"Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - St Germain 2 - The Palace" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yarbro Chelsea Quinn)

years. That is much more than any of my nearer kinsmen were willing to do." She
stopped abruptly and moved away from him. "Pardon me, Sandro. It is not pleasing
for me to talk this way of my family."
By now the room was almost dark. Sandro was just an indistinct shape with a
voice on the other side of the table. Demetrice thought that the dark must have
something to do with it, for she had never spoken to him this way before. She took
comfort in his friendship and was grateful for his interest, but she insisted on a
reserve between them, and it was as real as the trestle table that stood in front of her.
 Sandra tacitly accepted her rebuff, but added one parting shot. "I am twice your
age, Donna mia. And I tell you, do not depend on anything or anyone in Fiorenza
beyond Laurenzo. Fiorenza is a city of passions, of obsessions, and there is as
much dark in it as light."
"This from you, Sandro?" she said, glad to turn this somber warning to banter.
"Especially from me." Then he, too, abandoned the subject. In a different voice
he said, "I am going away for a few days. Simone and I have business to attend to."
"I wish you a pleasant and safe journey," Demetrice said automatically. "Do you
go far?"
"Only to Pisa. A simple matter. But I would like to ask a favor of you."
"Of course." The words were out before she thought about them, and as soon as
she had spoken, she doubted their wisdom. "If Laurenzo does not require my help
here," she added prudently.
"It is nothing difficult, I promise you." He stopped as a servant came into the
room carrying a taper to light the lanterns that stood at either end of the room and
the three candles on the reading desk beside the fireplace.
The strange air of intimacy that had surrounded them disappeared in the light.
Demetrice said to the servant, "Will you start the fire, too? The room is really quite
chilly."
"Yes, Donna," the servant answered, and bent to her task.
"So it is," Sandro agreed. He rubbed his hands together and adjusted the long
folds of his lucco, the standard social dress of most Fiorenzeni. His was of brown
wool and lacked the intricate pleating at the neck that more prominent men wore.
"What is the favor, Sandro?" Demetrice had gone nearer the fireplace and was
nodding to the servant as the first spurt of flame took hold of the logs laid there.
"Ah, the favor. Yes. It is about my housekeeper, my cousin. You have met
Estasia, haven't you?"
"Yes." Her tone was cautious as she thought of Estasia della Cittadella, of her
soft, sensuous body and vixen's face. The primness of Estasia's widow's coif did
not deceive Demetrice, for she had seen the eager hunger in Estasia's hazel eyes and
heard the coaxing languor in her voice when she spoke to attractive men.
"She does not like to be alone," Sandra said with some difficulty. "Would you be
willing to call on her one of the afternoons I am gone?"
Before she could stop herself, Demetrice asked, "Why?"
"For me? Demetrice?" He hesitated. "She is lonely, you know. It is never easy for
a widow. And she often has trouble with other women. If she had a lover, it would
be different. She would be happier and would have someone to enjoy. But in my
house, there is little opportunity, and Simone is very severe with her."
Demetrice watched as the fire at last began its steady burn, making a friendly rush
and crackle like conversation in an unknown tongue. She frowned, wishing that she
did not. "I don't know."
Sandro had come near her again, and the light from the flames deepened the lines