He turned his charm on her ladies. With them he was most successful.
Later they chattered about him to Lucrezia. Oh, but he was charming! Not handsome—they would admit that. His eyes were slanting, yet that gave them a look of humor. His nose was flattened as though his mother had sat on him when he was a baby; but did that not call attention to the tender mouth? He was fond of women; that was understandable. What a life he must have with that harridan, Isabella! They could love him out of very pity because he was married to such a woman.
What a remarkable horseman he was! Why, when he rode out with a party he sat his horse in a manner that set him apart from all others. Did Lucrezia notice how his horse welcomed his approach and became lively and spirited as soon as he mounted?
“He has devoted much of his time to horses,” said Lucrezia.
“It is to be understood,” cried Angela. “Such a wife would drive anyone to something else. It is to his credit that it is only horses.”
“Women,” added Lucrezia lightly, “have also come in for a good deal of his attention, so I have heard.”
“It does not surprise me,” retorted Angela. “I can well believe that he would be … irresistible.”
“I beg of you do not make Giulio jealous of the man,” cried Lucrezia in mock seriousness. “Is it not enough that you give him anxious moments on account of Ippolito?”
“Ippolito!” Angela snapped her fingers. “Let him go back to Sanchia of Aragon.”
Lucrezia laughed at her fiery young cousin, but she was still thinking of Francesco.
Francesco walked in the gardens of the palace and thought of Lucrezia. Never before had he wanted to linger in Ferrara; now he was going to be loath to leave. She excited him. She, with her gentle appearance, her evil reputation. She looked virginal, yet he knew Alfonso was her third husband, and there must have been lovers. Heaven knew there were scandals enough. What was it that excited him? That essential femininity? Or was it that gentleness? He grimaced. She was the complete antithesis of his wife. Was that the reason?
He felt a little sad, contemplating his overbearing Isabella. If she had only been a little less clever or a little less capable, how much easier she would have been to live with! But perhaps if she had been a little more clever she would have understood that she could have ruled him completely. He might have been ruled by gentleness; he never would be by arrogance.
There were times when he hated Isabella. Surely the gentlest of men must rebel against such a wife. Isabella was determined that everyone in Mantua should be her subject, including her husband. There had been times when he had been amused; but there had been others when even his natural placidity had been ruffled.
She no longer appealed to him as a wife or a woman. It seemed sad that this should have happened, for when they had first married he had marveled at his good fortune in having a wife who was possessed of all the virtues.
He was a sensual man, a man of action, yet a man of peace. He had often given way to Isabella, shrugged aside his own preferences, devoted himself to the horses he loved so that now his stables were famous throughout Italy, and the Gonzaga horses renowned for their excellence. He had also loved many women. That was his life, his escape from Isabella.
His courtly manners were the key to his success; that gentle charm, that tender care he was always ready to display, were irresistible. He used them diplomatically although they were not feigned, and it was their very sincerity to which they owed their success.
But toward Lucrezia he felt differently from the way in which he had felt toward any other woman, for Lucrezia was different. So depraved, said public opinion. One of the notorious Borgias. So gentle, said the evidence of his eyes, innocent no matter what has happened to her.
He must solve the riddle of Lucrezia although he was half aware that in solving it he might come to love her differently from the way in which he had ever loved a woman before.
This was clear, because had she been any other he would have planned a quick seduction, an ecstatic, but necessarily brief love affair, and would have returned satisfied to Mantua, fortified against the nagging of Isabella.
But this was different. He must seek to please Lucrezia, to win her confidence, to discover what really lay beyond that serene expression, to understand her true feelings for the poet Bembo.
This he set out to do.
At the balls and banquets he would not with obvious intention seek her out, but it was surprising how often she found herself partnered by him. Often when she walked in the gardens with her women, he—also accompanied by his attendants—would meet her. He would bow most graciously and pause for a few words, calling her attention to the flowers and discussing those which bloomed in the gardens of his palace on the Mincio. The others would fall in behind them.
As the time came nearer when he would be forced to leave for Mantua he began to grow desperate, and one day when they walked in the gardens, their attendants following, he told her, with that fervent sincerity which was so attractive, of his desire to be friends with her.
She turned to him and the candor of her expression moved him deeply. “You are truly kind, my lord,” she said. “I know that you are sincere.”
“I would I could help you. I know of your sadness. You feel alone here in this court. You long for sympathy. Duchessa … Lucrezia, allow me to give that sympathy.”
Again she thanked him.
“The Este!” he snapped his fingers and grimaced. “My own family by marriage. But how cold they are! How unsympathetic! And you … so young and tender, left alone to bear your grief!”
“They do not understand,” said Lucrezia. “It seems none can understand. Until I came to Ferrara I lived close to my father. We were rarely separated. We loved each other … dearly.”
“I know it.” He looked at her quickly, thinking of all the rumors he had heard concerning that love; and again he was deeply moved by her look of innocence.
“I feel,” she said, “that nothing can ever be the same for me again.”
“You feel thus because the loss is so recent. Your sorrow will moderate as time passes.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “My brother said that once.… when I was unhappy about another death.”
“It is true,” he answered.
When she had mentioned her brother’s name there had been a tremor in her voice, and Francesco knew then that her fears for her brother exceeded the misery she felt on account of the death of her father. What was the truth concerning this strange family relationship which had provoked more scandal than any other in Roman history?
Francesco longed to know; he wanted to understand every detail of her life. He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, make her gay, as he felt she was intended to be.
Then he realized that through this family relationship he might win her confidence.
He said softly: “You are anxious on account of your brother?”
She turned to him appealingly. “The news I have heard of him frightens me.”
“I readily understand that. He trusted the new Pope too well, I fear. He seems to forget that Julius has always been an enemy of himself and your father.”