CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A ring. It hesitated at my knuckle, then glided all the way on to rest against my hand proper.
I knew what it was, of course, but I lifted it to the light and saw in the polished stones a dark beauty reflecting the intensity and invincibility of Prince Escalus. For invincibility was what he intended me to see.
“God creates diamonds in this shape and with no color, brilliant, clear, a symbol of purity.” He defined the properties of a diamond with such precision he seemed to be instructing me. “Thus it is a stone to be given to dearest betrothed. The stone will ward off evil, destroy the effects of poison, and lend strength to a warrior...such as yourself.”
I formed my hand into a fist. If only he knew what this warrior longed to do.
Perhaps he did, for he took my curled fingers and straightened them. “Diamonds are unbreakable and so hard they cannot be cut.”
“How does it achieve this shape?” I didn’t believe that, for the stone resembled two pyramids joined at the base.
“This diamond was formed in the Garden of Eden before the Fall. It’s one of God’s perfect creations, signifying divinity, spiritual union, and...love.” Again he put his lips to my hand, and again I felt the slow, warm, wet slide of his tongue between my fingers.
“Subtle.” I yanked my hand free. “How did you get the ring when I could not?”
“I took it from the unconscious Prospero’s broken finger.”
“Oh.” I contemplated the band, the dark jewel that Prince Escalus used to permanently mark me as his possession. “I see.” I did. Another demonstration that I lacked the strength of a man. Like I didn’t already know that. Like it wasn’t constantly, every day of my life, ground into my mind by society, the Church, and most of all by men. None of whom I liked at this moment.
“Right before I placed a gold coin on each of his closed eyes.”
Oh. My lips formed the word, but I didn’t voice it. According to ancient tradition, one laid two coins on a corpse’s eyes to pay for Charon’s transport across the river Styx and into the lands of the dead. I indulged in a moment of imagination; Count Prospero’s moment of disorientation on regaining consciousness, of suffering the weight on the eyes and then realization—coins! As if he had already died! And not merely coins. Gold coins from Verona’s podestà.
When I regained my voice, I asked, “A subtle portent to Count Prospero?”
“Less than subtle. He leaves Verona this morning and forever, or suffer the wrath of the prince of Verona.”
I’d never heard Prince Escalus speak of himself in regal third person, and I took that as a portent as surely as Prospero, on his waking, would take the warning.
I needed to know one more thing. “My prince, how did you know the ring had gone astray?”
He drew himself up in chilly reprimand. “Madame Culatello knows her duty, if you do not, and sought me out to tell me the whole story and beg my help.”
I wanted to collapse in relief. “I’m so glad!”
Clearly he was puzzled. “Glad that she alone in this affair has good sense?”
“No, glad that she wasn’t the one who betrayed me to Count Prospero. I consider her a friend, and when I thought she had...I believed for a few horrible moments that she’d betrayed me to him. It was a misunderstanding, one I should never have allowed myself to indulge in.” I thought of Count Prospero’s fist to her face. “I pray she hasn’t suffered too much for this night.”
“I also do so pray.”
I walked toward the gate. “If you’re done playing cat-and-mouse games with me”—yes, I was grouchy—“I would go home to Casa Montague and seek solace in my bed, for I’m weary and sore with much effort.”
“Yes, you can go.” He stopped me with one hand on my arm. “In a minute.”
I feared what more he would do and say, but he paused to grimace and rearrange himself as if his codpiece fit too tightly for comfort.
Small consolation, that, but I felt pleased to be not alone in my suffering.