The Companion - One With The Shadows Part 5

He pitied her? Anger rose in her belly. She couldn't bear it if he pitied her. So she shrugged. "My real parents abandoned me when I was six. I made my way on the streets of London, so I am quite used to it."

"At six?" he asked, his brows drawing together.

"Oh, I found a place. A rather nefarious character provided food and a bed in return for picked pockets and robbed houses. No locksmith has made a device I cannot open." That would shock him. And she wanted to shock him with her hardness, her invulnerability.

"So how did you end in an orphanage?" Enough light leaked in around the shades to make his face dimly visible in the shadows.

"The Nefarious Character was clapped up in Newgate and that left us on our own." Those days had been hungry ones. She had been frightened. "The nuns finally came round to collect what was left of us in an act of charity and duty." She let her tone tell him how she despised their impulse. "I spent five years in the orphanage. Until I was fourteen."

"Better than the streets."

"Was it?" She leaned back against the black velvet squabs of the upholstery.

"Ahhh. Another version of indentured servitude."He understood. That was odd. She pulled her chin up. "I was quite a trial for the sisters. They tried their best to beat the sin out of me. When Matthew claimed me, I wouldn't have cared whether he was my father or not. He was the one who trained me to act and talk flash."

"My congratulations. No one would think you were from any but the first of families."

Kate looked away. It had been nice in a way to think she had a father. It gave her a place. And she'd tried hard to please Matthew. The fact that he constantly threatened to abandon her again helped motivate her, though she had always told him she didn't care. That had been a lie, like so much else in her life. Well, he'd lied too. Everyone did. All the time. Just like Gian Urbano was probably lying now about paying her, about his mother. She glanced at him and found him staring at her in a most disconcerting way.

"Well," he said slowly, as though considering his words. "I see no event in your background which would have developed your 'powers.' Did you train to develop them?"

Now he was making game of her. He knew very well she didn't have "powers." "Don't be rude. I learned the tarot because it can be bent to anything someone wants to hear. And I'm very good at reading people." Except she couldn't read him at all. The cards had seemed to take over and make their own story when it came to him, and she had blurted out some prediction over which she had no control. She blinked at him, trying to master the fear that brought up inside her. She rushed into conversation so she didn't have to think. "So you needn't take pity on me. I'm fully capable of caring for myself. If you're going to take the stone, do it."

"Why don't you keep it for the nonce?" he remarked after a short silence. "It would spoil the cut of my coat if I kept it in my pocket."

She narrowed her eyes. What kind of game was he playing?

"So," he said, examining her as though he saw everything she wanted to hide from him. "What will you do with the money?"

As if he would pay. She grimaced, seeing her dreams slip away. Still, he could have stolen the stone last night. He didn't have to take her with him. She searched his face. She saw no answers. She looked away. "I am going to buy a house, of course."

"After such a life of adventure, can one city amuse you?" Was that a smirk?

"I'm not going to buy a house in a city," she retorted. "I... I want to live somewhere out of the way." That was an unfortunate way to put it. "I mean, somewhere quiet. Twenty thousand will buy a cottage in England and keep me nicely."

"Quiet means no audience."

"Oh, and you think I love an audience!" He thought she liked to display herself for public pity? She turned away again, so he couldn't see the scar.

"I think you are very good at what you do," he said, clearing his throat. "I expect it would be hard to give that up."

"And you so respect what I do." She snorted. He, who had tried to unmask her...

He sat back, one leg lounging out before him. "I respect that you made your own way. You are intelligent, intuitive. I didn't say I respected the purpose to which you put your talents."

She snapped her head around to confront him. "Oh, you don't respect survival?"

"Honor is important. There were other ways to survive."

"Matthew always said my only choice was between chicanery and a brothel, since I had no money, no birth, and no looks. And a brothel of the lowest kind. Is there honor in that?"

The corner of the carriage was silent.

"And you know so much about honor anyway," she accused. "You who use your beauty to enthrall women. You take, but you never give, do you? Is there honor in that?"

He straightened, a little shocked. Good. "I... I never make promises I don't keep."

"Oh, you don't lie about loving them. How n.o.ble." She folded her amis across her chest.

His mouth gave something like a sneer. "They only want to say they've bedded me. I'm a trophy that gives them bragging rights. I see to their pleasure, but they deserve nothing more."

She felt her jaw drop. The... the arrogance of the man! He wanted them to give something of themselves, when he was already bleeding them for money? And he must be mad to think he didn't break hearts, if not the hearts of the rich women who kept him, then those of the ones who couldn't afford that luxury. "You can't tell me young girls have never pined after you until they fell into a decline. You're just the type to provoke that without any conscience."

"I don't seduce virgins." But he was looking guilty. He knew she was right.

"Just married women?" She snorted her contempt. "Now that is honorable."

He looked exasperated. "I prefer widows but there are plenty of women coerced into marriage who manage to enjoy life by taking lovers. I've played my part in their charade."

"It's their charade, is it?" When his whole life was a charade?

"Yes." His eyes narrowed.

"Well, I'll tell you, Gian Urbano..." But he actually had her speechless. She folded her arms across her chest and closed her eyes. "I'm going to sleep." How would she bear being cooped up with this insufferable man all the way to Florence?

Kate woke with a start to find Urbano shaking her shoulder. "What?" she asked crabily. The carriage was no longer rocking.

"Would you like to break your fast?" he asked, shrugging. "We are changing horses."

"Oh. Well, yes." Actually, she was famished. And the feel of Urbano's strong hand on her shoulder made her... irritable. She reached for the door handle. Urbano slid farther into the shadows in the corner. She glanced over at him. He looked very tired.

That brought to mind the fact that he had been injured last night, though he showed little sign of it this morning. He was a puzzling creature. And he might be more than puzzling. He might be... whatever that woman, Elyta, had been. What was that?

Nonsense! She refused to think about the Elyta woman. Urbano was simply an arrogant charlatan. Not unlike herself. That thought hurt. She didn't want to have anything in common with this creature.

Yet she couldn't afford to make him angry. She was, at the moment, dependent upon him. She cleared her throat. "Will it cause you discomfort if I open the door?"

"It is nothing. Perhaps you should leave your reticule here for safekeeping."

"Perhaps I don't think that would be safe," she returned.

"As you wish, then. Buon appet.i.to. Luigi will accompany you."That was the coachman. She had heard Urbano call instructions to him. There was a postboy as well, Adolpho. She took her lip between her teeth. Urbano would have to stay inside. Which meant no breakfast for him, or luncheon, whatever time it was. She had no idea how long she'd slept. Well, then, she'd order him some food as well.

Except she didn't want to spend the little money she had feeding her nemesis.

"Luigi will pay the shot," he remarked from the shadows in the corner. He seemed to read her mind. How exasperating!

"You can deduct it from the payment for my stone." She opened the door. Luigi, once a large, athletic specimen now just going soft about the middle, hovered, waiting to help her down. She took his hand quickly, jumped into the yard and slammed the door.

Then she turned, blinking, and looked up at him. She had an impression of a busy posting house yard bustling with horses and carriages, hostlers and pa.s.sengers around her. The sun said it was late morning. The caramel light of Italy bathed everything in warmth.

A sense of distance from herself came over her. Her surroundings faded away, replaced by a dark room with a low ceiling. The room was filled with low moans. Luigi knelt by a narrow bed. She was certain it was him by the expressive brown eyes, though they sat in a face with jowls and under a mop of gray hair. Luigi was bent over a bed with a frail woman lying in it. The woman's skin was like yellowed paper in the light of the candles at the bedside table. Her eyes, a watery blue, searched Luigi's face.

"Mi amante," she murmured. "Don't mourn me."

"I cannot live without you," Luigi sobbed, holding her fragile hand to his lips.

"We will be together again soon..." The voice drifted farther away. The head turned away, as if answering some other bid for her attention, and stilled.

Luigi let out a shout of grief that collapsed into sobs as he laid his bulk over the small form in the bed.

Kate gasped as the vision faded and was replaced by the face of a much younger Luigi, looking concerned.

"Is the Signorina well?"

"Yes. Yes, of course," she stuttered, breathing hard.

It had happened again, just like her other visions. Had she seen this man's future, the moment when he would lose the wife he loved very much? Kate found herself shaking, both from the fact that she might be having visions and the emotion that had filled that room. She experienced the love, the hopeless anguish of Luigi. She even knew the feelings his wife-Maria? Yes, Maria- had of drifting toward some other destiny, the moorings loosening, the emotion of her husband growing distant.

"Perhaps some coffee?"

Kate swallowed. "Yes." She followed him into the busy tavern. She kept her head down, since she had no veil.

"A private room, man," Luigi called to the proprietor. He sat her at the table in the room the man indicated. "I must go, Signorina, else they will fob off their worst slugs on Adolpho and that the master would never tolerate. Order as you will. But be quick. He wants haste."

Luigi was gone. What a terrible responsibility to know his future sorrow. What could she say to him? She could not burden him with her knowledge. Yet, what if knowing he would lose his wife could make him treasure each moment more?

But man was not meant to know his future. It was not her place to tell him.With a start she realized that she believed she could see the future. How unlike her! She believed only in what she could see and touch and taste and hear. And now she seemed to have another sense. One that was disrupting her life.

The proprietor came in, pointedly avoiding looking at her. He had seen her scar and didn't know where to cast his eyes. She ordered breakfast for herself, an egg, some toast. Her appet.i.te was gone. The pudgy man turned to leave.

"Oh, signore," she called. "Could you also prepare a breakfast for my companion in the carriage?" The man looked wary. He was no doubt imagining her companion even more marked than she was, since he had not come in at all. That almost made Kate chuckle. And she needed to chuckle. "Two rashers of Parma ham and four eggs, bread and cheese and mushrooms grilled, with a flagon of good, strong coffee."

He looked surprised. Italians never ate so much in the morning. But he nodded at her decisive order and withdrew. As Kate was finis.h.i.+ng, Luigi entered to escort her to the carriage and took the basket exuding delightful smells the landlord brought.

"Did you and the boy have time to eat as well?" she asked Luigi.

He laughed, showing white, even teeth. "The master says I always make time to eat. And I am training Adolpho well."

This time she held her chin up as she followed him. There was no use doing anything else until she could procure a veil. Let the surrept.i.tious glances fall where they may. When she got to the carriage, she took the basket from Luigi.

"How does Maria do, Luigi?"

He looked surprised. "She has some small complaints. They worry me."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry. You'll have many happy years with her yet." She smiled as he frowned at her. "You don't have children."

There had been only Luigi at Maria's bedside.

"The Lord has not blessed us," Luigi said, sorrow in his eyes.

"Oh, yes He has, Luigi." She opened the door and stepped up into the carriage with her basket, pulling it quickly shut after her.

Had she just had a vision of true love?

"Here," she said unceremoniously, pus.h.i.+ng the basket over the seat to Urbano in the dimness. She could hardly see at all after the bright yard. "I ordered you food. And not those paltry sweet breads Italians like, but a good English-style breakfast. You were looking peaked."

"Was I?" he rumbled. He pulled back the checked cloth even as the coach lurched forward. She watched him tuck into his breakfast single-mindedly. He was so... physical. The energy that always seemed to coil about him spoke of life and virility. She imagined his naked body moving inside his well-cut coat and clinging breeches. Her brows drew together. If she believed these visions she had were real depictions of the future, then someday he would be lying naked in chains while someone touched that stone to his body and gave him pain.

What nonsense! What one saw in the world was all there was. Physical substance and the venality of human nature-that was what you could count on. Everything else was wishful thinking. She was seeing what she wanted to see. And seeing Gian Urbano naked and forced to submit was but the unspoken fascination she had for his beauty and her desire to see him taken down a peg for his arrogance. She should be ashamed that her unacknowledged wishes were thus made corporeal in these "visions." The vision of Maria's death was really a wish that someone would love her. She hated to admit that desire, but it had been present ever since she'd been abandoned. It was her imagination that what happened with Urbano at the fountain in front of the burning building matched a vision she had had earlier. One always remade a supposed vision in the face of facts. Why had she seen a carriage accident'? Perhaps all these imaginings just revealed how badly she wanted to be "special" now that she was alone in the world. She was making up supernatural powers for herself. Pathetic!

But Luigi had made no demur that his wife was named Maria. How had she known that?"You were kind to ask after Maria," Urbano said, wiping his mouth with the napkin.

Kate realized he must have heard the whole conversation.

"Did Sophia tell you about her and Luigi?" he continued. "They are quite in love, even after so many years. I am never quite sure if that is a mark of the lower cla.s.ses. Love seems to be in short supply among the aristocracy."

That was it. Sophia must have told her about Luigi and Maria. She had been so tired she had just forgotten. "In my opinion, love is an illusion altogether." She had imagined that Luigi and Maria loved each other because she was weak and that's what she wanted to believe. Ever since she was abandoned, even through the a.s.signations Matthew had arranged for her and select "admirers" before the scar, she must have held on to a wish that there was such a thing as true love. There wasn't, and she should get over such weakness immediately.

"It does exist," he said, sipping his coffee, "though I have never felt it personally."

He was just being contrary, "You take it on faith? I don't mean infatuation." she warned.

He looked up at her. She could barely make out his features in the shadow of the swaying coach. "My mother loved my father, and I believe he returned her love." The pain that drenched his voice was palpable. Why would that give him pain? Unless he didn't believe it, and was just saying that to try to make it true. With his next words, he deliberately lightened his tone. "He died long ago, of course. She knew he would. She always says it gave their love poignancy." He snorted derisively. "No good came of it. Certainly not my birth. And it ruined her for anybody else. Personally, I think she would have been better off not loving him."

What could she say to that? He apparently shared her cynical view of the world at least. "Did your father tell you he loved her in return?"

"He was not the type."

"So you have only her word for it. People like to imagine themselves in love. Me, I never take anything on faith."

"No faith..." he murmured. "Unusual in one who was raised with nuns."

"Not as unusual as you would think." she said grimly.

"You are sure there is no G.o.d?"

She wasn't sure, and the question made her uncomfortable so she deflected it. "And what do you believe in? Does it include G.o.d?"

He put aside his tray on the seat next to him and took a careful breath. When he let it out and leaned back into the corner, some of the arrogance seemed to be let out of him. "G.o.d? I'm not sure anymore. But I believe you must live as if G.o.d existed. I...

believe in duty, I suppose... honor."

"So you've said." She let her voice reveal what she thought of that.

"I agree they're little enough," he said, voice tight. "Sometimes they're all that's left."

She realized she had touched some painful point. They were like two hedgehogs set in a tiny box. They'd p.r.i.c.k each other b.l.o.o.d.y at this rate. But there was nothing else to do but talk to him or sleep. And she had slept her fill. She threw up her hands.