Page 87 of Thus with a Kiss I Die
Princess Isabella gasped, “Rosie! What are you doing?”
The man convulsed beneath me, gasping and holding his gut, and by the sickening sweet smell, I knew at once who it was. I had landed on Duke Yago’s well-clothed and exceptionally padded frame, and at that moment, I knew this whiny man was not faking an illness.
Old Maria threw back the drapes. Light flooded the room.
From the bed, Nonna Ursula cackled.
The noise froze all sound, all motion.
Nonna Ursula leaned on her elbow, thin and drawn, but alert, watching me and Yago. “Well done, Rosie. He leaned close to speak, and his breath is putrid.”
I leaped to my feet, relieved she was well; but knowing I had blundered, so rather than rushing to her side, I offered my hand to Duke Yago. “My apologies, Your Grace, I saw only a man’s form lurking over Nonna Ursula, and after the attack, I feared the worst. Let me help you rise.”
I thought for a moment he was going to slap me. Someone grabbed the back of my skirts and pulled me away from him, and as I stumbled backward, Lugrezia dropped to her knees beside her husband and hissed at him. “Stop making a display. Get up, get up, I tell you!” Grabbing his arm, she forcibly pulled him to his feet.
I wanted to stop her; I had recognized by his spasms of pain and his trembling gasps that I had hurt him. Something was truly wrong with this man.
But he regained his footing and his dignity, dusted at his clothing as if I’d merely insulted him, and in a voice a little higher than I remembered, he sniped, “You are a romp of a girl who doesn’t deserve the honors my nephew has bestowed on you! You . . . you . . . virago!”
I placed my hand on my heart and curtsied. “My apologies, once again, Your Grace.”
“He’s fine,” Nonna Ursula scoffed. “A little slip of a girl like you could hardly harm a duke of Verona. Isn’t that right, Yago?”
He glared at her, but said, “Aye, Mamma. Now I should go and leave you to those whose breath is fresh and young. Come, Lugrezia.”
They swept from the room in a rush of rich clothes, injured dignity, and that lingering stench.
I followed them, summoned Friar Laurence as I walked past his examination chamber, and not far away in the great walk, we found Duke Yago collapsed against the wall, holding his gut and moaning.
A humble monk he might be, but Friar Laurence could exert a powerful presence and he did so now. Taking Yago’s arm, he walked with him to the next room and shut the door in my face.
I turned to Lugrezia. “What’s wrong with Duke Yago?”
“He told everyone what happened, but he complains so much, no one listens.” Her face twisted in scorn. “After the Acquasasso defeat, he was celebrating and villains set upon him. He fought them off, but one stabbed him in the belly.”
I pressed a hand to my own aching gut.
“—a minor wound, only. Long, but not deep—enough to draw blood. Not even he thought it serious, for he pranced about so satisfied with his own manly performance with a sword. He lamented the safety of the streets, but turmoil still ruled. Then Escalus was assassinated. Yago had to decide whether to seize the reins . . . and he did not.”
“Out of loyalty to Prince Escalus the younger,” I suggested.
She turned on me in an outraged rustle of skirts. “Out of cowardice! He wanted the riches, the power, but with Verona still the prey of scavengers, thieves, and mercenaries, and Escalus murdered, he was afraid. I told him I would be there to watch his back, and no one would touch Duke Yago of the house of Leonardi, but he wouldn’t hear of it. I had power within my grasp”—she squeezed her fingers into a fist—“and it slipped away, and all that’s filled the years since has been fine clothing and excellent food and bad sex with a man who complains that having an erection hurts to the tip of his manhood.”
TMI! TMI!
“So he’s not in much pain.” She tittered.
I wanted to bolt back into Nonna Ursula’s suite, but thankfully, the door opened and a grave-faced Friar Laurence assisted Duke Yago out of the room.
“Take him home,” Friar Laurence told Lugrezia. “Make him comfortable for the time he has left.”
She stood stock-still. “I don’t understand.”
Impatiently Duke Yago said, “I’m dying, Lugrezia. Friar Laurence gives me until the new moon, perhaps less, and you’ll be rid of your disappointing husband.”
“But I’ll be a widow! In mourning! That will not do!”
Friar Laurence, God bless him, looked shocked to his sandaled toes, and taking her by the arm, he marched her toward the entrance, counseling her in his most priestly voice.
