I clung desperately to the marble balustrade, but he pried my fingers off, one after another. Down the length of the gallery the house staff stood in a loose, silent knot, whispering behind their hands. Not one of them dared step in. In this house you learned young that a soldier does not touch what the young Don has claimed for himself.
My nightdress tore in the struggle, baring my skin to the icy air. Humiliation rushed back like a wave, the memory of last night, stripped and punished in front of the whole household. Lorenzo didn't even flinch.
"So you're still angry about last night," he said coldly. "Fine. Be angry with me. But don't take it out on others."
"You'll kneel right here and think about what you've done. When you finally understand your mistake, you'll apologize to your sister-in-law. Don't you realize what people will begin to say? That the Marchetti name couldn't stomach a widow beneath its roof?" With that, he threw me, hard, into the snow.
My knees slammed into the ice. The cold pierced through the thin silk like knives.
"Lorenzo, I did nothing wrong." I clenched my teeth, shivering, refusing to comply.
He scoffed, then turned to the old butler who ran the estate with a sneer. "Gather everyone. Let them all see how petty she is."
Within minutes a dozen servants were lined up beneath the covered walkway, watching. I knelt alone in the snow like a woman awaiting a verdict she already knew.
"Say it again, I dare you," Lorenzo snapped. "If you're so desperate for a man, I'll put a hundred at your door to keep you company. But lay a hand on my sister-in-law again and you're finished."
His words cut deeper than if he had stripped me bare and marched me through the piazza in front of every made man in the territory.
This was the man I had loved for three years. The man I had entered a blood-bound union with and built a life beside for five.
He could stomach other men seeing me exposed. He could even stomach whispers that I ran to other beds. Yet he could not tolerate, would not even think twice, about me upsetting the woman he truly cared for.
Serena stood smugly at his side, slipping into that soft, sweet voice she had perfected. "Lorenzo, let it go, please. Adriana was probably just having a bad day."
"Oh, so a bad day gives her the right to strike people?" Lorenzo raised his voice, loud enough for the whole estate to hear. A Don who raises his voice has already lost, my father used to say. Lorenzo had never learned that. "If she doesn't apologize today, I don't care if she faints. She's not getting up until she does."
Snow began to fall. Within minutes my hair and lashes were coated in a frosty white sheen. My fingers had gone numb, my lips trembling uncontrollably from the cold.
Serena took the chance to crouch beside me, wearing her grief like a costume, one gloved hand drifting toward her lips. But her words were knives, whispered only for me. "Did you know Lorenzo says you're not worth a single strand of my hair? That every time he touches you it turns his stomach? Honestly, if I were you, I'd save everyone the trouble and just die."
I looked up sharply and caught the cruel smile behind her eyes.
Something inside me snapped. Rage boiled over. I grabbed a fistful of snow and slammed it straight into her smug, pretty face.
Serena let out a theatrical scream and dropped to the ground as though struck by lightning. Only then, a beat too late, did the black-lace handkerchief flutter up to her mouth.
That was all it took for Lorenzo to lose himself. He seized the front of my nightdress, wrenched it open, and shoved me down into the snow.
"So you still won't admit your mistake?"
Before I could react he scooped up a handful of snow and forced it down the front of my dress. The freezing cold hit me like a shot through the system. A scream tore out of me I didn't know I'd been holding.
But he didn't stop. He kept grinding snow into my face, my neck, rough, relentless, until my skin burned from the cold.
"Apologize!" he barked.
I choked on a mouthful of snow, coughing violently, tears streaming down my face. I couldn't force out a single word.
Furious, Lorenzo stood and turned to the butler. "Two hours. Start the clock. She doesn't move until it's up."
Then, as if none of it had happened, he slipped off his coat and draped it tenderly over Serena's shoulders.
"Come," he said softly. "Let's get you inside before you catch a chill."
The two of them turned and walked away as though I did not exist. Their backs burned into my vision like a slap.
Around me the servants murmured. Some giggled. Others only stared with that look, the pity you give someone already halfway to the grave.
Time dragged. The cold seeped deep into my bones. My knees had gone numb long ago. I felt myself swaying, losing the last of my control, until at last I pitched face-first into the snow.
"Madam!" Someone cried out in panic.
The door creaked open. Lorenzo stepped into the room, his cold gaze fixed on me.
