Read Online Sins of the House of Borgia by Sarah Bower - Free Book Online Page B

Cesare took my hand in his and brushed my palm with his lips. He was not wearing gloves and I noticed he had a powder burn on the back of his right hand, a smudged grey tattoo just behind the middle knuckle. Of all the memories of him I carry in my heart, this is one of the tenderest. It showed me he was a man, who could be damaged. Who could be loved.
    “Will you dance with me, Donata?”
    “If my lady permits it, your grace.”
    “Oh, she will permit it. And she will permit you to call me Cesare.”
    I was aware of Angela looking at me, her expression blended of amusement, curiosity, and a trace of anxiety. My eyes were drawn to her, but they were held by Cesare as firmly as he now held my hand, with a slight, delicious crush.
    Emboldened, I said, “If you wish me to dance, sir…Cesare, you must let me go. I fear the table stands between me and the dance floor.”
    “Step up. It’s surely not too high for you.” He smiled, a boy’s smile, showing very white teeth. “Or are you less good at physical gymnastics than spiritual ones?”
    Uncertain what he was talking about, I said, “The reverse, I think,” and stepped up on to the table in response to his light tug on my arm. A shout of laughter and a burst of applause came from the direction of the pope’s chair as Cesare placed his hands either side of my waist and lifted me down. A bowl of marzipan roses crashed to the floor, dislodged by the hem of my skirt. Various dogs crept out from beneath the tables and snaffled the sweets, among them the same old blind hound I recognised from my last, humiliating encounter with its master, its scrawny neck now weighed down by a gem-encrusted collar. For a moment, Cesare paused, watching the dogs, then hailed one of the slaves and gave him some instructions I did not hear because just then, seeing the duke step out on to the floor, the musicians struck up a pavane. The French dances were all the fashion since the duke had taken a French wife.
    Couples formed behind us as we led the dance. The pavane, my dancing master taught me, should be performed with a stately grace, the couples always two arms’ lengths apart and no more than palms touching. Clearly, Cesare and I had not shared the same dancing master; the pavane as he performed it had grace, certainly, but little in the way of stateliness. When I offered my palm, he interlaced my fingers with his own; when I attempted to walk through a turn, he seized me by my waist, whispering to me how he marvelled at its smallness, and whirled me around, holding me so close I could smell wine and cloves on his breath and feel his heartbeat, the flex of the muscles in his thighs, his arousal which thrilled me then made me feel ashamed of myself. All the time we danced his dark gaze held mine, and though I could not mistake the desire in his eyes, I was unnerved by a sense that this was just what he wanted me to see, that he could control those vital spirits that originate in the heart and show themselves in the eyes with the same easy competence that made him disdain the proper rules of the dance.
    “You perform the pavane most…originally, my lord,” I said, trying to restore our communion to a proper level of decency.
    “You have a quarrel with my style?” He paused for the space of a heartbeat, his brows arched in surprise. No one else could possibly have noticed, so quickly did he rediscover his rhythm.
    “If we do not dance according to the rules, surely we disrespect the music, and music is the voice given us by the Almighty with which to worship Him, is it not? Ficino says…”
    “Ficino, is it? So you are an educated girl.” He pinched my waist. “Good. My illustrious sister should have intelligent women about her, or she is as a princess clothed in rags.”
    “In which her beauty would shine all the brighter by contrast.”
    “And now will you quote me your drawing master? Much more of this sparring and I shall lose my footing utterly and,” lowering his voice