His heart rate spiked at the mention of his patronage. With it, he would be able to ensure the violin’s protection. Allocate funds specifically, so it remained treasured for another three hundred years.
‘I’m not giving up that role too,’ he said.
If he had to, his punishment would be complete.
‘I’d never ask you to.’ Alessio frowned, waved his hand as if in dismissal. ‘But that’s not important. Where is the evidence that this violin is what’s become of the coronation ring?’
Alessio steepled his fingers and pinned Stefano with his steady, impassive gaze. Stefano had witnessed people wither under that assessment, which Alessio could hold unchanged until the other person cracked and divulged all their sins.
Stefano tugged at his tie...straightened it. He wasn’t like those people because Alessio knew his sins. Most of them, anyhow.
‘There’s a story. Some diary entries.’
Lucy had left them behind on his bed when she’d gone. Stefano had yet to get to the bottom of what they meant. He still had more documents to search through from his own family’s archive, although he had enough proof regarding the violin for today’s meeting.
‘Is there any provenance? Or only family stories about Signorina Jamieson’s violin.’
‘It’s Lasserno’s violin, not hers.’ Except the words didn’t ring true. They sounded hollow and false in his mouth. ‘I’ve asked an expert to appraise it, and he believes it’s a Stradivarius. Dendrochronological dating will confirm it.’
Alessio stood and moved out from behind his desk. He leaned against the front of it, his hands gripping the antique wood. The move forced Stefano to look up at him, when before they’d always treated each other as equals. In the strangest of ways, it was only now that he felt judged and found lacking. Even when he’d resigned from his position Alessio hadn’t looked down on him like this.
‘I knew you were strategic. Ruthless, too, if the stream of anonymous packages full of gemstones coming across my desk is anything to judge by—for which I will endlessly thank you. But I didn’t realise you could be cruel.’
‘She gave it to me.’
He knew he sounded like one of those whiny aristocrats who’d taken the gemstones Alessio’s father had given them. They’d had no right to them, but this was different. He was doing his duty by his country, as anyone else would.
Wasn’t he?
Nothing seemed certain any more. It was as if everything he’d thought he knew had shifted underneath him.
‘Shegaveyou a multi-million-dollar instrument that has been in her family since the war? The tool of her trade? Ask yourself why she did that, Stefano, when she could have said nothing.’
‘I thought I’d fallen...’
No. It had been the right thing to do. Lucy had known in the end that the violin wasn’t hers to keep and she’d left it behind. Even though he would never have stopped her if she’d picked up the case and walked away.
‘I hope it sets you free...’
The pain of her last words scoured like acid through his veins. He couldn’t respond to Alessio. He was struck mute by the realisation trying to break through, tapping at the inside of his consciousness like a rock hammer. He ignored it.
‘I see you refuse to answer that question. So how about this one?’ Alessio crossed his arms. ‘What am I to do with it?’
‘You said that if I found the coronation ring I could have anything I wanted.’
That was what he’d come here for. His brother and sister. He’d forgotten them somewhere in the conversation, since it wasn’t going the way he’d expected.
‘That was youthful rambling, when we were both insecure about our place in the world we’d been thrown into too early and underprepared. I never requiredthis.’ He motioned to the violin case on the desk. ‘All you’ve ever needed to do is ask me for what you want. So what is it?’
Stefano wanted so many things. He wanted his brother and sister to be free of the weight of his family’s obligation to the Crown. He wanted his friendship with Alessio to be repaired. He wanted...what he couldn’t have. What he’d pushed away.
Better to ask for something which could be granted than wish for something that couldn’t. ‘I want you to free Gino and Emilia.’
Alessio’s eyes widened. ‘Your brother and sister aren’t my prisoners.’
‘Both want to travel overseas for work. That means leaving their roles here.’
‘They go with my blessing.’ Alessio rolled his eyes in a way that was entirely uncharacteristic and no part of his normally regal demeanour. ‘Is this really how bad things have become between us? I thought I’d created a modern principality, whereas your family believes we’re trapped in some medieval realm. It seems I’m failing as a benevolent monarch—but at least I have a priceless violin. Thank you for small blessings.’