The Ruby Ring (28 page)

“The ring is exquisite, Your Grace,” he heard Margherita very softly remark, knowing nothing of its value to Raphael. They were the first words she had spoken to anyone but Raphael all evening.

She was straining, Raphael knew, to adopt the appropriately modulated tone to be used with so important and intimidating a cleric as the one who sat stiffly only two guests away from her. His heart squeezed with pride, and he willed himself not to intercede. This must become a successful evening for her—never mind the ring—and she must do it on her own.

“And it seems I have your Raphael to thank for it,
signora,
” Cardinal Bibbiena replied with an imperious gleam.

Raphael set down his goblet of wine and listened more carefully, the hair on the back of his neck suddenly prickling in warning.

“After all,” Bibbiena continued, stabbing a piece of white fish with his gleaming silver fork, then settling his gaze very directly on Raphael, “was it not you who brought it up yourself from the ruins of Nero’s house?”

Where do you mean to go with this?
He felt the caution surge up inside him. “It is so,” he carefully replied.

“Well, there you see? The credit for my gift then is exclusively yours.”

“I am glad the ring pleases Your Grace.”

“And so at least one Bibbiena is victorious against a Sanzio in something.”

He had been played like that lute, Raphael realized. The cardinal knew he had valued that ring, and now he sat there beside him, so smugly pious, twirling it around on his own cold, reedy finger. Raphael had long been wary of the cardinal’s power. His wariness had increased once he had sought to leave Maria. But he had not truly feared him until now—now that there was Margherita, vulnerable and unaware, between them.

M
ARGHERITA
glanced at Raphael across the room half an hour later as he stood, arms crossed over his chest below a bronze medallion he wore on a heavy chain. He was deeply engaged in conversation with another cardinal. This one, called Inghirami, was a short, stout man, nearly bald, yet with the shadow of a beard on his double chin, and one unfocused eye. She allowed herself the slightest self-satisfied smile then, and drew in the first full breath she had taken since the dinner began.
Madre Maria!
She was actually surviving this! She had not spilled any wine or spoken too quickly, nor even said the wrong thing.

She watched Raphael and the cardinal speak intensely of the great architectural debate concerning the mammoth size of the planned basilica for Saint Peter’s, and whether or not, once complete, it could actually stand. The artist and the cleric spoke intensely and quietly, standing there holding their jewel-encrusted goblets, only a few feet from the Holy Father seated in his silk-covered dining chair. Raphael was wrapped in an elegant doublet of aubergine and gold thread, his toque tilted in the stylish French manner. She was dressed like a princess.

This was her world now, she thought, as unbelievable as that still seemed.

That world had shifted entirely from one of baking endless loaves of bread in a stifling kitchen, and wondering daily if they had earned enough money to feed them all, to an existence of deciding upon shoes with pearls or beads, attending to the needs of various servants, reading books, engaging in fascinating discussions, and making choices on more new gowns than she could count. She had fine jewelry and two very fashionable French headdresses. These trappings, and Elena’s patient lessons, had recast the uncertain peasant girl from Trastevere like a layer of blue wash on one of Raphael’s paintings. By his devotion, she had been transformed, and she almost dared to believe that she was actually on the pathway to becoming someone appropriate for him. For example, the handsome young painter Sebastiano Luciani, with his sharply assessing black eyes, had dined near her and treated her with the greatest respect. He inquired as to her opinion of the Castel Sant’Angelo, and her new very elegant home, as if they were the most natural of subjects.

She found very quickly that it was difficult not to like Sebastiano, his sense of humor, and the way in which he so quickly put her at ease. Once Raphael, on her other side, was taken up in conversation elsewhere, Margherita was grateful to have had Sebastiano ask a cardinal if they might trade places.

Margherita had no idea what had made Raphael so tense after the presentation to Cardinal Bibbiena, but she was beginning to understand the sometimes volatile and always changing temperament of an artist. And because of the kind attentions of the dining partner on the other side of her, she had been given no opportunity to ask him.

A slim hand on her shoulder brought her back to the moment. Margherita turned around to see a lovely woman with shining honey-colored hair and a kind smile standing beside her. She wore a dress of rich, dove-gray silk, and her hair was braided with tiny sapphires.

“Ours are complicated men who have dared to love beneath expectation,” she said sweetly. “Our ranks, as those who love them in return, are few.”

When Margherita looked puzzled, she added with an easy smile, “I am Francesca Andreozza, betrothed of Signor Chigi.”

Margherita had heard about her from Raphael, as well as about Chigi’s other mistress, Imperia, who had battled valiantly for the title of Signora Chigi. Francesca, like herself, was common. And in the beginning she had been treated to the very same social rebuff.

“I am Margherita Luti.”

“Of course. All of Rome knows who you are. But only
I
understand what it is like to
be
in your shoes.”

“Perhaps you have a point.” Margherita found herself smiling.

“I would be most fond of a sound ally.”

Trust was a difficult thing for Margherita to risk in a world so new to her, and thus so fraught with danger. But she, too, could benefit from an ally. And Raphael would be proud of her, she determined, having found one in his own patron’s fiance.

“I would like that.”

Francesca clasped her hands. “Splendid! Then tell me you will come to supper with me next week. We will have a more private opportunity to speak of things then.”

“It would be a pleasure.”

Francesca smiled. “And it has been one for me this evening—meeting you.”

The entertainment began. The pope’s buffoon was making everyone laugh with his antics set to music played on a lute and a flute set up near the fireplace hearth. Francesca was distracted then by another guest. Alone now, Margherita felt brave enough to seek a breath of fresh air. This really had been the most extraordinary event.

The stone wall around the castle had large open bays, each with a more magnificent view of the city than the last. There were small stone benches beneath each one, upon which to consider the grandeur. As she walked past these little niches in the stone, amid the cool afternoon air, Margherita still could not believe that she was actually a guest in a place like this—that she had not embarrassed herself or Raphael, and that a part of her now was actually enjoying the experience. She kept walking, the fragrance of the air reviving her, steadying her after the fright and anticipation that she had carried with her to the vaunted Castel Sant’Angelo a mere two hours earlier. Perhaps one day they could learn to accept her, after all, as Signor Chigi’s mistress now was accepted. Stranger things, she knew, had happened in the long history of Rome.

Margherita descended a small flight of stone steps entering a charming little enclosed inner courtyard peppered with fat, gray pigeons. It was decorated with fountains and stone pots spilling over with geraniums. She sat on a stone bench supported by two carved lion’s heads and, for the first time today, felt herself fully exhale. A pleased little smile followed.

“Hoping to escape, Signora Luti?”

Margherita turned with a start toward the voice that came at her from the shadows. It was her dinner partner, Sebastiano Luciani. He was smiling casually as he leaned against a stone pillar, arms crossed nonchalantly over his chest. She realized, with a little jolt of her heart, that she had not heard him behind her.

A moment later, he moved toward her and sank onto the same small bench. “Because, if you are, I will warn you that you would find it a frustrating and unsuccessful endeavor. These walls around us are fortified to keep us in, as well as to keep the common world out.”

“I needed a breath of air.”

“I should not wonder! They can be a daunting lot, all of those starched robes and crucifixes.” Margherita smiled at that, but she was uncertain how further to respond. “Of course, as you can see,
I
wear no ecclesiastical garb, so you are free to be as open with me as you like.”

How did he know what she felt? In spite of all her lessons, was she still that transparent? She knew Raphael did not like him, but she did not understand why. He certainly was the most approachable of all the guests, and a fellow artist, beside whom Raphael once had worked. Raphael must be wrong about him. Raphael had spoken of his temper, driven by their competition. They had quarreled, Raphael had told her. But Sebastiano simply could not be guilty of those other awful things. And Raphael had always admitted he had no absolute proof that Sebastiano was behind the plot to injure his hand.

“If it is any consolation,” he continued, gazing up at the broad, cloudless sky above them, “you do look far more at ease than I would guess you feel in a place like this. I did not sleep for two days the first time I was in the presence of the Holy Father.”

“I suspect we will share
that
fate,” Margherita smiled.

“To share any fate at all with you,
signora,
I should consider myself a fortunate man indeed.”

Margherita was unsure if the comment had been flattery, or if something more had been implied. He was certainly more worldly than she. At the very moment her mind filled with the question of what the comment had meant, and how to respond as other women might, a voice cut into the awkward silence.

“What are you doing with
him?
”

The tone of voice was cold, the stare icier still. Raphael stood before them now, his body a ramrod of pure anger. Margherita reacted to it defensively, having tried all evening to make the right choices, say the right things. In that moment, she felt foolish and slightly afraid.

“It was nothing! Sebastiano found me wandering and he was simply being polite.”

Raphael arched a suspicious brow. “Sebastiano, is it?”

“Forgive me,
amore mio,
but is that not how
you
refer to him?”

“
I
am not an unmarried woman!”

“Were it in my power, I would not be so, either!” She had spoken too quickly, and she regretted it the moment she saw his expression change. She knew he was doing everything in his power to receive the Holy Father’s approval in the matter. “Raphael,
per favore,
it was harmless. He truly was only trying to be polite.”

“Odd, when it has been a very long time since he has been anything near polite to
me!
”

“You make too much of a small thing.”

He took her arm above the elbow, gripping it, neither of them noticing Sebastiano’s slim, satisfied smile.

“Come,” Raphael commanded. “We are leaving.”

“But—”

Raphael turned back suddenly, his face changed in a way she had never seen before. The stare he gave his rival was darkly menacing. “Leave her alone, Sebastiano! This is only between the two of us!”

Still smiling, Sebastiano shrugged. “Perhaps not.”

“Touch her, and I swear by all that is holy, I will see you dead! And, unlike you,
I
will need no henchmen to do the job for me!”

“Threats so lack creativity, Raphael,” his rival yawned, his lips lifting into an unattractive sneer.

“It was not a threat! You may consider it an absolute certainty!”

R
APHAEL
did not speak to Margherita again until they were home, alone in her bedchamber with its massive bed and soaring beamed ceilings. A fire blazed and crackled in the hearth, lighting and warming everything in the room, especially the tense expressions on both of their faces.

“What was
really
wrong with you today?” Margherita asked, an arm placed gently at the small of his back. She had taken off her shoes and jewelry, but she had no wish to call Elena to undress her until she and Raphael had discussed this. It felt like a great and sudden barrier between them.

He raked back his hair and stared into the fire as she sat down on the needlepoint hearthside bench beside him. “I petitioned the pope once again to allow us to marry,” he confessed.

The fire cracked and flared. “He is still against it, even though Signorina Bibbiena acknowledges the end of your betrothal?”

Raphael nodded somberly, unable and unwilling to tell her the full truth. He could not tell her that Pope Leo had angrily decreed a peasant girl to be too far beneath him for anything but a passing dalliance. His request alone, said the pope, was a grand insult to Cardinal Bibbiena and his much-loved niece. The pope had hotly declared that a marriage between them could never be ordained by God. That he must concentrate on the work . . .
always the work
. . . and forget her.

“It doesn’t matter,” Margherita soothingly told him, with a hand across his shoulder, their faces made golden by the flames.

“But it
does
matter! Without our marriage, none of them will
eve
r
—”

She knew what he meant to say. The thing that would not leave his lips for love of her—that the patrician class of Rome, the nobles and the powerful clergy, would never accept her, no matter for how many breathtaking Madonnas she posed, or how she enriched his life. She would forever be a peasant who had dared to ensnare a man far above her station by the power of seduction.

Raphael sagged against the hearth, then hung his head. “I
will
marry you, by God in his heaven!”

“I know you will.”

He turned to her then, his face alive and burning with his frustration. “We will go to Urbino! There we can be wed with no protest from anyone!”