Page 85 of Promised to the Don of Naples
"Signora, it's five weeks away. She should have come yesterday."
I swallowed hard.
Five weeks, again. Apparently the phrase was the house's currency now.
"And the padrone?"
"He went up to the study with Signor Acquaviva." She wiped the edge of the tray with the cloth folded in three, the way she always did. "He won't be down anytime soon."
Lina was small and bony, white hair pulled into a tight ponytail, pins fastened to the front of her dress like medals. When she saw me, she clapped quietly, the way you'd applaud something sacred.
"Signora, Madonna santa. Lift your arms, please."
I obeyed. The dress was ivory, without sheen, with old lace on the sleeve down to the elbow. It weighed more than I remembered from the first fitting.
"Eleven kilos of fabric," Lina said, kneeling, her mouth full of pins. "Nonna Moretti made the list of what had to be embroidered by hand. Don't ask me to take any of it out."
"Nonna made the list?"
"Nonna Adelina, signora. She's coming from Capri in two weeks, did you know?" Lina smiled out of the corner of her mouth, dangerous. "So signora Moretti won't reach the altar with just any cloth on her body."
"Two weeks," I repeated.
Two weeks until the nonna arrived. Five until the man who calls himself my father was dead.
"Nonna Adelina will sleep in the…" Donna Beatrice appeared in the doorway with a folded towel over her arm. "In the room that used to be yours, signora. Signora Marta's room."
"Sì."
"The signora knows things," Donna Beatrice went on quietly, not looking at Lina, who was fussing with the hem, "that not even the padrone knows."
My heart skipped a beat.
"Things?"
Donna Beatrice didn't answer. She just set the towel on the arm of the chair, smoothed the front of her apron with her palm, and left.
I went down to the garden after lunch, alone. I needed to breathe.
And yet, even the garden was different now.
Before the attack, there were two soldiers visible at the gate and four hidden in the trees. I knew, because I'd counted, on my second day in the house, when I was still planning to run.
Now I counted nine just from where I stood. Three at the gate, two among the lemon trees, two on the south wall, two on the steps of the house. All in black suits, with the eyes of men who hadn't slept.
"Signora."
Tonio. Luca's driver, tall, broad-shouldered, always with a folded white towel in the inside pocket of his jacket, because Luca couldn't stand a fingerprint on the car windows.
He was holding a bouquet. White lilies.
"This came for the signora," he said, and his voice was controlled the way a soldier's voice gets when the man inside is waiting for the order to tear someone apart. "Through the service gate. Ordinary courier. Unsigned card."
I swallowed hard.
"Can I see the card?"
He held out the envelope. White card stock, thick, with a single sentence written by hand in Italian.
