Lucianna Read Online Free PDF Page B

her.”
    “It took many years, but mostly I learned from the behavior of my two older sisters, and the mistakes they made in dealing with our mother,” Lucianna admitted. “You must understand Orianna. Daughters of Venetian princes do not as a rule wed merchants, even wealthy merchants, but our grandfather had many daughters, and our mother was the youngest of them and had the smallest dower to offer. My grandfather liked our father despite what he considered his shortcomings, and he offered this Florentine merchant his daughter in marriage. Our mother was in love with a married man at the time, and there was danger of a scandal. Rumors of such a possibility had already caused several suitable families with younger sons to withdraw even the hope of a marriage between their families. So our mother was quickly wed to the Florentine merchant, and departed Venice. She has never forgotten it was her behavior that cost her a Venetian marriage. So we, her daughters, have to be better than she was.”
    “Yet your oldest sister fled her marriage, I am told. Your mother could not have been pleased with that,” he said.
    “That is a tale for another time,” Lucianna told him. “We are here now,” she said as she led him from the street past delicate wrought-iron gates and into an exquisite small park. “We Florentines love our small parks. My parents created this one, and it is open to the public. Our family’s reputation is such that the park is kept peaceful. Any who would misbehave are ejected, and forbidden to return.”
    They strolled now along a graveled path on either side of which there were lime trees. There were beds of roses here and there. The roses were so naturally fragrant that they perfumed the air about them. Robert Minton didn’t believe he had ever been in such a romantic place in his life. They came to a marble bench, and he drew her down onto it with him. Birds in the trees about them sang.
    “This has to be a dream,” he said, “and if it is, may I never awaken.”
    Lucianna laughed softly. “I do not believe anyone has ever said such lovely words about the Pietro d’Angelos’ little park, my lord.”
    “It’s exquisite! So much so that it could not possibly be re-created anywhere else.”
    “If you sat here in winter with a cold rain beating down upon your broad shoulders, my lord, you might consider otherwise,” she told him. “Ah, do not look up, but here come my mother and my father, enjoying the beauty of their creation, no doubt,” Lucianna said.
    Robert Minton, Earl of Lisle, burst out laughing. “You are really a most outrageous girl,” he said.
    “I am a woman, my lord. A beautiful widow woman,” she said.
    “No,
signora
, you are a girl, not yet a woman, and your blush reveals the truth of my observations. Do not deny it.”
    “Ah, Lucianna, my lord of Lisle,” Orianna Pietro d’Angelo purred in greeting.
    “Daughter. My lord,” Giovanni Pietro d’Angelo said to each.
    “Mother, how lovely to see you. Roberto invited me for a walk in the park after Mass, but then he admitted to knowing no park. I told him I knew the loveliest park in all of Florence, and so here we are!”
    “I was told you arrived at Mass together, Lucianna,” Orianna said, disapprovingly. “And that you were dressed inappropriately.”
    “I was most certainly not in Roberto’s company when we arrived, Mother! I came quite alone. How dreadful of someone to spread such a rumor. I am outraged. Am I to have no life of my own? My mourning is over for Alfredo. Believe me, every fortune hunter in Florence will be approaching me. Will there be unseemly gossip about them too? As for my gown, do you find it unseemly?”
    Orianna looked at her daughter’s modest sky blue garment and shook her head. “No, I do not,” she admitted. Then she said, “Will you and the earl join us for dinner?”
    “It would be a pleasure,
Signora
Pietro d’Angelo,” Robert Minton quickly spoke up. “I am honored that you