He took her hand and closed it on the ring, and pulled her to him and kissed her, oh, very long, while the thunder walked above the roof, and the water lapped about the walls. They danced to their silent music, they danced all about the vast mirrored hall until the candles spun and their heads were giddy.
He spread out his cloak on the floor, and she spread hers. He set her diamond circlet on his littlest finger, and set his heavy signet on her forefinger, with a solemn kiss. They made love, then, and she asked no questions at all, what would happen in the morning, what would become of her. He might go away in the morning, but she had warned him in as plain words as she could, to save his life.
They made love and slept, and the candles burned down to darkness.
Dark became dawn through the windows, and the pale day crept in, bringing detail into the shadows. They kissed. They gathered up their scattered garments, and spoke very little, casting glances at one another, grown strangely shy as the cold, gray light of day invaded the ballroom and reflected them in every mirror.
Then the bells began, from high up the Serpentine, faint and far.
"Come," her lover said, and took her by the hand, and led her out to the windows that offered a view of the Grand Canal and its beginning traffic. The farthest church rang out, and then the next, and the next, and the next, pealing all at once, until the nearest tolled, and the sound enveloped them, mad, and glorious, rolling down the Serpentine under a golden, clouded sunrise. It was his city, the Doge's city, all the bells of his city joining together for a special day, until, last, the great bells of San Marco itself joined in, deep and joyous.
It stole the senses. And it left such silence when it was done. She remembered to breathe. Remembered that she might soon die.
She found his arms about her, holding her warm and close, leaning back against him.
"I have to go soon," he said, his breath stirring the curls beside her neck. "And will you only haunt this old palace, or might you come to haunt mine?"
"I am la Sforza," she said, with a deep sigh, that old, proud name that was Nonna's, too. "I could never be your mistress."
"I have no wife."
That was true. Dared she think—dared she hope it was his offer? She pressed his hand against her heart, and drew a deep breath.
"Come with me," he said. "Come with me. You say you don't love him."
"It will embarrass him," she said, thinking of it, imagining di Verona's desires, fiercest for what defied him. "It would ruin him. It will drive him to war with you. Is thatyour plan, after all?"
"I have no plan at all," he said, against her neck, his arms pressing her close. "But I can make plans very quickly."
"So can I," she said. And let go a deep breath. "Let me go." He released her, as if astonished, and his face frowned, wounded.
"I could love you," she said. "I do. And I never will marry him. I swear that. But let me go. My Nonna will be beside herself with worry."
"I will call my guards," he said, "and take you up to the Palazzo in safety. Send for your grandmother."
"No," she said, and laid a hand on his heart. "You will trust me. You will trust me in this, and let me go. And if something should happen to me, you will care for my grandmother. Let her have her little house, and her garden, and her pride. Promise me. It's all she cares for."
"How can I let you go?"
"Easily," she said, "if you trust me, as I trust you, and tell you the truth. Admit Cesare di Verona to the ball. Don't let him or his men near you. And don't let him or his men leave again. There's to be riot in the city. Division in the council—when the Doge is dead." He gazed at her eye to eye a moment, not all a lover's gaze, but the Doge's as well—full of concern, and with a sure knowledge of the world's hard choices.
"I must get home now," she said.
"I will take you there," he said, and added, holding her arm, but never bruising, always gentle in his touch: "But, Sforza, if you betray me, you will break my heart. You broke it two days ago at San Marco. Last night you put it together again. I don't think you could do it twice."
"Mine was half dead," she said, "and I had nowhere in the world to go. Now I do. Only trust me, Antonio Raffeto."
It was down the stairs after that. Masked again, they went down to the water-stairs, where a gondolier and two of the Doge's guards had spent the stormy night cloaked and shaded in canvas.
The harder thing was to get to her own door. She imagined Nonna at watch at the windows, and she asked him to let her ashore well down the walk.
He let her go. She hurried, high heels striking the pavings, until she reached her own door. She tucked the signet into her purse, then opened it, and braved the storm inside.
"Shameless girl!" Nonna cried as she ran upstairs.
"I was caught by the storm," she said, which was true, "and I slept in a dry nook." Which was also true. "I was already chilled. I had no wish to take the fever."
"Shameless girl! Look at your shoes!"
"They're mostly dry now, Nonna." She kicked them off for the maids to attend, and sped barefoot off to her room, to bathe and dress again.
The dress was the maids' complete despair. They heated irons and brushed it, they straightened the braid and curled the wind-tangled feathers, all these little touches. They brushed her cloak. They exclaimed most over her burned hand.
"It was one of the sweet-stands," she said. "I touched the stove." They dressed it with herbs, they wrapped it in black lace so it would not show beneath the lace of her gown, but the pain was nothing to her today. She smiled through her bath, smiled while they pulled and tugged and curled her hair. She was the soul of patience while they applied her powders and her rouge. She put the freshened dress on again and stood arrayed as crisp and new as she had first ventured out to carnevale.
"You are so good," she said to Nonna's maids, and gave them each a coin, for luck. She slipped a little dagger into the belt that held her ribbon-tethered masks. She put on her cloak, and fussed the lace at her cuffs into place over her burned hand. She smiled at Nonna.
"See? No damage, Nonna."
"Only because you're very, very lucky," Nonna said fiercely.
"I am clever, like my Nonna," she said, and kissed her Nonna on the forehead, to Nonna's great annoyance. She had never noticed before, how tall she had gotten, and how small Nonna was these days. And she saw that Nonna had grown small in all the world, too, and afraid, in these last years, when small and afraid was the last thing her fierce Nonna wanted to be. "I love you," she said, "I love you, Nonna."
"Pah," Nonna said, and waved her attentions away with great fierceness. "Il duco will be here any moment."
"Will he?" She hardly cared. But she went down to the landing above the front door. Night was falling, already rendering the shadows on the Priuli's margin dark and ominous. "I shall stand and wait outside."
"You shall do no such thing," Nonna cried, pursuing her downstairs, step at a time, aided by her cane. "What has possessed you, girl?"
He has, she thought to herself, and sighed deeply, and waited by the door until the maid, watching through the portal, signaled excitedly that il duco's gondola had arrived. She descended the stairs like a duchess, exited the door, walked to the gondola and stepped aboard, with the gondolier's hand hardly needed to steady her. The gondolier boarded, fended off, and poled down the Priuli, nosing over into the Acqua Dolce, and carried her on and on to the Grand, where il duco's barge waited, its silver oars poised, its azure blue canopy tied back to show silver and gold cushions.