by Juliana Gray
He felt her pause at Wallingford’s voice, and then continue, more boldly, using the sound to guide her.
Snap, snap went the twigs beneath her feet, and Wallingford arrested. His neck craned upward, searching her out.
Lilies.
The scent of lilies touched his nose. Roland sagged, ever so slightly, against his tree. Lilies were Burke’s problem. Not his.
Lady Morley walked past him, her skirts swishing about her legs, brushing the ground. She turned her head one way and another, trying to make out the figure before her.
Roland saw the exact moment when she recognized Wallingford. Her back straightened; a little gasp came from her throat. His mind, trained to absorb all the tiny details of behavior that gave away human thought, perceived her instant of panic, her grasp for composure, her recovery.
A thoroughbred, Lady Morley, for all her faults.
Wallingford addressed her first, in his drawling voice. They were too far away for Roland to distinguish the conversation; all he could make out were the tones of their voices.
His eyes shifted to Burke’s tree, from which no movement came. Good old Burke. He was probably gnawing his own feet to stop himself from jumping in to defend Lady Morley. Of course, by the very act of jumping in, he would only incriminate them both.
A pretty scene indeed.
Roland looked down at the champagne bottle nestled in the grass by his feet, at the pair of glasses nicked from the pantry, and swore to himself.
Couldn’t a fellow get five minutes of privacy around here?
* * *
Three soft knocks sounded on the door.
Lilibet stole a final look at Philip, tucked beneath a striped woolen blanket in his trundle next to her bed. One arm had fought free to rest on the pillow next to his head; his face turned away, toward the rough plaster wall. The blanket moved, slow and regular, with the pulse of his breathing.
She smiled, blew a kiss in his direction, and opened the door.
Signorina Morini stood outside, a look of mischief crinkling the corners of her face. “The peach orchard,” she whispered. “I see him leave, it was almost an hour. He has the champagne.”
“The peach orchard. Thank you, signorina. Thanks ever so much.” Lilibet tucked her shawl about her shoulders and danced into the corridor and down the staircase. Her body hummed with confidence, with purpose, as if in that single act of sealing a plain white envelope she had restored power to her once lifeless limbs.
The peach orchard. Blossoms, moonlight, champagne. What a dear old romantic he was.
* * *
She moved so silently between the trees, Roland almost missed her.
“Darling!” he whispered, as loudly as he dared. “Over here!”
She stopped, turned, hesitated. A stray piece of moonlight, finding its way between the peach blossoms, touched the top of her shawl-covered head.
The breath left his chest. He’d spent the last ten minutes in a panic that he’d missed her, that she’d heard the voices in the trees and fled back to the castle. The heated exchange between Wallingford and Lady Morley hadn’t lasted long, but Wallingford had stood staring after her for a long while afterward, his tall body blending into the shadows until he was hardly distinguishable from one of the trees around him, except perhaps less knobby and sweet smelling. At last, with an angry oath, he’d turned around and marched away, and Burke had emerged from behind his tree, shaking his head in a dazed motion.
Poor old fellow. Devil of a disappointment, having one’s rendezvous interrupted by a bad-tempered duke.
Burke had gone off in another direction, presumably toward his workshop, and Roland had slumped against his tree trunk to recover, inhaling the cool, rich air in an attempt to clear his head.
Devil take them all. Arranging a moonlight assignation with one’s ladylove ought to have been child’s play for a man of his experience with clandestine appointments. Instead he’d been thwarted at every turn, and by his own side, at that.
Now, with Lilibet’s shadowed figure finally before him, he was ready to burst from the lust dammed up inside him. He’d consider himself lucky if he didn’t disgrace himself like a schoolboy.
He closed his eyes for an instant, gathering his composure. Patience. Every movement counted. If he were to win Lilibet, he had to have his every wit at his disposal. He had to put on the greatest performance of his life. He needed to drunken her with passion, drench her with pleasure, blind her with love. Nothing else would overcome her inflexible virtue.
He flexed his fingers.
“Darling,” he whispered again, and strode out from behind the tree, arms outstretched.
She murmured something unintelligible and took a few tottering steps forward to clasp his hands. She’d wrapped her shawl snugly about her head and shoulders, against the growing chill of the evening. “Sweetheart,” he said. “At last.”
He drew his fingers along her darkened cheek and bent to capture her lips in an eager kiss.
Recognition flashed across his brain an instant too late.
Not Lilibet.
* * *
In the light of the waxing moon, Lilibet found the steps cut into the terrace wall without any trouble. She tripped down them, her feet hardly touching the stone. The cool air flew past her cheeks as she hurried along the flat meadow, filled with the scents of evening: the breeze blowing off the mountains, the green things pushing up from the earth, the flowers exploding from the trees and shrubs. Ahead, the whiteness of the peach blossoms glowed like a bank of fog smudged against the darkness.
She quickened her steps, until she reached the first of the peach trees, and the heady scent of blossom enfolded her. She paused and peered ahead, into the shadows. Where would he be? Not far, surely. Waiting for her near the edge of the orchard, with his champagne and his kisses.
She had just started forward, her heart beating in her throat, when the sound of voices froze her foot in the air.
* * *
Roland tore his lips away. “Good God!” he said, forgetting to whisper.
“Signore!”
He reached over her head and pulled down her scarf. The moonlight disappeared into a pool of black hair; her arms clutched his. “Signore!” she said again.
“You’re the . . . what the devil . . .”
“Signore?”
“Francesca?”
“Si, signore.” A little sob broke from her throat. “You ask . . . you . . . letter . . .”
“Letter?”
Her hand disappeared from his arm and made some movement at her skirts. His brain spun around in dizzy circles. The letter. The letter for Sir Edward. He’d given it to Francesca to post in the village.
Hadn’t he?
A piece of paper entered his hand. He looked down. It was heavy, folded over twice. He opened it with numb fingers. In the shadows, he couldn’t make out the words, but he recognized the shape and size of the lines, could even read it to himself from memory.
Eleven o’clock in the peach orchard. My heart is yours.
Francesca’s voice crept into his ears, pleading. “Maria . . . she know the inglese, she say . . .”
“Oh God.” He crushed his fist against his skull.
“Signore . . . you no . . .” Her voice dissolved into another sob, more desperate this time. Her shoulders bent forward beneath her shawl.
“Oh, damn. Poor girl.” He straightened her shawl back over her head and tucked it in. “I’m sorry. It’s the devil of a . . . a mistake, you understand? Mistake.” He bent forward and placed a kiss on her forehead. “You’re a lovely girl, Francesca. But I . . .”
Sobs wracked her shoulders. From her mouth came a series of hiccups and Italian phrases: none of which, he suspected, were particularly complimentary to himself.
He took
out his watch, glanced at it, and turned it up to the moonlight.
“Look here, sweetheart,” he said, patting the edge of her shoulder. “I’m awfully sorry. But . . . do you think perhaps . . . oh, damn. Here.” In a few long strides he reached his tree, and the bottle of champagne propped against the base. He grabbed it by the neck and popped it open.
“Here,” he said, handing her a foaming glass. “Drink. All better, eh? Nothing like a spot of the old bubbly, in times of trial.”
She took the glass, drained it, and held it out again with a choking hiccup.
“Ah. Yes. Bottoms up.” He refilled her glass to the brim and set the bottle back in the grass. “Well, in any case, and as I said before, I’m frightfully sorry about this. Dreadful cock-up. Appears I gave you the wrong note, ha-ha. No doubt we’ll all have a jolly laugh about it in the morning, eh?”
She glared at him over the rim of her glass.
He cleared his throat. “But I’m afraid, if you’re quite all set up with the champagne and whatnot, I really must . . . must be off.”
She said nothing, all her concentration apparently fixed into her champagne glass.
He took an experimental step away, and another. “Well, then. Farewell. Much luck. Enjoy the . . . er . . . the champagne.”
Another backward step, and he turned and bolted for the castle.
* * *
The wrong note. He’d given the bloody housemaid the wrong note.
Which meant Sir Edward’s letter lay underneath Lilibet’s door. Unopened, he hoped. God, how he hoped.
Sir Edward would have his head, if Lilibet didn’t have it off first.
He ran across the meadow, up the terrace steps, across the flagstones of the courtyard to the door. The hall was still and dark, illuminated only by a shaft of moonlight beaming through the high windows along the stairway. He went up the steps two at a time, arriving at Lilibet’s door in a breathless gust. After a quick thrust of his hands through his hair, he lowered one fist to knock.
And stopped, just in time.
Philip slept in the room with her.
His hand swung downward to crash against his thigh.
He stood there a moment, chest still gently heaving from the effort of reaching her door. A cold trickle of sweat trailed down his back, disappearing into his shirt. He put both hands on his head and turned to walk down the succession of hallways to the west wing, where the gentlemen had their rooms.
Inside his room, he lit a candle and removed his jacket. Light flickered about the furniture and the few items atop the bureau. Norbert’s makeshift cage had been covered with cloth before he left, on Philip’s orders, so that the grasshopper could settle down and get some rest in his new surroundings.
An unwilling smile nudged up the corners of Roland’s mouth. He went over to the chest of drawers and lifted the edge of Norbert’s cloth. The grasshopper did, in fact, appear to be resting along one side of his cage, contemplating a blade of grass with one drowsy eye.
Roland lowered the cloth and looked about the room. He’d no desire for bed; energy still looped about his body, disappointment and panic and general annoyance at himself. He walked back out of the room and locked the door behind him.
Perhaps a swim in the lake. That should clear his mind a bit, help him consider his options. God knew his mind needed clearing; he’d been making mistake after mistake ever since he’d crossed the border into Italy.
He went back across the meadow at a jog, mind already pursuing his next course of action. There would be hell to pay in the morning, of course. Flowers? What blooms had emerged already? Well, except for the all-damned peach blossoms, may the bees inflict a mighty plague on them all. He’d go out early, before breakfast, and find something.
The quickest way to the lake lay through the peach orchard, but he’d be damned if he ventured back in there. Instead he skirted the trees, along the terrace wall, keeping a baleful eye on the downward slope. The moon was now directly overhead, cold and distant, casting a precise glow across the grass, just enough to pick out a path.
A sound came out of the darkness ahead.
He staggered to a stop.
There it was again. Odd sort of noise, a bit high-pitched and uneven, almost like . . .
Giggling.
Roland frowned. His eyes narrowed to slits, trying to pick out details from the shadowed shapes before him.
Another giggle.
He took a step forward, and another. A few more.
He came upon them so quickly, he nearly stumbled over their outstretched legs. “What the devil?” he stammered.
“Why, Roland! Is that you?” One of the shadows shifted against the wall. “We thought you’d gone back in.”
His mouth opened, then closed. Then opened again. “Lilibet?”
“Come join us, if you like. Though the champagne’s nearly finished.” He felt something hard and cold bump against his leg. The champagne bottle.
“We?” he asked, voice dry. “Who’s we?”
Another voice, through the darkness. “Signore!”—hiccup—“You come again?”
“Francesca.” He sighed. “Of course.”
* * *
She’s really very nice, you know,” Lilibet said. She slung her arm through his, savoring the sturdy warmth of bone and muscle beneath her hand. “Though she drinks a great deal. I hardly had half a glass.”
He grunted. “Just as well, in your condition.”
“Yes, that’s so. Wine turns my stomach at the moment. Was she awfully upset, in the orchard?” Roland was walking quickly; she had to take a few jogging strides to keep up.
“Only for a minute or two.” He stopped abruptly and turned to her, his face a mere outline in the night. “And you? You don’t seem so awfully upset.”
“Well, it was rather awkward for a moment or two. I saw the two of you, and I thought . . .”
“The worst, I expect.”
“Just for a minute. Then I realized what had happened and had a good laugh. And poor Francesca. She really is madly in love with you, you cad. It must be a terrific problem for you, having women swooning at your feet all the time, left and right.”
“Rather a nuisance, yes.” His voice was stony.
“Are you angry with me?”
“I am . . .” He paused, apparently searching for a word. “Bemused.”
She smiled. She felt invincible tonight, flooded with power and ecstasy. She reached up and caressed his cheek, the bold, perfectly set bones of his face. He’d shaved before coming down; the skin sprang sleek and dewy beneath her fingers. How she longed to bury her nose in that skin, to inhale its clean, male scent. Instead, she said: “I have a confession for you. I wasn’t going to go to bed with you tonight.”
His face tensed beneath her hand. “What’s that?”
“I’m sorry.” She let her hand trail down his shoulder, his arm, until she was holding his stiff hand in hers. “I’d only come down to tell you something. Something rather important; something I want you to know.”
“What’s that?”
“I sent out a letter today, to my solicitors. I’ve asked them to initiate a suit of divorce.”
His gasp came out of the darkness. “Wh-what? . . . But Lilibet, that’s marvelous! Have you really done it, at last?” He took her elbows and drew her against him. “You darling! We must celebrate! We must . . . oh Lord!” His arms came around her, lifting her up, swinging her around in a circle. “By God, darling, my own darling, I’ll see he doesn’t harm you, or Philip. I’ll stand by you like a champion; I shan’t leave your side . . .”
“Hush! Stop!” She couldn’t help laughing. She put her hands to his shoulders and pushed, gently but firmly, until he set her down on her feet again. “No. You’re getting dreadfully ahead of yourself. This has nothing
to do with you, Roland.”
His fingers pressed into her back. “What do you mean, nothing to do with me? It has everything to do with me. With us. By God, Lilibet, you’re carrying my child . . .”
She put her finger to his lips. “This is between me and my husband. Well, and all the women he’s gone to bed with, whom I shall have to list and name, with dates and places and all sorts of tiresome things. I shall have to prove not only that, but cruelty as well.”
That checked his annoyance. “I’m sorry about that, darling,” he said, kissing her forehead. “Jolly awful business for you.”
“Yes, it will be. It will be a dreadful ordeal, Roland.” She took a deep breath and grasped his hands, which still rested at her back. She brought them around front and squeezed them. “Which is why we must stay quite apart until it’s finished. Until I have Philip in my legal custody, clear and sound, I can’t take any chances. You must stay away.”
A nightjar trilled softly from the direction of the orchard. Roland’s hands lay heavy in hers. “Stay away?” he repeated.
“Yes. I can’t force you to leave the castle, of course, but it would be best.”
Another long, heavy pause, and then his hands slipped up her arms to grip her shoulders. “Leave? Are you mad? Good God, no. If he discovers where you are . . .”
“Then I’ll deal with him, Roland. But there can’t be any hint of impropriety, on my part, or the whole thing will fail. Not a hint.” She looked into his shadowed eyes. “Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes.” His fingers pressed harder.
“Because if he finds out, if he can prove . . . that . . .”—she couldn’t quite bring herself to say the word adultery, not aloud—“then my suit will be disallowed. The divorce won’t go through. The petitioner must be blameless, you see, or else the courts will say I’ve no grounds for complaint.”
“I say, you’ve studied the law rather carefully, it seems.”
“Of course I have. I’ve done nothing else.” She peered up into his face. “Is it . . . is it all right?”
He thrust her away and ran his hand through his hair. “No! It isn’t all right! What the devil are you saying? It’s not all right, Lilibet. For God’s sake, the damage is already done! You’re expecting! Do you think you can hide it? It won’t matter if we’re as chaste as monks from now on, if your belly is bumping up against the judge himself!”