The Di Medici Bride, Page 2

  A shiver ran up her spine again, another whisper of breeze swept by, and near her, a group of the ever-present pigeons burst into flight. Venice. Her parents had seemed to hate the place. And in her conscious mind, she’d harbored no great wish to return to the city. But when she had learned that it was on their schedule, she had been fascinated; she had experienced the first of the shivers, as if she had known she would come back, as if she had been compelled, as if the performance were merely an excuse for her coming here. Venice was her city; she had known it as soon as she had seen it.

  “Christina, you are ready, yes?”

  Chris started, then turned to smile at Jacques d’Pry, the head of the school in Paris and the leader of a prestigious corps of mimes. Jacques had been a favored pupil of the great Marceau, and he was a rigid taskmaster, an absolute disciplinarian. Chris had never minded the discipline or the hours and hours of physical exercise—sometimes abuse! she added to herself, with humor—that led to the perfection of her craft. She had always felt lucky, even blessed, to have been accepted as a student at the school. She had been stunned to have been chosen as a member of the professional corps that traveled across Europe each summer.

  “Oui, Jacques,” she murmured, tensing and flexing her fingers again and again. The fingers were, Jacques often stressed, perhaps the mime’s greatest tool. There had been many sessions of total concentration, total silence, when they had done nothing but draw the thumb to the forefinger isometrically, so that when the performer reached for an individual string, the audience saw the string and felt its pull.

  “Then come, please, we begin the show.”

  Jacques led the way through the milling crowd at the water’s edge to a section of the Square, paved with marble and trachyte, that had been roped off for the performance. Tomas and Georgianne Trieste—two Parisian mimes who had fallen in love with the romance of silence—followed behind Chris, and behind them came the last of their group, Roberto Umbrio, a very dedicated and impassioned young man from the Basque Provinces. None of them spoke. Once they had started their approach to their “stage,” the law of silence was in order.

  A little girl cried out something in Italian and grabbed at Christina’s white-gloved hand. Chris restrained a smile, widened her reddened mouth into an “O,” and brought her other hand up to it in surprise. The child laughed delightedly, and Chris felt a familiar warmth fill her. The laughter of a child made the often dreary monotonous hours and hours of work worthwhile.

  Moments later she was on, into her secret world. The lights, the beauty of the Square, were still there, as were the whispers of the audience, mainly in Italian but spattered with the excitement of many tongues. But they were all part of an outer world. Tonight she played Jacques’s wife, alarmed at the prospect of his anger when he discovered a naughty escapade of the children—Georgianne, Roberto and Tomas. There was a door to be locked against him, and then she had to discover that she had locked herself in, rather than him out. There were invisible pulleys to work with, invisible chairs and stairs. And then there was the inevitable confrontation with her “husband,” and her efforts to escape his wrath. But, of course, the husband intended no harm to his wife. All her fiascoes were her own, and he was left to shake his head at her foolishness and the disaster she brought upon herself.

  * * *

  There were two men in the audience who had not come to see the show; they had come to see Christina Tarleton.

  One was an old man, older than his years. He was short and slim, balding, and the fringe of hair that remained had faded from black to snowdrift silver. His cheeks were gaunt; lines were deeply etched around eyes that defied time—brown eyes, deep and warm, yet sharply alert. And anxious now. Eyes that were focused intently on the girl on the pseudo stage.

  It was easy to see that she was slim, as agile and graceful as the cats that haunted the streets of Rome. She was clad all in black: black tights, black flowing skirt, black knit top, black slippers. Only her hands were in white—white gloves. And her face was powdered with white to enhance the eyes, the expression and the mouth. Perhaps that was why he could see the color of her eyes so clearly. They were tawny, part green, part gold. Like the sun, they were alive with expression and warmth, and thickly fringed with honeyed lashes that matched the color of her hair. Her hair was pulled back, and it was neither blond nor brown; rather, it was a tawny shade of sun and honey somewhere in between. The old man was fascinated by her lithe movements, by the elegant strokes of her hands and fingers against the air, by the practiced twists and turns of her supple body.

  Fascinated and…

  Hurt. He clutched his hand to his chest suddenly; the pain, guilt and remorse went deep. For a moment he felt dizzy. She did not have her father’s coloring, only his height and slim build. She did not look like James at all, and yet there was a look of him about her.

  And standing there in the crowd, with the show proceeding before him, he wanted to reach out. To touch her. Did he feel that he could vindicate his sins against her father? he asked himself sharply. Something inside him cried, and he stared up at the Basilica suddenly, crossing himself and murmuring beneath his breath, “Blessed Jesu, forgive me.”

  He closed his eyes. In a minute the dizziness left him. He felt the same restlessness, the same need he had experienced when he had first seen the paper and read her name in the list of performers. He would make it up to this girl, and sweet, sweet Jesu, it was possible that the girl could help him. He was too old to go on as he had. His conscience could no longer bear the weight of his lie.

  She was a Tarleton. A part of the trio. The name Tarleton belonged beside those of Contini and di Medici.

  His lips, faded against the weathered wrinkles of his face, relaxed into a smile. A sudden peace had settled over his soul. Now he could watch the show; he knew what he would do at its conclusion.

  But in time his smile slipped away. He wondered what she had been told about Venice—and what she might remember. Remember? Bah! She had been but a child.

  Still, it was her heritage he intended to give her.

  * * *

  The second man who stood in the crowd assessed the girl with a cool sweep of sharp startling blue eyes. He was not at all old, and though his exact age might be indeterminable, he was obviously in the prime of his life. He was tall, and though his shoulders were broad, he gave the appearance of being a lean man. His suit was designed with impeccable taste; it hugged his trim form. And, despite a certain relentlessness, if not ruthlessness, about the firm square line of his jaw, he was a handsome man. More than handsome. He exuded an assurance that was a power unto itself. When he spoke, it was with the inner knowledge that his quiet words would be taken as a command; when he moved, it was never with any question of where he was going. He was capable of an absolute stillness, of listening, watching and waiting. His intelligence was shrewd; his thoughts were seldom known, for an invisible shield could fall over his eyes with a blink, and the true import of his words could be hidden in a deadly fashion.

  Tarleton.

  Like the old man, he had seen the name in the papers, and if curiosity had not drawn him here, the suspicion that the old man was coming would have brought him anyway.

  He watched the girl and he watched the old man, wondering at the pained expression in the old man’s eyes. Something seemed to light a quick fuse to his temper. Contini was an old man now. Old and weary. The Tarleton girl had no right to be here, dredging up painful memories that had been best buried by time.

  Marcus di Medici lifted his eyes from the old man to the stage, and he felt as if anger sizzled and seared in each and every one of his nerve endings. His father had died so senselessly all those years ago—at the hands of a Tarleton. And now she was back. The sound of her name in his mind ripped open old wounds; the sight of her made him remember until he felt all the pain again, just as if he were once more a boy of twelve….

  He crossed his arms over his chest, adjusting his stance, and his lashes fell bri
efly over the agate of his eyes. He closed his heart and his mind took over objectively. She was good. Lithe, smooth, graceful, like a young animal, composed of fluid sinews and vitality. She seemed to move with the ease of the wind or flowing water.

  And then he discovered uncomfortably that he was looking at her too objectively—as a woman. A heat ran through him that had nothing to do with temper, anger, regret or the past. For a moment every thought was washed from his mind except one. She was, in the black mime’s outfit that clung so tightly to her supple form, the most desirable woman he had ever seen. She was beautiful. And that beauty was demonstrated in every movement. He discovered that he was wishing he could hold her, feel the vibrance of the liquid curves and hollows of her body beneath his hands, strip away the fabric and the makeup and make fevered love to the woman beneath.

  Startled, Marcus gave himself a little shake and smiled dryly at the intimate path his imagination had taken. A comedy was taking place on stage, nothing risqué.

  His smile faltered. She was the daughter of a murderer. And not just any murderer. She was the daughter of the man who had killed his father.

  For a moment his every muscle went rigid, and then he forced himself to relax. She had come to Venice with the mimes. She would leave with the mimes. She would be gone, and the past would fade into memory once again.

  Marcus gazed at Contini, then returned his attention to the show. Without his knowledge, a smile curved his lips again, small and a little crooked. He was suddenly remembering her as a child. Even at four she had been a pretty thing. Willful, spoiled and pert, determined and stubborn. She had driven him crazy. But when he had been half-ready to kill her, she had looked at him wide-eyed, her tawny gaze filled with tears, and his anger had melted away.

  He could even remember thinking that James Tarleton was going to be in trouble by the time his daughter reached her teens. At four she had known how to wield her power. A little imp—a practiced seductress with the flutter of her lashes. Pretty and as bright as a star. She’d had an almost uncanny command of both English and Italian—and the powerful ability to use all her feminine wiles.

  Marcus sighed, slipped his hands into his pockets and turned away although the show wasn’t over. The sins of the fathers, he reflected, did not fall upon the offspring. Contini, Marcus was certain, intended to approach her.

  And if he asked her to the palazzo, Marcus decided firmly, he would be courteous. He would make her welcome but hope that she did not stay long enough to rake up the ashes of his past.

  * * *

  “And so ends another season!” Jacques muttered happily in English. He had just shaken hands with the last child waiting in line to meet them; he had only to meet with the producers of the show and the summer’s work would be officially over.

  Chris smiled a little secretively, watching her teacher and employer with affection and amusement. In class Jacques spoke French exclusively. On tour he spoke English. He was, however, a master of at least five languages.

  “What shall we do with the evening in celebration?” Georgianne asked excitedly, laughing. “The night is young, and so are we! And this is Venice!”

  Her husband grinned dryly at Chris. “Doesn’t she sound just like ‘An American in Paris’?”

  Chris laughed. “Well, she’s right, you know. We’re off. We should be doing something.”

  Jacques lifted a hand to them, then wandered off to finish his business with the show’s producers. Only Roberto seemed brooding and intense, as usual, as they waited near the lightly rippling water.

  “We’ve got a month off,” he reminded them all. “Tomas, Georgianne, what do you plan to do with the time?”

  Georgianne smiled. “Party! We’re going to go back to Rome—we did throw three coins in the fountain, you know. Roma, Napoli and then Nice and Monte Carlo.” She grimaced very prettily. “We want to gamble away some of our hard-earned money. And you?”

  “I will go back to school early and work to improve my craft,” Roberto said reproachfully. The others exchanged quick smiles, but said nothing. Georgianne linked an arm with Chris.

  “And you, Chris? What will you do? You are welcome to keep company with Tomas and me.”

  Chris laughed. “No thanks. I can’t imagine joining a pair of honeymooners.” She sobered. “I was thinking about going home. Jacques wants me to teach next year, you know. And I’m not sure what I want to do. I have been ‘An American in Paris’ for three years now. And I have to start deciding what I really want to do with the rest of my life.”

  “Oh, to the devil with the rest of our lives!” Tomas proclaimed. “I say we find a lovely spot for dinner, indulge in rare and delicious wine, dance and—”

  “Tomas!” Georgianne murmured, interrupting. “Look, that old man over there is watching us most peculiarly.”

  “Yes, he is,” Tomas murmured. He looked at Chris. “Why don’t you go over there and find out what he wants?”

  “Me!” Chris exclaimed, startled.

  “Of course!”

  “I don’t speak Italian!”

  Tomas frowned. “I thought you said you were born here?”

  Chris sighed. “Tomas, I left Italy when I was four. And that,” she added wryly, “was over two decades ago. I never had much occasion to use the language on the streets of Detroit, and I’ve only managed to make my French halfway decent this year.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Roberto interrupted tensely. “The man is coming to us.”

  The man was coming to them, straight to them, Chris realized. And then she experienced another one of her déjà vu sensations. Before he took another step, she knew that he was coming to her. And although she didn’t actually recognize him, she knew that he was Alfred Contini.

  Tingling sensations raced through her, and she was left to wonder again if she had really come to Venice because of the mime troupe, or if her coming had really been preordained. For a brief second she was afraid. And then the fear was gone.

  She wanted this; she wanted this confrontation. Just as she had wanted to come back to Venice. She was curious—no, damn it, compelled—to find out the truth. What had driven her parents from Venice, a city they once had loved?

  Contini was old, Chris thought, as he walked toward her. Very old—much too old for her to have remembered him. If she did have a memory of him locked away in her mind, just as she had of the Piazza San Marco, it was a memory that was twenty-one years old. And unlike granite and marble, a man would change drastically in that amount of time.

  Small and slim, he still had a look of strength about him like stone. Until he had almost reached her. And then something tender and a little bit…frightened?…seemed to crumple his old face as he reached out a frail hand to her.

  “Christi?”

  A quick chord of distant memory caused her to shiver briefly. Christi. Contini’s name for her.

  She smiled and accepted his hand warmly, strangely touched by a flood of emotion for this worn and aged man who was reaching out to her.

  “Alfred!” she replied softly.

  “Ah, Christi! So you do remember me?”

  “No!” Chris laughed and shook her head. “But I knew who you must be if this is Venice—and it is.”

  Christina quickly introduced him to the rest of the group. Alfred replied graciously, but his attention was completely for her.

  “Christi, you will do an old man the honor of having dinner with him?”

  Georgianne cleared her throat, apparently somewhat suspicious of the elegantly dressed, elderly Venetian. “Christina, do you remember our plans?”

  Chris hesitated for a second, suddenly and deeply aware that her answer was going to mean everything to her life. She could almost see herself standing at a crossroads….

  Ridiculous, she told herself impatiently. She couldn’t pretend that she wasn’t haunted by the past, and she had never gotten over the vague dream that she could completely solve the mystery of why her parents had left Venice with such sadness
in their hearts.

  She had known that she herself would seek out Contini.

  Chris turned to Georgianne with a bright smile. “Georgianne, I hope you all will excuse me. I haven’t seen Signor Contini since I was a small child. Do you mind?”

  Tomas shrugged. The two years he had known Chris had proved to him that she was an adult. Charming when she chose to be, competently assertive when she did not.

  Chris felt a little like laughing. She could see the emotions darting quickly through their eyes. Suspicion, worry, and then that mutual shrug. What on earth could happen to her in the company of such an old man?

  She felt a tug of affection and appreciation for their protective attitude. It was nice to have such caring friends. Their ensemble work made them more than professional associates, perhaps more than friends. A little like family.

  “You know how to get back to the pensione, right?” Tomas asked her.

  “Yes, yes, thank you Tomas,” Chris said.

  “Miss Tarleton will be perfectly safe, I assure you,” Alfred Contini interjected. “I will see to it. Christi?”

  “I’d love to have dinner,” she said brightly, and she waved to the others as she moved away with him. “Would you mind, though, if we returned to the pensione for a moment first?” She grimaced. “I’d like to remove this makeup.”

  “Certainly, certainly!” Contini said agreeably.

  Chris would have taken one of the vaporetti, the mass transit boats that moved through the canals, but Contini was already raising a hand to summon a gondola—much more expensive. She would have protested had she been on a date, but she swallowed her words. From Alfred’s finely tailored suit, it appeared that nothing much had changed from what little she had learned from her grudging mother. Contini was a very affluent man, able to hire all the gondolas he might wish.

  He watched her after they had taken their seats in the small boat. Then he grimaced apologetically. “Forgive me. When I saw your name, I could not help but come.”