The Marriage Portrait(24)

“We have received assurance that Alfonso, heir to the Duke of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, would be willing to enter into a state of matrimony with the Lady Lucrezia.”

Lucrezia held herself very still, her brush—loaded with the rare and costly ultramarine—poised. She could not breathe, could not raise her gaze, for she was convinced that Vitelli and his pale eyes would be able to bore through her skin and see that she already knew this, would discern her habit of loitering in passageways, ear pressed to walls and panels.

She needed to have no such fears for Sofia, it seemed.

“The son of the Duke of Ferrara?” Sofia was repeating, in shocked tones. “Him that was promised to Lady Maria, God rest her soul?” Sofia crossed herself, piously.

Again, Vitelli cleared his throat. “Yes, the very same.” He skimmed over these words, efficiently, impatiently. “They are naturally distressed by the loss of Lady Maria but the fact remains that the Duke is in want of a wife for his son. Alfonso remembers meeting Lady Lucrezia and took away with him a favourable impression. He has indicated that he wishes to be espoused to her. It is,” Vitelli snapped shut his book and began to fasten the long leather tie, “entirely fitting and respectful to propose marriage to a sister of the deceased. It shows great affection and respect for this house. Not to mention,” he added quickly, “the great esteem in which he holds the Lady Lucrezia.”

Hunched over the table, Lucrezia lowered her brush, fraction by fraction, to add a streak of ultramarine along the starling’s wing. The colour appeared to vibrate and push against the dark gloss of the feathers; Lucrezia could almost hear this, a warring between two dissonant notes.

“What an honour for her,” Sofia murmured, stretching the duster between her hands as if she might tear it, and Lucrezia believed that Vitelli would never be able to tell that Sofia meant the exact opposite of what she was saying.

“Indeed,” Vitelli remarked, inclining his head, then he pulled an odd face, his eyes creased, his lips retreating from his teeth. It took Lucrezia a moment to realise that Vitelli was attempting a smile.

“Perhaps,” Sofia said, shifting her feet on the rug, “the Duke and his son do not realise that Lucrezia is still very young.”

“She will be thirteen on her next birthday and—”

“She is barely twelve,” Sofia cut in, “and the Duke’s heir is, I believe—”

“The Lady Maria, God have mercy upon her, was certainly a more appropriate age, but Alfonso is undoubtedly looking ahead to the day when he will be Duke of Ferrara, and wishing to take a wife is, of course, a great part of that. This would be an advantageous match for both.”

“She is a child, signore.”

“Many women are married at—”

Sofia lifted her chin. “She is still a child,” she repeated, and her quiet, emphatic tone made Lucrezia glance up. She saw Sofia’s fingers, behind her back, crossed over each other. The superstitious nurse, who would never lay a hat on a bed, never pass another person on the stairs.

Vitelli narrowed his eyes. He swallowed, the protrusion in his white neck bobbing up and down. “Am I to understand, signora, that she is yet to…?” Vitelli trailed away, expectantly.

The nurse allowed for a pause. She tilted her head, with an air of puzzlement. “Yet to?” she prompted.

Vitelli shifted his gaze to the floor, the window, the ceiling. “That she has not…that is to say…ah…she hasn’t…?”

Again, Sofia permitted a silence, one that widened and expanded between her and the senior adviser. Lucrezia peered at them both from under her lashes. She had no inkling of what they were speaking. All she knew was that Vitelli was deflating, emptying, like a cloud that had been filled with rain and was now breaking apart into harmless wisps.

Vitelli was trying again: “She has not…” He faltered, a boat adrift on a current, but Sofia refused to catch the rope he was desperately tossing towards her.

“Not what?” she said innocently.

Vitelli set his jaw, still not meeting her eye. “Signora, has Lucrezia begun her…” he broke off but, shutting his eyes briefly, he summoned courage “…monthly bleedings?”

“No,” Sofia said.

Lucrezia looked down, not at her painting but at the starling laid alongside her brushes and oil vial. The bird, the picture. She looked nowhere else. She looked at the delicate, scaled feet, which would never again cling to the twig of a tree or the stone lintel of a window; she looked at the folded, layered wings, which would not be outstretched, catching the upwards motion of a breeze, would not carry the bird over roofs and streets. She looked at her painting, saw where it had failed to capture the exact line of the beak, the lustrous green of the soft throat.

Sofia’s “no” tolled through her head. No, she had said, definite and sure. She had looked at Vitelli and said: No.

Lucrezia touched her fingertip to the starling’s tail. She had found it early that morning, on the mezzanine. It had flown in through an open window and then been unable to find its way out again. She wondered if it had spent all night fluttering back and forth, in ever-rising panic, butting its beak again and again against the glass, wings a desperate whir. She stroked the plush throat with a curled finger. Had its heart emptied gradually of hope? Had it looked through the glass and seen where its companions were wheeling and massing in a large, oscillating cloud above the palazzo? Had it watched as they all flew away, leaving it there, trapped in the building? She could not bear it, could not find capacity within herself for the sudden sympathy she felt for this bird.