Seduction of an English Beauty

Diana didn’t answer, holding the flowers close to her face to hide her confusion. Who else, indeed? But how could a man who’d spoken so disparagingly of the “dangling moon” be inventive—and romantic—enough to combine these flowers in this way?

What if the stranger had sent them to her? She wouldn’t even have recognized his name. But as she breathed deeply of the bouquet’s scent, fresh and wild and still redolent of the fields outside the city, she knew—she knew—that the flowers had come from him.

“There now, my lady, didn’t I tell you?” Deborah asked, thrusting one final pin into the crown of her straw hat. “And you thought his lordship hadn’t noticed you!”

“Of course he noticed, Deborah,” Miss Wood said. “Now that you’re done here, would you fetch a pitcher or vase to put the flowers in?”

The maid dipped her curtsey, and, as she left, Miss Wood settled herself in the chair across from Diana. She was already dressed for going out, in the same practical gray linsey-woolsey gown and jacket and flat-brimmed hat that she would have worn whether striding about the grounds of Aston Hall or the Forum here in Rome. If anyone exemplified Sensible, it was Miss Wood.

She folded her gloved hands in her lap and beamed at Diana. “It would seem you’ve made a genuine conquest, my lady. Ah, the look in Lord Edward’s eyes when you returned to the carriage last night! He is besotted, Lady Diana, completely besotted.”

“Yes, Miss Wood.” Diana tried to smile in return. She and Edward had barely spoken on the walk back to the carriage, each of them lost in their own thoughts. She’d no experience beyond this with a gentleman who might wish to ask for her hand, but if in fact Edward were besotted with her, then he’d a mighty peculiar way of showing it. “He is a fine gentleman.”

“He is more than merely fine, Lady Diana,” Miss Wood said. “Last night while you and Lord Edward were inside the Coliseum, Reverend Lord Patterson told me a great deal about his nephew. Lord Edward is a younger son, which is unfortunate, his brother having already inherited the family’s title. But he does have a small income through his mother, the Dowager Marchioness of Calvert, and Reverend Patterson says Lord Edward is very devoted to her—a model son. It was her notion that Lord Edward come with his uncle here to Rome to continue his education. He’d never dreamed he would meet a lady such as yourself.”

“No, I don’t believe he did.” Diana looked down at the flowers, tracing the petals of one daisy with her finger and remembering how vastly more interesting the stranger’s conversation had been than Lord Edward’s. One had spoken with too much relish of the violence that had once filled the Coliseum, while the other had expressed a rare empathy for the same wild beasts who’d lost their lives entertaining the Caesars. “In fact I rather doubt Lord Edward has the imagination to dream at all.”

“Oh, that cannot be true, my lady!” Miss Brown exclaimed. “Whatever gave you such an idea?”

“He did himself,” Diana said promptly. “He perceives everything in Rome to be inferior to what he judges it should be. He seems incapable of accepting that there might be another way of doing or seeing things besides his own.”

“And you in turn should not be so quick to judge him, my lady,” scolded Miss Wood gently. “Come, come, Lady Diana! He is an educated gentleman, and his opinions are informed by deeper studies than you, my lady, shall ever be inclined to make.”

Diana sighed, and glanced up at her over the flowers in her lap. “You rather sound as if you’re taking Lord Edward’s side over mine.”

“Not at all, my lady, not at all.” The governess leaned forward and smiled, resting her hand fondly on Diana’s arm. “It’s only that I wish you to be as happy in love as your sister Lady Mary is. Of all the men who have attended you, Lord Edward strikes me as the first one who has shown you the respect and admiration that you deserve, the kind that can grow into lasting love.”

“Love,” repeated Diana with more sadness than she’d intended. “I cannot even tell if Lord Edward so much as likes me!”

“I believe he does, my lady,” Miss Wood said gently. “To be sure, I cannot see all the secrets of Lord Edward’s heart, and I would never suggest that you entertain the overtures of any gentleman you found odious. But I believe that the quiet regard his lordship can offer would be worth far more to you than the idle, empty flirtations that have been your indulgence in the past.”

Once again Diana looked down at the flowers cradled in the crook of her arm. Miss Wood was right: she had had more than her share of “idle, empty flirtations” that had led to nothing. It was past time she changed her life. What kind of lasting love could she ever hope to find with a man who wouldn’t so much as tell her his name?

Deliberately she set the flowers down on her dressing table. “Deborah can see to those,” she said, rising. “The gentlemen must be with the carriage below, Miss Wood. We shouldn’t keep them waiting.”

She followed Miss Wood down the stairs and into the bright afternoon sunlight. Edward had suggested that because of the late-summer heat, they restrict their sightseeing to the end of the day, though Diana secretly suspected this was also because Edward and his uncle had fallen into the Italian habit of rising late, then drowsily napping through the midday.

Waiting at the door was their hired carriage—not decked with ribbons and bows like the one Diana had seen that night from the balcony, but still the same high-wheeled open carriage that was the standard here in this city, with the broad seats cushioned with loose pillows and a canvas awning rigged for shade. The driver sat nodding beneath the awning, his cocked straw hat pulled low to hide his doubtless closed eyes, while the young groom stood beside the horses, shouting oaths at the cluster of laughing beggar-children if they came too near.

Reverend Lord Patterson greeted them in the hall, dressed in a plain, unlined linen suit that made Diana wish that ladies were permitted the same kind of cooler undress. Already her gloves felt glued to her hands, and beneath her shift and stays she could feel the rivulets of perspiration trickling down the hollow of her back and between her breasts.

“Good day, ladies,” he said, touching his hat to them. “My nephew should be down directly.”

“Oh, we’ll forgive his lordship,” Miss Wood said cheerfully, squinting as they stepped out into the sunny plaza. “Gentlemen can’t be rushed.”

But Reverend Lord Patterson was too busy glowering at the beggars to worry about Edward. “Away with you, you vile creatures! Andare via, andare via! Shiftless, dirty creatures! Why, they’re like a flock of magpies waiting to steal anything their grasping claws can reach! Don’t encourage them, my lady, else they’ll never leave us alone.”

“They’re children, reverend my lord,” Diana protested as she and Miss Wood each tossed a handful of coins into the little crowd. “They can’t help it if their parents don’t feed them. That’s all we have, children. Quello e tutto, bambini! No more!”

She held up her open palms as proof, and the children shuffled away.

“Magpies, my lady. Small thieving papists.” The minister sniffed with a disgust that seemed to her misplaced for a Christian gentleman, but unfortunately close to his nephew’s opinions. “Before they summon their fellows, I suggest we situate ourselves in the carriage.”

“We do take situating, reverend my lord, don’t we?” Miss Wood said as she climbed up first over the high wheel and into the carriage. For all her practical nature, Miss Wood loved the fuss of embarkations, the same fussing that drove Diana to distraction. She sighed, and followed her governess. With Miss Wood, it always seemed to take double the time necessary to settle their petticoats around their legs, open their parasols, and arrange the basket with the refreshments, and even then her governess was never quite done.

Now she began patting her pockets, a look of chagrined surprise on her face. “Forgive me, my lady, but I appear to have forgotten my little traveling journal.”

“Then you can write in it when we return, Miss Wood,” Diana said. “It’s likely sitting on the desk where you left it.”

“But my observations will have lost their freshness, my lady,” Miss Wood said, rising swiftly enough to set the carriage to rocking. “I’ll run upstairs for it, and be back before you know I’ve gone.”

“I shall join you, Miss Wood,” Reverend Lord Patterson declared, clambering after her. “I must see what’s detaining my nephew. You will excuse me, Lady Diana?”

“I wouldn’t dream of keeping either of you.” Diana sighed again, stuffing a pillow behind her. They hadn’t even ventured near a single ruin, yet the day seemed to stretch endlessly before her, and already she had a headache. With a grumble of discontent, she leaned back against the pillow and closed her eyes, willing the headache to go away.

“Ah, carissima,” the man said softly behind her. “And here I thought my flowers would bring you pleasure!”

Chapter Four

“You!” Diana twisted around in the seat. The man was standing behind the carriage, his face level with hers. He looked different in the daylight—less mysterious, less the wild beast with his jaw cleanly shaven and his black hair combed more neatly, dressed in light blue-gray instead of black—yet still she’d know him anywhere. “What are you doing here?”

“Here?” He spread his arms wide, encompassing the entire crowded piazza. “‘Here’ is my home, my lady. I was born in Rome, and I’ve never lived anywhere else, nor wished to.”

“No, I meant here,” she said, jabbing her finger at the paving stones at his feet. “You must stop following me!”

He smiled, that lazy smile that revealed its charm slowly, a smile she’d come to recognize all too well.

“No, I mean what I say,” she said indignantly. The last thing she wished was to have Edward come out and see this man lurking behind her as if there were some sort of—of acquaintance between them. “You must leave at once, or I’ll have the driver send you away!”

His smile widened, and he made a nonchalant little sweep of his hand, a dare if ever there was one.

She jerked around in her seat and leaned towards the driver. “Driver, this man is bothering me.”

The man didn’t move, wheezing—or snoring—gently beneath his lowered hat.

With the ivory handle of her parasol, Diana tapped him on the shoulder. “Driver, please make this man leave me alone. Driveri, drivero—oh, how must I say it in Italian to make him understand?”

“Questo uomo mi da fastidio. Farlo andare via,” the man behind the carriage helpfully supplied. “That should do it.”

Diana whipped around to face him once again, the parasol clutched tightly in her hands. “What did you just tell him?”

“‘This man is bothering me. Make him go away.’ That’s what you wished me to say, isn’t it?” He leaned his arm on the back of the carriage seat, as comfortable as if it were a chair in his own parlor. “But I doubt the fellow is going to pay you any heed.”

“And why not?” Diana asked imperiously, though she’d wondered, too, why the driver was ignoring her. She was a duke’s daughter; she was accustomed to being obeyed. “He must do as I say. He’s in my employ.”

“Yes, my lady, but you see the last coin he took was mine, so I expect he’ll do as I ask instead,” the man said. “Which is to turn both a blind eye and a deaf ear to whatever protests you make about me.”

Diana frowned, restlessly tapping the handle of her parasol against her knee. She’d been in Italy long enough to understand the truth in what he said: there was almost no loyalty to be found in this country except to whomever waved the brightest coin last.

But that didn’t mean she was going to let him stand there like a grinning, handsome signboard. “This piazza is full of people, including English people. If you don’t leave directly, I shall shout and scream and make a general racket until others come to see that you do.”

“Will you now?” He lowered his voice a fraction, forcing her to lean closer to him so she could make out his words. “But then, dear, dear Lord Edward will understand if you turn into a shrieking banshee in the middle of the Piazza di Spagna. Even the daintiest of English ladies is permitted to draw a crowd on occasion.”

But Edward wouldn’t understand. He believed her to be refined and demure, a model English lady. Edward would be mortified if she created a scene, and blast this man for knowing it as well as she did herself.

She glanced over her shoulder, back to the doorway of their lodgings. “You must go now,” she said, her voice taut with urgency. “I don’t want you here, and I don’t want to see you.”

“But you do, cara,” he said softly, and it was the warmth in his gray-blue eyes that could convince her even if his words didn’t. “When you took my flowers into your arms and held them close, you thought of me, and how much you’d like to see me again. And I obliged.”

Her cheeks flushed with confusion. “You—you don’t know what I did. You can’t know.”

“But I do, my lady,” he said, and the way he smiled proved it. “You cannot deny it, can you? I chose every flower, every ribbon, knowing how they’d make you long to see me.”

Her back straight, she turned away from him, away from his eyes and his smile and his certainty. “You know nothing of me.”

“I know you wanted to see me, and now that you have, you’ll want to see me again, and again after that,” he said, his whispered voice so low and seductive behind her that it would almost have been better to have remained facing him. “I know that you don’t belong in this stuffy little carriage, with its stuffy little passengers, bella mia.”

“You don’t know anything about—”

“Hush, hush and listen,” he interrupted. “I know you belong with me, riding along the Palatine Hill and among the ruined palaces of the Augustans at sunset. With the kestrel’s cry overhead, we would laugh as the stars first showed themselves over the river and the dome of St. Peter’s. And I would kiss you, my wild lady, because that is what you want most of all from me. I would kiss you, and you me, there beneath the stars.”

She squeezed her eyes shut as if that were enough to close her ears as well. God forgive her, but she could imagine it all. Yet how had he known she’d prefer to see Rome on horseback instead of in this clumsy carriage? How had he understood that she was at heart a country girl who missed riding?

How had he known she would want him to kiss her again?

“You’re guessing,” she said defensively. “That’s all your prattle is. You can’t possibly know me as well as you pretend.”

“But I do, cara,” he reasoned, “because I know myself, and thus I—”

“Then why won’t you tell me your name?” she demanded. “You continue to insist upon this—this false connection between us, yet you can’t even bring yourself to tell me so much as that.”

“Antonio di Randolfo,” he said softly, surprising her. “My name is Antonio.”

“You mean Anthony,” she repeated with triumph, as if getting him to surrender his name was a great victory. “Like the Mark Anthony who murdered his Caesar? You were named for a traitor?”

He didn’t answer, and her triumph grew. At last she’d said something he couldn’t answer, and she turned around again to confront him, eager to see the confusion that must surely be marking his face.

But to her chagrin, he’d vanished. She looked across the piazza, to the left and the right, yet there was no sign of him. How could so large a man disappear so suddenly, and so completely?

“Anthony?” she called crossly, holding the back of the seat to peer down beneath the carriage. It would be entirely like him to hide underneath so he could suddenly pop up like a jack-in-the-box. “Anthony, where have you gone?”

“Lady Diana, what are you doing?” asked Miss Wood, her disapproval clear. “Hanging upside down like that! Come, sit properly, so Lord Edward and Reverend Lord Patterson might see your face instead of your—your other side.”

At once Diana spun around and dropped into her seat. “Good day, Lord Edward,” she said, concentrating on opening her parasol so she didn’t have to meet his gaze just yet. What if they’d actually seen her speaking to Anthony, with him leering over the seat? “I hope you slept well?”

“It was the wretched beggars again, wasn’t it?” Reverend Lord Patterson glared over the back of the carriage. “I’ve never seen such packs of the audacious rascals as here in Rome. I’m sorry, my lady, for leaving you to their depredation.”

“No better than thieves,” Edward agreed, dropping heavily into the seat across from Diana. “You should have come inside with Miss Wood, my lady, instead of having put yourself at risk alone. These Italian drivers and servants wouldn’t lift a pinkie in your defense. I say, it is warm today, isn’t it?”

“Thank you, my lords, but there was no harm done.” Diana smiled at Edward, whose own smile seemed somewhat sickly. His face was pale, too, with greenish undertones that made Diana suspect overindulgence in the local red wine after he’d left her last night. But she wouldn’t tempt fate. She’d say nothing. If they hadn’t noticed her talking to Anthony, then she wouldn’t notice Edward’s bleariness.

But Edward had other ideas. “You shouldn’t have insisted on sitting out here alone, my lady,” he said. “It’s not proper. You’ve no notion of the liberties these Roman men will take if you let them.”

“I told you, my lord, that I was quite well enough on my own,” Diana said, her displeasure simmering. She wished to make a favorable impression on Edward, true, but they certainly hadn’t reached the point where he was entitled to lecture her. “Do you see any Roman men within twenty feet of me at present? I may have no notion of their liberties, but I doubt they can take them at such a distance.”

He raised his chin like a bulldog, showing the softness beneath his jaw. “You shouldn’t underestimate them, Lady Diana. They are rough and daring, and all too willing to take advantage of an innocent lady.”

“Indeed, my lord.” She should have been comforted by his insistence on her innocence, and that she protect herself. But instead of his concern, she found herself hearing only the overbearing authority in his words, and thinking of how vastly more agreeable she’d found the stranger’s velvety, bemused tone instead. Nothing the stranger had said came close to being as vexing as Edward insisting she was a helpless imbecile.

No, he wasn’t a stranger any longer. His name was Anthony. Antonio di Randolfo. The name of a handsome, charming rascal, for whom pursuing her had become some sort of ridiculous game.

Antonio….

The driver turned the carriage about, the scraping of the metal-bound wheels against the paving stones a match for the discord in Diana’s mood.

“That was a beautiful bouquet you sent to her ladyship, my lord,” Miss Wood began, obviously trying to ease the strain within their little party. “A very unusual collection of blossoms.”

“Flowers, Edward?” His uncle beamed, turning towards him. “I didn’t know you’d sent her ladyship flowers!”

“Yes, my lord. I cannot thank you enough.” Diana smiled at Edward, waiting. He could confess the flowers weren’t his, or he could accept Anthony’s gift as his own. The difficult truth, or a comfortable, self-serving lie.

He smiled in return, and to her disappointment, she understood at once which path he’d take.

“I’m glad you liked the bouquet, my lady,” he said, touching his forehead. “Though the beauty of the flowers falls far short of your own, nor can they begin to express the admiration you inspire.”

She nodded in acknowledgement of his compliment, then looked away to the shops and houses they were passing. How could he so easily claim what wasn’t his? To take credit for flowers he hadn’t the imagination to gather, let alone the thoughtfulness to send to her—it made her both sad and resentful that he’d do such a base thing. Edward had seemed so honorable, so respectable. She’d wanted to trust him, even to love him, but after this she was inclined to do neither.

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