to mean something, didn’t it? This couldn’t all be for nothing, could it?
She stopped what she was doing, her concentration momentarily broken, and sighed. She wiped the back of her hand across her brow. It was hot in the workshop, and the smells, while pleasant, were overpowering. She felt Baroque’s eyes upon her. He’d been hovering over her like a bee to a flower, ever since that Lord Waterford had spied her in the workshop. Tallow appreciated his presence, their silent communion shared over the crushed flowers, distilled essences and, above all, the candles she altered. There was something so familiar about testing the candles with Baroque: the mixture of excitement and concern they exchanged before Baroque would remove the spill from the tinderbox and, striking it against the flint, light the wick. The sputter and slow sizzle of the flame was like the introduction, and they would hold their breath until the wax began to melt and the core of what Tallow had infused in the candle was released.
It reminded Tallow of what to her now seemed like happier times – her life with Pillar in his greasy old workshop. It was funny, thought Tallow, how current context or even a mood or feeling could change the way you viewed the past, colour it in more sympathetic hues. Pillar would occasionally slip into her mind and she would wonder what he was doing, if he ever thought of her. She tried not to think about him too much. She’d been told he’d left Serenissima and that information hurt – she suspected that was why she’d been told. Though she knew it was dangerous for him to remain, let alone to seek her, she had thought she meant more to him. He’d run after her on the bridge that awful day – called to her. If she shut her eyes, she could still see his face: gaunt, grey and yet so filled with joy to see her. And now he was gone – from Serenissima, from her life. Just like Dante, just like anyone who had ever been kind to her.
But what have you done to look for him? she pondered. She scolded herself for her silly fancies. Just as she could not search for Pillar, which would bring danger to not only herself, the Maleovellis, and the people of the Candlemakers Quartiere who had suffered enough, neither should she seek connections where there were none anymore. Glancing at Baroque as he cleared a space on the table, she had to remind herself that he was not Pillar and she was no longer Tallow. She was Tarlo Maleovelli. She was Signorina Dorata. The past was a wasteland.
With a sharp puff of breath, she threw herself back into her work.
WORKING BESIDE TALLOW, Baroque was aware of her every move, every sound. Each day her mien became increasingly mask-like as she fought to bury the emotions burning inside her and which, periodically, would escape across her features. Each sigh reached into his heart and squeezed it. He longed to touch, hold her and swear to protect her from those who would hurt her.
Surprised at the depth of his feelings, he could no longer deny them. For weeks, he’d shut himself off from the effect Tallow’s presence had on him. But ever since that day he’d walked into the workshop and saw the bruises, the dark shadows under her eyes, her downturned mouth, something within him had transformed. It wasn’t the external changes that tore away at him, but the hollowness he sensed within her. It was as if a bright spark had been extinguished.
A candle spluttered, drawing his attention. Yes, he thought, as if a candle had been snuffed out. Tallow was nothing more than a walking shadow. Almost daily, her beauty increased and it seemed, from what he heard in the streets, the market, the piazza, the coldness and indifference that attended her whenever she left the casa simply amplified her allure. But those people did not know her. They didn’t know what she had once been, the lovely, fragile being he’d first seen parading as a boy in that floppy cap, ambling through a campo, sipping a juice, delighting in the simple pleasures.
He watched her now – her eyes downcast, the lashes thick and long, hiding those eyes that not even the belladonna could prevent from being extraordinary. He watched the way her long narrow fingers fondled the plant, saw her inhale, her chest rising and expanding, colour flooding her