To Deceive a Duke

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‘Clarence,’ suggested Thalia. ‘Oh, no. He would be too fat to get up the hill.’

‘Better,’ Lady Riverton said. ‘It is the Duke of Averton. So handsome and delightful! And he will actually be here for my theatrical evening. Won’t it be glorious?’

Thalia glanced at Clio, her eyes wide. ‘But how could…?’

Clio grabbed her hand, holding it tightly. ‘Glorious, indeed. We do look forward to it, Lady Riverton, but now we really must go before our father misses us. It was lovely to make your acquaintance, Count di Fabrizzi.’

‘Oh, no, Miss Chase,’ Marco said, giving her an elaborate bow. Only the merest shadow in his dark eyes reflected a certain dismay at the mention of the name ‘Averton’. He, too, remembered the Yorkshire dungeon. ‘The pleasure was entirely mine.’

Clio left Lady Riverton’s house, still holding on to Thalia’s hand until they were at a safe distance on the street. When she let go, it was like releasing a tidal wave.

‘Averton!’ Thalia exploded. ‘What is he doing here? How dare he show his face where we are, how dare he come as near us as—as Rome! Handsome he may be, but he is naught but a freebooter, a—’

‘A freebooter?’ Clio said, laughing despite herself. ‘Thalia, he is hardly Drake on the Golden Hind.’

‘No, he is worse. I would wager he only comes here to steal whatever Father finds in his villa. And to harass you some more.’

‘And don’t forget, to attend Lady Riverton’s party. He has definitely come for that.’ Clio spoke with a lightness she was far from feeling, hurrying her steps towards home. She longed for the quiet of her own room. The safe haven she had always found in Santa Lucia felt torn now, reshaped with the arrivals of Averton and Marco. Something was definitely afoot, something she could not see or understand. Not yet, anyway. ‘Danger,’ the Duke had said. How right he was.

Thalia hurried after her. ‘Well, then, I won’t go to that party. I have no wish to see that spoiled, arrogant—’

‘Freebooter? Oh, Thalia, we have to go. We told Lady Riverton we would, and you were looking forward to it. Everyone will need your wonderful Antigone to save them from drowning in sugary faux-Shakespeareness. There will be lots of people there, we won’t even notice Averton. Handsome or not.’

‘Perhaps not,’ Thalia said reluctantly. She was silent for a moment, then added, ‘But we will be sure to notice Count Adonis! And he will notice you.’

Clio was careful not to look at her sister, just walking a bit faster on their way home. ‘Don’t be silly. Why would a gorgeous Italian count notice me, when your golden beauty or Miss Darby’s conspicuous giggles will be near?’

‘He kept looking at you just now,’ Thalia said. Not for the first time, Clio cursed Thalia’s powers of observation. ‘If I was a reader of horrid novels, like our friend Lotty, I would call them “speaking glances”.’

‘You are just imagining things. I think all the theatricality is getting to you.’

‘I think not.’ Thalia opened their own garden gate, and went prancing up to the front door, chanting, ‘Clio has a new admirer!’

‘What?’ cried Cory, who came into the foyer just in time to hear this bit of news. ‘Clio has an admirer? Who is it? Oh! Not that silly Peter Elliott? I thought he was in love with you, Thalia.’

‘Far better,’ Thalia said. ‘A dark Italian count! He kept staring at her over Lady Riverton’s tea table. And he is beautiful.’

‘Perhaps Clio will soon be a contessa!’ Cory said, pretending to swoon. ‘And we will all live with her in Italy for ever. In her grand palazzo, with her hundreds of servants and vast marble halls.’

Clio fled their merry laughter, taking the stairs two at a time until she could slam her chamber door behind her and be alone, in silence, at last. Heaven deliver her from sisters!

And from English Viking dukes and ‘dark Italian counts’. They all knew far too many of her secrets already.

Chapter Seven

Edward watched the sun set from his overgrown back garden, seated on the edge of the old fountain, a Turkish cigarillo in hand. The vast sky was a swirling blend of orange and blood-red, streaked with shimmering gold dust, smoky lavender at the edges. Etna dominated the horizon like a silent queen, swathed in silver mists like a torn bridal veil. The breeze that swept up from the valley was cool, carrying away the heat of the afternoon.

It was unlike anything he had ever seen in all his travels—silent, eternal, dramatic. Every instant the sky shifted and changed. The vestiges of modern Sicily, the bustle of the village streets, the vast tides of tourists, receded and there was only the land itself.

It was like Clio. Changeable, mysterious, remote. Beautiful.

Not that she had been so very remote when they had met that morning. He exhaled a grey plume of smoke, remembering the feel of her in his arms, the taste of her mouth. She was intoxicating, worse than the brandy he had given up years ago. Every time he was near her, he wanted more and more of her! He wanted everything.

Her kisses took him out of himself, until there was only her. Only the two of them, floating high above the dark world, lost in a passion that promised everything. But the problem with soaring above the earth, touching the glory of the sun, was that he always fell, Icarus-like, to the rocks below. He had no heart left to offer her.

Edward took another long drag of the cigarillo, drawing the sour smoke deep inside, feeling it burn its way down his throat as he looked down to the marble ledge beside him. Clio’s spectacles lay there, the vivid sunset glowing on the lenses, reflecting the light back to him. ‘Remember why you’re here,’ he muttered. To finish his task. To make sure no one else got hurt. Not to kiss Clio Chase.

He ground the last of the cigarillo out beneath his boot. Maybe one day she might understand. Clio saw things even he could not fathom; so much was hidden in her eyes. Even if she never understood, never saw, he would take care of her. He thought about his first invitation here in Santa Lucia, to Lady Riverton’s ‘theatrical evening’. It was just the first step in his plan.

Edward turned and strode into the palazzo, wrapping the spectacles up in his silk handkerchief. He shoved the makeshift package at one of the footmen, and said, ‘Deliver this to Miss Chase immediately.’

After dinner, when her father, Thalia and Cory were settled to reading in the drawing room, Clio crept down the back staircase to the kitchens. Lady Riverton thought she knew everything that happened in Santa Lucia, but Clio was sure her ladyship saw only the merest surface. Only the polite English side of things. Clio knew that if she wanted the whole truth, she needed to go to Rosa, their cook.

Rosa had a vast family, sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, who worked in every corner of Santa Lucia, the hills and the valleys, both in legitimate venues and those that were less so. Especially her strange younger son, Giacomo, who appeared to have no profession at all, one of the seemingly indolent men in the piazza. If anyone had heard anything of the English duke, it would be Rosa.

The cook was sitting by the kitchen fire, shelling fresh peas and chatting with her husband, Paolo, who ran the stables. A lamb lay on the table, ready to be dressed for tomorrow’s dinner, which meant her butcher son must have been by. Or perhaps the shepherd son.

Clio sat down with them, enjoying the cosy crackle of the flames against the cool evening. Rosa and Paolo just smiled at her, used to her strange ways by now. Paolo held up a bottle of clear liquid.

‘Grappa, signorina?’ he asked.

‘Yes, grazie,’ Clio answered, watching as he poured out a generous glassful and passed it to her. One of their other sons distilled it himself, and it was rough and strong as she sipped at it. She laughed, wiping at her stinging eyes. ‘It’s, er, very good.’

Rosa laughed. ‘Oh, Signorina Clio! You are an odd one.’

‘Yes, I know. I’ve often been told that.’ If they only knew just how odd. But no one knew, really. No one but Averton. And he was an odd one himself. ‘Rosa, what do you know about the farmhouse site being cursed?’

Rosa made a quick gesture to deflect evil before going on with her pea-shelling, not looking at Clio. ‘Cursed?’

‘Yes. I heard something about it today, and I was surprised you hadn’t warned me.’

‘Pah! You are Inglese, it can’t hurt you.’

Clio took another drink of the grappa. It was really quite nice once she got used to it. So, she took yet another. ‘A strange curse, to respect national boundaries like that.’

‘What Rosa means,’ Paolo said, ‘is that you have to believe in a curse for it to work.’

‘How do you know I don’t?’

Rosa gave a sharp laugh. ‘You’re still here, aren’t you, signorina?’

‘Are you saying there are some who are not still here? Victims of this curse?’

Paolo shrugged. ‘That house was destroyed in a time of great violence. Bloodshed, battles, much fear. The last family who lived there, a Greek family, fled as the Romans drew near. But they were acolytes of Demeter, they called on their goddess to avenge them for the loss of their home as they left. Since that long-ago day, anyone who tries to live there, grow crops there, they fail. They die horrible deaths.’

‘They see the ghosts,’ Rosa added. ‘It drives them mad.’

‘Hmm,’ Clio said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe the ghosts leave me alone because I don’t try to live there. Because my work is meant to help those people who fled, to tell their story.’

‘Perhaps,’ Rosa said. ‘But if anyone comes there with evil intentions…’

Like Averton? Were his intentions ‘evil’? ‘What have you heard about the Englishman who has taken the Picini palazzo?’

Rosa and Paolo exchanged a long glance. ‘Not a great deal yet,’ Rosa said. ‘Our youngest son got a place as footman there. He says this man is very great in your country. A prince of some sort.’

Clio laughed to envision Averton with a crown perched crookedly on his golden head. That grappa was certainly doing its work! She felt all warm and content. Even curses and dukes couldn’t affect her, not now. ‘Not a prince exactly. But very important, yes. I’m surprised to see him here.’

‘You knew him before, signorina?’

‘Yes, in England.’

‘Ah. Our son says this prince seems to have come here for the antiquities, as so many do. He has many objects he moved into the palazzo. He keeps them in his very bedchamber!’

‘Really?’ Clio leaned forward, her interest sharpening. ‘What sort of objects?’

‘Vases, statues.’

‘A statue of Artemis, perhaps? About as tall as me? Alabaster?’

‘I don’t know,’ Rosa said. ‘I will ask Lorenzo. Is this statue important?’

‘It could be.’ Clio sat back, sipping the last of her grappa. ‘If you hear anything else interesting from Lorenzo, will you tell me? I’d like to know what he’s doing here.’

‘Of course, signorina. Is he a bad man, this prince of yours?’

Clio considered this, thought about their kiss, his touch. The madness that came over her every time she saw him. ‘I don’t know yet.’

She thanked Rosa and Paolo for the drink and the information, and left them to their own gossip. At the top of the stairs, she could hear the low murmur of voices from the drawing room, the sound of Thalia playing old English madrigals at the pianoforte. She should rejoin them, but her head was spinning with the grappa, curses, ghosts and thoroughly baffling princes. Instead, she turned toward the second flight of stairs leading to the bedchambers.

Her own room was silent and dark. No one had come yet to light the candles or turn back the bed. Clio walked unsteadily to the window, opening it to lean out and take a deep breath. The vast sky was indigo blue, with only one tiny star and a crescent of moon to light the inky expanse. It was still early; soon, the pearly stars would blink on one by one. Distant Etna was just a blur without her spectacles.

It would be a good night for the Lily Thief, Clio thought idly. Dark enough to avoid detection. But Santa Lucia was quiet, with nothing to distract people from their purloined ancient treasures. Maybe later, when everyone was cosy in bed…

She perched on the wide windowsill, tucking the Turkey-red muslin skirts of her evening gown around her. Those thieving days were behind her now, which was a pity considering the Alabaster Goddess might be so near. Clio peered out over the roofs, past the bulk of the cathedral, to the edge of the Duke’s palazzo. It, too, was a bit blurry, but some of the windows were lit up, glowing bright squares. Someone was home.

What was he doing in there right now? she wondered. Did he gloat over his treasures? Plan how best to drive her even more insane? Did he consider whatever it was that had brought him to Santa Lucia in the first place?

Rosa said it was the hunt for antiquities, like almost everyone else here. But Clio had learned the hard way that Averton never did things as ‘everyone else’ did, and never for the expected reasons. He was a world unto himself, completely indecipherable.

Clio doubted his appearance here in sleepy Santa Lucia, so far from his ducal empire, could be a mere coincidence. So, what was it?

‘I will just have to find out,’ she murmured. She had gained many skills in her Lily Thief days. Maybe it was time to put them to use again. And, with Marco in town, she had a potential accomplice.

If he wasn’t up to mischief himself. Marco was always up to mischief. The question was, what sort was it? What was happening behind the sleepy façades of Santa Lucia?

A knock sounded at her chamber door, and Clio stood up, shaking out her skirts. ‘Yes?’