Читать книгу Nicholas - Elizabeth Amber - Страница 8

Within the tent, Jane Cova listened and rolled her eyes at the gentleman’s blandishments. Was his lady really wooed by such practiced flattery? She’d seemed to hang on his every word.

For a very different reason, Jane had done so as well. One could learn a great deal about a potential client by eavesdropping on what they said prior to entering the tent. With enough information, an entire fortune could be fabricated for someone, as she had cause to know. Not that her talent was all subterfuge.

The cobweb drape at the tent’s entrance fluttered. She prepared herself to greet the new arrivals, adjusting her head covering to partially conceal her youthful features. A few strands of her moon-colored hair escaped the wrap, but she didn’t bother to tuck them away. They would be mistaken for gray in dim light.

The betraying softness of her hands was carefully hidden with black lace gloves that left only her fingers bare. She rounded her shoulders to foster the perception she was wizened beyond her years. The crude corncob pipe she slid between her lips was unlit. It, too, was designed to age her and disguise her voice. It was effective, but holding the stem for any length of time was painful. Her lips were already bruised.

A male hand parted the drape, allowing some of the gloom inside the tent to escape. At the sight of those strong fingers, an odd awareness prickled over her. Uncertainty quickened her pulse. Inexplicably, her every intuition and instinct urged her to flee.

She flattened her palms on the table and half stood and then hesitated. Rarely did she gainsay such feelings. Still, she hadn’t yet earned the coin she’d hoped for today. She’d arrived late to the event and found the tents occupied with other vendors. Only when the prior inhabitant of this tent had recently vacated had she entered and begun to ply her trade.

The assemblage was wealthy and the evening young. What to do?

Before she could decide, her new customers came inside. Jane recognized the pretty signorina as an earlier visitor. Her color had heightened under her suitor’s attentions. But she was harmless enough.

However, the gentleman who shadowed her was a different matter.

His gaze when it met hers was a jolt to the senses. How unusual to encounter an Italian with eyes the color of blue mirrors. Heavily fringed with dark lashes, they reflected what he observed, giving away nothing.

Skin of golden olive marked him as a man of Italian blood. His strong brow, sculpted chin, and jutting blade of a nose marked him as obstinent.

Taken altogether, his features combined into a striking, if haughty, aristocratic face that sat atop a muscular frame. His height was commanding and surely reached to six and a half feet. Blessed with such a surfeit of good looks, he appeared a god among mortals.

“Leaving?” he inquired, noting her uncertain pose.

Jane faltered and then simply stared into those strange eyes. She stood frozen in indecision, knowing she looked the idiot. But she couldn’t seem to help it.

At her continued silence, the man’s brow rose in question. He’d politely seated his lady, fetched an additional chair for himself from somewhere outside the tent, and now stood patiently waiting for her to be seated. Perhaps he was accustomed to striking women dumb at first sight.

“I hope my gold will prevail upon you to tarry?” he asked gently.

The pipe slid from Jane’s slack jaw. She barely caught it before it bounced on the table. The mishap had the effect of pulling her eyes from his, thus breaking the spell. Her legs wobbled, forcing her to sit.

Embarrassed, she gathered her wits and straightened to find him seated, studying her.

Hoping to divert his attention, she began to caress the crystal ball before her. Though she didn’t really employ it in her trade, it helped foster the illusion in people’s minds that she was a gypsy fortuneteller.

“What are you called, mystic?” Nick asked. His Italian was shaded with a slight accent, she’d noted. But the language sounded comfortable on his tongue and was most likely his native one. His English was fluent but less certain. She guessed he’d been schooled in England or by an English tutor, at any rate. The commanding timbre of his voice indicated he was a man accustomed to having his demands met, which implied he was wealthy.

“Jane,” she replied.

He settled back in his seat with a smugly amused expression. “Jane the mystic?”

Signorina Rossini looked puzzled. “I thought your name was Madame Fibbioni.”

“Jane be me given name,” Jane lied, lapsing into the fractured cockney-Italian blend she’d developed for such occasions.

“Well, Madame Jane Fibbioni,” said Nick, “what is your usual fee for reading palms?”

The signorina answered for her.

“I tell me fortunes singly,” Jane announced, belatedly remembering to disguise her voice as a throaty cackle.

“Oh!” said Signorina Rossini. “In that case, I should withdraw.”

Jane drew in a breath of alarm. She couldn’t take him alone! The idea was horrifying.

A masculine hand over the signorina’s stopped her from rising. “Hold a moment. Would triple your fee convince you to make an exception?” he inquired of Jane. He lay the money on the table atop the beaded scarf she’d draped over it.

Jane stared at his coin in indecision.

“Is business so robust you can turn down such an offering?” he cajoled.

No, it wasn’t. With a sweep of her hand, she raked the money into the coin purse in her lap.

“Yer takin’ a chance lettin’ yer lady hear yer future,” she warned. “But if it’s yer wish, then oiyl see if the spirits be willin’.”

“Grazie. We shall await our fortunes at the spirits’ leisure, dear mystic,” he said.

“I make no claim to the title of mystic,” she told him with a shake of her head. “I be a simple teller of fortunes.”

“Do let her tell yours first,” encouraged Signorina Rossini. “It’s very exciting.”

Nick smiled down at her.

The pretty signorina hardly struck Jane as the type who would appeal to an earthy male such as this. However, he appeared to be truly under the spell of her attractions. His look when set upon her was hungry enough to make her own skin tingle under its indirect impact. No wonder the signorina had fallen for his honeyed words.

From the distance came the eerie sound of water being pressured through the pipes of the grand Water Organ in the garden for the guests’ amusement. Jane fiddled with the strings of the coin purse in her lap, loathe to begin what must be begun.

“Begin by placing your hand in hers,” the signorina prompted to Nick.

“As you command.”

His hand settled onto the scarf within Jane’s vision, palm upward. Something about the shape of those long, blunt fingers both repelled and compelled her. The blue pulse at the inside of his wrist throbbed warm and strong, his life force vibrant.

Beneath the table, she tugged the lacy gloves low. Nothing but her fingers must be bared on him.

Then she sat forward, touching. The tips of his fingers curled in response, brushing sparks over the tender underside of her wrist through the lace.

Desperately she traced the terrain of his palm, willing the images to come. His fate line ran unbroken through the valley of his palm—a man of exceptional self-control. His heart line showed him to be shrewd. The padded Venus mount at the base of his thumb was plump. A man of vitality, health, and stamina.

Her abilities as a fortune-teller weren’t a total ruse. She could learn something of a person through touch. At least, enough to satisfy the average customer.

But the remarkable abilities that had come to her with the onset of puberty had recently begun shifting. They were slowly draining away in some areas while increasing in others. Her ability to read Humans became less reliable with each passing of the moon. She prayed it wouldn’t fail her now.

A sigh of relief left her lips when the mind mist enveloped her, calming her with its familiarity. Her eyes drifted shut, and she drew her fingers over him, occasionally following a crease or dusting over a mount. Just the barest, minute mixing of skin oils was all it took for a simple telling of fortunes. It was important to avoid melding. If she bonded further, parting sometimes caused her pain.

“I see a forest,” she began. “An ancient forest. It surrounds a flourishing garden covering many hillsides. I see three brothers, three splendid homes.”

She opened her eyes and pondered him curiously. Only Nick noticed how refined her accent had become.

“Lord Satyr owns a large estate in Tuscany, along with his two younger brothers,” supplied Signorina Rossini. Her voice trembled with excitement that Jane had guessed correctly.

Jane smiled at her. Now she had his name and residence. People were so free with information. Really, it made her efforts quite simple at times.

Nick eyed her sardonically. “My estates and family ties are no secret. You will have to do better to earn your coin.”

If she’d been wise, she would have fabricated a silly fortune and released his hand as soon as possible. It was no doubt what he expected. But she was overcome with an irrational desire to prove herself.

She ducked her head and continued.

“I see material wealth. Power. Passion.” She slanted him a glance through her lashes. “Concealment.”

A subtle tension invaded his skin.

Signorina Rossini giggled. “Passion! Goodness! And what could you be concealing, Lord Satyr?”

His hand shifted so his thumb interlaced Jane’s two smallest fingers, stroking the tender skin between them. Deliberately?

She was amusing, he thought. Her fingers were soft, her skin unlined and youthful beneath her ragged crone disguise. His curiosity was aroused. He shifted on his seat. He was aroused.

Annoyed that she had caused his need to flare when it couldn’t be quenched, he smiled, flirting. Just to rattle her.

As Jane stared at the full curve of his mouth, sudden shocking visions dashed at her like storm-tossed waves. She saw him in another time and place. He was standing. The muscles of his naked chest flexed and rippled in soft candlelight. Or was it moonlight? His features were raw and savage, and eyes glittered as he stared intently at—something. A woman. She was before him, bent over some sort of table. W—what was he doing to her?

She gasped, realizing they must be copulating. Blushing, she snatched her hand away. The vision snapped off as though a door had slammed shut.

Flames of interest lit his eyes.

Surreptitiously, she wiped her fingers on her skirt. This was insane. What was she doing melding so closely? What if he were to rip off her disguise and report her doings to her aunt and father?

In a panic, she began to pack her belongings. His gold be damned.

“You’ve only told me a mix of obscure speculation and what I already know to be certain. What of my fortune?” Nick demanded.

It was impossible to look at him now. What if he read the truth of what she’d seen? Of him doing that. It was wrong that she’d observed him in such a private moment. Evil that she had the despicable ability.

“’Tis a pleasure to report all yer prospects be excellent! I see only good fortune in yer future,” she predicted hastily. “And there’ll be a bride for ye soon! One with pretty blue eyes.”

There—that should please his companion.

Smiling, she turned to Signorina Rossini and pretended to realize her identity just then. “As for yer young lady—I’ve previously given her a fortune, tellin’ her she would meet someone dark and handsome.”

Here she turned back to Nick. Not daring to meet his gaze, she stared at his chin. Already a blue-black cast shadowed his jawline, though it was only early evening. For some reason, this small confirmation of his virility alarmed her all out of proportion to its import.

“Yer appears to fill the bill, good sir. I’ll leave you to it then.”

She gathered the trappings of her fortune-telling trade in the table scarf, loosely tying its fringed ends. Holding the makeshift bundle to her chest, she rose to leave.

But the muscular god stood as well. Was he being polite, or did he intend to block her exit? By now, she’d dodged a sufficient number of men along Tivoli’s streets that she’d become wary of their bold hands.

Determinedly, she moved forward, shying an arm’s length from the formidable wall of his chest. Lord, he was tall. A vision of him naked and straining flashed in her mind, and she nearly moaned in despair.

“I mustn’t tarry. The, uh, spirits call me away,” she informed the toes of his boots. They were midnight blue, nearly black. And there was a pattern etched on them of writhing vines that entwined some sort of mythological creatures. How odd.

She felt him smile at the top of her head. He sought to toy with her, did he?

Though the eyes she lifted to him shot green sparks, her voice was mild. “Please stand aside, signore.”

“Lord Satyr?” his companion asked uncertainly.

At her voice, he seemed to come back to himself. He shifted, parting the drapery at the tent’s opening.

Something nagged at Nick as the gypsy’s bent figure scurried beneath his arm and outside, but he couldn’t determine the source of it.

He stared after her, loathe to let go of an unsolved puzzle. “Strange one, that.”

“Well, she is a fortune-teller, after all,” Signorina Rossini reminded him.

She was right, of course. He shook off the feeling that something wasn’t quite as it should be and turned back to his companion. He had more important matters to attend to.

He pondered whether to tarry alone with her in the tent’s confines. Her brother would report the indiscretion to her parents, which would likely facilitate their consent to a quick wedding.

Instead, he watched his hand part the drape, and he escorted her outside. Uncertain as to why he had done so when lingering within would have been to his advantage, he attempted to engage her in conversation apart from her acquaintances.

Putting a question to her regarding an upcoming ball was enough to incite her interest. As she was one of those young ladies who required little attention in order to prattle on about inconsequential matters, it took only a small portion of his mind to keep up his side of the social discourse from there. Another part of his brain returned to puzzle on the episode that had passed inside the tent.

A moment later, he realized he’d missed much of what Signorina Rossini had said. He stared down at her and recognized his uppermost emotion for what it was. Boredom.

Worse still, the Faerie scent that had once cloaked her had dramatically faded. In fact, it had all but disappeared.

He stepped back from her. Seven hells! It wasn’t she after all!

If he stayed by her side any longer, society would have him engaged to her no matter what his preference. His mind racing, he drew her into the flock of her friends, who quickly included her in their midst.

The gypsy fortune-teller. It had to be.

But King Feydon had claimed he’d bedded a highborn woman, not a gypsy. Had the girl fallen on hard times?

His chin lifted, and he searched the wind. There it was. The very faintest hint—the merest thread of Faerie spice.

Eyes narrowed, he scanned the grounds, questing, and found the formal entrance at the north end of the gardens. There. The arch of glass over the walkway. The very portal through which the fortune-teller had recently fled. With her departure, the scent of Faerie had fled as well.

Abruptly he excused himself from Signorina Rossini and the cluster of guests. He ignored the almost unanimous start of surprise at his curt withdrawal. Features honed with determination, he began his hunt anew.

Outside the garden gate, he trod the expanses of lawn, passing the occasional fountain or pond. Beyond, when the greenery turned to the paving stones of a thoroughfare, he instinctively headed toward the Aniene River.

He caught sight of the fortune-teller again some distance ahead, scampering over the wide uneven bricks underfoot. She traveled alone, foolish girl. It was a fashionable area, but she could easily find herself in trouble in the nooks and crannies of these twisting streets.

Now and then she became lost from his sight, for she had nearly a fifty-yard lead on him. But his gait was longer than hers, and he easily gained ground.

Occasionally she glanced back as though sensing his pursuit. He kept to the shadows, hidden.

After some blocks, he saw her enter an ironwork gate leading to a private town house. From an alley across the lane, he assessed the dwelling and found it well kept and luxurious, though unostentatious. Was it that of her family, or was she a guest in another’s household? Or a servant? Was she already wed? Would her relatives prove difficult?

So many questions, and no answers to be had this night.

In ElseWorld, Satyrs sought their mates in a more forthright manner than was the custom of Human society. Unfortunately that meant he couldn’t follow her inside and take her with him tonight.

Fortunately he could display infinite patience when it was required. Tomorrow he would visit his attorney and determine the nature of her family. Their financial circumstances and social standing would inform him regarding how best to proceed.

Briefly he wondered at the danger to her person about which King Feydon had hinted. The house she’d entered appeared innocuous, like dozens of others along the street. However, he had more than a passing acquaintance with the secrets that ordinary stone walls could conceal.

The clatter of carriage wheels drew his attention. A portly man sat in the passing open-air coach, his eyes closed and an expression of agonized delight on his face.

When his conveyance hit a pothole, a flustered feminine head popped up from between his sausage thighs. Her hair was mussed and her lips moist. For a moment, her glance tangled with Nick’s. She boldly eyed the swell of his crotch and winked.

A prostitute. A very comely one. He smiled his admiration, and she smiled back. Then, with resignation, her head ducked over the signore’s lap once again, and the carriage rattled out of sight.

With no more reason to linger, Nick slipped back to the garden and hailed his private coach. His physical needs could be denied no longer.

Overhead, clouds had gathered and thickened, obscuring starlight. But the heavy tautness in his loins told him the moon was waxing. It was a dangerous time for one such as he to be without a woman for so long.

The Calling would occur three days hence, at Moonful, as it did with monthly regularity. When the night sky’s orb hung swollen and round, his passion would unleash. It was essential he curtail his business here in Tivoli and return to Satyr land before the Calling overtook him.

Hours later, he entered the sumptuous abode of Mona, one of his favorite meretrici in Rome. She greeted him effusively, and he found himself engulfed in her bosom and smothered by the falseness of her perfume. For the first time he felt vaguely repulsed by its brazenness, so unlike the delicate fragrance he’d tracked earlier that evening.

He pulled away and saw she had readied herself for him. She was dressed as he liked, in a manner which proclaimed she’d once been part of accepted society. No bawdy-house woman here, but rather a figure that might have graced the finest ballroom if she hadn’t fallen into financial difficulty and chosen this profession as a way out.

Her mild plumpness and elegance pleased him. His taste in women varied, but on the whole he preferred them cultured and genteel—at least on the outside.

A movement in the salon doorway attracted his notice, and he turned to observe another of her kind waiting in the dimness beyond. He’d sent word ahead that he would be calling. Mona had obviously prepared some sort of entertainment for him.

The other woman wore a scarlet bombazine gown that appeared determined to bind its wearer as tightly as his trousers restrained his burgeoning cock. Though the gown’s design bordered on prim, its waist was sharply curtailed and its bodice forced her ample bosom high.

Marking his interest, Mona waved a manicured hand toward her companion, inviting her closer for his inspection.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she teased throatily, linking her arm with his and the other woman’s to draw their threesome more intimately together. “My sister will be joining us.”

Giggling, the younger version of his meretrice jiggled coyly, purposely attracting his gaze to the undulating globes that swelled precariously above the neckline of her gown.

“Angela!” Mona scolded. “Lord Satyr comes to us seeking refinement, not the behavior one might expect from a whore of the back alleys.”

The younger woman straightened, chastised.

Nick smiled at her, flashing even white teeth. Her expression melted as she quickly fell under his thrall.

Both women had lush figures but were different of feature. He doubted they were related. Still he gave Mona high marks for the creativity she displayed. The fantasy of having sisters attend him was always quite diverting.

Nick shook off the notion that such pleasures, though as necessary to him as breathing, had come to seem empty in recent months. The addition of a wife and children to his household would prove a welcome distraction from a growing awareness that there was a void in his life.

“Vino, signore?” asked Mona, pressing her bosom into his arm. Candlelight flickered on the bottle she lifted from the liquor cart. It bore the Satyr Vineyard emblem, an embossed SV.

He nodded.

A soft hand grazed the fabric over his crotch, as though by accident. Her supposed sister. He ignored the overture for the moment and lifted the glass that was poured for him, anticipating the first swallow.

The intimate touch at his trousers grew bolder as the shimmering liquid spilled over his tongue. The tart sweetness tightened his taste buds even as the skilled fingers released his engorged prick to the caress of a feminine mouth.

Ah! There was nothing like the taste of Satyr…wine.