Page 30
L ysander placed one firm foot on the rail.
My heart leaped in my bosom. “Lysander,” I called softly, for I didn’t want to frighten him. “Don’t jump!”
His muttering ceased, he looked around in surprise, and in a completely normal tone, he said, “Rosie! What are you doing here?”
I rushed toward him.
He did jump, off the rail and onto the floor of the tower before me. “Never mind. You’re betrothed to the prince. I trow you can visit the palace whenever you wish. My lady.” His voice held the tang of bitter.
I didn’t care. I stood with my hand on my heart. “I thought you were going to—”
He looked over the edge, four stories down, and laughed. “No. Not even for the lack of your love, Rosie.”
Frazzled and piqued, I said, “That’s not what . . .” Don’t say that! “What are you doing here?”
“I came on commission from Prince Escalus.” He gestured, and I realized he wore a workman’s rough garb, and leather bags, tools, and paraphernalia littered the floor.
“Word went out to all of the Veneto that he wishes to light the city towers at night with a flame that does not extinguish in wind or rain, so I went home to Venice, to the island of Murano, and spoke with the great glassmaker, Marietta Barovier. I designed a lamp, she created the clear glass cristallo to fit within the dimension.” He lifted a large lamp of dark metal that contrasted with the milky glass.
“When I presented it to Prince Escalus, he declared himself my patron and is financing a great many lamps to be installed on all the palace towers and eventually on the city walls.”
“Oh. Oh!” I smiled at him. “How wonderful you are!”
He cocked his head and examined me. “Even after my rude dismissal of you in your time of need, you are so kind?”
He meant his anger in the garden, and I appreciated his near apology.
Well done . . . for a man. “I’m not kind.
It’s truth. To be able to provide light to the city and country on the darkest night, to guide the weary traveler to shelter and a meal, to assure Verona’s citizens that the prince is in his home and in command—what a gift you give. ”
“Well.” He pretended modesty. “I must make it work.”
“Will it work?” I asked in concern.
“Of course. It’s so simple that I’m amazed no one has done it before.”
At his self-confidence, I laughed out loud and touched his hand.
As if my approval meant much to him, he glowed like one of his lamps. “What are you doing up here?”
Recalled to the circumstances, I leaned my elbows on the rail, looked out over the city, and drew in a deep breath. “The dowager princess was attacked by a thief and a villain. She survives, but barely, and I’ve been at her side all day. I needed . . . air.”
“No. No!” His distress seemed genuine and was, to me, surprising for a man who was not a native of Verona.
“Princess Ursula is famed in Murano for her patronage. I’ve been told that as a young woman, she ordered a window made for her with glass, and, of course, so many years ago, the glass was lumpy and cloudy, and the window very heavy, but she started a fashion and the glassmakers remember. ”
“That window is still in place. La canaglia wrenched it from its hinges, but the glass is unharmed.” I swung on him as if he was responsible.
“Nonna Ursula possesses many beautiful things, no doubt envy and evil reign in one man’s heart, but to attack an elderly woman with such brutality—” For the first time since I’d been summoned to the palace, rage choked me.
Lysander handed me a wineskin. “Drink.”
I did. I took a breath and drank again.
“When you’re angry, you flush the color of a ripe pomegranate.”
I glared. Flatterer. Not.
He rummaged in his brocade bag, brought out part of a loaf of bread, and tore off a chunk.
He handed me that and used his knife to slice cheese, and watched while I devoured it all, and again washed it down with wine.
I wiped my mouth on my sleeve. Revived, I said, “Friend, my thanks. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. ”
“You have to eat and drink for Princess Ursula. She needs you.”
“I know.” I did know, and I turned back to look out over the city. I sipped again, then handed him the wineskin. “I’ve lived my life being the practical one. Then I met you and fell in love, solved a crime, kissed a prince, was betrothed for the hundredth time—”
“ ‘Hundredth’?” Lysander sounded amused and sympathetic.
“Approximately. Now a ghost demands I find his killer—”
Lysander choked on the wine, sputtered, and did a double take. “What? What did you say?”
I paused and thought. Lysander and I had fallen into our previous easy companionship, I hadn’t realized . . . “I haven’t told you that, have I?”
“No, you have not! What ghost? What . . . ?” His wide-eyed alarm would have done any actor proud.
“Prince Escalus the elder. Cal’s father.” Where was Elder? I’d expected to find him here.
“What killer?” Lysander did a double–double take. “Wait . . . Cal? ”
“My betrothed. Probably best not to repeat that. Cal , I mean. It’s a family nickname.” Not his favorite nickname, either, but not as bad as Callie.
I wasn’t sure whether Lysander gaped at me about the ghost or the nickname, but I rather briskly announced, “I am not a liar and dramatist. A ghost, Prince Escalus the elder, haunts the palace seeking justice, and only I can see him.”
Lysander drank again, deeply, then handed me the wineskin and climbed back up the ladder. When he got up high enough to see the top of the column, he rested his arms on the stone and examined his perch. He nodded, as if he saw something that pleased him, and asked, “Can you hand me the lamp?”
“No. How tall do you think I am?”
He glanced down at me, smiled as if my irritated, upturned face gave him pleasure, and climbed back down as I lifted the heavy lamp over my head.
He gripped the handle in one hand and the base in the other, and even watching him made me breathe deeply to calm my heart.
The round steps looked precarious to me, the ground was very far, and the breeze tossed his fair hair in its loving fingers.
“Are you showing off?” I asked.
“Perhaps.” His eyes glinted green with humor. “Are you impressed?”
“With what? Your foolhardy disregard for your handsome neck?”
“It is handsome, isn’t it?”
I lowered my gaze to the rear of his breeches. “Marvelous.” To think, previously I’d been uninterested in the finer points of male anatomy. Perhaps I’d been slow to mature, or perhaps I was making up for lost time. Either way, the view of his culo pleasured me more than his neck.
In a conversational tone of voice, he asked, “Is the ghost why you held a séance?”
“How did you hear about the séance?” I asked sharply.
“When I hear your name, I listen, and this morning when I dropped into our kitchen to cajole food and drink for this evening, the cook was gossiping with the baker’s lad about last night’s ghostly visitation called up by Princess Ursula.”
“Your kitchen? In the Marcketti household?”
“Yes.”
My horror overflowed. “Everyone in Verona knows?”
“Yes.”
“How do these things get around?”
“The actions of the prince and his family are always of interest to everyone, and the servants see all. Romeo and Juliet are famous for the reasons we all know, and thus the scandal of your impetuous betrothal created a buzz, like a beehive in swarm.” He descended the steps and looked me in the eyes.
“Isn’t that what you intended when you arranged the séance? ”
“It’s what Nonna Ursula intended, but I didn’t realize . . .” This tiding put a different complexion on the break-in, and I couldn’t contain my troubled thoughts. “I didn’t realize this swarm would travel so swiftly. News of the séance is on the street, but not of Elder’s visits to me?”
“Princess Ursula, being who and what she is, is assumed to have taken command of you and your training as future wife of the podestà. The interest in you is more avid and . . .” He hesitated.
“Salacious?” I suggested.
In a nonverbal confirmation, Lysander confessed, “Last night, I punched my cousin Rugir and busted his lip.”
“Rugir? You hit Rugir?” I was wildly impressed, and not at all surprised. He’d been a pig about me. He detested intelligent women. “He’s the best fistfighter in Verona! I had no idea that you—”
“I can’t. I’m not. That’s the only reason I managed to lay a hand on him. He never thought I had it in me.”
“Oh.” That explained it. “Did he hit you back?”
“No, he bought me a drink. He was very proud. He thinks that what I do”—Lysander gestured around at the paraphernalia of his work—“is for foreigners and peasants.”
“Certainly not for an intellectual superior like him !” I was sarcastic enough to make Lysander grin.
“His reputation as a sodden lackwit has never sullied his charm or prowess with the ladies.”
“Naturally not.” I knelt beside the second lamp. “Tell me how it works.”
“You don’t really care. You’re indulging me.
” After that feeble protestation, he said, “Va bene!” He knelt beside me.
“The oil is placed here, in the cistern, and when the wick is lit, it will burn clear and true. The roof will protect it from rain, the glass will protect it from wind, and the vents here”—he moved the sliding metal doors at the top and bottom—“can be adjusted to raise or lower the flame.”
“Genius,” I breathed.
He huffed and scowled. “The pale glass can be removed and exchanged for gold, used in the time of celebration, or red, used in the time of war or unrest. Verona’s citizens need only look up to realize what message their podestà sends.”
“Even more genius!” I stood and dusted my knees. “Why your displeasure?”
“I wish I’d thought of the colors, but it wasn’t my idea.
It was his. Prince Escalus. He’s a smart man, your .
. .” He looked down, then looked up into my eyes, and in a moment, I realized his casually friendly behavior was but a front for his true love and passion.
In a husky voice, deeper than normal, he said, “If I can’t have you, he’s the one other man who’s worthy of you. ”
I put my hand over his and pressed his fingers. “Thank you. That’s very kind.”
He cracked a grin. “And, of course, he’s a better catch.”
I slapped his hand hard. “You were doing so well!”
He cackled like the fiend he was, and I realized he had deliberately stuck a knife in my conceit. I couldn’t help it, but I laughed, too, and shoved at his shoulder with mine.
Behind us, Cal cleared his throat.
Table of Contents
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- Page 30 (Reading here)
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