Heaven encompasses yin and yang, cold and heat, and the constraints of the seasons.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Anaïs Sofia Castelli de Rohan was wed on a spring day in a dashing red and white gown in the gardens at Wellclose Square beneath a brilliant sun and a swirling snowstorm of apple blossoms that dappled Geoff’s matching red waistcoat, and caught like fat snowflakes in the brim of his hat. It was not, perhaps, the most fashionable address for a London wedding, but having denied Nonna Sofia her dream, Anaïs decided it was the least she could do to honor her beloved great-grandmother.
The Reverend Mr. Reid Sutherland officiated—with a bit of a gleam in his eye—and pronounced them man and wife amidst a score of their closest kin and half the St. James Society. Afterward they retired to the massive withdrawing rooms to mill about on Maria Vittorio’s new Oriental carpets while nibbling at tidbits and drinking Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, toasting the happy couple’s health, wealth, and fertility, until Lord Lazonby began to leer a little too openly at one of the housemaids.
Mr. Sutherland called at once for their carriage—but not before Lazonby launched into a wild tale about the irony of having first met the groom in a Moroccan brothel. Lady Madeleine gasped and covered her daughter’s ears. The Preost caught Lazonby a little violently by the coat sleeve, and steered him out and down the front steps, lifting his hat in salute as he departed.
From there, the remaining guests began to take their leave in a flurry of shawls and carriages. Including Nate, the earl and his new countess possessed several brothers and sisters, requiring three carriages to haul them back to Westminster. Another ten vehicles carried off the remaining guests as the happy couple kissed cheeks and waved good-bye, until at last no one remained save Geoff’s parents.
On the doorstep, Lady Madeleine swept Anaïs into her embrace for about the sixth time in as many hours. “Oh, my dear, dear girl,” she said a little tearfully. “It seems that only yesterday I was holding Geoffrey for the first time, frightened out of my wits, and so terrified he would never see this happy day. But now he has, and I am so glad, Anaïs. So glad he has found you.”
“Oh, Lady Madeleine, how kind you are!” Anaïs drew away, still clutching both her new mother-in-law’s hands. “But why were you terrified? Was he frail?”
Lady Madeleine shrugged, and blushed. “Oh, no, but I was so young!” she said. “And I felt so very alone, so unable to grasp what was going on. I passed out from exhaustion, I think, and when I awoke, I just remember the midwives kept whispering, che carino bambino—or maybe it was the other way round?—until I began to cry, I was so frightened.”
At that, Geoff laughed, and kissed his mother’s cheek. “What a goose you are, Mamma! I think they were just complimenting your pretty baby.”
She shot him a withering look. “Do not dare laugh at me, young man!” she cried, trembling now. “I was barely conscious and spoke not a word of that language!” Suddenly, she turned to her husband, her eyes welling with tears. “And I somehow took it into my head that carino was carry no. That they were saying she carried no baby. It seems foolish now, but I thought he was gone. That there’d been some terrible mistake. Or I’d imagined it all.”
“Oh, Mamma!” said Geoff softly. “You had been under a long, terrible strain.”
“Yes, there, there, Maddie,” said her husband, opening his arms and folding her to his chest. “You could not have known, my love.”
But it was as if the stress of the day had taken its toll on Lady Madeleine. “Oh, Merrick, I thought I’d done something wrong!” she cried, sobbing into his cravat. “By the time they bathed him and gave him to me I was heartsick. I counted his fingers and toes for two days, and dared not go to sleep for fear he might die! And now—just think! He is married!”
“He is also thirty years of age,” said Mr. MacLachlan, with only a hint of sarcasm. “Your duty is done, my love. And now it is Anaïs’s job to keep up with his fingers and toes.”
By then, however, no one noticed that all the color had drained from Anaïs’s face, for Geoff had gone back into the withdrawing room to pour his mother a tot of brandy. When he returned, Lady Madeleine drank it down a little gratefully, apologized over and over again for her tears, then kissed them both again before taking her leave.
Mr. MacLachlan escorted her down the front steps as if she were a fragile flower, and tucked her carefully into a barouche so elegant half the denizens of the square seemed to be leaning out their windows to gawk at it. Then Mr. MacLachlan waved good-bye, climbed inside, and ordered his coachman to set off.
Anaïs stood on the top step, her hand in Geoff’s, as his parents circled the square.
“Geoff,” she said quietly, as the barouche disappeared, “where were you born?”
“Rome,” he said, following her in and closing the door. “Or near it. A place called Lazio. Do you know it?”
Anaïs stared up at him, her brow furrowed. “Yes, but Lazio is a province, Geoff,” she said. “It is quite large.”
“And beautiful, I’m told, though I don’t remember it,” he said, strolling back into the withdrawing room, to the wine they had scarcely had time to drink. “The next year, I believe, we were off to Campania. And from there to Greece. As I said, Bessett was a scholar of ancient civilizations. But when I was born, he was in Lazio digging up ruins near some lake north of Rome. I forget the name.”
Anaïs took the glass he pressed into her hand. “Etruscan ruins, by any chance?”
He shrugged. “It’s quite likely,” he answered. “But I never really shared his passion for old civilizations. Bessett was undeniably a brilliant man, but I wasn’t surprised, frankly, when I learned he was not my father.”
“Geoff,” she said excitedly, “which village?”
He looked up from the glass he was refilling at the sideboard. “Which village what?”
“Which village were you born in?”
He set down the wine bottle with a thunk! and furrowed his brow. “Let me think,” he muttered. “It had a charming name . . . Piggly-Wiggly-something, Mamma called it.”
“Pitigliano?” she said breathlessly, sitting down on the sofa.
Clarity dawned over his handsome face. “Yes, that’s it.” He joined her, settling sideways beside her. “Pitigliano. A small place, but some midwives had come from Rome—nuns, I think—to train a couple of local women. It wasn’t far from Bessett’s lake, Mamma said, so he took a house there for her confinement.”
“Dio mio!” Anaïs whispered, setting her glass down a little awkwardly on the tea table.
Geoff leaned into her and kissed the tip of her nose. “What? Does it matter? I told you I spent my childhood abroad.”
She turned to face him, eyes wide. “But Geoff, this is amazing!”
“Amazing?” He crooked his head to better look at her. “In what way?”
“Well, Lord Bessett might have dug up the whole of Lazio for all I know,” she answered. “But I do know this—Pitigliano is in Tuscany.”
He looked at her curiously. “Are you quite sure?”
“Well . . . yes.” Anaïs put one hand over her heart. “It is near the border, but so far as I know, it has always been a part of the Duchy of Tuscany.”
“Well, there you go.” Geoff flashed his familiar sardonic grin, and raised his glass. “Yet another interesting tidbit about me that even I did not know—albeit a trifle less shocking than my paternity.”
But Anaïs had fallen back against the sofa, speechless. Her gaze had fallen to his red waistcoat, where a little white dot of apple blossom still clung tenaciously to the silk.
He set his glass away, and pulled her close against him. “Anaïs, what?”
“Le Re di Dischi,” she muttered to herself, “in a coat of scarlet. Geoff, you will never, ever believe this . . .”
He slid his warm, long-fingered hand—his beautiful artist’s hand—around the turn of her face, heating Anaïs all the way through to the pit of stomach. “No, I won’t believe it, my love,” he whispered, his gaze fixed to hers, “especially if you don’t finish the sentence. Honestly, you’ve gone a little pale. Have I said something wrong?”
She lifted her gaze from his waistcoat. “No, no, it’s just that you are The One,” she said. “All along . . . you have been The One.”
At that, Geoff threw back his head and laughed, his blue eyes alight with merriment. “Oh, Anaïs, I have always known that,” he said to her for the second time. “I just wasn’t sure you did.”
And so she kissed him, her handsome Tuscan prince.
Her handsome, bronze-haired, blue-eyed Tuscan prince . . .