Light on Lucrezia - By Plaidy, Jean Page 0,146
only one feels it? Love must be shared to be beautiful.”
“It shall be. It shall be,” he cried passionately.
But she only shook her head once more.
“I will show you the extent of my love,” he told her.
“I pray you do not. Did you not know that the men who love me are unlucky?”
“Alfonso …”
“Alfonso never loved me.” She turned to him smiling. “But it is good of you to show me such kindness. You know how heavy my heart is. You know of the sorrow which has befallen me during this most tragic year. You seek to make me light-hearted. That is so kind of you. I do not forget how kind.”
“You do not believe that I love you truly, and that my love is greater than any you have ever known before. Do not think that poets, who have a gift for flowery speech, can love with the same passion as a soldier. My verses make you smile—or would, had you not the kindest heart in the world; but love does not consist of writing verses. I will show by my deeds that I love you. You have a brother on whose behalf you suffer much pain.”
She had clasped her hands together in an agony of expectation, and he smiled believing he had found the way to her heart.
“I have some influence in this land and in that of Spain. If I sent an envoy to the court of Spain begging for your brother’s release, my request might not go unheeded. What would you say to me then, Lucrezia?”
“I should say you were the kindest man in Italy.”
“Is that all?”
“I could, I believe, begin to love one who could bring so much good to me.”
“How you love this brother of yours!”
“We were brought up together. There are family ties. We have always been of great importance to each other.”
“I have heard that said. I believe, Lucrezia,” he went on seriously, “that there will never be happiness for you while your brother is in captivity.”
“It is as though we are one person,” she said. “While he is a prisoner, so am I.”
“The prisoner of your own emotions, Lucrezia,” he said. “There shall be one in your life who means so much to you that even your love for your brother will seem of small significance. I intend to be that one.”
“You forget Isabella,” she said. “Isabella and Alfonso.”
“I forgot nothing,” he answered. “You will see in time. Tomorrow I send that envoy to Spain.”
“How can I thank you?”
“Between us,” he said, “there shall be no formal gratitude. You will see that I shall put my life at your service and in exchange …”
“Yes?” she asked. “In exchange you will require?”
“Only that you love me.”
Isabella was waiting to receive her sister-in-law at Mantua. She was suspicious. Why had Francesco suddenly become so bold as to forbid her to attend the two days’ festivities at Borgoforte? And who were the guests? Lucrezia and her miserable attendants! All that fuss, all that preparation for the Borgia woman!
Yes, Isabella was very suspicious indeed.
She had been almost unbearable to her servants that day. She had been dressed three times before her appearance satisfied her.
She was assured that no dress in Italy could compare with the one she was wearing. The Borgia woman in her morello and gold would look coarse beside her; she was so slender, so dainty. Isabella cuffed the woman who said that. “Am I a fool?” she demanded. “Can I deny the evidence of my eyes? I am neither slender nor dainty. These are the Borgia’s qualities. But I fancy I have as good a shape as any woman in Italy.”
The more apprehensive she grew, the more she wished to flaunt her superiority. She practiced her singing and dancing steps, as she had before the wedding; she went through her galleries admiring her works of art. The woman would never have seen such treasures, not even in the Vatican. That rogue, her father, had collected women rather than art treasures.
But what annoyed her more than anything was the thought of her husband Francesco’s daring to dance attendance on a woman who she had decided to hate.
She sent for two of her women who she knew had been his mistresses. They were quite handsome still and she bore them no grudge. She had, though he had not known this, chosen them for him. She complimented herself that she knew him so well that she was aware of those occasions when he was ready