by Romy Sommer
Many of the pirates fell, playing at being wounded or dead, while the local men pushed forward, gaining the beach, and taking back control of their sacred icon. An exultant cheer erupted from the onlookers. Even Frances clapped her hands, caught up in the action.
Isobel hunted through the figures remaining standing on the beach, unable to breathe until she found what she was looking for. Who she was looking for. The knot of tension in her stomach dissipated.
As the last of the Saracen pirates retreated to their boats, Stefano stood tall and proud at the vanguard of the defenders, every inch the victorious commander, his sword turned to molten silver in the light of the lanterns.
Who was this man?
Definitely no ordinary villager. He fraternised with fishermen, yet tonight he was as noble as any General. He dressed with style, though his hands were work-roughened.
He had tried to tell her, and she had not listened.
Stefano waited until the local priest had clambered down the rough stairs to join them on the beach, then stood back, slipping into the shadows as the priest took centre stage. Stefano’s men hoisted the icon to their shoulders, and followed the priest as he headed back towards the church, swinging his incensor and singing.
“That was so much fun!” Frances turned bright eyes on her. For once, she had lost the cool glaze of sophistication she wore like a shield. “He was gorgeous, wasn’t he?”
Isobel didn’t need to ask who ‘he’ was. She searched the dispersing crowd, but there was no sign of Stefano.
A burst of noise and colour exploded in the sky and with a gasp all heads turned upwards. Fireworks lit up the sky, falling in a rain of fire, cascade after cascade. Rockets and spinning wheels flew up into the night sky, launched from a barge in the bay that Isobel could barely make out. The sound deafened, drowning all else out.
As the final shower of dying sparks descended to the beach, the crowd finally broke up, spreading out across the promenade once again. Isobel looked back to the beach, but the performers had dispersed and there was no sign of Stefano. Music filled the air once more, beckoning.
It had been an incredible night. She had ridden wave after wave of emotion with these people. Joy and pain side by side. Laughter and tears. And for once, she had not felt alone in a crowd. Amongst these impulsive, expressive Italian villagers she felt more at home than she ever had in any drawing room.
Here she could feel the possibilities of a life in which she no longer needed to restrain her thoughts and her feelings. Just as these people should have the right to express their opinions, did she not have the right to voice her own wants and desires? To live the life she wanted to live?
It was a daring thought, a dangerous thought. But she was ready now to embrace it. Stefano had seen that passionate spirit in her before she’d even dared let it free. And now she was ready to let it soar, ready to ride the waves of feeling.
“Well, that’s it,” said Adam. “Now we have that long climb back up the hill.”
“Please can we stay for a while longer?” Isobel begged, but he shook his head.
“From now on the carousing will get rough.” He laughed. “And Christopher will have my blood if anything happens to you.”
As they climbed the narrow, winding alleyways, the sounds of revelry fading behind them, Isobel grabbed at Adam’s arm. “You won’t tell Christopher what happened tonight, will you?”
He patted her hand in a brotherly gesture. “No. I’ll make sure none of the others mention it either.”
“Thank you.”
She trailed behind as they climbed the arduous stairs through the winding, flower-bedecked alleys. Her feet grew heavier with every step she took. An unseen force seemed to pull her backwards.
Somewhere among that throng on the shore front Stefano might be dancing, his arms wrapped around a pliant village signorina, seducing her with his dimpling smile and entrancing eyes.
They reached the high road through the village, and she cast a last glance backwards. In spite of everything, in spite of the drama and violence and hardship she’d encountered in Italy, she still wanted to be a part of that celebration.
She sighed. But no matter how much kinship she felt to them, the Italians were strangers, and she did not belong in their world. She had to return to her own people. And somehow she would have to find that balance in herself between emotion and restraint, between love and duty.
Chapter Nine
Isobel hovered in the doorway of the drawing room, daunted by the multitude of people. Her aunt must have invited every expatriate within fifty miles to meet the Conte. How she’d managed to put together such a party in so short a time, Isobel couldn’t imagine.
She’d timed her arrival so that the drawing room was already full, in the hope that everyone would be too absorbed in conversation to pay her any attention. She’d hoped in vain.
“Isobel, I’ve been searching everywhere for you!” Her aunt’s voice rose above the hum of voices as Isobel stepped over the threshold.
She forced a smile and faced her aunt. Her heart faltered. It couldn’t be.
Aunt Alice looked like the proverbial cat. “This is the Conte di Cilento.”
“Stefano,” he corrected, reaching forward to take her limp hand and raise it to his mouth. Except at the last minute he flipped her hand over and brushed his lips across her palm. That made three times he’d kissed her hand. The gesture still made her legs weak.
But the man who stood before her, urbane and sophisticated, wasn’t the Stefano she knew. He moved with the easy grace she so admired, as comfortable in formal attire as he’d been in fisherman’s garb. But this was not the man who had introduced her to limoncello or walked with her through the woods.
This man, impeccably dressed in a tailored black dinner jacket, and a crisp white shirt with a white bow tie, was a stranger, his eyes cool and distant, his expression stark without its usual interest and admiration.
“Pleased to meet you.” She choked out the ritual words.
He did not release her hand, even as the floor began to tilt beneath her feet.
She finally remembered to breathe.
Her erratic heartbeat pulsed between them, through the connection of their fingers. She yanked her hand back, severing the contact.
So this is what you wanted to tell me! Except in this room full of people she couldn’t say any of the things that suddenly sprang into her mind. Things like what does this mean? or who are you?
“Dinner is served,” Edwards’ voice boomed behind her.
With so many guests, dinner this evening was a formal occasion with strict protocol and orders of precedence. Stefano stepped away to take the arm of his hostess to escort her in to dinner.
“You are seated beside me tonight,” Christopher said in her ear. The satisfaction in his voice wasn’t quite enough to drive away her self-doubt, but it warmed her to know with some certainty that she had at least one man’s interest.
All was not lost, so why did she feel as if she’d lost something precious.
She allowed Christopher to steer her towards the dining room. A quick glance down the table and her heart sank. She was at least half a table away from Stefano. Close enough to see him and hear him. Though even the entire length of the room would not have been enough space to prevent her from being aware of his every move.
In full evening dress Stefano was magnificent, easily the most arresting man in the room, with his rugged features and his dark eyes. He bent to exchange a word with the young lady on his left, and jealousy clawed at Isobel’s gut.
This was a man who belonged very much in a world of drawing rooms and dinner parties and small talk. Had the man who’d kissed her even existed? Perhaps she had only seen what she wanted to see.
Not once did he look her way. In this glittering company, with so many more beautiful, sophisticated women, she could not compete for his attention.
What do I mean to you?
But the answer was before her. He di
d not care for her. Not enough to send her even the slightest reassurance of his regard. Not a glance, nor a smile.
Course after course was set before them. Isobel sampled every dish, enough to allay Christopher’s concerns, though afterwards she could not remember what she had tasted.
Christopher, seated on her right, eventually gave up the attempt to draw her into conversation. On her left, the bearded Russian writer whose name she no longer remembered maintained a lively philosophical debate with his neighbour.
“You were part of the battle re-enactment.” Frances’ flirtatious voice floated down the table to Isobel. Tonight she was as vivacious as ever, eyes sparkling, roses in her cheeks. Shamelessly ignoring convention, she leaned across the table to address their honoured guest, conveniently exposing the smooth white skin between her breasts.
He’s mine, Isobel wanted to shout down the table. Except he wasn’t.
He was even less hers now than he had been a scant hour ago, when she’d believed him to be a common fisherman and completely ineligible.
“My ancestor led the villagers who fought off the Saracens,” said Stefano. “It has become tradition for the head of our house to play the same role.”
Mortification stung colour to her cheeks. She had been so naïve. She should have realised what he was, who he was. And she should have known that a man like Stefano, so full of life, so sure of himself, would see nothing more than a schoolgirl in the throes of her first crush. She had been nothing more to him that a pleasant diversion for an idle summer’s day.
“Is it too hot in here for you?” Christopher asked, his tone low and solicitous.
“No.” She pressed her cold hands to her flaming cheeks, but nothing could cool the sting of the truth. “Yes.”
The excruciating meal drew to an end, and in time-worn custom the men remained in the dining room to drink their brandies, while the ladies returned to the drawing room to gossip. Isobel could not bear to go with them. She knew exactly what all the women would be talking about. Who. And she didn’t want to hear it.
She slipped out a side door and into the cool night air of the terraced gardens. On the level below the main terrace, out of sight of the long windows of the drawing room, she perched on a stone balustrade, still warm from the day’s sun, and struggled against a tidal wave of new and unexplored emotions.
She began to breathe again. She gazed out across the endless sea, streaked silver by the full moon. Far below, specks against the velvet sea, she distinguished the flashes of light of the night-time fishing boats, the lanterns in their bows winking as the boats dipped and rolled on the waves.
“It is beautiful, is it not?”
She didn’t turn to see who it was. She would know his voice anywhere.
She straightened her back and lifted her chin. She would act like a woman, even if she didn’t feel like one. She was not a schoolgirl any more.
“Yes,” she said. “It is.”
Silence stretched taut between them. Then he sat beside her on the warmed stone, close enough that she could feel the heat emanating from him, that sensual heat that caressed her like sunlight.
No longer able to avoid him, she turned to face him. “So that is what you wanted to tell me – that you are a nobleman?”
He nodded. “Does this change how you regard me? Am I more acceptable to you now?”
Was he laughing at her? His dark scrutiny burned her, but she could decipher nothing from his gaze.
She shook her head and looked out again at the cool stripe of moonlight illuminating the sea. “It changes nothing. You are Italian. I am English. We belong in different worlds.”
“Unlike the young man who sat beside you tonight. Is he the type of man of whom your parents will approve?”
He had seen more than she’d given him credit for.
She ignored the foolish hope burgeoning in her breast. That would be too much the behaviour of a naïve child. Stefano’s title changed nothing. The fact that he’d already won her heart changed nothing. Her mother would not accept him.
“Yes,” she said, turning her face away so he would not see how much she wished she could be brave enough to cast aside everything she’d ever known, and her reputation, the security of her family’s future, to give in to her desire for him?
Stefano’s fingers slid beneath her chin, and he tilted her face so she could no longer avoid his gaze. The moonlight fell straight onto her, revealing everything, while he remained in shadow.
“Have you discovered yet what it is you want for yourself?” His voice was a husky whisper.
“Yes.”
“What is it you want?”
“I want you.”
She didn’t need to see his face to know the satisfied smile that curved his lips and lit his dark eyes.
“As I want you.”
It wasn’t a proposal. He offered no promise for the future, no declaration of love. His words did not mean that he felt anything for her but desire. Even so, a skitter of excitement brushed over her skin.
It was enough.
She wasn’t brave. She was foolish.
He no longer smiled. The intensity of his gaze scorched her skin. His face was so close she could barely breathe. Hungry anticipation fogged her thoughts.
This time his lips were not gentle. His kiss was hungry, demanding, and she surrendered to it, sliding her arm about him as if she could hold him close, as if he were hers to hold onto. He tasted as smooth and dark and seductive as the red wine they’d drunk at dinner, intoxicating her senses. His mouth possessed hers, taking everything she gave.
Every principle, every barrier, came crashing down, and she no longer cared.
She would give him anything he asked for.
When at last he pulled away, slowly, reluctantly, she loosed her hold on him.
“Will you meet me again?” he asked.
“She nodded.
“Friday. Meet me at the beach in Arienzo at nine o’clock.”
“They will want to know where I am going.”
His dimple flashed as he rose. “Leave that to me.”
She sat on the stone balustrade until the chill night air raised goose-bumps on her arms, then she followed the paved pathway back towards the house and the drawing room where light and voices spilled out the long French windows.
The crowd had thinned a little, the guests who lived furthest away having already taken their leave. Stefano held court in the centre of the room, Frances and Beatrice on either side of him on the long sofa, as he held an animated conversation with her cousin Adam.
Though he did not turn and look at her, Isobel knew Stefano was aware of her arrival. Electricity arced between them, even across the distance.
“Where have you been?” Christopher appeared at her elbow.
“I was in the garden.”
“The fresh air has done you good. You look much better.”
“I feel much better.”
A sharp thrill lit her body from inside, setting fire to her, as Stefano turned his head and met her eyes. He flashed her a smile meant only for her, gone so quickly that even Christopher standing beside her could make nothing of it.
It no longer mattered that he was not prepared to acknowledge her publicly, or that she was nothing more to him than an illicit rendezvous. Even if he offered nothing more than this madness, she would take it.
“I’d love to see the excavations underway at Pompeii,” Adam continued their conversation, that he had lost his guest’s attention for even a moment.
Stefano’s deep, modulated reply carried across the room to her. “I know Vittorio Spinazzola, and will ask him to show you around the diggings. Are you free on Friday?”
Adam’s eyes lit up. “We could make a day’s excursion of it. Will you join us?”
Stefano shook his head. “I already have plans.”
Adam began to lay out a plan for the outing, including the whole group in his scheme.
“You also expressed an interest in the di
ggings,” Christopher said to Isobel. “Shall we go?”
She wanted to, but Friday… “I’d love for a quiet day to do some painting. I have a new idea I want to work on.” Her words fell into a sudden lull in the conversation, louder than she intended. All heads turned her way.
“My cousin Izzy is an artist,” Frances explained to Stefano.
“Is she?” For the first time he let his attention linger on her. Heat spread through her, sending a traitorous flush up her cheeks.
“Then I shall remain behind to escort you,” Christopher said, returning her to reality with a resounding thump.
She shrugged, hoping she achieved a credible indifference. “There’s no need for that. I’m very unsociable when I’m working. I’ll get so absorbed in what I’m doing that I’ll forget you’re even there.”
“I’ll keep Izzy company,” Frances offered. “I can’t imagine anything duller than tramping around a bunch of rubble in the heat and dust. I can sit and read while Izzy paints.”
Isobel stiffened. Having a chaperone did not form part of her plan. Then Frances caught her eye, and winked, and Isobel remembered their first trip into Positano, when Frances had abandoned her to run an ‘errand’. No doubt she’d been to visit her lover.
And tomorrow she’d meet him again, just as Isobel planned to do.
She nodded infinitesimally. “Yes, Frances can keep me company.”
Chapter Ten
Peering down through the window in Frances’ room, Isobel watched Uncle Padraig’s horse-drawn carriage disappear around a bend in the road, followed more sedately by the hack Adam had hired for the excursion. No-one remained in the house but the two young women and the servants. She closed the window and turned back to the room.
“Try this one.” Frances took a dress of ivory-coloured silk overlaid with fine lace from her cupboard and laid it across the foot of her bed.