Part 6 (1/2)
”Couldn't you at least have provided some books to pa.s.s the time?” Of course she couldn't read in the dark. ”And a candle or something?”
”I wouldn't have guessed you for a reader,” he said dryly.The man was astounding! ”And why ever not?” she shot back.
”Well... your past...”
”And what do you think I did at the orphanage if not read?” Books took her away for a few hours from that stifling atmosphere.
”Ahhh, the nuns.” She could hear the smile in his voice. ”So you read the Bible.”
”I liked the Old Testament,” she said, just to shock him. ”All that smiting and lying together. That seemed real. The New Testament was harder to take, requiring belief in the power of transformation and all.” She c.o.c.ked her head. ”And what are your favorite books?”
”I like the Romans. Philosophers, but practical too.”
”Cicero? Marcus Aurelius? Julius Augustus?”
”You p.r.o.nounce Cicero correctly,” he said, surprised. ”Most English use the soft s sound and not the ch sound.”
”Wonders never cease.” Just another sign of his arrogance.
”You've read them, haven't you?” It was an accusation.
”Rem acu tetigisti. After reading the Bible in Latin, it was a natural progression.”
”I can't believe the nuns kept copies of Roman writers.”
”Oh, so I must have stopped reading after I left the orphanage?” She shook her head, disgusted. ”I just might have read other books as well.” She didn't say she read so much because after she'd been scarred, she stayed much in her rooms. She often borrowed books from her patrons. Since most of them didn't care for books, they often gave her free run of their libraries.
”I stand corrected. Forgive me.”
She would have expected a mocking tone, but none was in evidence. His apology was straightforward. If it wasn't Gian Urbano, she would have thought it was sincere. ”Apology accepted.” She cleared her throat. ”I suppose you like the Romans because of your heritage.”
”One likes that with which one is familiar.” He paused. ”My father gave me Cicero's diatribe against slavery and what it did to the Roman psyche. Cicero loved freedom.”
”All the time he kept slaves, as I recall.”
Urbano obviously didn't want to recall that fact. ”I also read the British. Fielding, Shakespeare, Marlowe. Though I can't say I found Richardson sympathetic.”
”A heroine who fades away rather than make the least push to escape her fate? I should think not.” She stopped for a moment.
Would a Roman gigolo have read Clarissa, for heaven's sake? ”And how are you familiar with British literature?”
She felt his smile as much as saw it.
”One likes that with which one is familiar. How do you think I got my green eyes?”
She sat up straighten ”Mother or father?”
”Father.”The one his mother loved. ”A bored aristocrat making the grand tour?”
”Hardly.” He chuckled. The sound was a warm rumble. It was the first humor she had heard from him.
”No doubt a soldier in one of the various armies that swept through here, a deluded idealistic aristocrat or a mercenary.” She waved a hand, dismissing his father.
”Close enough. A soldier.”
”But you knew him, so he must have deserted the army and stayed on to be with your mother. How romantic.”
”Now you are being snide.”
”Well, it is no wonder your English is so good,” she said grudgingly. He was right. The snide comment had not been fair. Perhaps deserting the army wasn't the convenient or cowardly thing to do. Perhaps deserting had cost him something. In which case Urbano's father might really have loved his mother, or thought he did for a brief time.
”And the fact that you read Latin is probably why your Italian is so good.”
”And my French and Spanish and my Romanian, since they share Latin roots. German was a little harder.” There, let him take that. He was always so eager to dismiss her.
”Voi Vorbiti romaneste?” He spoke it with a strange, archaic lilt to his inflection.
”Destul de bine. Sunt putin a-si fi pierut obisnuinta. Not a language commonly spoken in Rome.” She lifted her brows in question, not sure if he could see her face in the darkness.
”My mother was born there.”
”I thought she was Italian.”
”Now she claims Italy as her own. But she comes from an... old family in Transylvania.” He sat up. ”Enough about my parentage. You will meet my mother and judge for yourself. At the next change of horses, I will provide you with a book from my trunk. You can hold the shade and to let in enough light to read by. I have Byron's poetry, I believe, and Cervantes... but it is not a translation.”
She looked at him over her brows.
”My apologies, of course you would not mind that. I believe I have one also from a British female writer, Miss Austen. Have you read her comedies of manners?”
”But they are so much more!”
”She knows the human condition,” he agreed. ”Indeed, my only reservation is that the principles of the French philosophers and the Revolution are nowhere in her works. Was she so cloistered that the most cataclysmic event of her time did not affect her?”
”You have obviously not read deeply enough...”
Chapter Six.
Urbano closed the door on the cacophony of drinkers outside the parlor of the osteria in the hotel where they had stopped.
Quiet descended on Kate. They were not to spend the night, but go straight through. Sleeping in a rocking carriage-ugh. His conversation had been surprisingly educated, even entertaining today, though he had grown increasingly fidgety throughout the afternoon. She hadn't had a conversation that challenged her intellectually since... well, since she'd argued with the visiting abbess about the concept of original sin when she was fourteen. She walked to the cheery fire burning in the grate and held out her hands to the heat. The evening was cool.
She felt his energy snake seductively along her skin. The vibrations weren't as strong as they had been, were they? It didn't matter. Even slow, they were a danger. Best she find some armor to protect against his effect on her. He came up behind her.
”I... I will return shortly,” he said, his voice husky. ”I've ordered refreshments.”
She chanced a glance behind her. He did not meet her gaze, but turned abruptly and strode to the door. ”We stay an hour.