Night of Fire Page 8

  "And yet here we are."

  "It will do."

  The servants laid the meal, tender broiled fish cooked in a broth she did not recognize but thought delicious. For a little while neither of them spoke very much, absorbed in the food and their hunger. "You have a very fine cook, Basilio," she commented. "When I leave, I'm going to bribe her to come with me."

  He raised his eyes, smiling. "She will not go. She adores me alone." And there, she saw the wickedness he might contain, knowledge of women, and the things that pleased them.

  "Tonight," Basilio said "we should tell a story of happy endings after adventures."

  Cassandra grinned. "But that is the second day. This is our third."

  "But we told no stories yesterday."

  "Yes, we did! You told me of St. Catherine."

  "I told a story, true. But you did not tell me one, so it is still second day."

  Inclining her head, she said, "Will we have ten days, then?"

  "It will need to be eleven now. Unless we miss stories another day, in which case it will have to be twelve."

  She laughed and plucked a handful of berries from a glass dish. "I will think of a story of adventure with a happy ending. Ah! I know one."

  His eyes glittered. She tried not to look at his mouth, but it drew her eye, and she remembered the lush pleasure it had delivered. Seeing her gaze, he blinked slowly, touched her hand. "Tell me."

  "It is the tale of my brothers, who killed a man in a duel over my sister's honor, and fled England, fearing for their lives."

  "A duel! Really?"

  "I did not write of it in my letters?"

  "No. You only spoke a little of your family, now and again."

  She almost spoke her first thought aloud: because I wanted to keep you to myself. Instead, she said,

  "Perhaps I was afraid I would look very dull by comparison."

  "Never!"

  "You have not heard the tale, sir."

  He laughed. "So I have not. Please continue."

  So Cassandra told him about her sister Adriana, who had been very wicked as a young girl and taken a lover and scandalized all of polite society, and of her brothers, who had called the lover to a duel, and killed him, then fled for five years, fearing the gallows. She told what she knew of their adventures, surviving an uprising in the islands, and plagued by slavers who had nearly stolen Gabriel, and living with Indians. "And then they came home again, whole and well, to try to rescue my sister again, but she was already married."

  "Rescued from marriage? Did she not want him?"

  "Not at first. She lives now with him in Ireland."

  "And your brothers?"

  "Oh, Julian has become quite the English gentleman. Gabriel—" she hesitated. "He has marked his own path, always." Pleased and full, she sighed and leaned back. "How is it that I tell stories of my life and you tell stories of the world? I think I need one from your life, sir."

  He tsked, pursed his lips. "Perhaps I do not know one."

  "No happy ending at all, ever?"

  He raised his brows, his mouth rueful. "That is a very sad thing, is it not?"

  "Yes," she said. "Very."

  He rose. "Come. This room oppresses me. Let's retire to the library and look through the manuscripts.

  Would you enjoy that?"

  Oddly, it held no appeal. She looked toward the garden. "Can we not walk, instead? I love the light."

  "Of course." It was smoothly said, the liquid voice of an accommodating host.

  "Have I offended you, Basilio?"

  He let go of a breath, gave a soft laugh. "No, Cassandra. It is only that I am trying so very hard to be civilized."

  "Must you be?" She frowned. "I do weary of civilization. Perhaps we should run to wildest Africa and shed our clothes and titles and live like natives."

  That made him laugh, without that edge of restraint. This was the Basilio she knew, robust and full-throated. "I believe I would enjoy that."

  He held out his arm and she lightly clasped his elbow, and they wandered through a set of doors to the broad courtyard. "But I have heard there are very large insects in Africa. Perhaps we'd wish to keep a few of our clothes."

  "All right. But only a very few." She looked to both sides of the wall and thought it wiser to stay away from the orchard. Pointing in the other direction, she said, "Where does that path go?"

  "To olive groves, and then to the garden. There is a fountain. Would you like to see?"

  "I would." The light was softer than it had been the evening before, dusty, perhaps, or heavy with coming rain. "Is it going to rain?"

  "I think it may. Will you mind terribly?"

  She shook her head. She would not mind anything as long as he was with her. They walked down the hill, following a path that wound around an impressive stand of olive trees that was ringed with the same tall, dark fingers of trees she had seen everywhere.

  With every step, Cassandra grew more aware of her wish to have him kiss her again. A scent of soap came from his skin, and it whispered over her senses, enticingly spicy. She found her gaze on his feet in the boots and remembered the sight of his toes and feet, and a pulse, low in her groin, shocked her. She looked away and took a breath. He felt a little stiff beside her, a little formal, and she wondered if the same sort of thoughts were in his mind.

  She wished she had the courage to ask, but she found herself prattling instead, asking the name of this grass and that tree, and that flower, growing wild in an outcropping of stone. He answered with polite enthusiasm, and when they came to the garden he released her to the fountain, which shot from a mirroring pool contained in a great granite bed. Around it grew banks of lavender whose leaves cast off an alluring perfume.

  "So much beauty," she said musingly, breaking off a twig of the herb to smell. "And it is all so peaceful."

  He stood where he'd let her go, looking around him as if he had never seen it. "I suppose it is."

  A tall corner, lined with stone, was cut into the side of the hill, creating a private and sheltered area for a pair of stone benches. Cassandra, too restless to sit, leaned on the wall and reached out to brush her fingers over the vine trailing down it. "Does this place, too, hold memories you would rather not think on?"

  "My brother Teo."

  "The businessman."

  A distracted smile. "Yes. This was his doing, this garden. He made it for my mother. She loved to come here, and her friends brought her flowers to have the gardeners put in—all of these. But it's Teo I think of."

  There it was, quick as nightfall, that dark well of emotion he hid, the grief that still lingered. A poet born to pain and joy, she thought. "What do you think of?" she asked.

  He turned toward her. "I do not think, Cassandra," he said, and flung up his arms. "Not tonight. I only feel." He closed his eyes and lifted his head, a gesture of supplication. Did he pray for strength?

  Cassandra smiled at the thought. A brightness moved through her, a sense of light, as she looked at him against the backdrop of the water and the sky and the lush greenery. She thought of Pan, of Boccaccio, of moments stolen from a long life.

  "Feel," he repeated, and moved toward her, his eyes luminous. "I will not kiss you again if you do not wish it, but it is the only thing in me tonight."

  She swayed toward him, her breath fluttering like a candle flame, and he caught her with a low, throaty sound, bending her into the hard crook of his elbow. He stared at her and opened his free hand on her face, his fingers touching her eyelids, her nose, her cheek, her mouth. Instinctively, she pressed her lips to his thumb as it passed over her lips.

  He made a soft, low noise and kissed her. Cassandra circled his neck with her arm, feeling a breast crushed into his chest, her head tight in the crook of his arm, and she tilted her head to accommodate his thrusting tongue with an instinct she had not known she had. The tingling restlessness in her body expanded, rushing over her arms and spine, rippling over her buttocks and the backs of her knees, shimmering thr
ough her hands that curved to fit the shape of his shoulders.

  They gasped together, then fell again into the heat of it. The force made them stumble, and he braced himself on the wall, pressing hard into her. And even then, even then, Cassandra only wanted more. Only wanted Basilio, the feeling of him like the gilded light falling on her eyelids. She touched him eagerly, his arms and face and hair, his back. He slid down a little, lifting her so he could kiss her throat.

  "This place draws my eye," he murmured, and kissed it, chin to collarbone, lingering, tasting, his tongue drawing a line across that and back. Her breasts felt heavy and thick, and in a gesture she would have thought beyond her, she grabbed his hand and settled it, over her breast.

  His hand moved gently, his bare fingers brushing the flesh over her bodice, his thumb going exactly where she wanted it, over that tight, burning nipple. She could not help the small sound that came from her at that, and she closed her eyes, astoundingly dizzy. He kissed her again, his mouth soft, plying, teasing over her lips, his tongue a heated flicker at the corner, at the bow, at the very center of her lower lip, and he stroked her breast as he kissed her, kissed her and teased that place, until all at once Cassandra was aware that her thighs felt wet. "Basilio, take off your coat!"

  He obliged, shucking it, dropping it to the ground, and then the waistcoat. She opened the ties at his neck, then put her hands below the shirt hem to touch his bare back, his sides. His chest. His skin was like butter beneath her fingers.

  And then they were kissing again, and it grew wilder, more heated, their breath hot and hurried, their hands eager, dancing, exploring. Basilio bent with a soft moan to kiss her neck, and suckled lightly, then harder. All at once, his hand, which must have been working her skirt upward as they kissed, fell on the back of her bare thigh, and his sex aggressively pushed into her belly.

  Cassandra froze. Desire gave way to panic and she struck out with her fists, cuffing his shoulders, his head. "Basilio, stop!"

  He released her instantly and stood back. Cassandra stared at him as a wave of trembling overtook her, so violent she could not even stand. Her knees gave away and she sank to the ground, her shaking hands over her face. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

  "My God, Cassandra!" He stepped forward, reached for her, then squatted close, not touching her. "I do not want to frighten you more. I only want to put my arms around you, to stop your trembling." He crept closer. "Will that be all right?"

  Cassandra clasped her hands more tightly over her face, appalled that he should see her this way, that anyone should see her so revealed.

  She did not cry. Would not. She pressed her hands close to her eyes and held the scream in her throat, and when his hand touched her shoulder, she startled so violently she scraped her elbow on the wall.

  Very carefully, he touched her arm, then the other. When she didn't pull away—for she did most desperately want to lean into him—he gave a soft, mournful cry. "Oh, love," he whispered, and took her into his arms, tucking her head on to his shoulder. "He must have been very cruel. I am so sorry, Cassandra." He held her close, whispering into her hair. "So very, very sorry."

  She trembled even more violently, and hated herself for it. Yet she was so weak, and he was so gentle, she could not seem to make herself stand, straighten her clothes, and forget this.

  As if he understood that, he only sat on the grassy ground, holding her close, rocking her a little. "Do you want to tell me about him? Was it your husband?"

  She had never spoken of it, not even to her sisters. Nor did she ever, ever allow herself to be so vulnerable as she was in this moment. Sucking in a breath of air, she told herself to be calm, to be poised.

  It would go away, the shaking, the upset. She struggled to erect her walls.

  But in the end, she could not. His hand was too gentle, his voice too soft. Against her cheek, his shoulder curved in exactly the bowl she needed, and she could not move away from it. His hand stroked her hair, over and over, and it made her remember her mother. Her trembling eased slightly.

  After a long time, she said, "It was my husband."

  His fingers smoothed hair back from her temple. "He hurt you."

  "Yes." Squeezing her eyes tight, she pushed away the violent feel of his hands, his unnatural tastes. "He could not… perform with me very often. It enraged him, so he did… other things."

  Gentle, gentle were Basilio's hands. Across her temple, over her cheek. She had no vocabulary to describe her husband's actions, and even thinking of it caused a flutter in her throat. "It was even worse when he could perform. His imagination was cruel."

  Saying it aloud brought it to her in ways she did not allow. The bruises on her breasts and legs, the sound of a certain sort of laughter, the horror she'd felt. There had been no one to whom she could go for help.

  "My father was dying." Her voice was calm. Or perhaps only dull. "My sisters had no power to help, and would only have been distraught. My brothers had fled England."

  "Ah, my sweet." He brushed his hands along her arm. "I am not a violent man, but this makes me feel bloodthirsty. I wish I could kill him for you."

  The soothing rhythm of his hands never ceased. "I hate him for putting fear in place of love, for putting pain where pleasure should be. But more," he said quietly, leaning close to her, "I wish I could take that pain from you, so you never knew it. I am so very sorry to have brought it to you again."

  She pressed her burning brow into his chest, squeezing her eyes tightly closed. "I am so ashamed of it now."

  "Oh, no!" He bent close. "No, Cassandra! You did nothing wrong. He stole something very precious from you."

  "I should not have let him."

  He took her face in his hand, held her chin patiently until at last she had courage enough to look at him.

  "He stole the joy you would have found without him." His eyes were sad. "I can taste your passion when you kiss me, taste the magic that is within us, but he stole the satisfaction you would have found there, the full beauty."

  "I am not wholly ignorant." She lifted her head, finding the courage now to straighten, to rely again on her poise. "I have read… things," she said. "Frank descriptions of sex, in books from France. And there is that happiness in Boccaccio. But I've never felt it—the passion." She bowed her head, heat on her cheeks. "Until now… and you see how it will be."

  "He stole it, my Cassandra." He took her hand and pressed it to his mouth, his eyes intent. "It is like plums, no? Those plums, hot from the garden. Or the olives you liked so much that first day. So delicious, so rich. And I watched you in the village last night, so free and happy. And at the beach, when you let the water come over your feet, you were so happy."

  She didn't understand what he was trying to tell her, and frowned. "But perhaps the pain has ruined this for me. I have never been hurt eating a plum."

  "There should be no hurt in this." He lifted his chin and tossed back those wild ringlets, his eyes very dark and intense as he guided her hand to his sex, soft and unthreatening beneath his breeches, though it leapt a little under her hand. "It should bring only pleasure. More than plums, more than the ocean, more than anything." He pulled her hand away and touched her face. "Your husband took from you the greatest of all the pleasures."

  Cassandra felt the sinuous swirl on her nerves as she looked at him, a swirl she could name now: desire.

  "Can you teach me, Basilio? Will you give that back to me?"

  He closed his eyes. "I fear… that my ardor is too much, that my passion will wound you more." He picked up her hand and kissed it. "In truth, Cassandra, if I must be content with only kissing it would be a hardship, but I would prefer that to another wound to you."

  "I trust you. Only you."

  Soberly he gazed at her. "Then I will try. But here is the promise you must give to me: that you never, never go where you do not wish. No matter how deep my hunger, no matter how far we have gone, you must promise that you will tell me when you are afraid. It will not hurt me."r />
  An ache, pride and anticipation and fear, squeezed her chest. "I promise."

  "All right, then." He leaned forward, touched his lips to hers, and laughed softly. "All teachers should have such a student."

  "Why are you laughing?"

  He shook his head, eyes glittering. "Anticipation," he whispered, and stood, tugging her hand. "Come."

  "Will we begin tonight?" "Only the first lesson." He lifted her hands to his lips. "We shall savor the moments, yes?" Cassandra swallowed. "Oh, yes."

  Chapter 7

  As they walked up the hill to the villa, Basilio held her hand and considered what to do with his beautiful pupil, who had put such deep faith in his skill as a lover.

  It was her faith that had made him laugh. He was not so skilled as she imagined. At university there had been the usual whores, sometimes an affair of a month or two with some willing shopkeeper. Once he had been besotted and sick with longing over a married matron, much older than he, who kept him in her pocket for a year before moving on to her next youthful conquest. Sometimes in his travels he had taken lovers, as a man will. He quickly forgot them.

  He had never known a virgin, which would have been the best preparation for a task such as this. It would also be easier if he understood the exact nature of her husband's abuse. Hatred flared again, and he quelled it instantly, for tonight he did not need hatred or anger. He needed the purity of his passion for her, and all the gentleness and control he could muster, and patience.

  Inside the villa, he paused, struck with inspiration. "Wait here. I will be right back."

  She nodded, slightly subdued. Nervous by the look of her mouth. He paused to brush his lips over hers.

  "I know you like kissing. Think of that. We can kiss for hours if you like."

  "Hours?" A glitter in those eyes.

  "Days, even."

  She managed a smile. "I could not withstand days of kissing you, Basilio My skin would burst into flames."

  He laughed. "That is very, very good. Wait. I will be right back."

  He went to the kitchen and gathered wine and cheese and olives, which he put into a basket, along with a fresh loaf of bread sitting on the heavy wooden table in the center of the room. Cook scowled at him around her smile, and he said, "What other lovely things have you to give me?"