Over a week later, after days and days of intense schooling, she brought her laptop and uploaded some more music. As Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony played through the portable speaker she had brought, she turned to me. “Have you ever heard this symphony by Beethoven before?”
“Yes,” I said, listening to the vaguely familiar music.
“Do you know that this symphony is regarded as Beethoven’s best?” I shook my head. Caresa sat beside me as we listened to the dancing strings. “I wanted to share this with you.” She nudged me affectionately. “I know how much you love opera, but I have never heard you play music outside of the Italian greats.” She winked at me. “Some people might think you show a strong bias to our fellow countrymen.”
I huffed a laugh. “Some people may be right.”
Caresa giggled, the sweet sound filling both the room and my veins. “When I was researching more techniques for us to try, I suddenly remembered Beethoven.” She nodded toward the speaker. “Beethoven wrote nine symphonies. This one is the most complex, the most celebrated and the most famous. It was the standout work of his life.”
“It’s beautiful,” I agreed.
Caresa turned to face me. “Beethoven lost his hearing, Achille. One of the world’s greatest composers lost his hearing. A composer, a man who wrote music, listened to music, lived for music, lost the very sense essential to his work.”
“That’s awful,” I said, shaking my head in sympathy.
“No,” Caresa said forcefully. “In the end, it was arguably his greatest blessing. Achille, he wrote this symphony when he was deaf. His greatest masterpiece was produced without the ability to hear sound. Don’t you see?” I waited with bated breath for her to continue. “What challenges us, what should break us, can in the end be our greatest blessing. Because our failures can make us great. Our most basic of human adversities can inspire within us an almost superhuman strength. Our weaknesses are simply our untested wings waiting to be flown.”
In the week that followed, with every new sentence learned and new word written down, I listened to the symphony, allowing Caresa’s words to circle my mind.
One night, as I tried to read by the fire, with Beethoven playing in the background, I realized that what and how Caresa was teaching me was working. I let myself imagine the future Caresa had helped me to visualize that day outside the barn.
And I knew that she was right. My wings were simply untested, but each and every day, they were readying themselves for flight just that little bit more.
To fly toward Caresa, the woman who was rapidly becoming my sun . . .
. . . to Caresa, the woman who was lighting my way from the dark.
Chapter Ten
Caresa
“It will be long-sleeved, as all royal dresses should be, yes? Lace sleeves and a v-neckline and a silk skirt?” I stood on a raised plinth as Julietta, my wedding dress designer, took my measurements. She whipped around me like a cyclone as she measured my legs, my waist, my chest and finally my arms. When she was done, she linked my arm and brought me to the table and chairs in my living room.
She turned to another page of the sketchbook lying on the tabletop. Her flawless design for the dress of my dreams had been on page one. Her ideas for my hair and makeup were on page two. And when she turned to the third page, I felt the tears immediately fill my eyes.
“Your dream veil, no?” Juiletta asked, in English. Since she had arrived, she had insisted that she speak English. She said she needed the practice. I had only spoken Italian in weeks. Only over the phone to Marietta did I use English. It was nice to feel my tongue wrap around such familiar-sounding words.
My finger ran along the design, sketched out in charcoal pencil, except for the silken vines that were drawn in shimmering silver. It was floor length with a long train, exactly like I had always dreamed. It had Spanish lace around the front, perfectly suited to a Catholic duomo ceremony.
It was everything I had ever wanted.
“Well?” Julietta said. “Is it good?”
I nodded, my throat struggling to push out any words. But it was not because I was left speechless by the design—even though it was as if she had taken the picture straight from my mind—but because of the heavy ache I felt in my heart as I stared down at the veil I had envisioned wearing since I was a little girl. The veil I would wear when I married my prince.
It was all coming true. I was getting the veil. I had the prince . . . but I knew the reason for the ache in my heart.
I wasn’t marrying the right prince.
The truth was, I didn’t even want a prince at all.
“Bene!” Julietta said, slipping back into Italian. “I will get these back to my studio in Florence, and we shall begin to put it all together. We will have a fitting in a couple of weeks, then again a couple of weeks before the big day.”
I hadn’t realized I was staring off at nothing until Julietta waved her hand in front of my face. I blinked and forced on a smile. “I’m so sorry, I was in a complete daze for a moment there.”
Julietta laughed. “No doubt imagining marrying Prince Zeno in just a couple of months. You’re quite the envy of Florence.”
“Yes. So I’ve heard,” was all I said in response.
Julietta bade me a good day with a casual wave of her hand and left me alone in my rooms. I needed fresh air. I made my way to the balcony doors and stepped outside. The cool breeze flicked up my hair and sent shivers down my back. It was early November, and the delayed summer air seemed to have finally cooled. I walked to the edge of the balcony, and, like I did each time I came out this way, I let my gaze drift out to Achille’s small vineyard, tucked away in the valley in the distance. And like every day, I felt an urge to run down the steps and along the fields until I got there. I could even smell the burning oak from his fire and hear the opera serenading him in his barn. It amazed me that even though I had only known him for four weeks, it felt strange not seeing him every day. Those first couple of weeks spent by his side—harvesting, riding and crushing the grapes—were some of the best and most cherished of my life.
And that night . . . the night we had made love . . .
A symphony of hustle and bustle sounded from around the estate, pulling me from that heated memory. It made me wonder what Achille was up to right then. It made me wonder if he had managed to read last night.
I was so proud of him. I didn’t think I had ever been more proud of anyone in my life. Every time we worked on his reading, he struggled. Sometimes the words were so frustrating for him that my heart wept. I knew he came close to giving up at times, but, time and time again, he would prove to me just how strong he was when he refocused, took a deep breath and tried again.
And I hated that I couldn’t be there more. I . . . I missed him. Felt as though I could barely breathe without him being close by.
I should have decided to stay away long ago. I should have cut all ties from that second day when he had showed me how he hand-harvested the vines. But like the fool that I was, I kept going back, over and over. I had tried to fool myself that I returned simply to help him read and write.
But both God and I knew that was a lie.
I was sure Achille knew it too.
I jumped at the sound of a plate crashing to the ground. The mansion was in chaos. It had been in chaos for the past eight days, as the staff outside readied for the grape-crushing festival, and the staff inside prepared the great hall for Zeno’s coronation banquet.
The banquet was tonight.
The festival was today.
Zeno had yet to return.
Today was also the day that the judges of each category of the International Wine Awards would, at three p.m., call the winner to award them the prestigious prize.
As Achille had predicted, the call would come to Zeno, and Zeno would publicly reap the reward. But I knew if Bella Collina’s famed merlot won today, that honor went to one person and one person only.
And I knew he wouldn’t come. Achille never really left his home apart from when he had to get a few groceries from Orvieto. He barely even left the vineyard but for the occasional ride outside the perimeters of his land. I knew from his expression and tone when we had discussed the awards that he would not be here today.