From the cupboard Donna Livia produced a bottle of champagne and glasses. While Roger opened the bottle and poured the wine, she took a thin folio volume from one of the shelves and began idly to turn its pages.
'What have you. there?' he asked, his voice coming a little unsteadily.
' 'Tis one of His Highness's favourites,' she replied quietly. 'This folio contains a set of beautifully executed paintings to illustrate the works of Pietro Aretino the Divine. Since this is His Highness's room and you are in it, perhaps it would amuse you to look through them with me.'
Roger was already conversant with the writings of that extraordinary man who had been the boon companion of Titian and Sansovino three centuries earlier in Venice. With his heart pounding in his chest he took a pace forward and looked over her shoulder. The book was at that date the greatest treatise on the art of love that had ever been written, and the illustrations of the height of human rapture were the work of a great artist. Yet none of the women portrayed in them were more beautiful than Donna Livia.
Roger's arm slid round her waist. Beneath her flowing robe she wore no corsets. She turned and her big green eyes, now languorous with desire, met his. Suddenly she dropped the book, pressed her warm body against him and whispered:
'I would that I could prolong this moment. But we have little enough time. Let us make the most of it.'
CHAPTER TWELVE
HOSTAGES TO FORTUNE
IT was ten o'clock. Roger sat alone in a small library on the far side of the marble hall from Donna Livia's salon. It was very quiet. No one seemed to be moving in the big house and he could have heard a hairpin drop.
Instead of amusing himself by looking at some of the thousand or so calf-bound, gilt-backed volumes the little room contained he was sitting uncomfortably on the edge of an elbowless chair, staring at the mosaic of the floor. It was well worthy of inspection, as it had once known the tread of patrician Roman feet in a villa at Baie; and, only after having lain buried there for many centuries, been removed and relaid, piece by piece, in its present position at the order of a Medici.
But Roger was not even conscious of it. With a mental pain, that almost seemed a physical hurt, he was thinking of Isabella, and wondering miserably what could have possessed him to spend the past two hours in the way he had.
He knew perfectly well that it was no question of his having fallen in love with Donna Livia at first sight. But for the subtly intoxicating urge to passion that had radiated from her, he would have continued to regard her with much the same detached pleasure that other supremely beautiful, but inanimate, objects had afforded him during his stay in Florence. And he felt no love for her now. One does not have to love the ripe peach taken from a sunny garden wall because one enjoys its luscious flavour. On the contrary he felt that he loved Isabella more than he had ever done before.
The thought that he had been unfaithful to her troubled him greatly. It was one thing to recognize that time might cause passion to fade and lead to other loves; but quite another to betray love when it was still in its first blooming. He found it difficult to analyse his troubled mind, but the nearest he could get to doing so was the feeling that he had committed a kind of sacrilege.
His sense of guilt made him nervy and apprehensive. He now dreaded seeing Isabella again, yet at the same time was more anxious than ever to get back to her, so that they could get away together as swiftly as possible. His uneasiness was further added to by the horrid, lurking suspicion that in some way or other the gods would make him pay for his betrayal of love. He felt that he had given hostages to Fortune and would not feel secure again until he and Isabella were safely out of Italy.
The sound of movement in the hall aroused him from his unhappy brooding. He hoped that it was caused by the Grand Duke's arrival, and that proved to be the case. A few minutes later a servant came to fetch him, and he was conducted back to the salon.
Donna Livia was again reclining on her day-bed. Not a hair of her head was out of place and the expression on her beautiful face was now so demure that she might have been a picture of 'Innocence' painted by Titian himself. The Grand Duke was standing beside her.
After three formal bows Roger permitted himself a good look at the ruler of Tuscany, while waiting to be addressed. Peter Leopold was then forty-two years of age. He was a tallish man with a slim figure. He had the same high forehead and blue eyes as his sister, but unlike her his nose was inclined to turn up at the tip. With a friendly smile at Roger, he said in German:
'Herr Brook, I understand that you are the bearer of a despatch to me from Her Majesty, my sister.'
The Grand Duke took and glanced at the letter. 'This is in our family's private cypher, but so altered as to be unreadable.'
'May it please Your Highness, that was a further measure of my own for its greater security in transit. But the rules I devised for altering the original makes its retransposition simple to anyone who knows the secret. With your permission I will write them out for you.'
'Be pleased to do so.' The Grand Duke motioned Roger towards Donna Livia's secretaire, on which pens and paper were laid out. Sitting down there Roger quickly wrote out the key, and with a bow handed it to the sovereign, who said:
'I see the despatch is of considerable length, so I will not read it now, but at my leisure. It is possible that I may wish to send a reply. If so I assume you would be willing to take it for me ?'
At this bolt from the blue Roger felt that Nemesis had caught up with him already. But he was determined not to allow his own plans to be upset if he could possibly avoid it. So after only a second's hesitation, he replied:
'Any command Your Highness may give me, I should naturally feel it my duty to execute. But I am not in the service of Her Majesty of France. I acted as Her Majesty's messenger only because any gentleman of her own nation would have been suspect by her enemies; and urgent family matters now call for my return as soon as possible to England.'
To his immense relief the Grand Duke did not press the matter, but said amiably: 'In that case I would not dream of detaining you. I trust that you have been well looked after during your short visit to my city. Meggot's hotel has a good reputation for making those who stay there comfortable.'
Roger was a little taken aback at this evidence that the secret police of Florence had thought it worth while to report his arrival, and done so with such swiftness; but he at once gave an assurance that he had lacked for nothing.
'How long is it since you left Versailles ?' the Grand Duke enquired.
'It is, alas, five weeks, Your Highness,' Roger confessed. 'And I humbly crave your pardon for not having delivered Her Majesty's letter to you sooner. But I was attacked by her enemies on the road and sustained wounds which, though not of a serious nature, compelled me to do the greater part of my journey in a coach.'
'I am sorry to hear of it, and glad to see now that you appear fully recovered. It seems, though, that you can tell me nothing new of the state of affairs in France, as I have received much later intelligence from agents of my own who left long after you. But tell me, Herr Brook, why, on arriving in Florence, did you seek an audience of me through the Donna Livia, instead of waiting upon me at my palace ?'
'I first attempted to do so,
The Grand Duke frowned. 'I was informed that you arrived at Meggot's only this afternoon.'
'That is correct. But I reached Florence on Monday last, the first of June; and although the precaution against attack proved futile in the outcome, I sought to avoid it by taking lodgings under an assumed identity.'
'Tell me of this attack. I have succeeded in making Florence a law-abiding city compared with many others; and the Watch shall be punished for their laxity in not having frustrated it. Give me, please, full particulars.'
