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“My lord, I am delighted to make your acquaintance,” Diana said cheerfully, flickering her fingers as she held her hand out to him. True, an heir to a title would have been preferable to a younger son, but after her sister had gone and married a questionable Irishman for love alone, Father would consider the second son of a marquess as a genuine prize. “Not even Miss Wood could object to you!”
But Miss Wood could, and now she stepped between them. “If you please, might I ask your uncle’s name?”
Lord Edward smiled past Miss Wood to Diana. “My uncle is Reverend Lord Henry Patterson, the elderly gentleman residing in the rooms across the hall. He is so occupied with his studies and his writings that he keeps to himself, but there is no more honorable Englishman to be found here in Rome.”
“Oh, Miss Wood, not even you could find fault with a recommendation like that,” Diana said, her gaze fixed entirely on Lord Edward’s charming face. It must have been months since an English gentleman had looked at her with such open admiration.
Perhaps she’d been pining after the season for no reason at all. Lord Edward wouldn’t have heard of her misadventure with the groom at Aston Hall, or her flirtation with the guard in Chantilly, or even that last dramatic little affair in Paris when she’d been kidnapped for a brief time. All Lord Edward would know of her was what he saw and what she told him. With a little discretion, anything—anything!—could be possible.
“You know exactly what to say to reassure us, my lord,” she continued happily. “What better reference for character could there be than the Church of England?”
“None, my lady,” Miss Wood said darkly. “But let me please remind you that we must take care, after—”
“Come with me.” Lord Edward took Diana’s hand—seized it, really, as if he’d every right—and led her from the room and across the hallway. “You can meet the old fellow yourself, and he can set things formally between us.”
“This is not proper, my lord,” Miss Wood protested, scurrying after them. “This is not right. Because her ladyship’s rank is higher than yours, you must be introduced to her, not the other way about.”
But Lord Edward was already opening the door to the other rooms.
“Uncle, it’s Edward again,” he called as he entered, not bothering to wait for the footman that came rushing towards them, still buttoning his livery coat. “I’ve discovered the English ladies staying beneath your roof, and brought them to you for approval.”
In a large room that must serve as parlor, study and dining room sat an elderly gentleman, his armchair drawn close to a large table before the open window. Although rain splattered on the stone sill and curled the papers on the edge of the table, the man himself was oblivious, too absorbed in his work to notice.
Wisps of his white hair poked out from beneath a black velvet beret such as painters wore, and though his black linen waistcoat and breeches were ordinary enough, his bare feet were thrust into outlandish needlepoint slippers embroidered with red roses. Scowling with concentration, he held a large magnifying glass in one hand and a fragment of ancient pottery in the other, while puffing furiously on a long-stemmed white clay pipe.
Lord Edward cleared his throat with noisy emphasis. “Uncle, if you please,” he said. “The ladies, Uncle.”
“Ehh?” Startled, the Reverend Lord Henry Patterson jerked his head around to face them, his scowl at once dissolving into a beatific smile. He put down his pipe and his fragment, and rose from his chair, sweeping the velvet cap from his head so that the silk tassel swung from the crown. “Why, yes, Edward. The ladies! How do you do, my dears? A damp day in old Rome, isn’t it?”
“It is indeed.” Diana smiled and stepped forward, determined to put an end to Miss Wood’s foolishness about a proper introduction before the governess could start it up again. “I am Lady Diana Farren and this is my governess Miss Wood, and we are delighted to make the acquaintance of two English gentlemen in this foreign place.”
The clergyman’s expression was so dazzled and doting it was almost foolish. Diana smiled cheerfully, accustomed to the effect her beauty had on men. It wasn’t anything she did: it just happened.
“There now,” Lord Edward said heartily. “I told you I’d discovered true ladies, uncle. Lady Diana, you may be delighted, but I—I am enchanted, and honored, too.”
“Her ladyship is the youngest daughter of His Grace the Duke of Aston, my lords,” Miss Wood announced sternly, ever vigilant, and Diana could almost feel her reprimand hanging in the damp air. “Her ladyship is not interested in intrigues, my lord. She is traveling through Italy in thoughtful pursuit of knowledge and learning.”
“Then you must be her guide in such education, Miss Wood,” said Reverend Lord Patterson, slapping his velvet cap back onto his head so he could hold his hand out to Miss Wood. “What a paragon of learning you must be yourself, Miss Wood, if his grace has entrusted his daughter’s education and welfare to your hands.”
To Diana’s amazement, a flush of pink flooded Miss Wood’s pale cheeks as the minister shook her hand.
“You are too kind, reverend my lord,” her governess said. “But I can think of no more noble calling than to guide his grace’s daughter, and to strive to improve her mind and character, as well as my own.”
“Of course, of course.” Reverend Lord Patterson nodded eagerly. “Might I show you my latest acquisition, Miss Wood? Surely a woman of your scholarly inclinations will appreciate the workmanship of this, from a painted amphora that was already ancient in the times of the Caesars.”
“Thank you very kindly, reverend my lord,” Miss Wood said, already heading to the table with more eagerness than Diana could ever recall witnessing. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure.”
Diana turned back to Lord Edward, looking up at him wryly from beneath her lashes. “You arranged that quite tidily, didn’t you?”
He placed his hand over his heart. “I should rather believe it was fate, my lady, bringing me closer to you.”
“I don’t believe a word of that,” she scoffed, “and neither do you.”
His brows rose, his open hand still planted firmly upon his chest. “You don’t believe in fate?”
“Not like that, no,” she said. She took a single step away from him, taking care to make her white muslin skirts drift gracefully around her legs. “Rather I believe that we control our own lives and destinies, with the free will that God gave us. Otherwise we’d be no better than rudderless skiffs, tossed about on a river’s current. That’s what I believe. As, I suspect, do you.”
He sighed, and at last let his hand drop from his chest. “You suspect me already, my lady?”
She smiled, letting him think whatever he pleased. “What I suspect, Lord Edward, isn’t you in general, but your actions.”
“My actions?” he asked, his blue eyes wide with disbelief. “Why, I’ve only known you for half an hour!”
“More than enough time, however noble your motives may be.” She spread her fan, fluttering it languidly beneath her chin as she walked slowly towards the far window. She hadn’t enjoyed herself this much since she’d left England. “I suspect that you are as bored as I here in Rome, with all the best people still away at their villas for the summer.”
“Not at all!” he exclaimed. “Why, I’ve only—”
“Please, my lord, I’m not yet done,” she said softly, making him listen even harder. “I suspect that you came to the common room across the hall with full intention of meeting me. And I suspect you somehow contrived for your uncle to entertain Miss Wood and thus leave us together, as we are now. Those are my suspicions regarding you, my lord.”
“I see.” He clasped his hands behind his waist and frowned, thinking, as he followed her. “Yet now you’ll fault me because I did not wait for fate to toss you into my path, but bravely bent circumstance to my own will?”
“Oh, I never said I faulted you, my lord,” she said, her smile blithe. “I said first that I suspected you did not believe in fate any more than I, and then I offered my other suspicions to prove it.”
He raised his chin a fraction, the line of his jaw strong in the muted light. “Then I find favor with you, my lady, and not fault?”
“Not yet,” she said, as he came to stand beside her in the window’s alcove. “But I must say, it’s unusual for a gentleman to be so forthright in his attentions.”
“I’ve no desire to be your rudderless boat, my lady,” he said. “Consider me the river’s current instead, ready to carry you along with me wherever you please.”
She laughed softly, intrigued. Most gentlemen were too awed by the combination of her beauty and her father’s power to speak so decisively. She liked that; she liked him. What would he be like as a husband? she wondered, the face she’d wake to see each morning for the rest of her life? “And where exactly do you propose to carry me, Lord Edward?”
He made a gallant half bow. “Wherever you please, my lady.”
“But where do you please, Lord Edward?” she asked. “Or should I ask you how?”
“How I please?” He chuckled. “There are some things I’d prefer to demonstrate rather than merely to explain, Lady Diana.”
“You forget yourself, my lord.” She laughed behind her fan, taking the sting from her reprimand, and pointedly glanced past him to her governess and his uncle, their heads bent close over the broken crockery. “This is neither the place nor the time.”
He grinned, not in the least contrite, and leaned back against one side of the alcove with his arms folded over his chest. “We’ll speak of Rome instead. That’s safe enough, isn’t it?”
She shrugged and leaned back against the other side of the window opposite him, leaving him to decide what was safe and what wasn’t. The rain had dwindled to a steamy mist, the sun brightening behind the clouds.
“There are so many attractions in Rome, my lady, both ancient and modern,” he continued. “It’s why we English make this journey, isn’t it? Our choices are boundless.”
She wrinkled her nose, and turned away from him to gaze out at the red-tiled rooftops and dripping cypress trees. “No tedious museums or dusty old churches, I beg you. I’ve enough of that with Miss Wood, traipsing across France and Italy with her lecturing me at every step.”
“But this is Rome,” he said, “and I promise I can make even the dustiest old ruin interesting.”
“I’m no bluestocking, Lord Edward,” she warned. “Broken-down buildings are never interesting.”
“With me, they would be.”
She shrugged, feigning indifference. In truth she couldn’t imagine anything better than to trade Miss Wood’s tours for his. She’d be sure to be ready in the morning, and keep him waiting only a quarter hour or so. “I already have a governess, my lord. I don’t need a governor to match.”
“Then come with me tomorrow, and I’ll show you Rome as you’ve not yet seen it,” he urged. “I’ll have a carriage waiting after breakfast. You’ll see. I’ll change your mind.”
“Perhaps,” she said, not wanting to seem over-eager. “Look, my lord, there. Can you see the rainbow?”
With colors that were gauzy pale, the rainbow arched over the city, spilling from the low-hanging gray clouds to end in a haze above the Tiber. Diana stepped out onto the narrow balcony, her fingertips trailing lightly along the wet iron railing.
“I can’t recall the last time I saw a rainbow,” Lord Edward marveled, joining her. “I’d say that’s a sign, my lady. I meet you, and the clouds roll away. You smile at me, and a rainbow fills the sky.”
But now Diana was leaning over the railing to watch an open carriage passing in the street below. The passengers must have trusted in the promise of that rainbow, too, to carry no more than emerald-colored parasols for cover: three beautiful, laughing women, their glossy black hair dressed high with elaborate leghorn straw hats pinned on top and their gowns cut low and laced tightly to display their lush breasts. The carriage seemed filled with their skirts, yards and yards of gathered bright silks, and as the red-painted wheels rolled past, the tassels on their parasols and the ribbons on their hats waved gaily in the breeze.
“Now that’s a sorry display for a lady like you to have to see,” Lord Edward said with righteous disapproval. “A covey of painted filles de l’opera!”
“That’s French.” Diana knew perfectly well what he meant—that the women were harlots—but she wanted to hear him say so. “Those women are Italian.”
“Well, yes,” Lord Edward admitted grudgingly. “Suffice to say that they are low women from the stage.”
“But isn’t it true that women of any kind are prohibited from appearing on the Roman stage?” she asked, repeating what she’d heard from their landlord. “That all the female parts in plays or operas are taken by men?”
“True, true, true,” Lord Edward said, clearing his throat gruffly at having been caught out. “You force me to be blunt, my lady. Those women are likely the mistresses of rich men, and as such beneath your notice.”
But it wasn’t the women that had caught Diana’s eye, so much as the man sprawled so insolently in the midst of all those petticoats and ribbons. Could he keep all three women as his mistresses, she wondered with interest, like a sultan with his harem?
He sat in the middle of the carriage seat, his arms thrown carelessly around the shoulders of two of the women and his long legs crossed and propped up on the opposite seat. He was handsome and dark like the three women, his smile brilliantly white as he laughed and jested with them, and his long, dark hair tied carelessly back into a queue with a red silk ribbon that could have been filched from one of their hats. But then everything about this man struck Diana as careless and easy, even reckless, and thoroughly, thoroughly not English.
“Will you bring a carriage like that one tomorrow, Lord Edward?” she asked, bending slightly over the rail to watch as the carriage passed beneath them. “One with red wheels and bells, and ribbons and flowers braided into the horses’ manes?”
“Only if I hire one from some carnival fair, my lady.” Lord Edward shook his head, his expression disapproving. “I respect you far too much for that.”
“Do you,” she said slowly. “And here I’d thought it looked rather like fun.”
“Like scandal, with that lot.” He took her by the elbow, ready to guide her from the unsavory sight. “Come away, Lady Diana. Don’t sully yourself by paying them any further attention.”
He turned away to return to the others, while Diana hung back for a final glimpse of the gaily decorated carriage. As she did, the flutter of her skirts must have caught the eye of the dark-haired man, and he turned to look up at her. For only a second, her gaze met his, his eyes startlingly pale beneath his dark brows and lashes. He pressed his first two fingers to his lips, then swept his hand up towards her on the balcony, a gesture at once elegant and seductive. He didn’t smile. He didn’t need to. That wind-blown kiss was enough.
“Lady Diana?” Lord Edward’s fingers pressed impatiently into her arm. “Shall we join the others?”
“Oh, yes.” Her heart racing inexplicably, she smiled at Lord Edward. “The rainbow’s gone now anyway.”
And when she stole one more glance back over her shoulder, the carriage and the man were gone, too.
Chapter 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.”
