I was the only one allowed to help him. But I couldn’t.
A delayed reaction made me jump after Vincenzo slid his warm hand over my shoulder. The burn from his skin singed through layers, the excess energy he buried hotter than the sun, like the land buries the glow from days of overwhelming heat.
Brando stared at us for a minute or so, before his mouth worked. Romeo shook his head and left the room. Not long after, so did his brothers, leaving him to his self-imposed state of confinement.
“Let us keep walking,” Vincenzo said, turning my shoulder in the opposite direction. “You need time.”
I walked head down into the cold. Vincenzo stuck his hands in his pockets, not really bothered. The problem with time was that when it rang too loud, it forced you to think. I didn’t want to think. Not then. Even in the quietness between my husband and me, he seemed to take the time and quiet for his own, leaving me with…him.
All of me wanted to disappear into him, to retreat into his arms and tell him how selfish I was. I had saved him because he was the only one on this earth left to save me. No one else could or would ever be able to. How could I explain to a man whose honor and pride had been murdered that his wife saved him so he could turn around and save her?
I’d bathed him each evening, yearning, pulsating, needing to go even deeper than skin, wishing I could be so easily absorbed into his body, to be carried and secure. Looking into his eyes, knowing that he wanted me too, yet he kept me on the outside, each moment spent apart as tortuous to him as it was to me.
“Your thoughts are loud, lioness,” Vincenzo said, glancing over at me. The snow swirling in his dark brown eyes reminded me of tiny flecks of diamonds, shimmering. “I am listening, even if you find it hard to speak.”
I stopped him with a hand to his arm, meeting his eye. I intended to say thank you, to tell him how much his company meant. Vincenzo didn’t need idle chitchat. He also had an uncanny way of knowing when to speak and what to say.
“Sissy.” Romeo appeared behind us. His black hair, long lashes, and sweater were full of fluffs of snow. He nodded toward the castle, blinking away the drifts. “Tuo marito ti vuole.”
Brando. He wanted me. I nodded, about to go inside, when Vincenzo put out an arm to stop me. He and Romeo locked eyes, and before I could move or protest, they both seemed to nod, some unspoken understanding sparking between them.
“Let us finish the walk first,” Romeo said, taking me by the other arm, forcing me forward. “Uncle Tito sits with him.”
Romeo turned around, shouting to a man not too far in the distance that I would finish my walk first—take this message back to my husband.
I went to protest, to turn around and run to him, but Romeo’s grip on my arm stopped me. So did Vincenzo.
“Give him something to work for, Sissy,” Romeo said. “It is tough love that he needs now.”
I swallowed hard, feeling the ball of ice in my throat slice my heart to even finer shreds.
* * *
This area of the castle smelled of fir and ice. Tall Tuscan cypresses lined the walk to what Monica called heaven. Up here, I could look out over the hamlet as far as the eye could see, as if I were looking down on earth from the clouds.
I sometimes wondered if this was God’s view from heaven. I wondered if that was why Colette chose this area to take her own life. Perhaps she felt closer to the source she was ready to meet. Perhaps she felt that from this spot, heaven was not a far reach. Perhaps in the closeness, she found enough peace to end it all.
After the rescue, after she found out that Nemours had lived but her two lovers had not, she had become despondent, existing as a shell.
I had no idea where she was born, or what had happened in her life to make her stars collide with the darkness Nemours summoned, though if I wanted to figure it out, the numerous ways it could have happened were not lost on me. All I knew was that she was a lost soul, her misery deeper than what she had let on, and the only anchor was her mother, Vivian.
Please tell ma mère that I am sorry.The handwritten note found on her had said. It was a message to Vivian, her mother. Short. Sweet. All I believed she could give.
True to his word, Romeo had taken Colette’s mother to safety before Nemours could get to her. She had been placed in another facility that catered to stroke patients in Italy. Uncle Tito checked her over, coming to the same conclusion the other doctors had—the stroke had made her mind soft, but did not touch her body.
She never asked for Colette, but when Colette failed to visit her after some time, she took the same path as her daughter. She had used pills instead of a knife.
The area where Collette had been found was coated in white snow and fog. It seemed to hover thicker over her final resting place. Her arms had been spread wide, like an angel, her unseeing eyes to the sky.
I blinked back the tears, feeling underneath my black leather gloves the thorn of the rose I had brought pierce my skin. “Vas en paix, Colette,” I whispered, placing the rose among the many others I had given her.Go in peace.
I had never understood her, but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel for her. After all, what would I do, how many lives had I risked, to save one man?
Romeo and Vincenzo stood on each side of me, stoic angels guarding this side of heaven.
I sighed. “Let’s start back. It’s cold.”
* * *
