Poisoned by His Love novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Sunday Dinner

Ruggero Orsini stood at the iron gate.

Sandro opened it himself.

I stood behind him in a robe with my hair wild, and I did not care.

"Sunday dinner," Ruggero said. "I was told the table was open."

"It is."

"I brought three of mine. They'll eat and go."

"Come in."

The two men looked at each other for a long moment.

Neither blinked.

I understood that I was watching two people who had loved the same woman.

Then Ruggero looked at me and bowed his head, a short, formal movement.

"Signora," he said. "A gift for the bride."

He held out the wooden box.

It was the size of a shoebox, and heavy.

"Open it after the meal," he said. "It is better with food in you."

Dinner was a long table, four extra chairs and a roast the size of a small dog.

Gianna had changed her apron.

She put food in front of me without a word, and gave me a look that said sit up straight.

Sandro's uncle sat halfway down the table in his good gray suit.

He passed me the bread and patted my hand, and told me not to mind Ruggero, who grieved loudly.

The three Orsini men were thick and quiet.

They ate fast and kept their eyes on their plates.

Ruggero ate nothing.

He sat at Sandro's left, in the chair that had been empty the day before.

I looked at it and then at him, and he gave me a small smile with no warmth in it.

"This was my sister's seat," he said. "I thought I would sit here tonight."

Nobody spoke.

"Do you know how she died, signora?"

"Ruggero," Gianna said.

"I ask the bride. She is a nurse. She would know."

I put my fork down.

"I know what the city says."

"What does the city say?"

"That she was ill, and then she wasn't."

"She was ill for seven months."

His voice was quiet, almost kind.

"Seven months in a room at the end of this house."

"Her hair came out in the brush."

"Her hands shook so she could not hold a spoon."

"The doctors had no name for it."

"I'm sorry."

"She was thirty-one."

"She was strong as an ox."

"And her husband would let no one but himself cook for her, pour for her, or touch her."

I looked at Sandro.

He sat with his hands flat on the table on either side of his plate.

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