Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection) (49 page)

Giovanni did not release him, but shook him as a reminder. Gilbert’s eyes bulged as he stared from Violet to Giovanni and back again.

“As for — Massari, I — have not seen him.”

Giovanni opened his hand and let him fall. As Gilbert drew a gasping breath and flopped into his chair, the young Italian stepped back. Reaching out his hand to Violet, he drew her to his side. “I think,” he said quietly, “that we have done all that can be done here.”

Her eyes were dark with desolation as she met his steady gaze.

“Yes,” she answered, “let us go home.”

IT HAD BEEN A DAY OF WARM MARCH
winds and brilliant sunshine. The air had been balmy, the grass seemed to leap into growth, and the fruit trees unfurled white and pink blossoms like welcoming banners for the approach of spring.

The winter coolness still lingered inside the stone walls of the villa. Violet had taken her journal out into the garden as the day warmed toward the middle of the afternoon. Giovanni had brought a stool for her feet, to keep her ankles from swelling, and also a shawl to ward off any vagrant chilliness in the scant shade of the olive tree.

“You are comfortable now?” he asked, standing relaxed yet observant in front of her chair with one hand clasping the wrist of his other arm.

“Very.” She smiled up at him.

His smile in return faded quickly. He said, “I should tell you — it’s probably nothing, no need at all for alarm — but I have been told that a stranger was seen outside the villa late last evening.”

The neighborhood was close-knit, she had discovered in the last few months; nearly everyone was related to everyone else and few things went unnoticed. If Giovanni said the man was a stranger, then he was.

“What was he doing?” she asked.

“Nothing. Idling. He moved on when some of the men asked what his business was here.”

There were advantages to close neighborhoods. “Has there been any sign of him today?”

He shook his head. “Not that I know, but you are not to worry. I will be just beyond the wall, planting a few rows of beans. Call if you need anything. Call when you are ready to go into the house.”

She grinned up at him, amused by his excessive concern, yet warmed by it at the same time. “I know, you always come when I call.”

“Always,” he said, his dark eyes serious in spite of his smile.

When he had gone, Violet sat bringing her journal up to date, trying to think what else to add other than complaints about the numerous aches and pains of her condition. She was eight months along and beginning to be anxious to be delivered of her burden.

She set down the news of the recent and unexpected death of Czar Nicholas from a chill, and its effect on the chances for peace in the Crimea. The Russian ruler had been a hard man and unbending autocrat; there had been many attempts to depose him during the years since he ascended to the throne following the mysterious death of his elder brother, Alexander, with bloody reprisals following the failed coups. It was felt that since the pride of this unpopular czar need no longer be considered, Russian diplomats might now find some pretext for ceasing hostilities. Negotiations could well begin soon.

The end of any war must be good news, but Violet could not see that she would be affected in any way. She would go on as she was, the lady in the villa who was eccentric enough to want to make perfume. The only difference was that soon there would be a child.

Violet picked up the jeweled bottle on its chain that she wore around her neck. The scent rising from it soothed her senses, making her smile. It had become a part of her once more, drifting around her as she moved, penetrating her pores, so that it seemed she exhaled it. It was still stronger near the bottle lid, however, strong enough to provide her own sense of peace.

She should, she supposed, be concerned about what was going to happen to her and her child, how they would go on from year to year if Allain never returned. She could not be. She had entered into that period of placid acceptance that comes to all women as they near their time. There was nothing she could do at this moment to change what was to happen, and she had no energy to fret over it.

The afternoon faded to a sunset of rose-and-gold splendor that painted the stone walls around Violet in the magnificent hues of Titian or Michelangelo. The shadows stretched long across the tender new grass. The water in the fountain gurgled in the quiet. Maria came out of the house and filled a kitchen bucket from the fountain’s basin. She smiled in Violet’s direction as she lifted the filled bucket, then turned and went inside.

On some not-too-distant hillside, a goat’s bell tinkled. It seemed a signal that set the church bells of the village to clamoring in evening song.

Violet could barely see to write. It was time to go into the house.

Still, she lingered. The afterglow was lovely. She was tired, and it was too much effort to heave herself out of the deep chair of woven wicker. If she waited, Giovanni would come to help her.

She heard his footsteps on the grass, a quietly purposeful approach from the direction of the garden gate. She sat very still, absorbing the peace, reluctant to let it go.

He knelt at her feet, placing his warm hand upon her knee.

“Look at me, and forgive me,” came Allain’s voice in low and strained resonance. “Let me hear your sweet voice, or I will be forced to die from my longing.”

She turned her head slowly, so that by the time she met his upturned gaze, her own eyes glittered with tears tinted lavender with twilight. Her hands trembled as she reached to touch his face and trail her fingertips through the waves of his hair above his ears.

“Oh, my Allain,” she whispered, “where have you been? Where have you been?”

“Trying to preserve sanity and our lives, though I discovered my own life was not worth the effort if I could not be with you. Knowing your time was near, I had to return. I could not bear it to be otherwise.”

Maria had been right; she should have listened to her, Violet thought. But what did it matter, so long as he was there?

“Help me up,” she said, lifting her feet from the stool and holding out her hands.

He whipped off his hat and cast it aside with the cane he carried, then leaned to encircle her waist in his strong, warm grasp.

A moment later she was in his arms while he rocked her and the baby she carried inside her gently from side to side. She buried her face in his shoulder while content washed over her in long, slow waves and her breath left her in a slow sigh. Then she raised her head.

He touched his mouth to hers as though he thought she might break. Then he was kissing her with desperate hunger, reveling in the taste and feel of her, holding her closer and closer until she tore her lips away in a gasp of protest.

He begged her pardon in frenzied phrases as he pressed his face against her hair, but he seemed inclined to begin again.

They came from out of the gathering shadows. There were four of them who came through the gate, four men with swords and knives that flashed silver in the last light of evening. Their faces were masked, so there were only pale, round holes for their eyes in the blackness under their wide-brimmed hats.

Violet saw them beyond Allain’s shoulder. Her warning scream was choked with horror.

Allain whirled, leaping for his cane. The steel blade enclosed inside it sang as he whipped it from its sheath. He placed himself between Violet and the advancing men even as he dropped into a fencing stance.

“To the house,” he said over his shoulder, the words low and terse, as if they must not be overheard.

But they were. One of the men detached himself from the others, circling to the side, trying to get beyond Allain’s guard. Allain retreated a step or two to keep them all within range of his sword.

Violet stumbled backward as she tried to keep out of his way. A sword thrust could not be more painful than the slicing edge of cold terror inside her. She must not, she thought, become more of a hindrance to him than she was already.

She could not see how Allain could best them all. There must be some way she could help him, something she could do. She could see nothing, think of nothing. Behind her, in the door into the villa, she heard Maria begin to scream, glimpsed her standing with her hands clamped to her mouth.

Allain snatched the offensive, attacking with a smooth uncoiling of muscles. In movements too swift to follow, he engaged three swordsmen at once, feinting, parrying, gliding away from blows, whirling to prevent the fourth man from sliding past his guard of Violet. His face intent in the dying light, he settled grimly to his task.

Swords hissed and scraped, clanging as they clashed, tapping, tapping as one man sought for advantage against four others.

His assailants advanced and retreated, shoving one another as they stumbled together, or were pushed by Allain. They grunted and cursed, hissed commands at each other, cried out as they felt the biting slash of Allain’s sword. Blood appeared here and there on their coat sleeves and hands. Their panting breaths grew harsh with fury and effort.

Allain fought with desperate brilliance and sweating strength. His wrist was tempered and pliant as he drew on skill and tricks learned with the best
maître d’armes
of Paris and Rome. His assailants were good, but they were no match for his consummate precision of movement, his exquisitely timed stratagems. A masked man gave a gurgling cry, falling to one knee with his body bent over Allain’s shining sword.

Even as Allain dragged his blade free, the fourth man slipped past him, gliding toward Violet. The other two closed in as one upon Allain, trying to overcome him with their combined strength, so that for long moments he was engaged in a fight for life.

Violet retreated at a clumsy run, plunging under the grape arbor, twisting her body to circle the table and put it between her and her attacker. He gave a coarse laugh as he lunged across the table with his left hand to grab at the fullness of cloth over her breasts. She staggered back, but his hand caught the jeweled perfume bottle on its chain.

She was jerked toward him over the table. Her belly crashed into the edge and a moan broke from her lips. Violet grasped the table edge for support as her knees threatened to give way under her. The man drew back his sword with a gesture almost leisurely in its certainty.

Rage sprang white-hot into Violet’s brain. She gripped the table and, almost without thinking, heaved it upward.

The necklace chain broke. Her attacker leaped away, but not fast enough. The table caught his shin. He swore, stumbling away. Freed, Violet staggered back in the attempt to keep her balance.

The man with the sword bared his teeth in a snarl as he flung the table aside and, limping, closed in on her.

Allain, watching even as he fought, cried out in despair.

Then there came a shout of outrage from the direction of the garden gate. Giovanni, his face twisted with fury, plunged toward Violet’s attacker. In his hard fist was a hand-held scythe. Honed to a razor’s edge, it was a formidable weapon, but no match in length and utility for a sword.

The attacker whirled to face the new danger. Giovanni had only one chance, to close in quickly and get within the man’s guard. He leaped, the scythe whirling before him like some ancient weapon of godlike destruction. The two clashed together, grappling, twisting, flailing. The attacker stumbled, dragging Giovanni down. They both crashed to the tiles. The masked man dropped his sword. It went clattering as Giovanni kicked it. Slithering grittily over the tiles, it landed at Violet’s feet.

She bent swiftly to pick it up, gasping in pain as she straightened once more. At the same time she saw the man who had attacked her strain to reach inside his coat, saw him wrench a glinting stiletto from within its folds.

She cried out a warning. Giovanni heard and lunged to fasten his hard fingers around the man’s wrist. The two rolled on the ground, grunting, bringing strength to bear against strength and resolve against ferocity.

Violet took a quick step forward, trying to see in the growing dimness, ready to thrust with the weapon in her hand. But the men wrestling back and forth moved too quickly. She could not be sure of striking the right one.

They surged to their feet again. For an instant they pushed away from each other. They circled. The lingering light flashed blue along the scythe in Giovanni’s hand, hanging like a starry drop at the tip of its half-moon shape. The attacker turned his stiletto in his grasp so the tapered blade had the look of a stinger.