Rose Red (25 page)

Eleonora was wearing a large-brimmed hat to
keep the sun off her face, and she had an apron wrapped about her
oldest dress, which happened to be a blue that had faded to the
same shade as her eyes. Hearing footsteps on the gravel path, she
turned to face those who had come to join her.

“What is this?” Eleonora demanded. “I thought
both of you girls were inside, resting.

“Andrea, you have returned sooner than I
expected. It’s good to see you again.” Eleonora took a step nearer
to the group just entering the garden, then halted, clutching the
cutting knife in fingers gone white at the knuckles. She held the
knife like a weapon, pointing it directly at Vanni. “You are not
Andrea. What have you foolish girls done? Who are these people you
have brought to our home?”

“Madonna.” Vanni swept her a low bow. “As you
can see by my appearance, I am Andrea’s twin brother. I come here,
at the invitation of your daughter, Rosalinda, to ask if you know
where I can find my brother, whom I have believed dead since last
summer. Having just learned that he is alive, I am eager to see
Andrea again.”

“I am sure you are.” Eleonora’s speculative
gaze swept from Vanni’s smiling face to Francesco’s more somber
one. “And you, signore? Are you also looking for a lost
brother?”

“Mother,” Rosalinda began a protest against
the sarcasm in Eleonora’s voice, but Francesco cut her off.

“Madonna Rosalinda has suggested that you and
I might have much to discuss on the subject of Niccolo Stregone,”
Francesco said.

“That murdering intriguer.” Eleonora’s lip
curled in disdain at the name of Stregone. “That false, faithless
dwarf.”

“Just so, madonna. It would seem that you and
I have something in common. As for my brother, I know where he is
and do not need to search for him. Thanks to Stregone, he is dead
and buried, as is my sister. I will not sicken you by recounting
what Stregone did to them before killing them.” Francesco’s pale
face was grim. He swayed a little, then pulled himself upright.

“You are injured,” Eleonora cried. “Come
inside at once. Bianca, run and find Valeria. Tell her we will need
her healing skills and describe this man’s injuries to her. Then
search out Bartolomeo and bring him to me.”

“Come with me, Vanni.” Bianca took his
hand.

“Vanni will remain here,” Eleonora said. “I
want to talk to him.”

“By your leave, madonna,” Vanni said, “I
would much prefer to go with Bianca. You will get more sense out of
Francesco than out of me, anyway. Anything you wish to ask me after
you have spoken to him, I will be glad to tell you.”

Eleonora stared after the hastily departing
pair. Then she looked at Francesco, who bestowed one of his open,
cheerful grins on her.

“Vanni is neither as shallow nor as
light-witted as he sometimes appears to be,” Francesco said,
looking into Eleonora’s eyes. “Humor and frivolity are but masks to
him, disguises that have served well in the past to keep him out of
danger. Beneath the masks he wears, Vanni is as intelligent as
Andrea.”

“I understand.” Eleonora nodded. Taking his
other arm, she and Rosalinda led Francesco toward the terrace and
the door to the sitting room.

“What lovely flowers.” Francesco looked
around. “Have you made this garden yourself, Madonna -?” He quirked
a reddish-blond brow at her, waiting.

“Eleonora,” she supplied. “Yes, for the most
part the garden is of my making. Watch this step now, it is higher
than it looks.”

“
I do
like roses.” It was the season for them, and Eleonora’s two bushes
were in full bloom. Francesco paused to smell first the red rose at
one side of the steps leading to the terrace and then the white
rose on the other side. “A beautiful fragrance, a wonderful
setting, with the foothills and the mountains for background, a
garden nurtured with care and with thought for the placement of
each plant grown here – Madonna Eleonora, you do honor to Nature to
assist her in this way.”

“Gardening has been my sole pleasure for many
years,” Eleonora said. “As for the roses, I planted them in honor
of my two daughters, the red one for Rosalinda and the white for
Bianca.”

“Remarkable as your garden is, and lovely and
intelligent as the daughters whom you have also nurtured are,”
Francesco said, “it seems a pity that tilling the soil should be
the only pleasure for a woman such as you.”

“I perceive, signore,” said Eleonora, “that
you have spent enough time at some court to allow you to polish
your manners to a fine lustre. It is only fair to warn you that I
am immune to courtly blandishments.”

“Then you are even more unusual than I first
thought you to be, madonna, for I have never before known a lady to
turn away an honest compliment.”

“
Allow me
to suggest to you, signore, that you ought to save your strength to
get you up these steps and into the house. A
condottiere
ought always
to conserve his strength for the battles that inevitably lie
ahead.”

There was a note in Eleonora’s voice that
made Rosalinda look at her in surprise. Never had she heard her
mother combine an order with barely repressed humor. Eleonora
Farisi seldom said anything humorous. It occurred to Rosalinda that
her mother might have spoken in the same tone to a courtier who
paid her too obvious compliments, back in the days when Rosalinda’s
father had still been alive. Then she heard Francesco Bastiani’s
appreciative chuckle and knew she had missed something in their
seemingly inconsequential remarks.

Rosalinda did not have time to think about
this remarkable conversation. Having reached the top of the steps
and limped onto the terrace, Francesco stopped to take a deep
breath. Suddenly, without warning, he crumpled to the stones.

“Why is it,” Eleonora said, going to her
knees beside him, “that men think they must always appear strong
when they are with women, whereas any woman with two eyes and a
heart knows when a man is sick or injured? Signore, you must remain
on these stones until help arrives, for you are too big for
Rosalinda and me to lift you.”

Francesco quickly regained consciousness.
Pushing himself up on his elbows, he sent a rueful glance toward
Eleonora.

“I apologize for this inconvenience,” he
said.

“It seems to me the inconvenience is yours,
signore,” Eleonora responded. She was still on her knees next to
him, and now she sat back on the stones, looking down at her
unexpected guest. As if to reassure him there was no threat in her
next words, she placed one hand on his shoulder.

“
You are
Bastiani, aren’t you? The famous
condottiere
who was once in service to the
late Duke of Aullia.”

“At your service, now, madonna,” he said. “Or
I will be, as soon as I can stand on my own two feet again.”

The appearance of Bartolomeo and Vanni
distracted Rosalinda from the remarkable sight of her usually
dignified mother sitting upon the terrace paving stones, looking
deep into the gray-blue eyes of Francesco Bastiani, while her
slender hand rested on the shoulder of his soiled green
doublet.

“Bianca told me what happened,” Bartolomeo
said. He reached to help Francesco. “She and Valeria are collecting
what they will need to treat him. Signore, can you stand?”

“I will be happy to try,” Francesco said.

With Bartolomeo and Vanni to lend masculine
muscle to the effort, Francesco was soon on his feet, though
leaning heavily on the men supporting him. They got him through the
door and into the sitting room. There Francesco halted his forward
progress, with his eyes fixed on the portrait of Girolamo
Farisi.

“Valeria wants him taken to one of the guest
rooms,” Bartolomeo said to Eleonora. “She can treat his injuries
there and settle him to rest without moving him again.”

“That makes sense.” Eleonora turned her
attention from Bartolomeo to the immobile Francesco. Noticing that
he was staring at the far wall, she raised her voice a notch.
“Signore, can you walk with Bartolomeo’s help, or shall we carry
you?”

“I always prefer to walk, madonna.” Francesco
tore his gaze from the portrait he had been studying to stare at
Eleonora.

“Then come along,” she said. “The sooner
Valeria tends your wounds, the sooner you will begin to
recover.”

“More than ever, madonna, I am at your
service.” Francesco’s tone was heavy with unspoken meaning. His
eyes remained locked with Eleonora’s. “In every way, I assure
you.”

Rosalinda stood gaping at the procession
making its way out of the sitting room and across the wide hall to
the staircase. Eleonora led the way, followed by the three men,
with Francesco making wry comments that seemed to Rosalinda to hold
many meanings at once. She was about to follow them, to see if she
could help to prepare the guest room, or perhaps to assist Valeria,
when Bianca appeared in the hall, her hands full of linen
bandages.

“Come in here before you go upstairs,”
Rosalinda said, motioning toward the sitting room.

“I really ought to take these to Valeria,”
Bianca objected.

“She won’t need the bandages until after she
has cleaned and treated Francesco’s wounds.”

“I suppose we ought to have it out and be
done with it.” Bianca followed her sister into the sitting
room.

“Do you really imagine it will be done with
so quickly?” Rosalinda demanded, closing the door. She waited no
longer before attacking her sister. “You know I love Andrea. I told
you so on several occasions. You also know how worried I have been
about him. Yet when you saw a man who looked just like Andrea,
instead of coming to me and telling me about it, you began to flirt
with him.”

“But it wasn’t Andrea,” Bianca cried.

“A fact of which you were blissfully
unaware,” Rosalinda reminded her.

“You don’t understand how I felt,” Bianca
insisted.

“Then explain yourself so that I can
understand.” Rosalinda folded her arms over her chest and
waited.

“I did know how much you care for Andrea. I
watched you together last winter, and I wished someone would look
at me as Andrea looked at you. Once, I saw him embrace and kiss
you, and my heart ached because no one had ever kissed me in that
way. I wanted a young man to want me, to care about me. But it
wasn’t really Andrea whom I wanted to kiss me. I just wanted
someone.”

“You were jealous,” Rosalinda said.

“Yes, I suppose I was, though I could not
admit it then, not even to myself. When you accused me of jealousy,
I denied it and made excuses.”

“And you were spiteful,” Rosalinda said, “as
your actions prove.”

“No!” Bianca protested. “Never! This was not
deliberate spitefulness on my part. I first met Vanni quite
innocently and by accident. At once, he began flirting with me. Out
of a yearning I did not understand then, I responded to him.
Rosalinda, I could not help myself. I was drawn to him as a bee is
drawn to a flower.”

“A pretty conceit, sister,” Rosalinda said,
making her voice as cold as she could. “Tell me, did you lie with
him?”

“No!” The hand not holding the bandages flew
to Bianca’s blushing cheek. “Well, not exactly.”

“Really?” Rosalinda’s eyes flashed. “Either
you did or you did not, Bianca. Which was it?”

“
We did
lie down together on my cloak,” Bianca said, “and he put his hands
on me and kissed me many times. It was lovely. But he did not – he
said when it was over that I am still a virgin.”

“How kind of him. How thoughtful.” The look
Rosalinda gave her sister was as scathing as her tone of voice.
“And you consented to all of this with a man whom you believed was
your sister’s lover?”

“I was sorry afterward.” Bianca caught at
Rosalinda’s sleeve. “Please believe me. I was so filled with guilt,
so ashamed. I knew there was only one way I could make up to you
for my betrayal and that was by taking you with me the next time I
was to meet Andrea. When the three of us were together, I was
planning to confess what I had done and to beg you for forgiveness
and promise that I would never touch or kiss or even think about
Andrea again. Then I was going to leave the two of you alone, to
settle things between you.

“But when we got to the waterfall, he wasn’t
there,” Bianca went on. “Stregone was there instead. Rosalinda, I
went to the wood today to try to find Andrea and bring him here to
see you. I had to do something to make up for my misdeeds. I am so
sorry, so very sorry, that I hurt you. Always, you have been the
dearest person in the world to me.”

“Until you found a lover,” Rosalinda
said.

“I do wonder now if I saw something in Vanni
that is different from Andrea, if my heart knew they are not the
same, just as you recognized at once that Vanni is not his brother,
and if that is why I found it so easy to love him.”

“You may believe that if you wish,” Rosalinda
said. “For myself, I do not credit a word of it. I think you wanted
Vanni because you thought he was Andrea.”

“I don’t know anymore.” Tears ran down
Bianca’s cheeks. “All I know is, I love Vanni. In loving him, I
have hurt you, perhaps to the point that we cannot regain the
affection and trust there once was between us. And I have failed
Mother. I have tried all my life to be a good daughter, and a good
sister, but by my own actions I have proven that I am neither.”

“
Oh, yes
– Mother. I almost forgot.” Rosalinda held her head between her
hands, trying to think clearly, trying to stop the confusion that
filled all her thoughts. “Go away, Bianca. I can’t talk about this
any more right now.”

“Please forgive me,” Bianca pleaded.

“I need time to think. You have no idea how
shocking this day has been to me.” Rosalinda took a shaky breath
and went on, as if trying to solve a puzzle by thinking it through
out loud. “First, I discover you in Andrea’s arms, then I find it
isn’t Andrea at all, but his twin, a twin he never told me he had.
And then there is Mother’s strange behavior. I have never seen
Mother look at a man the way she looks at Francesco. It’s as if
they are speaking a language I cannot understand.”