Page 13 of Just for a Taste

T he tea and tarts that evening were fruity, but not as overwhelmingly sweet as that disastrous meal. I glanced at the clock. 7:33. Based on his pattern the previous times we met, Duca de’ Medici would be here in exactly two minutes.

I poured another cup, took another sip, and closed my eyes. Despite how strangely amicable our conversation had ended today, the disaster of the day prior still swirled in my stomach.

“My apologies for the other day. With saying you were trying to butter me up, that is.”

I jumped, spilling a bit of tea on myself (luckily, it had cooled), at the realization that Duca de’ Medici had materialized before me. He was dressed differently than on previous days—more casually. At least, his equivalent of casual. He had already allowed his suspenders to slide down the shoulders of his loose button-down shirt, and his dress shoes were propped up on a footrest. A vintage suede jacket was around the chair behind him, paired with a matching flat cap on the ear of the chair.

After attempting in vain to wipe the pinkish stain from my white skirt, I gave him a small smile. “It’s okay.”

“It isn’t, though. That was presumptive of me.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m not …used to having people around me. I’m not used to talking to people.”

I shrugged as casually as I could manage and pushed the plate of cookies toward him. “Me either, in case you couldn’t tell. Like I said yesterday, I was never very good at it.”

Duca de’ Medici gingerly plucked a cookie and took a small bite. He tried not to grimace at its lack of sweetness, but I still caught the small twitch of his lip. “I’ve lived here now for over a year. Noor talks to me on occasion, but otherwise, there’s no one.”

“Noor mentioned there isn’t any mail or phone line up here. Is that not possible to install?”

“It was an elective decision not to do so. It’s difficult to rot with company present.”

He spoke with an air of somberness I hadn’t seen in him before—not flamboyant or exaggerated, despite the dramatic wording, but genuinely desolate. Duca de’ Medici returned the cookie to his plate with an air of finality.

Unsure of how to follow up on such a comment, I opted to return to the previous topic. “I’m sorry for spitting cookie all over you.”

He echoed my previous shrug. “No, I entirely deserved it.”

I raised a brow at his unusual gravity. Sure, he was rude, but this sort of reaction was… excessive, to say the least. And, by all appearances, not put on. “It really isn’t that big of a deal.”

Duca de’ Medici’s response was instantaneous, as keen as it was quick. “It is if it upset a guest.”

I stammered over my words for a few seconds, then swallowed them down with tea. How could one reply to such a statement? I had been upset, sure, but awkwardness lingered more than any resentment, especially after his kindness earlier. I lifted my cup to my mouth, but there was no tea left. I feigned swallowing it anyway.

After a while, Duca de’ Medici spoke once more. “I reread several of the sonnets. They’re quite beautiful. His love for Laura, for a dead woman, oozes from every word. I confess I hadn’t given them a proper chance.” He paused to see if I was going to cut in, running his fingers through his hair yet again. “Um, when I was younger, I wrote a lot of sonnets around when I stopped talking to my cousin. I don’t associate that form of poetry with pleasant times. But, uh, I digress. What are your thoughts?”

I studied the man in front of me. He was a nervous wreck, just as I had been.

“We don’t have to talk about them if you don’t want to,” I said slowly, then picked up my pace when an idea struck. “We don’t have to stay here at all, actually. It’s kind of intimidating, you know? Maybe it would be good to try something else.”

Duca de’ Medici’s eyes flickered back and forth, and he scrunched his brow. Finally, as some unknown thought passed through his head, everything relaxed. “I could show you somewhere outside, near the abbey,” he said cautiously, deliberately, every word dripping with hesitation. “If you would be okay with that.”

I smiled. “That would be lovely.”

∞∞∞

The night was temperate, and if it not for the gentle breeze, the air might have felt heavy with humidity. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, savoring the petrichor. It’s been far too long , I thought, since I’ve been outside, especially after the rain .

When I opened my eyes again, I could see Duca de’ Medici studying me in my periphery. I glanced over to meet his eyes, and he looked away quickly, running his hand through his hair. He finally stepped to my side.

“It’s . . . nice out. It rained. From the sky and all.”

I bit my tongue to stifle a laugh. Was this his attempt at small talk? If so, it was a rather pathetic one.

“Yes, it did,” I replied, tilting my head at him with a smirk. “Didn’t plan what you were going to say this far, did you?”

“No,” he grumbled, blushing. “I didn’t.”

Finally, my laugh broke free as a giggle. “That’s okay. Why don’t you tell me about what kind of music you would play right now? To capture the night, I mean.”

Instantly, he brightened. “Hmm . . . let me think. While I do, let’s walk down.”

He headed down the path, and I followed closely behind. An owl in the distance hooted loudly, which I took as an invitation to continue. It was a gravel path, slightly downhill, which wound back and forth through stone pines as we descended into forested land. The trees were massive and ancient, with moss climbing at their bases. Thick underbrush—a combination of grasses and flowers—tickled my ankles. Duca de’ Medici held the lantern at a distance in front of him, illuminating beyond the path. At the sight of it, small animals skittered away audibly, occasionally letting out an annoyed squeak or chirp.

After a few minutes, Duca de’ Medici finally spoke. “I think,” he said, “tonight’s song would be Liebestraum No. 3, Notturno.”

I sped up a bit to walk at his side and make eye contact, despite the narrowness of the path, but he continued to look straight ahead. “I’ve heard that before. By Liszt, right? It’s very pretty if it’s the song I’m thinking of.”

“It is quite beautiful.”

“Why did you pick it?”

He halted, truncating our conversation. “Ah, here we are.”

The path beneath us tapered off, overtaken by downy grass. The invisible line it followed curved over a hill, with a small pond at its base. Trees encircled us with such breadth that the hill still felt open, and the sky was in full view. With the moon full and close to the earth, our lantern could have easily been snuffed, and every blade of grass and drop of dew would have still been visible. Light even radiated over the edges of the water, the surface of the pond rendered into an impression of the sky above.

“What is this place?”

Duca de’ Medici continued beyond the path without me and found a flat area. “I think it was once a graveyard, based on the inlaid stones, but the names have all faded by now. I have Signore Urbino keep the grounds here maintained, just in case.”

“It’s beautiful.”

Duca de’ Medici knelt to the ground, then his face twisted. “Ugh. I neglected to consider the rain.”

I folded my skirt under my legs and crouched closer to him. “Well, the ground isn’t muddy,” I observed. “Just wet.”

“And now so is my ass. But at least yours won’t be. Here, lie down.”

In a swift motion, he undid his jacket and swept it over the ground to form a makeshift blanket. After a moment of hesitation, I did as I was told.

Beneath me, the jacket was soft, dry, and still warm. I tried to hold my breath so I wouldn’t get overwhelmed by the intermingling smells of cologne, suede, and the vampire himself, but when Duca de’ Medici opted to lay with the tops of our heads touching, that became impossible. Accepting my fate, I extended my legs to get comfortable, then quickly recoiled. The weather may have been warm, but the grass was cold and uncomfortably damp.

Despite his calm demeanor, the vampire was trembling.

I turned my attention from terrestrial to celestial. There was nothing comparable to the sky in places like this. Even in the mountains where I grew up, there was more light pollution than here, where the heavens were not solely blue or black, or any single color. Instead, they were fresco ceilings of infinite depths and shades, stippled with gold-and-silver clusters, distant galaxies marbling beyond comprehension.

The soft sound of Duca de’ Medici’s breathing brought me back to earth. “Do you know any constellations?” he asked before I could say something.

“Um.” I searched my memory but found nothing. “Just the Big Dipper and Little Dipper.”

“Ah, brilliant!” Even without seeing Duca de’ Medici, I could hear the smile in his voice. “So you won’t know the difference if I make it all up, and I can impress you immensely for once.”

He wanted to impress me ?

“Pfft. Of course I’d know the difference! I may not know where the constellations are, but I know the myths they’re based on.”

“I’m aware,” he replied with a sigh. “You’ve been checking out so much in ancient Greek lately, and I’m terribly rusty.”

“I guess I didn’t think about that.” I felt my face flush. “Aren’t you tired of all this old stuff? Like you said, I just stay in that little section.”

“Forget I said that, please,” he responded, firm but not harsh. “Read exactly what you wish to. Nothing else.”

Feeling a strange mixture of comfort and more vulnerability, I tucked myself into his jacket. “Okay.”

No doubt hearing the confusion in my tone, he sighed. “I don’t care what it is you’re reading—I care why . This library existed before you came. It will after you leave. So tell me, why do you stay in that section?”

I gulped audibly. As cloistered as my world was, the notion of someone gazing upon it was as exhilarating as it was horrifying. Under normal circumstances, I would have changed the topic. But right now, beneath such a massive sky, it didn’t feel like there was reason to.

“I think classic literature is really special because it’s lasted so long, you know? So many people have died, but these stories are still read because something about them exemplifies humanity.”

I wished desperately now that I was sitting beside Duca de’ Medici, so that I could look over and gauge his reaction to see if he thought I was foolish, or pretentious, or talking out of my ass. Maybe it was better this way.

I took a breath and continued, “What’s changed about people over the centuries is interesting and all, but I think what’s stayed the same is the most beautiful part. No matter how many times I read the Aeneid , it feels like the first time. Every time I read it, I cry harder and dread the ending more.”

Duca de’ Medici said something indistinguishable beneath the dulcet warble of the surrounding crickets.

“What?”

He repeated himself, just a hair louder. “ Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt. ”

Book one, line 462 of the Aeneid , a line practically tattooed beneath my skull. A line with no direct translation due to its dual meanings, where a translator had to choose one over the other, and, in my mind, the most beautiful line of poetry to ever exist, written by a dead person in a dead language about a dead city. All to express the abstract entanglement of mortality and reality from the perspective of both man and the world he inhabited.

I had to restrain myself to not shout with excitement. I suppressed my tone to a whisper. “ Sunt lacrimae rerum . You know, I learned Latin for that line.”

Though Duca de’ Medici spoke rather than whispered, his voice was softer than my own. “I wish I could say the same.”

I sank into the quiet, allowed it to linger for a time, then finally said, “You know, you never answered me about why you chose that song for tonight.”

Now the silence felt different. Guarded. “Why do you want to know? Is my answer itself insufficient?”

I closed my eyes, trying to remember the exact phrasing he had used. “I don’t care what it is you chose, I care why.”

Duca de’ Medici laughed loud enough that a nearby nightingale fluttered away. “Ha! Using my words against me? You really are an amusing one, Signorina Bowling.”

I puffed out my cheeks. “Well? What’s the reason?”

Another chuckle, but gentler now. “I don’t know. I don’t have a reason. I could pretend to, but it just makes sense.”

It didn’t seem like he was lying, but a small shred of me still wondered. “Really?”

“I wish I did, signorina, but I do not. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me nonetheless.”

My face went hot. “Um, yeah, of course. I mean, I am your beniamina , after all. It’s the least I can do.”

Suddenly, Duca de’ Medici sat up. I noticed how the back of his shirt clung tightly to his skin with moisture, and how the moonlight glistened across the fine dew clinging to the white hairs of his arms. I did not, however, see his face.

“Yes,” he stated plainly. “You are. Let’s return to the abbey.”

As he quickened his pace on the way back, I attempted to initiate idle conversation. “That tea was really good. It uh, wasn’t very sweet, though. You have a sweet tooth, don’t you?”

“Yes, I suppose.” While curt, his response didn’t seem as though he was upset. Rather, he seemed in a trance.

Just in case I was wrong, I tried again: “I painted a picture of Leonore, actually. I’m not sure I got her eye color right.”

“You’ll have to show me some other time.”

Once again, a polite termination. I decided not to make a fool of myself and keep trying, so we walked back in near silence. The only words beyond that point were a mutual, good night, followed by him quickly departing.

I settled in my room, my stomach flipping. Most nights, I would read before bed, but I hadn’t checked out another book yet. That didn’t matter, though, as I was too busy replaying our conversation to uncover where I went wrong, a task that continued until the moment I fell asleep.