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T he party covered the last way more slowly and stopped in front of our home, where the servants at once flung the door wide and greeted us with light and warmth and hushed, worried voices.

When the bearers set the steps, my knees trembled unsteadily as I descended.

As if sensing my need of support, Cal caught my gloved hand, then turned to do the same for Katherina.

Papà helped Imogene and Nurse; then he and Nurse turned and helped Mamma down onto the street and held her while she swayed.

I hurried to her side. “Mamma, are you ill?”

She smiled faintly, eyes closed. “The motion of the sedan chair did not sit well with our young winemaker.”

“Madam, good Lord Romeo and I will help you inside and lay you down.” Nurse pointed a somehow peevish finger at me.

“Get these children in the house and get you all to bed, and let me hear no more about plots to unmask a killer or ghosts who speak to you or any other matter, except your upcoming nuptials to”—she pointed a much politer finger at Cal—“this prince, who you must go out of your way to please and appease that he might not change his mind before joining his life with an incendiary!”

Imogene watched them go into the house, then glanced at Cal. “Rosie, I don’t think she helped your cause at all.” She followed.

Katherina said, “My prince, Nurse didn’t mean that. Rosie never sets anything on fire that doesn’t deserve to be on fire.” She winced, realizing she also hadn’t helped my cause, and skittered into the house.

Indecisive, I stood on the street. Should I curtsy and enter the door held by Tommaso? Or should I speak to Cal, who stood immobile, his feet firmly planted on the stones of Verona’s street, gazing at me as if he . . .

I don’t know how he was gazing at me. So far, we’d firmly established I didn’t understand him at all.

I only knew that what I did now mattered.

If I was alone with Cal, I’d talk to him frankly about Elder’s desire to rest at last; Nonna Ursula, who sensed her son walked; and Cal’s own need to find Elder’s killer.

I’d assure him that our betrothal, while reluctant on my part, hadn’t changed my loyalty to Verona’s podestà.

I’d do nothing to harm his reign. I thought he knew that, believed in me, yet sometimes such reassurance needed to be given and to be accepted.

Only . . . people were watching: his bodyguards, the outrunners, the sedan bearers, the neighbors, hungry for gossip, who peered out of their windows.

If I could, I’d ask him to return, to arrive through the postern gate in their back wall and, as he’d done before, visit me on the back terrace—although that posed a danger of a different sort.

I knew he would not; the silence in the city had mutated into a low, menacing mutter. The disciplinati were on the move, and as the podestà, Cal would take matters in hand.

I made my decision, bowed my head, began to sink into a curtsy .

. . and he caught my fingers. He eased the glove from my hand, thrust the leather into my other hand to grasp.

He leaned close, and in his dark, velvety, quiet, seductive tone, which invariably pulled my focus to him, only him, and painted his shadowy face with passion, he said, “If you only set on fire that which deserves to be on fire, then I am deserving, for I . . . burn.” Pressing a kiss in my palm, as he seemed wont to do, he flicked my cloak back to bare my gown and pressed my hand, and his kiss, on the skin above my heart.

His gestures grew ever more heady and I grew ever more uneasily aware of how, now and previously, he eased me toward. . . intimacy.

“Good night, sweet Rosaline. Sleep in safety and dream of . . . dark red roses.” He released me and turned away.

Great farewell. Almost poetry. I hated to stomp on it, but I really needed to tell him. “I’ll dream of your safety in this night.”

He turned back. “Why would I not be safe?”

“My podestà, I saw a man, one of the flagellants, whose eyes flamed with a demon’s fire. He would burn Verona to the ground, bring anarchy to the world, and as he climbed the piles of bodies, he’d call it God’s work.”

He focused on me, and in the light of the torches, his eyes flamed a bit, too. “When did you see this man, Rosie?”

“Tonight. I looked through the gap in the sedan’s curtains.”

Holofernes covered his eyes. Dion groaned.

All that lovely romance evaporated from Cal’s expression, and his voice exploded in exasperation. “Rosaline! Why?”

“So I could see him and warn you.”

He reached out as if to clasp my shoulders and shake me, but his hands stopped merely inches away and he trembled as if fighting his urges. “Because you’re curious as a cat and as likely to die from it!”

“I pray that the Virgin Mother watches over you as you undertake your duties this night.” I curtsied and backed inside, my gaze held captive by his, and when Tommaso would have shut the door behind me—call me Nosy Rosie if you want—I caught it and held it open a crack.

Cal spoke to the bearers. “Take the chairs back to the palace. Holofernes, Dion, and I will take the outrunners and escort the disciplinati to their rightful route through the city.”

I was right. Softly I shut the door.

Katherina, Imogene, and Papà waited, holding candles. “Is he still yours?” Papà asked.

I looked at my open palm, flexed my fingers, and nodded.

Katherina and Imogene, breathing identical sighs of relief, went up to bed.

“But, Papà,” I said, “he goes to confront the disciplinati. ”

“I’ll suggest to your mamma that she rest, plan your wedding, and joyously carry our baby. After that, I’ll join our new son-by-betrothal, for he may have use for an extra blade.” Papà ran up the stairs in a spritely step.

I stood, thinking, working my way around recent events.

Although I’d become betrothed, seen a ghost, and participated in a séance, none of that impressed me so much as the hellfire in the flagellant’s eyes .

. . and tonight the prince would seek him.

Them. Prince Escalus and his men would run toward danger, armed merely with swords, and I feared for them.

Was the flagellant a demon?

No, worse. He was a man. One glance could sum up a man if that man sent a message of all-encompassing hatred.

Of what, though? Wealth? Power? Or, more likely, of a woman, any woman regardless of her place in life, for a woman was a cause of man’s expulsion from Eden and forever she tempted men to sin.

As a sensible woman with a family who depended on me and a betrothed who led the city, I knew I needed to protect myself in a responsible way, or I would find myself confined or surrounded by bodyguards better used to shield others .

. . or taken by men such as I’d seen this night and, at best, held for ransom.

Or worse. The latter didn’t bear thinking of.

I called, “Tommaso.”

Our young footman appeared at once. He hadn’t been far away.

“Yes, Lady Rosaline?”

“Do you know how to fight?”

“Yes, Lady Rosaline. Not like a lord or like you, my lady, with a sword. I grew up fighting with the street pigs for a scrap of food. Your mother found me and brought me here, but I remember well how to battle with fists and desperation and a blade honed from bare bone.”

“I hoped that would be your answer.” I pinned my gaze on him. “In the future, when I travel the streets of Verona, you’ll come with me.”

“Yes, my lady. Thank you, my lady.” He bowed as if I’d given him an honor.

Papà bounded down the stairs, sword buckled, thrusting a stiletto up his sleeve and smiling gleefully.

“Nurse is caring for my beloved Juliet, so I’ll be off to join the prince and bring peace to the streets of Verona.

” He pressed a kiss on my forehead, Tommaso opened the door for him, and he ran into the street.

Really, the man was happiest fighting and . . .

But with Mamma so far gone with child, he was confined to fighting.

To Tommaso, I said, “In becoming the betrothed of the podestà, I have, perhaps, become a target for”—I hesitated—“rogues, villains, and desperate men.”

“Your lady mother saved me from such men, and I’ve waited long to repay the debt to her. I am your faithful servant and soldier, and I swear I’d die before I allow harm to befall a daughter of the house of Montague.” Such a dramatic declaration spoken in a prosaic tone.

Then, “Who’ll be footman? Who will assist Lord Romeo? Who’ll help him when required to care for Cesario?” He asked me because Mamma, as a household manager, would have made a good grape-stomper. -

Thus I ran Casa Montague, and I pondered his question with the care it deserved. “In the morning, send me Teodor.” Because Tommaso had proved to be a giocatore of astute judgment, I asked, “Do you agree with my choice?”

Tommaso gave the question the consideration it deserved.

“He’s young, raw, and uncertain, but he learns quickly, and when I’m not out with you or my lord Romeo, I’ll train him.

Also he’s handsome, which allows forgiveness when there is none for the less fortunate.

” Although he no doubt spoke from experience, for smallpox had brutally pitted his skin, he didn’t sound bitter.

He had that which compensated for all distortions: a nimble mind and a strong muscularity.

“Send him to me, but wait until the morning is advanced, for I wish to sleep.” And worry, for Cal and Papà were out bringing order to Verona, and although I wished it otherwise, the memory of the flagellant’s hate-flamed eyes made me think of demons abroad in the street. I climbed wearily to my room.

My desire for a long sleep was not to be fulfilled, for dawn had not yet cast its gray net when a candle flame thrust into my face made me flinch away and the shadowy figure of Nurse shook me awake.

“A sedan chair arrived from the palace. You must go at once. The dowager princess was attacked and lies bloody, unconscious, and barely breathing. Friar Laurence is at her side, and he begs that you go to his shop, compound the healing poultice he taught you, and bring it to him, for you alone can create his formula.”