Rose Red (16 page)

“I do not want you to die, Andrea. Surely,
you know that by now.” Rosalinda had never before heard her own
voice sounding so low and seductive. She feared that she, too,
would die if Andrea did not kiss her without further delay. She did
not fully understand why he should hesitate when he admitted he
wanted to kiss her and when she was afire to be in his arms. She
tugged a little harder on his shirt, and he came down on top of
her.

His mouth was gentle on hers, sweet and
tender, just as she remembered. A delicious warmth began to spread
through her body. She soon realized that this was partly caused by
Andrea’s own body heat. Her nightgown was twisted up around her
knees, so her bare legs were tangled with his, but more than that,
her insistent pulling at his thigh-length shirt had lifted its hem
up to his waist. Her linen nightgown offered only the flimsiest of
barriers between Andrea’s torso and hers. And she was beginning to
understand that there was a great deal more to his torso than she
had previously appreciated. A large part of Andrea was extremely
hard and it was pushing against her in a most determined way.

At the same time that she became aware of his
hardness, Andrea moved his mouth on hers and his tongue flicked
over her lips in a hint that she should open them. In response,
Rosalinda parted her lips a little. Emboldened by this sign of
encouragement, Andrea gathered her closer and let his tongue surge
into her mouth. Rosalinda felt as if her entire body was opening to
him, for her thighs parted even as her lips did. She was being
swept away by a tide of longing, by a desire to go on lying in his
arms while he continued to kiss her. She could lie in his arms
forever and not grow tired of it.

Andrea’s tongue stroked against hers,
inflaming her senses, while between her thighs he also stroked
against her, only the fabric of her nightgown separating his flesh
from hers. Between her bosom and his broad chest, her hand was
still clenched on his shirt. When she was trembling and writhing
against him, consumed by the new longings he was arousing in her,
Andrea broke off the kiss to raise himself on his elbows. He smiled
to see her fist at his chest. Gently he unwound her fingers from
the linen and kissed each fingertip, slowly, one by one.

When he lifted the upper part of his body,
the lower portion of him pressed more closely against the
increasingly sensitive area between Rosalinda’s thighs. She sighed
and pushed back.

“My sweet, innocent girl,” Andrea whispered,
“do you know where this is leading?”

“Yes.” She felt as though her body was about
to dissolve into his. “Don’t stop. I’ll die if you stop.”

“So will I, though I know well enough that I
ought to stop.” With a swift motion he tore off his shirt.

Rosalinda laid both of her palms flat against
his chest. He gave her only a moment to touch the firm muscles, to
let her fingertips find and circle his nipples. She whimpered when
he pulled away from her, but it was only to remove her nightgown.
He pushed it and her shawl to the foot of the bed, leaving
Rosalinda naked to his eyes. She was not at all ashamed. She let
him look at her, taking pleasure in his open delight, murmuring
softly when his hands enclosed her breasts, moaning low in her
throat when he kissed them. Slowly his fingers moved across her
body, caressing shoulders and breasts, abdomen and hips, thighs and
knees.

“Lift your hips, my darling,” he instructed,
and she obeyed.

“Andrea, what are you doing with your
shirt?”

“You will understand soon enough.” He tucked
the linen beneath her hips, then separated her thighs and knelt
there, between them. His hands stroked upward in the way she
remembered from the night in the garden. The part of her that
longed for his touch felt the pressure of his fingers. She closed
her eyes, savoring the moment, aware of her own moisture and heat
and knowing that this time the wonderful thing they had almost
achieved on their last encounter would happen without
interruption.

Then Andrea removed his fingers. Startled and
disappointed, wanting him to continue that delicious pressure,
Rosalinda glanced downward. For the first time she saw clearly the
hard part of Andrea that had been pressing against her thigh. She
watched in fascination as Andrea moved forward, pushing himself
into her. The stiff portion of his flesh began to disappear between
her thighs. She was aware of it stretching her body. She tore her
gaze away to look into Andrea’s eyes, to see the joyous wonder
there. And the question still lurking.

“Yes,” she said, answering that unspoken
question. To emphasize her assent, she wrapped her arms around him
and pulled him closer, ignoring the uncomfortable sensation his
entrance produced.

She wanted him too much to care if he hurt
her, so did what she could to help him, pushing herself hard
against his masculine intrusion, opening herself to him, body and
heart together. Then, with a quick, little whimper on her part and
a cry of pleasure from Andrea, he plunged deeply and they were
one.

He began to kiss her again, long, slow
kisses, with his tongue and that other, harder, part of him moving
in and out of her in a matching rhythm, until Rosalinda was drawn
out of herself to become part of Andrea, as he was part of her.

He dragged his mouth from hers, gasping for
air. Rosalinda did not mind the end of their kiss, for she was
gasping, too, clutching at Andrea’s shoulders, while her hips moved
of their own accord and the rhythm of their joining quickened.
Suddenly, she was flying somewhere in the heavens, while still
inside her own, familiar skin. Andrea’s mouth covered hers again,
this time to stop her wild cry of release and to smother his shout
of triumph that came an instant later.

It took Rosalinda a while to return to
herself, to become a person separate from Andrea once more. She
sensed that he was as reluctant to remove himself from her as she
was to have him go. Yet she knew, even when at last they lay side
by side, that they would never really be separate again. Not after
being so close that their souls as well as their bodies had
touched.

“As close as two people can be,” she
whispered.

“As close as my own heart,” he said. “I hope
you never regret what we have just done.”

“How could I? What happened between us was
too beautiful to regret.”

“I hope I have succeeded in convincing you
that I do not want your sister,” he murmured, kissing her ear lobe.
“The only woman I want is you.”

“Andrea?” They were still lying so close
together on the narrow bed that she only had to move her head a
fraction of an inch to look into his eyes. “You told me before you
went away that your purpose in leaving was to discover your
brother’s killer.”

“It was true then, as it is now.”

“But what of my mother’s plan to regain
Monteferro?”

“Her plan fits perfectly with what I want
do,” Andrea said.

“I don’t see how.” Rosalinda leaned on one
elbow, looking down at him. Andrea put his hands behind his head
and stretched out his long, muscular legs, crossing them at the
ankles. Now that he was healthy again and completely recovered from
his ordeal in the mountains, he was lean and tough and, to her
eyes, incredibly handsome. Rosalinda loved him with all of her
heart. She prayed that she would not have to choose between Andrea
and her mother.

“It will not be enough to conquer just
Monteferro,” Andrea explained. “The Guidi control Aullia, too.”

“The city-state that borders Monteferro,”
Rosalinda noted. “It is said to be beautiful, though I have never
seen it. Have you ever been there?”

“In my youth.” Andrea dismissed the question
with a smile and went on to the important issue. “In order to
secure Monteferro, it will be necessary for me to take Aullia,
too.”

“This scheme of my mother’s seems more
dangerous the more I hear of it.” Rosalinda shivered.

At once Andrea sat up to snatch her shawl
from the foot of the bed and drape it around her shoulders. He held
the edges together over her bosom while he kissed her with a
tenderness that made Rosalinda think he understood her fears.

“Any danger is worth the risk if, at the end
of it, I win my heart’s desire,” he told her. “Rosalinda, I would
lay the world at your feet if I could. Lacking power over the
entire world, I will lay Aullia at your feet.”

“Aullia?” she breathed.

“I will have you, and Aullia, and my
brother’s death avenged,” he said.

She stared at him wordlessly, trying to
comprehend all that he was promising, and failing to do so. Perhaps
seeing her confusion, Andrea pulled the ring off his little finger.
The ruby shone as red as blood in the candlelight. He slipped it
onto Rosalinda’s hand.

“This is my pledge,” he said. “When I return
to Villa Serenita the next time, we will lie together like this
again. Every night we are apart, I will think of you and what we
have done in this room, and I will hope that you are also thinking
of me and remembering.”

“I cannot wear it. Someone will notice and
remember it was yours.” Rosalinda looked at the ring on her finger,
wanting to keep it there and knowing she could not. “I know. I’ll
tie a bit of ribbon around it and pin it to my underdress each day.
I will wear it over my heart in the daytime, and on my finger at
night, when I am alone.”

“And you will wait for me to return?”

“Till the end of the world, if I must. Though
I do beg you to come sooner, for I will ache during every moment we
are apart to be in your embrace once more.”

“I want to love you again,” he whispered, his
lips against her shoulder. “I would love you all night long if I
could, but if we are discovered, your mother will be very angry
with both of us. I do not mind for myself, but I do not want to
leave you in an unpleasant situation.”

“Andrea, how soon must you leave?”

“Well before dawn. Bartolomeo will come for
me. I want you out of here and into your own room again before he
stirs.”

“I know you are right, though I don’t want to
go.” Rosalinda reached for her nightgown. As she moved, she looked
down.

“Andrea, there is blood on your shirt. My
blood.” She looked at him, sudden tears trembling in her eyes.
“That’s why you put it under me. It was for my sake, so no one
would see the blood on the sheet and guess that we have been
together. But now your shirt is bloody.”

“I will wear it proudly,” he said. “That pure
blood is your gift to me, a gift I will treasure for the rest of my
life.”

“Do you think there is time for one more
gift-giving?” she asked. She knew that when he left the villa he
was going into certain danger. They might not meet again for a long
time. Or they might never meet again. Her heart constricted
painfully on that thought. Loving him, she wanted to give herself
to him once more before they parted. She tried to speak lightly, so
he would not guess how frightened she was for his sake. “I can see
that you do want me again, and I want you so much that I do not
believe it will take us very long this time.”

“I knew you were a passionate woman the first
time I saw you riding that horse of yours.” Andrea pulled her down
beside him and, to her great delight, he put his mouth and his
hands on her again.

Bianca awakened suddenly, sitting up with her
hands over her mouth to hold back a cry of alarm. Her room was cold
and the quilt had slipped away while she thrashed about in her
sleep. Even as the dream faded from her mind, she tried to call it
back so she could piece together the remnants of her too-familiar
nightmare. Her thoughts grappled with the impression that this time
there had been something different about the dream, something she
ought to remember because one particular image had been so
vivid.

The same dream had tormented her since she
was five years old. It always began with a sense of doom for, after
so many years, she knew what was going to happen and knew there was
nothing she could do to prevent the horror.

Once
again she was a child and back in Monteferro. She had run away from
her nurse and was playing a game of hide-and-seek, peeping into
every room she came to as she explored the ducal palace, and hoping
the nurse would not find her. She knew she was being naughty and
knew both her mother and the nurse would be annoyed with her, but
she was having so much fun that she didn’t care a bit what
punishment they decreed when they finally located her.

Having reached the great reception room, she
tiptoed inside. It was the most beautiful room in the palace and
certainly the most resplendent room Bianca had ever seen. There
were tall marble pillars, and wonderful paintings in golden frames
on the walls. The long windows that lined one wall were draped in a
rich shade of green velvet that had the Farisi eagle embroidered in
gold. Bianca’s father was sitting in his chair of state, relaxing
for a few moments between audiences. Half a dozen of his trusted
guards stood about the room. At the scuffing sound of Bianca’s soft
slippers on the polished floor, her father turned his head toward
her.

“What are you doing here, little one?” he
asked. It was said that Girolamo Farisi’s smile could charm the
birds from the air to sit on his shoulder. Certainly, his smile
charmed his daughter. “Come and give your father a kiss.”

Bianca ran forward and he swept her up in his
strong arms, depositing her on his lap. His clothes were very fine,
all red velvet and soft fur trimming, with a heavy gold chain
hanging down across his chest. Bianca cuddled against him, enjoying
the softness of his clothes while knowing the man himself was
strong and indestructible. To Bianca at age five, her father was as
constant as the stars she saw each clear night when she lifted the
curtains over the window in her room. After kissing him, she rubbed
her little cheek against his, feeling the faint stubble on his
otherwise smooth skin. Aware of the rumbling beginning deep in his
throat, Bianca sighed with happiness and awaited the affectionate
laughter she so loved to hear.