"He is said to be an intelligent man," Roger remarked. "If so, no doubt you find his company a compensation for his monopoly of you."
She pouted. "He is well enough, and would be a pleasant companion were he not so atrociously suspicious that everyone is for ever hiding something from him. Even his own brother, the Emperor Joseph, once wrote to him: 'Let people deceive you sometimes rather than torment yourself constantly and vainly.' Yet he will not take such advice, and undoes the effects of his natural kindness by his unremitting itch to pry into everything."
"Far from putting a check upon deception, contact with such a nature usually irritates others into practising it."
No sooner had Roger uttered the truism than he regretted having done so; as Donna Livia gave him a swift glance, and replied: "I can imagine circumstances in which I might well be tempted to amuse myself at his expense."
Roger found her glance perturbing, but before he could turn the conversation she went on smoothly: "At one time or another he has suspected me of wanting to have an affaire with practically every presentable man in Florence; but there is not one of them who could keep a still tongue in his head afterwards, and I am not quite such a fool as to wish to be deprived of my jewels, and a secure old age on a handsome pension, for the sake of a few hours' pleasure. Yet were there a man I liked enough—and one whom I might regard as gone out of my life for good, tomorrow—then, the very fact of deceiving my royal lover under his nose would lend zest to such an adventure."
"I can well understand your feeling," Roger nodded; but he hastily continued: "I wonder if he ever suspects his Grand Duchess; though from what I hear the poor creature is so plain that he can have little cause to do so."
"You are right in that," Donna Livia smiled. "And she is a model wife. She has had sixteen children by him—the same number as the brood of which he was one himself—and despite his infidelities she still dotes upon him. But even she and I in combination are not sufficient to hold his entire interest. He often lies to me about it, but I know quite well that whenever he fails to come here, apart from Fridays and Sundays, it is because he is supping with some young thing who has caught his eye."
For the best part of an hour they talked on in the same intimate vein. Donna Livia was making the most of this unforeseen opportunity to unburden herself to a sympathetic and attractive stranger; and Roger, both intrigued by the extraordinary situation in which he found himself and fascinated by her beauty, had not given a single thought to Isabella. Neither of them sought to disguise from themselves that they were physically attracted to the other.
Several times they got on to dangerous ground when one word too much would have proved the spark to ignite them; but somehow, one or the other always turned the conversation just in time, and the electric current that threatened to flash between them was checked by a transfer of the subject from the personal to the general.
At length she asked him if he would like a glass of wine. On his accepting she stood up, and he followed her to a low, curtained doorway at one side of the room. The old woman who had been there when he arrived was still dozing in her corner. With a casual glance in her direction Donna Livia said:
"Do not concern yourself about old Pippa. She was His Highness's nurse, and is the one person he trusts; but I have long since bought her. Besides, she was once young herself, and knows that occasionally I must have a little recreation."
As Roger passed through the curtains, he swallowed hard, for he saw that she had brought him into a small room that he presumed few people except the Grand Duke were permitted to enter. It was obviously a chambre d’amour. The whole of its ceiling was made of mirrors; the walls were decorated with frescoes depicting the metamorphosis of Jupiter into a Bull, a Swan, and a Shower of Gold, while in the act of seducing various ladies in these disguises. The only furniture in the room consisted of a huge divan with a small table to either side of it, and one cabinet having a bookcase for its upper part and a cupboard below.
From the cupboard Donna Livia produced a bottle of champagne and glasses. While Roger opened the bottle and poured the wine, she took a thin folio volume from one of the shelves and began idly to turn its pages.
"What have you. there?" he asked, his voice coming a little unsteadily.
" 'Tis one of His Highness's favourites," she replied quietly. "This folio contains a set of beautifully executed paintings to illustrate the works of Pietro Aretino the Divine. Since this is His Highness's room and you are in it, perhaps it would amuse you to look through them with me."
Roger was already conversant with the writings of that extraordinary man who had been the boon companion of Titian and Sansovino three centuries earlier in Venice. With his heart pounding in his chest he took a pace forward and looked over her shoulder. The book was at that date the greatest treatise on the art of love that had ever been written, and the illustrations of the height of human rapture were the work of a great artist. Yet none of the women portrayed in them were more beautiful than Donna Livia.
Roger's arm slid round her waist. Beneath her flowing robe she wore no corsets. She turned and her big green eyes, now languorous with desire, met his. Suddenly she dropped the book, pressed her warm body against him and whispered:
"I would that I could prolong this moment. But we have little enough time. Let us make the most of it."
CHAPTER TWELVE
HOSTAGES TO FORTUNE
IT was ten o'clock. Roger sat alone in a small library on the far side of the marble hall from Donna Livia's salon. It was very quiet. No one seemed to be moving in the big house and he could have heard a hairpin drop.
Instead of amusing himself by looking at some of the thousand or so calf-bound, gilt-backed volumes the little room contained he was sitting uncomfortably on the edge of an elbowless chair, staring at the mosaic of the floor. It was well worthy of inspection, as it had once known the tread of patrician Roman feet in a villa at Baie; and, only after having lain buried there for many centuries, been removed and relaid, piece by piece, in its present position at the order of a Medici.
But Roger was not even conscious of it. With a mental pain, that almost seemed a physical hurt, he was thinking of Isabella, and wondering miserably what could have possessed him to spend the past two hours in the way he had.
He knew perfectly well that it was no question of his having fallen in love with Donna Livia at first sight. But for the subtly intoxicating urge to passion that had radiated from her, he would have continued to regard her with much the same detached pleasure that other supremely beautiful, but inanimate, objects had afforded him during his stay in Florence. And he felt no love for her now. One does not have to love the ripe peach taken from a sunny garden wall because one enjoys its luscious flavour. On the contrary he felt that he loved Isabella more than he had ever done before.
The thought that he had been unfaithful to her troubled him greatly. It was one thing to recognize that time might cause passion to fade and lead to other loves; but quite another to betray love when it was still in its first blooming. He found it difficult to analyse his troubled mind, but the nearest he could get to doing so was the feeling that he had committed a kind of sacrilege.
His sense of guilt made him nervy and apprehensive. He now dreaded seeing Isabella again, yet at the same time was more anxious than ever to get back to her, so that they could get away together as swiftly as possible. His uneasiness was further added to by the horrid, lurking suspicion that in some way or other the gods would make him pay for his betrayal of love. He felt that he had given hostages to Fortune and would not feel secure again until he and Isabella were safely out of Italy.