The Marriage Portrait(73)

She is trying to add a butterfly on one of the outer petals, but it is not turning out well: one of its wings is larger than the other, giving it an unbalanced look. Perhaps she, too, will not finish this; perhaps this rose will never be completed. She cannot work with needle and thread—her fingers become stiff and strange to her. Paint is what she loves best, and chalk, and ink. She turns the hoop over and inspects the underside. She has always had a secret liking for this part of the embroidery, the “wrong” side, congested with knots, striations of silk and twists of thread. How much more interesting it is, with its frank display of the labour needed to attain the perfection of the finished piece. She runs her hands over its cartography: she can tell which stitches are hers and which Isabella’s. Her own are clumsier, hastier, with an air of impatience and displeasure.

She turns the hoop over once more and pushes the needle through the cloth. Instantly, she receives a sharp pain, just below her fingernail: she has misjudged it and pricked herself. She watches, with a ghoulish fascination, as a perfect bead of crimson rises out of her cuticle.

Without warning, the door is flung open. Lucrezia starts and, putting her finger in her mouth, jumps to her feet.

Alfonso is moving swiftly through the room. He has taken extra pains, she sees, with his toilette, his hair smoothed back and oiled, his face freshly shaved, and he is wearing cuffs with gold trims.

“My dearest,” he says, and, bowing over her hand, he kisses it. “How I have missed you. Are you well? Did the time hang heavily upon you?”

“No, not at all,” Lucrezia says. “I—”

“What?” he exclaims, throwing himself into the chair she has just vacated. “You didn’t miss me at all?”

“Oh,” Lucrezia says, a furious blush heating her face, “no, I did, really, I—”

“Not even a little bit?” he teases, drawing her on to his lap and, seeing her finger, he catches her hand in his. “But you are hurt. How did this happen?”

“It’s nothing. I was doing my embroidery and the needle slipped and—”

“Here.” He pulls a kerchief out of his sleeve and wraps it tenderly around her finger.

“Thank you,” she says, then carefully, without looking at him: “How was everything in Ferrara?”

“Good.” The word is clipped and efficient. “All good.”

Lucrezia, perched self-consciously on Alfonso’s knee, watches as a red stain appears on the snowy whiteness of the kerchief around her finger, blood making itself known, refusing to be concealed.

“Did you manage to…attend to the matter you were concerned about?”

Alfonso clasps his arms around her and, once again, she experiences the sensation of being pinioned, imprisoned. The embroidery of his cuffs catches and chafes against her dress, whispering to her, telling her something she cannot understand. “I did.”

“Was it…” she knows she should not pursue the matter as he doesn’t seem to wish to discuss it, but she cannot contain her fascination over what might have occurred at the Ferrarese court in the last few days “…did you…was it resolved…to your satisfaction?”

He draws back and gives her a level look. “Of course,” he says, and he toys with a curl at the side of her head, winding it around and around his finger. “Do you know why?”

Wordlessly, she shakes her head.

“Because everything,” with each word, he gives the curl a gentle tug, “is always resolved to my satisfaction.”

“Oh, I am glad,” she cries, relieved. “You managed to persuade your mother to stay in Ferrara? Will she wait at least until I arrive at court? I do so long to meet her. And your sisters. Did they agree to remain with you? Have they—”

She stops. Alfonso is leaning back in the chair, scrutinising her. She has gone too far, she sees, and wishes she could pluck her hasty words from the air and stuff them back inside her.

“You seem,” he says, at last, “remarkably well informed.”

“Forgive me,” she says, and realises that she is filled with inexplicable terror, her heart pounding, the skin of her neck prickling. Will he become angry? Will he castigate her as he did after she asked Baldassare to stop beating the young boy? “I spoke out of turn and—”

“No, no. It is interesting for me that this news has reached you. Useful to know.”

“I’m sorry, I should not have—”

He cuts her off with a slow blink, making it clear with this minuscule gesture that he does not want or need her apologies. “I wonder, however, how you came by this knowledge.”

She sits on his lap, an ornately plumed bird in a hand. Emilia, she thinks, Emilia. But she will not give him this name, will not surrender her maid to him. Never.

“It was…that is, I overheard…something about it. You know how it is, when people talk—”

“What people?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Servants or officials?”

She has to think. Which would be best? Which would be worse? Which would cause the least damage or punishment?

“Well…I don’t recall…perhaps both?”

He looks at her for several moments, mouth hidden by the hand propping up his chin. Then he nods. He asks what she has been doing, did she find some occupation for herself, and she realises that the subject has been dropped, but she still doesn’t know whether or not his mother has left for France, and if his sisters have remained in Ferrara. She cannot ask now. He is easing her off his lap and walking towards the easel, where her unfinished painting is resting, covered with a shawl. He pulls this off and, dropping it to the floor, bends to examine her work.