Seduction of an English Beauty

“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.”

Chapter Three

So she was brave, Anthony decided with satisfaction. He’d guessed as much from that first glimpse of her on the balcony in the Piazza di Spagna, and how she’d held his gaze without flinching.

Now he had the proof. When he’d stepped from the shadows like the villain in a bad opera, she hadn’t shrieked, or run away, or worst of all, fainted in a white-linen heap at his feet. Instead Lady Diana Farren had stood her ground, and spoken up for herself in a way that was both unladylike and un-English. Bravery like that was a rare quality in a woman, and one that would be altogether necessary for the little game they were about to play together.

No, the game they’d already begun. She just didn’t know it yet.

“How ridiculously arrogant you are!” she exclaimed, her blue eyes round with her outrage. “To think that I would ever remember you longer than—than this!”

She raised her hand and snapped her fingers, and though the effect was muted by her gloves, the look of indignant triumph on her lovely face more than made up for it.

“Longer, indeed,” he said easily. “As long as it took you to remember seeing me from your balcony. And you were mistaken about my companions in the carriage. They were my friends, not my mistresses.”

“They’re of no importance to me either way. I remembered because you reminded me,” she said, so promptly that he nearly laughed. Brave and quick, and unperturbed by possible rivals: a most unusual combination. His life was so filled with beautiful women that a new one needed to be extraordinary to catch his interest. And wager or no, this one was extraordinary.

“The only reminder I gave you, cara, was to stand before you,” he reasoned. “If that was enough, why, then I must already have been in your thoughts, and in your—”

“I don’t even know you,” she said imperiously, every inch the peer’s daughter with her aristocratic nose in the air. “Who are you? What is your name? Answer me, sir, answer me at once.”

He smiled, and took his time with his reply, knowing that nothing would vex her more. “Orders, orders, like a petticoat general,” he scolded mildly. “It’s hardly becoming to you, mia signora di bella luna.”

She glared at him, her uncertainty so transparent that he spared her and translated.

“‘My beautiful lady of the moon.’ Diana was the Roman goddess of that luminous orb over our heads, you see.”

“I know that,” she protested sharply. “I’m hardly so ignorant that I wouldn’t recognize my own namesake.”

“Ignorant, no,” he said. “Ill-mannered, perhaps.”

“You are the one who’s ill-mannered, sir. What kind of gentleman withholds his name from a lady?”

He brushed an invisible speck from his sleeve. “Who said I was a gentleman?”

“You did,” she insisted, seemingly unaware of how she was inching closer to him, her hands clenched into tight fists at her sides. “That is, you pretend to be, by addressing me with such—such familiarity, as if we were equals.”

He made a mock bow, waving his hand through the air. “I’m honored, my lady, to have my nobility confirmed simply because I dared to speak to you.”

“That’s not what I meant at all.” She was almost quivering with indignation now, such furious spark and fire that he half expected her to burst into flame when he finally touched her. “I meant that by your speech and manner—”