“Us?” she said softly.
“Hmm?” He turned back to her, not sure what he’d heard her say. “What?”
Her smile was different, secret. “Nothing.” She looked around the room, too. “My father told me my dress was too much—the color too bold, the cut too daring. He was right, I’ve scandalized all these women and stunned all these men. But I don’t mind. Do you?”
He’d wanted her to look the part, but that clearly didn’t matter. It was more than clothes that made belonging in this highest echelon of society. They would never blend in.
But he couldn’t be sorry about the woman he had on his arm.
“I don’t mind. You are the most beautiful woman here, by far. And I like their shock.”
“So do I. Shall we mingle and see if we might make one swoon?”
He offered his arm again, and led her toward another captain of industry he’d had cause to deal with.
“I not understand,” Mirabella said softly.
She was speaking to Paolo, he thought, but she’d spoken in English, and they had a companion. During the course of the evening, they’d picked up a mascot of sorts—or, perhaps, a champion: a young, pretty woman who seemed to be courting a scandal of her own.
Paolo hadn’t known or heard of her before, but he’d certainly noticed the wake of whispers she trailed through the gathering. Often, she was on her own, but she didn’t seem to mind. In fact, not unlike Mirabella, she seemed to seek it.
Her name was Lilith Barton. She had coppery hair done in a surprisingly simple style, something that belonged on a Grecian artifact—and her gown, too, was hardly more than a drape of creamy white silk. It left one whole shoulder and arm bare. Her complexion was so pale she nearly matched her gown.
Where Mirabella was thin and dark, Miss Barton was voluptuous and bright, but they made something of a set—two bold young women setting tongues to wag. Paolo thought they were by far the most beautiful women in the room.
The room in question was not the ballroom but the other side of the foyer—another room just as large, but this one had been laid out with odd arrangements. When Paolo had first seen them, he’d been struck by the idea of the Stations of the Cross, but these were not at all the same thing.
They were stiff little scenes in which one or two or three people, and occasionally an animal or two as well, posed like statues, dressed in odd garb. These were the ‘tableaux vivants,’ which were meant to be the focus of this ‘soiree.’
Paolo didn’t understand them, either.
Miss Barton had done a long tour through Italy and had, she’d shared, been briefly engaged to an Italian prince. She spoke Italian well, and she did so now. “They are meant to be a painting brought to life.”
“But shouldn’t they be moving, then?” Mirabella asked, frowning at the scene before them.
“If they were moving, they wouldn’t be the painting,” Miss Barton answered.
“But not moving, it isn’t brought to life.”
Miss Barton laughed musically. “You’re right, it’s silly. But it’s all the rage. I did Reynold’s ‘Mrs. Lloyd’ in the summer and stole the show. This one is ‘Mr. and Mrs. Robert Andrews,’ by Gainsborough. Have you seen the original?”
“No,” Mirabella said and didn’t explain.
Miss Barton turned to Paolo, the same question on her pretty, round face. He simply shook his head.
The only real paintings he’d ever seen had been on the walls of Don Cuccia’s house, or some offices he’d visited in New York. He doubted any of those were famous.
There were paintings in this house, and some of those might be, but he wouldn’t know.
“Oh, now, this one,” Miss Barton said and insinuated herself between them, hooking her arms with them both and leading them to the next station. “This one is lovely. She’s doing admirably well, don’t you think?”
This ‘living painting’ was a dark-haired girl, perhaps a young woman, wearing a demure dark dress and matching hat, sitting in a wicker chair. The painted scene around the living, but perfectly still, woman was mainly a riot of blotches and blobs in blues, greens, and golds. For all the restraint in the woman’s posture and clothing, Paolo was struck by the way her head was turned. She stared out at her audience boldly, a scant smile on her rosy lips. That pose belied any modesty in the scene.
“What is it?” he asked, and then blinked, surprised he’d spoken at all.
Miss Barton leaned close. “It’s called ‘By the Seashore,’ by Renoir. In fact, in the painting, it’s his wife Aline sitting in the chair. This before us is Miss Gertrude Fairweather, however. She’s engaged to Mr. Pembroke. Have you met him?”
Paolo recognized the name, but it wasn’t someone he’d met or felt the need to know. Pembroke was prominent enough for Paolo to have heard of him, but he was young, someone to watch for the future. He preferred to do his watching from a distance at first.
He glanced at Mirabella, who was giving Miss Barton a cool look. Paolo took pride in his ability to read people, and Mirabella was usually a wide-open book, but he didn’t quite understand that look.
Then Miss Barton leaned in again, and her full breasts brushed against his arm. He realized that she was no longer arm in arm with Mirabella; he had her full attention.
And Mirabella’s look narrowed to violence.
A muscle in his chest twitched at the same time he realized what that look meant.
She was jealous.
XIII
Paolo and Mirabella were among the first to leave the soiree; Paolo had seen and accomplished all he’d wanted to, and there was no reason to stay longer—certainly not for the company or the entertainment.
When they collected their things and left Martin Deller’s home, the rain had stopped but the world was still wet and bore the earthy-sweet scent of a fresh wash. Paolo felt a weight ease from his back as soon as Deller’s butler closed the heavy doors.
Seeing Cosimo and the brougham across the street, Paolo waved. At once, the carriage began to move to them.
Mirabella stood silently, her arms crossed, holding her velvet wrap snugly around her shoulders. The night was heavy with autumn chill, and Paolo might have wondered if she were cold, except that he felt sure he knew why she’d pulled so tightly inward.
Since Miss Lilith Barton had turned her attention on him, Mirabella had grown steadily stonier. The easy banter with which they’d occupied themselves early in the evening had died out, and she now spoke only to answer questions directly put to her, in the tersest possible way.
But this was no pout. She was silent but defiant, standing ramrod straight and flaying him with her eyes.
Mirabella in a jealous pique was the greatest entertainment Paolo had experienced all night.
The carriage pulled up, and Paolo opened the door. When he offered her his hand, she shouldered past it and climbed in on her own. Paolo followed after her, pulling the door closed as he turned to sit.
The second the door latched, she said in Italian, “I suppose you won’t be needing my services for any more events.”
“English, Mirabella.”
She turned on him as if she meant to breathe fire and reduce him to cinders on the spot. “Fuck your English.” Twisting her expression into one of childish temper, she mimicked, “’English, Mirabella, English, Mirabella.’ You’re like a parrot.”
Paolo leaned back in the corner of the seat and considered the petulant woman before him. He could think of no other person, neither man nor woman, in his life who would dare speak to him in such a way. Not even Aldo, who had leave to speak plainly, or Nello and Joey, who also could challenge him, though more carefully, without fear of reprisal.
This woman should have been in fear of him. She’d seen what he was capable of—enough, at least, to color her imagination—and she was in debt to him. Yet she sat within arm’s reach and insulted him.
And Paolo loved it. His heart raced and his cock throbbed. This woman had no fear—and she was jealou
s. Of him.
Knowing full well the answer, he amused himself by prodding her. “What has gotten into you?” he asked in English as he knocked on the carriage and got Cosimo started on the slow journey home.
In stubborn Italian, she said, “As if you don’t know.” She scoffed under her breath and turned her head to focus on the window beside her.
Paolo watched her, his body still but his blood pounding, as the carriage rocked softly down 5th Avenue. She kept her focus on the window as if she might miss something important should she blink.
It dawned on Paolo that she might, in fact. “Have you seen Central Park yet?”
She spoke to the glass. “I’m looking at it now.”
“But have you been in it?”
“When would I? I work and sleep and teach you manners—or try, at least.”
Another insult. Paolo’s cheek ached, and he rubbed at it. Even through his glove, he could feel the ridge of the hooked scar beneath his eye. Thoughtfully, he brushed his fingers along the line that slashed through his mouth. A blade had made it and nearly sliced half his face away. But that scar had healed fairly well, considering. Dr. Goldman had reopened the wound and mended it so that his lips met up as they should, rather than mash together in some misshapen twist. With his gloves on, he felt only a slight depression in the skin.
But there was no doubt that people saw his scars first. What must all those genteel party guests have thought of the look of him, his face mangled like a pirate’s?
That he was dangerous. And well they should think so.
He was smiling again. He stopped, and the ache eased. He leaned forward and opened the window.
“Cosimo!”
Cosimo turned on his perch and looked down and back. “Yeah, don?”
“Go through the park.”
With a nod, Cosima got back to his task, and Paolo drew back into the carriage and closed the window.
Mirabella was looking at him now. He could see her temper waver as interest tried to take over.
“You’ve lived in New York for months. You should see Central Park.”
“Hmpf,” she grunted.
Paolo couldn’t resist. “All this temper is because you’re jealous,” he said in Italian.
Her outrage was as broadly fabricated as a carnival handbill. “I am not! What would I have to be jealous of?”
“Miss Barton is a very interesting young woman. She seemed to like me.”
A deeply satisfying burst of hot light flared in Mirabella’s eyes, but she flicked her hands as if his comment were a pesky fly. “Don’t flatter yourself. She’s slipping downhill and looking for someone to catch her. Apparently anyone will do.”
“You know, people who speak to me like that bleed.”
One of her marvelous brows lifted high and she smirked. “Are you going to pull out your knife and stab me now?”
Paolo’s rushing blood pushed an impulse into his hands, and he reached into a pocket and withdrew his bone-handled switchblade. Mirabella’s chin lifted defiantly; no fear showed on her face. Even when he popped the blade, her eyebrow remained skeptically high.
But she licked her lips, and they remained parted, glistening in the moonbeam slanting through the window.
He shifted toward the center of the seat and leaned close. Her eyes stayed with him, but she was only watchful, not wary.
“I could, you know,” he murmured, laying the side of the blade on her clavicle. “I hold your life in my hands.”
“But what will you do with it?” she asked, her voice, like her eyes, clear and bold.
He could see her pulse pounding against her throat. He could feel her body swelling and receding with each quick breath. Color had risen in her cheeks, but it wasn’t fear that had her so enflamed. Nor was it anger.
It was desire.
He could smell it on her skin, a hint of musk beneath sweet citrus.
He held a viciously sharp blade at her throat, and her reaction was to want him.
Oh, this woman was nothing like any he’d known.
Paolo was as hard as he’d ever been. His body was barely in his control; the beast inside him wanted to grab her and push her beneath him, spread her wide and fill her full. Slice this beautiful, daring gown open and feast on her ripe breasts. Rip the pins from her hair and wrap himself in it.
He wanted to ravish her, ravage her. Make her scream, make her cry. He wanted to tear her apart, take every fragment of her body and soul and make it his.
The beast roared and gnashed, demanding release.
He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Sat back.
“I haven’t decided yet,” he answered as he closed the blade and slid it back into his pocket.
“I don’t fear you,” she said after a moment.
Paolo focused on the window at his side. “I know. But you should.”
Mirabella didn’t answer, and they rode a few minutes in quiet. Paolo turned his will inward and tried to cool this explosive urge to have her.
He had not been with any woman but a whore for years. He had not ever courted a woman. When he’d come to an age that he might have, in Sicily, his father was gone, his mother raped, and he, his mother, and his sister had been taken as slaves. He’d had nothing to offer a woman and no way of knowing when he might.
Then he’d come to America, and on the very first night on this ground, he’d been beaten and stabbed, his face slashed, and had lain helpless while his sister was raped.
Whatever tiny kernel of goodness in him that might have survived what had happened in Sicily had not survived that first night in this world. He would never have anything to offer a woman.
So he’d satisfied his needs with whores, and no woman he’d encountered in six years in New York had ever turned his head. Until this one.
He’d been fascinated with her nearly from the start, and he’d known the wiser course would be to avoid her. She wasn’t a whore, and he still had nothing to offer a woman.
But he hadn’t wanted to avoid her. He’d wanted to watch her, to enjoy her lively company. He’d wanted to be near her. That he could exploit her beauty and grace for his own ends had given him a reason, and he’d indulged his whim.
Now, though … what he felt now was more than fascination or enjoyment. He was beginning to care for this woman. When she wasn’t with him, he felt restless—worse, he felt incomplete.
And with his caring came this bestial urge to dominate her, to spread her wide before him and take every part of her.
He was a beast. He had nothing to offer her but brutality.
“I would like to stop,” she said.
Paolo pulled himself away from his thoughts and turned to her. She was looking at him, her expression calm and curious. She clearly wasn’t experiencing the same existential torment after his display with the knife.
“The carriage,” she said. “I would like to stop and see the park.”
“To walk?”
“Yes. It’s not raining, and the moon is bright. I want to walk a little and see the park.”
She’d given up English as soon as they’d left the Deller house. Paolo considered reminding her, and then, remembering her outburst, gave it up.
He wanted to go home and be quit of her for the evening, but they had a long ride yet to reach Little Italy. He’d be glad for a respite where the air was freer and cooler, and he could give his blood a chance to calm.
With a knock, he got the carriage to stop.
The door opened after a moment, and Cosimo leaned in. “Trouble?”
“No. We want to walk a while.” Paolo said and climbed down.
When he offered Mirabella his hand, she took it. Her fingers closed snugly around his.
“Stay back but shadow us,” Paolo told his driver and guard. The big man nodded, and Paolo pulled Mirabella close, folding her arm with his.
The night was cool but not cold. The earth held onto that freshly washed scent after the rain. A few lingering clouds sailed on a soft bree
ze, leaving a nearly full moon to light their way. As they walked, Mirabella lifted her face to the night sky and took a savoring breath.
“We can forget the city here,” she murmured. “It is like a forest.”
They’d stopped near the zoo, which was, of course, closed at this hour, but Paolo led her toward its boundary anyway. Cosimo kept his distance, but the clop-clop of the horse’s ambling gait was close enough to set the tempo of their stroll.
If she’d last that long, he had a thought to walk her to The Pond and to the edge of the park before summoning the carriage again.
“I have a question,” Mirabella said after a few minutes in which they’d walked in shared silence while she took in the views the park offered at night.
“Ask it,” he said.
“Did you get what you wanted from tonight?”
“What do you think I wanted?” They’d had a version of this conversation already; he thought he’d made himself clear.
“You said you wanted power, but how did tonight help you get it? They all hated us.”
“Miss Barton didn’t hate us,” he pointed out, amusing himself.
She made a disdainful noise, which also amused him. “Miss Barton is desperate. I think she’s been to bed with at least one of those straw-stuffed dullards and now is paying the price for doing what men do at their whim.”
“If that were true, I doubt she’d have been invited.”
“You really don’t understand women, or society, do you?”
“Enlighten me.”
“There’s a reason she’s tolerated. She’s obviously well bred and educated, to the extent women are allowed to be. Perhaps she has a fortune—though I’d think she’d be married by now if so. Unless …” Her aspect brightened as a thought occurred to her. “Perhaps she doesn’t wish to be. Perhaps she’s chasing men because there’s nothing else for her to do, her only role is to secure a husband, but she doesn’t want any of them. Perhaps she turned her interest to you to stir up gossip.” A feline smile spread over her mouth. “Oh, if so, my opinion of Miss Lilith Barton will improve dramatically.”
Il Bestione (The Golden Door Duet Book 2) Page 15