by Juliana Gray
He’d think of something, of course. Nothing would keep him from her now: not her bloody bastard of a husband, not her dear misguided sense of honor, and certainly not his own rash vow of monastic seclusion.
But as for what that something might be? At the moment, he was dashed if he knew.
* * *
Well, I’m dashed,” came Roland’s voice, piercing through the mists of Lilibet’s horrified astonishment. “What an extraordinary development.”
Lilibet stared at Wallingford in a daze. “Are you quite certain of the facts of the case, Your Grace?”
Wallingford shook his head and looked between the papers. “I can’t see another explanation. That damned villain Rosseti—I beg your pardon, Lady Somerton—has leased the castle to both of us.”
The castle.
Lilibet turned to the east, where the grim stone turrets rose in a haphazard heap some quarter mile away along the gray brown hillside, fronted by a row of ragged wind-beaten cypress. The Castel sant’Agata, their promised refuge, looked altogether forbidding and impregnable among the mist and rocks and sparse winter grass. Already, Alexandra and Abigail had begun to canter down the track toward it.
“I’m bloody well going after them,” said Phineas Burke, striding off down the road.
“It’s not possible.” Her voice sounded faint, even in her own ears. She cleared her throat and pushed the words out. “Let me see the papers.”
“I assure you, Lady Somerton . . .”
“Let me see them!”
Wallingford gave a little start. “If you insist,” he said, in his most arctic ducal voice. He thrust the papers into her outstretched hand and peered down the road. “I’m going to set out after them, before Burke makes a cock-up of the entire business.”
He headed off down the track toward the castle, and Lilibet dropped her eyes to the papers in her hand. One belonged to Alexandra: She knew the words by heart, had repeated them to herself over and over, to assure herself that this was really happening, that they were really going to live in an Italian castle for a year, safe from her husband and from the sharp-witted curiosity of London society. LEASE AND AGREEMENT, it read at the top, in block letters, followed by, Whereas the two parties, Lady Alexandra the Dowager Marchioness of Morley, and Signore Alberto Rosseti of Italy, have entered into an Agreement to lease the designated Property for the period of One (1) year, commencing the 15th of March instant, in the year 1890 . . .
It all seemed quite clear. Alexandra’s signature swept across the bottom in an elegant flourish, and Rosseti’s appeared next to it. The Castel sant’Agata appeared three times, specific and emphatic, located here in the district of Arezzo in the province of Tuscany. There could admit no doubt, no doubt at all, that she and her companions were the legal lessees of the castle before her, bordered with overgrown cypress, with the heavy iron gray sky weighing upon its many turrets.
She turned to the other paper.
LEASE AND AGREEMENT, it read. Whereas the two parties, Mr. Phineas Fitzwilliam Burke of London, England, and Signore Alberto Rosseti of Italy, have entered into an Agreement to lease the designated Property for the period of One (1) year, commencing the 15th of March instant, in the year 1890 . . .
Lilibet let her hands drop to the horse’s neck. Philip’s hair tickled her chin. “What do the papers say, Mama?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s all very . . . very strange.”
She knew Roland stood behind her somewhere, though he said not a word. She felt him there, the bristling energy of his presence, like a charge of electricity hanging in the air.
“I suppose you had nothing to do with this,” she said at last.
“I don’t know what you mean.” She heard his booted footsteps in the dirt, and he appeared at her elbow, golden and glowing even in the dank gray March air, too damnably handsome for a mortal man, God forever rot him. “Are you implying that I planned this, somehow? Good God, Lilibet . . .”
“I did not give you leave to address me so.”
“Lady Somerton. I’d no idea you were in the country at all.”
“Oh! I suppose it’s all just a very great coincidence. First that damnable inn, of all the places in the world, and meeting us in the road, and now this!” She thrust her hand, still clutching the papers, in the direction of the castle. “To say nothing of the extraordinary coincidence of your devoting a year to academic study in the exact same manner as we are! Oh yes! A baffling mystery indeed!”
He laughed. “My dear girl, I’m rather flattered. I daresay you’re the only woman in Europe who’d give me credit for enough wits to pull off such a caper.”
“Oh, you’ve wits enough,” she said bitterly.
“Oh, I haven’t, I assure you. Empty as a . . .” He glanced at Philip. “That is to say, empty as a . . . a milk pail, you see, er . . . well, before the milking, I suppose.”
“That’s a stupid thing to say,” observed Philip.
“See? There you have it,” Roland said triumphantly. “From the mouths of babes, and all that.”
She risked a sidelong glance, and regretted it immediately. Those damned broad shoulders seemed to beckon her, solid and irreproachable under the impeccable tailoring of a dark wool coat. His hat cocked slightly to one side, exposing his golden brown hair where it curled charmingly about his neck in the damp air, and a smile pushed up the corner of his full mouth. “Don’t pretend you’re thick,” she snapped. “We both know otherwise.”
He shook his head. “Blinded by admiration, I see. No, I’m just as you surmised earlier. Scoundrel-about-town. I’ve had it printed on my calling cards: Lord Roland Penhallow, Rascal and Rake, Frivolous Enquiries Only. So no one mistakes me, you see.”
“You’re not trying to charm me.”
He grinned broadly, and it was as if the sun had burst through the leaden sky above. “Of course I’m trying to charm you, my dear. It’s what I do.”
The ache in her breast bit deep. She rested her chin on Philip’s head, anchoring herself to her son. Her voice, emerging at last, had only a fraction of the power she expected it to. “Please don’t,” she said. “There’s no point.”
“Oh, I disagree,” he said. “After all, if we’re to be sharing a castle with one another . . .”
“God forbid it!”
“On the contrary, my dear. God seems expressly to have designed it.” His eyes danced at her.
“Or the Devil.”
“Oh, Mama!” said Philip. He twisted around to look up at her with wide dark eyes, his father’s eyes, black and fathomless as a midnight ocean. “You told me never to say . . .”
“I know, I know.” She gathered the shreds of her composure around her. A solution would certainly be found, after all. It had to be found. However deep Roland’s scheme, whatever his eventual plans, she couldn’t let things go any further. What had happened in the stables must never be given the chance to occur again. “Mama’s quite wrong. It’s been a long and tiring day, dearest, and now there’s all this confusion about the castle.”
“If the duke stays, too,” said Philip, “will he let me ride his horse again?”
Roland burst out laughing. “I daresay he will, old boy,” he said. “And if he doesn’t, you can certainly ride mine.”
“The gentlemen are not . . .” Lilibet began firmly.
“That’s all right, sir. I’d rather ride the duke’s. After all, I daresay it’s the nicest, isn’t it?”
“I’m certain it is,” said Lilibet. She pulled her eyes away from Lord Roland Penhallow and looked back at the castle. “But it doesn’t matter, does it? Because the gentlemen won’t be staying with us. Not tonight, and certainly not for the year. It’s quite impossible.”
She spoke with conviction, to drive away the despair. If she said it firmly enough, often enough,
surely she could make it come true.
* * *
Roland watched her horse trot toward the castle, hooves clattering on the wet rocks, and made no move to follow. No need for haste, after all. He wasn’t a particularly religious man, but he knew a gift from God when he saw it. This time, he wouldn’t bungle it. This time, he’d lay his plans with care.
He glanced upward at the grim layer of clouds, the cold incessant drizzle from the heavens. But winter was nearly over, and all things began anew in the spring.
SIX
Castel sant’Agata
April 1890
At first, Lilibet ignored the signs.
So much work to occupy her, so many duties. She studied Greek philosophers with great diligence, she assisted the housekeeper and the maids in the kitchen, and she taught Philip his lessons and took him on picnics.
She took scrupulous care to avoid the gentlemen, of course. This should have been a simple matter, according to plan. After the first night, they had agreed, in a remarkably civilized compact around the heavy trestle table in the dining room, to divide the castle on a north-south axis until Rosseti could be found and the matter resolved, with the east side belonging to the ladies and the west side to the gentlemen. The two parties ought, therefore, to have met only at mealtimes (there was only one dining room, after all) and by random collision outdoors.
The reality was not quite so effortless. While Mr. Burke spent most of his time in his workshop down the hill, and Wallingford usually sulked in the library when he wasn’t out riding his horse, Roland lurked about everywhere. She devoted so much thought to avoiding him, she had no trouble banishing unpleasant speculation and calculation in favor of more immediate concerns. Like ducking behind trees while his lordship whistled by on a walk, or slipping into the kitchen until he’d passed through the hallway.
But when she opened her eyes this morning, she knew.
“Mama.” Philip pushed her shoulder, as he did every morning at half past six. “May I get up now?”
“Yes, my dear,” she said, as she did every morning. “Go downstairs and ask Francesca for a cup of milk.”
He pressed a wet kiss against her cheek and disappeared. The door creaked and scraped against the ancient flagstones, as it did every morning. She stared for a moment at the dark wooden beams of the ceiling, at the aging yellow plaster between them. How old were they? Centuries, at least. No doubt many women had opened their eyes and took in the same minute details, over the years.
She turned on her side to the window. She’d left it cracked open last night, and now, with the pale early wash of sunlight, the morning air crept into the room: the green scent of new grass, the trace of hay and manure from the stables, the sweetness of the apple blossoms from the nearby orchard. Somebody laughed, not far away, a light, rich sound; Abigail, probably, on her way to milk the goats.
It was all so grossly unfair. Lady Pembroke took a different lover every quarter, as a matter of common knowledge, without producing so much as a new kitten. Lilibet’s own husband, Lord Somerton, had likely gone to bed with every whore in London, and not one of those unfortunate women had ever darkened her imposing Belgrave Square doorstep with a bastard in arms.
Lilibet had only sinned the one time. A single stolen reckless moment, an instant of madness, never repeated.
She stood up abruptly from the bed and went to the dresser. A dark-framed mirror lay fastened to the wall above it, the surface somewhat warped and the silvering spotted with age. Her image stared back at her, distorted and ghostly in the pale morning light, blue eyes spread wide.
Why was she so surprised? After all, Philip had been born exactly nine months after her wedding night, to the vast pride of Somerton and the relief of her parents. When she’d stood there in the stable a month ago, buttoning her coat, heart hammering with panic in her ears, she’d felt the warm trickle of Roland’s seed down her leg like a tiny serpent: tangible proof of sexual consummation.
She reached for the pitcher of water and poured it into the chipped blue and white washing bowl. With trembling hands, she splashed her face, her neck. The cool water slid in drops down the high collar of her nightdress, down the valley between her breasts, to peter out somewhere on the warm skin of her belly.
Had she imagined she could hide her guilt forever? Had she really believed that if she didn’t repeat the offense—didn’t lie blissfully, sinfully with Lord Roland Penhallow again, in thought or in deed—it might somehow never have occurred at all?
A soft knock sounded on the door.
Lilibet whipped around. “Who,” she began, but her voice was a mere early-morning squeak. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Who is it?”
“Only me,” came Abigail’s voice, and then Abigail herself, dressed in yellow homespun and smelling of goats.
“Done with the milking already?” Lilibet asked.
“My goats were feeling benevolent this morning. Such a glorious day! Why aren’t you dressed?”
“Laziness, I suppose.” Or a possible bloody double-damned pregnancy, throwing all my plans in an uproar, threatening every hope of holding on to Philip. “Pick something for me, will you?”
Abigail heaved a great sigh and went to the wardrobe. “There isn’t all that much to pick from. Why didn’t you pack more?”
“I was in a hurry. And it hardly seemed to matter what I wore.”
“Hmm.” Abigail threw open the wardrobe door and stood before the meager selection with an air of deep concentration. “What sort of color do you feel like today?”
Lilibet laughed. “I don’t feel like any particular color at all. Do you?”
“Oh, always. I felt distinctly yellow this morning, even before I saw that great lovely sun rising in the sky. Yesterday rather green, though I don’t own a green dress and had to make do with that rubbishy puce frock I detest.”
“If you detest it, why did you wear it?”
“Because.” Abigail said it as if the answer were so obvious a child wouldn’t have bothered to ask. “Puce.” Her mouth pinched with distaste.
“You absurd girl. Blue, then. If I have to choose.”
“Blue? You’re blue today?” Abigail reached into the wardrobe and pulled out a navy dress with long sleeves and something dangerously close to a bustle behind. She wrinkled her nose. “How old is this dress?”
“Only a year or two. Or perhaps three.” Lilibet frowned.
“Well, you can’t wear a bustle anymore. Not even the village girls attempt it, and they’re lucky to see a single pattern book in a year. Will this one do? It’s really more of a violet, but at least the cut won’t disgrace you.” She turned, just as Lilibet’s nightgown slithered to the floor. “Oh! You’re so lovely in this light. I should adore to paint you. Well, if I painted, that is.”
Lilibet reached for her chemise and laughed nervously. “Not so lovely,” she said. “I’ve had a child, after all.”
“Yes, but you’re still perfect, you wretch. All that smooth skin and marvelous proportion. No wonder poor Penhallow worships you.”
“Rubbish,” Lilibet said sharply. She snatched her stays from the drawer.
“Oh, don’t be silly. It’s quite amusingly obvious, the way he looks at you. And then you give him your haughty look and freeze him out, the dear. Shall I lace you?”
“Please. But not too tightly,” Lilibet added swiftly. She felt Abigail’s hands at her waist, gathering the strings, and then the swift, efficient tugs stiffening her middle. Was it her imagination, or did a new and ominously familiar fullness rise up over the lace-edged top of the garment?
Were her nipples not the faintest touch darker than before?
Damn, damn. Triple bloody damn.
“There we are! Not too tight, I think. You should still be useful for a tramp down to the lake at lunchtime.” Abigail stood
back. “Why blue?”
Lilibet turned and reached for the dress, avoiding her cousin’s sharp brown gaze. “Blue?” she asked.
“You said you felt blue this morning.”
“Oh! Only that I felt like wearing blue, you goose. Not that I was blue. Feeling blue, I mean. Not at all. Quite the opposite.” The frock settled around her shoulders; she turned her back to Abigail. “Would you mind helping me with the buttons?”
“Oh. Well. I suppose I misunderstood.” Abigail’s voice wore a careful neutrality. Her fingers, swift and experienced, went to work on the buttons. Abigail had never really had much use for lady’s maids; they were never up early enough for her, for one thing.
“Thank you,” said Lilibet. “Shall we go downstairs for breakfast?”
“Yes, of course. Don’t forget your Aristophanes; Alexandra’s meeting us in the study for our morning discussion.”
Lilibet reached for the books on the dresser and followed Abigail out of the room.
“It’s rather odd, though,” Abigail went on, as they descended the broad stone staircase at the center of the castle. “Blue, I mean. I was thinking, when I came in, that you looked rather blue. And then you said blue, just as if you’d read my mind.”
“Very odd. I can’t imagine why.”
“No reason at all, then? About blue?”
“No.” Lilibet put out one hand to steady herself against the wall as she took the hard, steep steps, one by one. “No reason at all.”
* * *
The dining room of the Castel sant’Agata—cavernous and stone lined, its trestle table yawning between occupants like the Mongolian plains, its two narrow windows braced like sentinels against a chilling northern prospect—tended to destroy Lilibet’s appetite at a glance.
Her pregnancy did not improve matters.
“I say, have you tried the kidneys this morning?” Abigail asked cheerfully. She tucked into her heaping plate with reckless glee. “Swimming in butter, just as I told Morini. Olive oil’s all very well, I think, but a good English kidney requires . . . Are you quite all right, Lilibet?”