two years older
two years older than he—but definitely above the touch of Marco Felluci. If Casa Dorma discovered some ragamuffin like Felluci had dared to send a love poem to Milady Angelina . . .
The best he could hope for was a beating at the hands of Dorma retainers. If young noblemen of the family got involved, “Marco Felluci” might very well find himself run through by a rapier—and these great old families usually had a baker’s dozen of brawling young cousins lounging around, all of them ready at an instant to defend their family’s honor.
Marco sighed. He had buried Marco Valdosta quite thoroughly, and not even for the sweet eyes of Angelina Dorma was he going to resurrect the name he’d been born to. “Marco Felluci” he was, and Marco Felluci he would remain—even though it meant abandoning all hope of ever winning the girl he was quite certain was the love of his life. But even if he couldn’t touch, he could dream—and, perversely, even if she were never to learn who her unknown admirer was, he wanted her to know how he felt. So he’d spent three hours struggling over that poem.
Just two weeks ago it was, that he’d first seen her. At Giaccomo’s, with a couple of companions. Until then his daydreams had been confined to something just as impossible, but hardly romantic.
The Accademia! Lord and Saints, what he wouldn’t give to get in there to study medicine! But—he had no money, and no sponsor, and the wrong political history. Not that he gave a fat damn about the Montagnards anymore, and their fanatical determination to bring northern Italy into the Holy Roman Empire. But there was no way he was ever going to pass for one of the young nobles of Venice or even a son of one of the Casa curti.
Still . . . Marco was young enough that sometimes, sometimes when the day had really gone well, it almost seemed possible. Because a long-buried dream had surfaced with this new life.
Marco wanted to be a healer. A doctor.
He’d had that ambition as far back as he could remember. Mama had owned a drug-shop for a while, which she’d set up with what money she had after her family cut her off. Marco had been just old enough to help her with it, and he’d found the work fascinating.
The best he could hope for was a beating at the hands of Dorma retainers. If young noblemen of the family got involved, “Marco Felluci” might very well find himself run through by a rapier—and these great old families usually had a baker’s dozen of brawling young cousins lounging around, all of them ready at an instant to defend their family’s honor.
Marco sighed. He had buried Marco Valdosta quite thoroughly, and not even for the sweet eyes of Angelina Dorma was he going to resurrect the name he’d been born to. “Marco Felluci” he was, and Marco Felluci he would remain—even though it meant abandoning all hope of ever winning the girl he was quite certain was the love of his life. But even if he couldn’t touch, he could dream—and, perversely, even if she were never to learn who her unknown admirer was, he wanted her to know how he felt. So he’d spent three hours struggling over that poem.
Just two weeks ago it was, that he’d first seen her. At Giaccomo’s, with a couple of companions. Until then his daydreams had been confined to something just as impossible, but hardly romantic.
The Accademia! Lord and Saints, what he wouldn’t give to get in there to study medicine! But—he had no money, and no sponsor, and the wrong political history. Not that he gave a fat damn about the Montagnards anymore, and their fanatical determination to bring northern Italy into the Holy Roman Empire. But there was no way he was ever going to pass for one of the young nobles of Venice or even a son of one of the Casa curti.
Still . . . Marco was young enough that sometimes, sometimes when the day had really gone well, it almost seemed possible. Because a long-buried dream had surfaced with this new life.
Marco wanted to be a healer. A doctor.
He’d had that ambition as far back as he could remember. Mama had owned a drug-shop for a while, which she’d set up with what money she had after her family cut her off. Marco had been just old enough to help her with it, and he’d found the work fascinating.