Loving Lucianna

Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

            “I must go with him,” Lucianna insisted. “Let me pass, carissima, so that I may gather a few things.” She would take only her embroidery and a few of her humbler gowns, just enough to feign respectability on the journey. Surely the heavens would not condemn her for clinging to one last fragile strand of pride, to return to Venice modest but comely, rather than with the open abasement her birth deserved of shabby skirts and tangled hair.

            “Do not speak nonsense,” Siri said, firmly blocking Lucianna from exiting Sir Balduin’s chamber. “You are not going anywhere, least of all with that wretch that calls himself your brother. Besides, you promised you would stay until after the baby was born.” She crossed her arms with that stubbornness that had always lain beneath her soft beauty, resting them above her swollen belly.

            Lucianna was spent with tears and had little energy left to continue this quarrel with Siri, but she had made up her mind and even weary, she could be stubborn too. “That was before today, before Serafino made me tell you my shame. I cannot stay now, you know I cannot.”

            She had sat weeping on Sir Balduin’s bed at his abrupt departure from the chamber. She had known he would spurn her when he learned the truth and thought she had braced herself for the hurt. But the anguish she had suffered when she had made the decision to leave him paled at the agony of his rejection. He may as well have taken his dagger and ripped out her heart as have bolted from her presence in what could only have been disgust and loathing. Vincenzo’s desertion had stung, but it had not left her aching and throbbing as if from a physical blow. This day would obliterate all other memories in the future—Sir Balduin’s initial awkwardness at courting her, his persistence when she had sought at first to imperiously dismiss him, the surprising whimsy in his smiles that had gradually worn down her resistance, the way his kisses had beguiled her, his valiant attempts to learn Italian to please her even though the words tangled his tongue, the courage he had shown in defending Siri when faced with a half-dozen swords at his breast— Every action, every word, every expression that had made her love him, ruined now by the memory of this day that could never be wiped from her mind and heart because she would always know he had not wiped it from his.

            She had dried her tears slowly, but at length they had ceased. It was hard to imagine ever finding peace, but if such a refuge lay anywhere for her, it did so in the abbey/nunnery where she could still nourish sweet reminiscences of her girlhood with Elisabetta.

            “Lucianna,” Siri said, reaching across to take her hands, “nothing has changed about you in my eyes, not so much as a whit.”

            Lucianna’s breast warmed with gratitude, even as the chill of inevitability ticked up her spine. “Perhaps not in yours. But in Don Triston’s and Signor Balduin’s . . . ”

            “Triston will drub Serafino from the castle when he learns what your brother has done,” Siri declared, but Lucianna saw the way she faltered on the rest. “And Sir Balduin . . . I am sure he only needs a little time, to . . . to understand . . . ”

            She trailed off, for Lucianna knew Siri had witnessed with her the anger in Sir Balduin’s eyes before he had stalked out of the chamber.

            Siri’s fingers tightened on Lucianna’s. “Just stay till the baby comes,” she pled. “I still need you for that. Please.”

            Lucianna choked back a hiccough of despair, but she refused to cry again. “Carissima, I do not see how I can. To live within the same walls as he for another three months—” Her voice broke in spite of herself. “Hide in my chamber I will not, but to walk the corridors, the hall, the garden with downcast eyes lest I glimpse him, fearing what he must think each time he sees me— I cannot bear that, however much I love you.” She swept Siri into her arms and kissed the pallor that had replaced the roses in the young woman’s cheeks. “Signor Triston would never let harm come to you. He will surround you with wise and comforting matrone (matrons). You are no longer a child, carissima, and you do not need me at your side as you bear your first babe.”