DELUGE Read Online Free Page B

Rodolfo my apologies.”
    I smiled and gave in to another long, searching kiss, then leaned back to look up at him. “Oh? And what would you say?”
    “Brother,” he said, crossing his arms and looking to our ceiling, as if dictating, “Please accept my most sincere apologies. I dearly wished to join you to sup this eve. But I found I could not resist the desire to instead bed my wife.”
    I pushed him away with a laugh, the heat of a blush at my cheeks. “That would be a fine letter for him to read in the company of my sister and parents.”
    “Nay?” he said, arching his brow again. He pursed his lips and sighed, looking me slowly up and down. “Ahh, well. Later, then.”
    I moved to fetch a handkerchief, but he caught my wrist. I turned back to him.
    “Later?” he repeated huskily, all seriousness, his dark eyes running up the length of my arm, my neck, my face, as if he were kissing every inch.
    “Later,” I agreed with a satisfied smile. “But right now , I need to go write those letters I promised you.”

CHAPTER THREE
     
    ~EVANGELIA~
     
    “So, what’s up with you two?” Gabi said lowly, edging her horse closer, looking at me over her shoulder. “I haven’t seen Luca so sad and serious since we battled the Fiorentini assassins.”
    We were on the way to Castello Greco, having just passed the riverbed. Knights flanked us on the front and rear, as well as to either side of us. But I was reasonably sure no one else could hear her. Still, I stole a glance forward to Luca, six riders away. He hadn’t even looked my way when I entered the courtyard. Celso was the one who helped me mount, his face telling me he had been assigned the task and felt awkward performing it.
    No one but Luca had helped me mount my horse in months.
    “He’s angry with me,” I muttered at last.
    “Why? What have you done?”
    I felt a flash of anger wash through me. “Maybe it was something he did.”
    “Okay,” she said slowly, clearly not believing me. We both knew that Luca would do anything to please me.
    “He’s pressing me. For a wedding. Soon.”
    She faced mostly forward in her sidesaddle, swaying with the gait of her horse, and I admired her profile, the new confidence in her. Marriage agreed with her. Peace, too. Maybe even being pregnant. Why couldn’t I share her sense of adventure? Her gambling spirit? Why did I have to think it all through, over and over again, until I had uncovered every tiny little problem—and the biggies too?
    “You two have been together a long time,” she whispered, giving me a shrug. “You know, by medieval standards.”
    “I’m only seventeen,” I said, hating the whine in my tone.
    “Almost eighteen. The same age I was when I wed Marcello.”
    “And, yeah, look how that turned out,” I said, gesturing toward her stomach.
    She looked a little wounded, her brown eyes searching mine. Then she looked up and around us at the trees, the dry autumn leaves practically crackling in the breeze. “So that is it, isn’t it? You don’t want to get pregnant, like me?”
    I bit my lip. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t hurt her. Or bring up things that would make her stress out. Which wasn’t good for the baby…
    But what was I to do, lie? Fear of pregnancy was at the heart of it. I loved Luca. I did. But if I married him now, we could have two children by the time the plague rolled through. And knowing him, maybe I’d even be pregnant with number three. He was a gentleman with me, always, never pressing me for more than kisses. But there was a heat in those kisses that promised of much more…
    My eyes settled on the strong, straight line of his shoulders, covered in the leather breastplate he and the other knights wore any time they left Castello Forelli. His dark blonde hair had grown out a lot since I cut it; the ends now curled and brushed the high neck of his formal Forelli-gold tunic.
    “So you’ll break his heart,” Gabi hissed at me, nodding toward him then