"The Renaissance is officially over, Mother, in case you haven't noticed. All society talks about is opera and the latest castrati.

No one cares about original thinking."

His mother shook her head, exasperated. She picked up a parchment from her desk, but she only pretended to read it. She chewed her lip. Finally she looked up at him. "You know what you need?" Her tone was too casual for his liking.

"I have no idea." That at least was true.

"A woman."

He chuffed a bitter laugh. "I have plenty of women."

"That's not what I mean and you know it."

He looked away. "I won't get entangled with a human woman just to watch her age and die, Mother. Your own experience is a lesson to me."

Her eyes registered her hurt. He hadn't meant to hurt her. But he wouldn't let her push him either. She took a breath and answered. She had always been courageous. "I loved your father well. The pain was worth it."

"You didn't take another lover for two hundred years after he died."

"I have had many lovers since."

He simply raised his brows.

She colored, "Very well. Not the same. But I keep looking. You never look at all."

He shrugged. "I decide quickly."

She frowned at him. "In one day?"

He rose, restless. "How am I to impose what I am on any human woman? Aside from the pain of watching her age, how do you tell her you are something she considers a monster?"

"Then one of our own kind."

"With only one to a city allowed? Short visits with permission. I've done that, Lord knows." He'd done it with Elyta, to disastrous effect. She was still angry that he'd left her. Not that her heart had been engaged. Elyta didn't have a heart. She was just used to being the one to leave. He wouldn't repeat that particular mistake. "It smacks of shopping at the Kasbah. 'May I stay in your city for a week to sample the goods?' And if by chance I did meet a female, and if by greater chance we suited, we could not live together. What life is that?"

"You always were one to obey the Elders' Rules." She sighed.

"I come by it honestly. You did not make Father vampire because it is against the Rules." He saw the pain in her eyes. Did she regret her choice? "I would call that honor, by the way." He tried to tell her she had done the right thing. He saw she didn't believe that anymore. "The Rules are the only thing between us and chaos. Look what happened when Asharti made a vampire army. It was almost the end of everything."

She looked away. She wouldn't be comforted even after a thousand years. "And anyway, I'm dry inside, just dust. I've nothing to give."

Her eyes softened. She smiled. That smile had always warmed him, inspired him. He wished it would do so now. He wanted to feel enthusiasm again, as she did. "You're wrong, cara mia," she whispered. "You have so much to give."

He couldn't smile in return. "You're my mother. Of course you think that."

She toyed with a quill on the desk. "Elyta Zaroff was here yesterday. She said she came to see you. I was glad of that at first."

His mother tapped the quill's feather to her chin.

"Elyta was here? Why didn't you tell me immediately?" Elyta had guessed he would come to his mother. How glad he was he had taken a devious route.

"Because then your attention would have been only for the problem she creates for you and I would not have been able to have my useless conversation about your future."

He ignored her barb. "What did you tell her?"

"The truth, of course, since I possess a cursed sense of honor. I said I hadn't seen you in two years. She seemed quite perturbed. Said I should give you a message when you arrived."

"And?"

His mother shrugged and looked away. "That it was a long way to Mirso."

Gian let his breath whoosh out. There it was. Elyta was probably somewhere near even now. She would dog him to Mirso as he tried to take the stone to Rubius and the Elders for safekeeping. She was stronger than he, and she had threatened to bring other vampires. What was she planning? He glanced to the night outside the balcony. "Were there others with her?"

His mother looked a little shocked that Elyta might have gathered vampires to her cause. Now that was against the Rules. "Not to my knowledge."

"Do you know where she's staying?" He'd better confront Elyta and be done with it. If there were others he'd need his mother's help. He'd brought trouble to her door. That thought produced a surge of guilt. But where else could he have gone once Kate was involved?"She isn't in Firenze. I revoked her welcome. I... I didn't like her tone."

"And you think Elyta would respect your wishes?"

"I think she fears me." His mother stood and drew up her diminutive frame. "I am old, Gian. I've seen the pyramids built and the Tower of Babel. I am strong. She will not dare attack me. Which is why I am going with you to Mirso with the stone."

"Out of the question."

"You defy me?"

"You should be used to it by now."

"But not in this matter, cara mia. You need me." She touched his sleeve.

That was true, though not in the manner his mother intended. And with Elyta out of the city, they had a little time. He could not leave Firenze without providing for Kate. She not only needed money, but also his mother's protection from Elyta Zaroff. Elyta would make sure Kate didn't have the stone. At the least she'd send one of her minions to torture Kate and kill her. The journey to the Carpathian Mountains with Elyta stalking him would wait a day or two to be sure Kate was protected. He would get the stone to Mirso somehow. Maybe he would take it by sea from Ravenna through the Strait of Bosporus, into the Black Sea, landing at Varna, and from there into the Carpathians, Elyta would never expect that.

When he got back, if he got back, Kate would be gone. The dust inside him rose again, threatening to choke him.

Maybe he would stay at Mirso Monastery. He'd take the Vow and lock himself into a narrow existence of chanting and abstinence. Maybe, if he were lucky, his spirit would find peace. It was not a course of action his mother would condone.

So she need not know. Not now. "There is one thing you can help me with." He cleared his throat. Suddenly this was difficult.

"Well... the stone is in the possession of a young woman." He saw his mother's wary look. "She is asking... twenty thousand British pounds for it. And since I had to come away from Rome, I was unable to complete the transaction."

His mother went still. That didn't mean she wasn't thinking.

"She's here, isn't she?"

There was never any hiding from his mother. "She's sleeping in the Blue Room. I couldn't leave her in Rome. Elyta tried to kill her. I thought you could give her countenance, and... protection until she can get back to England." He saw his mother's expression soften. "It isn't what you think," he hastened to add. He began to pace the carpet. "She's an orphan of no birth, a trickster and a sham who bilks a gullible aristocracy for her living. She's hardened and cynical. Thinks the worst of everyone and... and she's disfigured by a scar." He must prepare his mother for Kate's appearance. He didn't want Kate hurt by his mother's pity. She obviously didn't tolerate pity. And he hoped to G.o.d that his mother never tried to compel Kate by using the power of her Companion. The fact that she couldn't might truly shock his mother.

"In short, not your type at all."

He stopped pacing and sighed, grateful for her understanding. "Exactly."

"And you want to pay the little mercenary off?"

"Well, I can't leave her dest.i.tute. She's alone in the world. The stone is her only future."

"I see. And how long am I to entertain this paragon of virtue you care nothing for?"

"Only until..." He cleared his throat again. "I wouldn't call it 'entertaining' precisely." "You don't want me to introduce her to society, ensure an advantageous marriage of convenience so you can dally with her while we hold Elyta off at the gates of Firenze?" His mother was probing him somehow. And it had nothing to do with her words.

"Don't be sarcastic. Besides, she'd be charging your friends for tarot readings and visions if you did." He had to smile at that image. But he suppressed it almost immediately.

"Ahhhh..." His mother lapsed into silence as she studied him. Gian didn't like the thoughtful way she chewed her lip.

"What I want is for you to loan me the twenty thousand, and provide her an escort to London. If you could point out a dressmaker, that would be helpful."

His mother gave him a questioning look.

"Don't raise your brows at me. Everything she had burned in a fire." He wouldn't mention how that fire started "I did what I could, but I could lend her only a few things."

His mother blinked, twice. "Well, then, you'd better bring her in and introduce her."

Gian sighed. The first hurdle was pa.s.sed.

Kate smoothed the cherry-striped l.u.s.tring morning dress over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. A morning dress at night-not done of course. But it was the only dress she hadn't worn into a crumpled mess. She raised her chin. This was their morning, was it not? Well, afternoon if one was counting hours since dusk. It was almost two A.M. So it would have to do. She still carried her gray reticule with the silver beading, but that couldn't be helped. She was going to keep the stone with her at all costs and the trunk had contained no reticule, though every other article of female clothing, no matter how intimate, had been provided.

Now she sat in the elegant suite of rooms a.s.signed to her, back stiff, waiting. She fingered her deck of tarot cards and the stone's box inside her reticule for comfort. il signore Bucarro, an austere man with a pointed beard who was the majordomo of the place, had told her the mistress of the house wanted to see her and that a maid would lead her to the audience. Where was the maid? Kate wanted to get this interview over with.

One thing had her in a puzzle. This house was the richest she had ever set foot inside, its stately rooms filled with priceless statuary and medieval tapestries. Apparently they had estates all over Tuscany. With a mother who owned all this, why did Urbano need to live off women? Surely his mother didn't keep him in penury. He must be the heir. Unless he was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d? She chewed her lip. Or was it possible she'd been wrong? Maybe he wasn't a gigolo who lived off women. That would make him just as annoying, but a little less vile.

The servants, all dressed in scarlet livery, pointedly did not look at her face after the first surrept.i.tious stare. She could practically feel them judging her unworthy to be anywhere near the opulence of her surroundings. That made her angry rather than intimidated.

But the incipient meeting with Urbano's mother was intimidating. The old harridan might just throw her out. At the very least she might refuse to front Urbano the money.

If he was going to pay her for something he could just take.

She still couldn't see his lay. And the fact that she couldn't read him was entirely disconcerting. She had made her way across the Continent reading people, knowing what they wanted and showing them a future where they would get it. She was good-no, very good at it. So why couldn't she see what Urbano wanted from her?

A knock at the door was followed by a slip of a girl sliding though the opening. At last. She recognized the maid who had laid out her clothing. "Carina, isn't it?"The girl nodded and made her bob, sniffing. She'd been crying. Something cutting had no doubt been said to her by Urbano or by his mother, if she was as arrogant as he was. Or perhaps Urbano had made advances to her. That would make anyone cry.

Or perhaps he hadn't. That just might make one cry as well. She set her lips. Not her affair.

Kate gasped at a feeling of dislocation that was beginning to be familiar. In an instant the room washed away and was replaced by a tiny room up under the eaves. Kate knew it was under the eaves because of the drumming rain. Carina was crying. These were tears of joy, though. Emotion hung in the air. And there before her, kneeling, was a man, plain, but made appealing by his air of candid openness. His hair was wet, his hands roughened with work. He had on the livery of the household, but he was wearing riding boots from which the mud had been carelessly brushed, leaving tracks on the braided rag rug. A groom? And his eyes gleamed with tears in the wavering light of the single candle by the bed.

"I swear I never looked at her. 'Twas she who made eyes at me. It's you I'm askin' to marry me, Carina. If you have me, you'll find me tine as tempered steel, and I'll wear as long."

Carina nodded. It was all she could do through the sobs.

The Palazzo Vecchio of the present settled in around Kate again.

"Signorina, are you well?" Concern had replaced misery on the girl's face.

"I'm fine." If you call insane fine, she thought. But she didn't feel insane at all. That was just the problem of the whole thing.

Why in the h.e.l.l was this happening to her? Maybe... Oh, it was useless to speculate. The visions in general were useless. She seemed to see moments of extreme emotion as though they hung around the princ.i.p.al actors like incipient shrouds.

But were they useless? Was there some purpose to her seeing them? Only in telling those she saw would she know. She never knew whether the young man had avoided being run down by a carriage on Thursday. Probably she would never know.

Carina looked about to collapse into tears again.

Kate sighed. "Don't worry, Carina. Your groom loves you and you alone." The girl looked shocked. "He will propose marriage to you in a room under the eaves on a night when it is raining hard."

"How can you know?" The hope in her voice would be ludicrous if it wasn't so pathetic.

Kate shook her head, disgusted with herself. "I know what I know." She pushed past before the girl could ask any more questions. Kate had a coming ordeal and she didn't want any more disconcerting incidents to unnerve her. She'd find her own way to Urbano's mother.

Urbano himself met her in the Map Room. This strange room was lined with twoscore paintings of maps of various parts of the world and littered with globes. But she had no eyes for them. Her preoccupation with the vision dropped away. Apprehension at meeting his mother likewise. She saw only Urbano, his black coat smooth across his shoulders, his trousers sleek over his thighs.

He wore riding boots still, which only served to make his person seem even more masculine. The snowy cravat was tied simply and tucked into the gray figured waistcoat. But it was his eyes that captivated one. No wonder he was a consummate hypnotist.

Who could resist staring into those eyes?

She came to herself and crossed the room. She was wet between her legs just looking at him. A terrible realization washed over her. She had always known she was attracted to him. What woman would not be? But the physical reaction he caused in her was not the worst of it. She liked the fact that she could not read him. She liked the fact that he could argue with her as only the abbess had before him, and that he had taken her to his mother. She was glad he probably was not a gigolo. In fact, she liked him, in spite of how annoying he was, in spite of the arrogance that made her want to shriek sometimes.

Dreadful.

Liking him, and being attracted to him so that it made her hurt inside, was a fatal combination for a woman who looked like she did, who came from nowhere, and whose only ambition was to return there. That way lay heartache, and she had steeled herself against heartache from the moment she found herself in the streets of London, alone and invisible.

She raised her chin. "Come to lead the prisoner to her judgment?"

"Can't you try to be nice?" he grumbled. "My mother may lend me the twenty thousand, if we're lucky. But it would help if you were on your best behavior." He took her arm.

Lord, but she wished he wouldn't do that! It only made her throb the more. He, too, seemed startled, for he looked down at her with something like distress in his eyes.

They proceeded in uneasy silence, up a small staircase. He released her and swung open a huge door. Really, the place was quite archaic and rough-hewn underneath the marble urns, the carpets and paintings. It must be at least five or six hundred years old. She took a breath and went to meet the harridan.

But the only person in the room was a pet.i.te and incredibly lovely woman dressed in red and black brocade. She couldn't be old enough to be Urbano's mother. But was there an echo of the set of Urbano's lips? Kate felt the same electric energy vibrating in the air around her, so fast it was merely a hum at the edge of consciousness. So that's where he gets it, she thought. Maybe this woman was his mother. The woman rose and stepped forward, holding out her hands. To her credit she didn't even blink when she saw Kate's face. That didn't stop Kate's flush.

"But welcome, dear Miss Sheridan. My Gian has told me much about you."

Kate cast an accusing look at Urbano. She'd wager he'd told his mother nothing of what she really was. The least he could have done was to tell Kate what lies he'd put about so she could go along with his ruse.

"My mother," he murmured, "Contessa Donatella Margerhita Luch.e.l.la di Poliziano."

Kate dipped her most graceful curtsy. "Contessa, I am honored." There was a lovely scent of cinnamon about her, like Urbano's but sweeter, more feminine.

"I know what you are thinking." The contessa laughed as she led Kate to a carved wooden chair with U-shaped arms and back.

"I am much too young to have a grown son." The contessa sighed dramatically. "A p.r.o.nouncement with which I myself agree. I find it very daunting. He reminds me that my beauty regimen will soon fail me. I should wish that he would stay away, and yet he gives me such joy that I cannot."

One whole wall of the room was open to a balcony that looked over lighted buildings around the huge central square of Florence. It was a beautiful view, but all Kate could think about was how alive the woman before her seemed. It was something more than the vibrations that emanated from her. This was a woman who embraced life. And that was a different feeling than Urbano's electric danger. Kate sat, careful to position herself so her right cheek was turned away from the chair in which the contessa arranged herself. Urbano stood looking out over the balcony at something below in the square.