Free The Angel of Soriano: A Renaissance Romance by Stella Marie Alden

bitterness. He breathed into her neck, inhaled the scent of lavender, and knew at that moment that he was never going to be the same.
    “Are you alright?” She turned, almost hitting his mouth with hers.
    “ Mio Dio, Aurelia. I’m not all right at all. Here I am, thinking you’re happily married. I’m waiting like a vassal for Nardini to give permission for me to come to visit. Then I find you like...like this. I’m undone.”
    She turned to gaze up at him as if he had two heads. “Undone?”
    “Si, si. Undone.”
    She put a hand to her short hair under her cap. “I see. You no longer find me attractive.”
    He sighed. “If anything, I find you more so than before. It’s all but unbearable.”
    Her lips, inches from his, dropped open and she whispered, “I checked in the mirror in the upstairs of the house. My nose may never be straight again, my eyes are sunken, and I’m covered in hideous bruises.”
    “And yet here in my lap, you drive me mad.” He took his eyes off the path a moment.
    Her nostrils flared and she licked her lips but he dared not kiss her, not with the well-armed herbalist and his sons riding close.
    Innocently, she adjusted her weight and pressed against his hard appendage. He moaned.
    “Are you hurt as well?” She looked down at his raging lust.
    He ached to pull her tight but her injuries prevented him. He pictured her below him, naked, and loving.
    Then the truth came out of him more as a rasp. “I’m dying that I didn’t keep you safe as I promised I would.”
    She gave a little snort. “Ridiculous. How could you know what went on in Vignanello?”
    “I might’ve tried harder.” He bristled at her tone. His honor was in question?
    “And start a war? Over me? Don’t be daft.” She settled back into his chest and soon her breathing became regular. Aurelia must’ve been exhausted to fall asleep upon the fast moving horse and in the middle of a conversation.
    Pino Aggi clucked his teeth and rode his horse forward. “Is she alright?”
    “She sleeps. Tell me. Why was this done to her?” Bernardo kept his voice low and lowered his gaze to check her gently rising chest. His heart wrenched, thinking how someone had beat her so.
    Pino sighed as their horses made their way carefully by the light of the full moon. “Apparently Pierpaolo wants something she has or is as mad as she claims.”
    “I had to increase her dowry, just to insure that bastard would marry her. It doesn’t make sense.”
    The herbalist grumbled something and sidled close enough to see her face. “I haven’t had time to figure out anything. She’d only just arrived when you came upon us with your demands.”
    She stirred and moaned so Bernardo tucked her closer and then said, “I’m afraid more bad news. Pierpaolo Nardini was at the keep for dinner. He’s one of the many who lie sick.”
    “I’ll slice him open from neck to navel. Feed him his own innards and watch.” Pino scowled and his horse, sensing his mood, whinnied.
    “Agreed, but not yet. Not under my father’s hospitality.”
    “Then I’ll give him the worst case of squats a man can endure and still live.”
    “That’ll have to suffice for now.” Bernardo grinned, deciding he liked Aurelia’s Uncle Pino.”
    Soon, the streets of Soriono glowed overhead with torches, as if the festival of Michaelmas. He kissed the angel’s linen cap, squeezed her body and whispered, “We’re here. You need to wake up.”
     

Chapter 11
     
    Aurelia opened her eyes. Soriano? So soon? The magical city flickered in orange torchlight. Even though late, residents gathered in the dark narrow streets. Conversations stopped and gazes turned hostile as horse hooves clomped on the stones.
    She inhaled manure, baking bread, cooked meat, and greasy tallow candles.
    Bernardo, however, seemed not to notice anything but the road in front of him. His firm thighs clenched his black horse urging it up the steep hill. They stopped in a long flat piazza at the top,