Light on Lucrezia by Jean Plaidy Read Free Book Online Page A

household heard her laughing and singing, and they smiled among themselves. It was pleasant to live in the household of Madonna Lucrezia; it was comforting to know that she had given up all thought of going into a convent. A convent! That was surely not the place for one as gay and lovely, as capable of being happy and giving happiness, as Lucrezia.
    They knew in their hearts that the peace of the household was due to the absence of one person, but none mentioned this. Who could doubt that an idle word spoken now might be remembered years hence? And Il Valentino would not remain forever abroad.
    The days passed all too quickly, and when in December Lucrezia knew that she was going to have a baby, she felt that her joy was complete.

     
    Alfonso was ridiculously careful of her. She must rest, he declared. She must not forget the precious burden she carried.
    “It is soon yet to think of that, my dearest,” she told him.
    “It is never too soon to guard one’s greatest treasures.”
    She would lie on their bed, he beside her, while they talked of the child. They would ponder on the sex of the child. If it were a boy they would be the proudest parents on Earth; and if a girl, no less proud. But they hoped for a boy.
    “Of course we shall have a boy,” Alfonso declared, kissing her tenderly. “How, in this most perfect marriage could we have anything else? But if she is a girl, and resembles her mother, then I think we shall be equally happy. I see nothing for us but a blissful life together.”
    Then they loved and told each other of their many perfections and how the greatest happiness they had ever known came from each other.
    “One day,” said Alfonso, “I shall take you to Naples. How will you like living away from Rome?”
    “You will be there,” Lucrezia told him, “and there will be my home. Yet …”
    He touched her cheek tenderly. “You will not wish to be long separated from your father,” he said.
    “We shall visit him often, and perhaps he will visit us.”
    “How dearly you love him! There are times when I think you love him beyond all others.”
    Lucrezia answered: “It is you, my husband, whom I love beyond all others. Yet I love my father in a different way. Perhaps as one loves God. He has always been there, wise and kind. Oh Alfonso, I cannot tell you of the hundred kindnesses I have received at his hand. I do not love him as I love you … you are part of me … I am completely at ease with you. You are my perfect lover. But he … is the Holy Father of us all, and my own tender father. Do not compare my love for him with that I have for you. Let me be happy, in both my loves.”
    Alfonso was reminded suddenly of the loud sardonic laughter of Cesare, and he had an uncanny feeling that the spirit of Cesare would haunt him allhis life, mocking him in his happiest moments, besmirching the brightness of his love.
    But he did not mention Cesare.
    He, like Lucrezia, often had the feeling that they must hold off the future. They must revel in the perfect happiness of the present. It would be folly to think of what might come, when what was actually happening gave them so much pleasure. Did one think of snowstorms when one picnicked on warm summer evenings in the vineyards about the Colosseum? One did not spoil those perfect evenings by saying: “It will be less pleasant here two months hence.”

     
    Sanchia was restless . She missed her passionate meetings with Cesare. She assured herself that she hated him, and she had taken many lovers since his departure, but none satisfied her.
    She constantly thought of him in France, courting Carlotta, the legitimate daughter of her uncle; and the humiliation she suffered was intense. She, who had been accused of witchcraft because of her power over men, she who had never yet been deserted by a lover, was insulted, and openly so because everyone had known that at one time it had been the intention of Cesare to marry her.
    Now with his French dukedom