Chapter 21: Her Name

They went home through the dark with a Sandrelli guard on every corner, and neither of them spoke.

In the east wing, Gemma lifted her mother's portrait onto the bed.

She turned it over and ran her fingers around the back of the frame.

The paper backing was old and brittle.

Raffaele held a lamp, and she slit the paper along one edge with a nail file.

There was nothing behind it.

She felt along the wood, and the gilt, and the four corners.

Dust, old nails, a dead spider.

"He was wrong," she said.

"Or Bruno was lying."

"Or he was out of his mind." She sat down on the bed with her mother's face in her lap. "Everything he told me is half a lie and half a mistake."

Her voice shook.

"My whole life, Raffaele. Nobody has ever told me one true thing without a knife in it."

He set down the lamp.

"I have."

"When?"

"Four times this week. You counted none of them."

She laughed, and it turned into something else halfway.

He sat beside her and she put her face against his shoulder, and he held the back of her head in one big hand.

"I want to say something," he said.

"Don't make it a speech."

"It's short."

"Say it, then."

"Gemmina."

She went absolutely still.

"Nobody has called me that since I was eight."

"I know. I've only heard it in the texts your stepmother wrote, and I hated it. I want to hear it said by someone who loves you."

"You're not allowed," she whispered. "It was hers."

"Then tell me I can't."

She turned her face up and looked at him.

"Say it again."

"Gemmina."

She kissed him.

It was slow, and it went on, and he took his time with it.

She pushed him back on the bed and straddled his hips.

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