by Henke, Shirl
Beth had participated in some heated embraces over the past three years, but she had always kept a distance in her mind, assessing the situation, planning her next move, deciding when to break away before things got out of hand. This was definitely out of hand,and she had planned nothing at all! Derrick seemed as powerless to resist their passion as she. Beth could feel the obvious pressure of his erection straining against the sheer fabric of her gown, pressing near the juncture of her thighs.
Lord above, I want to take her right here on the grass by torchlight, in clear view of any accidental passersby! If they were discovered by anyone of account at the court, it could jeopardize his mission. He should stop while he still could...if he still could...but he did not. Instead he ground his hips against hers with fierce possessiveness and lowered his lips from hers to trail hot wet kisses down her throat, slipping her bodice from the very shoulder where he had earlier repaired it, eager to take that lush pink nipple in his mouth and feast.
The faint scratching of the brooch as he slid the bodice free of her breast brought Beth back from the edge of the abyss. She took a deep shuddering gulp of cool night air and removed her hands from where she'd buried them in his thick black hair. Pressing her palms against his chest, she stopped him from placing the searing heat of his mouth on her breast. If he'd done that, she intuited that nothing would have enabled her to say him nay.
Standing on the stairs of the portico overlooking the garden, Vittoria observed the lovers faintly visible in the distance. Beth's heavy mane of hair and statuesque body were easily identifiable, and she was returning Jamison's kisses with an ardor that greatly pleased the older woman. At twenty, the contessa had been already well experienced in the joys of the flesh. It was time her young protegee took a lover.
Of course, a lover was all the Englishman could ever be for Beth. The son of an earl, even the younger son who had not inherited the title, could never consider marriage with an American. But this was acceptable. Her mentor knew that Beth had no interest in shackling herself to a man. Her career as an artist was the driving passion of her life. And the contessa bitterly understood that there could be no room in any woman's life for two passions.
But a little dalliance now and then...well, that was another matter. Vittoria had always believed Englishwomen were the most painfully inhibited on earth until she met Beth. She had spent nearly three years trying in vain to convince the girl that she could enjoy her sexuality without having to abandon her art. Then tonight, observing Beth's reaction to that handsome devil in the audience room, Vittoria had made it her business to learn Derrick Jamison's identity. Above all she would protect her surrogate daughter.
Something about his manner had set her suspicions humming when she'd first watched him. Ever since Joaqim Murat had been given the Neapolitan throne by his brother-in-law Napoleon, spies swarmed around the court, thick as flies on overripe fruit. But Jamison apparently was a member of one of the richest and most prestigious families in England. The late Earl of Lynden would never have permitted his son to do anything so tawdry as spying. From what various courtiers knew of Derrick Jamison, she surmised that he was either an indolent wastrel enjoying the warm Italian sun or, more likely, a rogue banished for some infraction in London society. In either case, he would be recalled to make the requisite marriage in due course, leaving Beth in no danger of leg-shackling.
Yes, the contessa could not have arranged matters better herself. When Beth finally pushed him away and stepped back, Vittoria chuckled. Beth might be young, but she had a solid head on her shoulders. That was precisely what most men feared in a woman, but Jamison would not be daunted since he had no thoughts of marrying her. The course was set now. Let nature do its work. If it did not, Vittoria would simply lend it a hand.
* * * *
“You look like a kitten in cream, darling girl. What has put that slumberous expression on your face, eh?” the contessa asked as a servant pulled out a Chiavari chair at the table laden with ripe figs, sliced oranges and crisply browned anise cakes. Vittoria raised a cup of black coffee laced with goat's milk to her lips,staring at her young protegee over its steamy rim. “Well?”
Beth had been up since just past dawn, a crassly American habit according to her friend, who always slept until at least eleven. For her this was an early luncheon, for the contessa, breaking her fast. Even though the light was excellent, Beth had not done much painting this morning, contrary to her usual habit. In fact, all she had done was think about Derrick. She could see Vittoria was waiting her out, one elegant sable brow arched in that sardonic way the older woman had.
“Oh, all right. As if you did not already know. I was thinking about the Englishman. He kissed me in the gardens last night. It was...rather intense.”
“I thought the Englishman was, how did you put it, 'a foppish boor’?” The hint of a smile whispered around her lips as she sipped her drink.
“Perhaps I was mistaken...or perhaps...”
“At last a man who takes your fancy as much as you take his. This is a refreshing change. Tell me about him—I mean everything from when you first met in America.”
Beth outlined that first disastrous encounter with Barnsmell, then the second equally unpleasant meeting at Dolley Madison's salon. “So that's why I suddenly developed an acute case of headache upon recognizing him last night.”
“Then what changed your mind—other than the very obvious fact that he's quite the most dashing figure of a man I've seen since Prince Metternich returned to Vienna?” A faint niggling of unease once again pricked the contessa. She made a mental note to check further into Jamison's background.
Beth blushed faintly, something she had schooled herself to avoid. ”I must confess that I fancied him even back in Washington. But I was only a naive schoolgirl of seventeen. What did I know of men?”
“What indeed?” the contessa echoed, biting into a plump, juicy fig.
“I would probably not have even spoken to him if he had not rescued me from Evon Bourdin.”
“The king's captain of the guards?” Vittoria made a small moue of distaste.
“None other. He was drunk and must have followed me to the gazebo in the garden. I was about to give him a set down with my stiletto when Derrick came up behind him and seized him about the neck.”
“An intelligent move if the Englishman was unarmed. Even drunk, Bourdin can be quite dangerous. I can imagine what Jamison must've thought when he saw your weapon...and where it came from.” A look of sly amusement lit her eyes.
“He was, er, interested in where I keep it. I was quite brazen, showing him the blade, then replacing it on my garter while he watched. You would have been proud of me,” Beth replied, grinning. Then her expression grew serious. “He devoured me with his eyes. I felt...unlike any time before...warm, breathless, as if the world was spinning out of control. Is that the way it's supposed to be when you're attracted to a man?”
“Yes, but only if you're careful you don't lose your heart in the process of losing your virginity.”
“I understand about European nobility and arranged marriages, Vittoria. You above anyone should know what my art career means to me. But how am I to paint about life unless I experience it?”
The contessa gave a fatalistic Latin shrug of agreement, but her thoughts were still troubled. Why is Jamison in Naples? She intended to find out.
* * * *
“I tell you, old chap, this is intolerable, simply intolerable. I shan't be responsible for my actions if Sir Percival remains,” Drum said, eyeing his sterling-headed sword cane. He held up for Derrick's inspection a pair of riding boots, with the toe chewed off one, a heel demolished on the other. “Forty pounds! The finest shoemaker in London fitted them to my feet. Deuced hard to find a craftsman who can do this sort of work.”
“Especially when you fail to pay him,” Derrick replied dryly.
“Articles of my apparel were not the only casualties of this guerrilla war,” Drum replied with silky smugness
. “Only this morning I found that bottle-green jacket of yours covered with hair. I still have not managed to remove it all. Doubt I shall. Sir Percival must go.”
Just then the object of Drum's ire trotted into the sitting room and jumped onto the settee, where he promptly proceeded to groom his unmentionables with a long red tongue.
Jamison narrowed his eyes at the King Charles Spaniel, whom he liked no better than did his companion. “Sir Percival is a highly trained courier. He's been assigned to us and there's an end to it. You'll just have to apply yourself to keeping clothing and footgear out of his reach.”
Drum quit the room, muttering beneath his breath, “I arrant he'd reach a deal less high if I cropped off his demned legs at the first joint.”
Derrick looked over at the spaniel, who returned his gaze with guileless liquid brown eyes. “No need to look at me as if you were innocent as a newborn foal. I know better.” The dog hopped from the settee and padded over to him, sitting at his feet.
Sighing in resignation, Jamison patted the dog's head. Bloody hell; how had he come to be saddled with a clothes-chewing canine and a debtor dandy? He had been perfectly content working alone across the capitals of Europe for the past three years. Been damned successful at it, too. Owing to his information, several crucial battles on the Peninsula had gone to Britain and her Spanish allies. And his assistance to the incompetent Austrian military had been considerable.
Perhaps if he hadn't described the fighting capabilities of the Austrian soldiers by writing that the best that could be said was that they had the prettiest uniforms on the field, he might not have been sent down from Vienna. How the bloody hell was I to know the idiot British charge d'affaires would share that dispatch with Metternich?
He returned his attention to the Italian newspaper in his hand. His Italian needed work, but he had a natural affinity for languages and felt certain that within a few weeks he would be able to comprehend passably well. Beth Blackthorne would doubtless be an excellent teacher. He grinned, recalling their encounter last night, then glanced up at the ormolu clock on the mantel. He had an appointment at half past the hour...and he could almost justify his dalliance because her Italian was so skillfully idiomatic.
Later, after he had dressed for his outing with Beth, he watched in the mirror as Drum fussed with his cravat. “No, no, my dear fellow. You simply must hold still. It does not quite stand to your chin properly,” the little dandy said.
“If the damned thing stood any higher, my neck would be stretched tighter than a Tyburn felon's. And you must desist in calling me ‘old chap’ and ‘my dear fellow.’ Remember, you're supposed to be my body servant.”
“As the Honorable Mr. Jamison wishes, sir,” Drum replied curtly, looking up the narrow blade of his nose at the much taller man. Cool green eyes met amused blue ones. “I see nothing of humor in this ghastly situation.”
Derrick suppressed another chuckle as he turned to inspect himself in the glass and nodded approvingly. “You're getting to be a passable dresser, I must say, my good fellow. I look...er,what is it the Beau would say—all the crack, I believe.”
“Not quite the crack. You're over tall. That Scots blood, I suspect.” Drum sniffed, shaking his head as he folded a stack of cravats and replaced them in the armadio.
“Give us Scots our due. We've successfully infiltrated the whole of the English bureaucracy and run the bloody government now.” Derrick turned to leave, then paused to deliver his departing sally. “Oh, by the by, I just received word while you were engaged drawing my bath—this afternoon Sir Percival begins earning his dog bones. You're to walk him along the Via Roma toward the Piazza Dante where you will—”
“I am to walk him! I? Whyever not you? The beast is supposed to be your dog,” Drum interrupted.
“This is merely a trial run, to see if the dog can find his trainer and messages can be easily exchanged in his collar without anyone taking note. I've placed a brief report regarding what I gleaned at court last night inside the collar. All you need do is place it around his neck and be off. Slip his leash when you reach the piazza. He should return to you when his mission is accomplished.”
“I might better wish that the accursed hellhound runs off, never to be heard from again!” Drum replied with an indignant wave of his hand. “I, who trod the streets of the Great Wen with the Beau, reduced to walking a dog!”
Derrick could not resist tweaking the little dandy, “It will raise less attention if the locals believe a mere servant is walking the dog.”
Drum huffed. “A mere servant indeed—”
“Be a good chap, Drum. See to Sir Percival,” Derrick said, suppressing another chuckle as he closed the door.
* * * *
“Do I look all right?” Beth asked worriedly, turning this way and that to check her appearance in a looking glass, although she normally concerned herself little about clothing.
Vittoria inspected her charge, who was a vision in a pale spring green gown and spencer, sprigged with darker green leaves. The short jacket was cut cunningly, with a clasp holding it together just below the curve of her breasts. The color brought out the green in her hazel eyes. Her hair was wound in a simple heavy chignon at the crown of her head with soft tendrils escaping around the edges of the tiny confection of her bonnet. To add just a hint of sophistication, the contessa had insisted she borrow an emerald necklace and earrings set in antique filigreed silver.
“You're exquisite, child. Ah, to be twenty once again, with handsome men flocking about.”
Beth smiled and kissed the older woman on the cheek. “You still have handsome men flocking about you and well you know it—just not this one particular Englishman.”
“Speaking of whom, I do believe I hear his curricle in the drive,” Vittoria said, slipping over to the open window to look down into the front entryway. “My, he does cut a dashing figure. Matched bays with white stockings and blazes.”
“Must all Neapolitans judge people by their horses?”
The question was rhetorical and Vittoria knew it. “Next to the English, we're the most horse-mad race on earth.”
“You haven't met my Creek Indian cousins, else you'd never say so.” Beth smoothed her hands over her hips nervously, then licked her lips, which had been glossed with berry juice so they glowed a soft pink. A hint of kohl darkened her eyelids and lashes, but her sun-kissed face was smooth and golden, innocent of the artifice of cosmetic whiteners. Derrick was from England, where the standard of beauty was blond and pale. Would she compare unfavorably? Throwing her head back, she went to meet him, but her confident stride belied the butterflies dancing in her belly.
He watched her descend the curving staircase, a statuesque Juno in a soft, clinging ensemble that beguilingly hinted of delectable breasts, hips and long sleek legs. Ah, how well he remembered that firm creamy expanse of thigh when she'd replaced the stiletto in her garter. Does she carry it today? The thought was a bit unsettling, but she had not offered to use it on him last night.
She was followed by an older woman of more than passing handsomeness. Derrick knew she must be the Contessa di Remaldi, the notorious widow who owned this magnificent old villa. Twice widowed, Vittoria di Remaldi lived life as she pleased, taking lovers by the score, if international gossip was to be believed. She was rich as the Romanovs and a serious patron of the arts, sponsoring numerous young painters, among them Beth Blackthorne.
She was also nobody's fool, having been raised amid cutthroat Italian politics. His sources said she supported Murat's bid to unify the smaller Italian states, something Britain and her Austrian allies were dead set against. He would have to tread very lightly around the contessa. But if he were careful, he might be able to glean from Beth all manner of information about court intrigues,especially any contact the king and queen had with the prisoner on Elba.
Beth made the introductions and he bowed, kissing the contessa's hand, which was supristngly bare of jewelry. Last evening she, like every other Italian nobl
ewoman, fairly dripped with rubies and diamonds. “It is a pleasure, Contessa. I have heard much about the charming and lovely patron of the arts.”
“Then you are quite ahead of me. I have heard little of the Honorable Derrick Jamison, other than that he is the younger son of the late Earl of Lynden. Why are you here, sir?” she asked in musically accented English, adding, “Other than to enjoy the company of our beautiful women, that is?”
“Need I have any other reason for coming to Italy? It's been second home to my countrymen for generations,” he countered smoothly, adding, “But none of them ever beheld ladies as breathtaking as I do now.”
“You are a flatterer, signore. And in a handsome man, that can be a dangerous thing,”
“As is intelligence in a beautiful woman, Contessa.” After they had departed, Vittoria stood on the portico watching the curricle vanish amid a stand of olive trees. He had been gallantly glib. Perhaps a bit too much so?
* * * *
They rode through the glorious open countryside, following an ancient cobbled road that overlooked the bay to the west. Derrick handled the ribbons with considerable skill. As he drove, Beth observed his face in profile. His look was hawkish, intent—dangerous was the word Vittoria chose. She studied him silently. They had spoken little since driving away from the villa on the outskirts of the city. It was as if each was too aware of the other and the sudden and powerful sexual chemistry that had charged their meeting and prompted their rash behavior in the royal garden.
“Am I frightening you?” he asked, turning his attention from the road as he reined the bays to a slow trot.
“I know how to protect myself,” she replied.
“Ah, yes, the stiletto. I was wondering if you would wear it today, but I was referring to my driving.”
Beth laughed, a warm throaty sound that she was unaware he found incredibly stimulating. “You drive no more recklessly than any of my brothers or cousins. I come from a family of horse-racing men. Georgia planters and Creek Indians are notorious for their weakness for fast horses.”