Page 71 of Thus with a Kiss I Die

“Um.” I nodded, looked around, and realized what truly was missing, what had been missing for the last few hours. “Where’s Pasqueta?”

“Gone,” Old Maria said in relish.

“Gone? As in—”

“Disappeared. I told the princess that girl was useless. I told her I could handle the caring for her without help. But nooo.” Old Maria snatched up her sewing, put in a couple of stitches, put it down. “She had to bring in a strong young skirt who wanted dancing and laughter and men. I told her so. I told the princess, and now I’m proved right.”

Doubtfully I said, “Pasqueta didn’t seem that young.”

Old Maria’s glare could have withered ripe apples on the tree. “Her tenure here is nothing compared to the time I’ve spent with Princess Ursula.”

I backtracked. I needed Old Maria cooperative, not angry with me. “Right away, I recognized your loyalty. I said to myself, ‘That is a loyal woman.’ Yet I wonder, why would Pasqueta leave a position serving the dowager princess of Verona, with its privileges and the respect accorded her, and the knowledge that every woman in Verona would gladly take her place? She didn’t seem stupid to me. Did she seem so to you?”

“Not stupid at all.” In a tone scornful and disbelieving, she asked, “Why do you suppose she left tomake a posset?”

“Because Princess Ursula asked her?”

“She left the princess alone to be attacked.”

“She wasn’t alone. You were with her.”

“Princess Ursula and I are of an age and with like losses.” She flipped her hand at her ear. “I didn’t wake, because I didn’t hear. Come, girl! You know what I’m saying. You must have thought it yourself. Pasqueta’s timing was too convenient. It takes a man to tear the bars off the wall outside, but it takes a woman with the morals of Eden’s snake to open the window from the inside to ease his way.”

Yes, I had thought it. Despite Pasqueta’s assurances, I knew it was a possibility. But she’d seemed too truly frightened of the ghost, and then of a man inside the palace. “Yet . . . her disappearance is disturbing, too. Violence has been done to beloved Princess Ursula. Is someone methodically removing the protections set around her?”

Old Maria squinted at me, reluctant to abandon her pet theory, but recognizing if I was right, she was in the line of sight. As she thought, her eyes moved craftily from side to side. Abruptly she pulled her silver sewing needle from the cushion and pointed it around like a blade, thrusting it at Tommaso, at Cal’s guard, at me. “I’ll defend the dowager princess to my death!”

I leaned back. “Thank you. I’m proud to know I can depend on you.”

“Rosie!” Nurse stood in the entrance, dagger out, clad in a dark cloak.

I jumped to my feet, glad to see her; and at the same time, I knew at once I was needed. “Is it Mamma?”

“The babe is coming early.” Nurse leaned against the doorframe to catch her breath. “The midwife is nowhere to be found. Friar Laurence is busy with the wounded.”

I ran to get her a goblet of watered wine, and as she drank, I said, “And . . . ?” Because why couldn’t Nurse handle this birth? She had experience, more than I did.

“Lady Juliet fears I know not what, but she sent for you. She begs for you. You must come at once!”

CHAPTER38

Princess Isabella begged me to remain, and then commanded in her most royal tone that I not go, but to no avail. I kissed her forehead, looked into her pleading blue eyes, and said, “My mother needs me.”

I sent Tommaso to find Dion and bring him to me.

Princess Isabella demanded I take a sedan chair, but Cal had left a skeleton crew of men to guard the palace. “I will not leave you unguarded,” I told her.

“What about Nonna Ursula?” She gestured at the poor, thin, broken woman on the bed. “Will you leave her unguarded?”

Dion strode in, looking pale, but strong and impatient, a man forced from the field of battle and unhappy about it. “You summoned me, my lady?”

“I must go to Casa Montague,” I told him.

“No.” Like his friends, like his master, he seemed to think he’d had the final word.

“My mother, Lady Juliet, is in child labor with no one to help her.”

He opened his mouth to refuse again, but he’d met my mother, and like every other man in the world, he worshipped her. Something shifted in his countenance. “I’ll accompany you.”