[Barbara Samuel] Night of Fire(Book4You) Read Online Free PDF Page A

That his beloved friend's soul and mind should be so enclosed was a greater danger than any he could have imagined for himself. Had he known, he would never have issued his invitation. He wasn't sure how he would resist the temptation of devouring her, of nibbling through that thin skin to let the passion flow into him. He did not know how he could stop himself from that, from making love to the woman who had captured his mind, and now would snare his soul if he could not find some way to resist the lure.
    But resist he would. For honor, he must.
    Resentment burned in him. Resentment at God, and his father, who had put him here where he did not belong, shouldering a mantle meant for his brother. Resentment that it would now steal from him the one happiness he might have claimed.
    For he did not lie to himself in this. He would have moved the earth to claim her.
    But because his freedom had been stolen, he would instead spend his life married to the woman his father had betrothed him to. A political marriage, uniting two families, a marriage to continue the proud and ancient Tuscan line to which he belonged. A marriage that would take place in one month.
    In spite of his resentment, he knew he must do as he was bid. Not for his father, whom he had always hated, but for his mother—who had loved the girl, Analise, and had always been pro-tective of her. A strange, otherworldly child who had seen visions before she was six, and who was too beautiful to be allowed to be a nun when her father could gain so much from her marriage, Analise had been in need of a champion. Basilio's mother had nearly badgered his father to make the betrothal between Giovanni, his oldest brother, and Analise. When his brothers died, the obligation fell to Basilio.
    Though he was not a religious man, he crossed himself and asked for assistance from the Virgin Mother, to resist the woman of his heart, to be strong in the face of temptation. To go and laugh, and give all of his mind and all of his soul if he wished, but no more.
    No more.
    They dined alone in the courtyard, not even servants to disturb them except to be sure there was wine enough, and bread enough, and a soft musky cheese, and delicately shredded meat. It was food they ate with their fingers, lazily.
    Cassandra marveled at all of it—the simple pleasure of the food, the warm scent of the air, Basilio himself. As they sat there the sun dropped toward the sea, a blazing violet and yellow ball sinking lower and lower into the distant water.
    She realized, in a slow way that seemed to go with the way the air hung in rose gauze around them, that she had not fidgeted. She felt no need to leap up or move a foot or tap her fingers on the glass. It was enough to sit here, listening to birds and drinking her wine, and grazing on the feast Basilio had ordered for them.
    "Look at the birds," he said, pointing. "They're busy drawing the curtain of night."
    "Ah, the poet emerges!"
    His eyes glittered. "Perhaps." Pushing away his plate, he leaned back comfortably, crossing one ankle over his knee. "But I was thinking, it is our first day, and perhaps we should begin with why we have gathered here to tell our tales."
    "Mmm," she said, pleased at the reference to Boccaccio. "I am afraid I have no entertainment to offer, sir. I came only out of greed, because I was promised a glimpse of rare manuscript pages."
    "No tale at all from a woman who makes her life with her pen? How did she come to love the feel of that pen in her hand, I wonder?"
    She smiled at his challenge, then sipped her wine, peering out to sea. "I have not seen the sun disappear that way, swallowed by Neptune, since I was a child." She cut a glance at him to see if he noticed she, too, could capture an image.
    The wide dark eyes tilted up at the corners a little in acknowledgement. "And why not?" He picked up his own glass and settled back.
    "When I was a girl, my mother died in the islands, in Martinique. My father did not want to return