“Get out!” I shrieked, beyond all patience, beyond trying to reason with him and make him see his error. “Get out of my chambers this instant! I cannot bear the sight of you, you false friend!”
Surprisingly, he did in fact move to leave. “No doubt it is best that I am gone before I do something I will regret,” he snarled. “But you will heed me, Simonetta, or, so help me God, you will be sorry.”
With that, he stalked out, slamming the door of the bedchamber so hard behind him that the very walls rattled.
I remained where I was, trembling with rage and anguish. Moments later, I heard the main door slam downstairs. I hurried to the window just in time to see Marco stalk off down the street, practically running in his haste to be away from the house. From me.
It had come to this. Our marriage, our life together, all our hope and love and pain and struggles, had come to this. Who knew if we would ever put it right? Though I had stopped loving Marco long ago—if indeed I had ever loved him in the true sense of the word—it filled a part of me with sadness all the same.
We might not have the time to put it right. I might not have the time to put it right.
But the rest of me could not care. The majority of my heart did not want to set eyes on Marco ever again, did not want to have to put up with this farce of a marriage for another instant.
Did not want to remain in this house—his house—for another moment, even though he was not here. Even though he had forbidden me from leaving. What did I care for that now? Did he mean for me to spend the rest of my life—whatever was left of it—trapped in here like a prisoner?
I refused.
Scarcely thinking about what I was doing, I strode back into the dressing room and pulled out a cloak. I exited the bedchamber, flinging open the door Marco had slammed in my face. I half fell, half flew down the stairs in my haste to be away.
I had not taken for myself the one thing, the only thing in all my life that I had truly wanted, truly yearned for, despite multiple temptations. I had resisted, and yet I was to be blamed and scorned and punished and shamed just the same as if I had not.
Might I not have him, then? Might I not make myself happy, while I still had the chance?
Just as I reached the front door, I heard a man clear his throat behind me. “Ah … Madonna Vespucci…”
I spun around to see Giovanni, Marco’s manservant, step into the entryway. “Yes?” I asked impatiently. “What is it?”
“Allora, you see, your husband, he … he has given me instructions that I am not to let you leave the house,” he said. “Or that, if you tell me where you are going, I am to accompany you.”
I laughed at him outright before turning back to the door. “This is absurd, Giovanni. I shall leave this house if I choose to.”
“I … I am afraid I cannot let you, Madonna. Your husband, he—”
I whirled around to face him. “Oh, you cannot, can you?” I demanded. “Tell me, Giovanni, what are you going to do to stop me? Will you lay hands on me, and bodily restrain your master’s wife from leaving her own house? Is Marco’s temper so fearsome that you would mistreat me so, so as not to disobey him?”
His moment of hesitation told me all I needed to know.
“No,” I spat. “I thought not.”
With that, I yanked open the door and stepped out into the chill evening air.
37
I had never been out alone in the streets of Florence after dark before. I should have been nervous and on edge, jumping at every sound and shadow, yet my mind had no space for such things. I nearly ran the entire way to Sandro’s workshop, so intent was I on getting there.
A part of me wondered what I would do if he was not home, or if his apprentices and assistants were there with him.
Yet it was almost as though he knew I was coming, as though he had been waiting for me. When I arrived he was all alone, working on a painting with candles lit all around him—some commission or other.
I stepped inside without knocking, and he turned at the sound of the door opening. I must have looked quite a sight, for he dropped his paintbrush on the floor with a clatter at the sight of me. “Simonetta,” he said, concerned. “What—Are you well? Is everything all right? What are you doing here?”
“Yes, I am well,” I said. “And no, everything is not all right. Nothing is.” I drew a deep, shuddering breath. “But it can be.”
We stared at each other for a long moment, then I moved forward toward him, even as he came to meet me. I flung myself into his arms, and his lips descended on mine as he crushed me to him. My mouth opened underneath his, and I moaned deep in my throat as his tongue slid hungrily into my mouth.
It had been so long that we had resisted, so long that we had gone without so much as touching each other in any intimate way. So long that we had gone without even a kiss. Now, finally, that long-awaited kiss had come, and I felt that the world around me was suddenly rendered in even more brilliant colors, as though we had stepped into one of his paintings and away from our own imperfect world.
Yet even such a kiss was not enough. Mouths still working, I shrugged off my cloak and let it fall to the floor. He lifted me easily in his arms, and I wrapped my legs around his waist as he took me to a small pallet against the wall—no doubt a place where one of his assistants slept when they worked late into the night.
But as he laid me down on the pallet, sudden doubt overtook me, an almost paralyzing fear—not for myself, but for him. “Wait,” I cried out. “I…” I struggled to catch my breath, to form the words I knew I needed to say. “If we do this, we are both adulterers,” I said. “And even if no one ever knows of it, your soul will be—”
He leaned over me and placed a finger across my lips. “Don’t,” he said roughly. “I do not care, not if you do not. It is worth my immortal soul to spend one night with you.”
We spoke no more.
It had been too long that we had waited, and we could wait no longer. I hastily unlaced his breeches, and he pushed them down even as one hand pushed my skirts up around my waist. His mouth met mine again as he lowered himself atop me. I clutched him to me hungrily and arched against him as he thrust into me. I cried aloud with joy and pleasure and relief simply at the feel of him inside me.
He moaned as he entered me, as he began to move within me. “Simonetta,” he said, his voice ragged. “Simonetta, my Simonetta.”
I wrapped my legs tightly around his waist, drawing him deeper and deeper inside me, feeling the warmth building within me, ready to shatter me. “Yes,” I sighed. “Yes, Sandro. Please.”