Read [Barbara Samuel] Night of Fire(Book4You) for Free Online

she did not question, Cassandra rose and went to him, putting a hand on his chest.
    "They would be proud of you, Basilio."
    He pressed her palm close to his heart, and a button on his waistcoat made an imprint on her flesh. He made a soft pained noise; touched a wisp of hair with his other hand. "You are far too rich a temptation, my Cassandra," he said softly. "I am trying to think of only what lies behind this mask of beauty, but the mask is a wonder."
    She wanted to kiss him. The desire came to her suddenly, fiercely, and with such power that it made her momentarily dizzy.
    No. She could not bear to discover that Basilio was like all men in his baseness. Better to preserve the illusion that he was honorable and beautiful of spirit. Closing her eyes, she swallowed and stepped away, taking her hand back.
    Quietly, he said, "Friends to lovers is an easy leap. Lovers back to friends—" he lifted a shoulder. "Not always so simple."
    In a voice that held more betraying breath, she said, "Yes." She swallowed and looked up at him.
    "Forgive me." She paused, wondering at her own boldness—but this was Basilio, the friend of her heart, and if she could not be honest with him, there was no truth in the world at all.
    "You are too rare to be lost to me. A friend is so much more precious than a lover."
    His face broke in a brilliant smile. "Yes!" He captured her hands and kissed them happily. "Friends we began; friends we will remain." With a light flirtatiousness, he inclined his head. "Though I hope you do not expect me to ignore the pleasure of attempting to capture your beauty in my poetry."
    "I suppose I shall simply have to make peace with immortality."
    He laughed and took her hand. "Come. Boccaccio awaits us."
    In the broad, cool room, lined with shelves full of books and furnished only with a large heavy desk and two chairs, Basilio kept his treasures in a locked trunk. Along one wall hung his collection of rapiers, and Cassandra moved to them. "Are you a swordsman?"
    He lighted a brace of tallows from the candle he'd brought with him. "I am."
    "My brother Gabriel is a master—some have said he's one of the greatest swordsmen in Europe."
    "Perhaps one day I will meet him—I should enjoy such a challenge." He gestured for Cassandra to take the heavy chair that sat before his desk. With a quirk of her lips, she settled, like a queen awaiting her subjects. Her gown, green and gold, glittered in the light, and her breasts and throat were white as cream.
    Tendrils of that bright hair sprang free of the rest, more and more with each passing hour—a lock over her brow, down her cheek, across the straight white shelf of shoulder. He captured it all in his imagination so he could recreate it another day. What hue was that white? What tone, the red of her hair?
    He set aside such thoughts and opened the trunk, then took out a small, cloth-wrapped bundle and untied it as he carried it over to Cassandra, putting it down before her and pulling back the cloth with a flourish.
    Her reaction was all he could have asked for. A small intake of breath, a hand over her lips. Eyes to his face, hesitant, bright with excitement. "May I touch them? Or will it hurt them?"
    "I would not ask you to only look at them."
    Gingerly, she put two fingers on the top page, almost but not quite touching the words penned in ink. The parchment had darkened a little, and some of the edges were brittle and crumbling, but the fine strong hand remained, clearly readable. "Oh, imagine," she said softly. "His own hand, on this page."
    "Yes."
    She picked up the first and held it lightly between her fingers, careful to avoid the edges, and put it to her nose as if to inhale the essence. A prickle moved down his spine as he watched her; his breath caught high in his throat. Light edged her straight, sharp nose and the thin, fine eyelids, and he imagined pressing his lips to them, even imagined the jittery movements of her eye below, the bristle of lashes against his