Francesca Moretti

"Beauty perishes in life, but is immortal in art"

[mydearestfrancesca]

CHARACTER INTRODUCTION

Character belonging to @thetonhq

Basics

NAME: Francesca Moretti Salvatore

FAMILY: House Moretti

ROLE IN SOCIETY: Italian Gentlewoman, Inventor & Natural Philosopher; Doctor. 

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual

Date of Birth: 3rd May 1782

Languages: Italian (native), English, French, Latin, and conversational German

🀢🀣🀦🀤

Appearance

Eye Color: Warm Amber-Brown

Hair Color: Dark Chestnut

Tattoos/Scars: A small burn scar along the inside of her left wrist from an early experiment gone awry, usually hidden beneath lace gloves. Her fingertips often bear faint traces of ink or machine oil despite every effort to remove them. Hidden beneath her skirts, on the backs of her calves, are two delicate tattoos—a sun upon one leg and a moon upon the other. They were inked years ago by a former lover who dabbled in the uncommon art of tattooing, serving as a quiet reminder of a chapter of her life she neither regrets nor readily speaks of.

Positive Trait: Ingenious

Negative Trait: Egoistical

🀢🀣🀦🀤

About

Francesca Moretti was born into one of northern Italy’s most prosperous merchant families, where wealth promised comfort but tradition dictated every aspect of a young woman’s future. From childhood, she was expected to master music, conversation, and embroidery in preparation for an advantageous marriage. Instead, she found herself captivated by entirely different pursuits. Numbers fascinated her more than needlework, mechanical puzzles more than dancing, and books on astronomy and engineering far more than the poetry considered appropriate for a lady.

Denied a formal education equal to that of her brothers, Francesca simply refused to accept the limitation. While still in Italy, she cut her hair short, bound her figure beneath tailored waistcoats, and assumed the identity of a young gentleman under an invented name. For nearly three years she attended lectures at one of Italy’s universities, studying medicine, anatomy, natural philosophy, and surgery alongside men who never once suspected the truth. She excelled in her studies, earning the respect of professors who praised the “young scholar’s” extraordinary insight while unknowingly condemning women as incapable of such brilliance in the very same breath. The deception granted Francesca an education no respectable woman could have hoped to receive, though it also taught her that the world would readily celebrate her intellect only so long as it believed it belonged to a man.

With the discreet assistance of sympathetic tutors, borrowed university texts, and an insatiable curiosity, she devoted countless evenings to mathematics, natural philosophy, architecture, and mechanics. Hidden within unused rooms of the family estate, she established a modest workshop where discarded clockworks, brass fittings, and experimental contraptions gradually transformed into ingenious inventions. Some were practical improvements to agricultural equipment and household machinery, while others existed simply because she wished to discover whether they could be built at all. Success mattered less to Francesca than understanding why something worked.

As she grew older, her family’s expectations became increasingly difficult to avoid. An engagement was arranged to a wealthy industrialist whose interest lay less in Francesca herself than in the commercial opportunities presented by House Moretti. Refusing to surrender both her independence and her life’s work, Francesca employed the very talents her family dismissed as unfeminine. Through careful planning, impeccable timing, and a series of entirely legal yet remarkably inconvenient financial revelations, she quietly dismantled the arrangement before the wedding contracts could be finalized. The engagement collapsed amidst whispers of unfortunate business complications, leaving neither family willing to publicly assign blame.

With her reputation only slightly bruised and her inheritance secure, Francesca departed for London. England offered what Italy no longer could: freedom. 

Officially, Francesca Moretti is merely another well-born Italian gentlewoman seeking distance from unfortunate family circumstances. Society believes she is the cousin of the wealthy Italian investor Niccolò Salvatore, a recent arrival whose fortune and impeccable reputation provide her with the perfect shield from inconvenient questions. The truth is rather less respectable. Niccolò is not her cousin at all, but her oldest and dearest friend. Having grown up together in Italy, he has known Francesca’s true nature—and her endless appetite for dangerous knowledge—since childhood. He alone knows every identity she has worn, every secret hidden within her workshop, and every reason she was forced to flee her homeland.

To everyone else, Francesca is refined and gracious enough to be welcomed into London’s drawing rooms without attracting undue attention.

Recognition has never interested her as much as discovery. After all, history rarely remembers the hands working in the shadows, yet it is often those unseen hands that reshape the world long before anyone realizes it has changed.

[martyr1s]

being the other woman was almost engraved into liliana's soul nowadays. the wives and husbands of her clients never knew of her and yet she stole from them the lust and passion that belonged to them, the pleasure that should have been brought to their partners by them was now being sought from her. she felt unclean and a devilish sinner for such matters, causing a rift to build between couples for her own need for money - flowers were a mighty business as a solo person, but to provide for a family was costly. yet, she would not become the other woman for niccoló salvatore. no matter the love she held for him, she would rather be abandoned beneath the gutters than be the rift of a man she adored and his wife.

though it killed her to think of him in another's embrace, another woman's hands caressing his scars and kissing his body, mappingeach curve and sharp edge to memory - it caused her stomach to twist as if wrapped up in netting within the sea and being pulled taut.

liliana was being selfish. liliana wanted nicco to herself, she wanted to brand him - bite him, mark him, something to show that she was scarred across his soul as he was across hers. it was a maddening situation.

i've been waiting for you! her heart froze and the colour began to drain from her skin, this woman. a woman she assumed to be the wife of nicco, to be the woman who warmed his bed had waited for her. this was the end of her visits surely, the end of her visits with nicco. her mind began to spiral in that moment, similar to the day she lot her mother. her safety was being stolen away once more.

what am i to do? what if nicco does not wish - ?

"cousin?" you fickle child! liliana scolds herself, the envy and jealousy that had been evident begins to slowly melt away and she almost snorts - almost - to hide the laughter at her incredulous reaction to seeing another woman within salvatore manor. who could blame her? francesca was a woman of goddess status, she held the looks of a woman blessed by multiple gods, there was something in the water of the salvatore blood line, she was certain. "i apologise, miss salvatore, i had no idea . . . "

liliana now looks clearly at the woman, seeing the mischievous glint shining within her eyes and the gait of a confident woman - perhaps she was more tormenter to nicco than cousin, though she supposes most family are tormenters. her own grandmother has been tormenting her of her frequent visits to the manor, wishing to meet the man who has her little grandbaby so flushed and dishevelled. so concerned over dresses and hair. her family are to attend nicco's ball, so their first meeting may well be in such an extravagant arena - a place she fears people may not accept their attendance. they were commoners after all.

"he does?" that captures her attention, "does he say anything specific?" does he like any part of me particularly? does he call me beautful? does he love me? liliana is not subtle in her needs for the salvatore lord, the wants she wishes for him that stay hidden at the back of her mind. then francesca mentions the tome of romanian and her heart skips, a stutter as she thinks of him learning her language for her.

if he wished to keep his distance, he was doing a poor job.

"i did not know he was learning romanian . . ." her voice is quiet, barely above a whisper as she feels fluttering in her abdomen - nobody had done such a thing, clients had insisted on simple french phrases with dirty notions or english spoken clearly. never romanian. she should offer herself as a tutor if he wishes to expand his knowledge of other tongues - languages.

"if i were anybody else, i would believe you were trying to meddle in the affairs of your cousin, miss salvatore." though she speaks with a sly smile and nods her head, relaxing herself onto the chaise with ease - it would not be the first time she had had to pose along a chaise, though it was the first time to be clothed. "i am sure lord salvatore would rather not be taken by surprise by my staying, but if it is to help an artist, who am i to object?"

she likes francesca.

"i must admit, we have been in deep discussion regarding the ball. i am to arrnage the flowers for it and bring an air of blossoming friendship to the halls of the manor," yet she was sly in her own rights with her choices of flowers, holding them close to her chest until she was ready to share each meaning with the lord. "he has also invited my family, though i must confess . . . i wonder if they will be as welcome as he makes out. society endure me for their flowers, but my family are not me."

it would always be a fear, to have her family rejected and ridiculed because they were commoners.

"though i do look forward to the ball, i have never attended one before."

[mydearestfrancesca]

“Francesca,” she corrected, clicking her tongue with feigned reproach, though the smile curving her lips betrayed every ounce of the performance. “Just Francesca. Or Fran! Better still, that is what my friends call me. Well… Niccolino insists upon Chesca, but he has made an art of being insufferable.”

At the mention of Nicco, Liliana’s whole countenance seemed to brighten of its own accord, some private and helpless illumination she could not govern, Francesca caught it at once. Ah, there it was: love.

It was a curious affliction. It robbed sensible people of their wits and replaced them with poetry they never intended to speak aloud. It made soldiers sigh like schoolboys, artists paint the same face a hundred times, and people search another’s eyes for futures they had not dared imagine. Mercifully, neither of these poor souls suffered alone. Whatever fever possessed Niccolò had long since found its reflection.

“Oh, he speaks of little else,” Francesca confided, lowering her voice as though the manor itself possessed ears. She cast an exaggerated glance over each shoulder, half expecting Niccolò to rise up through the very floorboards to hunt her through the woods for the crime of telling tales. One could never be entirely certain he would not. “You are clever, impossibly witty, beautiful and an artist besides. Enchanting, he called you.” She leaned closer, her grin growing positively wicked. “I am beginning to suspect the fool undersold you.”

Her brush returned to the canvas almost of its own accord.

The landscape she had begun scarcely an hour before quietly surrendered beneath new strokes. The distant hills dissolved into softer colours, the lonely path disappeared, and where empty sky had lingered, delicate features gradually emerged beneath her hand. Liliana’s brow, the graceful line of her nose, the thoughtful mouth forever threatening to smile.

Something one might discover forgotten inside the cracked apse of an abandoned chapel, where incense had long since yielded to dust and ivy climbed the altar. 

Niccolò would adore it!

“Miss Toma,” Francesca mused, pointing her paintbrush at the younger woman as though delivering a solemn accusation before a tribunal, “were I anyone else, I might begin to suspect my cousin’s affairs occupy rather an alarming portion of your thoughts.”

The brush wavered teasingly. She really liked Liliana, how fortunate she was that the heavens had given them a chance to meet. 

“Well, dear, Niccolò would believe the heavens themselves rise each morning because you granted them permission. If you accepted my invitation, I suspect he would be too pleased to have you for supper.” She tapped her chin with the wooden handle, pretending to ponder. “Company, I mean, of course. At supper. I shall be thoroughly entertained regardless.”

The word friendship lingered only briefly before dissolving into something far less convincing. Francesca traced the elegant curve of Liliana’s collarbones upon the canvas, tongue caught thoughtfully between her teeth.

There was precious little friendship in the way Niccolò spoke of her.

Liliana has eyes so blue I fear I might drown in them. He had whispered those words one sleepless evening after Francesca had bullied him into smoking enough hemp to quiet the ghosts pacing inside his head. He had looked almost embarrassed to have spoken them aloud, as though confession itself were an act of treason. She meant to immortalize those eyes now, in oil and shadow, before he could talk himself out of feeling anything at all.

Poor Niccolino, he never understood that his heart had always been louder than his mouth.

“Dear,” Francesca said softly, “I may not know you yet, but I have known Nicco since before either of us knew how to hold a spoon properly. If he says your family shall be welcomed here, then welcomed they shall be.”

She knew too well the particular terror of watching those one loves turned away at a threshold. She could still remember pleading with her own mother to allow Donna Anna and little Niccolò to attend her birthday feasts, colouring their places beside hers with bright wax crayons upon the tablecloth because no servant dared move them once she had declared them occupied.

Donna Anna had loved Francesca as though she had sprung from her own womb, Niccolò had guarded her with all the devotion of an elder brother. What were they, if not family?

She remembered too her mother’s hands upon her shoulders, blunt nails biting into the skin. You shall not disgrace this family by inviting sinners beneath our roof.

Francesca smiled to herself. Look at me now, Mama. I have become one of them and I have never been prouder.

“I shall see to it myself that your family enjoys every moment of the ball,” she assured, another gentle stroke bringing warmth to the painted cheeks. “As Niccolino’s guests, they are ours. Society has no dominion within these walls. The Salvatores do.”

Should any haughty noble forget that truth, Francesca would happily remind them. Preferably loudly.

“Your first ball?” she asked, arching a brow. Liliana was so lovely, it was hard to forget she was not highborn. Well, it scarcely mattered. They ought to make it the best ball then! “Oh, then your feet shall ache dreadfully before the night is through, but dancing has always been worth every blister.”

She had already taken it upon herself to ensure the festivities possessed sufficient delight. She had even succeeded in convincing Niccolò that every respectable masquerade required a haunted tour of the manor.

One ought to nourish both joy and terror equally.

“And you mustn’t fret over your family,” she continued brightly, hopping down from her stool to fetch another palette. Her skirt twisted as she moved, exposing the twin tattoos upon her calves—a sun chasing a crescent moon in eternal pursuit. “Aunt Lou will be here.”

Her face positively glowed.

“Has Nicco spoken of her?” She answered herself with a theatrical sigh. “Of course he hasn’t. Heaven forbid anyone discover he possesses relatives.”

Francesca could almost hear him already. It’s dangerous for people to be associated with me, Francesca… blah, blah, blah.

“She has been married three times, widowed twice, worked in a travelling circus, and taught Nicco every card trick he now uses to rob respectable gentlemen blind.” She gasped dramatically. “Cazzo! You mustn’t tell him I told you that.”

If Niccolò discovered this betrayal, he would undoubtedly threaten murder. Fortunately, Francesca had never found him particularly convincing.

“She bears no title,” Francesca went on, “yet every soul beneath this roof treats her with the reverence owed a queen.”

She wisely omitted the incident involving the baron, a pistol, and an exceedingly unfortunate kneecap.

“She shall keep your family company, so they need not feel strangers among us. Their own private hostess, so to speak.”

With every measured stroke, Liliana ceased to be merely herself. Colour gathered like stained glass beneath candlelight, transforming flesh into something touched by divinity. Her features acquired the serenity of frescoes; her eyes seemed prepared to witness miracles.

Not a saint of martyrdom for those always looked too sorrowful. This one belonged to gardens.

“Well?” Turning the canvas toward Liliana, she smiled. “What do you think?”

The painted figure gazed back, blossoms woven into her hair like a living halo.

“Patron saint of flowers.”

[therailroadheir]

Junho had one of the longest days-no weeks-in his entire life. Dominic really hadn't lied about the duties of a Lord. He felt like he had very little time for himself. He hadn't even realized how little time he had before.  

He had spent the last three days with tenants- upset over petty things that would have been easy decisions if they just agreed to leave each other alone!  Why must farmers be so stubborn?? And then another one was upset over someone's farm animals getting into their garden. It was terrible trying to get some to agree!

It was late into the night when Junho was able to get home. He was dead on his feet. It wasn't the worst part of his night, the time he had gotten into Mayfair, the cart wheel had broken. He would have to walk the rest of the way. The chauffeur had looked guilty, but Junho waved it off. It was not his fault..... He wished to be annoyed, but he really couldn't be....

Once he had said good by the other man, he was alone with his thoughts. If he thought too hard about the pain in his feet, it was unbearable. He really just wanted to lie down on the grass and just let the world take him.

And yet his day wasn't even over. He still had a letter or two to write to the railroad. His head hurt just thinking about it. He wonders if sleep would be better, but he needs to send those letters as soon as he wakes. Maybe he could just wake up early....would he even be able to wake up to be able to do? He feels stressed thinking of the letters not being sent out... Sigh, he will probably get those done tonight

He's in his own torment of thoughts as he walks past a tree when he hears someone call out. He paused, and he glanced around before he looked up towards the voice.

oh

His cheeks went bright red as it caught up to him that she had called him pretty boy, and she was also upside down in her dress! He saw things of a lady that he never should! He tried to keep his eyes on her face.

"Miss, how did you manage this?" he asked, as he didn't even think twice about getting her shoes for her. He set his message bag to the side- it landed on the ground with a heavy thud. He didn't even realize how heavy it was until he had set it down. He finds her shoes.

"Can you unhook yourself?" He asked her as stands right below her. "I can...er catch you when you fall," He promised. " And if you can't....I'm sure we can find a ladder..." His brain was mush. His ideas won't be very strong at the moment.

[mydearestfrancesca]

“You see, it’s a rather amusing story, once one overlooks the cognac, the candle wax, and—“ Francesca gave another determined tug at her foot. The left had managed to escape its leafy prison, her knee trembling beneath the strain of bearing her entire weight, but the right remained hopelessly entangled amongst splintering branches and the shredded remains of her skirt. “Che palle!”

It was, upon reflection, an exceedingly fortunate predicament. The handsome stranger had leapt to her aid without the slightest hesitation, as though Providence had stationed him beneath that ancient tree for no other purpose than to rescue foolish Venetian women from their own catastrophes. Francesca had long believed that misfortune was merely happiness disguised in garments too tattered to recognize at first glance. Every storm concealed a rainbow beyond its bruised clouds; every wrong turn uncovered a hidden garden; every locked door compelled one toward another left carelessly ajar. If Fate insisted upon throwing her into thorn bushes, it usually had the decency to plant something beautiful amongst the briars.

“No ladder!” She gathered the torn folds of her gown to free herself enough to peer down at him, dark curls hanging like ivy from the branch. “If anyone goes asking for one, the guests will wander outside to investigate. Then they shall begin inventing stories, and before long the banker will wake.” She wrinkled her nose dramatically. “That simply will not do.”

Another experimental sway made the branch groan beneath her.

“I believe I can free myself if I swing a little.”

It would scarcely be the most reckless feat Aunt Louise had ever encouraged. Louise, before life had gentled her into respectable company, had belonged to one of the travelling circuses that wandered between Rome and Naples, carrying marvels in brightly painted wagons and leaving behind little more than trampled grass and impossible memories. She had taught the albatross children—as she called them—all the secrets high society insisted they should never learn. Niccolò delighted in sleight of hand, forever making coins, cards, and ribbons vanish into thin air until even his own pockets seemed enchanted. Vincenzo abandoned every lesson the moment the animals appeared, happiest with straw clinging to his boots and a patient horse nudging his shoulder for apples. Francesca, however, belonged to the sky. She adored the trapeze—the delicious surrender of solid earth, the intoxicating heartbeat suspended between one leap and the next, where terror and exhilaration became impossible to distinguish.

Compared to flying through the air with nothing but a pair of warm hands awaiting her, this was scarcely worth mentioning.

She looked down at the stranger with a grin so bright it seemed almost irreverent beneath the moonlight, stretching both hands toward him as though they had been partners in this performance all along.

“Will you catch me, amore?”

What were a handful of scratches beside the promise of an adventure worth remembering?

[thornykitty]

Katherine Thorne | Location: Thorne Estate, the koi pond

Katherine was in a constant state of anxiety. Her skin was crawling and she felt the need to rip herself apart to free herself from the terrible feelings burdening her. For a while, she was floating from room to room, checking in on her family. When her first father died, Kitty had become very attatched to her mother. Never leaving her side, even climbing into bed with her and sleeping with her because the fear that she may die too was so great. Those same thoughts and fears tormented her once again, and she snapped at any of the well-meaning servants who suggested she go get some fresh air.

If she stepped away for a single moment and another person she loved died? Kitty was certain she would die right along with them.

However, she was finally coaxed away after a long day, a headache, and bloodshot eyes. She went out to one of her favorite places in the garden, her beloved koi pond. In her hand, her father's pipe. She would always sneak it out of his study when she wanted to go to the tavern, but smoking in the garden was the next best thing.

As she puffed away, staring at the fish who swam around so peacefully, muttering to them in Cantonese, she saw a shadow appear. Kitty coughed and dropped the pipe to hide it safely away and tried to blow the smoke away.

"What?" She snapped, looking over at the person now.

[mydearestfrancesca]

The first time Francesca met Katherine Thorne, the girl wore a gown of soft cream, its skirts embroidered with roses so deep a magenta they seemed to have been stitched with old blood rather than silk. The flowers climbed from hem to bodice in luxuriant bloom, and for one absurd moment Francesca wondered whether an entire garden had willingly surrendered itself simply to adorn her.

Louise was soon to retire. That much had been inevitable ever since Giuseppe had died and she had married an English gentleman whose name Francesca never seemed able to remember. James? John? Something painfully respectable. Whatever affection Louise possessed for him had not dulled the sharpness of her tongue nor the cleverness of her hands, though it had traded greasepaint and sawdust for polished silver and embroidered draperies. 

For all the years Francesca had disguised herself as a young man to attend the university that would never have admitted her otherwise, it had been Louise who transformed impossible dreams into convincing lies. She had taught her how to lower her voice until it settled comfortably in her chest, how to lengthen her stride without swaggering, how to occupy a room without apologizing for existing. A man, Louise insisted, never asked permission of the world. He simply expected it to move.

Now she spent her days among the aristocracy of Mayfair, pinning duchesses into impossible silhouettes and coaxing beauty from silk and lace. Yet before England had claimed her, Louise had belonged to the theatre houses of Paris, where she stitched costumes beneath flickering gaslight while actors rehearsed tragedies until dawn. Before that had come the travelling circus outside Rome, where she mended torn tents as readily as broken ribs, powdered acrobats before performances, disguised fugitives between acts, and learned that the quickest way to disappear was simply to become someone else. Reinvention, she often said, was the oldest performance known to mankind. Aristocrats merely paid better than actors ever had.

“How do I look?”

Francesca spun upon her heel, arms spread wide. The fresh tailoring puffed at the shoulders and sleeves, generous enough to conceal the softness of her frame without hindering movement. She looked less like a scholar than some swaggering musketeer wandering out of a penny novel, and she could not suppress the grin tugging at her lips. There was something intoxicating about becoming someone else again, though the risks no longer resembled youthful adventures. They carried the weight of prisons now, of gallows.

“Like a little girl playing dress-up,” Louise replied without looking up from her work, her grey hair pinned into an updo that had survived three cities and, Francesca suspected, at least one revolution. Louise had always been the nearest thing to a fairy godmother that existed in this life, closer to Nicco’s mother Anna than blood itself, and twice as dangerous when crossed. “Lower your voice. Let your weight settle into your hips. Stop floating.”

Francesca obeyed, planting her boots apart before reaching for one of Louise’s newest contraptions: a handsome black mustache suspended upon a delicate wire that hooked invisibly beneath the nose.

“Better?” she asked, this time speaking from somewhere much deeper inside herself.

Louise’s weathered face softened into amusement.

“Much.” She rose, extinguished the end of her cigar, and gathered Francesca’s dark curls into practiced hands. “You should cut this again.”

“I like it.”

“You like making my work difficult. Now put on the wig.”

Francesca muttered beneath her breath. Wearing a wig over perfectly good hair struck her as profoundly ridiculous, but Louise had earned the right to be obeyed. So she settled the powdered wig atop her head.

Within seconds her scalp began protesting.

“Miss Lou,” she groaned, scratching furiously beneath the curls, “this thing itches like the Devil himself nested in it. Have you been storing your wigs beside bedbugs or—”

She turned, half-expecting a cushion to come flying toward her, instead she found herself staring into a pair of wide eyes. The words withered upon her tongue. A young woman stood in the doorway, frozen as though she had wandered into the final act of a magic show and caught the magician removing the rabbit from his blouse. Every black curl remained precisely where it belonged. Even her surprise possessed an elegance Francesca doubted she herself could ever achieve.

“Oh,” Francesca plucked the false mustache from beneath her nose with embarrassing haste and slipped it into her pocket.

“Well,” she said, recovering with the confidence of someone far too accustomed to escaping disasters of her own making, “this is awkward. You see, dear… I’m an actress.”

Louise, entirely unmoved by the catastrophe, resumed arranging ribbons; cross dressers were forever materializing in her drawing room.

Only later would Francesca learn the stranger’s name: Katherine Thorne. It suited her. She possessed the sort of beauty poets exhausted themselves trying to capture, all rose-tinted cheeks and soft lips, every gesture measured with the unconscious grace of someone raised beneath careful eyes. She seemed less a woman than a portrait that had stepped from its gilded frame. Francesca, who had once climbed onto the altar of a church merely to kiss the marble cheek of a saint because it had looked lonely, found herself wondering what impossible height she would have to scale to kiss the astonishment from Katherine Thorne’s face.

“And now,” she declared, sweeping into an extravagant bow, “I believe I ought to make my exit before I acquire a reputation.”

She collected her hat and coat, paused only long enough to blow Katherine a teasing kiss, and flashed Louise a grin.

“I’ll be back later, Miss Lou.”

Louise answered only with a dismissive flick of her wrist, shooing her away as one might an unruly raven that always, inevitably, found its way home.

🀢🀣🀦🀤

The second time Francesca met Katherine Thorne, she wore mourning black. The cream and roses of their first encounter had vanished beneath crepe and jet, as though grief itself had reached greedy hands into her wardrobe and devoured every gentler colour. Black did not become Katherine as roses had. It leeched the blush from her cheeks until they resembled marble and settled beneath her eyes in shadows that no amount of sleep could have banished. Yet when she lifted her pipe to her lips, the silver stream of smoke curled around her with such ghostly tenderness that she looked less like a grieving daughter than a memory refusing to leave the earth.

I have seen you before, Francesca thought. Perhaps in a dream a thousand years ago.

She had scarcely crossed the threshold before Katherine startled at the sound of footsteps. Francesca immediately lifted both hands in surrender. “I come in peace.”

Louise had insisted upon a gown of deep midnight blue, saying the colour softened her complexion while remaining respectful enough for the occasion. Her dark hair had been woven into a braided crown at the nape of her neck, though stubborn curls escaped with infuriating persistence, forever drifting across her vision until she swept them impatiently aside.

“I am Lady Francesca Salvatore,” she said gently. “Lord Salvatore sends his deepest condolences, along with his prayers.” She inclined her head toward the servants lingering near the entrance. “And gifts for your household.”

Behind her, footmen unloaded carefully wrapped hampers of bread still warm from the ovens, preserves, cheeses, smoked meats, fresh fruit, bottles of claret, sacks of tea and coffee, beeswax candles, and baskets overflowing with white lilies, rosemary, rosemary wreaths, and white roses—solemn offerings that forever seemed to accompany death through the drawing rooms of England. Flowers had become Niccolò’s answer to every sorrow since meeting Liliana. He claimed they reminded people that beauty insisted upon growing, even from graves.

He had intended to come himself, then his butler had appeared with some pressing matter, and shortly thereafter Liliana had required a dancing partner for her waltz lessons.

Love had made an utter fool of him. Francesca prayed they would spare everyone the suspense and simply marry.

“We are truly sorry for your loss,” she approached Katherine with deliberate slowness, as one might approach a skittish deer beside the edge of a frozen lake. Sudden movements frightened wounded creatures. Grief made beasts of all of us eventually.

Only when she reached the bench did she lower herself beside her, careful to leave barely the width of a hand between them.

“I’m sorry for startling you,” she added, glancing toward the pipe. “And for the tobacco. That is a dreadful waste.”

Her pockets—stitched discreetly into the folds of her gown after an hour of spirited complaints to Louise regarding the criminal uselessness of ladies’ reticules—held precisely what she sought, a worn leather pouch.

“May I?” Without waiting long enough to embarrass Katherine by forcing an answer, she took the pipe with gentle hands, packed fresh tobacco into its bowl, and returned it. 

When Anna had died, Niccolò had scarcely cried at all, so she had cried enough for the both of them. She remembered clutching him so tightly that her own sobs had shaken his shoulders, apologizing afterward through swollen eyes because she feared she had stolen his mourning for herself. Yet Niccolò had smiled and confessed that watching others grieve his mother had comforted him more than solitude ever could.

It reminded me, he had whispered, that I was not the only one carrying her.

“There,” Francesca rose just enough to drape her burgundy shawl over Katherine’s shoulders.

The rich wine-red suited her infinitely better than black. It returned a whisper of warmth to her pale complexion, as though someone had remembered colour still belonged in the world. “You look cold, my lady.”

She struck a match against the stone beside the bench, the tiny flame flared amber between her fingers. Shielding it from the wind with her palm, she leaned close enough for the scent of lavender and tobacco to mingle between them before touching the fire to Katherine’s pipe.

When the match had burned nearly to her fingertips, Francesca extinguished it against her tongue with ease.

“I’ve often been told I’m an excellent listener,” she said, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “So I thought I might lend you an ear, should you wish to borrow one.”

She patted the leather pouch resting in her pocket. “And if not an ear, then more tobacco. I’ve coltsfoot besides, if your chest is tight, and hemp, if you’d rather simply stop feeling anything at all tonight.”

Pain, divided among enough hands, grew no lighter, but it became bearable.

Perhaps that was all anyone could offer another soul.

[martyr1s]

𝐰𝐡𝐨? liliana & francesca ( @mydearestfrancesca ) 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞? salvatore manor, interior.

perhaps she was reaching too high.

liliana was beginning to feel a sense of belonging each time she set foot in salvatore manor, each nook and cranny becoming old friends as fingertips trace aging wood. she did not need to make so many trips to the home, nor did she need to stay long enough to catch sight of niccoló and perhaps share tea and have a battle of hearts, souls and chatter.

yet she found herself drawn here. as if a chain was being drawn around her waist and slowly opulling her into the abyss, a warm yet dark place that may or may not be detrimental to the rest of her life.

dressed in a gown of deep purple - embroidered with silver thread, shapes of stars and moons echo lightly across the hem of her skirt and at the cinch of her waist. liliana always did like dresses pulled in at the waist, far more than many dresses worn by the feminine of the ton. a lace scarf adorns her neck, dangling with metal stars that shine against pale flesh - always dressed up in new or old outfits, something untouched by another man, all for nicco.

she often felt stupid. did he even notice what she wore?

most men only notice was was beneath.

humming softly, the florist trails the same path she has each time she visited the manor. visualising each bloom that will bring the home to life, imagining the awe her flowers would bring to guests of lord salvatore's future ball - a small part of her giddy at the thought of attending. a hand rests against her abdomen as a flutter passes, an image of lily and nicco dancing among guests hits her and her skin flushes.

shaking her head, liliana continues. pushing open one of the double doors, she had not expected anyone other than the servants to be present within the manor - but this was a woman. a gorgeous, succubus of a woman painting.

oh no. what is this feeling?

her stomach twists and she feels almost nauseas at the sight of another women withing niccoló's home - but what right does she have to feel such emotions?

"Îmi pare atât de rău!" her voice comes out calm as tries to cool her expression, eyes averting to the furniture of the room, almost seeking some sign of nicco to calm her thoughts. "i did not know somebody else would be here, i apologise, my lady."

[mydearestfrancesca]

“Are they paying you to torment me,” Niccolò ground out through clenched teeth, “or do you inflict yourself upon people for charity?”

He shook his unruly mop of dark curls like a drenched hound, scattering droplets from the garden hose she’d wielded only moments before.

“I have never worked a day in my life, Niccolino, and I do not intend to begin with you.”

He had been on edge since morning, his jaw set so tightly that Francesca had begun to wonder, with something like scientific curiosity, whether she might witness a tooth crack before supper. While Niccolò went out to purchase the apothecary in her name—her new name, rather; Doctor Amadeo Pazzi, a man who did not exist and yet signed for deliveries with more confidence than most men who did. She had spent the day within doors, where the windows admitted pale afternoon light and the smell of linseed oil mingled with old wood and dust. Painting had always been easier than thinking.

She lifted her brush; the yellowed bristles, heavy with burnt orange pigment, drifted across the saint’s face until the unfortunate woman appeared consumed by holy fire.

Or hellfire.

Francesca tilted her head. Better.

She had been three hours now at this painting—a saint, meant as thanks to Niccolò for lending his name and his nerve to her deception—but the face had refused to settle into anyone’s likeness. She had begun with Mary Magdalene, wandered toward Eve, lingered upon an unnamed angel, and now the poor creature looked suspiciously like every sinner she had ever pitied.

Perhaps Niccolò would not mind. He had never cared whether beauty resembled Heaven so long as it possessed a soul.

“Does she know,” Francesca mused, tongue caught between her teeth as she frowned at the face taking shape beneath her brush, “of your tender feelings?”

Niccolò’s shoulders stiffened so abruptly one might have mistaken him for another statue awaiting its pedestal.

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh?” She dabbed another streak of orange across the canvas. “That’s peculiar. Because every time I mention Miss Toma, you suddenly become fascinated by the floor.”

“I am not fascinated by the floor.”

“You merely refuse to look me in the eye.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Francesca.”

“Niccolino.”

“For God’s sake.”

“I should think He already knows.”

It had taken a great deal of prodding to loosen the truth of his reluctance to leave the house, but she had, in the end, extracted a name: Liliana Toma. The florist assisting him with the ball. A guest. A friend. Someone who left Niccolò unable to meet her eyes, exactly as he had done as a boy of nine with his first infatuation. How delightful!

The lecture on manners and hospitality that had followed her teasing was long, and pompous, and had ended, deservedly, with Francesca turning the garden hose upon him. It was this that had delivered them both, dripping and furious, into the drawing room, where the argument had continued unabated ever since. 

“You’ve imagined this entire affair.”

“You smile differently when you say her name.”

“I do not smile.”

“Exactly.”

He groaned. She continued before he could gather another protest.

“So.” She leaned back, folding her paint-stained arms. “When were you planning on telling her?”

“There is nothing to tell.”

“You love her.”

“I do no such thing.”

“You admire her.”

Silence.

“You adore her.” 

He glared at her, and for a moment she thought he might actually growl. 

“Oh, Niccolino…” Francesca smiled with unbearable sweetness. “You are absolutely smitten.”

“She is twenty-two.”

“And?”

“I am thirty-two.”

“Ten years.”

“It may as well be a century.”

Francesca waved dismissively. “You say that as though you’ve one foot in the grave.”

“Some days I feel I do,” his answer arrived so quietly that it dissolved some of the laughter lingering in the room, something in his voice made the teasing die in her throat.

“She deserves…” He searched for the words as though each one were lodged beneath his ribs. “…someone uncomplicated.”

Francesca snorted. “They’ve yet to invent such a man.”

“Someone younger.”

“There are plenty of fools her age.”

“Someone who hasn’t spent half his life burying people.”

Outside, wind stirred the cypress trees until their shadows stretched over the windows like skeletal fingers. Niccolò rubbed tiredly at the scar near his eye.

“She deserves mornings without ghosts, Fran,” his voice scarcely rose above a whisper. “She deserves a husband who sleeps.”

Ah, there it was. Not fear of rejection, but of acceptance.

“You cannot decide what another person deserves,” she murmured.

“I can decide what I refuse to burden them with,” he forced a brittle smile that convinced neither of them. “Now, if you’ve finished dismantling my dignity, I’d very much like to salvage what remains of my afternoon.”

“I’ve barely begun.”

“I noticed.” Niccolò bowed with exaggerated civility. “Doctor Pazzi.”

“Hopeless romantic.”

He sighed heavenwards as though petitioning the saints for patience, then disappeared through the doorway, allowing it to close behind him with a soft click that echoed through the drawing room.

The manor settled once more into its familiar hush.

Alone, Francesca allowed herself to consider—though only because there was no one present to witness the admission—that her friend, for all his talent at being a pest, was not entirely wrong to guard himself so fiercely. She had grown up much the same, after all, though her armor had taken a different shape; being the only daughter among four sons had rendered her nearly invisible within her own household. Her brothers inherited lessons, expectations, futures. Francesca inherited indulgences; a silk ribbon here, a new dress there, always enough to quiet her, never enough to make anyone truly see her.

At the convent, things had fared little better. She had arrived with a merchant’s fortune but no noble blood to sanctify it, no polished etiquette to soften it, and no instinct for pretending she belonged. The girls regarded her as one might regard an expensive vase set upon the wrong shelf—valuable enough to admire from afar, too breakable to touch.

Then, at six years old, she met Niccolò. He had been all sharp elbows, bright eyes, and quicker fingers, lifting purses from distracted pilgrims with the confidence of someone who expected the world to rob him first. When the guards caught them, Francesca had claimed the stolen coins as her own before he could speak.

The punishment had been unevenly distributed. For a street thief, they had threatened the knife. For the merchant’s daughter, only an hour kneeling upon coarse grains of uncooked wheat until her knees bled through silk stockings.

It seemed a fair bargain. He had refused to leave her side afterward.

Years later came Vincenzo, who quite literally stumbled into their lives while chasing a stray goat along the cliffs, nearly tumbling into the sea before Niccolò caught him by the collar and Francesca hauled his legs back from the edge. 

Since then, the three of them had become something stranger than friends and sturdier than family.

Yet even now there remained an absence. A persistent shape within her life where a sister ought to have stood. Perhaps that was why Liliana lingered so stubbornly in her thoughts, as the possibility of something Francesca had spent a lifetime believing she simply had not been made to possess.

Perhaps, if she dared lower the walls she had mistaken for skin, that empty place might finally belong to someone.

Only one way to find out. 

🀢🀣🀦🀤

“I’m no lady, dear,” the smile she wore was bright enough to challenge the afternoon sun as she abandoned her stool and began circling Liliana as hawk does.

Bellissima, Niccolino had called her. How reassuring to know the fool’s eyesight had survived England intact.

“And you mustn’t apologize,” she continued. “I’ve been waiting for you!”

She stopped before the young woman and extended her hand without so much as a thought for propriety. It was a firm handshake she offered rather than the dainty curtsy expected of respectable ladies, but Francesca had long ago concluded that etiquette was merely another prison built by people with far too much time.

“I am Francesca. Francesca Salvatore.” Only then did she truly study the girl’s face—that peculiar stiffness around the mouth, the fleeting uncertainty clouding otherwise gentle features. Francesca tilted her head, searching for its source before enlightenment arrived with all the grace of a brick through stained glass.

The surname, Madonna santa! The poor thing thought she was Niccolò’s wife. The very notion nearly sent her into hysterics.

“Oh, no!” she laughed, waving both hands as though physically shooing away the misunderstanding. “Not that sort of Salvatore. Heaven preserve us all. I’m his cousin, near enough his sister!”

Her grin sharpened with mischief.

“Niccolino and I are rather like Cain and Abel… if Abel were the homicidal one and Cain preferred wine, gambling, and poor decisions over fratricide.”

She paused thoughtfully.

“Though, now that I say it aloud, perhaps we are both Cain.”

Liliana called to mind the exquisite dolls Francesca’s father used to bring home from Paris after long journeys across the Continent—treasures kept beneath glass, fashioned from smooth porcelain and silks so delicate they seemed woven from moonlight itself. They wore embroidered slippers and impossible little crowns, forever frozen in the midst of some graceful dance. As a child, Francesca had been forbidden from touching them for fear she might shatter their fragile perfection.

She had ignored that instruction, naturally.

Liliana possessed that same dangerous delicacy, although Francesca doubted a careless word might crack her smile as easily.

“Nicco has spoken of you incessantly,” Francesca said, returning to her easel before the temptation to poke her newfound doll became irresistible. She reached for her brushes with renewed enthusiasm. “I daresay if he uttered your name one more time, I’d have mistaken it for a prayer.”

A brush tapped between her lips while she mixed fresh colour upon the palette.

“And I see you’re the reason he’s tormenting himself with Romanian. There’s an enormous tome occupying his study now. Every morning he glares at it as though sheer determination might bully the language into surrender.”

We must forever pursue knowledge, Francesca. She could still hear him preaching. Culture broadens the soul.

Culture, her arse.

“Come now, would you indulge an artist? Sit for me a few hours. I promise not to make you look dreadful. In return, I’ll finish a painting Niccolò shall undoubtedly steal for himself… and you’ll remain here long enough for supper.”

She gestured toward the chaise near the broad window where violet light pooled across the cushions. Truthfully, she had already chosen the composition. The rich purple of Liliana’s gown would catch the dying sunlight beautifully, while her dark hair would soften the severity of the panelling. Niccolò had once spent an embarrassingly long while admiring an old burgundy ribbon Liliana had given him, remarking far too casually that such colours suited certain complexions. Deep wine. Plum. Crushed roses.

“I confess,” Francesca continued, pointing the end of her paintbrush toward Liliana with the gravity of one revealing state secrets, “I am exceedingly curious about you, Miss Toma.”

Her gaze drifted toward the coiled garden hose resting beside the easel. “Has my cousin already begun tormenting you with his grand visions for the ball? If so…” She tapped it affectionately with the handle of her foot. “My faithful accomplice has proven remarkably effective at restoring men to their senses.”

[dreamspenned]

The moment that she had opened the letter, a surge of guilt had filled her, for in her excitement at the idea of having mail for her, she had not thought to check and see whom the letter was meant to find. She had stopped reading before the letter's end, quickly sealing it back into the lavender envelope with wax and getting the largest envelope that she has, slipping both the letter that had found its way to her and her own inside along with a few dried sprigs of lavender.

Dear Starlight,

I do apologize for my opening and reading part of your letter, but I am not someone who receives mail all too often and in my sheer joys of seeing a letter for myself, I could not help but tear it open in my excitement. I read only a bit and then the bottom so I knew who to address this to, and for that I extend another apology, but I do wish to tell you I am so deeply sorry. I have sealed and return it to you in hope that it may find the sender it was meant to reach as well as some flowers for you as a means to hopefully atone for my error.

If I may, along with my others, I would like to apologize for whatever hardships lead to your letter. Though I know that you only have my word to take me for and nothing else, I do promise that I have only read a bit of your missive, though your words touched and saddened me greatly.

Matters of the heart are not something I am versed in at all, but many of my closest friends have suffered great heartache and I personally know loss. I hope that wherever you are going and wherever you are going next, you find love and joy again, if not with a partner ( though I do know the loneliness of lacking one well ), then for yourself.

Step forward, starlight, into the day, treat yourself and take care of yourself. Trust your heart. Chase your dreams and your joy.

Wishing you all of the best.

Signed,

Myosotis

[mydearestfrancesca]

To Myosotis,

How strange that a letter written to sever one thread should weave another. Had anyone told me that my bitter little farewell would lose itself between foreign hands only to return adorned with flowers, I should have accused them of drinking more wine than I. Yet here it rests before me, carrying not only my own broken seal but the kindness of a stranger who believed an apology worth the trouble. You need not torment yourself over reading my letter, I cannot very well be angry at curiosity; I have spent half my life surrendering to it, it is a disease I have never wished to cure.

Besides, now you know who I am. As for the severity of my words, those I shall apologize for willingly, they were written after too much wine and too many ghosts had gathered round my chair. The dead are dreadful conversationalists, yet somehow they always persuade us to speak more cruelly than we intend. Poor Lady Moon received the sharpest edge of that night. You, through no fault of your own, caught but a splinter.

Still, I thank you. Your letter possessed an odd warmth to it. It reminded me that there are souls in this world who will pause beside another’s sorrow without demanding to know every chapter that came before it. Guard that tenderness fiercely; the world has a habit of borrowing it and forgetting to return it.

But now I find myself burdened by a different affliction: curiosity.

Who, pray tell, is Myosotis?

Surely not the name bestowed upon you at your christening. It is too poetic to belong to the census. I know the flower well enough. In Venice they bloom modestly, as though afraid to compete with louder blossoms, and yet they linger longest in memory. Forget-me-nots. Such an audacious name for so delicate a thing.

You ask nothing of me, and yet I find myself wanting to ask everything of you. Who taught you to write with such tenderness to a stranger? Do you make a habit of comforting people who fall into your hands by accident, or am I a singular case? And tell me, does Venice know you at all, or only the four corners of whatever room you write from? I ask because the sky here, on the nights I can bear to look up, turns the exact blue of your little flower before the stars come out fully—myosotis blue, if such a shade may be permitted to exist outside of botany. I have taken to thinking of it as yours now. A small theft of my own, to balance the scales.

Did you choose your name because you wished to be remembered? Or because someone failed to remember you? Perhaps you simply liked the sound of it and I have already embroidered an entire tapestry where only a loose thread existed. I have been accused of that before.

Tell me, are you a collector of letters? You spoke as one who treasures them. Do you preserve every page tied with ribbon, or do you feed them to the fire once their purpose has been served? I confess I keep mine in little wooden boxes, despite claiming I care nothing for sentiment. We are all hypocrites in private.

And where is it that you call home? Somewhere that smells of rain? Of sea salt? Of old libraries? Do church bells wake you before dawn, or do gulls announce the morning instead? Have you always signed yourself as Myosotis, or have you worn other names as readily as other people change gloves?

You see? This is entirely your fault. You wrote one thoughtful letter to a stranger, and now I find myself with more questions than pages. I ought to warn you that I possess an incurable tendency to continue conversations long after sensible people have abandoned them. Therefore, I have reached a rather selfish conclusion.

I shall write to you again. Frequently, I suspect. You had better begin expecting my letters, for I have no intention of allowing your postman to grow lonely. If another of my missives should find its way into your hands, you may open it without ceremony, I believe we have moved beyond formalities now.

Should you grow weary of me, you are perfectly free to say so. Until then, dear flower with the impossible name, may your days remain gentler than the one that delivered my first letter into your keeping. And should Venice gift me another myosotis-blue morning, I shall think, however briefly, of the stranger who chose kindness over convenience.

May you never become easy to forget.

Ever beneath the stars,

Starlight

Within an envelope of midnight blue, sealed beneath a pool of dark wax and pressed with the brittle remains of a forget-me-not, the letter began its pilgrimage. The paper bore faint ghosts of oil paint upon its reverse, as though the canvas itself had bled into the page. Francesca had written it at her cluttered worktable, where brushes lay abandoned. She bit the inside of her cheek in a futile attempt to suppress the smile that haunted her lips, but delight refused to be buried. When dawn had scarcely finished lifting its veil from the streets, she placed the missive into the waiting hands of the postman. He paused, taken aback. It was rare enough to find Francesca awake before the city had fully stirred; rarer still to see her with such strange brightness kindling her features. As he accepted the letter, his weathered face betrayed a flicker of bewilderment, as though he had witnessed a specter. Heavens preserve them all. 

[mydearestfrancesca]

Dear, Almost

(starter for @dreamspenned)

Venice, past midnight, by candle-guttering hand

🀢🀣🀦🀤

My dear Lady Moon,

I have before me, upon this scarred and paint-stained table, some seven-and-twenty of your letters, each sealed with a wax so violently red I might have mistaken it, in a kinder mood, for a wound. I have not opened them all. I confess I have not the stomach for it, nor, tonight, the sobriety to pretend otherwise, for I write to you now with a glass of something Venetian and unwise at my elbow, and so you shall have honesty instead of manners, which I think you have earned, though perhaps not in the way you’d wish.

You must stop writing to me. I say this not with cruelty, though I know it will land as such, a stone dropped into the still water of whatever hope you have been nursing these long months. I never promised you the moon, Madam (forgive me, I could not resist it, even drunk, even now) I promised you only what I had: a body glad of yours, a summer’s worth of stolen hours, and the ferocious joy of two women who understood, without the tedium of saying so, that neither of us intended to stay.

You knew this. I was not coy about it, I have never been coy about anything in my life save perhaps my own heart, which I keep concealed, not for shame but because some things are simply not for viewing.

I will not pretend the nights meant nothing. That would be its own kind of lie, and I find I have grown tired of those, other people’s and my own alike. I remember the rain against your window in Mayfair, the windows clouded by winter while the fire made a liar out of the cold, and how you laughed low in the dark, and how briefly, blessedly, I forgot to be anyone’s daughter or anyone’s scandal. I remember it fondly, Lady Moon.

But you have mistaken fondness for a foundation, and built upon it a whole cathedral of expectation, and I cannot live in it. I do not want the letters, the waiting, the ache of being missed as though I were a fixture of your life rather than a season of it. I came to London and left it, as I always do; I did not think you would mistake my leaving for a puzzle to be solved by sufficient correspondence.

You ask, in every letter, what changed. Nothing did and that is precisely the tragedy. I do not love as you require; I have attempted it once or twice, years before your name ever crossed my threshold, and found the enterprise unsuitable to my temperament. Love builds houses where I have spent a lifetime learning every road that leads away from them.

You have persisted in believing that if your devotion remained steadfast enough, eventually I should wake one morning transformed into the woman you deserved. My dear Lady Moon, if that miracle were possible, it would have occurred before now. 

Instead, you have sent page after page chasing a woman who has already departed. Venice receives your words, but the woman for whom they are intended has long since wandered elsewhere. This reply exists only because I have been foolish enough tonight to mistake wine for courage; tomorrow I shall likely regret having answered at all.

So let this be the last of it. Not out of anger, for I find I have none left. You possess a heart inclined toward devotion, I bid you to guard it more carefully than you have guarded it with me. Spend it upon someone who delights in receiving letters instead of stacking them unopened beside jars of turpentine. Find a woman who counts the days until your arrival instead of the hours until her departure. She exists, I am simply not she.

I wish you no sorrow beyond that which time inevitably collects from us all. I wish you every happiness that does not require my presence to sustain it.

Do not write again. The silence between us has finally learned to say everything that neither of us wished to hear.

Starlight

🀢🀣🀦🀤

Sealed with little care and abandoned on the windowsill, the missive waited to be rescued by a mailman long accustomed to Francesca’s habitual disorder. Yet fate intervened; rather than reaching Miss Moon, the lavender envelope found its way into the hands of a certain maid.

[mydearestfrancesca]

A Peculiar Introduction

(Starter for @therailroadheir)

Francesca had been not so much instructed as besieged, all the week long, by Niccolò’s litany of caution. The English are not like us, Fran. They wound easily and bleed slowly, and you must not be the blade, Fran. You will not make ruin of my revenge, Fran. On and on, until the words lost their shape and became only weather, thunder she had learned to sleep through.

She would have felt guilty for paying so little attention had Niccolò possessed the theatrics to make his sermons interesting. Besides, was prohibition not merely another name for temptation? Was every warning anything more than a courteous reminder to avoid getting caught?

Francesca had never been fashioned for still waters, tranquility dulled her mind until it rattled against the walls of her skull like a prisoner pleading for release. It wanted the eye of the storm, to stand at the dead calm center and know that the wind screaming round her was of her own making, spun for her, by her. The wind had always carried her forward, asked no leave, apologized to no one.

Tonight, it had deposited her in the bed of a charming banker.

Mayfair was still a novelty. She had crossed into the district only twice before disappearing from London, both visits in the company of artists whose greatest talent was introducing one to increasingly fascinating acquaintances. Such circles blurred together delightfully, names dissolving long before faces did. One of those acquaintances had left a constellation of fading impressions upon the skin of her neck that would no doubt provoke scandal in respectable company.

Ah, how she adored her special friends!

She untangled herself now from the heap of warm limbs, moving with the care of a thief, so as not to wake him. What had his name been? Ian? Liam? Something pleasantly forgettable.

She slipped her chemise over her head before wrestling with the stays, trapping one ribbon between her teeth as she pulled until the garment surrendered. It sat tighter than comfort allowed, compressing breath and bruises alike, yet she would sooner suffocate than wake a one-night lover simply to lace her bodice. There were indignities even Francesca refused to entertain.

Her pantalettes followed. With any luck, they would conceal the darker souvenirs decorating her thighs and the faint fingerprints blooming like pressed violets beneath caramel skin. She reached for her stockings only to remember that she had abandoned them somewhere during the previous night’s enthusiastic descent into impropriety.

Typical.

Gathering the rebellious silk into a careless knot, she crossed to the window. The shoes would follow after. It seemed only fitting that both should make their exit through the same route by which decorum had escaped several hours earlier.

She had always preferred windows. Once, years ago, Vincenzo had sighed over the melancholy of their childhood, lamenting the years that had spirited away the reckless freedom of climbing trees, scaling rooftops, and returning home only after the stars had claimed the heavens. Francesca had listened with half an ear before deciding that time itself possessed no authority over the manner in which she chose to leave a room. If childhood belonged to windows, then windows it would remain.

The front door was merely a suggestion.

Her foot found the first branch, testing the wood before entrusting it with her weight. English gardeners, she had long concluded, were artists first and executioners second. Every tree was trimmed into civilized obedience, coaxed into ornamental silhouettes fit for admiration rather than utility. Beautiful, perhaps. Entirely impractical for a woman attempting to flee unnoticed.

Below, laughter spilled from the manor, candles burned bright against polished windows while musicians coaxed another dance from exhausted violins. The feast had been the very reason for her visit. A respectable banker, an agreeable bottle of Bordeaux, a conversation concerning investments. What enterprise, however, had ever proved more profitable than an excellent kiss?

Another step. She glanced back at the window she’d slipped from, light still spilling gold and restless from within, though no one seemed to have noticed that the host was missing, or that the unfamiliar woman who’d disappeared upstairs an hour before had vanished along with him. 

Excellent, no scandal!

She would return to the Salvatore estate before dawn painted England in its usual miserable shade of grey, endure none of Niccolò’s inevitable sermons, and, with any fortune left in the world, never set eyes upon that charming banker again.

She liked to imagine herself a creature of reason, a scientist, a woman who weighed consequence before action, who moved through the world with the cool deliberation of one accustomed to dissection, but she knew better. She knew the truth of her own architecture: that beneath the reason ran a current of pure appetite, a willingness to hurl herself into ruin for no better cause than because she wished it. Because some reckless, unspoken voice within her still muttered, because I am a grown woman, Nicco, and I shall do precisely as I please.

Affection, desire, lovers were nothing more than pleasant distractions. A momentary surrender to impulse before returning to occupations that truly deserved her devotion, such as the restorative tonic presently cooling upon her vanity, waiting patiently for its creator to remember she had abandoned it.

Another step, the branch beneath her foot answered with an indignant crack.

How poetic, she thought, as gravity claimed her, to perish because one had mistaken a twig for a branch. Humanity had forever spoken of extending an olive branch, of grasping the branch of salvation, of clinging to the sturdy limbs that separated life from oblivion.

Trust Francesca to be betrayed by one.

Yet death, as always, appeared determined to inconvenience rather than claim her.

Instead of plummeting toward the earth, her skirts caught among the lower branches. The tree embraced her with malicious enthusiasm, suspending her upside down several feet above the ground. Layers of embroidered silk collapsed over her face like an extravagant funeral veil while her legs, stockings, garters, and embroidered pantalettes alike, were presented to the indifferent moon as though part of some indecent exhibition.

She swayed gently. Dignity, she concluded, had finally abandoned her.

When the night breeze traced icy fingers along her exposed calves, Francesca accepted that her escape had reached a rather literal dead end. Fairy tales had been deceitful; knights in shining armour rescued maidens from dragons, towers, and curses, they did not rescue women dangling upside down from oak trees after escaping a lover’s bedchamber with their undergarments on full display.

That required an entirely different profession.

Footsteps disturbed the quiet. At first she saw only polished leather shoes crossing the grass beneath her, followed by the faint rustle of someone stopping directly below. Curious fingers lifted the heavy folds of her skirts just enough for the world to right itself. The stranger’s face appeared where the trees ought to have been, his features framed by moonlight. 

Oh, but what a lovely sight he was.

“Well, hello, pretty boy.” She beamed down at him or up, rather; she could no longer be certain which direction etiquette required. There seemed little use in formality now; the man had already been introduced to considerably more of her than her hazel eyes. “Would you be a dear and get me down from here? My shoes are in the bush just to your left.”

[mydearestfrancesca]

Not, Admittedly, Through the Front Door

(Starter for @mcstardently)

“Fammi capire bene,” Allow me to understand this correctly, Niccolò said for perhaps the sixth time, pressing two fingers against his temples as though he might physically keep his thoughts from escaping. A headache had plagued him since Francesca crossed his threshold, she regarded it as an unfortunate coincidence. “Sei stata maledetta da una…” You were cursed by a…

“Una strega,” A witch, Francesca supplied, with the patience of a teacher explaining the obvious to an exceptionally slow pupil. She packed fresh tobacco into her pipe, careful not to spill any upon the rug. “Abbiamo avuto una breve relazione. È finita… piuttosto male.” We entertained a brief affair. It concluded… rather badly.

“Hai fatto impiccare suo fratello.” “You got her brother executed.”

“È una ricostruzione inutilmente melodrammatica.” That is an unnecessarily dramatic interpretation.

“È l’unica possibile.” It is the only possible interpretation.

She struck the flint. The tobacco crackled softly before surrendering to flame, the first lungful burned agreeably. How lovely England was already. 

“Stavamo conducendo una ricerca davvero straordinaria,” We were conducting rather extraordinary research together, she continued. “Lui era semplicemente l’elemento meno brillante della coppia.” He simply happened to be the less brilliant half of it.

A pillow struck her pipe, thrown with no more force than a sigh might carry, Francesca spluttered around a mouthful of smoke and lifted one middle finger in eloquent offence.

“Stronzo.” Bastard.

“Assassina.” Murderer.

“È morto perché la Chiesa lo ha scambiato per me.” He died because the Church mistook him for me.

“L’hanno scambiato per te perché i tuoi esperimenti erano abbastanza blasfemi da mettere a disagio perfino Satana.” They mistook him because your experiments were blasphemous enough to make Satan uncomfortable.

“Secondo uomini convinti che lavarsi fosse un peccato.” According to men who believed bathing was sinful.

Niccolò looked heavenward, a saint long acquainted with impossible miracles.

“E poi,” And afterwards, Niccolò pressed on, insufferably composed, as though her entire ruin were some drawing-room amusement staged for his benefit. “la strega ti ha detto che soltanto il bacio del vero amore poteva salvarti.” the witch declared that only true love’s kiss could save you.

Francesca stared then she laughed, since the absurdity of it demanded some acknowledgement. She considered, briefly and with real affection, breaking his nose.

“Mi ha maledetta a morire, imbecille.” She cursed me to die, you imbecile.

Months before she fled Italy, Francesca had taken a lover whom the countryside named a witch. Whether the woman possessed any commerce with devils or spirits, Francesca never troubled herself to discover, she had loved too many remarkable people to be distracted by questions of sorcery. 

If love, indeed, could be called the proper word. Curiosity had always proved stronger than attachment; she delighted in brilliant minds, in clever mouths, in hands that knew where to linger, she loved conversation that lasted until dawn and kisses that made reason briefly surrender, yet the instant affection demanded permanence, she departed before promises could be spoken aloud. Intimacy delighted her; dependence suffocated her. Every affair served as a pleasant interruption before she returned, wholly content, to the only devotion that had never disappointed her: her work.

Amala understood this better than most. Their parting might have resembled all the others had Francesca’s experiments remained concealed. Obsessed with dragging medicine beyond the timid reach of universities and priests alike, she pursued discoveries no respectable scholar dared acknowledge. Bodies disappeared, graves were disturbed, instruments and notes multiplied beneath candlelight.

Eventually someone noticed, and before Francesca could destroy the evidence, or offer herself in confession, suspicion settled upon Amala’s brother, Dante, instead. House Moretti possessed enough wealth to soften every accusation directed toward its daughter, the poor bastard possessed nothing.

The Church, ever practical in its cruelty, gave her a choice: stand trial and drag one of Italy’s great houses down with her, or disappear into a marriage convenient enough to let the scandal die quietly along with her maiden name. She accepted the marriage, simply because fugitives require time to flee.

She escaped, Dante never did.

When Francesca returned one final time before abandoning Italy forever, grief had hollowed the woman she once knew until scarcely anything recognisable remained. No tears, only a curse spoken with terrible calm: one year to learn what every human heart ought to know without instruction.

She had spent her life mistaking affection for diversion. People entered gladly enough; she welcomed them warmly; and when they desired more than borrowed evenings and passing tenderness, she left without looking behind. 

She could open a man’s chest with immaculate precision; she had never learned how to remain beside someone after exposing her own.

The curse struck precisely where she possessed no armor—love as not the fever that consumed reason, but the quieter labour of placing another soul before one’s own without expecting pleasure, knowledge, or escape in return.

Fail before the year ended, and death would finish what loneliness had begun. Whether the words carried ancient magic or were merely the last cruelty of a broken-hearted woman, Francesca never discovered. Her reason insisted upon the latter, her sleepless nights believed the former. She told Niccolò everything before the salt of the Channel had even dried upon her boots.

Silence settled between them, comfortable as it had been since they were six. At last Niccolò leaned forward, resting his cheek upon one hand. “Ma tu vuoi bene alle persone,” But you do care about people.

Francesca mirrored him unconsciously. She always did, same birds they were. 

“Vuoi bene a me,” You care for me, he pondered. Nicco was a man who did not believe in curses but loved her enough to entertain one. Francesca smoked so she would not weep. “A Vincenzo. Hai pianto mia madre più sinceramente di metà dei suoi parenti.” For Vincenzo. You mourned my mother more honestly than half her own relatives.

“È diverso.” It’s different.

“Perché?” How?

“Perché siete la mia famiglia.” Because you’re my family.

She thought briefly of House Moretti. If every one of them vanished before sunrise, she doubted Heaven would receive so much as a single tear from her. Yet she still remembered Donna Anna’s funeral with painful clarity; the rain upon the cemetery stones, Niccolò standing rigid beside the grave, and herself weeping so violently she scarcely recognised the sound as her own.

“Credi davvero che diventare medico possa soddisfare… qualunque cosa sia questo patto?” Do you truly believe becoming a physician can satisfy… whatever bargain this is?

“Deve funzionare.” It has to work.

“I medici si dedicano agli estranei.” They devote themselves to strangers.

“E si fanno pagare profumatamente.” And they charge handsomely for it.

He laughed despite himself. “Sei impossibile.” You are impossible.

“Me l’hanno già detto.” I’ve been told as much.

Francesca smiled as he sighed. “Mi sto impegnando molto per prendere sul serio la tua imminente morte soprannaturale.” I am trying very hard to take your impending supernatural demise seriously.

“E apprezzo lo sforzo.” And I appreciate the effort.

“Bugiarda.” Liar.

“Un pochino.” A little.

He shook his head, she blew smoke his way merely because she could. “E come pensi di imparare questa miracolosa capacità di amare disinteressatamente?” And how exactly do you intend to learn this miraculous capacity for selfless love?

Francesca’s smile returned with dangerous brightness. “Tu mi aiuterai.” You shall assist.

“Lo davo per scontato.” I assumed as much.

“E anche un altro amico.” And another friend.

Niccolò blinked. “Francesca, tu hai due amici. Io sono uno dei due.” Francesca, you have two friends. I am one of them.

She rose in triumph, emptied her pipe into the hearth, and snatched his coat from the peg by the door. Time for an adventure! 

“Sbagliato.” Wrong.

“Fran—” 

“Ne ho tre.” I have three.

And Laurence, wherever he was tonight, had no notion of what was coming for him.

🀢🀣🀦🀤

When Francesca turned twenty, she seduced a priest, acquired two tattoos, and forged the documents that would admit her into the all-male medical university in Rome.

Not, admittedly, in that particular order.

It was also the year she met two people who would come to haunt the better chapters of her life: Laurence, and his wife, Elise.

She was the fourth of five children, and the only daughter, raised less by her mother than by the procession of nuns who trailed her through the house like grey shadows, murmuring their prayers, correcting her posture, her voice, the very way she breathed. Her mother had dreamed once of a veil and a vow of silence for her only girl, though that dream had curdled the day Francesca was found in the confession booth with her mouth between another girl’s thighs. There had been little hope, after that, of a bright future among the clergy.

Her childhood was a lonely thing. The family estate was magnificent, as only old fortunes know how to be. Endless galleries swallowed footsteps whole, chandeliers glittered above polished marble, velvet drapes smothered the sunlight until every room seemed caught forever in the hour before dusk. There were libraries she was forbidden to empty, gardens she was forbidden to wander alone, drawing rooms that had forgotten laughter long before she was born.

Francesca was no fool. She understood precisely what privilege had purchased for her. Wealth cushioned every hardship; power opened every locked door, save the ones that mattered most. Yet no amount of luxury could warm a house where affection was rationed. Whenever memory dragged her back through those corridors, it carried with it the peculiar melancholy of abandoned cathedrals: beautiful enough to inspire awe, empty enough to echo.

As a child, her brothers were her only companions. Andrea, Giuseppe and Pietro filled the halls with reckless joy, racing one another until servants cried out in protest, wrestling in the gardens, climbing trees with torn sleeves and bloodied knees. Francesca chased after them until she, too, was caught.

A lady does not run. A lady does not wrestle. A lady does not shout. A lady does not make a fool of herself.

How marvelous, then, to be a fool.

A jester may mock a king to his very face and walk from the hall unscathed, protected not by strength but by the absurdity granted him. Francesca wanted that. Wanted to be so unaccountable, so unbound by what she was supposed to be, that nothing could touch her.

She begged to study medicine. Once—only once—she fell to her knees before her mother, pleading with all the desperation youth mistakes for persuasion. She spoke of anatomy, of surgery, of knowledge hidden behind doors that opened only for men. She begged until her mother’s hand found her shoulder and pushed her back, told her to go to her room and not speak of it again. 

It was the last day Francesca ever looked at her with admiration.

Money could purchase silence. Time could produce convincing forgeries. A tailor’s shears, tightly bound linen, and clothes cut for narrower shoulders accomplished the rest. Her hair disappeared beneath a cap, her voice settled into measured reserve, and the world saw what it expected to see: not a woman, but an unusually delicate young man. She walked through the university gates a stranger to herself, and the men around her took her for nothing stranger than a soft-faced boy, pretty enough to be teased for it, never suspected for it.

Then she met Laurence. Quite naked, in fact.

There are few disguises capable of surviving a shared bath. Laurence discovered her secret with remarkable speed after that. It was, Francesca would later insist, a thoroughly inconvenient way to make a lifelong friend.

Her foot caught on a loose brick, and for one precarious heartbeat she teetered above the alley. The wind seized Nicco’s oversized coat, unfurling it behind her like the wings of some ungodly creature risen from the chimneys. The thought sent a grin creeping across her face.

Perhaps some sleepless soul would glance upward and mistake her for a monstrous bat, or better yet, a burglar!

She balanced her hip upon the windowsill, rapping once with a knuckle before trying the latch, more from habit than hope. It gave at once, sliding open without protest, and Francesca felt something like betrayal at how easily the night let her in. What virtue was there in a door that did not fight you?

“Laurence?” The name came out a scream dressed as a whisper, and she climbed through into the dark room as though she owned it. If the anatomy texts scattered like fallen leaves and the shadow she’d glimpsed from the garden wall were any proof, this was his lair and no other. “Laulau?”

Satisfied, Francesca claimed his desk chair as though she owned the house  wincing as its feet shrieked against the floorboards, a sound fit to wake the dead, or at least the whole of fashionable London. Brilliant, Fran. Do announce yourself to the entire street while you’re at it.

Undeterred, she tugged open a drawer and began nosing through his papers with shameless curiosity, holding each page to the candlelight as though she had every right to inspect a gentleman’s secrets.

She was halfway through deciphering an indecipherable diagram of muscles and Latin when a familiar figure darkened the doorway.

“Laurence!” The papers scattered as she launched herself across the room. She collided with him with enough enthusiasm to send them both staggering backward, laughter bubbling from her lips as she wrapped her arms around him. “I’ve missed you terribly! How is Elise? And dear Vivi? It’s been an age!”

She finally leaned back just enough to inspect his face, narrowing her eyes with exaggerated suspicion.

“…And why do you look as though you’ve just seen a ghost?”