Finessing the Contessa

by Wendy Soliman

  “You’re not English and you curse rather...er, graphically in the beautiful Italian language.”

  She huffed disdainfully. “You speak it, I suppose.”

  “Naturally.” Rob sighed, accepting that this couldn’t go on. “Go back to your chamber, signora, and dream of your lover’s kisses.”

  Rob released her and she scurried from the bed in a flurry of petticoats and further muted abjurations. He really did admire the way she cursed like a man. It was such a refreshing change from all the dreary, assiduously correct young ladies who’d been forced upon him during the recent season. He would definitely have to become better acquainted with the contessa, and not just across a chessboard. Fortunately her interest in Hal’s business gave him the perfect excuse. In some ways that was a shame. Half the fun was the thrill of the chase, when the outcome was never entirely certain. Since Lady Falzone hadn’t gained access to the report she’d been assigned to steal, he wouldn’t have to go out of his way to enjoy more of her unconventional company.

  She would come looking for him.

  He half sat up, as the beautiful contessa collected her candle, nodded curtly to him and let herself out of the room. She’d left him feeling deuced uncomfortable since his reaction to her was taking its own sweet time to subside. That wasn’t quite the opening move he’d intended to play against the contessa. No matter, she now knew what to expect from him and would presumably counter his next gambit with a strong Sicilian defence.

  The week to come ought to be very entertaining. Such a shame she was a spy. Still, let the sport begin.

  * * *

  Hot and flustered, Electra barely felt the cool air in the corridor as she latched Lord Robert’s door softly behind her and released a slow sigh of relief. Or could it be disappointment? Before she had an opportunity to decide, Maynard appeared from the shadows and grasped her arm.

  “Did you get it?” he asked in an urgent whisper.

  Damn the man. Why must he dog my every move?

  “No,” she said. “It isn’t there.”

  “It must be. You didn’t look properly.”

  “And I tell you it isn’t in that room. You think I lie? That I wouldn’t give you the wretched report if I’d found it?” She thought of her brother, for whose sake she was doing this, and elevated her chin. “By finding those documents I could be free of your master forever, so rest assured I searched very carefully.”

  “You were in there a devil of a long time. I was about to come and look for you.”

  “I was searching methodically and trying not to wake Forster.”

  He screwed up his eyes and observed her more closely. Electra held the candle as far away from her face as she could, unsure what he might read from her expression if her features were too well illuminated.

  “You sure he didn’t wake up and catch you at it?”

  “Entirely sure.”

  If he knew Lord Robert had seen her she would be of no use to his master and he wouldn’t need to keep his hostage alive.

  “It’s cold out here, and it’s late,” she said shivering. “Pray, excuse me.”

  Maynard released her arm. “We’ll talk again soon,” he said in a menacing tone. “Never lose sight of what’s at stake here.”

  As if she could.

  As soon as Electra returned to her chamber, Luci was upon her, demanding to know how it went.

  “He woke up,” she said, slumping onto the side of her bed and chewing her lower lip in frustration. “In fact, I’m unsure if he was even asleep to start with. He didn’t look like a man who’d just woken from a drunken stupor.”

  “Dear lord, what did he say?”

  What indeed? Electra relived the moment when he caught her around the waist and she couldn’t stop herself from falling on top of him. A sense of the most intense longing had gripped her when she felt the extent of his arousal. The fire that lanced through her veins stirred feminine desires so long dormant that she no longer thought about them. Now that she’d escaped him and her wits were slowly returning to her, she suspected that he would have released her if she’d protested loudly enough. But her objections had sounded woefully unconvincing and he must have known she’d enjoyed the experience. She blushed at the thought, her humiliation complete.

  Her reaction had been so violently favourable because she’d been unprepared for her first sight of the man himself. No one had warned her that he was so...well, so uncompromisingly male. She’d actually gasped when she observed his rugged features, beautiful even in supposed sleep. A profusion of dark blond hair had been spread beneath him on the pillow and she’d felt an irrational desire to run her fingers through its thickness. She’d tried to look away, really she had, but in spite of her best efforts she hadn’t been able to pull her gaze away from his taut, muscular chest.

  His naked taut, muscular chest.

  The only other half-naked man she’d ever seen had been her husband, and his chest hadn’t caused anything like the mayhem to her senses that Lord Robert’s managed to achieve. Dusted with blond hair, his magnificent chest tapered to a narrow waist, but disappointingly the remainder of his person had been concealed from her view.

  Electra jerked upright when the nature of her thoughts struck home. Had she run completely mad? It absolutely wasn’t in her character to regret such things, or even to think about them.

  Even so, something stronger than her own will caused her thoughts to return to the gentlemen who had made such a favourable impression upon her. When he awoke and focused intelligent, mocking brown eyes on her face, her insides had literally melted with desire, rendering rational thought near impossible. He exuded a not-entirely-civilized aura that compelled her in spite of herself. The circumstances might have been irregular but she had no business responding to him like a green miss. She had been fending off gentlemen keen to steal a kiss, or more, since her husband’s death, and even before that. There was nothing different about this particular man.

  Except everything was different.

  She knew of Lord Robert through his reputation as a chess player and that was as far as her interest in him had extended. She hadn’t expected the equivalent of a decadent Greek god to mistake her for a doxy. Electra allowed herself a brief, mischievous smile. If only he knew how tempted she’d been to play along with that misconception. To feel the full force of his arousal buried deep inside her. To feel...enough!

  “He didn’t say very much at all, Luci.” Electra collected herself. She’d been silent for too long and her maid was regarding her with intense interest. “I apologised, said I had the wrong room and made my escape.”

  “You took your time about it, then.” Luci peered at her more closely. “And you look rather flushed.”

  “It was embarrassing.” Electra ran a hand across her chin. It was sore from such close contact with the bristles on Lord Robert’s face, a fact which had probably not escaped Luci’s notice. “I don’t know how I’ll explain myself when I arrive at Lord Billingham’s and we’re formally introduced.”

  Luci’s eyebrows shot skyward. “You didn’t tell him who you were?”

  “How could I? Besides, he didn’t ask, nor did he introduce himself.”

  “You should have thought. It would have made it less awkward later.”

  “Nothing will do that,” Electra said with a wry grin.

  “Aye, well, there’s no help for it now.” Luci helped Electra to her feet and attacked the ties to her gown. “We’d best get you to bed. It’s late and you’re overtired.”

  “Yes. I’d like to avoid seeing Lord Robert for as long as possible, so let’s make an early start in the morning. I’m sure elegant gentlemen like him don’t get out of bed at cockcrow.”

  “Elegant is he, m’lady?”

  “It’s just an expression.” Electra pretended to lose interest in a s
ubject that consumed her. “I really don’t have much idea. I didn’t waste time looking at him in his bed. I was more concerned about escaping.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone in the first place. I told you no good would come of it.”

  “I didn’t exactly go through choice.”

  Luci’s severe expression softened. “I know that, and I hate that Maynard for what he’s making you do.” She shook her head. “As though you haven’t suffered enough these past months.”

  Electra’s gaze automatically fell upon the miniature of her son that sat on her bedside table. The artist had caught the infant with a mischievous smile on his face, eyes glistening with the joy of life—a life that had hardly begun before it ended. Tears threatened and Electra impatiently dashed them aside.

  “We do what we must for the sake of those we love,” Electra said almost to herself as she slipped between the cool sheets, still thinking about her son for whom she hadn’t done enough. Augusto was dead, it was her fault, and she would have to live with the guilt for the rest of her days. There was nothing she could do to change the past, but her brother’s fate still rested in her hands. “Now get some rest yourself, Luci. Good night.”

  Electra watched as her maid settled her bulky form on the trestle bed on the opposite side of the room. Very soon Electra heard the familiar, reassuring sound of her snores, but for her sleep wouldn’t be so easily achieved. She wished now that she’d told Maynard the truth. What mad impulse had caused her to hold her tongue?

  But if Maynard knew she’d been caught, even he would realise Lord Robert must suspect her of something—and she could no longer be useful. If she failed to help Maynard and his master in their scheme to get rich, her brother Vincenzo would pay the price. Would they go so far as to get rid of him?

  The thought turned Electra’s blood to ice in her veins. She absolutely couldn’t take that chance. No, she had to do as Maynard told her. It was the only way. She had to steal that report. Advance knowledge of British plans would allow Maynard and his master to profit from the new trade contracts.

  She thumped her pillows and turned over, failing to find a comfortable position. Lord Robert would be a glamorous and dangerous opponent across the chessboard, but he was nothing more to her than that. He might know how to kiss a lady with flair and passion. She couldn’t deny that when his velvety smooth tongue had explored her mouth so expertly, it had caused turbulent heat to ignite deep inside her. She’d longed for more—much more. Perhaps Lord Robert was the one man on this earth who could make her forget her misery, if only for a brief time, and yet she had to deceive him if she was to save her brother.

  Electra curled into a tight ball, her knees drawn up defensively beneath her chin, and mentally upbraided herself for her weakness. He’d caught her off guard, but if he cornered her again she’d be better prepared. It was Maynard who held her welfare in his grubby hands, and him she must somehow outwit. Lord Robert might recognise an en passant when confronted with the chess move, but she could hardly call upon him to help her best a blaggard like Maynard, who was making her steal secrets of state from Lord Robert’s brother. They would consider it treason, although she couldn’t act treasonably because she wasn’t British. Still, whatever it was called, it was still a crime for which she would pay with her life if she was caught.

  Chapter Three

  A hired carriage stood in the yard, the horses stamping their hooves on the cobbles, impatient to be off. Still in his shirtsleeves, Rob observed it from his window, unsurprised when the lady responsible for disturbing his repose emerged from the side door to the mews. She’d chosen to avoid him by making an unfashionably early start but paused to glance up at his window. He drew back from her line of sight but it was as though she sensed his presence and her gaze lingered.

  She wore a concealing hat but in his mind he could see behind her disguise. He could imagine the anxiety that clouded her lovely eyes, the tightening of the lips he had so thoroughly kissed as she wondered what he intended to do about her nocturnal visit. The desire to reassure her was almost unendurable. Damn it to hell and back, why did she have to be the one sent to work against British interests? And what would persuade her to do so? She must know that the British government only wished to repay Sicily for housing the British fleet during the war and so there was no obvious reason for her to sabotage its efforts.

  “The things I do for England,” Rob muttered as he watched a substantial maid assist the contessa into the carriage.

  She’d been sent to interfere with Hal’s effects to assist Sicily. In order to discover how she had been recruited, and why, it would first be necessary to gain her trust. From the conversation he’d overheard between the contessa and the unknown man controlling her, Rob chose to believe she was acting against her will.

  Wanting that to be the case, however, didn’t necessarily make it so.

  That reminder was sufficient to dampen his ardour. Only if she could be persuaded to reveal her true purpose would he know what to do about her. He wasn’t quite so lost to decency that he’d become involved with a woman who was actively working against his country’s interests. Then again, it was a very long time since he’d been so violently attracted towards any female and so he was sorely tempted to make excuses for her.

  The carriage remained in the mews while the last of the bags were secured in the trunk. Rob scowled, finding much to criticize in her arrangements. Why was a lady of the contessa’s standing travelling with just one maid to protect her in these uncertain times? His state of mind didn’t improve when he observed that one coachman and a single footman had been engaged with the hired carriage. As he watched the conveyance move off, Rob wanted to dash down the stairs and offer the contessa a seat in his own far more comfortable, far safer travelling chaise. Fortunately Bowker chose that moment to enter his room and it was too late to give way to his foolish impulse.

  “Thought you’d be up already,” Bowker said, joining him at the window.

  “Have you further news for me?”

  “She met with some cove as soon as she left this room,” Bowker said, grinning. “Mind you, she took her time leaving. Wonder what took her so long.”

  “Your report,” Rob snapped.

  “Well, like I said, she met the blighter, they exchanged a few heated words and that was that. He was angry because she didn’t find the report. She assured him it wasn’t there and he made her promise to get close to you at Lord Billingham’s.”

  Rob’s lips quirked. “How tiresome.”

  Bowker’s grin turned into a smirk. “I can see the prospect don’t find favour.”

  “Did you find out the man’s name?”

  “Afraid not. I lost sight of him in the back corridors.” Bowker shook his head. “Damn cove moves like a ghost. He disappeared into thin air, so he did. I couldn’t get too close or he’d have spotted me.”

  “Has the landlord told you who he is?”

  “No luck there. My description of a slight bearded gent don’t fit with any of his guests.”

  Rob nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me, either. He doesn’t want to draw attention to himself or be seen anywhere near the contessa. Otherwise he wouldn’t take so much care about where he meets with her, nor would he converse with her in English.”

  “You think he left the inn last night, after the contessa, er...searched this room?”

  “I’m sure of it.” Rob cupped his chin in his hand and rubbed it, conscious of the bristles that had sprung up overnight, wondering if the contessa’s face had suffered from contact with them. “And something else I’m sure about is that we’ll see him again when we reach Lord Billingham’s estate, even though he isn’t on the guest list. He wants to know what’s in Hal’s report and it seems there’s little he won’t do to obtain that information.”

  “What shall you do about it?”

 
“I’ll write to the marquess and let him know about these developments. It’s his decision, but I do have a few suggestions of my own to make.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Rob sat down and quickly penned an account to his brother, leaving out the particulars of his conversation with the contessa, such as it was.

  “Arrange for this to be sent to the Hall by express, Bowker, and then have some shaving water sent up.”

  “Right away, m’lord.”

  Half an hour later, impeccably attired, Rob broke his fast in the inn’s dining parlour, in no hurry to complete his journey. The contessa would have a slow, uncomfortable time of it in that rattletrap she’d hired, and Rob didn’t wish to overtake her on the road. He would prefer for her to be installed at Roker Park before he got there himself.

  Thus it was late afternoon when Rob’s conveyance drew to a smooth halt in front of the entrance portico, and an army of Billingham’s servants descended to attend to the luggage. Charles Billingham and his wife Sophia were there to make him welcome.

  “There you are at last, Rob.” Charles clapped him firmly on the shoulder. “We had almost given you up for lost.”

  “I was unavoidably detained,” Rob replied, shaking his friend’s hand firmly.

  Charles laughed. “I won’t ask.”

  “Probably better if you don’t.”

  Sophia stepped forward and Rob greeted her with a chaste kiss. A few years older than Rob, Charles and Sophia had been married for five years now and Sophia had presented her spouse with a new baby every year since. Did they now have four children or was it five? Rob found it difficult to keep track.

  Looking at Sophia, Rob found it hard to believe that she was a mother so many times over. Her figure was as trim as the day they had married. Her beauty seemed to blossom more with each year that passed, and Roker Park was one of the happiest houses it was Rob’s good fortune to visit on a regular basis. Rob seldom declined an invitation, the growing throng of infants reminding him of his own youth at the Hall and the happy times before his mother’s passing. Pitting his wits over a chessboard with a worthy opponent such as Charles more than compensated for Sophia’s determination to introduce him to every eligible lady of her acquaintance. She claimed that his close friendship with her husband gave her the right to play matchmaker.