Ian nodded. Forgetting a lifetime of meticulous good manners, he plunked an elbow on the table and rubbed his tired eyes. When he lifted his head, he found her watching him.
Her smile was gone, and she was studying him with a grave expression. “You should have something to eat,” she urged, pushing a plate in his direction and gesturing for a footman. “You’ll feel better.”
He caught a whiff of buttered toast and leaned back in his chair at once. The mere thought of eating anything ever again revolted him. “What did you need to see me about?” he asked tersely.
Before she could answer, the footman placed a plate in front of him. Ian closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “Jarvis,” he said in a very quiet voice, “if you don’t get that plate of bloody kidneys out of my sight this instant, I will kill you.”
Jarvis hastily removed the plate.
“Amazing.” Lucia shook her head and shoved a forkful of eggs into her mouth. “You drank less than I did, and I feel wonderful.”
That obvious fact did not improve his temper. In fact, it made him feel downright hostile. He scowled at her.
Not the least bit intimidated, she looked at him, pressing her lips together as if trying not to smile. After a moment, she said, “Dylan told me you never could drink very much without feeling awful the next day. He was right, I think.”
“You told Dylan about last night?”
“No. He noticed the empty decanters in the library this morning and came to the conclusion that you’d gone on a drinking binge. He seemed quite concerned about it. He said it’s not at all like you.”
“It’s not.” Ian closed his eyes. “I’m going mad. That’s what it is. I must be going mad.”
Lucia appeared not to hear this pronouncement about his sanity. “Your brother asked me if there was anything wrong with you, but I assured him that nothing was amiss. We all do unpredictable things from time to time.”
“I don’t.” He opened his eyes. “I never do unpredictable things. Never.”
Lucia didn’t point out that two empty brandy bottles proved him wrong. Instead, she gestured to a tall glass beside his place at the table. “Your brother left a remedy for you. It works wonders, he said. He invented it himself.”
“Dylan would be the one to invent such a thing.” He eyed the brownish red liquid with doubt. “What’s in it?”
“Tomato juice,” she said, munching on a slice of toast. “Lemon juice, spices, a tincture of willow bark, and some sort of Russian liquor—vodka, I think he said.”
Ian’s stomach wrenched painfully. “It sounds vile.”
“There’s some other ingredient I’m forgetting.” She paused, frowning as she tried to remember what it was. “Ah!” she cried and gave him a look of triumph. “Clam juice.”
Ian jerked to his feet. “I’m going back to bed.”
He returned to his room, still shuddering at the thought of clam juice. He closed the curtains and stripped off his clothes, then crawled between cool cotton sheets, vowing that he was never, ever going to do anything stupid again. It just wasn’t worth the pain.
“I think it’s an angel.”
Lucia studied the cloud Isabel was pointing to, then she shook her head. Blades of grass tickled the sides of her neck. “No, it’s an elephant.”
“No, it’s an angel. She has wings. See them?” Isabel gestured with her finger in a sweeping motion. “There and there. And she even has a halo.”
“I still don’t see it.” Lucia yawned, starting to feel sleepy in the afternoon sun. “I see an elephant.”
“You are hopeless at cloud shaping,” the child told her, and got up. “I’m going to go see what Mrs. March put in our picnic basket. Coming?”
Lucia shook her head. “In a little while.”
Isabel walked away, and Lucia closed her eyes. She inhaled the scent of grass and savored the feel of the sun on her face. Despite all the brandy last night, she felt wonderful.
Ian didn’t. Poor man. She’d wanted to tell him this morning that today was her birthday, hoping to wheedle out of him a visit with her mamma, but she’d taken one look at his face and changed her mind. She smiled, thinking of how he’d looked, so disreputable with his black eye, so wretchedly miserable in his condition, and so adorable when he’d glowered at her, that she’d just wanted to kiss him and make him feel better. If servants hadn’t been in the room, she might have done it.
She thought of that kiss he’d given her two nights ago, and just the memory of it started her whole body tingling. If that was what he could do to her with one short kiss, what would a longer kiss from him be like?
Lucia wanted to find out. The idea of just wrapping her arms around his neck, planting her mouth on his mouth, and sending all his English proprieties to the wall was so tempting. He’d probably get angry. He’d call her a flirt and a tease again, and accuse her of toying with him. That man had anger hot enough to scorch a woman, but she’d wager his kiss was worth it.
Lucia snuggled deeper into the grass, thinking of the night before, of the feel of his arms around her as he’d carried her up the stairs. It couldn’t have been easy, for she was not a small woman. Two flights of stairs, and it hadn’t even winded him.
She remembered how he’d hurled that glass across the room and told her he didn’t share Haye’s opinion of her. Those words and the fierceness with which he’d said them had pierced her heart like a ray of sunlight, making her glow from the inside out. A woman could fall in love with a man who made her feel like that.
“Lucia?” Grace’s voice called to her from across the lawn.
She rolled over in the grass onto her stomach and rested her weight on her forearms. She looked at Grace, who was seated with Daphne on a bench about twenty yards away. Isabel was with them, rummaging through the picnic basket. “Yes?”
“Are you certain you do not wish to go somewhere?” Grace asked her. “We should do something special today. After all, it is your birthday.”
Lucia smiled and shook her head, refusing again the offer of the two women to take her somewhere. “No, I am content to stay here.”
Daphne, who was holding her new baby daughter in her arms, looked up from the child and pushed her spectacles higher on the bridge of her nose. “What about taking our picnic to Hyde Park?” she asked Lucia. “That would be more amusing for you than the park here at Portman Square, surely?”
“Oh, yes!” Isabel cried. She came running over and dropped to her knees beside Lucia in the grass. “Let’s go to Hyde Park. There’s a good breeze. We could fly kites. Or we could rent a boat and go punting on the Serpentine.”
Still smiling, Lucia rolled onto her back again and stared up at the sky. “Not yet.”
“We could at least walk down to the confectioner’s on the next corner and get comfits for your birthday, couldn’t we? Chocolates. Or toffee. Or peppermint sticks.”
Lucia was unmoved by these delights. “No, I shall stay here. I am waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“My birthday present.”
“Who is sending you a present? Lord Haye?”
“Not Lord Haye. It is my mamma who will send it.” Lucia smiled with anticipation. “Mamma always sends me something wonderful for my birthday, and I am not leaving until it arrives.”
Isabel heaved a sigh, gave up the fight, and fell into the grass beside her. “Your mother is a courtesan, isn’t she?” Without waiting for an answer, she went on, “My mama was a courtesan, too. She died.”
Lucia turned her face toward the child’s. “I know,” she said. “I am sorry. It would be the hardest thing to bear, to lose my mamma.”
“I barely remember her now, so I don’t mind so much. When I first came here, I didn’t like Grace, but it was because of Papa. I wanted it to be just us two, and I was jealous of her. But then, I got to thinking about how Grace would be a nice mother to have, and she is. She is very strict, but I don’t mind.”
“My mamma is not strict at all.”
<
br /> The child frowned thoughtfully. “Is your mother a good courtesan?”
“Ma insomma!” she gasped, half-laughing, so astonished by the question, she didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know,” she finally answered. “Why do you ask me that?”
“Because if she is a good courtesan, you will get a very expensive present.”
Lucia couldn’t help grinning at that. “True.”
“I hope your present comes soon. Then can we go to the confectioner’s?”
“Si. We shall get chocolates and go to Hyde Park and fly kites.”
“Good-oh!” Isabel endorsed this plan with wholehearted delight, but the plan never became reality. By nightfall, Lucia had still not received a birthday present from her mother.
That evening, Ian felt much better. He’d slept most of the day, waking in the middle of the afternoon only long enough to gulp down a glass of Dylan’s awful concoction. Around five o’clock, he’d woken much more refreshed. He had bathed, shaved again, and dressed in evening clothes. Then he had gone to his club, where he’d engaged three men of his acquaintance for a few rounds of whist, men who thankfully did not know Lucia. By these efforts, he was able to avoid any woeful bachelors who might feel the need to confide in him. After all, interrupting a man’s whist game was the height of bad taste.
He returned to Portman Square about ten o’clock. Grace and Dylan were out, but Lucia was home. She was in the library, stretched out in the chaise longue, reading a book.
“Good evening,” he greeted her as he came in. “Not gone out this evening?”
“No.”
He walked around his desk and opened his dispatch case. “Wasn’t there a dinner party at Lady Fitzhugh’s?”
She turned a page. “Yes.”
He began pulling out documents, but he continued to study her across the room. Gone was the radiant woman he’d seen at the breakfast table, and in her place was someone whose nose was suspiciously pink and whose cheeks were puffy. Ian’s gaze moved to the wadded-up handkerchief beside her on the chaise longue. “What’s happened?” he asked, returning his gaze to her face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said in that small voice women were wont to use when something was very wrong indeed.
“You’ve been crying,” he accused.
She looked at him, eyes wide. “I think I have a cold.” She bit her lip, then lowered her chin.
“Don’t you know by now I can always tell when you’re lying? Something is wrong, and I want to know what it is.”
A small cough interrupted them before she could answer, and Ian looked up to find Osgoode standing in the doorway with a small, paper-wrapped package in his hands. Before the servant could say a word, Lucia gave a cry, tossed aside her book, and jumped to her feet. She ran to Osgoode, and by the time she reached the butler, she was laughing.
Ian blinked at this startling transformation. How did a woman go from melancholia to ecstasy in the space of a few seconds? he wondered, baffled.
“At last!” she cried. “It has come at last! Grazie, Osgoode, grazie!“
She took the parcel and placed a smacking kiss on its brown-paper surface. This purely Italian show of sentiment no doubt shocked poor Osgoode, but ever the impassive servant, the butler did not show it. He departed with a bow.
“What is it?” Ian came around the desk and leaned back against it, watching as she untied the strings wrapped around what was clearly a jeweler’s box. “A gift from an admirer?” he guessed, knowing it had better not be anything of the kind. “If so, it must be returned. You cannot keep anything more significant than flowers. Otherwise, you’ll have another poor fool thinking you’re engaged to him.”
“This is not from a man!” She shook her head as she tore off paper with all the impatient joy of a child. “It is from Mamma. For my birthday. She did not forget me!”
“Is today your birthday?” he asked in surprise.
She nodded. “I waited all the day, but nothing came, and I began to think she had forgotten. But no.” Lucia succeeded in getting the paper off at last. Triumphant and laughing, she opened the box. “Oh, Mamma!” she cried in amazement.
She lifted her hand, and Ian saw that twined in her fingers was a delicate bracelet of rubies set in platinum. It glittered like a ring of red fire in the lamplight.
“Very lovely.” He looked into her face, expecting to see smiles of delight.
She was crying again.
He stared at her. A tear rolled down her cheek, and he felt the world sliding sideways. The only conclusion he could make about this was that her seesawing emotions were sending him over the edge at last. “What’s wrong now?”
When she didn’t answer, he straightened away from the desk and moved to stand in front of her. “Lucia, what the devil is the matter?”
“It is rubies,” she said, as if that explained everything.
He folded his arms and tried, with sensible male logic, to determine the problem and effect a solution. “You don’t like rubies?”
She shook her head as another tear spilled over and ran down her face. “I love rubies.”
Desperate, Ian tried again. “You don’t like bracelets?”
With a sniff, she wiped the back of her free hand over her cheek. “I love bracelets.”
He pulled out his handkerchief and handed it to her, resigning himself to a game of Twenty Questions. “Prefer gold over platinum, do you?”
Lucia gave a sob, and he couldn’t take it anymore. “What is the damned problem?” he shouted.
She looked up into his face. “I miss my mother.”
Ian drew in a sharp breath and realized he’d just been outmaneuvered. Sucker punched. Checkmated by a woman’s tears, the one move no man could ever defend against.
Hell.
He grabbed her by the elbow. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” she asked, clutching her bracelet with one hand and blowing her nose into his handkerchief with the other as he propelled her toward the door.
“Don’t say a word, Lucia,” he ordered. “Quit while you’re ahead.”
He ordered Jarvis to go out and hail a hansom cab, giving the footman very specific instructions that when the cab arrived, the top was to be up, the windows and curtains closed, and no lamps lit in the interior of the coach. The last thing Lucia’s reputation needed right now was for someone to catch sight of them. As they waited in the foyer for Jarvis to return with the hansom, Ian’s sensible side tried to reassert itself, reminding him that his orders had been very specific, that violating those orders was stupid, and that whenever he did something stupid, he paid for it.
When the hansom arrived, he ushered Lucia into the vehicle, gave their destination to the driver, and stepped up into the carriage. Then he sat down and looked at the woman across from him.
The curtains behind him had not been completely closed, and the moonlight through the window was a slash across her astonished, tear-stained face. “You are taking me to see Mamma?”
His sensible side told him he was going to regret this. “Happy birthday.”
Through her tears, she smiled at him as if he was king of the earth.
Ian told his sensible side to shut up.
Chapter 14
“Mia bambina cara!” Francesca crossed the drawing room, arms opened wide to enfold her daughter. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, Mamma,” she cried in Italian. “I have missed you terribly!” Those words were all Lucia could manage before her throat clogged up. Unable to say anything more, she hugged her mother tight, so happy to see her, she felt as if her heart would burst.
Francesca patted her back in affectionate, soothing motions. “I have missed you, too, daughter. So very much. But what’s this?” She pulled back, lifted Lucia’s face, and smiled. “Some things do not change. You are a woman now, not a little girl, yet you cry every time I see you. We say hullo, we say good-bye—it does not seem to matter. You cry both ways.” She pressed her lips to Lucia
’s cheeks, kissing tears away. “Did you get your present?”
In answer, Lucia pulled back the edge of her cloak and lifted her wrist. “It is beautiful. But rubies, Mamma?” She began to laugh through her tears. “That is so wicked of you.”
“You are a child of the House of Bolgheri, and you should have jewels of the House of Bolgheri. The fact that I was never married to your father should have nothing to do with it.”
“Cesare has never allowed me to have rubies. You know that. He would be furious if he knew you had given me such a present.”
Francesca made a careless gesture with her hand. “I care nothing for Cesare’s fury. I never did. He rages, he shouts, he stomps his feet. He is like a bull, your father, so unreasonable. So stubborn. But what can he do to me? Nothing.”
“So, if he is a bull, the rubies are the red cape you wave in his face?” Lucia asked, smiling.
“Not in his face, no. Only behind his back. Be sure you never wear the bracelet around him, Lucia, for he will take it away.” Francesca glanced past her. “But who is this who has come with you?”
“Oh!” Lucia realized her mother had never met Ian, and she performed introductions in English. “Mamma, this is Sir Ian Moore. Sir Ian, my mother, Francesca Pelissaro.”
“Excellency.” If she was surprised by Ian’s presence in direct defiance of Cesare’s orders, she gave no sign of it. She curtsied. “Thank you for bringing my daughter to visit me. I am most grateful.”
“Not at all.” Ian took off his hat and bowed, then turned toward the fireplace, causing Lucia to realize there was another person in the room. “Chesterfield,” he said with a nod to the other man.
“Sir Ian.” Lord Chesterfield bowed, then he crossed the room to greet Lucia, a smile on his round, rubicund face. “My dear child. It is good to see you.”
She returned his smile with sincere affection. The baron had been quite kind to her during her stay at Cavendish Square, and he was very generous to Mamma. In fact, he had the good sense to be in love with her. “It is wonderful to see you, my lord. I hope I do not disarrange your evening by interrupting?”
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