“You are forgiven, Stefano, for I know what a frightening man your father could be. He was not someone to pronounce idle threats. If he said it, he did it,” Bianca told the young man. “I suffered at his hands enough to know that.”
“Thank you,” Stefano Rovere said, kissing both of Bianca’s hands.
“We will not meet again,” she told him.
“I understand,” he said. Then he mounted his horse, joined his younger brother and their lawyer, and rode away.
She watched them go as relief swept over her. At last the Roveres were out of her life. She looked at Ugo, who stood waiting for the order he knew was coming. “Go to Prince Amir and tell him my guests have gone.”
“At once,signora,” the man said, bobbing his head at her and smiling.
Bianca laughed aloud, and twirled about. She was happy. She was happy! The darkness that had filled her life the past three years was finished. She was in love with a prince, and he with her. Her life was going to be perfect.
Amir came that evening, and their idyll continued as they spent the days walking, riding, and talking—and the nights in an ecstasy of endless passion. A look, and she was afire. A touch, and his desire flamed. Neither had ever imagined that a love like theirs could exist. They cherished each other, and the time they spent together.
Giovanni Pietro d’Angelo wrote to his daughter requesting that she return to Florence now that the danger was past for her. Bianca wrote him back that she preferred to live in the country. Master Pietro d’Angelo wrote again reminding his eldest daughter of her duty to him. Bianca wrote back that as a widow she was now free to make her own decisions, and she had made the choice to remain at Luce Stellare. Master Pietro d’Angelo pointed out to his daughter that he owned the villa in which she lived. Bianca replied that she would like to purchase the villa from him. He wrote that he would not sell it to her. She wrote that she would find another villa by the sea to buy.
Orianna Pietro d’Angelo arrived two weeks later. Mother and daughter greeted each other lovingly. Bianca invited her parent to join her on the terrace that overlooked the sea. Agata brought sweet wine and sugar wafers, then discreetly withdrew just far enough not to be seen, but close enough to hear the conversation.
One look at her daughter had told Orianna what she needed to know. Bianca had taken a lover. She was radiant with happiness. It would be the Turkish prince, of course. There was no one else nearby, and Bianca was too fastidious to take one of her male servants to her bed. Orianna had seen both Primo and Ugo. They were rough men of the earth, and hardly the type to sweep a girl like Bianca off her feet. No. It would be the prince.
“Your disobedience has distressed your father greatly,” Orianna said, sipping at the sweet wine. It was quite good. She had never tasted anything like it before.
“My father must understand that I am now in charge of my own life,Madre,” Bianca answered her parent. “I am a widow, not a virgin in need of protection.”
“You must remarry, Bianca,” Orianna said.
“Why? I did not find marriage to my liking at all,Madre.”
“You didn’t find Rovere to your liking,” Orianna corrected her. “You are not unhappy with your lover, Bianca.” She looked directly at her daughter as she spoke.
Bianca flushed, but then she said, “No, I am not unhappy with my lover,Madre. But he has no authority over me as a husband would have. We simply love each other, and share pleasure together.”
“Is it the prince? Of course it would be. He is very handsome, and I suspect he was most persuasive,” her mother said. “You are not as sophisticated as you think.”
Bianca laughed. “Yes, Amir is handsome, and yes, he is persuasive, but would you be surprised to know that I am persuasive too,Madre?”
Now Orianna laughed. Suddenly they were no longer just mother and daughter, but two women together speaking of love. “Still,” she said, “for propriety’s sake you must remarry or enter a convent. You are not a courtesan, Bianca.”
“I will not remarry,Madre. That is why I prefer to remain here in the country by the sea. Let any who remember me believe I was so badly damaged by my marriage that I have eschewed society altogether. Is it not better that way? I am not a woman for the convent either. You must speak of me in hushed tones when your friends ask.”
“Do not be dramatic, Bianca. Marriage is the only option open to a woman of good family. You will not remarry in Florence. We will find you a husband elsewhere, and you will begin anew. Since you are a widow, your lack of virginity will not distress a second husband. The wealth you inherited from Rovere will make you most desirable.”
“I took nothing from his estate but my dower plus interest. I have had the monies placed with the di Medici bank,Madre. I had Sebastiano’s notorious slave woman sold, and the proceeds were given to your kinswoman at the convent that sheltered me those many weeks. I thought that only fair,” Bianca told her mother.
“Bianca! You have been cheated!” Orianna gasped, horrified. “I know that your father saw to it that your husband’s will gave you half of his estate should you survive him.”
“It did indeed,” Bianca said. “I did not want it,Madre. I wanted nothing that belonged to that man. When I fled I left behind the jewelry he had given me. It is cursed,Madre. All of it. Cursed! I could not have kept a bit of it in good conscience.”
Orianna was pale with shock at her daughter’s pronouncement. “You are a foolish, foolish girl,” she told her daughter. “You would have been a very rich woman. We could have found you a great noble for a husband. Now”—she sighed—“I do not know.”
“But I don’t want another husband,Madre,” Bianca said. “Why will you not understand that? I am happy now, and content. Am I not allowed to be so?”
“You don’t want a husband now, Bianca, but what happens when your prince grows tired of you, or returns to his native land? What then, my daughter? Have you bothered to think that far ahead? No! You are just living in the moment, littleingenua!”
“The moment,Madre, is all any of us really has,” Bianca replied. “I love Amir. I will never love another. If he leaves me, then I will be alone. But I will not love again.”
Orianna sighed. “Those are the words of a woman in love for the very first time, my daughter. You will love again. We all do.”
