CHAPTER TWO: David.

He thanked his valet and then turned to the mirror to check his reflection. He hadn't intended to sleep in as long as he had, but lying beside Cora, warm in that soft bed, it had been nearly impossible to wake. So impossible, in fact, that he'd slept in beyond nine and therefore had to breakfast with her. Not that this was a punishment, really. He couldn't remember the last time he had breakfast in his pajamas. It was delightful.

It was nearly two hours later now, and he decidedly dismissed the odd little shortness at which his valet spat, "Is that all, my lord?" After all, the delayed start may have, in fact, spoiled some of the man's plans for one of the first sunny days they'd seen since they left England.

"Yes, I believe so. I'll just go and see if Lady Downton is ready."

He watched his valet nod as he left the room and went into the adjoining sitting room, all aglow in morning light. And just as he thought he'd find, his new wife stood fastening a light coat over her walking suit, a blue ensemble with darker blue design on the skirt. It was a collection of thick lines and sort of square shapes, criss-crossing like latticework. A panel of her long jacket hid part of it from view, but he could catch glances of it when she moved slightly, collecting her things.

"Robert?"

He blinked away and up to her face. He hadn't noticed he'd been staring until she glanced down at her skirts, pulling them this way and that.

"Is something on my dress?"

"No!" He shook his head. "No, you look nice."

He watched her as she smiled, and he realized he'd meant it. She did look very nice.

"I suppose we should set off, then?" She moved past him, grabbing at her gloves that were on the little table beside him. "We don't want to be any later than we already are."

He nodded.

"And I did wonder if I should bring my umbrella," she turned on her heel, and Robert halted, surprised at her quick change. "There's no telling if the sunshine will last, and I don't want to be caught out in it."

"But you won't be," he assured her, extending his arm toward the door, beckoning her out. "I thought perhaps we'd go to the Gallery of the Academy of Florence. Instead."

Again, she whipped around. Her eyes were bright and wide. Her mouth agape. "Today? Really?"

He couldn't help but laugh at her, at her childlike excitement. "Yes," he chuckled. "And the Uffizi. If that's alright?"

"Oh! Oh, it's more than alright!" She shook her head. "Oh, but I'll have to change!"

"Change? But Cora, we're quite late enough as it is!"

"But I can't go to a museum dressed for a hike." She unbuttoned her jacket, and his eye caught the lines of the design once more. "Especially not the Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze. Or the Uffizi!" She laughed again, and Robert watched her swing open her door and hurry through. "It's one of the most famous museums in all the world, Robert!"

He listened to her go on, he listened to her until her maid came through and closed her door. And when the door had been closed, he sat in a chair and found himself smiling, his guilt absolved.

. . .

She'd been right, he realized. The walking suit with the curious latticework was quite the wrong clothes for the gallery. Or at least, this gallery.

He trailed closely behind her pink frock, letting her walk a step or two ahead from time to time, her eye catching a piece in a nearby corner, her creamy-gloved finger pointing and then turning her chin back to him, her eyes wide and her lips parted. Robert would take his own finger and find, in the small bound booklet he'd been given, what he hoped was the correct title and read to her the description beneath.

"This is the La Vergine e il Bambino," he whispered nearer to her ear, a flower stem in her hat brushing at his hair. He lifted his chin. "Sandro Botticelli."

She nodded, confirming what she'd already read on the little plaque nailed beside the painting, and he felt her look to him again, waiting.

He drew his finger along the Italian words he could not read—at least, not well—and found the year, "1470."

Her eyes blinked larger. "My goodness," she shook her head, and again the stem brushed at him. "400 years before I was born. And here it still is!"

Robert let his hand fall, the booklet closing over his thumb. "Indeed."

"Oh!"

Again, he trailed her through the small groups of people, excusing himself in Italian as he followed her pink, gauzy sleeves, the green ribbon in her hat. He trailed her and then stood behind her, before a large plasterwork situated in the center of the room, throngs of other men and women gazing up at it as well. He searched around them for the plaque with the title, but knew it was more likely at the front of the sculpture, on the pedestal, while they stood at its side.

His wife was quiet in front of him; she was still, and Robert brought his eyes up to the piece and studied it.

It was rather crude, in a way. The arms of the woman who reached up to the curve of the ceiling were not smooth like the marble pieces they'd seen. The figure of the man holding her similarly texturized, and Robert narrowed his gaze, looking closer into the lifeless eyes of the woman who gazed back down at him.

"It's only a model," he heard a man telling a shorter woman beside him. A fellow Englishman. Robert listened closer. "The actual sculpture is in the square outside the Uffizi."

"And who is it by?" His companion's voice sounded quite young.

"It's a Giambologna," Robert heard him say, and before him, Cora's head turned, her ribbon fluttering softly, to the people beside them. "Completed in 1583 for one of the Medicis. Sabīnae Raptae."

Robert's mind flickered through stories he'd learned of Rome, and looking back up at the plaster model, looked again at the sculpted woman's face. The shallow places of her eyes were empty, the bridge of her nose somewhat imperfect and coarse, the hollowness of her mouth strange and voiceless. And then he imagined the sculptor, on a stool or ladder with a chisel or a rag and water or — well he couldn't be sure how the plaster had been done — and he found himself frowning. It was such work. And then to do it all again, but from marble, a material to last for eternity. "Something to look forward to, then?"

He only heard his words when Cora turned and peered up at him, her dark brows pinched slightly. "What?"

He hadn't made sense, and he lifted his chin. "I mean seeing it. The marble one," he lifted his eyes back before them, and his wife mimicked him, nodding slightly. "If this is only the model."

"Yes," she said softly, and he heard her sigh. "Yes," she said again, though this time more emphatically. "You're right. To think this was only his start. But…"

The man and young woman beside them had gone, and Robert stepped forward once, closer to his wife, and, like he'd done earlier, tipped his head down. "But?" he prompted her.

"Well, to have to think of the terrible event over and over again. The abduction. To have to imagine what the woman must've felt for years as he worked." She tipped her face up toward the Sabine woman, and Robert closed his open mouth. "Even in this one—merely the model of his work—she looks so afraid."

He dropped his eyes, and swallowed. "Perhaps it's an homage to her? To them all— the Sabine women?"

Again, her hat's ribbon fluttered when she turned her face toward him, and she brought her eyes to his.

He went on. "Perhaps it's not to commemorate the event, but rather to …" he wasn't sure what he was saying. He didn't understand art, not the way he supposed he was meant to. But he went on anyway, for his wife's bright eyes blinked up at him, wanting him to say more. "…commemorate her."

"Oh," she looked back up at the statue, and he saw as she furrowed her brow. "Do you suppose that's why she's the higher figure? Her fingers outstretched to the sky?"

He hummed. "Perhaps." And then. "Yes. I suppose it is."

But her response was short and quiet, her jaw moving inside her mouth.

"What?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Now you're just trying to be agreeable." The corner of her mouth smirked upward, and Robert pressed at a grin.

"Shall we find David?"

He watched as Cora's smirk spread into a smile, and turning, he held out his hand to guide her through the gallery.

It was as if the crowd made space for them as they finally approached it. A large group, following a stout little man holding a small yellow flag and speaking in a language that Robert could not understand, tumbled out through the giant arches just as Cora's pink skirts rustled into the alcove where he stood. And Robert followed at her heels.

"Oh," he heard her sigh quietly as he, too, gazed upward at the sculpture. He looked at the feet, the knees, the lines of veins of his hand.

"Oh," he heard himself echo her, and he felt as Cora moved her gaze from the statue and to himself.

He smiled before he looked back at her, and let his smile linger on as his eyes met hers. "Are you happy?"

The question felt strangely juvenile, especially because in looking at how her face was more alive than he'd ever seen it. Of course she was, and it delighted him.

She pushed away a tight grin, and moving nearer to him to allow an older woman to move closer — for the crowds had all returned in earnest — he felt her slender hand slip through the bend of his arm.

. . .

He moved his foot as quietly as he could beneath the table and tried another sip of the too-bitter coffee, placing it back in its saucer with a small flare of his nose. Across from him, Cora turned the page of the little booklet he'd lent her.

It did feel a bit, well, backwards. He was made to understand that he would be the one informing and leading and pointing and explaining to his wife and not the other way round. However, he stayed quiet as he watched her brows bob at something she read in the book.

"I think it says the sculpture was commissionata—" she looked up at him, her eyes bright, and he felt himself chuckle.

"Commissioned," they said in near unison, and Cora smiled, too.

"— for the Duomo di Firenze in…" she drew her finger along the lines of print… "1504!" Satisfied, she sat back in her chair with a happy sigh, and shook her head, her ribbon dancing. "It's just wonderful."

"Yes."

"I do wonder why it isn't at the cathedral. Oh, if I only really knew Italian, I'm sure it explains it here." Her bare fingers touched at the booklet, and Robert noticed the sparkle of the diamonds in the ring he'd given her. "Some of it is easy enough to decipher, but then some is simply beyond me." She tipped her head and reached for her coffee, which he was sure had gone tepid and therefore even more bitter, by now. She lifted the cup to her lips. "Father would have loved it," he heard her say quietly into her coffee, and he leaned closer.

"Would he have? Has he not … been abroad?"

She stilled the cup. "Oh, well. We have before, yes. But … not really. Not Italy or museums or … nothing like this. Nothing like a tour. Mother took us over to France mostly."

"But your father?" He, too, picked back up his cup. "You speak as if he would enjoy the more cultural pursuits?"

"Yes. I always thought so. At home we would …" She hesitated—stopped herself. "Well. Never mind."

"Never mind?"

He watched her move her lips in silent thoughts, her shoulders falling. "Well," she said at last, "I'm sure you don't want to hear about that, not when we've been seeing great works of the old masters all day!"

"I do." When she narrowed her eyes in doubt, he lifted his chin. "I did ask you, Cora."

"I know but," she shook her head, but she smiled. "It isn't like you to ask me questions. At least not very personal ones. And certainly not of Father!"

"What do you mean it 'isn't like me'? Of course I ask you questions."

She huffed amusedly.

"Well I do. Just last night, for instance. I asked what your favorite sights of the tour have been." He paused as a waiter passed their table, and he lowered his voice. "And I daresay it is rather the point of a honeymoon: to get to know one another."

"I suppose that's true, though I'm not sure we should begin with such things as my father's taste in art. Seems rather ambitious considering we barely know one another's tastes in art, still less each other's favorite color."

"Don't we?"

He saw Cora look up at him, smirking. "Don't we … what?"

"Know one another's favorite color. I'm sure that we do." He laughed, dismissing this.

But Cora was not dismissive at all. In fact, she lifted her chin. Still she smirked, haughtily now. "And are you to tell me, then? My favorite color."

He paused again and then pushed out a laugh. Taking in a short breath, he answered her. "No."

"No?" She was smiling. "Oh, Robert. You're hardly any fun at all."

He rolled his eyes. "Of course I am."

Across from him, Cora laughed and lifted her coffee again to her lips. "Oh, really."

"Do you know," he interrupted over her groan of disagreement, "I will say your favorite color, but under one condition."

"Yes? And what is that?"

"That if I'm right, you'll admit that I can have a bit of fun-" He spoke over her burst of laughter. "And-And that I'm doing my part to get to know you."

Cora lifted her chin. "And if you aren't right?"

"Then…" he hadn't yet thought of this.

"Then?"

He grinned across at her. "Then I shall endeavor to—" he stopped abruptly, his words a little more sour as they came into his mouth. "—to get to know you better."

Her shoulders rose as she inhaled a long breath. "Very well. What's my favorite color?"

He shouldn't have done this, he realized. In looking at her, her expectant gaze, he suddenly felt ill. "Yellow," he blurted, and he hated himself for it.

Her face fell, and he watched—angry at himself—as she shook her head. "No," her voice was gentle. "It's the same as yours: blue."

He racked his brain for anything witty to reply, anything at all, and came up short. "Oh. Well." He lifted his cup, to give himself something to do. "As I promised, let me keep my end of our little wager by asking if … if you'd like more coffee."

Cora's head tipped very slightly, her soft exhale loud enough for him to hear even amongst the chatter and noise of the other cafe patrons, and to his great relief, she smirked. "Alright. One more cup."

He nodded, grateful to her. So very, very grateful.

Fingering his pocket for the coins he knew should be there, he rose, and he sought out the man who'd waited on them before. He asked for two more coffees, he pressed the coins into the man's hand, and he turned his head back toward their tiny table, to indicate where the coffees should be delivered. And there she was: sitting straight and poised, the flower petals and ribbon in her hat fluttering in the breeze, her slender finger tracing beneath the lines of Italian in the booklet—Cora.

"And perhaps a biscuit? A, er, a cantuccio? For my wife."

"Ah, very good. Cantucci. Si si. And Vin Santo? Hm?"

Robert shook his head. "No. No wine. Just the coffee, please."

"No! The vin santo. She is new wife? Si?"

Robert blinked, reddening.

"Ah, si." The man smiled at him. "No coffee, hm? The cantucci and the vin santo. For happy life? Hm?"

He found himself nodding. "All right." He looked back over at their table, and he found that Cora was looking over her shoulder back at him. Her eyes bright, her smile brighter, she looked quite like something he might have made up—something that could only be imaginary, for it was too lovely. And Robert's chest tightened. "Yes. Thank you."