1 Chapter 1
Duchy of AragoniMarco
“WAKE UP, MARCO, Wake up,” someone was saying over and over again.
I fought my way up through layers of sleep, part of me wanting to respond to the urgent voice, but the part of me that didn’t want to do so won the battle and once again I succumbed to sleep.
“Come on, babe, this isn’t like you.”
“Go away,” I heard myself saying, “and leave me alone, I wanta sleep some more.”
“Marco d’Argenzio, get your ass out of that bed right now, or I’ll take steps. You’re attending a birthday party for your children in a couple of hours.”
“You attend it,” I said, “I’m gonna stay here in bed.”
“Okay, babe, you asked for it.”
There was blessed silence for a time; then something cold and liquid hit me in the face, and I sat bolt upright, shaking the water out of my face and hair.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I said.
“Taking steps, just like I promised.”
“I was gonna get up.”
“In this lifetime?”
“In a bit.”
“No, you weren’t. You made that quite clear. What’s the matter with you, anyhow? You’ve always been an early riser, and not only that, you usually wake up and hop out of bed ready for the day.”
“Everybody’s allowed to backslide once in a while, aren’t they?” I said.
“Backslide, yes, but this was more like a landslide.”
“That should be allowed too.”
“Maybe, but not on your sons’ birthday. The triplets are three today, and we’ve got a party to attend.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Here, drink this, maybe it’ll get your juices flowing.”
A cup of steaming coffee was placed in my hand. “Crawl back into this bed for a few minutes, and I’ll get both of our juices flowing.”
“No time for that right now. What’s the matter with you, anyway? Are you sick?”
I had a flashback to the night before. “Oh, shit, now I remember.”
“Remember what?” he said.
“You went right to sleep last night, but I tossed and turned for a bit. More than a bit—quite a long time, actually.”
“Really,” Dani said, suddenly very serious, “that’s totally out of character for you.”
“Yeah. Anyway, I got up, pulled on a robe, went to the den, and had a couple of snifters of brandy.”
“And?”
“I crawled back in bed and slept like a baby,” I said.
“More like a comatose baby. Are you sure you had only a couple of snifters?”
“Geez, I wasn’t really counting, so I don’t know.”
“Marco,” Dani said, “we’ve been together nearly fifteen years, and this is totally out of character for you. Is something wrong?”
“I don’t think so. I couldn’t sleep, so I had too much brandy.”
“Well, the two of us did polish off a fair amount of wine last night. Maybe the brandy finished you off.”
“Yeah, I think it did.”
“Anyhow, get into the bathroom and take that coffee with you.”
“Yes, Sir,” I said as I snapped to and saluted.
I went into the bathroom, took a sip of coffee, and stepped under a cold spray of water. Somewhat revived by that, I changed the temperature to warm, finished showering, and shaved. After I got dressed, I followed the smell of food into the kitchen, where Lucia, our live-in nanny, had all three boys in their high chairs and was supervising their breakfast.
“Something smells good,” I said.
“I decided to cook this morning,” Dani said. “Our usual bagels or cereal won’t be enough to offset all the sweet stuff we’ll probably be eating later.”
“The coffee helped, but I need something solid.”
I kissed Marcus, Bernardo, and Giovanni in turn, then settled myself in a chair at one end of the table. “Good morning, Lucia,” I said.
“Good morning, Conte Marco.”
“Are we back to that again? I don’t feel like conteanything, especially this morning, and just because my uncle and his two children went over a cliff in the mountains doesn’t change that fact.”
“I’m sorry, Cousin Marco,” she said.
“That’s much better.”
We weren’t actually cousins—given that she was descended from one of my numerous half-brothers, Lucia was actually my great-niece, many times removed. My father’s operatives had discovered a small group of his long-lost descendants living in a remote village in Sicily, and Lucia was from that village. She’d wanted to go to college, but her rather old-fashioned parents hadn’t wanted her to live in a dormitory, so she came to live with us and act as a nanny for the boys.
