Twice Upon Time. Nina Beaumont

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      “I do not command you, but if I ask you as a brother who needs help to do me another favor, will you do it?” Ugo made clever use of the scar that bisected his right cheek, making his smile seem merely wry instead of twisted.

      Alessio sighed, remembering how his brother had held his small hand as they had stood at their father’s graveside.

      “Yes, Ugo.” His voice was resigned as he nodded. “I will do it.”

      

      As Alessio bent his head to pass the low door of the cantina, Antonio Rossi raised his hand in greeting and gestured to the innkeeper to bring another cup.

      Alessio tossed his cloak over the plank table and sat down on a bench across from his friend.

      “Well, you look cheery today.” Antonio clicked his stoneware cup against Alessio’s. “Drink up. A few cups of wine and you will forget whatever it is that is marring your fair brow.” He trailed the tips of his fingers over Alessio’s forehead in a comically melodramatic gesture.

      Alessio’s only answer was a black scowl. But Antonio did not take offense. Instead, he grinned and took a generous swallow of the mellow red wine made from the grapes that grew on the hills to the south of the city.

      “Is she a virtuous virgin or someone’s wife?” He grinned again. “What’s her name? Maria? Lucrezia? Ginevra? Do not worry, my friend.” He chuckled. “If you put out the candle later—” he gestured toward the stairs that led to the upper floor with his eyes “—you can call her by any name you please.” Antonio gave him a friendly cuff on the shoulder. “In the dark, all cats are gray.”

      “Why don’t you shut up and let me get drunk in peace.” Alessio emptied the cup and refilled it but did not drink again.

      “Go ahead and get drunk, my friend.” With a smile, Antonio settled back to wait. “But not too drunk.”

      He had seen Alessio brood often enough to know that he would not be hurried. When he was done, he would look up and laugh or curse at whatever had been plaguing him and that would be that. And then they would while away the night with wine and dice and a soft woman.

      But tonight Alessio sat and stared, unmoving, into his wine cup as though there were something that had bewitched him within it. Minutes passed. A half hour. And still he sat, as motionless as if he had been turned to stone.

      Antonio cast an impatient glance toward the stairs. With a sigh, he signaled the innkeeper to bring more wine.

      

      He could not get it out of his head. No matter how he tried, the misty image that had surely been an illusion conjured up by his tired brain stayed with him. An illusion, he repeated to himself. An illusion, damn it. And yet it had been real. So real. Even now, hours later, he still felt as if he were a small boat adrift in a dark, unfriendly sea, lurching about in a storm. And he did not care for the feeling.

      For the hundredth time, he picked through those brief moments, carefully, methodically. Surely, if he examined what he had seen closely enough, he would understand. He swore again, silently, viciously. What good did method do when he had seen next to nothing? But he had felt. And known.

      The tension in his gut built to a new height. He had known that behind that hazy barrier he and Bianca had been lovers. Lovers of the flesh. Lovers of the heart. That knowledge had been as real as the white curtain that had turned crimson. As real as the smell of blood, which had nearly overwhelmed him.

      He was not a fanciful man, nor was he a squeamish one. Why then did this ghost of an image not leave him in peace? Why did it torment him until he no longer knew if he was seeing the image again or merely the memory of the image? Until he was certain he was going mad?

      No, he was not a fanciful man. But something that took such hold of him had to have a meaning. And he’d be damned if he did not find it.

      Alessio lifted his head, his eyes wild. With a curse he swept his arm across the table, sending cups and bottles crashing onto the brick-tile floor.

      Unperturbed, the innkeeper approached and matter-offactly started picking up pieces of stoneware and glass. Antonio started to make a jest, but the grin froze on his lips, the words stuck in his throat as he saw something he had never seen before—not when they had ridden into battle, not when they had faced a naked sword in a dark alleyway. In Alessio’s eyes he saw pure, unadulterated terror. And behind the terror was an emotion so deep, so intense that he did not know how to read it.

      The noise jarred Alessio back to reality, and yet some part of him still remained caught in that illusion. He shifted his gaze from the havoc he had wrought to Antonio, and yet he saw neither.

      Instead he saw Bianca’s face. The look of a little girl lost. The look of a temptress sure of her triumph. And he knew that all the rough, hurtful, mocking words they had said to each other today had changed nothing, meant nothing. Only one thing he had said today had been completely true—she belonged to him.

      For a fleeting moment he was filled with the certainty that unless he made that an irrevocable reality, something terrible would happen. The certainty dissipated, but the compulsion to act remained.

      “I have to ride back, Tonio.” Already he was reaching for his cloak.

      “Back? Back where?”

      “Monte Nero.”

      “Back to the Merisi villa?” Antonio stared at his friend as the terrible truth began to dawn on him.

      “I see,” he said slowly. “So I wasn’t so far wrong before. Just wrong about the name.”

      As Alessio turned to go, Antonio finally managed to get his body to obey his mind and leapt up, reaching across the table to grab a handful of Alessio’s black velvet doublet.

      “What of the curfew? The fines are stiff if you run into a watchman,” he babbled. “And the city gates will be closed by now.”

      “I will find a way. For enough fiorini I can buy myself a way through the gates of heaven. Or hell.”

      Antonio breathed a sigh of relief as he saw Alessio’s arrogant grin. This was the Alessio he knew. This was the Alessio he could talk some sense into. Still holding on to Alessio’s doublet, he scooted around the table.

      “Listen to me. This is insane.” He gripped Alessio’s shoulders and shook him. “You cannot do this. She is betrothed to your brother.” He shook him again. “Your brother, damn it.”

      “You don’t have to remind me, Tonio.” His voice was dull.

      “And you would still take her?” Antonio’s hands fell down to his sides. He was as cynical a man as any. He knew that rules were made to be broken. Most rules. But there were some rules a man did not break. “Take your brother’s bride and leave him to find used goods in his marriage bed?”

      “Is that what you think of me?” Anger flared in his eyes. “Is that what you think I will do?” But as Alessio said the words, he remembered that that was just what he had almost done on the beach only hours ago. No, he thought. He had done it. Perhaps he had only taken her mouth, but with that kiss he had possessed Bianca as surely as if he had spilled СКАЧАТЬ