1. The Beginning
Chapter 1
The Beginning
I nquietante.
That was how her voice made me feel. As though I was a haunted man. Pelle d'oca , goosebumps, rose on my arms and seemed to go straight to my stomach with the rise and fall of her passionate voice. Wrapping her arms around herself, eyes closed, performing an aria from the opera Norma, she was one of the most stunning women I had ever seen.
Long hair the color of a raven’s feathers. Skin the color of an ancient olive from the sacred tree. Eyes of sparkling green, but it almost seemed a sin to describe them that way. If my eyes were the green of the sea when sunlight shimmers over the water, hers were the green of the sea at sundown. She was tall and lithe, but underneath the dress and millions of dollars’ worth of jewels, I could tell she had curves.
This was a special performance at the oldest theater in the world. Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Italy. It was being broadcasted for all of Italy to see.
It felt as though it was only she and I in this theater, and she was singing only to me.
The passion in her voice was as warm as the sun beating down on chilled skin. I felt the romance in it, and it moved the passionate blood in my veins. I closed my eyes, knowing that, if this was all there was between us, it would not matter if her physical appearance spoke to my desires in a language neither of us could understand.
Her voice.
The way it embedded itself inside of me.
Ran through my veins.
That was all that was needed, even if the lion in my chest only lifted his head and scented the air. She had stirred him some with her romance.
Her passion serenaded me in the same language as mine.
In this, we understood each other completely, yet we hadn’t spoken a word to each other.
With my eyes closed to the world, even to her, I imagined her breaths entwining with mine. For as angelic as she sounded, her voice had barbs, and those sharp points had clasped on to the romantic inside of me.
This woman, this Rosaria Caffi, legend in the opera world, had done something few women could do: hold my attention, even with my eyes closed, with her voice alone. I was not expecting her voice to move me as it was. Men with romance running through their veins had warned me of its tranquilizing power, but up until that moment, I did not believe it to be true.
Do not get me wrong. The opera is to my soul as food is to the body. Nourishing. The voices of opera have moved my family since the beginning of its time and ours. But I had never been moved to tears. I had never been moved to close my eyes and shut out the world, while her romance and passion lulled mine into a trance only men in love could understand. It commanded me to drop my sword and armor at her feet, allowing myself to be vulnerable in her presence.
My vital heart, the lion, was put underneath a spell and left unguarded.
I imagined a world without her voice in it, and silent tears streamed down my cheeks in cleansing rivers. I was a man who had been moved without a push or a shove. I was a man who had been moved by the simple beauty in a woman’s voice.
Where her beauty resided was a truthful place. A place that could never lie to me. No matter her actions or her words, when she sang to me, she would sing in truth.
We had a saying in my famiglia .
La mia parola è buona come il mio sangue.
My word is as good as my blood.
In this moment, I made a solemn vow to myself. I would always protect this songbird, if she would wrap me up and protect me with the truth in her voice. Perhaps our union would not be traditional, but with the warmth of our passion, perhaps we could run hot for each other until the end of our days.
Out of all the women my father had offered to me for a marriage arrangement, it made sense that this one came toward me in the witch’s tower while the rest ran and hid. To validate this moment of truth, her eyes opened at the same time as mine, tears in both of our eyes, as she looked directly at me and our eyes held.
If she commanded me back to her, it would be with a note only she could produce.
If she commanded me to go, she would have to stop singing.
Her voice held the power to haunt me.
Not from the afterlife, but in this one.