"But if art mimics life, isn't there beauty in life too?"
His gaze lingered on her face. "I won't contradict you."
Her heart fluttered, and Anne fidgeted with her braid. "How were Salgueiro's vineyards before phylloxera?"
"Green. Terraces upon terraces of emerald hue, if you fancy words. The wine was similar to Vesuvio, the terroir being so close. Well, not all wine.” Pedro turned to the ocean and exhaled. “Salgueiro has this isolated hill, much higher than the others. By a miracle of nature, some hundred grapevines bask in the sun's attention for over three hundred days a year."
"How did it taste? The wine from this lucky vineyard?"
"Vinho Luzdefies description. You would have to try it." He shifted, leaning the guitar on the yacht's railing. "I had despaired of seeing you today."
Anne's cheeks colored. Did he guess she had avoided him? "The music you were playing. Amodinhaabout—"
"Illogical desires." He trailed his fingers over the chords slowly, and the melody vibrated in the pit of her stomach.
Anne smiled nervously. "Aren't all desires illogical?"
"Not if the desires are beneficial to us." His eyes had an unsettling intensity.
Could he glimpse her thoughts? How her hands tingled to sift through his hair? Discover its texture? Sometimes she feared he could, so uncanny was his intelligence.
The moon floated above the sea, pouring a veil over the ocean. Silvery waves traveled from the horizon to lap the yacht's hull. Could she bathe in such waters? Feel liquid moonlight caressing her skin? Would it be brisk and slippery like the Atlantic in the morning? Or satiny, the silks of a magic realm just waiting for her to take the leap?
Anne glanced away from her own fancy and recognized the book from his quinta. The tome rested atop a side table. "You brought this?"
"Dom Pedro and Inês’s story." He frowned, staring at the leather cover. "The redoubtable Portuguese tragedy enchants poets and wide-eyed women since the Middle Ages. A dashing prince meets a bastard noble and falls in love. The king contests the couple, and the prince refuses to abandon his love. As you may well predict, the ending is not happy. Some believe it the most heart-wrenching tragedy of all time. In truth, it shows that when powerful men allow women to cloud their judgment, the consequences are disastrous."
"How romantic. Why do you carry it, then?"
"It was Braganza's. He asked me to bring it to the Douro. I will never know why."
"How was he? The king's brother?"
Pedro shook his head, and a shadow crossed over his features. "Energetic, idealistic... kind. He would have liked your convictions. Ulrich deprived the country of a great man."
"I'm sorry for your loss." She wanted to massage away the pleats on his forehead or press his hand affectionately, anything to relieve his grief. Since he wouldn't welcome her touch, she felt bereft. Unsure what to do, she opened the book and squinted to read it by the deck's dimmed light.
Queen’s Palace - Coimbra, September 1312
Inês’s own throat garroted as Dom Pedro, Prince of Portugal, struggled to speak to his father. Why did the king have to humiliate him so? A pox on narrow-minded people who thought a stammer the work of the devil. Before her eyes, the boy, not much older than her sixteen years, went red in the face. As soon as his father left, he crushed his dulcimer against the throne, growling like a feral beast.
The court ladies gasped. Constança Manuel screamed and scurried away, forgetting wives should support their husbands. The prince turned to them, horrified that his outburst had been witnessed. Inês sought his gaze and held it. Instead of showing the pity swamping her chest, she remembered the signs from the silent monks and placed two fingertips below her eyes. I see you.
When a boyish grin played at the corner of his lips, Inês’s heart skipped a beat, and she smiled her secret smile.
Anne dropped the book. "He had a wife when... when Inês met him?"
Pedro traced the cover's gilded letters. "Shocked?"
Anne's hand came to her locket, and she took a step back. "No, I mean—"
"Even though his father warned him away from her, he snatched Inês for himself, uncaring of the consequences. And yet, some say he was the best monarch the country ever had and loved Inês desperately, faithful to his dying breath. Do you wish to know love? Real love?" He gave the book a last glance and offered it to her.
An ocean breeze ruffled her neck, making her shiver. Anne lifted her hand but could not command herself to accept it, as if the opposite force of a magnet existed between her fingers and the old tome.
Pedro awaited, tentative but guarded, as if he offered a part of himself.
How could she deny it? Him? When she grasped the worn leather surface, he removed his hand quickly, no doubt to avoid touching her. Cris’s words rang inside her head again. Was it distance Pedro needed? To be put away like a rabid animal? Under the moonlight’s liquid glow, gazing at Pedro's jewel-like eyes, the words did not seem like a warning to protect herself, but an altogether different plea.
