The King's Agent (18 page)

“Are we ready then?” Aurelia did little to hold back on the reins, as eager to be off as her black stallion, bucking and pawing the air with his front legs.

“You smile, my lady, as if we were off to a party.” Battista scowled at her.

Aurelia bit at her top lip, sucking one corner of the pink flesh into her mouth, but it did little to stem her smirking. “Are we not? Every night is a party in this household.”

Battista was not amused. “One does not make merry with the devil. One pretends to, in order to avoid his scorching touch.”

“
Sì,
it is like a performance.” Aurelia’s horse spun round, and she with him, as if in a dance. “It is all very ... stimulating?”

“Stimulating?” Battista scoffed as if he spat on the ground. “You had better return that hat and veil to your head, before you are recognized and stimulated all the way back to your ward’s keeping.”

Sufficiently chastised, Aurelia did as instructed, Battista mimicking the act with his own uncomfortable hat.

Once more disguised, Aurelia urged her horse forward, her two companions following, though not nearly as enthused.

“God keep you,” Pompeo called to them.

Battista turned back to the man he thought of as a younger brother, raising a hand, hoping it would not be the last he would see of him.

“Tell your mistress the cousin of her cousin, Catarina Colonna, comes requesting shelter for the evening.” Aurelia spoke to the man standing by her horse without looking down at him. Her gaze roamed over the palazzo autocratically, as if she judged whether it met her lofty standards.

The guard reached out a hand to gather the stallion’s reins, holding him still while studying Aurelia through the slits of his visor. “Your name, signora?”

“I am Livia and this is my husband, Gaetano, the conte di Panzutti. She will remember me, I am sure. We spent a summer together once, as children.”

The guard had not yet moved and Aurelia kicked her foot out at him, though she pulled it up just short of his body. “Go. Now.”

With a shallow bow, the soldier retreated, moving quickly.

Aurelia turned to Battista with a roll of her eyes, a condemnation at such ineptitude. Battista longed to applaud; she played her part well, as she had pledged, far better than he would have guessed. Were he the guard, he would believe every word she said; most nobility had more distant cousins than they could keep track of. It would be no surprise should one make a random visit.

As quickly as he bolted, the guard returned.

“The baroness bids you welcome,
sua signori.
” He bowed respectfully, their patent of nobility somehow confirmed, leading their horses through the gate and into the courtyard.

Battista dropped from his mount, swallowing away his admiration at the beauty of the palace. Perfect in its symmetry of rounded arches and sculpted plinthlike columns of finished ashlar, so polished as to look almost white. Windows stood out from their moldings guarded on each side by statue-festooned niches. This courtyard boasted every architectural elegance and extravagance, and they had yet to enter the palazzo itself.

The smaller door within the massive double gray portal opened as they approached. Once inside, they squinted at the change of light as Frado followed behind, one small satchel in each hand. Aurelia strode on determinedly, shoulders back, chin high, but Battista read the trepidation in her fingers as they fiddled with the edge of her bodice, tugging on it again and again as if it threatened to rise up and reveal her truth beneath.

Their boots clomped stridently on the foyer’s green striated marble floor, the clatter not loud enough, however, to drown out the raucous laughter reaching out from the long corridor just beyond. Four doors stood open on each side of the passageway, bronze statues posted between them, gilded forms of naked women and men, the light of the curly-armed brass candelabrum sparking off every curve of the vulgarly posed bodies. Groups of men and women passed between these doors, refreshments in hand, almost all tottering with some level of intoxication.

Battista turned from the tableau, catching Aurelia’s gaze, seeing his own troubled thoughts in it. If this was the household’s demeanor so early in the evening, how would these people behave as night’s concealment gave license?

“If you will wait here, the mistress of the house will be with you shortly.” The guard held them with a hand, tipping a curt bow and making for the door and his post once more.

The aperture thumped to a close behind him; a shattering of glass burst in the hall, followed closely by a small cry and a spate of laughter.

“Is this how you found this place before?” Battista leaned toward her, putting the proprietary hand of a husband on the small of her back.

“Never this bad,” she responded with a barely perceptible shake of her head, her face implacable should any look upon it. “Perhaps they behaved themselves when the marquess paid a visit.”

“Then we have only each other for protection.” His hushed caveat took in Frado as well, though it was only a matter of time before the servant was separated from the masters.

Of a sudden the music began, a spirited
gagliarda
that sent up a rousing cheer. More revelers spilled out into the hallway—overly jeweled women, overly laced men—streaming from one room into another, the location of the musicians, no doubt.

Only one woman noticed them, and she threw up her hands and eyes heavenward, approaching them at a rush.

“Per favore, miei cari.”
The woman’s round cheeks dimpled as she smiled at them, her voice high and breathy like a child’s, though powder clogged thickly in the lines of her face. “I truly am so very sorry, my dears. They told me you were here, and I completely forgot.”

She giggled at them, and from behind her laughter rang out as if in answer.

“Have no fear, Baroness di Prato.” Battista quickly took up her hand and bowed over it. “Yours is a beauty worth waiting for.”

The woman looked to swoon, but there seemed little that was genuine in the act. She returned his playful glance with a hard edge. “Please, call me Ringarda, all my guests do. And you are so very welcome here, Gaetano, is it, and Livia? It is our pleasure to open our home to ... my ... cousins?”

“Well, your cousin’s cousin, actually,” Aurelia corrected with a graceful courtesy, hearing the question for the snare it might be. “I am so very sorry to impose upon your hospitality. But we were delayed in our journey with no chance to make for the inn.”

“My skittish wife had no desire to spend the night out in the wild.” Battista laughed with a hard, belittling edge.

“A cousin’s cousin would make us still cousins,” the woman twittered. “Why, I think I can see a resemblance between us.”

“
Certamente,
” Battista assured her as Frado busied himself with picking up and setting down the bags once more. The short, round woman could not look any more different from Aurelia had she tried.

A great hue and cry rose up behind them and they turned to spy a man, a woman on each arm, fall from a doorway, sprawling indecorously into the corridor, rolling together with the women as if the spill were all part of the dance.

Ringarda laughed as loud as the merrymakers, offering no comment on the degrading display she found amusing but clearly not anomalous, and set off for the staircase to the right, its mullioned banister curving up to the floor above. “We can offer you a room and some food, have no fear. Though whether you’ll be out of the wild ... it remains to be seen. You have come on a night when my husband entertains, as he so often does. There is no hope for it, or for anyone who comes here.”

The three guests followed, Aurelia almost tripping on the first step, no chance to reply, no chance to run from the warning their hostess offered in jest, one so similar to that prognosticated by Dante. If astonishment and trepidation could stop time, the world would freeze in that moment.

“Giuseppe!” the baroness cried out, and within seconds a sloppily dressed majordomo appeared behind them.

“
Sì,
madonna?”

“We will put the
conte
and
contessa
in the blue room for the night.” She gave her instructions over her shoulder, leaning toward Battista, who had taken her arm. “It is just down the hall from my own room.”

Battista smiled, as he ought, but said nothing.

“Help their man with the bags and then take him to the kitchen,” Ringarda ordered curtly.

Without further word, Giuseppe took one of the satchels from Frado’s hand and stepped quickly around and beyond the group of nobles.

Frado scissored his short legs to keep up, a narrow-eyed glance backward. “To the kitchen,” he said pointedly, and Battista acknowledged the message with no more than a blink of his eyes.

Far narrower than the one below, the first-floor corridor branched off in two directions. The baroness led them to the right and to the third door on the right, one left open by the already-retreated set of servants.

Battista beckoned Aurelia in, then turned at the threshold and offered a bow, holding their hostess at the door with a gallant maneuver.

“Why don’t you two freshen up a bit and join us.” Ringarda included them both with her words, but not with her glance; that, she reserved for Battista alone.

“What a lovely thought, Baroness, but I think we will rest a bit.” He reached out and took her hand once more, this time closing it warmly in both of his. “Could you send someone to fetch us at mealtime?”

Ringarda batted her eyes at him. “If you wish, Gaetano.”

“I do,” he purred, and quickly shut the door behind her, as if he kept the wolves at bay.

Aurelia stood in the middle of the large room; she looked small amidst the large furniture—the canopied bed, the double-doored garderobe, and the latticed privacy screen hiding one corner from view. Upholstery of burgundy, ceiling frescoes of naked cherubs edged in gold, and thick velvet cushions everywhere, it was a most masculine, intensely sensual chamber.

Across the expanse they stared at each other; all that was real and frightening and awkward in their situation rose up between them, until Battista could bear it no longer.

With one raised eyebrow, he looked at her askance. “Gaetano? Is that how you see me, as a Gaetano?”

Aurelia laughed heartily, hand to her stomach, releasing the noose of tension pulling her straight, and with the tinkling sound the curse upon them cracked. “It was my favorite dog’s name.”

“Oh, now, you go too far!” Battista squawked with a laugh as he crossed the room and pushed back the heavy embroidered curtain.

They were on the east side of the building; the view took in a lovely path-strewn garden touched with the purples and yellows of spring. Peering left, he found the building stretched far back, away from the front entrance, as if it receded into the mountain itself. “We have come to the right place, Aurelia, forgive me if I ever doubted you.”

She blinked at him, bottom lip dropping before she caught it. “Her words and Dante’s,
sì?
”

He turned back with a nod, thoughts rushing to the undeniable, haphazard reference.

“What do we do now, Battista?”

In her voice he heard unfamiliar doubt.

“We rest,” he said, gesturing for her to take the bed, dropping himself onto the leather settee along the opposite wall, and stretching out his legs. “I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”

She did as he suggested, all too eagerly, removing her riding boots and lying back with a soft sigh of relief. It wasn’t long before her breathing settled and lengthened. In the quiet of her sleeping form, his mind whirled, not only of his quest but also of the woman with whom he shared it.

He was attracted to her, of course; she was far too beautiful a woman and he would forever be a connoisseur of beautiful women. But there was something else, something both troubling and intoxicating about her, an uncanny feeling he could not reckon or name, though he chewed hard upon it as the shadows lengthened and enshrouded the room. The time had come for them to face the creatures of the house.

Without waking her, he changed into his own dinner clothes, cursing Ascanio for the dandy he was, for the dandy he forced Battista to be. The finely wrought black velvet doublet boasted puffed upper sleeves and slashed lower, where the bright red silk shirt peeped through. The silk trunk hose hugged his thighs and the striped stockings matched the small bows on his pointed shoes. He had never worn such a fanciful costume and he growled at having to do so now. His one reprieve, the long skirt of the doublet, though open in the center, concealed—for the most part—the uncomfortable and boastful codpiece.

He would have to leave his satchel of tools, his dagger-sheathed belt, and his leather cuff behind, blatantly incongruous with this outfit, but their lack made him feel defenseless. If he and Aurelia could get through the meal unscathed, they could make their excuses with the early morning departure and return to their rooms. It was the immediate goal and he would focus on it alone.

With another heavenward glance, one offered up for strength, he stepped to the bed, gently nudging Aurelia on the shoulder until she woke.

“Ah, yes, Gaetano has arrived, I see,” she snickered, peering up at him.

“
Sì,
and it is time for his wife, Livia, to arrive as well.” Battista refused to be baited; he held out a hand to help her from the bed. “I have put your gown behind the screen with your shoes and jewelry as well.”

Battista fumed at her crooked grin, glaring at her as she made her way to the corner of the room.

“Have you always been so exceedingly ... cheerful?” he asked a tad unkindly.

But she laughed, a cluck of surprise. “No, actually, I haven’t,” she answered from behind the screen. “But I am liking the change, truth be told.”

Her playfulness rebuked any slight; his lips twitched with the contagion of it. Battista listened as she rustled around with the voluminous material.

“Have you ever thought to be a lady’s maid?” she asked, giving him a turn to laugh.