The Dark Lady's Mask (30 page)

What,
Aemilia wondered,
would the good Olivia make of her namesake in the play?
In truth,
Olivia
was a perfect anagram of
I, Viola.
They were two halves of the same woman, for even as Viola pretended to be Cesario, Olivia hid behind her veil of mourning for her dead brother. The scenes between the two heroines, with Viola courting Olivia for her master only to have Olivia fall deeply in love with her, were the most poignant in the play. Poor Olivia was enamored of an illusion while Viola was caught in a hopeless double bind, which was resolved only by the reappearance of her twin brother whom she had presumed dead. Of course,
this
fabulous contrivance was Will's doing. Was he not himself the father of a twin son and daughter?

The manuscript pages fell from her hands. How could she continue working with him if she could no longer face him?
Damn these weak tears.
Perhaps she could finish the play on her own and allow him to put his name on it just the same. Had that not been her original aim, to use him as her mask? Except the brilliance of the play emerged from the alchemy of their two minds in collaboration.

Aemilia willed herself to be dispassionate, to think only of the written word on the page. Reaching to the bottom of her lap desk, she pulled out a quarto-sized sheet, thinking it would be as blank and innocent as fallen snow. Instead, she saw his elegant hand, his letters with their flourishes. So he had written a new sonnet.

How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st

Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds

With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st

The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,

Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap

To kiss the tender inward of thy hand

Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,

At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!

To be so tickled, they would change their state

And situation with those dancing chips

O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,

Making the dead wood more blest than living lips.

Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,

Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.

His words left her quivering, as if she were the virginals frame resonant with sound. Had he written this while watching her play for Jacopo?

A thought came unbidden, plunging her into a pit of longing:
Here you are, twenty-four years old, and the only man you ever allowed to love you was old enough to be your grandsire.
The power of her desire, held at bay for so long, shook her with the force of an earthquake. Her hands clutching her face, she pictured the lovers she'd seen at the forest's edge and then the look Will had given her in the bedchamber they thought they would have to share. She imagined twining her arms around his neck and pulling his muscled body against hers. Breathing in the piney scent of his skin.

Little wonder Jasper had been so worried about leaving her alone with Will. Had she truly traveled to the far side of Europe to seek her freedom only to plunge into some doomed dalliance with a married man, a father of three?
This is madness.

From down the hall, Giulietta and Olivia were calling for her. Soon they would serve the Sunday feast in the frescoed parlor that looked out on her father's childhood garden. What would Papa make of her predicament?

Enough of this sneaking and shrinking!
A grown woman had no business hiding in a storeroom. Briskly, Aemilia dried her eyes and smoothed her hair. She couldn't hide from Will forever.

Y
ET, SEATED AT THE
dining table, Aemilia couldn't bring herself to look at him. Such absurd torment, the buzzing in her head would not be silenced. Her hands betrayed her, shaking as she skewered a piece of roast pheasant on her knife and attempted to raise it to her mouth.

“You're so pale,” said Giulietta, as guileless as she was young. “Will, too. Are you both struck by the same malady?”

“Hush, child,” Olivia said to her daughter, before bowing her head close to Aemilia's and speaking softly so that no one else would hear. “If something burdens your heart, you must never be afraid to confide in me,
cara.
”

Aemilia ducked her head and stared at her plate.

A
FTER HANDING
E
NRICO OVER
to Tabitha's care, Aemilia donned her cloak and set off into the drifting snow. If she could no longer ride out alone to flee her troubles, as she'd done in England, she could at least walk, never mind that a respectable woman needed an escort. Yanking her hood over her head, she dared any denizen of Bassano to stand in her way.

But as she charged out of the city gate, she heard flying footfalls behind her. Swinging around, her fists balled, she found herself face to face with Will. Snowflakes starred his soft brown hair.

“Don't you dare creep up behind me!” she snapped. “You gave me such a fright.”

“Forgive me,” he said. “But I must speak to you.”

“Then speak.” She looked not at him but at the white mountains and the snow-dusted forest. The cold wind braced her so that she stood stiff and unbending, as though covered in armor.

“I must bid you farewell.” His voice rang distant and strange. “After all, you're safe with your family and have no more need of me.”

She felt a chasm open up inside her as she imagined her life without him in it, without his wit and their shared laughter, without his poetry and the thrill of their collaboration. Then again, how could she have been so naïve? Of course, their ways must eventually part. It was only that this had come much sooner than she had expected.

“You're returning to England? To your wife and children?” She tried to smile, to be glad for him. That was where he belonged, in the bosom of his family in his native land.

“In truth, I know not where.” He sounded defeated.

She turned to him. “But where would you go if not back to England?” She cursed the plaintiveness in her voice.

Will gazed at her levelly. “I vowed not to return to Stratford until I had accomplished something in this world. How can I stand before my children as a failure?”

“To me, you are
most
accomplished,” she said.

Allowing him to believe himself a failure was the worst thing she could do, something for which she could never forgive herself. At the very least, she had to reveal her awe of his writing.

“You have a rare gift,” she said, “that will one day bring you riches and fame. As I said when we first met, no one writes of love as you do.”

His face reddened like a boy's. “Did you finally discover my sonnet? I was wondering how long it would take you to happen upon it. Or if you had already read it and kept your silence because you hated it.”

So Will had left that sonnet as a trap for her, and she'd fallen into it, as gullible as thirteen-year-old Giulietta. Did he think she would surrender to him for the price of a poem? Worse yet, had he nearly succeeded? Twisting away from him, she darted off, tugging her hood forward to hide her tears. But he matched her stride and kept pace with her, as speechless as she, until they reached the forest where black squirrels darted up the snow-laden boughs.

“Why did you marry in the first place if you'll not live with your wife?” Her voice was raw, ripping out of her throat with a force that hurt.

“Because I was eighteen and she was pregnant by me. What else was I to do? Why did
you
marry Lanier?”

She exploded with bitter laughter. “Because I was pregnant with the Lord Chamberlain's bastard and he arranged the marriage to cover my shame.”

“Does this not make us evenly matched?” Will's voice rose like the mountain wind. Then he spoke softly. “Once I wrote a sonnet for Harry praising the marriage of true minds. In faith, it should have been written for you, for I was never better matched by any mind such as yours, Aemilia.”

It was so rare that he said her name, but when he did, it sounded like a caress. She clapped her hand to her mouth and sobbed. The truth was laid bare and she could no longer deceive herself. She had loved him from the moment she first read the sonnet that had fallen from his doublet in front of Simon Forman's astrology practice in Thames Street. She had desired him ever since that midsummer night she had touched his tears. Jacopo's husky voice whispered in the snowy air,
There's no shame in love.

The wind blew down her hood and his fingers brushed away her tears.

“Tell me,” he pleaded, “one way or the other. I cannot bear to stay here and not love you.”

She seized his hand and kissed his palm. Snowflakes tumbled from his hair to land on her face as he pulled her close and kissed her lips, his warmth pouring into her until she thought the snow around them would melt. She kissed him with a hunger that left her gasping.

They drew apart and stared at each other, their breath turning the air between them into smoke.

“There's so much about me you don't know,” she said.

As he cradled her face to his chest, she told him about her father's secret and her sister's ruin.

“I knew you were a woman of many mysteries,” he said, cupping her face in his hands. “Yet I never imagined such revelations as these. Your poor sister! Ah, that is why you painted our Petruchio as such a brute, starving his bride. And your father! I've never heard such a wrenching tale. No wonder you wept in the synagogue.”

She made herself speak plainly. “Now that you know the truth about me, will you bid me farewell? I won't hold it against you.”

She warded her heart with her last line of defense.
He's not mine for the taking. He belongs to another.

His laughter was as tender as his encircling arms. “How could I tear myself from my Viola, my spirited Kate? You, my Muse and my music.”

Her breath was jagged, her heart racing. What they were about to embark on was as daring and daunting as anything she'd ever done, and yet when he held her in his gaze, she felt lighter than the swirling snow.

D
ARKNESS DESCENDED, GLITTERING WITH
the snow that kept falling, jeweling their hair and cloaks as they made their way back to the Casa dal Corno. Aemilia's feet had gone so cold, she could no longer feel her toes, yet she thrummed with the warmth radiating from her heart and Will's hand enclosing hers.

“What will we tell them?” she whispered, when he reached for the door handle.

“That we're in love,” he said. As though it were that simple.

Any objection she might have raised dissolved with his kiss, his mouth covering hers.

The door sprang open.

“God's blood! We were worried sick, little Enrico bawling his eyes out for his mother.” Winifred blazed like a forge, glaring at Will before she seized Aemilia's arm, her eyes searching hers.

Surely she must see it on my face,
Aemilia thought.
My joy.

“Oh, mistress.” Winifred let out an enormous sigh. “Will you let him lead you into a fool's paradise?”

Aemilia could say nothing, only touch Winifred's cheek in fondness.

“Come in, come in, before you catch your death,” Winifred grumbled. “Lord, what a head I have! It beats as if it would break into twenty pieces.”

Tabitha beamed at Aemilia as if she could think of no happier outcome for her. Prudence merely nodded as if she had long suspected what would come to pass.

“Master Will, did you by chance ever happen to sample our elderflower wine from Essex?” Pru asked, twisting her apron string around her finger.

“Elderflower wine?” Will looked dazed, but then he glowed. “Ah, yes, back in Cripplegate. Aemilia, did you not bring a bottle of country wine that morning you visited me at the boardinghouse?”

“You visited him at his lodgings?” Winifred was incensed. “A lady should never do such a thing.”

“I know, Winifred,” Aemilia said brightly. “
That
was why I dressed as a man!”

“Quoting Kit Marlowe, no less,” said Will, starry-eyed at the memory. “My landlady was so enamored, I was afraid to leave them alone together.”

“Bring me some aqua vitae,” Winifred moaned.

Aemilia savored the memory of their drinking the wine to seal their collaboration. But why Pru should want to know such a thing was quite beyond her. Ignoring the glances the Weir sisters traded among themselves, Aemilia smiled at Will, who hoisted Enrico in his arms.

The rest of the household came rushing down the stairs.

“
Madonna mia,
I thought you had lost your way in the snow!” Olivia threw up her hands. “Jacopo was beside himself.”

“Forgive me,” Aemilia said, her face on fire to be the object of such scrutiny.

Giulietta gaped at her and Will as if she had never seen them before. Francesco and Leandro looked at each other and then at Olivia, as if deferring to her to address this unexpected change in circumstance. A thousand thoughts seemed to cross Olivia's mind as she regarded Aemilia. All the while, Will stood rooted by her side, holding her son, as though they were a family.

Olivia took Aemilia's hand. “
Cara,
you must go to Jacopo and speak to him before he sleeps. Let him know you arrived safely home.”

Shakily, Aemilia climbed the stairs, squeezing past Jacopo's kin. Will handed Enrico to Tabby before following her.

A
EMILIA FOUND
J
ACOPO IN
tears. He grasped her hand.