Chapter Thirty

Desire seeped from her skin. It wove itself into the sounds that came out of her mouth, into the laughter and the moans and the strange unfamiliar whimpers of pleasure that she didn’t recognize as her own.

The objects in the room vanished into a vague veiled world that held no meaning for her, because all that existed right now was this. Her and Roberto. Everywhere he touched her he left a fingerprint on her skin, and everywhere her lips caressed him the taste of him unleashed something fierce inside her.

When he led her upstairs she unfastened his shirt buttons with no thought but her need to touch him, to slide her hand over the broad muscles of his chest and feel the dense bristle of dark hairs and the strong unyielding cage of his ribs. He kissed her as though he would consume her. She was not prepared for the way parts of her seemed to leap into life, parts that had been numb and cold, untouched for so long.

Her body was pressed tight against his, her wounded hand propped on his shoulder, when she felt Roberto’s fingertips slide under her sweater and caress the delicate curves of her back.

“No, Roberto.” She twisted away out of his arms. “Not my back.”

“I won’t hurt it, I promise.”

“No. It’s . . .” She stopped.

“It’s what?”

When she didn’t answer, he moved closer.

“I know it’s scarred, Isabella.”

“It’s . . .” She took a breath and felt color flood her cheeks. “It’s ugly.”

“Nothing about you is ugly, Isabella. Now show me.”

She froze.

His gaze fixed on her face. “What is it, Isabella? Do you think I won’t understand, is that it? That a blemish in your creamy skin will repulse me and send me screaming down the stairs?” He dragged a hand through her hair as if to drag the idea out of her head. “Do you think so little of me?”

Isabella shook her head. Mute.

“What then?”

“The scars on my back are ugly, believe me, they are. But it’s the scars inside that I’m afraid you’ll see.”

“Oh, Isabella, I won’t . . .”

“Don’t.” She pushed his hand away. “I changed after the shooting, Roberto. I fought my way back through operation after operation, then battled tooth and claw for a place at the university of Rome to study architecture. No one wanted me. Because I was a woman. But I wasn’t going to lie down and let them deny me it. I showed them what a woman can do.”

A slow grin crept across his face. “I bet you did.”

“But I had to protect myself, Roberto. I had to construct walls. Not just in my buildings, but in myself. They are too high. But I keep them hidden.” She turned her head away. “If I allowed you to see them,” she muttered in a low voice that was heavy with regret, “you would be behind my defense wall. I would be—”

“Isabella, look at me.”

At first, she refused. If she let her eyes feast on this man, she would not be able to look away. But he waited patiently, and finally she turned.

He was smiling at her.

“Isabella, the first time I saw you, you had a blasted chicken stuck under your arm and an ancient vecchia clinging to you for dear life, almost toppling you over. All around there was noise and confusion and the grayness of uncertainty. Fear was stamped on everyone’s face. But you, with your chicken and your old woman and your smile, were like a shaft of sunlight on that station platform.” He let his words drift across the space that divided them. “I loved you then, Isabella, and I love you now.”

Slowly, deliberately, without hesitation, she lifted the hem of her sweater with her good hand and pulled it over her head.

She didn’t know it would be like this. So—she struggled for a word that came close—so awakening.

As if everything had been asleep. The nerves of her skin, the blood in her veins, the thoughts in her head. It was as though the old Isabella had been sleepwalking through her life. Suddenly she understood clearly why her father’s eyes had always looked at her with such concern and why he fussed over her as if she were still an invalid in need of help.

She had been half dead and didn’t even know it.

New whispers and sighs, new moans and cries came from her. Strange undreamed-of tastes in her mouth, wild contortions of her heart. Roberto’s kisses and caresses breathed new life into her. She discovered a salty scent to him and she craved what she could smell under his skin. She found scars on him, marks that life had engraved on him, and she kissed them, as he kissed hers.

She brushed her lips hungrily across his chest and downward over his hard flat stomach, getting to know every bone and muscle in his body, her heartbeat thudding in her ears. An ache flared in her and she rubbed her skin against his, melting her flesh into his, molding them together.

“Roberto.”

She whispered his name. Greedily.

His hand swept up her pale thigh, and his lips on her breast sent her blood coursing through her veins. Limbs entangled, fused to each other. And as she felt the weight of him on her, moving against her, and the strength of him inside her, her moans broke free and he kissed her mouth to devour them.

When they both finally shuddered, gripping each other, Roberto laid his head on her naked shoulder, his broad back glistening with sweat.

“Isabella,” he murmured into the hollow of her neck, his breath warm on her skin, “don’t go to Rome.”

She kissed his hair in place of an answer. She would sleep with Roberto’s arms around her and know that no dreams would dare come for her tonight.

Dawn slid through the slats of the shutters, casting a ladder of gold across Roberto’s chest where he lay beside her in the bed. Isabella was up on her good elbow, watching him sleep on his back. She adored watching him. The soft fullness of his lips, the long straight nose. The rapid movements of his eyes beneath large eyelids fringed with dark lashes that glinted gold in the dawn light. She leaned down, so that his breath brushed her lips, and it took all her willpower not to kiss him.

She had woken with the warmth of him on her skin and the scent of him in her nostrils, and the knowledge that it would be dangerously easy to forget the world outside this room. No Grassi or Sepe. No enemies or friends. Not even Rosa or her father. Yet when she smiled down at Roberto like this, all the good reasons for keeping a sharp watch on them vanished from her head. So she forced herself to look away, and only then could she leave his bed.

“No, Isabella.”

“I’ve told you, Roberto. It’s no good. Pietro Luciani will tell me things about when he was Luigi’s brigade leader that he would never tell an outsider. To him I am the good Fascist widow, still grieving ten years later and still needing answers to the question of why my husband died.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I have to go.” Isabella kissed his lips and could taste his anger there. “I am going to inform Dottore Martino that I will be traveling to Rome today to inspect a certain quarry that is one of our main suppliers of stone. I want to check on the quality of their stock.”

“What about your hand?”

“Don’t, Roberto,” she said softly, and placed the flat of her left hand on the center of his chest. She could feel his heart drumming like one of the marsh pumps. “Don’t look for excuses. My hand will be no trouble. Papa will give me some pills for the pain, and anyway”—she smiled up at him—“I’m left-handed, so I can manage.”

“If they decide you are out to make trouble, they won’t give a damn whether you’re left- or right-handed.”

“It’s the only way, Roberto.”

They were standing by the bedroom door. He had positioned himself in front of it. She knew he would lock her in if he had to and she could think of nothing she would prefer, but she was determined to go to Rome to meet with Luigi’s brigade leader. She knew that Roberto was only trying to keep her safe, so she hooked two fingers inside his white shirt between the buttons and said, “Come with me.”

His hand closed over hers, gently trapping it. “You stay here. Try to see Rosa. I know that you’re concerned about her. I’ll go to Rome to speak to Luciani for you.”

“Roberto, you and I both know he won’t tell you anything. But we can go together—it’s less than an hour by train—and we can try to get Rosa out of the convent as soon as we’re back.”

Isabella could see Roberto’s fear, a dark wing at the back of his eyes, and she knew it was for her.

“What did Grassi say?” she asked.

“That they will be watching you.”

She rested her forehead against Roberto’s chest so that he wouldn’t see her face. “Why me?”

“They think you have some connection with Rosa’s father. I swore to Grassi that you don’t even know him, but”—she felt a rumble in his chest—“he chooses not to believe me.”

“Come with me.”

He rested his chin on the top of her head. “I’ll come.”

“Thank you.”

“But we’d better not be seen together. We’ll catch separate trains.”

“Why?”

“Because I work for Grassi. At the moment he is willing to give me information. But if he thought I was consorting with the enemy”—he pressed his lips against her hair—“you, my love, have become the enemy—he would feel it necessary to remove you. Just like he removed Rosa.”

The enemy? How did she become the enemy?

“We’ll travel on separate trains,” she said flatly.

He cupped her head in his hand and tilted it so that he could see her face. For a long quiet moment he examined every light and shadow in her eyes.

“I want you to be afraid,” he said sternly. “Because if you’re afraid, you’ll be careful. But I’ll be there. All the time I’ll be there with you. I’m serious, Isabella. What are you smiling at?”

“How can I look at you and not smile?”

His dark brows swooped down and he scowled at her, but his hand caressed her cheek. “They released you once, Isabella. Be very careful. They won’t release you so easily a second time.”