The blood drains from my face. “We will be wed first,” I say, with soft but sure resolve. A tremble has begun in my bones. I’ve thought only of the business, of moving to rural Italy, of signing the certificate and having it notarized, of changing my last name to this foreign stranger’s.
I haven’t thought of the bed, of consummation, of a child.
I can’t bear it. This man is a monster, to have bought me like a jewel. How will he touch me? Will he be violent? Tender? Terrible? Ugly? Hateful?
“Now, now,” says Sabine, suddenly softening. She takes the brush from the servant and takes up the task with quick but tender diligence. “It will not be so bad as all of that.”
I nod, but have to bite my lip to keep the fear from turning to tears. I know what I agreed to. I will not be afraid.
“Is he…cruel?” I manage after a moment. “Your master?”
Sabine’s eyes brighten, her brow furrowing. But before she can utter a word of illumination, a servant appears at the door.
“The master has arrived,” she says humbly, bowing her head. “He requests the girl be presented at once in the dining room.”
“She will be made presentable before she is presented,” says Sabine sternly, and the girl departs with only a quick duck of her chin. “No tears, now. The master does not like pitiable creatures.”
Do I detect a hint of sympathy in Sabine’s voice? I swallow, force myself to nod.
“Don’t be afraid,” Sabine says softly, though she doesn’t meet my eyes. “All will be just as well in the end.”
In the end.I shiver as I’m stripped, as I’m stitched into a dress that isn’t my own, as my hair is curled and pinned into painful submission and my makeup is done by the falling evening light. Snow begins falling in a thick, opaque dredge, gathering fast on the casements and turning just as fast to frost. Hard and cold and unyielding.
In the end.
I meet my own eyes in my reflection. An unfamiliar girl stares back at me.
What about now?
Chapter 2
Santo
One of the maids pours my wine.
It’s a fearsome night, wind howling at the rafters, snow glowing against the windows. What will the American girl think of this corner of my country, I wonder? Will she think it cold, austere, remote? Should I care, when she is mine now, and has no choice but to stay?
I stand, dismiss the maid and pace to the windows. The parlor is warmed by its great roaring hearth, the fire casting shadows on the stone walls and floor. I try to imagine this ancient castle through the eyes of a young, naïve American girl. It’s been passed through generations, the walls worn smooth by the hands of my ancestors. Will she feel their ghosts here? Will she smell the blood that has soaked these flagstones, in times of war and famine and frost?
From the moment she was offered to me, like the bride of an enemy king in medieval times, I couldn’t help but wonder: how long will a delicate flower survive in these cold, unyielding mountains?
What stock is this girl made of, if any at all?
“Master Santo.” Sabine’s cold voice breaks the warm, ponderous quiet. “May I present Daniella Vance?”
“Come.” I don’t turn, listening instead to the sound of Sabine’s sure steps, and the girl’s following, soft and careful as a doe at the end of a musket. “Daniella, is it?”
A stiff silence, and then her voice, tremulous and brittle. “Dani.”
Dani.A sweet little name. It melts in the mouth. I turn, expecting a shivering little maiden.
But in a dress clearly picked by Sabine’s tasteful, shrewd eye, in the dancing firelight, in the blue haze of the evening snow, that’s not what I see. I dismiss Sabine with a wave of my hand. She hesitates, then rushes out in a whisper of starched skirts.
Daniella—Dani—stands on the threshold in a velvet gown of deep, royal purple.Clever Sabine, to present her like a maid to a king.The dress itself is a blend of medieval pomp and modern taste, with a corseted bodice and laced neckline.
The girl inside it is not beautiful, not striking. She’s slight but straight-backed, and though her face is plain, freckled and pale, there’s a certain resolve in it too. She holds my eyes, her own bright blue and unwavering. Pale hair is drawn into twists and braids, gathered off her shoulders. Immediately, instinctively, I want to let it down. See its length. Study the way it might curl against her neck, gather over her breast…
“You’re Santo,” she says finally, to the laden silence. “Santo Amata?” Her voice is warm and low, with a tremor that doesn’t reflect in her stoic face.
