logs, heights and wide spreads, before. Cleveland Bays were the preferred carriage horse of royalty, and Archer knew a few breeders who enjoyed riding to the hunt on them.
Haviland stepped up beside him and petted Amicus. ‘Why do you suppose he did that? It was an extraordinary leap. I know horses that would have balked. He could have been killed.’
Archer gave Haviland a solemn look. ‘He decided England could no longer hold him.’
‘Like you, old friend?’ Haviland ventured. ‘Are you still determined to do this thing?’ Nolan and Brennan might not know of his choice to stay in Italy, but he’d confided in Haviland.
Archer nodded. ‘And you?’ Haviland had done some confiding of his own. Archer wasn’t the only one using this trip as an escape.
‘Yes. I want to taste some freedom, I want to know my own power, to see what might have been before...’ Haviland shrugged, his sentence dropping off. Haviland didn’t have to say it. Archer knew how that sentence ended: before he had to go back and give himself in an arranged marriage to a woman who did not inspire his passions.
Archer silently thanked the heavens again that he wasn’t firstborn. He at least had choices. He just had to make them. He and Amicus had something in common. He too had decided England could no longer hold him.
The Pantera Contrada, Siena, Italy—early July, 1835
Tonight, nothing could hold her! Elisabeta threw her head back and laughed up to the starry sky. She let the wildness loose, humming through her blood in time to the musicians playing in the Piazza del Conte as she and her cousins drew near to the neighbourhood’s centre. There was already a crowd gathered for the celebration and they were jostled on all sides by good-natured merrymakers filling the narrow streets. She didn’t care. The press of people only added to her excitement. Tonight she was going to dance until her shoes were worn through and then she was going to dance barefoot. She’d dance until the sun came up!
It was her first real party since coming out of mourning and she was going to enjoy it, no matter what, which was no small thing in light of what had transpired this afternoon. Elisabeta grabbed her cousin Contessina’s hands and swung the younger girl around in a gay circle. ‘I’m going to do something scandalous tonight,’ Elisabeta declared, watching Contessina’s pretty brown eyes widened in shock.
‘Do you think that’s wise? Papa just announced—’
‘Especially because of that!’ Elisabeta cut her off. She wasn’t going to think about it—the fact that her uncle, Rafaele di Bruno, the contrada’s capitano, had bartered her off in a proposed marriage to Ridolfo Ranieri, the relative of another neighbourhood’s priore in order to secure an alliance for the all-important Palio.
Like her first marriage, it was not a match of her choosing and it wasn’t fair. Five years ago at the age of seventeen, she’d served her family and married the very young Lorenzo di Nofri. It was meant to be something of a dynastic connection for the family, and her feelings had not been considered. Then, Lorenzo had died after three years of marriage and she’d dutifully but begrudgingly done her year of mourning for her adolescent husband.
Now, at the very first decent opportunity, she was to be married off again. This time to a man in his late forties, more than twice her age, heavy and gouty from rich food and wine. Where would the chance for a family of her own be in that? Elisabeta forcefully shoved away images of what would be required of her to produce a child in that alliance. There was no place in this evening of celebration for dark thoughts.
She deserved better although her uncle disagreed. He was quick to point out she was lucky to marry again at all. She was no fresh virgin like Contessina, but a widow who’d been tried in marriage and hadn’t managed to prove her fecundity. Who would want such a woman? She should be honoured by the Priore of Oca’s attention and the chance to serve her family’s greatness.
The Piazza del Conte came into view and Elisabeta pulled Contessina forward with her to take it all in: people, music, lanterns lighting the piazza like a magical fairyland. Celebrations like this were being held all over the town tonight, with every neighbourhood, or contrada, hosting its own party. It was Siena at its best and she’d missed it sorely in the years of her marriage spent in Florence. She’d missed her family, the festivals and, perhaps most of all, the horses.
It wasn’t that Florence didn’t have festivals or that Lorenzo’s rich family didn’t have horses, but they weren’t hers and she was seldom allowed to work with them. Returning to Siena had been like coming alive again, which made the proposed marriage seem all the more cruel: to live again, only to face another sort of death.
Contessina tugged at her arm, slowing her down. ‘What will you do?’ she asked with a hint of worry.
‘I don’t know—something.’ Elisabeta laughed. When the inspiration came she’d know it. Spontaneity was best left unplanned. ‘Maybe I will dance with the next man I see!’ Elisabeth announced, but that was hardly scandalous to her way of thinking. She’d have to do better than that to be truly scandalous. She’d made the remark mostly to shock Contessina, who loved her dearly, but didn’t always know how to respond to her exuberance. Her uncle ran a strict household.
‘You can’t!’ Contessina whispered a warning. Contessina’s own dancing partners for the evening had already been arranged by her uncle and her brother, Giuliano. Even though it wasn’t a formal ball, Contessina’s partners were to be respectable young men from appropriate households in the contrada. ‘What if the next person you saw was someone from Aquila?’ Contessina dared to breathe the name of their rival contrada.
Elisabeta threw her a smug smile. ‘I would even dance with an Aquilini.’ She would too, but that was hardly likely. There would only be men of the Pantera contrada, her family’s neighbourhood, here tonight. No one would dare venture away from their own neighbourhood celebrations. Still, stealing a dance was hardly the type of scandal she was thinking of, it was far too tame.
‘What about your husband? What would he think?’ Contessina was almost aghast at the thought of disobeying male authority. Her father had ordered her life to perfection. She had lived sheltered and protected to ensure she made a good marriage. Contessina had never thought to question the dictates of her parents. She was a good daughter and she would do what she was told.
Not so Elisabeta. She had played the good niece once. She was not ready to do it again, if ever, and certainly not to the fat cousin of the Priore of Oca, no matter how rich he was or what benefits it might serve the family when it came time for the Palio.
‘He’s not my husband yet. The engagement isn’t even official,’ Elisabeta said sharply, irritated with the conversation and what it signified. ‘Perhaps I’ll find a way out of it,’ she teased, but she was only partially joking. If she could find a way out, she would. Ridolfo terrified her with his beady, lecherous eyes. It was clear how he saw her: another thing to claim, to put in his treasury of earthly possessions. She did not relish the idea of being any man’s slave, but especially not his.
‘How would you do that?’ Contessina, her brow knitting in contemplation, took her seriously. ‘I can’t see how it’s possible unless you were to take a lover.’ Contessina blushed as she said it. It was likely the most scandalous thing she could think of, an idea gleaned from conversations she wasn’t supposed to overhear when her mother
