by Cara Elliott
Such coddled innocence bored him to perdition. So why did the sway of her shapely hips provoke the urge to follow?
“Perhaps I haven’t tried very hard,” drawled Marco, turning his attention to the folds of his cravat. Smoothing a finger over the starched linen, he added, “It’s hardly a fair match of skills. And contrary to what you may think, I do not deliberately toy with an innocent young lady’s affections.”
Jack gave a mock grimace. “Good God, you mean to say that you have a conscience?”
Marco straightened from his slouch. “You military heroes are not the only ones with a code of honor.”
“Well, you need not wage any great moral battle with your self-proclaimed noble scruples. According to Alessandra, her friend can look out for herself.”
Marco let out a grunt of laughter. “Miss Woodbridge may be clever and possess a cutting tongue, but that does not mean she is equipped to deal with the darker side of life.” He curled a lip. “Rapscallion roués, jaded fortune hunters. Or rakehell rogues like me.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” countered Jack. “From what I gather, Miss Woodbridge has had a rather eccentric upbringing. Her mother tossed away title and fortune to elope with an American sea captain. She’s spent most of her life sailing around the world.”
He felt his sardonic smile thin ever so slightly. His cousin had not talked much about her friends with him. No doubt feeling that he couldn’t quite be trusted with the intimate details of their lives.
“The fact is, I think she had a rather rough time of it these last few years,” continued Jack. “Her parents died of a fever within days of each other, and only a deathbed promise to them brought Miss Woodbridge here to seek a reconciliation with her grandfather.” He shrugged. “Apparently the waters at Cluyne House are anything but calm. She’s fiercely independent, which tends to make waves with the duke.”
“That begins to explain her salty language,” murmured Marco thoughtfully. Today was not the first time she had let fly with a very unladylike word.
Jack chuckled. “Alessandra says she can swear like a sailor in nearly a dozen different dialects.”
“Interesting.”
“Yes, but not nearly as interesting as the collection of rare books I have here on classical architecture.” For Jack, ancient Rome was a far more fascinating topic of conversation than Katharine Kylie Woodbridge. “Come, there is a seventeenth-century volume of engravings on the Temple of Jupiter that I want to show you….”
Marco reluctantly pushed aside all thoughts about ladies—naked or otherwise—to follow Jack to one of the display tables set by the bank of leaded-glass windows. Yet somehow the tantalizing scent of Sicilian neroli and wild thyme stayed with him, teasing at his nostrils.
Strange, it seemed hauntingly familiar, but he just couldn’t place it.
And no wonder, he thought, dismissing the notion with a sardonic shrug. He had inhaled too many perfumes in his wicked, wanton life to recall them all. In truth, none of the women had been very memorable.
Save for one clever whore in Naples who had dared…
“Pay attention, Ghiradelli. If you drool on that Doric column, I swear I shall cut off your tongue.”
Chapter Two
What is that horrible smell?”
“Fish guts and dried cow manure.” Kate shifted the inkwell on her desk and kept on writing up her notes, intent on catching up with her botanical work now that she was back home in London. “Sorry, I thought I had washed all of it off my hands.”
Her maid eyed the streak of slime on the hem of Kate’s work dress, which was slowly oozing onto the priceless Aubusson carpet. “Perhaps you might want to consider a change of clothing.”
Kate glanced down. “Shite,” she muttered under her breath.
“That’s another way of putting it,” replied Alice, who now was very used to her charge’s peculiar quirks. Unlike the half-dozen or so predecessors, none of whom had lasted more than a month, the maid was not intimidated by noxious stains or foul language. “However, it does sound a trifle more ladylike when you say it in French.”
“Yes, but I keep telling you, I am—”
“Not a real lady,” chorused Alice. “Thank heavens. Otherwise this position would be awfully boring.”
Kate grinned. “It was certainly a stroke of luck that Simpson found you. None of the others sent by the employment agency had any sense of humor.” She tapped the tip of her pen to her chin. “It wasn’t as if I deliberately put the dissected frog’s leg in my sash to terrify poor Susan. I simply forgot it was there.”
“It wasn’t luck,” said Alice. “After that incident, he gave up trying to find respectable candidates through an agency. I am acquainted with his cousin—don’t ask how—and as the poor man was at his wit’s end, he was willing to overlook the rather sketchy explanation of my past positions in return for me promising that I didn’t faint at the sight of dissected reptiles.”
“That doesn’t happen often. I was merely trying to duplicate a lecture I heard at the Royal Zoological Institute.” Kate brushed a leaf from her sleeve. “As you know, my specialty is botany.”
“Is a fish now considered a plant?” asked Alice, giving another exaggerated sniff.
“I was just experimenting with a new formula for fertilizer. My friend Ariel and her new husband are working on developing a new strain of Papaver somniferum—that is a type of poppy from the East—but the seedlings are quite delicate.”
Alice pinched at her nose. “Maybe your next project could be on formulating botanical oils for perfume.”
The mention of fragrance caused Kate to suck in a slow breath and hold it in her lungs. She had always made up her own scent, a unique mixture of sweet spices and earthy herbs. The ingredients came from a tiny shop in Sicily that overlooked the Tyrrhenian Sea. It was, she supposed, a signature of sorts. Something that was hers, and hers alone.
Exhale, she told herself. Men were not subtle creatures. Neroli and wild thyme were used in myriad feminine fragrances. Marco had sniffed around far too many women to remember a fleeting encounter in Naples.
“An excellent suggestion,” said Kate casually. “We could open a shop on Bond Street to earn extra pin money.”
Alice pulled a face. “Can you imagine his reaction if the duke heard that his granddaughter was going into trade?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I can,” answered Kate, unable to keep the edge of resentment from her voice. “Cluyne turned my mother out on her ear without a farthing when she dared to marry an American merchant sea captain against his lordly wishes.”
Alice, who had heard a brief overview of her employer’s history, clucked in sympathy. “Some people are just very rigid in their thinking, especially when they are surrounded by toad-eaters and flatterers who tell them from birth that they are always right.” The maid thought for a moment. “No one defies a duke. So it must be hard for him to know when he is right or wrong.”
Kate sighed. “That is a very wise observation, Alice.” She took up her inkwell and set the thick, viscous liquid to swirling against the cut crystal. “But it’s hard to forgive him all the same. His pride is so… so bloody unyielding.” The ink spun faster and faster, creating a vortex that seemed to suck her mood into its black depth.
“I’m only here because I made a deathbed promise to my parents that I would seek a reconciliation with my grandfather,” she continued. But things were not sailing along very smoothly. “To be honest, if I had my choice, I would book passage on the first merchant ship sailing from the East India docks and never look back.”
“There is something to be said for a life free from worry and want,” murmured Alice. “Here you are surrounded by luxury and people anxious to do your bidding.”
“Yes, and most of the time it makes me feel like a bird trapped in a gilded cage. I’m used to my freedom, my independence, and I prefer to exercise my own judgment, rather than be treated as if I had naught but feathers stuffed between my ears.”
Her maid smothered a snort. “That is for sure.”
Kate tried to look offended, but a telltale smile curled the corners of her mouth. “Am I really that bad?”
“Well, let us just say that next time you wish to exercise your independence, try not to do it in front of Angelo’s fencing salon. I’m not sure those two young gentlemen have yet recovered from having you threaten to cut off their cods.”
“I didn’t!” she protested. “Not precisely.”
The incident had been a touch flamboyant, even for her. But Kate had thought Alessandra was in imminent danger and needed to speak with the infamous Giovanni Marco Musto della Ghiradelli without delay. It wasn’t entirely her fault that the conte had chosen to saunter out into the street clad in a sweat-damp shirt, skintight buckskins, and bare feet.
“You may not have mentioned a specific anatomical appendage, but they weren’t taking any chances.” Alice primly smoothed at her skirts. “In the future, please try to be more discreet. I like this job, but the duke will have my guts for garters if I let you stir up a whiff of scandal.”
“Hmmph,” she huffed under her breath. “Had he been more circumspect with his own daughter, I would not be such a black blot on his precious ducal dignity.”
“Society may remember the old scandal of your mother’s elopement, but in their eyes, you are a perfectly respectable young lady who has grown up in Boston.” Coals crackled in the hearth, speckling the ashes with a shower of orange sparks. “Let us try not to upset their assumptions.”
Kate went back to her writing.
Moving to the delicate pearwood escritoire, Alice began sorting through the pile of invitations. “Shall you be wearing the indigo-figured silk gown to Lady Hamden’s soiree tonight?”
“Drat, I had forgotten all about that.” She slapped down her pen. “The dowager is dull as dishwater, and her musical programs usually sound like a sackful of wet cats trying to claw their way loose. I think I shall cry off.”
“You’ve squirmed out of the last three engagements,” pointed out Alice. “And the lady is a very good friend of your grandfather.”
“Whose side are you on?” groused Kate.
“I’ve merely been listening to your little lectures on how a female must be practical and pragmatic,” said her maid. “Attending tonight’s soiree will please the duke—a fact that may prove useful the next time he frowns on something you wish to do.”
“Lud, you would put Machiavelli to blush.”
“Macky-who?”
“Never mind,” said Kate. “He’s an Italian gentleman known for his scheming mind.”
“Italian, eh? Like that dark-haired devil with the divine legs? The one who looks like he was sculpted by Macky… Macky—”
“Angelo,” finished Kate. “Si, like that one.”
“Are all the men from that country handsome as sin?”
Sin. Recalling the tempting curl of Marco’s mouth, Kate shifted on her chair, uncomfortably aware that somewhere deep inside her, a serpent stirred, slowly uncurling its sinuous scales. Damnably cold-blooded creatures, snakes sought any source of warmth—even the hellfire kiss of an unrepentant rake.
No. She would not—could not—let it rear its ugly head. She had been a bad girl in her youth, a wild, passionate creature, unbound by corsets or conventional rules. But she had promised her parents to reform. To abandon a vagabond life, fraught with danger and uncertainty. Kate knew that they regretted exposing their only child to such an unstable existence. Home had been a sleek wooden hull, and the roof over her head…
She stared up at the weighty rosettes carved into the ornate plaster ceiling. The roof over her head had been a flutter of sun-bleached canvas and an infinite stretch of ever-changing sky. The slap of the wind on her cheeks, the tang of the salty seas, the raucous shrieks of the soaring gulls—no wonder she so often felt constricted, confined here in London.
A small cough from Alice brought her musings back to terra firma. “Sorry,” murmured Kate. “I—I was daydreaming.”
“I don’t blame you.” The maid made a wry face. “And I’ve seen enough good-looking rogues to know better.”
So have I, thought Kate. “Trust me, I’m smart enough not to be seduced by a scamp like Ghiradelli.”
Alice didn’t look convinced. “You know more about the real world than most young ladies, but men can be dangerous creatures. You know, Eve always gets the blame for giving Adam the apple. But I’ll wager you that the cursed serpent was a male.”
Kate laughed. “Seeing as the conte is also known as Il Serpenti, I would agree with you.” She screwed the silver cap onto her inkwell, careful to keep the dregs from blackening her fingertips. “Don’t worry, I’ll be on guard against his fangs.”
“But what lovely fangs,” murmured Alice. “And that mouth… I suppose a woman could die happy from its bite.”
Kate felt another little slither of heat in her belly. It was bad—very bad—to feel the slightest twinge of attraction for Marco. And she must try her best to be good.
“If I am to attend Horrible Hamden’s soiree, I suppose you had better order up a bath,” she replied with a sigh.
Preferably an ice-cold one.
She was here.
Marco edged forward and took up a position in one of the colonnaded archways of the music room. The movement must have caught her wandering attention, for Kate glanced around.
Their eyes locked.
His heart lurched and thudded up against his ribs. Her honey-colored hair was piled high on her head, revealing the elegant arch of her neck. Simple pearl studs highlighted her shapely shell-pink ears. The effect was entrancing.
Unnerving. Here he was—a jaded libertine, a notorious rake—staring like a spotty-faced schoolboy.
Masking his confusion with a sardonic smile, he flashed her a rakish wink.
Her lips thinned and Kate quickly looked back at the stage.
“Ah, chi mi dice mai quel barbaro dov’è.” Marco winced as the singer struggled through an aria from Mozart’s opera Don Juan.
He had come here on a whim. His friend hadn’t even been certain that Kate Woodbridge would show up at his great-aunt’s soiree. The young lady often ignored the gilt-edged invitations to be part of Mayfair’s exclusive social circle. As did he, but for opposite reasons.
She buried herself in serious studies, while he drowned himself in dissolute pleasures.
Glancing around, he saw several people slanting furtive looks his way. By morning, the drawing rooms would be abuzz with speculation on why he had appeared at a staid musicale. Let them wonder. It was a game to keep the ton guessing what his next dark and dangerous exploit would be.
Dangerous. He let his eyes be drawn back to Kate. She looked so solemn, sitting at rigid attention in her chair. On one side of her was a plump matron attired in flounces and feathers. On the other was a heavyset silver-haired gentleman whose patrician profile bore subtle similarities to hers. The imperious grandfather, no doubt.
“Deh vieni a consolar il pianto mio…” Come to console my lament. The tenor clasped his beefy hands over his heart, and while Marco could vaguely understand the mispronounced Italian, his own inner thoughts were proving impossible to translate. He didn’t listen to emotions very often.
The soprano finally warbled to the end of the aria, and the hostess announced an intermission.
Chairs scraped on the parquet as the audience rose and lost no time in heading for the refreshment room. Marco remained where he was, watching as the Duke of Cluyne lingered to talk with another gentleman. After a moment, Kate murmured something to him and moved away with the others. But rather than seek a glass of tepid punch, she slipped out onto the balcony.
Marco waited until the crowd had thinned and then stepped through the set of French doors. A number of the male guests were lighting up cigars. No one seemed to notice Kate’s presence. She floated along like a wraith to the back corner, silent, stealthy, as if experienced in stealing unseen thr
ough the night.
But he was acutely aware of her. Her expression, her shape. Her scent.
A breeze wafted through the thick ivy, twining faint traces of neroli and wild thyme with the sharp tang of the greenery. Standing behind one of the decorative urns, Marco felt the dampness of the London night seep into his skin. Even the fog and coal smoke couldn’t overpower the delicate fragrance. It stirred… a longing.
For what? His youth and an innocence that could never be recaptured? Things like carefree laughter. Simple pleasures. Peaceful dreams.
God, what a maudlin mood. He shouldn’t have come here.
A mizzle of moonlight angled off the walls of pale Portland stone, the soft light catching Kate’s upturned face. She seemed to be watching the stars play hide-and-seek with the scudding clouds. In the unguarded moment, she looked achingly young and vulnerable.
Much as he knew he should leave, Marco couldn’t drag his gaze away. Luna, the Goddess of the Moon, had him ensnared in her silvery spell. Shadows flickered in and out of Kate’s hiding place, forcing him to move a step closer in order to keep her in view.
Strange, but her beauty was hard to define. Her nose was not quite straight, her eyes had an exotic slant, and her mouth was a little too wide, a little too strong. Yet the effect on him was impossible to shake off. She was unique. Individual.
So… alive. Passion seemed to radiate from every pore.
He knew she cared deeply about her intellectual pursuits, and he envied her that sense of purpose. His own covert work with the British government was a source of some satisfaction. But for the most part, he wasted his time in idle dissolution.
Damn her for reminding him of the void. It made him uncertain. Angry.
But at least he understood anger. It stirred a spark of heat to his blood, helping to drown far more chilling emotions. Dragging his gaze down the shapely curves of her silhouette, he told himself that provoking her was just another idle game. A way to keep his inner demons occupied.
Marco looked around, and seeing that no one was near, he quickly crossed the marble tiles. “Enjoying the evening, bella?”