Читать книгу Seduction of an English Beauty - Miranda Jarrett - Страница 7
ОглавлениеChapter Two
Lord Anthony Randolph tipped the heavy crystal decanter and filled his glass again.
“Summer’s done,” he said sadly, holding the glass up to the window’s light to admire the glow of the deep-red wine. “The English demons are returning to conquer poor Rome again.”
Lucia laughed without turning towards him, her back straight as she sat at her dressing table while her maid wrapped another thick strand of hair around the heated curling iron. “How can you speak so, Antonio, when you are one of the English demons yourself?”
“Don’t be cruel, Lucia,” Anthony said mildly, sipping the wine. “Half my blood’s English, true, but my heart is pure Roman.”
“Which of course entitles you to say whatever you please.” Critically, Lucia touched the still-warm curl as it lay over her shoulder. “Which you would continue to do even if you’d been born on the moon.”
“I would, darling,” he said, dropping into a chair beside the open window and settling a small velvet pillow comfortably behind his head. Anthony was prepared to wait. Though the days when he and Lucia had been lovers were long past, as friends they were far more tolerant of one another’s foibles and flaws. “I cannot help myself. As soon as the days begin to shorten, the whey-faced English descend upon us in heartless droves, complaining because the wine’s too strong, the sun’s too hot and there’s no roasted beef on the menu.”
“I will not complain about the English gentlemen,” she said, holding one eyelid taut as she lined her eye with dark blue. “They are very attentive, and they come to call again and again.”
He raised his glass towards her. “How can they not, my lovely Lucia, when you are the golden prize they all wish to possess?”
“Oh, hush, Antonio,” she scolded. “You could fill the Tiber’s banks with all the idle flattery that spills from your mouth.”
“Exactly the way you wish it to be, Lucia,” he said, his smile lazy. They would be at least an hour late for the party at the studio of the painter Giovanni, but instead of fuming at the delay, he’d long ago learned to relax instead, and enjoy the intimacy of Lucia’s company. “Name another man in this city who knows how to please you better than I.”
She made a noncommittal little huff, concentrating on her reflection as she outlined the rosebud of her lips with cerise. Like every successful courtesan, she knew the value of making a grand entrance, even to a party among friends, and she wouldn’t leave her looking glass until she was certain every last detail of her appearance was perfect. Besides, tonight she’d been asked to sing as part of the entertainment. Her voice was as beautiful as her face, and she knew the power of both. It was a terrible injustice that Pope Innocent XI had banned female singers from the Roman opera nearly seventy years before. In any other city, her voice would have made her a veritable queen, and free to choose more interesting lovers than the fat, jolly wine merchant who currently kept her.
“You do well enough,” she said at last, pouting at herself, “for a whey-faced Englishman.”
He groaned dramatically. It was true that his father had been an English nobleman, heir to an earldom so far to the north that his land had bordered on the bleak chill of Scotland. Yet, on his Grand Tour after Oxford, Father had discovered the sun in Rome, and love in the effervescent charm of his mother, wealthy and noble-born in her own right. Anthony’s two much-older brothers had dutifully returned to England for their education, and remained there after their father’s death, but in his entire twenty-eight years, Anthony had never left Italy, delightfully content to remain in the warmth of that southern sun and his mother’s exuberant family.
“I do not have a whey-colored face, Lucia,” he said patiently, as if they hadn’t had this same discussion countless times before. “Nor am I sanctimonious, or overbearing, or ill-mannered, in the fashion of these traveling English.”
“But who’s to say you won’t end up like that puffed-up fellow we saw on the balcony today, eh?” she teased, hooking long garnet earrings into her ears. “Another year or two, Antonio, and you will look just the same, your waistcoat too tight over your belly and your face pasty and smug.”
At once Anthony knew the man she’d meant. How could he not? He’d been leaning from his lodgings to glower with disapproval as he and Lucia and two of her friends had passed through the Piazza di Spagna on their way to an impromptu picnic in the hills.
“That Englishman’s younger than I,” he said, proudly patting his own flat belly as if that were proof enough. “Lord Edward Warwick. He has been in Rome only a month, yet he believes he knows the city and her secrets better than a mere Roman. I was introduced to him last week in a shop by a friend who should have known better, and I’ve no further wish to meet him ever again.”
“You wouldn’t say the same of the lady standing with him.” Finally ready, Lucia rose from the bench, and smiled coyly. “You cannot deny it, Antonio. I know you too well. I saw how you looked at her, and she at you.”
“I won’t deny it for a moment.” He savored the last of his wine, remembering the girl on the balcony beside Warwick. She’d been English, too, of course. No one else ever lodged in the Piazza di Spagna. Besides, she’d stood at the iron railing in that peculiarly stiff way that always seemed to mark well-bred English ladies, as if they feared the luxury of their own bodies.
But that could be unlearned with the right tutor. The rest of her was worth the effort. In the soft light as the sun broke through the rain clouds, her hair had seemed as bright as burnished gold, her skin a delicious blend of cream and rose without a hint of paint. Too many of his father’s people were pale and wan to his eye, as if they’d been left out-of-doors in their wretched rainy climate to wither and fade away. But this girl managed to be pale without being pallid, delicate without losing that aura of passion, of desire, that he’d seen—no, felt—even at such a distance, and for so short a time before the carriage had turned the corner.
He’d wanted more. He still did.
“Think twice, Antonio, then think again,” Lucia warned. She handed him her merino shawl, then turned with a performer’s calculated grace. “Will she be worth the trouble she’ll bring you?”
He took the shawl, holding it high over her like wings before he settled it over her shoulders. “Who says she’d bring trouble?”
“I do,” Lucia said, turning once again so she was facing him. “I am serious, sweet. She is English. She is a lady. She is most likely a virgin. She will have men around her, a father, a brother, a sweetheart, to watch over that maidenhead. That will be your trouble.”
He smiled and traced his finger along the elegant bump on the bridge of her nose. “You worry too much, my dear.”
She swatted his hand away. “I know you too well.”
“And she doesn’t know me at all, the poor creature.”
“She’ll wish she didn’t by the time you’re through with her,” Lucia said darkly. “No woman escapes unmarked by you.”
His brows rose with mock surprise. “I don’t recall you complaining before this.”
“Don’t put words into my mouth, Antonio,” she said, baring her teeth like a tigress. Lucia might sing like an angel, but she pursued everything else with more inspiration from the devil than the divine. “You know I never complained when I was with you, nor shall I begin now. But for you, love is no more than a game, and that little English virgin may not understand how you play.”
He wouldn’t disagree. He had always enjoyed women, and he’d been careful to make sure that they found pleasure with him as well. Because of that, and because he was rich, he never lacked for lovers. But although he was nobly born, he preferred the company of the city’s more celebrated courtesans and a few married ladies with scandalous reputations, women who understood that love was no more than a passing amusement. Respectable young ladies bored him, and besides, their mothers kept them from his path. He didn’t care, either. He’d no need to marry for money, position or an heir. Lucia was right: for him, love was a game, and he intended to play it as long as he could.
He smiled at Lucia, hoping to coax her into a better humor. “Since when have you become so kind, darling? That girl is nothing to you.”
“And what is she to you, eh? Another of your English demons, ready for your scorn?”
“She’s only a pretty little creature I spied on a balcony, Lucia,” he said evenly. “Be reasonable, pet. You’ve no right or reason to be jealous.”
“Oh!” she gasped, her eyes wide with righteous fury. “Oh, how dare you say such a thing to me?”
She shoved her hands hard into his chest, and spun away from him. “Why are you so stubborn—so stubborn that you won’t give me the truthful answer I deserve? Your oldest friend, your dear Lucia! You are impossible, Antonio! Impossible!”
She tossed her head, sending the elaborate construction of ribbons, sugar-stiffened curls, powder and false hair quivering. With her skirts gathered to one side, she swept from the room and down the stairs.
Anthony sighed. Everything with Lucia was a scene, to be performed grandioso for the greatest effect. He was fond of her, very fond, but she was also wearying. Surely that lovely English girl would be different. Innocent. Peaceful. Not so eager to bite. A pleasing change, a relief, really, like a still pond in a country meadow after a raging storm at sea.
He slipped on his coat and reached for his hat, letting his mind happily consider the different ways he could steal this delightful blond girl away from the charmless Lord Edward. He paused before Lucia’s glass to set his hat at a suitably rakish angle.
He wasn’t handsome by English standards. His more fair brothers had always been quick to tease him about his darker skin and black curling hair, his strongly prominent nose and jaw, all inherited from his mother’s family. But from his father had come his pale-gray eyes and easy smile, and more than enough wit and confidence to make women forget his craggy, swarthy face. The English girl was sure to be no exception. He winked at his reflection and headed down the stairs, figuring by now it should be safe enough to join Lucia in the carriage. She should have had plenty of time to calm herself.
Or perhaps not.
“Impossible,” she muttered, her face turned away from him as he climbed into the carriage. “You are impossible.”
He stopped in the carriage’s door. “I don’t have to go with you tonight, Lucia. If I’m so damned impossible, it might be better for you to go to Giovanni’s fete by yourself. Beside you, no one notices me, anyway.”
Her head whipped around, her dark eyes wounded even in the half light of the carriage. “Of course they notice you, Antonio. You know as well as I that you are never overlooked or forgotten. That is the kind of man you are.”
He dropped onto the leather seat beside her and sighed. “There are so many ways for me to take that, Lucia.”
But Lucia didn’t answer, turning again to face the open window, and for the next quarter hour they rode in a silence that felt more like an uneasy truce.
“She will be easy for you to find, your little yellow-haired virgin,” she said at last. “Your English consul can tell you her name. There are not so many like her in Rome, especially not this early in the autumn.”
“I haven’t said I was interested in her, have I?”
“You needn’t speak the words aloud for it to be understood, Antonio,” she said, touching a handkerchief deeply bordered in lace to the corner of her eye. “Not by me.”
“Lucia, enough,” Anthony said firmly. “Isn’t your darling Signor Lorenzo the love of your life? The only man in Rome with devotion enough to tolerate your tantrums, and gold enough to keep you in the luxury you demand?”
“We’re not speaking of Lorenzo.” Impatiently she flicked her handkerchief towards Anthony. “We’re speaking of you, Antonio, and this English girl that you are plotting to seduce. What if you’re the loser in your little game this time? You’re already beguiled with her—no, bewitched! What if she steals you from us, and carries you back to England as her prize, eh? What if you abandon all of us for her?”
Amused, Anthony leaned his head back against the leather squabs and chuckled. “It won’t happen, Lucia. It can’t.”
“No?” Her eyes glittered, challenging. “You are very confident.”
“I’m confident because I’m right,” he said easily. He took her hand and kissed the back of it, right above her ruby ring. “No woman in this world could claim that kind of lasting power over me. You should know, Lucia.”
She sniffed, and pulled her hand free, curling it into a loose fist against her breasts. “I tired of you first, Antonio. Don’t let your male pride remember otherwise.”
He glanced at her, so obviously skeptical that she hurried on.
“I should just let you marry the underfed little creature,” she said. “You could coax her into bearing your weakling children, in the passionless English manner.”
“You won’t change my mind, darling. I’m not marrying her, or anyone else.”
Her fingers opened, fluttering over her décolletage so the half light danced over her ruby ring. “Do you believe yourself safe enough that you’ll stake a small wager upon it?”
He smiled. “Small enough that Lorenzo won’t question it, but sufficiently large to hold my interest?”
“Exactly.” She leaned towards him. “I’ll wager that before Advent begins, you will become so obsessed—so lost!—pursuing this English virgin that you will need to be rescued by your friends and saved from marrying her.”
“Marrying her!” Anthony laughed aloud at the sheer preposterous idiocy of such a notion. Him with a wife, a Lady Anthony to dog him to his grave! This girl might be a delicious change, but hardly enough that he’d give up his cheerfully self-indulgent life here in Rome for the sake of her hand. “I’ll take your wager, Lucia, and I’ll set your stake for you, too. I’ll win. I’ll seduce the girl, I’ll enjoy her as much as she will me, but she’ll never be my wife. I’ve no doubt of that. And when I win, I’ll expect you to sing an entire aria on the Spanish Steps.”
She frowned, not understanding, nor wishing to. “Overlooking the Piazza? Before all of Rome?”
“For free, my darling,” he said easily. Short of standing on the papal balcony of St. Peter’s, he couldn’t imagine a more public place. The Spanish Steps had been built earlier in the century, a grand, flamboyant flow of marble cascading down the hillside from the French church of Trinita dei Monti to the Piazza di Spagna centered by one of the city’s more celebrated fountains, the Fontana della Barcaccia. The piazza was not only a favorite idling place for Romans, but a prime attraction for foreign visitors, too. Lucia would be guaranteed an enormous audience on the natural stage formed by the steps, and the fact that her performance would be within view of the English girl’s lodgings would serve as an extra fillip of amusement to their wager.
Anthony smiled, savoring the possibility. “A small gift of your voice to all of Rome. Nothing that will be missed from Randolfo’s pockets, yes?”
“For free!” Lucia sputtered, outraged. “I never sing for—for nothing!”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s my stake. If you choose not to accept it, why, then the wager is—”
“Then if you lose, you must sing instead!” she said quickly. “You, Antonio, who bray like a donkey! If this girl ruins you, as is sure to happen, then you must sing to her yourself on the same steps!”
“Agreed.” He did sing like a donkey, and even then only after a sufficient amount of very strong drink, but he was confident that the wager would never come to proving it. How could it, really?
“And—and a hundred Venetian gold pieces!”
“Venetian it is,” he said, amused. Only Lucia would be so specifically greedy. “Prepare your favorite aria, darling. You’ll want to sing your best for the people of Rome.”
“I promise I’ll rehearse and rehearse, Antonio.” Her smile indulgent, she reached out and patted his cheek. “For your wedding, eh? For your wedding.”
“That, ladies is the great Coliseum.” Reverend Lord Patterson paused for solemn effect, pointing his walking stick out the carriage window. “Where pagan warriors battled for the amusement of the Caesars, and where countless victims were slaughtered at the whim of a ruthless dictator’s down-turned thumb. Within those very walls, ladies!”
“Gracious,” murmured Miss Wood, mightily impressed. “To think that all that happened inside those very walls! Lady Diana, you recall reading of the gladiators in the Coliseum, don’t you?”
Diana glanced dolefully out the window at the huge stone ruin looming beside them. She’d been trying hard these last three days to be enthusiastic for Edward’s sake, and interested in what interested him. That was what her sister Mary had done with Lord John Fitzgerald. It had worked, too, because he’d fallen so deeply in love with Mary that he’d eloped with her in the most romantic fashion imaginable.
But it wasn’t easy for Diana, not when Edward found ancient Rome the most interesting topic imaginable. She leaned forward on the seat, trying to see if there was more to see that she was missing, but still the great Coliseum looked suspiciously like yet another tedious pile of ancient stone.
And Edward, bless him, realized it, too.
“Come now, Uncle, be reasonable,” he said, taking advantage of the darkened carriage to slip his fingers into Diana’s. “You can hardly expect a lady as gently bred as Lady Diana to share your bloodthirsty fascination with pagan warriors slaughtering one another a thousand years ago.”
“But his grace the duke expects his daughters to have a certain degree of education about the past, my lord,” Miss Wood said firmly. “Not so much as if they were boys, of course, but sufficient for them to separate themselves from common women, and to make their conversation pleasing to his grace, and other gentlemen.”
“Then I’ll speak as a gentleman, Miss Wood,” Edward said, raising Diana’s hand to kiss the air above in tribute. “I’d prefer Lady Diana kept her innocence about the barbaric, debauched practices of the Caesars, even at the expense of her so-called education. Better she appreciate the beauty of the place, than dwell on the villainy it once harbored.”
Diana smiled, touched by his defense of her innocence. True, what he was defending seemed to her more ignorance than innocence, but she’d let that detail pass for the sake of sentiment. She’d never had a champion like this, and she liked it.
But Miss Wood wasn’t ready to give in just yet. “I’ll agree that his grace desires his daughter’s innocence preserved, my lord. But he also wishes her to acquire some sense and appreciation for the greater world of the continent, including the Coliseum.”
“I’ve a notion, Miss Wood.” Reverend Lord Patterson leaned forward, eager to make peace. “Have my nephew escort Lady Diana inside for a moment or two so that she might see the Coliseum for herself. Surely the moonlight will banish the harsher realities of the place from her ladyship’s memory, yet help her retain a suitable awe for its history.”
“What a perfect idea!” Diana exclaimed, ready to jump from the carriage at once. They had been so thoroughly watched together these last days that the chance to be alone with Edward was irresistible. “That is, if Lord Edward is willing to—”
“I’ll be honored, my lady.” Edward reached for the latch to open the door, his eagerness a match for Diana’s. “What better way to view the Coliseum than by moonlight?”
“What better, indeed?” Miss Wood said, rising from her seat. “I should like very much to see that myself.”
Edward’s face fell. “That’s not necessary, Miss Wood. That is, I don’t believe that—”
“You don’t have to come with us, Miss Wood,” Diana begged. “Please, please! You can trust us this little bit.”
But Miss Wood shook her head, her mouth inflexibly set. She still faulted herself for Mary’s elopement in Paris, and since then she’d been determined not to let Diana have the same opportunity as her sister. “It’s not a question of trust, my lady, but of respectability. I needn’t remind you of—”
“I am respectable, Miss Wood,” Diana said quickly. She’d been able to make a fresh start here in Rome with Edward. With the city still so empty of foreign visitors, there was no whispered gossip to trail along after her, and sully her attempt to rebuild her reputation. The last thing she needed now was for her governess to dredge up old tales and scandals before him and his uncle. “And there couldn’t be a more respectable gentleman than Lord Edward.”
“Oh, let them go, Miss Wood,” Reverend Lord Patterson said indulgently. “I’ll vouch for my nephew’s honor, and besides, they’ll scarcely be alone. There will be more visitors inside now than there are by day, along with the constant crowd of priests and biscuit-vendors and trinket-sellers that clog the Coliseum day and night.”
Edward pressed his hand over his heart. “You have my word, Miss Wood. I shall guard her ladyship’s honor with my life.”
Miss Wood hesitated, then sighed with resignation. “Very well, my lady. I will trust you, and his lordship as well. You may go view the ruin together. But mind you, you must return here within half an hour’s time, or I shall come hunting for you.”
“Then let us go, Lord Edward,” Diana said, seizing his hand. “We haven’t a moment to squander.”
“I’d never squander a moment with you.” He was always doing that, taking her words and turning them around into a romantic echo. He slipped his hand free, and tucked hers into the crook of his arm. “The entrance is down this way.”
“We could just walk around and around outside for all I care, my lord,” she said, feeling almost giddy to be finally alone in his company. “All I truly wanted was to be with you.”
He chuckled, patting her hand as he led her towards the small canvas awning that marked the ruin’s entrance. “Your governess is wise to guard you. A lady’s reputation is an irreplaceable treasure.”
“It can be an intolerable burden as well,” she said wryly. “Sometimes I wish that I were only ordinary, without all the fuss of being the daughter of the almighty Duke of Aston.”
“You couldn’t ever be called ordinary, my lady,” he said gallantly, misinterpreting her complaint. “Nor could his grace your father.”
“Father’s ordinary enough, especially for a peer,” she said. “That rubbish from Miss Wood about how he wanted to discuss history and art with me—all he’s really expected from me or my sister is that we’re able to exclaim and marvel at the proper moments during his hunting stories.”
“I should rather like to meet his grace one day,” he said, so clearly taken with the idea that he gave an extra little nod to reinforce it. “I’ve heard he is a man of great vision. I hope I have the honor of his acquaintance.”
“I can’t fathom why,” Diana said, amused. The only vision she’d grant her father was his ability to stare up at the clouds and predict if they were carrying sufficient rain within to cancel the day’s hunt. “Unless you wish to be bored to tears by how high a gate he can jump on his favorite hunter.”
“We’d find other matters to discuss,” he said, and nodded again. “You, my lady, for one.”
She glanced up at him again, startled into speechlessness. There was only one reason a gentleman wished to address a lady’s father to discuss her, and that was to ask for her hand. Of all the men she’d met in her short life, none had dared venture such a desire. It was early days with Edward, true, and much could go amiss between them before the banns were cried. But for him to hint at such a possibility so soon—ah, that delighted her and stunned her at the same time. He was courting her.
Was he falling in love with her, she wondered, to make such a suggestion?
“Is that notion so appalling to you, my lady?” he asked lightly, making her realize how long she’d been silent. “That I sing your praises to your father? Is that what you were thinking?”
“Magic, my lord.” She smiled up at him, hugging his arm. “That’s what I was thinking. How everything you say and do feels that way to me.”
But instead of agreeing with her, or sharing a similar confession, he only smiled pleasantly, as if he didn’t understand at all.
“I enjoy your company, too, my lady,” he said, stopping to search through his pockets for the entrance fee. He gave the coins to the bored-looking man sitting on a tall stool beneath the awning, and handed Diana through the gate. “Always a garnish, eh? These infernal Romans would bleed a gentleman dry, then try to figure a way to make a profit from his blood.”
“It must cost a great deal to keep a place like this,” Diana said. Despite the lanterns hung sporadically along the walls, the arched passageway ahead was dark and forbidding, and she hung close to Edward’s side. “It’s larger than any building in London. Imagine how many charwomen must be employed in sweeping it out!”
“Imagine, yes, because it never happens,” Edward declared, not bothering to hide his disapproval. “You can see for yourself how shabby the Romans have let things become. They haven’t a care for their heritage. Once this city had a system for water and sewers that would shame London today, and look at it now, so foul a fellow can hardly bear to breathe. It’s almost impossible to believe that these scruffy latter-day Romans actually descended from Caesar’s mighty pagan breed.”
But Diana didn’t care any more about Caesar tonight than she had the previous two days. What she cared most about was Edward. More specifically, what she cared most about was hearing more about how Edward cared for her.
“I hope we’ll see the moon again soon,” she said, trying to steer the conversation back to more interesting topics. She liked moonlight better than these murky passages lit with foul-smelling tallow candles. Moonlight was bright and romantic and flattering to the complexion. Besides, moonlight generally made men want to kiss her, and for all that it was a delightful change to be respected, she thought it was high time for Edward to try to kiss at least her cheek. After what he’d said earlier, he deserved a kiss, but he’d have to be the one to claim it. “It’s nearly full tonight, you know. Didn’t you see? It’s like an enormous silver coin in the sky.”
“Isn’t that like you, my lady, to notice the moon!” She could see the curve of his white teeth as he smiled indulgently at her, as if she’d said something remarkable for its foolishness rather than making perfect sense. “I have to admit my thoughts were elsewhere than dangling up in the sky.”
“The moon doesn’t ‘dangle’ in the sky, my lord.” She gave a little toss to her head and lifted her chin, willing him to kiss her. For a gentleman who was so learned about ancient history, Edward could be remarkably thick about what was happening in the present. “The moon rises and sets quite purposefully each night, just like the sun does by day.”
“Well, yes, I suppose it does.” With a small flourish—but no kiss—he led her around another corner and into the open. “There now! That’s what you’ve come to Rome to see!”
Dutifully Diana looked. The Coliseum seemed far larger from inside than she’d imagined outside from the carriage, an enormous stone ring made ragged and tattered over time. Half of the wall with its rows of arches had been broken away like a shattered teacup, and the flat rows that once had been benches or seats now sprouted tufts of grass and wildflowers. Other tourists and their guides wandered about the different levels with lanterns bobbing in their hands, their figures like aimless ghosts in the gray half light. Diana was disappointed. If the Coliseum by moonlight was the most romantic place in Rome, the way all the guidebooks claimed, then the guidebook writers had far different notions of romance from hers.
“Where did they stage the fights and shows?” she asked, peering downward. The ground floor in the center was crisscrossed with a labyrinth of open corridors that bore no resemblance to the engravings in her old history book. “That looks more like a marketplace with farmers’ stalls than an arena for warriors.”
“That’s because what we see now were once tunnels for bringing in the gladiators and the wild beasts.” Edward’s voice rose with relish. “Once there was a plank decking laid across the top as a kind of stage, covered with sand to soak up the spilled blood of the dying. Oh, imagine the spectacle of it all, my lady! Sixty thousand strong, cheering for the mortal combat from these very stands!”
“I’d rather not.” Diana sighed. This masculine blood-lust of Edward’s seemed awfully similar to her father’s boundless enthusiasm for slaughtering stags, pheasants and foxes at Aston Hall, and on an even grander scale. “What’s that curious little house down there, my lord? Do they offer refreshments? I’m rather thirsty.”
“That’s a papist chapel, my lady,” he said, making his disregard for the chapel plain. “You know how the Romans are, throwing up a church anywhere they can.”
“But in the middle of such a pagan place?” Her earlier travels through France and the great Catholic cathedrals built there had given her a much healthier appreciation for the powers of that faith. “They must have had a reason, a saint they wished to commemorate or some such.”
He frowned, perplexed. “My knowledge is limited to the glorious ancients, my lady, not their ignoble descendants.”
“Perhaps it’s in honor of the fallen gladiators,” she suggested. “Miss Wood said that early Christians were martyred here, and so—”
“My lady, I wouldn’t know,” he said, clearly weary of the topic. He smiled, and swept his hat from his head. “But I’d guess that the keepers might still be persuaded to prepare a glass of orange-water for you. Would it please you, my lady, if I asked them?”
“Oh, thank you, yes, Lord Edward!” She opened her fan and smiled over the top. She wasn’t really that thirsty, but she’d drink a barrel of orange-water if it made Edward forget his glorious ancients and think more of her. “You’re too kind.”
He crooked his arm and offered it to her. “Then come join me, my lady.”
“Down there?” Dubious, she looked from him to the delicate pointed toe of her slipper, raising her hem a fraction to better demonstrate her reason, and to keep his interest as well. “I’m sorry, my lord, but I’m not shod like a mountain goat. I didn’t know we’d leave the carriage tonight. I’ll wait here while you go inquire.”
“Leave you here?” he asked with surprise. “I can hardly abandon you like that, my lady!”
“Of course you can.” She smiled happily. Sending him off on an errand at her bidding wasn’t quite as satisfying as a kiss, but it was close. “What could befall me with so many others around? I’ll be waiting here where you can see me the entire time.”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s proper, my lady.”
“It is, my lord,” she said, sweetening her smile, “because I’m growing more thirsty by the moment.”
“I can’t permit that, my lady, can I?” He jammed his hat back on his head. “I’ll return as soon as I can.”
She watched him as he made his way down among the broken seats, picking a path towards the lowest level. The Coliseum was a good deal larger than Diana had first thought, and now she realized Edward would be gone longer than she’d first guessed. He stopped once to turn and wave, and she almost—almost—considered calling him back before she waved in return. Better to have him wandering about this old ruin than to let him call her indecisive, and besides, all that talk of orange-water had only served to make her thirst genuine.
But now she must wait here for however long it took Edward to return. She’d looked up at the row of broken arches along the Coliseum’s skyline, then down to where the stage had been, and finally once again across to the little chapel, snugged into the side of the ruin. What was left, really?
She fidgeted with the cuffs of her gloves, and glanced back into the murky corridor that they’d come through, half expecting to see Miss Wood charging up after her. How much time had passed since they’d left the carriage?
“Buona sera, bella mia.” The words came in a deep, rumbling whisper from the shadows behind her. “The moon is like molten silver tonight, is it not?”
Diana whipped about, peering into the shadows. “Who’s there?” she called sharply. “Who speaks? Show yourself, sir!”
“Ah, but you show yourself too much,” the man said. “Come beneath these arches with me, and see what a pleasurable difference a bit of shadow can make.”
“I’ll do nothing of the sort,” she declared, folding her arms over her chest. “If you’ve come here seeking the use of a—a harlot, then you have made a most grievous mistake.”
“I think not,” the man said with an easy confidence. “I came here seeking you, lovely lady of the moon, and I’ve succeeded, haven’t I?”
Diana gasped indignantly. She didn’t like how he seemed to have all the advantages, hiding there in the dark where she couldn’t see him. It was worse than not fair; it was cowardly. “How dare you say you sought me, when you don’t even know who I am?”
“But I do know you, cara.” His laugh was as rich and dark as the shadows that hid him, a masculine laugh that, under other circumstances, would have struck her as infinitely appealing: no wonder he was so irritating to her now. “One glimpse was enough to know our souls were meant for one another.”
“That’s rubbish,” she said tartly. “You mean nothing to me. This city is overrun with conceited Italian men like you.”
“How barbarously wrong you are, sweet,” he said easily, as if he’d expected no less from her. “I assure you, I’m quite unique.”
“And I’m just as sure you’re not,” she insisted. “You’re only another preening cockerel who believes he can seduce any woman he spies.”
Determined that that would be her final word, she turned away, giving her skirts an extra disdainful flick. The man in the shadows didn’t deserve more. Clambering after Edward would be preferable to listening further to this nonsense.
But the man wasn’t done. “Not any woman, my Lady Diana Farren. I prefer only the rare birds, like you.”
She stopped abruptly, stunned that he’d called her by name, and he laughed softly.
“You see, I do know you,” he continued. “I spoke to you in your own language, didn’t I? I know that pasty-faced mooncalf’s unworthy to spread your…fan for you. And I know how much you delight in the silver glow of the moon’s own fair goddess. Oh, yes, I know you, cara.”
How had she not noticed that he’d addressed her in English? How had he known her name, her title? How could he make every word he spoke sound so wicked?
“You were eavesdropping on me with Lord Edward, weren’t you?” she demanded, turning back to confront him. “You were spying! He’s ten times the gentleman you’ll ever be—no, a hundred times! You followed us, and listened to our conversation, and—”
He laughed again, infuriating her all the more. “Do you truly believe that I care what another man says to you?”
“I know that I do not care what you say!”
“How cruel,” he said mildly, and took a step towards her. One step, but exactly enough to carry him from the shadows and into the moonlight.
He was dressed in plain black, his broad shoulders relaxed, his weight on one leg, his elbow bent where he’d hooked his thumb into the pocket of his waistcoat. The muted light sharpened the strong planes of his face and accentuated his jaw and a nose that, from the bumps and bends across the bridge, must have been broken at least once. His long black hair was shoved back with careless nonchalance, a single loose lock falling across his broad brow.
But what Diana noticed first were his eyes, pewter pale against so much somber black. She’d always recollect eyes like those, but the unabashed male interest in her that now lit his gaze was so blatant that she felt her cheeks grow hot.
“You were in the carriage with your mistresses,” she said slowly. “I saw you from the balcony.”
“I knew you wouldn’t forget, cara.” His smile came slow and warm and seductive, and she recalled that from the balcony, too. “Not you, not me. Not ever.”
