Part 3 (2/2)
Elyta hesitated. Then she decided. ”This isn't the last,” she hissed. ”And when I return, I will bring friends.”
The words came from a distance. The pain of being burned alive. That would be Kate's fate as well. She should crawl toward the door. But the sparkling blackness ate at her field of vision. And she couldn't crawl. She couldn't see. She...
Kate coughed and sputtered back into consciousness. Her cheek was pressed against woolen fabric. Cinnamon and something else, something sweet but quintessentially masculine, a.s.sailed her nostrils.
”Quiet. You're well.” The voice was baritone.She looked around. Gian Urbano was holding her against his chest and hurrying across the piazza in front of her lodgings toward the fountain. People were scurrying about the piazza, shouting. Behind Urbano, a building was engulfed in flames. That seemed familiar. She stretched up against his shoulder. It was her building! The stone was in there.
Urbano looked over his shoulder and cursed under his breath. A man came tottering out of the building in his nights.h.i.+rt. Urbano put her down, and grabbed a man with luxuriant mustachios just coming up to gawk. ”Watch over her,” he commanded. He looked back at the fire. That seemed familiar somehow. ”There are still people in there.”
”Are you going for the stone?”
He swiveled his head and stared at her. ”I thought you took it to a bank.”
She looked up at him, still dazed, and shook her head. ”In a drawer of the dresser, wrapped in my chemise.”
He stared at her for one long moment. Realization struck him. She could feel his dismay, and then his resolution. He swallowed.
Then he faced the burning building again, straightened, and struck off at a lope across the square.
Kate sat up, ignoring the protest of her guardian. He'd be burned alive. And what she had just witnessed was exactly what she had seen in her premonition.
Everything she'd ever had was in that building. She looked down. Her reticule still hung from her wrist. That meant she had her cards at least. But that was all. Oh, she had the money from her readings tonight, enough for a few night's lodging, no more.
She'd spent her dream money and never even gotten the stone cut. The stone was her only hope...
Urbano was up there getting the emerald for himself. Why, for G.o.d's sake, had she told him where it was? Either he retrieved it for himself or it was cracked or spoiled by the heat. Then no one would have it. At least if he got it out, she'd have a chance to purloin it from him.
Long minutes pa.s.sed. People ran from the building, coughing. She thought she saw Urbano escorting them through the blaze to the front door, but she could not be sure because he always disappeared back into the smoke and flame. Kate pushed herself to her knees. The wait was unbearable. Where was he? No one could survive the inferno the building had become.
Behind her, she heard a great splash. She turned. People with buckets were taking water from the fountain to throw on the building. Useless.
Gian Urbano staggered up out of the fountain. People jumped back, shouting in surprise.
His coat was shredded on his back, his breeches burned away from his thighs, revealing skin red and bubbling everywhere it was not black with smoke or, worse, charred. She felt her stomach turn and scrambled to her feet, a little shaky. Dripping, he climbed with effort over the stone lip of the fountain. How had he gotten by her without her noticing?
There! He put something in the pocket of his tattered coat. It had to be the jewel.
She hurried over, resisting the urge to ask if he was all right. ”Well, that was foolish.” Her voice sounded tremulous. She cleared her throat. ”Did you get it?” That was better.
He bent over, choking. He smelled like a doused fire, which she suspected he was. But finally he nodded. Well, then...
She put her arm around him, as though she was a.s.sisting him. It was the work of a moment to slip the stone out of its box in his pocket and into her reticule as he caught his breath. He'd never know it was no longer his until he opened the box and found it gone.
He coughed again then stood upright. ”If it makes you feel better, by all means keep it.”She was taken aback. No one had ever caught her out. Ever. She was the best at what she did. She wanted to protest, but she, for once, was at a loss for words.
”And now,” he gasped, sounding stronger. ”Let us away before we run into our friend Elyta once again.”
”She'll be back?”
”I expect so.”
He took Kate's elbow firmly. A sense of his electric aliveness ran through her, making her shudder. Sensation pooled between her legs. What a fool she was, to react so to a man! He seemed to have that effect on her, regardless of the circ.u.mstance. That was dangerous. He pulled her along. She squirmed, but couldn't wrench herself from his grip.
”Where are you taking me?” she protested as he guided her out of the square.
”To my mother.”
Whatever answer she expected, it certainly wasn't that one. To his mother? It left her speechless for the second time tonight.
For one thing, it seemed so... unthreatening. And all he had done was threaten her since the moment she met him. She had no illusion she could keep the stone if he wanted to wrest it from her. His grip on her elbow told its tale of strength, despite his being burned.
At first he walked slowly and painfully, but soon she had to skip to keep up with him. In truth, she felt dazed by all that had happened. Red eyes, her vision of what had happened here tonight, a woman who nearly killed her, then waking up in the square with fire eating up all her hopes and Urbano rus.h.i.+ng inside a burning building after the stone... She was numb.
She recognized the Piazza Navona as they hurried past Bernini's three fountains. Then, across from a park filled with ancient plane trees that lined the river Tiber, they came to a facade of old stone and arched windows. The door was opened by a very discreet servant, dressed in black, who gasped at the sight of Urbano.
”It isn't as bad as it looks, Paolo,” Urbano murmured.
”May I attend you, signore?” the servant asked, concerned. Then his gaze found Kate.
”No. But your wife will attend to Miss... Mulroney.” She had never told him her name, so he must have asked after her. ”She has lost everything in a fire, but I'm sure there are... things enough somewhere... to provide...” He trailed off, looking around.
Perhaps he was dazed too.
Kate examined him more closely in the light of the well-lit foyer. His burns weren't as bad as she'd first thought. She had imagined charred flesh beneath the holes in his clothes, but now it was really only reddened, blistered skin and soot. But he was still burned. How was he even standing? How had he hurried her across the entire Centro Storico of Rome?
A huge standing clock against the wall struck one A.M. Urbano blinked. ”Have my carriage ready at five, and Piccolo. Pack a trunk.”
”Do you... travel during daylight?” Paolo asked. He was hovering anxiously now.
”I'll ride inside the carriage during the day.” Urbano staggered toward an elegant curved staircase with a carved wooden bal.u.s.trade. They both stared as he trudged up the stairs. At the top he turned. ”Oh, and did I say you should prepare a trunk for Miss Mulroney as well?”
Paolo nodded, though Urbano had done no such thing. Even trusted servants didn't dare contradict him. What must it be like to work for a man so arrogant and unfeeling? She looked around. The house was furnished with taste and elegance. That painting there... was it... was it a da Vinci?
It had all the humanity of the master s.h.i.+ning from the face of the middle-aged portrait subject. And there, the one that hung at the landing of the staircase... surely the pastels of a Botticelli. How did even a first-rate gigolo afford such luxury?
She didn't care. She would be gone soon. These servants didn't seem too formidable. She need only wait until Urbano was asleep.
Paolo rang the bellpull at one end of the foyer. He was a compact man with snapping brown eyes and a fringe of longish hair around a bald pate. If he was nonplussed by his master bringing home an unescorted female at one in the morning, he gave no sign. It probably happened frequently, Kate thought grimly.
”Are you injured, signorina?” he asked, though he kept glancing up to where his master had disappeared.
Kate put her hands to her throat. Bruises must be forming even now. What must he think? ”A bit knocked about. I... I hope your master is well.” He had, after all saved her life tonight.
<script>