“But you have made a life here, Amir. You are favored by the di Medici, and other wealthy families. If you return to Turkey you will be in danger from whoever succeeds your grandfather when he dies,” Bianca said, concerned.
“Yes, I have a life here in Florence, but if I remain I cannot have you,” he told her. “My grandfather will live for many more years. If we live peacefully and avoid his court, I will present no threat to his heirs or their heirs. The customs of the di Medici have made me a wealthy man, Bianca. I could live on that wealth, but I will not, for I am not a man to remain idle. I can conduct my trading business from Turkey if I set it up properly before we depart Florence. I have two assistants in my warehouse who could manage here without me, given the proper instruction.”
“If they do not steal from you,” Bianca remarked. “And they probably will.”
He laughed. “They will steal a little,” he said with a chuckle. “It is to be expected, and the cost of doing business, I fear. Let me prepare to return to Turkey with you, beloved. I can make you happy, and I will.”
Bianca thought of her mother’s words. If she left Florence with Amir she would never see her family again. Was she willing to give them up for this prince? She considered it, and realized she was. Her sisters would be married to men in faraway places. Her brothers would likely wed away but for Marco. Georgio already planned to go into the Church, and as a third son, Luca would be given to a foreign wife who could benefit their family from some distant place. Her parents would die eventually. Her family was already gone in her mind, she realized. “Yes, Amir,” she said. “I will go with you. You are my home, my family now.”
He drew her slowly into his arms, their eyes meeting in perfect understanding. “I love you,” he said, and kissed her a deep, lingering kiss.
Bianca relaxed into the embrace as the pressure of his lips on hers reaffirmed her decision. Their love was more than enough.
Watching them from her bedchamber window, Orianna felt a stab of envy. There was no mistaking the love her daughter and Prince Amir held for each other, but it simply couldn’t be allowed to continue. Such a love between a good Christian woman and this infidel was wrong. She must get Bianca back to Florence, back to the safety of the family palazzo, where she might correct this mistake before it was compounded.
To Bianca’s surprise, her mother departed the following day, taking her escort with her. “I will leave you both to contemplate the wisdom of your liaison,” she told her daughter and Prince Amir. “You are a man of the world,signore. I can see you love my daughter, but you must know a union between two such different people cannot succeed. For both of your sakes I wish it were otherwise, but it is not. Accept this, and help Bianca to accept it so she may make another, happier union. This is her fate as my daughter. I swear to you that the man we choose this time will be of peerless reputation and kind. He will cherish and esteem the treasure that we entrust to him in Bianca. My child will tell you I am not a woman to make idle promises. I keep my word.” Then she kissed Bianca on both cheeks and left.
They stood together watching as Orianna Pietro d’Angelo rode out of sight. Bianca shivered suddenly. “She will have her way unless we are quickly gone from here,” she warned her lover. “I know my mother, Amir. She can be ruthless and without mercy when she is defied. She always meant me to have a Venetian marriage.”
“Do not be afraid, beloved,” he assured her. “I will begin making arrangements for our departure this very day. It will take time, however. I will not send you alone. We must go together. I need to settle my affairs in Florence, and advise my grandfather that I am coming home. The rest of it I will explain to him once we are there.”
“I am suddenly afraid,” Bianca said. “I have not been afraid since I escaped my late husband’s palazzo. My mother could not have whoever it was she loved and left behind in Venice when she was married off to my father. Francesca once overheard my grandparents speaking of it when they visited, and she told me. My mother doesn’t want me to have what she could not. She will do whatever she must to separate us, my love. Do not trust her or her words. Take me away quickly! Before she has time to act against us.”
“As quickly as I can, Bianca! Now let us go for a ride and forget the unpleasantness your mother brought into our midst.”
Bianca felt better when they returned. The air had been fresh and tangy from the sea, and her fears had evaporated in the warm sunshine. “What are you doing?” she asked Agata, finding her servingwoman busily packing her possessions when she walked into her bedchamber.
“Your mother told me to begin packing for our return to Florence,” Agata said.
“I am not going to Florence,” Bianca told the servant. “I am going to Turkey with Prince Amir. Will you come with me, or stay here?”
“As if I really have a choice,” Agata said candidly. “If I stay, your mother will kill me for not stopping you and send me from the family’s employ, so I must go with you.”
“I will give you enough money to escape your servitude if you would prefer to remain,” Bianca told the loyal Agata. “I do not want you unhappy, but I know my mother would blame you as if you could stop me.”
“No, I will go with you willingly,” Agata said. “You are a good mistress, and if it is fated for me to die unshriven in a foreign land, then so be it. We have seen no priest since we left Florence all those months ago, and I have almost forgotten my faith.”
“You do not seem weighed down with your sins,” Bianca teased, and Agata laughed. “Continue packing, for we are to make a journey no matter where we go.”
Amir came to Bianca that night, climbing up to the little wrought-iron balcony outside her bedchamber window, entering her bed like a secret lover after removing his clothing. Naked, she wrapped herself around him, sighing as his hands caressed her from the nape of her neck to her shoulders and down her back. Their lips touched and the fires of their passion exploded. They reveled in the sensation of her breasts against his smooth, hard chest, her slightly rounded belly against his flat belly, her mons sensuously pressing against his mound.
They nibbled on each other. She on his earlobe, her little teeth biting down just enough to give the sensation of pain without hurt, her tongue sweeping around the curve of his ear’s whorl while she murmured little endearments to him. He first nipped the nipples of her breasts, then fastened his mouth upon one, sucking it hard while his fingers played between her nether lips, teasing at the tiny nub of flesh that could set her afire, then pushing two fingers into her sheath, moving them back and forth until she cried his name.
He tucked her beneath him and entered her eagerly waiting body. She sighed with intense pleasure as his cock opened her to his passion, filling her with its length, its thickness. She wrapped herself about him, clutching him, her fingers digging into the flesh of his broad shoulders, scoring his back lightly with her nails as the intensity of their coupling increased her passion. She loved him. There was nothing else.
She was his!His!He had never in his life wanted and needed any woman until sweet Bianca. His own English captive mother had died when he was young. His father’s women cared for him after that, but there was never again the love for him that his mother had lavished upon him. He was educated, fed, and clothed. Nothing more.
He had thought perhaps that one of the two maidens his grandfather had given him would love him, but neither did. They were grateful for his kindness and they were dutiful, but there was no passion, no burning need, no excitement. He was appreciative of their care of him when he was at home. But with Bianca, it was all different. There was a constant longing, a need that could be filled only by this beautiful woman. He would not let her go. She was his, and he was hers. Nothing was going to change how they felt.
Orianna Pietro d’Angelo, however, had different plans for her daughter Bianca. Her sudden arrival home but a few days after her departure was a great surprise to her household. They had expected her to be away for several weeks visiting Bianca. Her mood indicated she was not pleased. Both her servants and her children walked cautiously around the silk merchant’s wife that day.
A servant had been dispatched immediately to fetch the master from his mistress’s dwelling where he had been enjoying a leisurely afternoon away from his silk warehouses. His mistress was upset at his quick departure and cried, which annoyed him. He intended to be most put out on his arrival home, but one look at his wife’s face told him the matter was very serious, else she would not be back so quickly. They spoke together in his library immediately.
“What is it?” he asked her, knowing Orianna needed little encouragement.
“Bianca is in love!” his wife began dramatically.
Was that all it was? The silk merchant decided that he was annoyed after all. “Is the man suitable? It will certainly solve the problem of what to do with her,cara.”
