Free Rose by Jill Marie Landis

pale face, eyes closed, arms stretched out at her sides. He remembered her name and whispered it aloud. “Rose.”
    Without a sound, Kase stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind him.



Chapter
Four

    Rosa opened her eyes and found that she was still enshrouded in darkness. Startled, she sat up, her heart pounding as she looked about in confusion and tried to ease the panic that crowded in on her. Ghostly silver moonbeams streamed in through a side window to shed muted light on her surroundings. The moonlight illuminated a small, sparsely furnished room and as her vision adjusted to the weak light, she became aware of the ominous quiet that enveloped her. The quiet of death.
    She realized suddenly that she was very much alone.
    Now that the sun had set, the air was much cooler; the slight breeze lifted the translucent white curtains away from the windows. She was comforted somehow by the fluttering movement of the curtains; it seemed as if something were alive in the room beside herself. On shaking limbs, she rose and stood beside the bed, fighting the wave of dizziness that assailed her. The wooden floor was slick against her stockinged feet, and as she carefully crossed the room toward the window, she wondered who had removed her shoes. When her dress fell forward and slipped off her shoulders, she guessed that the same kind soul had unbuttoned it for her.
    Brushing aside the curtain, she leaned against the window frame and stared out at the night. The window looked down upon the main street of Busted Heel, and from the height of the second story she could see the entire length of the street and the depot beyond. It was as deserted as she had last seen it, except that now the street and buildings were spared the glaring heat of the sun.
    “Giovanni è morto.” She whispered “Giovanni is dead,” in Italian, hoping the familiar cadence of the words might make the truth real for her.
    She knew with unwavering clarity that the marshal—the tall, dark man with the deep blue eyes—had not lied to her. His face had mirrored deep regret when he said the words. Giovanni was dead. He would not be meeting her at all. She would not be making a new home in this new land. She had nothing. And she was alone. Just as she had feared, God had finally claimed Giovanni for himself.
    Her gaze moved up and away from the deserted street. As she stared skyward toward a million shining stars and tried to blink away a sudden rush of tears, the night sky served as a backdrop for the images her mind conjured. She had known of Giovanni all her life, for everyone knew everyone in Corio and Crotte, but until she was seventeen she had not met the young man who had been cloistered away with the priests since he was twelve years old. The first time she saw Giovanni, she had been in the piazza on market day. He had been walking between the market stalls with his sisters; they walked on either side of him as if to protect the young seminarian from the jostling and bustle of the Monday market.
    He was home for a holiday, he said later when he came to call at the farmhouse in Crotte, home to visit his mother and sisters. For a week he found an excuse to visit the family—and in particular, Rosa—daily. Finally, as they walked through the quiet hillside above the house together, Giovanni told her he had begun thinking of leaving the seminary long before he met her. But once he met her, he had been certain a life in the priesthood was not for him.
    She had never willfully done anything to tempt him away from the church, but doubt had caused her many sleepless nights in the beginning, when his family accused her of using every wile short of witchcraft to make him give up his calling. But at Giovanni’s heated insistence, the protests ended and his family grew suddenly silent once the two were married. Coolly and unforgivingly silent.
    Instead of being married in the church of San Genesio in Corio, Giovanni had taken her to Torino to state