Free Cascade by Lisa Tawn Bergren Page A

Pushing the Fortino-Romana issue might wreck things, especially if I was wrong. Let it go, Gabi. Everything’s fine.
    But it didn’t feel fine. Remembering the doctor and Lord Rossi whispering secretively, I set my lips in a grim line. I just couldn’t believe the Rossis had been as duped as I had been. Used. Both Romana and her father were far too clever to allow it.
    One thing comforted me: If the Rossis had been in on my poisoning, it was more likely they’d have done it to get me out of the way and seal the deal with the Forelli-Rossi union, not because they were working on the enemy’s behalf. I mean, Romana’s dad was one of the Nine. A head honcho. King of the hill. Why would he be willing to sell out his fellow Sienese and risk the republic’s security? Unless he had been promised far more in a new republic, run by those in Firenze.
    I glanced around the ritzy palace the Rossis called home. Servants bustled across polished marble floors. Thick tapestries lined the hallway. Everyone was dressed in fantastic gowns and tunics. I knew dinner would be a minifeast before the big feasts began.
    What else did he need?
    Money. Man is always motivated by money, my dad said to me once. It can work for us, or it can enslave us. Even when we have much, we feel like we need more. No matter how much we have.
    I’d been whining last summer about not having a car, about how other girls back at home were driving around. Begging to the point of bugging my parents, really. I thought if we had our own car, Lia and I could escape the summer dig, drive around, find some fun for once. But there hadn’t been cash for that, of course. The Big Dig, the big payoff, was always around the corner for my ’rents.
    Even now, Mom had discovered the Big Dig at last, and where was she? Six hundred years away. No, we Betarrinis were smart but never rich.
    “I shall not be far,” Marcello said lowly, nodding at Lord Rossi’s wave of invitation to him to join the others.
    “Do not be troubled,” I said. We turned to go, but I glanced over my shoulder to the group of nobles in the corner, the only ones we had not been introduced to. One, a tall, handsome young man with jet-black hair that waved over one eye, studied me without hesitation.
    The Fiorentini, I thought. Enemies.
    Or soon to be brothers, friends? I wasn’t trying to get in the way of the Medieval Peace Process. Life would be far more pleasant at Marcello’s side if I weren’t constantly worried that one or both of us would be killed.
    But the question remained…was there a possibility the Rossis would sell out? Abandon Siena in exchange for a fat Fiorentini bank account?
    And why were they so anxious to place a daughter within Castello Forelli’s walls if that was their aim?
    I shook my head, totally confused.
    “What?” Lia asked, looking at me from the corners of her eyes as we walked down the hall.
    “I don’t know. Something’s off. Wrong. And I gotta figure out what it is before it’s too late.”

 
    CHAPTER 6
     
    As I suspected, the Rossi feast began down in the Palazzo Pubblico, the public palace, at the bottom of the clamshell-shaped plaza. I shoved back dark memories of the last time I’d feasted and danced in the hall—the place where Lord Vanucci had approached me and I first learned that Lord Paratore had captured Lia. For this night, I wanted to enjoy the feel of being in my new, gorgeous golden gown—a symbolic gift from Lord Rossi—on Marcello’s arm, dancing with him.
    I mean, I’d waited seventeen years to have a boyfriend, and now I had one. At last. I wanted to just enjoy the day, the evening. Back home in Colorado, I’d only been to one dance, and it was with a guy I asked out.
    Guys are just scared of beautiful girls, Dad said.
    Sure, Dad, I said. Only ugly girls go to dances.
    The right one will come around, he promised. You’ll see.
    And Oh. My. Gosh. He had. I wished Dad were here to meet him. To do that Dad-Boyfriend thing he