Finessing the Contessa

by Wendy Soliman

  “Good morning,” he said. “You look rested. I take it you slept well.”

  “I didn’t expect to. I thought I would be sick with worry about Vincenzo, as I have been these past nights, but it seems sharing my concerns with you three gentlemen eased my mind.”

  “I’m glad. But now you must prepare yourself to see Maynard again, possibly today.”

  “I’m perfectly ready to face him.” She lifted her chin. “May I ask you a question, Lord Robert?”

  “Certainly.”

  She paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. She needed to phrase this exactly right. She wanted to know precisely what was in his head, and more especially his heart, without sounding as though she was fishing for compliments. “I still don’t entirely understand why you’re going to so much trouble on my behalf.” She cleared her throat. “Why not simply keep the report safe and forget about my problems?”

  Lord Robert stared at her as though she’d sprouted a second head. “Do you really have no idea?”

  She sensed a tangible alteration in the atmosphere as the expression in his gaze caused her spirits to soar. Something unfamiliar tugged at her heart as understanding tumbled through her brain. Her feelings for Lord Robert ran deep, although she wasn’t sure they were reciprocated.

  At the very least he did appear to believe her and wished to champion her cause. He was behaving just as any gentleman with a conscience should and that would just have to suffice. Having lived these past years in a loveless household where she was undervalued and thought of as nothing more than a possession, being admired and treated with respect gave her a heady feeling of self-worth.

  “Your brother the marquess doesn’t entirely trust me,” she said, moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue.

  “My brother is about to discover that he’s not always right about everything.”

  “Thank you for saying that. To know you believe me means a very great deal.”

  His curling smile further melted her vulnerable heart. “Did you know that your brother removed some of his clothing from your Chelsea residence earlier this week?”

  She gasped. “No, I did not know. But how are you aware?”

  “Hal questioned the servants.”

  “There must be an explanation but it doesn’t mean Vincenzo’s free,” she said with quiet conviction. “If he was, then he would have found a way to contact me.”

  “I believe you,” he said, reaching up to push a curl behind her ear. “But it seems very odd, don’t you think?”

  She wrinkled her brow. “Maynard must have sent someone for his things. When I saw him in London he looked very untidy because he’d tried to fight Maynard and his bullies off but, now that I think about it, his clothing was clean. How peculiar.”

  She could see Lord Robert was concerned about the business of the missing clothing, so it was little wonder that the marquess was too. “If I’m fortunate enough to see Vincenzo today I shall ask him about it.”

  “Yes, please do.” His voice was little more than a soft whisper, the distance between them now almost nonexistent.

  Electra hadn’t noticed him move his chair closer to hers and lean forward. She canted her head and smiled up at him, her heart beating at twice its normal rate as she waited for him to say or, better yet, do something.

  “What is it?” she asked when he continued to caress her with his eyes but didn’t speak.

  “I prefer to show you. I believe in actions rather than words.”

  He stood up and pulled her to her feet. His arms slid around her as he lowered his head and captured her lips in a drugging kiss. With her body pressed tightly against his and her arms wound around his neck, she returned his kiss with gladness in her heart. His tongue, velvety and sensuous, invaded her mouth and his hands explored the contours of her back. Turbulent emotion gripped her when he deepened the kiss. She fed from his vital strength, feeling safe and protected in the circle of his arms, willing the moment to last forever.

  Still kissing her, Lord Robert lifted her from the floor, resumed his seat and deposited her on his lap. That they were in his brother’s home and anyone might walk in on them at any moment barely registered. All she cared about was making this moment—a moment she thought would never come after his rejection of her at Lord Billingham’s—last forever.

  “I yearn for you, contessa,” he said. “I can’t seem to think about anything other than my overwhelming desire for you.”

  “Desire?” she replied dazedly. “Is that what I’m feeling now? I’ve never experienced it before, you see.”

  “You have a passionate nature, Electra.” Her name sounded so natural as it slipped past his lips for the first time and she made no objection to his use of it. “It would be a sin to suppress it.”

  “Perhaps.” A welling of tender affection consumed her when she absorbed the deep warmth of his gaze. “But it remained dormant during the years of my marriage, which was probably for the best. What you’ve never had, you don’t miss.”

  She wanted to tell him she felt as though she’d been waiting, like the heroine in some ancient fable, for her prince to ride along and bring her body and soul to life. To do so would make it sound as though she had long-term expectations and so it remained unsaid.

  “When this is all over, when you’re at leisure to think only of yourself, we shall have to remedy that situation.”

  His hands roamed across her back again, coming to rest on the sides of her breasts. She gasped as his long fingers probed and moulded, making her feel giddy as he excited her expectations. Making her want him in ways she hadn’t known were possible. A small moan of protest slipped past her lips when he’d stopped teasing her as abruptly as he’d started it.

  “Ah, contessa,” was all he said when he released her.

  Passion continued to spiral through Electra, even though Lord Robert was no longer touching her. Instead he returned her to her chair, sat back in his own and regarded her with an air of abstraction that implied he was almost as distracted as she was. The silence between them was charged and brittle. She needed to say or do something to defuse the situation. Something that suggested she could treat such dalliances as casually as he obviously did.

  Even though she could not.

  “Your step-mama doesn’t sound like a nice person,” she said. “No wonder poor Julia is so conflicted.”

  “The Dowager Lady Denby is still young and attractive,” Lord Robert said with a cynical twist of his beautiful lips. “Does the marchese enjoy the society of attractive women?”

  “Decidedly so. Philippe’s mother died in childbirth a few years before we were married. The marchese married again as soon as he decently could to a much younger lady. However, that doesn’t stop him from keeping a string of mistresses dotted about Sicily.”

  “If he’s currently in France and his journey was for the purpose of attracting British investment, he probably didn’t bring his wife or any of his mistresses with him.”

  “Probably not.”

  Rob made an expression of distaste. “Then my stepmother will be in her element.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I don’t like it up here. I’m old enough to have a room on the first floor.” Julia placed her hands on her hips and glowered at Leah. “I’m not a baby.”

  “Then I suggest you don’t behave like one.”

  “But this is a nursery. And nurseries are for babies. I want to go home!”

  “Mind your manners, Lady Julia,” Miss Dawson said.

  Leah shared a glance with Beth, not unsympathetic to the child’s dilemma. It must seem very strange to her, to be removed from everything she was used to, and she was expressing her vulnerability in the only way she knew how.

  “You can take your lesson with Miss Dawson in here, free from distraction.” Leah
hadn’t been up here very often. The schoolroom adjoined the nursery. It contained several scarred and scuffed desks that Hal and his siblings would have occupied before the boys were sent off to school. She suppressed a smile, suspecting that their boisterous energy had been as hard for their tutor to contain as Julia’s tantrums were for Miss Dawson. The rows of books in the shelves covered a variety of subjects, and the artwork on the walls appeared to have been carried out by young Forsters. Several windows looked down onto the kitchen garden and sparkling lake beyond—a stunning view which Leah imagined would prove distracting for young minds not especially interested in learning.

  Julia stamped her foot. “Lessons are boring.”

  “So are badly behaved children.” Leah took a seat beside the schoolroom fire and glanced up at the child. She was pink with indignation, presumably because her tantrum was having no discernible effect. “What do you most wish to do with yourself when you’re old enough to make up your own mind, Julia?”

  “I want to go to London and dance with lots of handsome men, and get married and have lots of servants who all have to do what I say. Everyone knows London is the place to get husbands. You have to go to Almack’s. Mama says as much.”

  “You won’t be able to achieve that ambition if you don’t attend to your lessons.”

  “Why not?”

  “What will you talk to these gentlemen about? They won’t like you if they think you’re a silly goose with nothing between your ears except sawdust.”

  Julia tilted her head, as though expecting shavings to leak from her ears. “Mama says gentlemen don’t like ladies to be too clever.”

  “Then she’s quite wrong,” Leah said, heartily wishing that Mama had less to say for herself. “In order to snare a rich husband, it’s necessary to be very clever indeed.”

  “But I’m not the least bit clever,” Julia said, wide-eyed.

  “That’s only because you won’t concentrate, Lady Julia,” Miss Dawson said.

  Leah shook her head. “That’s a shame, Miss Dawson. If only Lady Julia would learn to behave, she could go with Beth to visit the tenants later in the week. I expect Beth would appreciate some company.”

  “Instead of doing lessons?”

  “Provided you attend to your lessons this morning. What is it to be today, Miss Dawson?”

  “Household accounts, my lady.”

  “Very important. A lady must know how to maintain the costs in her household, Julia. If you intend to marry well, then that’s a skill you’d be well advised to acquire.”

  “I’ll try, but it’s hard.”

  “That dress looks rather old, Julia,” Beth said. “And it’s too short.”

  “Mama said it would have to do. There was no money for more.” She looked close to tears. “There’s never any money because Hal doesn’t pay Mama what he should.”

  Leah inhaled sharply but refrained from comment. Cynthia Denby really had poisoned this child’s mind against her own family.

  “We could make you something new,” Beth said. “Do you like to sew, Julia? I ask because I have some pretty pink muslin. We could use it to make a gown for you, if you’d like.”

  Her pinched expression gave way to a wary smile and she looked like a lonely little girl again. “Could we really do that?”

  “Most assuredly. And then, if you’re very good, perhaps you’ll be allowed to sit down to dinner with the family and show it off.”

  “Mama says I’m too young, but I’m not. I’m nearly fourteen and that’s quite grownup.”

  There was no arguing with the child’s logic.

  “Well, Beth,” Leah said as they descended the stairs together. “Shall we succeed, do you suppose?”

  Beth laughed as she joined Leah in her private sitting room. “We’ll have our work cut out, but there’s some hope.”

  “It was kind of you to suggest making the dress together.” Leah touched her sister’s hand. “Thank you.”

  “Oh, I love to sew. And I suspect it’s the one topic that will hold Julia’s interest.”

  Leah gripped her stomach and groaned as a pain took hold.

  “Are you all right?” Beth asked, kneeling anxiously in front of her sister.

  “Yes, just Hal’s daughter reminding me that she’s awake.”

  “Are you really that close?”

  “Yes, but Hal doesn’t know. He thinks I still have two months to go. He’d have me confined to bed if he knew the truth, and I’m not that far gone yet.”

  Beth frowned as she got up and sat herself beside Leah. “I won’t tell him for now, but if I think for a moment that—”

  “Talk of something else and take my mind off it. What of you, darling? What about your hopes?”

  “You refer to Mr. Garman, I take it.”

  “Who else? You seem to get along together.”

  “Well, he shares my love of history. He also has an interest in archaeology and has aroused my curiosity about that subject.”

  “That isn’t what I asked you, and well you know it.”

  “He hasn’t declared himself, Leah. Nothing may come of it.”

  “But he most likely will. What answer will you give him?”

  Beth shook her head. “I’m not sure.”

  “Then you should reject him, if you have to think about it for more than ten seconds.”

  “We’re not all destined to have your good fortune.” Beth spoke with a combination of asperity and wistfulness. “From my understanding, few ladies fall desperately in love with the man who proposes and is fortunate enough to have that love reciprocated.”

  Leah’s heart went out to her sister. “Gabe?” she asked softly.

  “There’s little point in speaking about him. He doesn’t return my affections and there’s an end to the matter.”

  “Give him time. Gentlemen take longer to make their minds up about these things.”

  “But that’s just the point. I’m prepared to wait for as long as it takes. And yet he treats me with respect, nothing more.” Beth stood up, paced back and forth and then threw herself onto the bench in the window embrasure. Leah followed her gaze out the window where Gabe was lunging Rominus in the paddocks below. “I thought when I first met him that perhaps—”

  “He’s seen how popular you are.”

  “I don’t understand how he can have. We barely saw him in London.”

  Leah laughed. “But I expect Flick took it upon herself to keep him apprised.”

  Beth flashed a wan smile. “Yes, I dare say she did.”

  “The thing is, darling, he isn’t so selfish that he’d hold you back from making a good marriage when he doesn’t yet know what it is that he wants for himself.”

  “I know that very well, Leah. I understand Gabe better than he understands himself.” Her dismal expression tore at Leah’s sisterly heartstrings. “Still, one good thing came out of it all,” she said cheerfully. “I made friends with Rominus just so I could feel close to Gabe, and it got me over my fear of horses.”

  The sisters’ gazes locked and they laughed at the absurdity of it all. The door flew open and Hal strode in.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, anxiety written all over his face. “I heard a noise and thought...are you all right, darling?”

  Beth smiled at Leah. “I think that proves my point.”

  * * *

  Midmorning, Electra joined Lady Denby and her sister in the morning room, determined to remain occupied while she awaited word from Maynard. Mostly she answered Miss Elliott’s questions about the history of her country and an archaeological dig that was taking place there.

  “Mr. Garman is a financial backer of the expedition,” Miss Elliott explained. “He made it sound fascinating and I’d be most interested to see it.”

  �
��I confess I know little about it,” Electra replied. “There’s a great deal of secrecy surrounding the project. You must understand that our small island has been occupied by a number of different powers over the centuries, each leaving its cultural mark. I believe there’s some excitement over the dig because they’ve unearthed some artefacts from the Byzantine period that could be priceless.”

  “Yes, Mr. Garman did say something along those lines, but—”

  Lady Denby groaned and Miss Elliott and Electra both jumped up to help her.

  “You look very uncomfortable.” Electra recognised in Lady Denby the signs of a lady who was closer to her time than she’d implied. “Is there anything I can fetch you?”

  “A new body?”

  The ladies laughed.

  “Believe me when I tell you it will be worth it,” Electra said softly. “You’ll soon forget the discomfort.”

  “You have a child?”

  Before Electra could answer, the door opened to admit the marquess and Lord Robert.

  “A message just arrived for you.” Lord Robert handed Electra a note.

  “It’s from Maynard,” she said before she even opened it. “I recognise his handwriting.” She tore it open and read the few lines scrawled in Italian. “Is there a draper’s shop in the village?”

  “Yes,” several voices said together.

  “I am to be outside it at noon,” she said breathlessly. “Maynard will bring Vincenzo to see me.”

  “That’s good,” Lord Robert said calmly. “He’s behaving just as we predicted. Hal and I already have several of our men in the village, so you’ll be perfectly safe.”

  “I’m to go alone?”

  “We’ll send you in one of our curricles with a driver,” Lord Denby replied. “If any of us go with you, it will look odd. Obviously Leah can’t accompany you.”

  “I could,” Miss Elliott said.