She gathered herself again. Would she ask about the blood? Then she closed her eyes and shook her head, half laughing under her breath. "It's none of my business whom you like to kiss. How silly and rude all these questions are."

He relaxed. "We are always curious about that which is strange to us."

"You will never believe what I... well, never mind. You're right of course. I didn't understand about your disease. I was imagining all sorts of things." She looked stricken. "Oh, dear! I've been blurting out whatever comes into my head. How many times have people pointed at me and asked astounding questions? I of anyone should be sensitive to another's differences." She bit her lips. They were really quite lovely lips, pink without rouge, full. Made in fact for kissing. "I'm sorry if I gave you pain," she said.

She, who pretended to be so cynical, had a generous spirit underneath. An achievement, surely, with the life she had led. "I'm glad you asked." As long as the asking had resulted in her thinking she was imagining things, all had turned out for the best. He returned to his meal, and she to hers. A wall came up between them. He could feel her turning over his answers. It was in her nature not to believe what she had guessed. That would be his protection.

Yet a certain sadness came over him. She had just shown how appalled she would be if what she imagined were true. And it was true. Oh, she had the details wrong. But in her eyes he would be a monster. The word alone for his kind struck fear and loathing into human hearts. And that meant he could never share with her what he was. Or with any human. Paolo knew his healing, his long life. But not about the blood. Not about the strength or his more-than-human senses, or his ability to translocate from one place to another.

He could share what he truly was only with his kind.

But could he? They were allowed to live only one to a city to conceal their presence among the human population. The only one of his kind he knew well was his mother, a remarkable woman who made others pale by comparison. But even his mother wouldn't understand what North Africa had made him. Even the ones who had fought by his side there weren't as sickened by the experience as he was. Then there was the spontaneous combustion he could apparently cause. It had begun in North Africa.

Not even he understood that.

He was alone.

So he would see his mother tomorrow. He would provide for the little charlatan. Then he would take the stone to Mirso Monastery. And his duty would be done.

He had always wondered why his kind retreated to Mirso and took the Vow, never to leave the confines of its walls again. They said it was because they had grown heartsick with age, ennui gouging out globules of sanity with its teeth. The rigor of the chants, the ascetic rituals that starved the Companion in their veins of its need for blood, gave a life one could understand, control.

Perhaps not much of a life, but better than the alternative: drugging yourself into a stupor or going insane. Too bad vampires could not commit suicide. The Companion's urge to life was what incited it to rebuild its host forever, and its power over its host was absolute. It did not allow suicide. The mere thought of trying to put himself in a position to be decapitated generated a shuddering revulsion in his veins even now. That was why no vampire lived in France, what with Madame Guillotine on the rampage there these last years.

For the first time he could see that Mirso Monastery might be all that was left to him. When the duty of returning the stone was gone, when all he had were the memories of women he did not love, and of the vampires he had killed in the desert, some innocent, some not, when all he could remember were endless rounds of human venality and cruelty-what then?

Maybe if he lived an ascetic life at Mirso, his pyrotechnic abilities would disappear. If you had no strong emotions, then you couldn't bring forth flame. That sounded appealing.

He looked up and found the girl staring at him. She flushed and looked away.

Did she flush because she was thinking carnal thoughts about him and he caught her out? That was usually the case with women.

Did she flush with embarra.s.sment that she had thought him a vampire? Or did she flush because she was self-conscious about her scar? When she turned, she instinctively turned her marked cheek away.

She had not eaten, but pushed her plate away. "Let us go," he said, rising. He left his own steak half finished.

He was sleeping in his corner of the coach. She could hear his even breathing. That was a good thing. The man had been sleeping far too little in the last days. And even if his condition gave him healing properties, surely healing the burns she had seen would have taken his strength. She wondered if the healing properties shortened his life span. She couldn't ask him about that.

She flushed again just to think what she had already asked him.

How could she have believed he was a vampire? And asked him to touch a crucifix as proof that he was not. She cringed just to think about it. As though he was a risen corpse. She knew from experience just how warm his touch was. At that inn the first night she had seen him eat a pigeon pie liberally laced with garlic. There was nary a glimpse of fangs on his even white teeth. The poor man had a disease and she had vilified him for it. How different was she than all those ignorant creatures who blamed her for being scarred? And that she could even consider there were such things as vampires meant she was losing her grip on reality.

Dear Lord! What would the nuns think? What would Matthew have thought?

And why should she care? Because she might be a creature of her upbringing, and for better or worse the nuns and Matthew had formed her character: they and the streets of London.

That depressed her.

She sighed. Thinking him a vampire was as stupid as believing she saw the future. Best get her mind on what counted. Would he pay her for a stone he could just take? And if he did, was there something else he wanted of her? She still didn't see what he got out of the bargain.

More carriages were pa.s.sing outside. They might be coming to a town. Florence? She peeked out behind the shade. The Tuscan hills rolled away into the distance. Some were covered in neat rows of vines, like a chenille bed coverlet. Some were crowned with square houses sporting tiled roofs, their plastered walls painted curious shades of brown and brick red and dusty gold. They looked st.u.r.dy, confident. The trees were cypress, standing upright in lines along the roads or cl.u.s.tered about the houses.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

The deep rumble startled her. She let the flap down. "In a cultivated sort of way."

He chuckled. "You prefer the sublime of Turner, all wild chaos? Less comfortable, I a.s.sure you."

She had to smile. "I'm sure you're right."

"I am. I've been to Turner's Alps. But I grew up around here."

"In the countryside?"

"My mother's estates. When my father was alive we liked it better than Firenze."

"I think we are coming into the city."

He sat up, pulled the shade open a crack and squinted into the brightness. "Would you care to tell me your real name?" He let the shade slip back into place. "I hate to lie to my mother."

Kate sat up straighter, incensed. But after she had asked him all those impertinent questions about his disease, it might not seem unreasonable to him to ask her name.She grimaced. "Kate. I always keep some version of Kate."

He raised his brows. "And the last name? Not Mulroney, surely. It hardly suits you."

"Why not?"

"Inelegant."

"One doesn't choose one's name."

"One always chooses who one is to some extent, in spite of one's background."

He was right about that too. The thought made her uncomfortable. She spent a fair amount of time around this man feeling uncomfortable.

"Names included," he continued. "I chose mine because I liked the Eternal City, and wanted to be called after it. Urbano means 'from the city.' "

"I know what it means," she snapped. "Were you rebelling against your family?"

He gave a small, rueful smile. "Hardly. My mother encouraged me to change it. What woman wants to acknowledge a grown son?"

Kate was appalled. What kind of a mother was that? "Your other names as well?"

"No. I always keep my given name. I think of myself as Gian. Currently Gian Vincenzo."

"I'm not sure of my real surname," she admitted, "since Matthew was not my father."

He nodded, silent, not pressing. So she went on. "Come to think on it, I'm not sure his real name was Sheridan, though that was what he claimed."

"Sheridan." He considered. "That fits. Shall you be called Miss Kate Sheridan?"

"I suppose so." It was a commitment, after all, only for a few days.

"Then that is how I shall introduce you."

Chapter Eight.

Gian made certain to arrive when his mother was out. She might not be overjoyed to have the protection of a girl thrust upon her. Gian suspected she liked to think of herself as a girl in spite of her age. She had taken up residence in the Palazzo Vecchio on the central Piazza della Signoria of Firenze. Inconvenient. He had to bring Kate in the back entrance to avoid one particular piece of statuary in the piazza. He bribed his mother's majordomo liberally and installed Kate in a comfortable bedroom behind the map room until he could prepare the way.

He waited in his mother's apartments overlooking the piazza. The salon was lighted only by flickering sconces. The walls were covered with frescos now dark with age. It smelled of the oil and lemon used to polish the heavy furniture. The palazzo had not been modernized. His mother liked it for its location next to the former government offices, called, directly enough, Uffizi, now turned into an art museum. She also relished the fact that it had once been the town residence of Cosimo de' Medici before he moved to the Palazzo Pitti across the river. His mother always liked taking something from the Medicis, though they had now vanished and it was only from their ghosts that she took it.

A carriage clattered into the courtyard and servants began bustling about in preparation. His mother always seemed to move about like a brisk breeze whirling up leaves before it.

"Gian? Gian is here?" Her footsteps quickened up the grand staircase from the audience hall. "At last." The door burst open in a wash of cinnamon and ambergris.

"Gian!" She hurried to take his hands, laughing. "I thought you might be in the vicinity."

He smiled. How could one not? She was so alive! She, for all her years, had not grown bored with living. "You look well," he said. Her red and old gold brocade dress had full slashed sleeves and much Brussels lace, its waist lower than was the fashion at the moment. On her it looked timeless. She was a beautiful woman: dark hair, porcelain skin, and great, dark brown snapping eyes fringed with long lashes. No one would guess she was Gian's mother, not only because of his light eyes, but because she looked younger than he did. She would have to be moving on soon, or her claim that excellent skin creams and cosmetics kept her looking young would no longer fool her jealous rivals. How she would hate to leave Firenze, even for a time.

"Of course I look well," said, she laughing, "I always look well." A frown appeared as she examined him. "But you, my son, look... worn. Were the wars so terrible?"

He shrugged. "War is war." But he saw she would not be satisfied with that. "There were a lot of them. The killing was ugly."

"Khalenberg says you were quite the hero." She took off the tiny hat of old lace that nested in her upswept hair. "Algiers would have fallen without your leadership."

"Hardly."

"Why did you not have Bucarro send for me? I was dallying at some state function most intolerable when I could have been here with you hearing all about it."

"I... I'd rather not discuss it, if you don't mind." He paced to the balcony.

"As yon wish." Her voice held concern.

In the piazza below women cl.u.s.tered about one of the statues just in front of the Uffizi's main entrance in the May Tuscan evening. He sighed. Did they never tire of looking at it?

"When did Buonarroti finish that d.a.m.n thing?" he growled.

"Oh. 1504 or 1505 I should think." His mother's voice drifted out from the darkness behind him, sounding fragile and feminine.

That fragility was a lie.

He took a breath and leaned on the bal.u.s.trade of the balcony. The air was scented with jasmine, warm with the promise of summer heat. Not so different from the heat and the jasmine in North Africa. He shook his head, lest the memories come and overwhelm him again. All this talk of the wars unnerved him. He tried to focus on the statue. "I don't see the attraction."

"Don't you?" He could hear the smile in her voice.

"The hands and feet are too big," he grumbled.

"They forgive Michelangelo that, my dear. It was meant to stand on the top of the Duomo. He wanted people to be able to see everything from the ground."

"Well, now it stands in the piazza." It was sixteen feet high. The pale marble gleamed in the moonlight through the patina of age.

He couldn't deny the sculptor's genius. The contrapuntal stance of the body, the articulation of ligament and muscle-the d.a.m.n thing looked like it would step off the pedestal at any moment. But the real artistry was in the expression. Buonarroti had captured young David in the moment after he had slain Goliath. Any other sculptor would have made the victor jubilant. But in Buonorroti's David there was no triumph. The figure's puckered brow showed only the realization that killing was not satisfying and the knowledge that, from this moment, everything had changed. It was a pensive look, disturbed and disturbing. Buonarroti had captured the instant in which the simple shepherd was transformed into an uneasy king. Where had Buonarroti seen that expression?

He didn't think the expression was why the women cl.u.s.tered, though.

"Why ever did you pose for it, if it upsets you so to have it on display?"

The point exactly. Buonarroti had seen him at the baths. The brute could be very persuasive. Everything for art and all. Gian never thought anyone would recognize him with the statue perched so high up on the Duomo. Who knew they would set it in the Piazza della Signoria where every woman in Tuscany could ogle his nude body at their whim? White marble couldn't render his coloring. But if women who met him didn't jump to the pertinent conclusion at once, he was soon treated to a gasp of recognition. Even when he was fully clothed.

He appeared in the piazza these days only when he wanted women in his bed, for love or for blood. He made up stories of an ancestor who had posed for the statue. They wanted to test how far the likeness went. He clenched his jaw. Buonarroti had not exaggerated. Gian had put on a little bulk of muscle since then, but the essentials from a female point of view were the same.

These days they would be disappointed in the actual operation of those essentials, but he made sure they had their pleasure of him, took his blood from them, and left them with ecstatic memories.

He turned into the salon, trying to a.s.sume nonchalance. "I wonder you can stand to have your son's circ.u.mcision displayed beneath your window."

"The statue reminded me of you. Two years is a long time to be without a son."

Two years of killing. He blinked against the memories. An army of men who had been made vampires by an evil vampire woman called Asharti. She had thought to use that tinny to rule the world.

A pack of them descended on him, snarling like animals. His sword flashed but they came and came. Only a clean decapitation could kill them. Canvas flapped from the abandoned tents of the Kasbah. The night sky was black and moonless. He ducked under the blade of a scimitar. The aroma of unwashed bodies mixed with the scent of cinnamon and ambergris that marked their kind. His kind. And overall the smell of blood. A blade found his side. One reached for his head... Rage washed through him. A tent erupted inflames...

He swallowed convulsively, blinking, and pushed down the memories. Strange, he had not had a single uncontrolled memory during the journey here. They had used to take him frequently at night, and haunt his dreams during the day ever since he'd returned. Perhaps his preoccupation with the stone was a good thing. Or was his real preoccupation with the girl? "I... I'm glad the statue was a comfort."

His mother drew her brows together. Had she seen his lapse? "Come, sit." She motioned to a carved mahogany chair with a cushion. "The war is over. It is time to think of your future."

"Not yet. I have a final task to perform. A stone from the Temple of Waiting has surfaced. I must return it to Mirso." And then there would be nothing left to do.

She drew a breath and let it out."I stay only to... make certain arrangements and I will go."

Again she pointed to the carved wooden chair. "Then what?"

Ahhhh. That was the question now, wasn't it? "I have no plans." He didn't want to reveal the turmoil inside him. But out of deference to her he sat.

She simply waited, her snapping eyes filled with questions.

He shook his head. What could he tell her?

"Perhaps you could interest yourself in politics," she suggested. "All these warring city-states allow foreign powers to pick us off one by one. The Spanish are bad masters, the Hapsburgs no better. They bleed us dry. The best thing that happened to us was Napoleon. He set things to rights. But he is exiled to Elba. What we require is a united Italy. The Carbonari have started an underground movement to achieve that. But they need a leader."

He shrugged. "Some greedy new demagogues would just tear it all apart again."

"Then speak out against the Inquisition. The church has suppressed all original thinking. You write persuasively, and you certainly have no fear. You could make a difference."