Loving Lucianna

Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

            Lucianna stared at Serafino and the wooden plate in his hands, heaped with roast venison in a sauce that smelled of pepper, a chicken pasty, and a pork tart, all topped with a kidney stew that was surely soaking the pasty and tart shells to mush.

            “ What are you doing?” she exclaimed as he swept past her into her bedchamber.

            “Bringing you dinner. It became clear you spoke no idle threat yesterday when you failed to join us on the dais today. What sort of brother would I be if I let you starve?” He set the plate on a table near the bed, then turned and plucked a spoon and dining knife from his belt where he had tucked them.

            He held the utensils out to her, but she ignored them. “I am not hungry. And if I were, looking on you would spoil my appetite. So take that mess away and yourself with it.”

            “Alas, I cannot. Donna Siri was upset by your absence, so I promised her I would bring you a few of your favorite dishes.”

            Lucianna crossed her arms, revolted by the mishmash he had made of the items on the dish. Serafino merely shrugged, sat down on the side of the bed with the plate in his lap, and tucked into the jumble of food himself.

            “I spoke with your amore after you stormed from the hall yesterday,” he said around a mouthful of tart so drenched in kidney stew that some of the broth dribbled down his chin.

            “I hope the gown I gave you to leave me in peace did not pay for that tunic,” she replied as he wiped the broth away with his sleeve. She should have known he would not keep his word.

            He gave a brief, dismissive glance at the oily stain his mouth had left behind. “I confess, I was disappointed to learn that Signor Balduin is not as rich as that emerald ring and the silver needles he gave you had led me to hope. Still, he will be far from a pauper when Don Triston promotes him to castellan. I do not doubt that we will all grow quite comfortable together at NAME CASTLE and that Signor Balduin will be happy to lend me an occasional sum here and there as my needs require. He certainly will understand that his wife’s brother cannot appear shabbily clothed before his friends—”

            Lucianna had joined Serafino at the bed to remove the nearest bolster before he could spill the increasingly swimming contents of the plate onto it, but she whirled at his words, inadvertently slamming the bolster into his shoulder.

            “You are not coming to NAME CASTLE with us! How can you think such a thing?”

            “I am your brother—”

            “My half-brother who never dared show his shameless face to anyone I knew in Venice, because they would have thrown you out on your ear if you had, Walter, Simon, Alessandro, even Siri!”

            He shoveled another spoonful into his mouth. “You should not have told Siri about my gambling,” he said, rolling a warning eye at his sister as he chomped on the food.

            Lucianna felt a small chill steal down her back. “How do you know what I might have said to Siri?”

            “The boy blabbed it, Don Triston’s son. I met him in the garden. He said Siri wanted him to stay out of my way. Now I know why she is so cold when I sit next to her at dinner.”