The Ruby Ring (23 page)

Raphael had taken her hand and was rubbing his thumb against her palm. He could feel her shiver as he said, “Many thanks, old friend. I shall consider myself warned.”

A
FTER LEONARDO
had departed into the grainy gray Roman dusk, Raphael and Margherita were alone again. Seizing the privacy, Raphael pushed back the artist’s drapery lying on their pallet, and pressed her into the folds of cool linen beneath, in the private little sanctuary off the main workshop. Without words, Margherita fell willingly beneath his smooth, tender hands and reveled as he touched the soft skin of her neck with gentle fingertips. As Raphael began passionately to kiss her, their bodies bound by one another, both in the state of half undress, the sound of a door swinging back on its hinges out in the main workshop brought a sudden and frightening stop to the moment. Margherita’s eyes widened at the sound of rustling skirts, and Raphael turned toward the second door to see who was so unexpectedly there . . .

19

I
T WAS THE FIRST TIME MARIA BIBBIENA HAD BEEN TO
the workshop in months. Raphael did not invite her here, nor did he seem to appreciate her presence when she did, on occasion, visit, bringing him a basket of warm bread, figs, a chunk of thick yellow cheese, and wine for his dinner. But as there was little other excuse to see him, he being so entirely taken up these days with all of the feverish activity in his life, it was the only excuse left to her. She would come here with an offering basket of his favorite things and hope that even if he was not appreciative, at least he might be hungry.

The two women attendants who accompanied Maria, richly attired in their own quilted and jeweled winter gowns, which matched her black velvet with long fur collar and cuffs, were dutifully silent. The expressions on their smooth, pretty faces were passive as they followed her. Maria knew that they, too, had heard the gossip about her betrothed and his new common model.

Maria squared her painfully thin shoulders, which, like her telltale bony collarbone, were masked by layers of rich black velvet and a wide band of fur. She did her best to hold her head high, but her nose was running again and she felt weakened by the daunting performance that lay before her.

She had suffered many illnesses in her twenty years, and a general sense of ill health pervaded her world. There were daily tinctures, ointments, powders, and plasters, and endless consultations with new physicians, herbs, and special food. Her thin, ash-blond hair and pale-lipped smile could only hide so much. Still, the dignity of the house of Bibbiena thrust her forward, a proud, slippered step at a time, followed by her entourage, onto aged stairs that gave a small creak with each footfall.

It was quiet when they entered through the main workshop door. She saw that everyone had gone home for the day. Even the young apprentice who usually remained to clean paintbrushes in pails of water across the vast, easel ornamented room was no-where to be seen. Yet Maria knew Raphael would still be here. It was not so late for him, with so many commissions to balance.
Long after everyone is asleep,
he once had told her,
here I remain. It is, after all, my name and my reputation that suffers if I cannot find a way to satisfy them all.

Maria ventured forth toward his small, private room. She had found him there once before late like this, pouring over account books. Maria knocked once; then, when no response came, she turned the iron handle of the little room and pushed open the door.

There before her was Raphael and a woman, with hair like sable-colored satin, long and graceful, curved over her bare shoulders. Both of them were naked, yet covered by the same amber artist’s drapery, and lounging sensually on a pallet on the floor. But what shocked her the most was the expression on his face. It was one of complete exultant desire for the woman whose bare leg was twined with his own. To her credit, Maria thought, disdainfully, the peasant girl, once seen, had the manners to cover herself.

She must have gasped before her fingers moved up and splayed across her mouth because Raphael shot her a stunned glare.

“Dio mio!”
he cried out, bolting upright. “What the devil are you doing here?”

“Clearly, I should not have come,” Maria managed to respond, fingers still splayed across her lips, as her eyes settled on this newest rival—the common girl from Trastevere whom he preferred as the model for his Madonna.

Maria spun on her heel, the hem of her gown swirling out behind her. The only sound was a rustle of skirts. To his credit, Raphael rose, called out her name in a tone of concern, then tried to go after her. But Maria’s male attendant and guard, a solidly built Tuscan with a square face and a flat nose, blocked the door to the room as soon as Maria had gone out of it.

“Allow her to go with her dignity,
signore,
” he said with surprising command. “Follow her, if you will, but only once you have your clothes on.”

Despite their wild trembling, Maria ran as fast as her legs could carry her, her eyes clouded with tears.

“What a fool I am!” she sobbed against the butter-yellow stone facade of the building once she was out on the street. An icy winter breeze buffeted her.

“If he wants you he will come after you,
signorina,
” the groom said kindly. “And if he does not—”

“If he does not, it is the end of my life!”

“You must not speak such words!”

“What other can come from me?”

“Those saying that you shall rise above this, and above him, and you shall go on, if he desires you not!”

Maria turned her head and looked at the guardsman through tear-clouded eyes. She had never, until this moment, truly regarded him. He had worked for her family for many years and she did not even know his name. When she looked into his soulful green eyes now she saw that they were full of kindness and a remarkable concern.

“What do
you
know of such things?” she sniffled.

“I know what I see,
signorina.
A lovely girl who deserves better than to chase rainbows.”

“You believe Raffaello to be a rainbow, do you,
signor guardia?
”

“He may well be one for
you.
”

“I find you impertinent with me and I know not even your name.”

“I am Alessandro, Signorina Bibbiena.”

“From what family?”

“Agnolo, of Montalcino,
signorina,
” he nodded, hands stiffly at his sides. “Am I less impertinent to you now?”

She tried not to smile, but it was useless. He proffered a handkerchief, which she accepted as her two ladies emerged and gathered on the street behind her. The meaning of his family name was
gentle as a lamb,
and for all of his strength as a guard she could see that in him.

“Only mildly impertinent now.”

“Improvement is a worthy thing.” He bit back a smile.

“So it is, Signor Guardia Alessandro Agnolo. Now, if you please, see me home. I find I am feeling very tired.”

20

March 1515

D
ONATO TOOK HER GLOVED HAND IN HIS OWN AS THEY
stepped along in the chilled March air, and through the crowded streets of Trastevere. His smile was a strange one, Margherita saw. They walked silently, arm in arm, passing a large bronze equestrian statue in the center of a small piazza. A flock of pigeons flapped their wings, some of them abandoning the statue as Margherita and Donato passed.

“Where are we going?”

“You must learn to like surprises if you are to remain a part of a great man’s life!”

“Where we are going is to be a
surprise
for me?”

“A rather grand one, I should imagine.”

They next passed through an arcade and into a narrow street still full of medieval houses, each with Gothic windows and broad balconies. They passed a little church with a fine rose glass window glittering like a jewel in a single burst of afternoon sun through a gray sky. Around them, old women in heavy cloaks filtered out past the carved doors into the street. Donato’s eyes twinkled with the merriment of a summer’s day in spite of the wintry air.

“
You
know what it is?” she asked, putting a hand on his arm, as they walked through a carved archway between two buildings and out onto the grand Via Alessandrina. They passed two brown-clad monks, their lowered heads covered in wide straw hats, and a collection of musical instrument workshops before they came finally to the portion of the street housing stately villas. Situated on the corner was a particularly imposing four-story house of terra-cotta and stone.

Suddenly, Donato stopped, kissed her cheek with brotherly affection, then slowly pulled open one of the huge and heavy front doors, which had a coat of arms carved above them. With a long, low creaking sound, the doors revealed a grand vestibule with a soaring ceiling, Doric columns, marble floors, and sweeping staircase that lay beyond. The rich aroma of leather and old books spilled out onto the street around them as Margherita gasped.

“What are you doing?”

But before he could respond, Raphael came toward her across the marble floor of the imposing foyer, his shoe heels tapping and his smile wide. Extending his arms, he enveloped Margherita, kissed her, then drew her into the warmth of the house.

“Well? Does it please you?” he asked with the happy expectation of a child. “If you are not pleased, then, of course, I will sell it immediately.” Before she could answer, he led her into a large room dotted with art to the left of the foyer. Its vaulted ceiling and broad, painted beams made her gasp.

“I do not understand,” she told him as she looked back from a room appointed with more luxury and grandeur than her mind could conjure.

“It is for you. It is your new home.
If
it pleases you, naturally.”

She frowned slightly, trying to digest all that he was saying, and all that it implied. “As your mistress?”

“As yourself, Margherita. Only ever as yourself. To give you the privacy you deserve, from my assistants, or anyone else. To accept or decline whatever visitor you wish. Including me.”

“You?” she smiled in disbelief. “You, who would be responsible for it in the first place?”

He was smiling back at her with delight in his weary eyes. “I love you, Margherita. I do not wish to keep you like a prize, or like a servant. I wish most of all to marry you, and I have meant this house as a show of that declaration.”

“Signorina Bibbiena will never give you up.”

He wanted to say that he had asked Maria yet again to terminate the betrothal, but betraying Margherita with a lie would be to sully something pure and special.

“I have not seen her since she came to the studio and found us,” he answered truthfully.

“Is it her cardinal uncle you fear?”

Raphael let a sigh and drew her down onto a divan with carved wooden legs and covered in French tapestry. “I care not for myself if he is angered by the truth. I can always find work painting portraits.”

“But your men, good men like Giulio.” She saw the concern in his eyes. “Spare me not, Raphael. Truth matters to me as loyalty does to you.” She waited a moment. “Do you truly see a time when you shall be free of her? I have no wish to dream for something that can never be.”

He pulled her close and kissed her deeply. “I know not when or how, but before the day I draw my final breath, you alone shall be called wife to Raphael of Urbino.”

J
OINED BY
Padre Giacomo and Margherita’s family, Margherita and Raphael celebrated her first night in the new house on the Via Alessandrina, which was home, as well, to the Spanish ambassador. The house had been a palace, a city dwelling for the powerful and influential Caprini family a decade earlier. Margherita had told Raphael in the hours after it began to sink in how happy this would have made her mother. For so simple a woman to see dreams become reality for her daughter would have meant the world to her.

“Oh, how I wish she could have been here with me to see this,” Margherita whispered, with tears in her eyes.

Raphael smiled kindly and glanced at the ceiling. “I believe she
is
here,
cara.
I’ve always felt my own father around me at times like this.”

Margherita smiled through her tears. “It makes me happy to imagine it could actually be so.”

In the grand house, Letitia went from room to room touching furniture and picking up costly candlesticks to see if she might, from their weight alone, determine their cost. As she did, Francesco Luti sat proudly in costly garments that did not suit him, but pleased him, and sank more deeply into a studded velvet chair of hunter green, allowing himself to be catered to by Margherita’s new servants, who had come with the price of the house.

A stone-faced man, with a beaklike nose, leaned over the patriarch with a silver platter laden with rich slivers of almond frittata, marzipan, and, beside it, delectable sugared fruit. Donato stood silently near the fire drinking costly wine, shaking his head in disbelief, and trying his best to keep the feet of his four sons off the costly furnishings.

As he watched Margherita’s family basking in their sudden, newfound fortune, Raphael’s mind wandered from the joy of seeing Margherita’s open shock and delight to darker thoughts of Maria. It was her expression, when she had seen them together in the studio. He had no wish to hurt her, and yet he had seen by her face that he had done just that. His instinct had been to go to her directly afterward. But after the plea from her guardsman, he thought better of it. He had always believed Maria deserved better than the political marriage her uncle was foisting on her.

Raphael sank back into the deep, tapestry-covered chair, crossed one leg over the other, and continued watching Margherita and her family. He studied their easy way with one another—the rhythms of people with a rich, shared history. He was mesmerized by it, and a deep sense of longing for his own family began to fill him. It had been so many years since he had shared in a family meal, boisterous, loving arguments, the laughter of children, or expressions, ages old, that made him feel twined with others in the deep fabric of experiences.

Drawing to him his small leather folio, which held several long sheets of paper and a piece of blue chalk, that he always carried, Raphael began to sketch fragments of the scene before him: Donato’s torso twisting around in response when Letitia called to him from across the room . . . Jacopo, the oldest child, his face hinting at manhood, yet still bearing traces of the soft roundness of youth . . . and portly Francesco, the patriarch, his full lips twisted up in a wine-induced chuckle, his eyes dancing mirthfully. His face was still unmistakably defined by years of work, sacrifice, hardship, and loss. It was only as Raphael formed the precise shape of Margherita’s smile, with rapid exacting movements, that the images began to melt and he could no longer see. Glancing up again at Margherita, laughing joyously at something precocious Matteo had just done, Raphael realized that it was not fatigue but tears that were clouding his eyes.

W
HEN THEY
had all drunk too much wine to be sent home, the servants saw Margherita’s family to the several guest chambers on the second floor while Raphael led Margherita to the third-floor suite that would now be theirs. While they dined downstairs, Raphael had seen that the chamber was filled with flowers—white winter roses framed with fragrant rosemary. Margherita gasped when she saw them and sank back against the closed door.

“It is for you. All of it, for you,” he murmured, unwinding her hair from the neatly tied knot at the back, then lifting a handful of the shiny waves and kissing the spot of her neck just below her ear. “I am going to paint another Madonna of you.”

Margherita smiled. “I thought we agreed to only one.”

“We also agreed to end
this
after the first time!”

He kissed her hungrily then, pressing her back against the closed door, his hands playing over the length of her body.

“What sort of Madonna did you have in mind?”

“From the sketch I did tonight as you held little Matteo. Your eyes, your face . . . it was perfect. And something else,” he confessed, his breath coming now on a ragged whisper. “There is another gift I have in mind for you one day soon.”

“You have already given me far more than I could ever deserve.”

Raphael ran his hands down the length of her body, feeling the curves beneath the layers of fine silk that she now wore, uninterested in waiting to have her on the grand canopied bed across the room. “That is simply not possible. And this particular gift . . . is as fated as we are. I knew it the moment I saw it.”

“As you knew with you and I?” she whispered then, betraying a little laugh as a guilty child would.

“Exactly as. Until we are able to marry, I mean to shower you every day of your life with the evidence that you are everything to me. I want this gift for the absolute rightness of it. When I am able to obtain it for you—and, mark me, I one day will—it will symbolize our formal betrothal.”

It felt powerful and forbidden this way—wildly exciting—to take her against the door as he might with one of the whores in the bordello. But this time they would do it while speaking of Madonnas, and love, in the shadow of the magnificent painted Virgin that had at first brought them together. Propped on an easel beside their bed for one day more before it would be shipped to San Sisto, tonight it would remind them most pointedly of his gift and her beauty.

“In the meantime,” he murmured into her hair as he cast off his hose and lifted her gown, “I will show you what to do with me. I will show you everything to pleasure us both,
mio grand amore.
”