His request caught her off guard and she looked up at him.
"Tell me about him, Helene," Erik repeated, cradling her closer.
"I suppose it was an arranged marriage, to be truthful. Both our families wanted the match. Theo's mother, you see was French…a friend of my own mother. His father was a count with large estates in Sicily. When we were wed, it pleased both of our families."
"How old were you when you married him?"
"Seventeen.."
"And how old are you now?"
"Twenty-five."
"Still so young, then," he said, working the silver pins from her hair and twining a heavy lock around his fingers.
"The wedding was held a week after my birthday. And then he took me home to Sicily. He had a beautiful villa there. From our bedroom and from parts of the gardens, you can see across the valley to Mount Etna."
"I was very much in love with Theo. He was so good to me and treated me as if I were a queen. Even when I learned that he was keeping several mistresses…in Licaria and in Palermo, I still loved him."
"He was unfaithful? To you?"
She shifted her weight so she could let her head rest on his chest and feel the steady beat of his heart against her cheek.
"Yes. And, in time, I played his game. We went to a ball in Messina. I found him the garden's with our host's daughter. When we returned home, I took a lover…one of his own good friends. It was only for a few weeks…I didn't care for him, I didn't really want him…it was only to spite Theo."
She raised her head and met Erik's eyes, her hand finding his.
"Please, Erik," she said, her voice ready to break, "I don't want to talk any more…I want you to…"
He shook his heard as he pressed her palm to his lips.
"Then one day, he was carried home to me. He had gone to visit a woman…the wife of a young merchant in Licaria. Her husband came home and found them together. The man stabbed Theo…they brought him home to me and he bled to death in my arms."
Erik pushed her up so that she was sitting beside him. He said nothing, his thumb traced slowly along her cheekbone and she was amazed that, for the first time, she could speak of that day without a sickening rush of grief.
"Then, as I adjusted to living alone in the old villa, I got the telegram telling me that Raoul had vanished. It gave me a pretext to come home."
There was nothing else for her to say…the truth had been told.
"Helene, was he handsome?"
"Yes, he was," she said quietly, "Theo was the handsomest man I knew."
He let her go and she heard him cursing under his breath, the rage and hate filling his eyes again.
"And you, Erik," she said, laying one hand on his smooth, warm cheek, "are the most beautiful man I have ever known."