Feehan, Christine - The Scarletti Curse (5 page)

Nicoletta sighed softly. As high as the ceilings were, as large and spacious
as the palazzo was, as ornate and luxurious, she preferred the outdoors, the
sea and the mountains, the small huts. There was something very wrong in this
house; she could feel it. And the don was much more dangerous than anyone had
thought. She turned her attention to the child, slipping her into the bed
beside her, fussing as she tucked the coverlet around her. She was aware of Don
Scarletti towering over her in frustration, but she steadfastly refused to look
up again. She held her breath as he turned on his heel without another word and
strode from the room.

The moment the don left them alone, Maria Pia collapsed on the bed with them
in relief, conversing in whispers. "I never saw such a brazen thing,"
she admitted, "the way he touched you, made so free with you. The man must
be heathen. I have heard the rumors, but I did not believe them."

"I saw a shrine to the Madonna in the great hall," Nicoletta
disputed, for some reason feeling the need to defend him. "If he is truly
without God, he would not have such a thing in his home. And he often meets
with the village priest and elders."

"The old man, his grandfather—he is a heathen, that is certain. May the
good Virgin protect us from such a man." Maria Pia was solemn. "Look
at his home. Did you see the creatures in every alcove? The ancient dons
worshiped many gods and built this palazzo in defiance of the Holy Church. They
held back the armies of the invaders, some say with the power of many demons
behind them, but this palazzo is indeed cursed. For years there have been
rumors of murders, assassinations. Once, an invading army trapped the
famiglia
Scarletti here in the palazzo. When the soldiers breached the castle walls, the
family had simply disappeared, and most of the invaders died horrible deaths. A
few days later, the
famiglia
returned as if the invasion had never
happened." Shuddering, she held her crucifix in both hands and kissed it
several times. "We will leave this place at first light. The
bambina
is much better and will surely live. Someone here must be capable of giving her
her medicaments."

Nicoletta tucked Sophie beneath the coverlet the child had restlessly kicked
off herself. She coaxed the child to drink the medicine-laced water, smiling
when the little girl clutched her hand. "Perhaps it would be best to
continue this conversation when we are alone," she advised quietly. She
leaned back and closed her eyes tiredly. Her calf was sore, burning and
throbbing, already swelling. If she hadn't been so tired, she would have mixed
a potion for herself. But first she wanted to sleep; and then she wanted to
leave the palazzo and get back to her own world, where she could breathe more
easily.

"Nicoletta, the don is dangerous," Maria Pia announced softly.
"You have too much compassion in you. You are very young. There is
something wrong in this house. I do not like the way he looked at you."

Nicoletta smiled without opening her eyes.
"Ti voglio bene."
She affectionately told the older woman she loved her. "Do not worry for
me. You have done so all my life. I will not see the don again. I love living,
Maria Pia. I do not want to be burned as a witch." She was smiling,
reassuring the woman, but inside she was trembling. The don frightened her in a
way no one ever had before, in a way she could not explain to Maria Pia or even
to herself.

The older woman hissed, looking quickly into every corner of the room,
frightened by Nicoletta's audacity.

"Hush,
bambina,
you cannot speak of such things. Not ever. The
good Virgin will not protect you if you call down such unspeakable evil upon
yourself."

"The little one is asleep; there is no one to hear." Nicoletta was
unrepentant.

"There are eyes and ears everywhere. This house is not right,"
Maria Pia reminded her sharply, glancing uneasily around the silent nursery. An
abrupt knocking broke the hush. Maria Pia gave a frightened cry as the door
swung inward.

The manservant slunk in carrying a load of wood for the fire. He didn't look
at the women, his features stiff and set. He built a nest of curls of shaved
wood, added the logs, and set the whole thing blazing. When the flames crackled
to life, the man turned and regarded the "healer" and her
"assistant" with a cold stare. "Your fire, as ordered," he
said grudgingly. As much as he evidently wished the women gone, the healer was
respected and needed in the community, and he didn't dare alienate her
completely. He turned on his heel and marched out, his back ramrod stiff.

"We are not making many friends here," Nicoletta observed with a
small smile. "Do you suppose they waited so long to send for us in hopes
it would be too late to save the
bambina?"

"Nicoletta!" Maria Pia was shocked, her gaze wildly searching the
room as if she expected to see the don standing there listening. "I forbid
anymore of this talk."

Nicoletta was happy enough to go to sleep. The child was warm in her arms,
and with the fire crackling nicely, the room seemed much more pleasant. She
snuggled down onto the bed and lay quietly. Within a matter of minutes, Maria
Pia was breathing evenly, indicating she had immediately fallen asleep.
Nicoletta was very tired, but she couldn't follow suit. Too many unanswered
questions whirled in her head.

She was "different." She had been born with unique abilities.
Maria Pia called them gifts, yet she had to hide them for fear of being named
witch. She could touch an individual and "feel" the illness. She knew
instinctively which herbs or potions sick people needed to alleviate their
suffering and aid their healing. She could even communicate with plants. She
"felt" the life in them and knew what they needed to assist their
growth.

Nicoletta could also aid in curing the ill with her soothing hands and
voice. From deep within her welled a healing warmth that flowed from her body
into that of her patient. Maria Pia, devout as she was, would never actually
call her a witch. She would never imply in any way that Nicoletta was capable
of magic. She never pointed out that Nicoletta came from a long line of
"unique" women and that more than one of her ancestors had been
burned at the stake, stoned, or deliberately drowned. Maria Pia guarded her
carefully and maintained the role of the "healer," keeping the
attention on herself rather than Nicoletta.

The villagers, too, knew that Nicoletta was different, and they aided Maria
Pia in deceiving the
aristocrazia,
keeping Nicoletta far from the
palazzo and all who occupied it. They guarded her like a treasure, and she was
very grateful to them. But now…

Nicoletta sighed. She went carefully over everything that had happened since
her arrival at the palazzo. She certainly had caught the attention of the don.
A shiver raced down her spine. Was it from fear? Or something else? Nicoletta
was honest enough to admit that Don Scarletti was an incredibly handsome man.
And power seemed to cling to him. She couldn't imagine trying to defeat such a
man. His dark eyes were piercing and seemed to see right past flesh and bone
into her soul. She shivered again and decided what she had felt was fear.

He had looked at her with interest stirring in the depths of his eyes. No
one had ever looked at her the way Don Giovanni Scarletti had. He was no callow
youth but a grown man, a nobleman at that, rumored to head a secret society of
assassins. Others in power either left him strictly alone or vied for his
attention, coveting his loyalty. But more than all of that, his family was
cursed. No village woman, nor even many Scarletti wives, had survived long in
the
Palazzo delta Morte
—Palace of Death. And he had looked at her,
marking her as prey. The thought crept unbidden into her fanciful mind.

A log in the fireplace burned through and collapsed in a shower of sparks,
flames flaring momentarily to cast an image of hell on the wall. Nicoletta's
breath caught in her throat as the heavy door swung slowly inward. A man
hesitated in the entrance.

Nicoletta didn't believe in cowering beneath the covers.
"Signore?" She managed to keep her voice even, in spite of trembling
uncontrollably. "What is it?"

"Scusa,
signorina, I did not mean to disturb you. I wanted to
see my daughter." Despite the natural arrogance in his tone, he was
extremely polite for an aristocratic. This was Vincente, the youngest of the
three Scarletti brothers. He had the same muscular build and confidence of his
older brothers, as befitted one born to nobility, but the similarities ended
there. Where Don Giovanni Scarletti had a palpable aura of power and danger and
authority about him, this man seemed ravaged by sorrow, almost as if he
couldn't stand straight beneath the weight of his burden. His young wife, Nicoletta
seemed to recall, was one of the casualties of the Scarletti curse, leaving him
a widower with no mother for his child.

Immediately Nicoletta's heart went out to him, her compassionate nature
sharing his sorrow. Normally she would never speak directly to a member of the
Scarletti family—it was as natural to her as breathing to avoid contact with
nobility and outsiders—but she couldn't help responding to him. "There is
no need to worry, signore, the
bambino
will live. The soup she shared
with Don Scarletti was tainted. She was given medicine to aid in her
healing." Her voice was soft and soothing, unconsciously reaching out to
"heal" him, too, as she so often did with her people.

He bowed, a courtly gesture of respect. "I am Vincente Scarletti. The
bambino
is all I have left in this world. When I saw the bedchamber below empty,
I…" He trailed off. "I do not know how I thought to check the
nursery. I was numb and walked here blankly, without thought."

No wonder sorrow was etched so deeply into his face. Nicoletta reassured
him. "A small
incidente,
no more, Signore Scarletti."

"I thank you for saving the don and my daughter. I do not know what our
famiglia
would do without
mio fratello,
the don. And the
bambina
is everything to me."

"Maria Pia Sigmora is a healer without equal," Nicoletta lied,
straight-faced. She was grateful for the shadows in the room that prevented the
man from examining her too closely. His brother's scrutiny had been enough
adventure for one night.

"Vincente! What is going on? Has Sophie taken a turn for the
worse?" The woman, Portia Scarletti, who had been weeping earlier in the
hallway, poked her head into the room, wrapping her hand familiarly around
Vincente's arm. Her face mirrored her deep concern.

Nicoletta studied her closely. Portia looked far younger than what must be
her thirty or so years. Margerita, her daughter, appeared to be at least
fifteen. Portia wore a long, form-fitting gown that revealed more than it
covered, and even in the middle of the night, her hair was dressed perfectly.

Portia took in the women and child in the room with one swift glance.
"Ah"—she crossed herself devoutly—"thank the Madonna, the
bambina
is well. Come, Vincente, you have suffered much. You must rest."

"Have you both gone mad?" The voice from the doorway was low but
carried a whiplash in it, a hard authority no one would dare to defy.
"Sophie nearly died tonight, these women are exhausted with the work they
have done, and you do not give them even the courtesy of allowing them to sleep
undisturbed?" Don Scarletti moved into the room, his presence immediately
dominating the nursery and those who occupied it. "Portia, you and
Margerita were too afraid to see to the needs of the
bambina
when she
needed you, yet now, in the middle of the night, you enter the room to awaken
her caretakers?"

The woman winced under the reprimand. "How can you accuse me of such a
thing? I was seeing first to Margerita's safety, as a mother should. The
servants were to see to the
bambina.
I ordered them to do so, but they refused,
thinking they might encounter the plague. I cannot control the superstitious
beliefs of those from the
villaggi.
They do not listen when they fear
the unknown. Surely you do not blame
me
for their incompetence!"

"I found the poor
piccola
abandoned, with waste and vomit all
over her." The obsidian eyes were lethal. He didn't raise his voice, but
he was cutting the woman to pieces, and Nicoletta almost felt sorry for her.

"I gave the orders to the servants." Portia lifted her chin.
"How dare you chastise me in front of ones such as these?" She waved
a hand to encompass Nicoletta and the sleeping Maria Pia. "Vincente,
please, escort me to my room."

Vincente obligingly took the woman's hand and tucked it into the crook of
his arm.
"Grazie,
for the life of my
bambina"
he said
sincerely, bowing to Nicoletta in a courtly manner.

"I am grateful at least one of you knows to whom we owe a debt of
thanks," Don Scarletti said softly. His voice fairly purred with menace, a
velvet lash masking an iron will. Nicoletta found herself trembling for no
reason at all. She suddenly didn't want the others to leave the room. Worse,
she knew by Maria Pia's breathing that she wasn't faking but was still truly
asleep. Nicoletta would find no savior there if Don Scarletti turned the full
power of his soul-piercing eyes on her once again.

Portia now remained silent against the don's accusation, and that told
Nicoletta much about the household. Its members feared him nearly as much as
she did. There was something cold and aloof about the don. Something in him
held away from the others, seemingly relaxed yet coiled and ready to strike
like a snake. His family treated him with tremendous deference, as if they,
too, sensed he was dangerous.