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“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.”
