The Marriage Portrait(30)

“It’s a faina, from the trees of—”

“It looks like a rat. Is that all he sent?” Isabella’s face was disgusted. “The man must be out of his mind. Does Papa know he’s given you an old painting of a rat? It’s an outrage, an insult to our family, and to you, a complete—”

“There was something else,” Lucrezia said dreamily, looking at how the artist had contrasted the stiffness of the marten’s whiskers with the lush softness of its belly. “I think.”

“Where?” Isabella demanded.

Lucrezia gestured vaguely. “Somewhere.”

The servant stepped forward and, retrieving the small box from under some papers, handed it to Isabella.

“Hmm.” Isabella turned it over in her hands; she brought it up to her ear and gave it a shake. There was an answering metallic rattle. “This is more promising.”

Without so much as a glance in Lucrezia’s direction, Isabella stripped off the string and cloth, discarding them to the floor, to reveal a leather-covered box.

“Aha,” she said, and flipped open the lid.

Lucrezia was still examining the marten, puzzling over the marked thickness of the paint, so she missed the discovery her sister made. All she knew was that, behind her, Isabella gasped and said: “Lucrè, look.”

“Yes?” Lucrezia murmured, without turning round.

“Look!” Isabella insisted, slapping Lucrezia on the shoulder. “Forget that horrible rat for a moment, would you, and—”

“That hurt,” Lucrezia said, rubbing the spot, “and you mustn’t—”

“I’m going to box your ears, you little flea,” Isabella shrieked, “unless you look, right now. You’re driving me to distraction.”

Lucrezia sighed and tore herself from the painting. “What is it?” she said, turning in her chair.

Despite everything, Lucrezia caught her breath at what she saw. Her sister was holding up a jewel of startling crimson. An enormous ruby set in gold, surrounded by pearls, and strung on a slippery, linked collar, encrusted with more rubies, to be worn about the neck, Lucrezia supposed. The colour of the larger stone was pure and searing, like a frozen drop of wine. It drew the eye to itself, unerringly; it was the brightest element in the room.

“Now this,” Isabella was saying, “is what I call a betrothal gift.”

Lucrezia didn’t say anything. She stared at the pendant, the way the light seemed to gather around it, the way it made everything else seem pallid and unobtrusive. How heavy it would feel, around the throat. How it would tug and weigh upon the skin there.

“So unfair,” Isabella was muttering, holding the pendant up to her own neck and gazing petulantly into the glass above the mantel, turning one way, then the other. “Paolo never sent me anything half as fine. Suits my colouring best as well. It’s wasted on you.”

“Why?” Lucrezia said.

“Why what?”

“Why is it wasted on me?”

“Well,” Isabella, still looking at her reflection, said, “you don’t care for such things, do you?”

Lucrezia glanced back at the rendering of the animal, the gleaming gilded frame. “I suppose not,” she mumbled.

“I want it,” Isabella declared, holding the pendant out at arm’s length. “I can have it, can’t I? You will give it to me.”

Lucrezia looked at her sister, at the combative, acquisitive glint in her eye, the determined set of her mouth. She allowed there to be a slight pause. “You want me to write back to him and say, thank you for the gift, which my sister has decided must be hers?”

Isabella held her gaze for a moment longer, calculating the various outcomes of this situation, then let out a cross sigh.

“Papa wouldn’t allow it,” she said, more to herself than Lucrezia. “So unfair,” she said again, and let the pendant and its collar coil back into the box. She was about to snap the lid shut, when she paused. “He’s written something here, inside the lid.”

“Has he?”

“Yes. Shall I read it to you?” Without waiting for a reply, Isabella put on a deep, masculine voice and intoned: “This belonged to my grandmother, who had the same name as you: from one Lucrezia to another.” She snapped shut the box with one hand and tossed it into Lucrezia’s lap. “There,” she said, waspishly. “All yours. Good luck with him. The pompous ass.”

Isabella turned and marched across the room; when she reached the bed, she threw herself on to it, face down.

Lucrezia placed the box on the table next to her. She lifted the lid and examined the pendant. Its splendour and unsettling beauty were dimmed slightly by its leather surround. It felt manageable, approachable. Someone had decided it would be set in pearls, which surrounded it like a mouth of tiny teeth: had it been the artisan or the grandmother? She wondered what this other Lucrezia had been like. She knew from her father that Alfonso’s grandmother had been a famous beauty, and had been painted by many artists. Might this pendant have appeared in one of those portraits? She could ask Alfonso, she supposed, in her letter. Lucrezia reached for a quill and her penknife, and began to whittle herself a sharp point.

Behind her, she was aware of Isabella, lying on her bed, muttering to herself: “The Duke of Pomposity. From one Lucrezia to another. What an ass. Duke of Far-away-i-a. Who sends a rat and a jewel? Ass.”