His Last Duchess by Gabrielle Kimm Page A

neck. One of his horsemen was leading a muddy cob—still harnessed to the shafts of a covered tilt-cart—while another held the reins of a handsome little chestnut mare. Three other horses were being led towards the stables, with an obviously elderly, and mud-soaked white mule. A cluster of servants were collecting the luggage from the cart—and then he saw her.
    Lucrezia.
    She had mud on her face and hands, and her dress was unaccountably filthy, but her face was alight with pleasure. Her eyes were shining as she laughed up at a lanky, dark-skinned boy, and Alfonso’s heart clenched tight for a moment until he recognized the newcomer. His mind on his hawks, he had forgotten that his wife’s cousin was due to arrive today.
    Lucrezia’s hands were wrapped around the boy’s arm and she was walking, pressed close to him, towards the main entrance. The boy threw back his head and laughed at something Lucrezia had said. She let go of his sleeve and shoved hard at his side, throwing him off balance. He straightened, jabbed at her ribs with a finger and Alfonso heard her squeal, gasp and laugh.
    A hot blade of disapproval turned in his belly. His jaw tensed and something vertiginous shifted and fell in his guts. As in those moments when his horse startled and shied beneath him, Alfonso was rocked by a sense of the bunched precariousness of a potentially uncontrollable force.
    Breathing quickly, his hands balled into fists, he stepped back into the shadows of the tunnel and waited for his wife and her cousin to pass into the castle. Once he was certain they had gone, he went in through a side entrance, descended a narrow staircase and walked along the corridor that led to the dungeons.
    ***
    â€œAlfonso’s not here,” Lucrezia said, as she walked with Giovanni up a wide spiral staircase. He felt a guilty stab of relief, which was, however, short-lived, as she added, “He’s out hawking—he’ll be back soon. I thought he’d be here before you arrived.”
    Giovanni’s sodden boots squelched at each step, oozing bubbles of water along the seams. Looking back, he saw a trail of glistening footprints. His feet were frozen. He was aching to ask Lucrezia about her new life. All the questions he had been thinking through over the three days it had taken them to ride up from Cafaggiolo were clamouring to be heard. He had repeated them in his head, over and over again as he had pictured the two of them sitting alone, he asking his questions, she dissolving into tears, admitting to a life of brutal subjugation with a man who had distorted in Giovanni’s head from someone he had simply disliked to a fully fledged monster, capable of anything. But now, here in Ferrara, he found himself faced with a Lucrezia who in the event just seemed delighted to see him; she appeared to be at home in her new life, more grown-up than ever. He felt stupid and childish, and his questions now sounded ridiculous.
    He knew he would not ask them.
    â€œHere we are. You can change your clothes—and I’ll need to change mine. How are Mamma and Papa?” Lucrezia asked again. “I’m so sorry they didn’t feel they could come. Is Papa truly getting better? And Giulietta, is she well?”
    Giovanni followed her into a large room. A tapestry covered one wall, depicting the climax of a successful hunt, with the tops of the towers of the Castello visible in the background above a line of trees. There was a curtained bed, two highly polished cross-frame chairs and a low table. Not unlike his room at Cafaggiolo, he thought, only tidier.
    Lucrezia sat on the end of the bed.
    â€œThey are all well,” he said. “Uncle Cosimo’s still resting, but Aunt Eleanora says that, having been a meek and biddable patient for weeks, he is becoming exasperating again, so she feels much happier about him than she has been since he had his fit.”
    Lucrezia laughed.
    â€œThey send