[Barbara Samuel] Night of Fire(Book4You) (23 page)

They got out of the carriage in Piccadilly Street, the address that had once given Basilio such pleasure when he glimpsed it on a letter. It was just going nine—a church bell chimed out the hours as St. Ives settled with the driver.

Basilio availed himself of the chance to examine the house. Tall and narrow with a small flight of steps leading to the door, it was exactly like its neighbors in the row. All were three generous stories with tall windows overlooking the street, and they struck him as exceedingly English. Proper and neat. He would have expected something else for Cassandra.

Or perhaps not. He remembered her still poise, her self containment, her distrust of extravagance. He smiled.

"Ready?" St. Ives asked, tapping his carved teak walking stick on the ground.

Basilio inclined his head and they climbed the steps. A manservant opened the door to them and took their hats and coats. The foyer smelled of cinnamon, and St. Ives said approvingly, "Ah, Mrs. Hayes has made her famous wine punch." He inhaled heartily and waved the servant away. "Thank you. I know the way."

Basilio heard voices and laughter—even music—coming from somewhere to the back. The hallway was well-lit and he captured a glimpse of an obviously ill-used room furnished with heavy dark wood. A painting of a landscape graced one wall of the hall, a very golden scene with trees and a distant castle on a hill.

Something in him eased at the sight of that painting. Her things. Her rooms. It was nearly enough to simply see the way she lived. He took pleasure in the small, startling touches of color she used—a splash of red in a glass jar, a vivid yellow painting in a dark corner.

From the back came a sudden crackle of laughter from many voices. A clutch of warning tightened around his heart. He should not have come. It was not fair. It was—

But he was swept into the salon before he could retreat, make an excuse—and what excuse would he have offered anyway? The room was brightly lit and gay, pale blue walls with white-and-gilt accents. An enormous potted plant with white flowers and dark green leaves in the shape of long hearts bloomed profusely by one window. The furnishings were covered in demure but cheerful fabrics.

He had been expecting to come into the room and see her immediately, but there were too many people.

Two dozen or more filled the chairs and stood in little knots. A man smoked a pipe by a pair of glass doors propped open to the garden. When Gabriel paused by the door, evidently taking measure of the room, Basilio halted with him.

Her salon. How often had they discussed it? She wrote of the gatherings often, telling him in her wry, entertaining way of the dress a woman had worn to scandalize her lover to jealousy, or the outcry over a particular pamphlet smuggled from France. Isolated in his villa in Tuscany, far from the scholars at university, Basilio had envied her these gatherings.

On a sideboard, in a small wooden frame, he spied a painting of a courtesan with red hair sprawled over a baroque divan, her body nubile and tender in its nudeness. One long white hand touched a breast, as if in offering, and a knowing smile turned up only the edges of her lips. He grinned, remembering when he had sent it—an attempt to scandalize her. Bemused by the resemblance he now saw to Cassandra herself, he turned his attention back to the crowd, looking for her once more.

They were not the glittering set Basilio had somehow expected: fops and beauties in satin and brocade.

They were rather a plain lot, most of the men in dark coats of simple cloth, with shoes worn a season too long. The women were similarly demure. No daring decolletages, no breathlessly expensive jewels, no ridiculously elaborate hair styles. These were scholars and bluestockings, and would be dependent on their own cleverness and the generosity of patrons and the vagaries of public taste for their bread.

There were a few exceptions—a tall man with the ineffable air of nobility, a beautiful brunette in ruby-colored silk that displayed her prodigious bosom to the men clustered about the chair where she held court. St. Ives, beside him, also stood out for his elegance.

He noticed Basilio's attention to the woman in red silk. "Glorious, isn't she? An actress."

Basilio inclined his head without much interest. There was only one face he longed to see among the many. Quite suddenly, a roar of laughter broke out to one side. Basilio turned and the group parted, revealing Cassandra.

As if a horse had stepped on his chest, he froze. Engaged in light banter with a man who was reluctant to allow her to depart, she did not see Basilio. There was still time to plead the headache or some urgent stomach condition.

But he did not move. Could not. He drank the laughter on her face, the tilt of her saucy smile, the quick, impatient way she brushed away a lock of hair. The man made some jest, close to her ear, and Basilio thought it might be a little ribald—
Dio
! The jealousy bit deep!—for she lifted one arched brow and spatted him with her fan. Basilio did not miss the disappointment in the man's face as she brushed by, dismissively.

Still time to turn, to unfreeze and take his leave.

"Ah, there she is!" St. Ives said beside him. "Cassandra!" He lifted a hand toward her.

She shifted her skirts and briskly turned. A

large red jewel, a garnet by the depth of color, glittered darkly against the white slope of her breasts, acute and alluring. A drop of blood. She smiled at her brother.

Only then did she see Basilic

He did not miss the half-second of hesitation in her body before she narrowed her eyes and drew up her head. Her mouth sobered.

Then she drifted over, cloaked in that extraordinary calm. After standing on her toes to kiss her brother's cheek, she stood back, not quite meeting Basilio's eyes.

"Cassandra," St. Ives said. "Since you could not attend the reading tonight, I've brought the poet to you.

This is Count Montevarchi."

"We have met, Gabriel," she said. "As I am sure you have already surmised." Steel in those cold tones.

Ice in the dark eyes. Not a whisper of warmth as inclined her head toward Basilio. "Good evening."

A small, low laugh, full of mischief and something else Basilio could not quite name—challenge?—came from St. Ives. "Have you? You did not tell me, sister."

"My brother is a jokester when it suits him," Cassandra said evenly. "I hope you were not dismayed to learn where you had arrived."

"Not at all," he said. Gravely, he inclined his head. "I had hoped for a word."

"Of course." With brisk formality, she took his arm. "Shall we walk in the garden?"

"Do not monopolize him too long," said a man at Gabriel's elbow. "You will read for us, will you not?"

Basilio looked to Cassandra for direction, but her profile was as expressionless as marble. He answered the only way he could. "Of course," he said with a little bow. "It would be my honor."

They went to the garden, silence a gulf between them. He did not know how to speak to her when he couldn't read her expression. Worse, he did not know what he intended to say.

In a silence as awkward as any he'd ever known, they moved from the house under the gossamer light of a full moon. Her skirts swished against his ankles. The light caught on her shoulders, milk white and utterly smooth, and he suddenly felt quite dizzy.

He stopped, putting a hand over her fingers where they rested on his elbow. "I wrote to you."

"I know." She could not look at him. She only stood there, her eyes fastened on something off to the left.

Abruptly she drew away, lifted her chin. Her voice was quite reasonable. "It was finished. I did not see what could be gained by our correspondence."

He made an aggrieved sound. "Cassandra—"

"No." The word was fierce. "We shall not relive the past. It is done. I have recovered, as I presume you have, and we shall simply go on from this moment."

"Recovered?" He thought of her in the stairway at the opera, falling to pieces in grief.

"Yes."

He did not know this side of her, the woman who could lie so coldly, but of course it existed. How else had she made so much progress in a world dominated by men? "Was it so simple for you, Cassandra?"

She raised her head, and for a moment he saw the wavering softness. Then she took a breath and stood straight. Her hands were balled tight in her skirts. "No," she said clearly. "It was… it… it was terrible."

"I sent a man to England to carry a letter, when you did not reply." He reached for her hand.

She slid out of his grip. "I did not go home. I went to Venice; stayed there through Christmas. By then, you were married."

Venice. A fine, swift agony went through him. "And what did you think of her?" His question, softly uttered, affected her as nothing else had. He heard the soft intake of bream even as she took another step away from him.

"She reminded me that passion can be intellectual, and that a woman must return always to reason if she is to survive."

Basilio could not halt an incredulous burst of laughter. "Venice did not teach you that!" He grinned, finding here the heart of their friend-ship, a place where he had sure footing. "You must have been in some other city."

A toss of that head. "We all see what we need to see."

Moonlight washed over the slope of her shoulders, and he ached to settle his hand there, feel the warmth of her flesh once more. Instead, he laced his fingers together behind his back. He had missed his friend, and it was his friend he wished to woo. With a proper lightness in his voice, he said, "Venice must have moved you deeply indeed if you will not tell me what she gave you."

She skittered away, then turned to face him decisively. "What once was between us is now dead, Basilio.

I am willing to be civilized if you keep your distance, but only if you do not speak to me, or attempt to rekindle my dead feelings."

Now he could see what she had been attempting to hide—the shimmer of tears and the agitated rise of her breasts. Her fingers were knotted so tightly it was a wonder they did not break. He stared at her for a long moment, his heart, his lungs, his loins all afire with longing that made a mockery of his wish to be her friend. And yet, that was all that could be between them—and better than nothing at all.

"We are forever divided as lovers, it is true," he said. "But that does not kill the love. What was born between us is immortal."

She gave a snort of laughter he guessed was meant to be cynical. "Only a poet could believe such idiocy.

There is no such thing as immortal love."

"Say what you wish. I know you, Cassandra."

"Basilio, you are married! I will not be party to a betrayal of that level."

"And I will never ask it. Never wound you in such a manner." A swell of feeling rose in him. "But I have missed my friend. Do not take that, too."

"We cannot be friends, Basilio." She closed her eyes and shook her head. He waited, knowing that she would raise her head and be stronger in a moment. And she was. Meeting his gaze directly, she said, "I'm afraid that if you wish to attend my salons in the future, as you will surely be urged to do, I must require you to bring your wife, or I cannot admit you." She moved toward the door. "For now, you must go. I'll give your excuses."

Mockingly, he bowed. "As you wish, madam."

He waited while she stalked by him. Yes, they were friends. As she and Analise would be friends. It was a poor sort of passion, but he would settle for renewing the friendship. Merely talking to her had eased the weight of sorrow in him as nothing else had since her departure.

He would come back here, with his wife, the fine, sweet Analise, who could speak no English.

Cassandra, in her own kindness, would be forced to converse with her in Italian. And perhaps Cassandra would begin to see…

What? That the child should never have been a wife? That there must be some answer to this triangle that made them all so miserable?

Ah, no. He only liked them both, thought they would like each other. Analise would not mind a friend in this cold, confusing place.

A ripple of warning rushed over him—the same dark foreboding that had touched him upon seeing Cassandra for the first time. There was danger here, danger he did not understand.

He frowned as he made his way to the gate in the wall, trying to pinpoint the reason. What fate did he court in this? What disaster might befall them if he took this path?

On the street, he paused and looked up at the moon, like Mercutio. It only gazed impassively back at him, giving away no secrets. Did death await him in this?

He turned to look at the house one last time and saw the shape of a woman illuminated by flickering candlelight in a chamber on the second floor.

She bent her head into her hands, and Basilio did not need to see colors to know it was Cassandra. He knew the curve of that neck, the movement of those arms. He read the despair in her posture, and nearly scaled a nearby tree to climb up to her.

A bright memory flashed in his mind—the morning she had spun around naked in his chamber, celebrating the sunlight on her skin. He wished more than life itself that he could give those moments, free of sorrow, back to her.

Abruptly, she moved, striding out to a small wrought iron balcony. Out of respect, Basilio dropped into the shadows cast by the tree. He put his hand against the trunk and looked up at her through the branches, feeling closer to her when she reached out and plucked a leaf to twirl in her fingers.

Cassandra, his dearest friend in all the world. He could not bear to live a life without her in it. Kissing his