“What happened?”
“She was married, and my uncle was thrown in prison when their affair was discovered. Though Lorenzo de Medici found my uncle entertaining, so he intervened.”
“But they stayed in contact?”
He nodded and let his hand stroke along her arm. Everywhere he touched gave her goose bumps, but not from the chill. His energy, which he normally kept on a tight lease, seemed to hum along his skin as he reminisced. She could see him taking longer and longer blinks, and could only assume the sun was rising in the sky.
“They wrote beautiful letters to each other,” he said quietly. “He locked them away; I never discovered where he put them.”
“But why did that matter to Andros? They couldn’t marry anyway, why-”
“My uncle fell into a depression toward the end of his life. After his imprisonment in Paris, he lost his spirit. He stopped writing Giuliana. He no longer had the same joy he’d always carried before. He destroyed his poetry. He burned many of his more progressive philosophical works and corresponded more with Savaranola, who had become so radical by then it taxed even Poliziano and Benevieni’s friendship.”
“When were the bonfires?”
“The ‘bonfire of the vanities?’” he murmured, and she was reminded of the book she had been reading so many months ago when they had first met. His amusement at hearing the title finally made sense and she smirked.
“Yeah, those bonfires.”
“It was after I had been taken, but before I was turned. My uncle left me everything; though he wasn’t exorbitantly wealthy, his library was substantial and Andros wanted it, so he took it. When Lorenzo told me years later that everything had burned in the fires, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine. Many of his books would have been considered heretical, and so many things were lost.”
“What did your uncle write about?”
Giovanni smiled wistfully and placed a small kiss on her forehead. “He thought that all human religion and philosophy could be reconciled. That the quest for knowledge was the highest good; and that somewhere, between all the wars and debate, there was some universal truth he could discover which would bring humanity together.”
Beatrice paused and watched his green eyes swirl with memories. “He sounds like a wonderful man.”
“He was…an idealist.”
She reached up to place a small kiss on his cheek, which had grown a dusting of stubble since she had kissed him so many weeks ago at the Night Hawk.
“The world needs idealists.”
His hand trailed up from her arm and cupped her cheek. His eyes searched her own before he leaned down to place a gentle kiss on her mouth. It was soft and searching, and she felt his arm pull her closer. She also felt his eyelashes fluttering on her cheek, and knew he was struggling to remain awake.
“Sleep, Gio.”
“Will you be here when I wake?” he mumbled, almost incoherent from the pull of day. “There’s more…”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I’ll be here.”
Though his arm lay heavy across her waist, and his head slumped to the side, Beatrice felt safe for the first time in weeks, so she closed her eyes and joined him in a dreamless slumber.
When she woke, he was still sleeping, so she pulled away from the tangle of his arms and went to the front of the house. She boiled some water and made black tea to drink on the front porch. When she went outside, there was fresh milk sitting on the porch, and a block of ice for the icebox.
She was surprised by how peaceful she found the simplicity of life in the valley. The house had no electricity, but she didn’t miss it as much as she imagined. The fire in the main hearth was constantly burning, and it heated a small water heater by some mechanism she still didn’t understand, but appreciated anyway.
Other than the dreams that had plagued her every night, Beatrice had never felt more peaceful, and she understood why Giovanni had wanted her to come to this quiet place. Her soul, as well as her mind, had been refreshed.
She could hear the rustle of someone approaching through the trees, and sat up straighter in instinctive alarm. She relaxed when she saw the oldest son of the Reverte family, who kept the lodge at the base of the valley. Arturo had escorted her over some of the gentler riding trails as she explored the valley. He was riding his favorite horse and leading another one for her.
“Ciao, Beatriz!” he called with a smile.
“Buenos días, Arturo.”
“¿Quieres cabalgar?”
“No, grácias,” she said, declining his offer to ride.
“¿No? Estás segura?” he asked with a wink.
She thought about getting some fresh air but was unsure of what time Giovanni would wake, so she nodded that, yes, she was sure, and waved him off with a smile. She realized she wanted to be there to hear the rest of Giovanni’s story and didn’t want to lose time when he woke.
To say she had been stunned to learn he was the orphan the count had adopted, instead of Giovanni Pico himself, was an understatement; though when she thought about her research into the life of the fifteenth century philosopher, the ages had never seemed exactly right. She still had many questions, but she was beginning to understand how valuable the correspondence of his uncle and friends would be to the boy who had loved them.
She ate a small meal and perused the bookcases in the living room. When Giovanni had mentioned his books the first night they’d come to the house, Beatrice had frozen, thrown back to the night he had callously traded her for the books he had sought for so long.
At least that’s what she had thought at the time.
Her mind understood what he had been saying since he had rescued her, but a small part of her heart found it difficult to let down her guard around the magnetic man she knew she still loved, though she had trouble admitting it-even to herself.
Beatrice found a harmless paperback and crawled back in bed with the sleeping vampire, who had not moved from the position she left him in.
“Sheesh,” she grunted as she shoved his arms over to clear a spot. “You’re heavier than you look, Gio.”
He just lay there, silent and unbreathing.
“It’s probably really evil that I want to draw something on your face right now, isn’t it?”
She examined his unmoving form. “I could draw a big, curly mustache, right on your upper lip, and you wouldn’t be able to stop me, would you?” She lay down and traced her finger over his upper lip.
“Yep, that would piss you off for sure,” she muttered. “You’re so damn proud, Giovanni.”
Ironically, his face looked childlike in repose, and she found herself wishing the soft curls still covered his forehead so she could brush them away.
“Or should I call you Jacopo?” she murmured.
She liked the feeling of his childhood name in her mouth, so she continued in a soft voice.
“Does anyone else know your name, Jacopo? Does Lorenzo even know?” she said. “I wonder…”
She began to feel tears prick the corner of her eyes, and she lay her head on his chest to stare at him. She heard one soft thud as his heart gave a beat before falling silent again.
“I thought I was in love with him, Jacopo. I think I still am.” She blinked away tears. “But I don’t trust him anymore, even though I want to.”
Suddenly, his expression creased into a slight frown, and he no longer looked like a boy, but the hard man who had killed to get her back.
“Oh,” she whispered, “there you are, Giovanni.”