“Let me guess… you’re not the flower of courtesy?”
He pulled me even closer. “But gentle as a lamb.”
I put a hand on his chest. “More like a wolf in lamb’s clothing.”
“Wolves,” he replied, lowering my body until our faces were only inches apart, “are very gentle animals.”
When he kissed me, I didn’t care who might be watching. It was what I had been longing for ever since Rocca di Tentennano, and I kissed him back without reserve. Only when I felt him testing the flexibility of Eva Maria’s bikini did I gasp and say, “What happened to Columbus and exploring the coastline?”
“Columbus,” Alessandro replied, pushing me up against the side of the pool and closing my mouth with another kiss, “never met you.” He would have said more than that, and I would most likely have responded favorably, had we not been interrupted by a voice calling from a balcony.
“Sandro!” yelled Eva Maria, waving to get his attention, “I need you inside, now!”
Although she disappeared again right away, Eva Maria’s sudden manifestation made us both jump with surprise, and, without thinking, I let go of Alessandro and nearly went under. Fortunately, he did not let go of me.
“Thanks!” I gasped, clinging to him. “It seems you don’t have evil hands after all.”
“See, I told you?” He brushed aside a few wisps of hair that were stuck to my face like wet spaghetti. “For every curse there is a blessing.”
I looked into his eyes and was startled by his sudden seriousness. “Well, in my opinion”-I put a hand on his cheek-“curses only work if you believe in them.”
WHEN I FINALLY RETURNED to my guest room, I sat down in the middle of the floor, laughing. It was such a Janice thing to do-making out in a swimming pool-and I couldn’t wait to tell her about it. Although… it would not please her one bit to hear that I was exercising so little restraint when it came to Alessandro, and that I paid no attention to her warnings whatsoever. In a way it was very sweet to see her so jealous of him-if that was what was going on. She had never explicitly said so, but I could tell that she had been seriously disappointed that I didn’t want to drive to Montepulciano with her, and go hunting for Mom’s house together.
Only now, with a twinge of guilt stirring me from my giddy reverie, did I notice a smoky smell-of incense?-that might or might not have been in my room before. Stepping out on the balcony in my wet kimono for a mouthful of fresh air, I saw the sun disappearing behind distant mountains in a feast of gold and blood, and everywhere around me, the sky was turning into deeper shades of blue. With the daylight gone, there was a touch of dew in the air that brought with it a promise of all the smells, all the passions, and all the ghostly chills, of night.
Going back into my room and turning on a lamp, I saw that a dress had been laid out on the bed for me with a handwritten note saying, “Wear this for the party.” I picked it up in disbelief; not only was Eva Maria once again dictating my apparel, but this time she had set me up to look ridiculous. It was a floor-length contraption in dark red velvet with a severe, angular neckline and flared sleeves; Janice would have called it the latest scream for the undead and tossed it aside with a scornful laughter. I was tempted to do the same.
But when I took out my own dress and compared the two, it occurred to me that, maybe, flitting downstairs in my itsy black novelty on this particular evening would turn out to be the biggest faux pas of my career. For all Eva Maria’s plunging necklines and risqué comments it was entirely possible that the crowd she was hosting tonight was a bunch of prudes who would judge me by my spaghetti straps and find me wanting.
Once dressed-obediently-in Eva Maria’s medieval outfit, and with my hair piled on top of my head in an attempt at a festive do, I stood for a moment at my door, listening to the sounds of guests arriving below. There was laughter and music, and in between the popping corks I could hear my hostess greeting not only darling friends and family, but darling clergy and nobility as well. Not sure I had enough backbone to dive into the fun on my own, I tiptoed down the corridor to knock discreetly on Alessandro’s door. But he wasn’t there. And just as I reached out to try the door handle, someone put a claw on my shoulder.
“Giulietta!” Eva Maria had a way of sneaking up on me that was deeply unsettling. “Are you ready to come downstairs?”
I gasped and spun around, embarrassed to have been caught where I was, almost trespassing into her godson’s room. “I was looking for Alessandro!” I blurted out, shocked to see her standing right behind me, somehow taller than I remembered, wearing a golden tiara and-even for her-unusually dramatic makeup.
“He had to run an errand,” she said, dismissively. “He will be back. Come-”
Walking back down the loggia with her, it was hard not to stare at Eva Maria’s dress. If I had toyed with the idea that my own attire made me look like the heroine of a stage play, I now realized that, at best, I had a supporting role. Dressed in a vision of golden taffeta, Eva Maria shone more brightly than any sun, and as we sashayed down the broad staircase together-her hand clasped tightly above my elbow-the guests gathered below were helpless to ignore her.
At least a hundred people were standing around in the great hall, and they looked up in silent wonder as their hostess descended in all her splendor, graciously escorting me into their circle with the gestures of a flower fairy spreading rose petals before woodland royalty. Eva Maria had clearly planned this drama well in advance, for the whole place was lit exclusively by tall candles in chandeliers and candelabra, and the flickering flames made her dress come alive as if it, too, was on fire. For a while, all I could hear was music; not the classical favorites you would expect, but live music with medieval instruments coming from a small group of musicians at the far end of the hall.
Looking out over the silent crowd, I was relieved at having chosen the red velvet dress over my own. To suggest that Eva Maria’s guests this evening were a bunch of prudes would have been a phenomenal understatement; it would be more accurate to say they looked as if they belonged in another world. At first glance, there was not a person in the room under seventy; at second glance, it was more like eighty. Someone charitable might have said that they were all dear old souls who only went to parties every twenty years or so, and that none of them had opened a fashion magazine since World War II… but I had lived too long with Janice for that kind of generosity. Had my sister been there with me and seen what I saw, she would have made a scary face and licked her fangs suggestively. The only upside was that if indeed they were all vampires, they looked so fragile that I could probably outrun them.
As we reached the bottom of the stairs, a whole swarm of them approached me, all talking to me in rapid Italian and poking me with bloodless fingers to make sure I was for real. Their amazement in seeing me suggested that-in their minds-it was I, and not they, who had risen from the grave for the occasion.
Seeing my confusion and discomfort, Eva Maria soon began shooing them off, and we were eventually left with the two women who actually had something to say to me.
“This is Monna Teresa,” explained Eva Maria, “and Monna Chiara. Monna Teresa is a descendant of Giannozza Tolomei-just like you-and Monna Chiara is descended from Monna Mina of the Salimbeni. They are very excited that you are here, because for many years they thought you were dead. They are both knowledgeable about the past, and know much about the woman whose name you have inherited, Giulietta Tolomei.”
I looked at the two old women. It seemed perfectly reasonable that they should know everything about my ancestors and the events of 1340, for they looked as if they had taken a horse-drawn carriage right out of the Middle Ages to attend Eva Maria’s party. They both appeared to be held upright exclusively by corsets and the lace ruffs around their necks; one of them, though, kept smiling coyly behind a black fan, while the other looked at me with a bit more reserve, her hair done up in a way I had only ever seen in old paintings, with a peacock feather sticking out. Next to their antiquated forms Eva Maria seemed positively juvenile, and I was happy that she stayed right beside me, on tiptoes with excitement, to translate everything they said to me.