difficult swallowing had become. She smiled at him, and for a moment Luca was unable to speak and found that he had to think quite carefully about the mechanics of breathing.

She was wearing the same blue dress he had seen her wear at San Domenico. Perhaps it was the only one she had for special occasions—again, he reminded himself, he had no notion of the circumstances in which her late husband had left her. It was certainly a pretty dress, but it struck him now that a woman this beautiful should not be wearing something so…so understated. She should wear silks and silver, he thought, fabrics that glittered, and—

“The table's only been set for two. Where are your boys?” Francesca's voice broke into his musings. “Are they not coming? I was looking forward to meeting them.”

Luca started. He said, “I'm so sorry—I should probably have sent word…there has been no sign of them so far. I've rather given up on them for this evening. I do hope you don't mind that it will just be the two of us. You may think it improper…I'm so sorry…”

Francesca smiled. “Not at all.”

Luca breathed in, and the smells from the kitchen reminded him of his duties as cook. He said, “I should really check the food. Can you excuse me for a moment?”

“Of course—I shall be very happy taking stock of all the lovely things you have in your beautiful
sala.”

Luca smiled at her and hurried to the kitchen. He put splayed hands on the kitchen table and leaned his weight on his arms. Closing his eyes for a moment, he breathed slowly through his nose.

“You are behaving like a bloody child!” he muttered to himself. “She'll think you're a complete idiot.”

He placed the asparagus into a small pot of boiling water, then tasted the
peposo
again, added a pinch more salt, and threw in a handful of chopped parsley. He ladled it carefully into a large maiolica pot, onto which he placed a lid. Steam rose pleasingly through a small hole in the lid. Luca put the pot onto a wooden tray, along with the plate of sliced tomatoes, the salad, and another plate. Draining the now-cooked asparagus, he placed this onto the empty plate.

He backed out of the kitchen with the tray in his hands and crossed into the
sala.
Putting the tray down on the top of the
credenza,
he saw that Francesca was standing by the fireplace. The shadows on her face were slate blue against the warm peach of her flame-lit skin and her eyes were enormous. An orange dot glowed in the center of each of the pearls hanging from her ears. An insistent hunger for her quite smothered Luca's appetite for his meal, but he smiled at her nevertheless and said, “I think the food is as ready as I can manage. Would you care to come and eat?”

“I should love to. I put a couple of logs on the fire, I hope you don't mind.”

“Very sensible. Come—sit down.”

He pulled a chair out for her and then ladled some of the
peposo
onto her plate.

“It smells wonderful.”

Luca sat down with his own plateful, reached across and passed Francesca the basket of bread.

“Mmm. What's in this?” she said, tasting the stew. “It's lovely.”

“Nothing exciting—beef, pepper, garlic, possibly too much red wine, and a great deal of rosemary
.
”

“Exciting or not, it's delicious.”

Luca watched her take her next mouthful, saw the tip of her tongue picking up a stray drop of gravy from her lip, thought to himself how very, very much he would like to leave the table right now, pick Francesca up in his arms, carry her out of the
sala
, and up to his bed.

“Tell me about the university, Luca,” she said, wiping the corner of her mouth with the tip of her little finger and then sucking it, a torn piece of bread in her other hand.

Luca pulled his gaze from her mouth and said, “I'm not sure where to start.”

“Well, tell me about your teaching.”

“Oh, dear, there really isn't much to tell. I have weekly meetings with various groups of usually disenchanted young men, who have vague hopes of becoming advocates. I describe to them the nitpicking details of aspects of the law that have not yet occurred to them; they more or less retain what I tell them, and then they regurgitate it at a later date to prove their academic prowess.”

Francesca laughed. “I am sure you do yourself a disservice. It must be such a horribly difficult subject to teach…”

“Not at all. Things are only difficult if they are unfamiliar.”

“I suppose so.” She paused, frowning and then shook her head. “But…no. I'm not sure I agree with that. Surely some things are, by their very nature, just more difficult to understand than others.”

Luca considered. “I'd say that familiarity unravels most tangles, but I suppose I'll accept that it might in fact take longer to become familiar with some subjects than others.”

“I don't think it's as easy as that. There are many things in life that I can't imagine I could
ever
learn to do, however familiar I was forced to become with them.”

She ate another mouthful, her gaze still on his.

Luca puffed a soft laugh in his nose. “I doubt that that's true.”

Francesca smiled at him and his insides turned over again. Struggling to keep this from showing on his face, he said, “How are your little girls?”

The smile widened. “Oh, let's see…they are charming, entertaining, exhausting, constantly hungry, and seemingly endlessly energetic.” She counted the girls' attributes off on her fingers.

Luca raised an eyebrow. “That's not quite what I meant,” he said, “but I suppose what you say is unsurprising—how old did you say they are?”

There was a momentary pause as Francesca swallowed another mouthful of wine. “Nearly nine,” she said.

“As you say, an age of endless curiosity and boundless energy—I remember it well with my own two.”

“How old are your boys now?”

“Twenty, and almost eighteen.”

“Very grown-up. Do tell me about them—is there anything I should know before I meet them?”

“Well…” Luca began.

Francesca lifted her glass and drank the last mouthful it contained.

Seeing this, Luca paused and said, “Would you like a little more?”

Francesca nodded, smiling her assent. Luca reached across the table for the bottle, but in doing so, caught the edge of the bread basket with the underside of his sleeve. Snagging on the fabric, the basket flipped up to the vertical and a dozen pieces of bread cascaded across the table, past Francesca's plate, and onto the floor. Francesca gave a little gasp.

Silently cursing himself for his clumsiness, Luca jumped to his feet and hurried around the table; Francesca slid off her chair and knelt, her blue skirts crumpling around her legs as she began to collect up the scattered morsels.

“Here—let me do it!” Luca said, crouching down beside her. He looked sideways at Francesca; his eyes were on her face as he reached for the bread, and his fingers touched not the crust he expected but the back of Francesca's hand.

They both froze.

She turned toward him, twisting her hand up inside his own until they were pressed palm to palm. Holding Luca's gaze, she ran her fingertips down the length of his hand and traced a circle, moving across his palm until he felt his thumb being softly wrapped inside her fist. She squeezed and pulled his thumb gently upward and Luca held his breath. He leaned toward her, his eyes on her mouth.

Then Francesca tilted her face up.

And Luca kissed her.

She laid her hand on his cheek and, while Luca kissed her mouth with a slow and careful deliberation, he felt her fingers stroking in and around the folds of his ear. He moved his lips down onto her neck, and Francesca's head tipped back; she rested her forearms on his shoulders and Luca slid one hand up into her hair at the nape of her neck and put the other around her waist, pulling her in toward him. He lipped the soft skin beneath her chin and breathed in the warm scent of her hair.