Prologue
October 19, 1503
Montalcino, Italy
Iris Bellerose chewedher bottom lip as she stared out the window. Everywhere she looked, she felt danger closing in. Though the view was unimaginably beautiful, she was aware of the ephemeral quality that was time.
Yesterday, she and Marco had gathered the sunshine-yellow stigma from the purple saffron crocus that bloomed in the garden. The Allegretto family’s cook had prepared her favorite dish, a delightfulrisotto alla Milanese, which they enjoyed with the sweet moscadello wine produced at the Allegretto vineyard. Candlelight had played across their faces as they dined at a table set before the hearth where a well-fed fire had burnished their skin in gold.
Over the next few days, they strolled through the vineyard, inhaling the scent of earth and vine. They picnicked and ate crusty Italian bread and cheese beneath the shade of an old, gnarled oak tree and planned a future that was tentative but hopeful. For a few hours each day, they gifted each other time to spend on their creative endeavors. Iris wrote in her journal, and Marco sketched her.
The evenings were reserved for love.
Marco had commissioned a wooden tub to be built based on Iris’s description of bathtubs in the future, and they took candlelit baths together, which inevitably ended with them making love, their limbs entwined together beneath white linen sheets.
Iris knew that tomorrow she might be hurled through time again and snatched away from the arms of the man she loved. She sighed. There was nothing to be done about the inevitable. Soon she would disappear like the colors of fall when the snows of winter dusted the hillsides.
For now, Iris tried to forget the evil woman who coveted Marco and was bent on her destruction to have him. The sorceress, Contessa Catarina di Farnese, would not be dissuaded from her vendetta or her pursuit of Marco’s third painting,Il Letto, from hisThree Stages of Loveseries. Catarina would do anything to get her hands on the painting and its time-travel portal. Having hired bandits to rob Marco of the three paintingsLa Sedia,Il Divano, andIl Letto, she had found unlimited power falling into her hands. But the magic of the ruby ring given to Marco by the soothsayer had given him the power to cajole two women through his painting’s portal to help Iris recover two of the paintings.
Still the contessa was not dissuaded from her goal. She knew that all she needed was possession ofIl Letto, and the portals would remain open. With time travel at her fingertips, the contessa would amass even more wealth and power, and her minions would cause chaos, death, and sorrow on an unimaginable scale.
For Iris, it would also spell disaster. She would be condemned to being a prisoner of time travel forever—wandering the ages with only short periods of bliss with Marco, or even worse, Caterina would close the portals, forever denying Iris a way back to Marco.
Strong arms encircled Iris’s waist, and warm lips pressed to her temple. “Tesoro, perché sei così triste?”
“Why do I look so glum?” Iris leaned back against Marco’s broad chest and lifted her hand to his cheek. “Because I’m afraid we will never be free of her. Because I don’t want to lose you. Because I don’t want to disappear from here, not knowing if I will ever return to you. Because I am afraid of the battle ahead and who I will have to fight to win.”
They clung to each other, and Iris filled her senses with the beauty of the brightly colored garden and the hillsides adorned with clusters of olive trees and thick-limbed oaks dotting the landscape, breaking the pattern of the row upon row of grapevines that climbed the hills of the Val d’Orcia—where, in the distance, lofty peaks jutted skyward, forming the spinal cord of Italy known as the Apennine Mountain Range. With the vines barren of fruit after the fall harvest, only the brightly hued leaves of red, rust, and gold remained as they prepared for winter slumber.
When the fingers of time tore her away from Marco, like the grapevines, her life would go into hibernation, awaiting the warmth of Marco’s love to shine on her again and awaken her.
“We have the upper hand now,amore mio.”
His warm breath tickled her ear and kindled the desire she always felt for him. Iris should be the happiest woman in the world, and she might have been content were it not for the worries that plagued her. Marco was her soul mate, and she belonged to him heart, body, and soul, but she worried over the many obstacles that beset them. Besides the obvious problem of being a time traveler, she worried that she would never bear Marco any children. What if being a time traveler had stolen that possibility from her? The thought was crushing, but it was the one fear she never voiced aloud to him, as other threats seemed more pressing.
“That is exactly what troubles me,” she said. “We must not let our guard down, and I sense she is not without a plan, a plan to steal our happiness.” Iris looked up, admiring the squareness of his jaw and the broad cheekbones that sharply defined his face. After all the horrors she’d experienced, she could never quite believe that he was hers. His love for her defied explanation, but never did she doubt its veracity.
He turned her toward him, and his lips blazed a path down her neck. “She will not succeed,tesoro.The fire of our kisses will burn away your doubts.”
It was as if he’d read her thoughts. Love was surely a mystery, but was it capable of conquering all the boulders that blocked their path to happiness?
The tingling in her limbs made her cry out. “Basta!” It was happening again—she could feel herself fading, and tears flooded her eyes. Marco wrapped his arms tightly around her, trying to hold on to her. If only it would stop—if only he could keep her with him. But she knew he would not win this battle, no matter how hard he tried.
Iris grabbed his face and pressed her lips against his. She would need the scent and taste of him to make it through the days ahead.
“No,” he shouted.
“Ti voglio bene, caro.I love you, my darling,” she cried, and her heart felt as though it were being torn from her breast.
“Buon Dio, non portarmela via.” His fervent plea,God do not take her from merose to the heavens. But it was too late. A flash of lightning blinded them, and she was gone.
The battle ahead had begun.
Chapter One
New York, New York
Gabriella D’Angelo tappedher foot on the floor in a sharp staccato rhythm, mirroring her impatience. She was annoyed beyond reason and her patience was at an end.
