The Dark Lady's Mask (33 page)

Olivia cringed. “I would never let you marry so young,
carissima.
Not a day before you turn sixteen. Don't speak of this nonsense of dying for love! Love is meant to make us happy.”

“You both must be hot and dusty from your journey.” Aemilia linked arms with her kinswomen. “Let me take you to the loggia. It's cool and breezy there.”

“First show us around the property before it gets too hot,
cara,
” said Olivia. “I came here once when I first married Francesco, but that was many years ago.”

Just a few minutes with Giulietta and Olivia had lightened Aemilia's heart. Her guests chatted of Bassano and of Francesco and Leandro's paintings as she led them through the olive and almond groves and the orchards of peach, apricot, apple, and pear. Giulietta admired the goats and sheep that wandered freely, their presence announced by the trilling bells tied to their necks.

“You've done well with the kitchen garden,” Olivia said approvingly. “You are truly self-sufficient. The only thing you need buy is meal to bake bread. Francesco once said that if he was in charge of this property he would plant mulberry trees to raise silkworms. You might consider this,
cara,
for some years the wine harvest fails.”

Aemilia pictured the mulberry tree and three silk moths in the Bassano family coat of arms. Then she thought of Papa's ancestors who had raised silkworms in Sicily until they were driven away. Yet something told her not to mention this buried history to Olivia. Apart from the late Jacopo, it seemed her kin in the Casa dal Corno thought the past was best left to lie.

“Where's Will?” Giulietta asked.

“He took Enrico inside.” Aemilia gazed at the villa dripping with wisteria, its shutters closed to keep out the heat.

“Ah, speaking of Will, I have a letter for him.” Olivia drew an envelope from the brocade purse that hung at her waist. “It arrived only a few days ago.”

Taking the letter from Olivia, Aemilia saw the Earl of Southampton's coat of arms on the wax seal. As she stepped out of the shade, intent on showing her guests the olive press, the heat closed in with a force that sent her stumbling. The letter fell from her slack hand.

“It's only the heat,” she said, when Olivia took her arm. “I swear I'll be fine.”

“
I
think it's hot, too,” Giulietta declared. “It's
far
hotter here than in Bassano.”

The girl bent down to pick up the fallen letter and handed it back to Aemilia.

“Come, let's away,” said Aemilia. “Out of the sun.”

I
N THE COOL REFUGE
of the loggia, the midday feast awaited them. Winifred poured wine, still cool from the cellar. Tabitha carried out Enrico so the guests could fuss over him while Prudence and Lucetta bustled back and forth from the kitchen carrying out dish after dish of freshly baked bread, soft white cheeses made from the milk of their goats and sheep, peaches and apricots, almonds and olives, a stew of lentils, and
bigoli,
homemade buckwheat noodles, and
fagioli
seasoned with rosemary, raisins, and pine nuts. When Lucetta appeared with the platter of braised rabbit in
amarone
sauce, the sight and smell made Aemilia's stomach curdle. Staggering from the table, she heaved over the rail into Prudence's herb garden.

“She
is
ill!” Giulietta cried.

Olivia laughed and supported Aemilia's shoulders. “I think I know the sickness she suffers and it's a very happy sickness for married ladies.” She wiped Aemilia's mouth with her handkerchief. “Does Will know,
cara
?”

“Not yet,” Aemilia said.

Olivia took her back to the table. “Come, have a glass of watered wine and some bread. You need something in your stomach.”

Winifred hovered over Aemilia protectively. “Never you worry, mistress. From now on, we'll make proper
English
food. Let me take this evil-smelling rodent away.”

With a pointed look at Lucetta, Winifred carried the offending rabbit back to the kitchen.

“Why hasn't Will come to the table?” Giulietta asked.

“He must be upstairs writing,” Aemilia said. “When he writes, he loses all sense of time.”

She imagined him in their shuttered bedchamber, mewed up like a molting hawk, scribbling his heart out. Perhaps he was so immersed in his inner world, he hadn't even realized guests had arrived.

“Shall I fetch him down, mistress?” Tabitha asked.

But just then Will appeared, his face animated and cheerful as he took his seat beside Aemilia.

“At last!” Giulietta clapped her hands. “Were you truly writing up there?”

“Indeed,” he said. “I was hard at work on the play of your Veronese
innamorati.
This is the scene I've just written.” Flushed with excitement, he turned to Aemilia. “Romeo is peaceable and yet he is fated to live in feuding Verona. Thus, he's drawn into a duel to avenge the death of his friend Mercutio who died fighting to save Romeo from attack.” Here Will had to pause for breath. “And so Romeo kills Giulietta's cousin. This sets everything else in motion. From this scene onward, comedy turns to tragedy.”

He gazed expectantly at the women, who viewed him with uncomprehending stares.

“Fighting duels.” Giulietta made a face. “What about the
romance
?”

“So it's Mercutio who comes between the lovers and spoils their happiness,” Aemilia said in a hollow voice, as flies buzzed around her head.

At the corner of the table lay Harry's letter, which Will had evidently not yet noticed.

“Will, we far prefer to hear your poetry of love,” Olivia said.

For a moment, Will looked crestfallen. Then he shrugged, his eyes darting up and down the table. “What, there's no meat for our guests?”

Olivia offered Aemilia a complicit smile. “Meat spoils quickly in this heat. Have some cheese instead.”

Will turned to Aemilia. “You're so quiet. This is very unlike you.”

Olivia smothered a giggle.

Will raised his hands in exasperation. “So what is this secret you ladies are hiding from me?”

“That's what
I'd
like to know!” Giulietta shot her mother an indignant glance.

Aemilia took his hand and felt her face flame even hotter. Though it seemed awkward to tell him in front of their guests, there seemed little point in keeping her condition a mystery.

“I'm with child,” she told him. “I hope it's a little girl this time.”

“
Oh,
” said Giulietta, turning to her mother in amazement.

Tabitha cried out in delight and clapped her hands. Prudence grinned.

“Such a blessing,” said Will, kissing Aemilia before them all. “Such happy news.”

Aemilia blinked back her tears, her heart pounding in joy. She imagined a daughter with Will's hazel eyes flitting like a dryad through the olive groves.

“Here comes a cooling breeze, mistress,” Prudence said in English, too softly for Will to hear. She spoke as though the weather itself obeyed her command. “Eat in peace, sweet mistress. Your troubles shall soon pass.”

Pru's eyes locked with Aemilia's as the wind swept Harry's letter off the table. Meanwhile, Will, Olivia, and Giulietta were too engrossed in their happy chatter to notice. Prudence smiled to her mistress, as though to seal a pact.

I
N THE COOL OF
early evening, Will escorted their guests down into Verona to show them the sights while Aemilia sat in the loggia and read the scene he had penned. By killing Giulietta's cousin, Romeo made himself a wanted man, an outlaw forced to flee Verona. Even with the aid of their sympathetic friar, the story had evolved so that it could only end in tragedy. The sole way Giulietta and Romeo could preserve their love was by dying together in a double suicide.
Might we not have one tragedy?

Leaving the pages on the table, Aemilia stood at the rail of the loggia and looked down at the city glowing in the evening sun. Soon Will and their guests would be back. It was only twenty minutes to Verona by foot, down the cobbled cart track, perhaps slightly longer for the return up the steep hill. She would hear their laughter echoing through the olive trees before she saw them. Then it would be time to light the candles and watch the moon rise. Winifred and Prudence would bring out a simple supper and a jug of wine. As there was neither virginals nor lute in her new household, she would entertain her guests by singing madrigals. Giulietta might join in, their voices weaving in harmony.

Aemilia's eyes caught sight of something tangled in the wisteria vines. Harry's letter. She stooped to extricate it from the greenery and then held it in both her hands. It shamed her to think she could be tempted into such dishonesty, allowing Will's letter to be lost, even though Prudence had offered the perfect excuse—blown away in the wind!

In the searing heat of midday, she had felt sick and had not been herself, but now with a clear head and a settled stomach, she would do what was right. How could she betray Will's trust? Surely their love must be strong enough to withstand a letter scrawled in Harry's careless hand.

She placed the letter atop Will's newly written pages then carried the sheaf of papers upstairs and placed them in their lap desk.

With the shutters closed, their bedchamber was stifling and oppressively dark. Singing a lullaby under her breath for the tiny new life stirring inside her, Aemilia opened the shutters wide, allowing fresh air to pour into every corner.

A
FTERWARD
, A
EMILIA'S HEART RESTED
easy and unburdened. Even if their play lurched into tragedy, their love would endure, and in their long life together, they could write many more comedies ending in perfect bliss. Leaning back in her chair, she sipped watered wine while listening to Giulietta praise Verona's silk market as though it were paradise on earth.

“Tomorrow we
must
go back and buy that apricot brocade with the silver threads!”

“We certainly won't,” said her mother. “The price the vendor quoted was outrageous. Because we are visitors from Bassano, he thinks we are fools.”

“But he was so handsome,” Giulietta said. “I think I shall marry a Veronese silk merchant.”

“Say no more,” said Will. “We shall burn
Giulietta and Romeo
and instead write
Giulietta and the Silk Vendor of Verona.
”

The girl's eyes widened. “If you write another romance with a heroine named Giulietta, she must fall in love with someone of the highest nobility.”

“Your imagination!” Her mother sighed. “You'll probably marry a painter like your father.”

“Before I forget,” Aemilia said to Will, “Olivia brought a letter for you from Bassano. From the Earl of Southampton.”

She gave Harry his full title for Giulietta's benefit. The girl sat bolt upright.

“An English Earl! Is he good-looking?”

“As handsome as he is young and dashing,” Will said, with a wink to Aemilia. “And as full of self-regard and hot wind.”

Aemilia laughed to hear Will's gentle mockery of his friend. Her belly eased and warmed.

“Still, it will be amusing to see what he has to say,” said Will. “Perhaps he writes to rebuke me for not sending certain . . .
artwork
his way.”

Aemilia grinned to catch Will's surreptitious reference to Harry's fondness for pornography. Giulietta only looked mystified.

“Even when you two speak Italian,” the girl said, “it's as if you have your own secret language just for each other.”

“Perhaps we do, indeed,” Aemilia said, smiling at Will.

“At that,” said Will, “I shall excuse myself.” He kissed her and whispered in her ear, “Don't be too long, love.”

A
EMILIA LINGERED A SHORT
while to sing madrigals with Giulietta while Olivia listened. They sang a cappella
,
their only accompaniment the night birds and the wind in the trees. She thought she heard some pitiful creature howl in the darkness, but still she sang, never falling out of harmony. Moths fluttered around the candle flames. How she hated to see them burn like Icarus. Finally, out of pity for them, she blew out the candles. Tabitha appeared with a lantern to show Giulietta to her guest room.

“I will be up soon,” Olivia told her daughter.

When the girl had gone, Olivia took Aemilia's hands. “It's good to see you so happy. I only wish you had told me the truth from the beginning. Why would you ever wish to lie to me?”

“The truth?” Aemilia's mind was a blank. Which of her many falsehoods had tripped her up this time? Had Olivia divined that her and Will's marriage was a sham?

“I heard Enrico calling Will papa,” Olivia said. “You should have told us from the start that he's your son's father. We are your family,
cara.
You must speak the truth to us.”

“Forgive me,” Aemilia murmured.

She felt like an even worse liar for not daring to correct Olivia's false assumption, which was far more pleasant and less complicated than the facts. That she had no business living with Will as his wife and bearing his child. If Olivia knew, would she shun her completely? Forbid her innocent daughter from coming near her?

Olivia hugged Aemilia. “I'm so relieved you're finally married. Now everything shall turn out well for you,
cara.
God smiles upon true lovers.”

Warmth welled up in Aemilia's heart. She imagined Will and herself as
innamorati
in Arcadia, laying garlands of thanksgiving upon the altar of Eros.

S
HAFTS OF MOONLIGHT POURED
through the windows to illuminate Aemilia's path up the stairs. Her palm found their bedchamber door.

Back in Westminster, when she first married Alfonse while six months pregnant with Lord Hunsdon's child, the midwife had warned her not to lie with her husband until six months after the baby was born. But Aemilia no longer believed in such prohibitions. No, she would make love with Will for as long as her body allowed her to do so. Her desire pulsed like a flame of pure-white heat.