by Merry Farmer
“I think I can go the rest of the way on my own,” she said in a snippy voice once they reached the house. She was ready for another nap after all, but the last person she wanted to spend another second with was Miss Sewett.
Miss Sewett let go of Hattie’s wrist once they were inside. She turned back to the door. “I don’t suppose he’d follow me in here,” she said to no one in particular, looking a bit disappointed by the prospect.
Hattie let out a frustrated breath and stomped away from the woman. Miss Sewett ruined a good day at the best of times, but at that moment Hattie wasn’t sure she would forgive her. All she wanted to do was climb back into bed and plot ways for her and Adrian to be together again.
Those thoughts were at the forefront of her mind as she heard a crash from one of the parlors she passed on the way to the stairs. She backtracked to look into the room. It was the parlor Asher had taken over to use as his office. Hattie’s heart dropped to her stomach as she spotted a dark-haired woman in a plain, black dress rifling through a stack of papers on the table Asher used as a desk.
“Oy!” Hattie called out, not caring how lower-class she sounded. “What are you doing?”
The dark woman froze, snapping her head up and meeting Hattie’s eyes with the look of a deer about to be caught by hunters.
“What are you doing with my cousin’s things?” Hattie repeated, storming into the room. Her mood was already foul enough that she was itching for a fight, and if some vagrant woman was there to steal from them, Hattie was ready to give her what for.
The woman bolted as soon as Hattie started toward her. She dashed across the room to an open window. To Hattie’s surprise, the woman climbed speedily through the window, dropping to the grass below. It wasn’t much of a drop, but it surprised Hattie all the same. She dashed to the window to see where the dark woman was headed, but when she got there, the woman was nowhere in sight. Hattie leaned farther out the window, craning her neck to see if there was any trace of the woman at all, but she had simply vanished.
“What in blazes?” Hattie muttered to herself, pulling her head back into the room with a frown. She crossed to Asher’s things. There was nothing on the table but papers and letters. Either the woman had stolen whatever valuable she’d come to steal or she had left empty-handed.
Confused, Hattie left the parlor and continued on to her room. The dark woman was a mystery, but she was the last thing Hattie wanted to think about. The only question that rattled around Hattie’s mind was how she could steal Adrian into her bed in order for them to finish what they’d started.
Chapter 5
Adrian found himself in nearly a constant state of arousal from the moment he was forced to cut short his dalliance with Hattie. Just the memory of how willing and amorous she’d been was enough to give him a full cockstand every time he thought of it for the next few days. He wouldn’t soon forget the sounds she made or the salty-sweet scent of her skin, and he would never forget the heat and wetness of her cunny as she came hard as he primed her. And while the part of his mind that spoke in his father’s voice whispered that he shouldn’t approve of a woman being so licentious with her favors, every other part of his mind, body, and heart wanted Hattie as his wife, his partner in all things for the rest of his life.
“I have never seen a man so smitten with a woman he has just met,” Gianni laughed at him a few days later, as they made their way down a street in Sienna to the lodgings Adrian had been forced to move into after using the last of his ready money to pay off his gambling debts. “It is like some sort of fairy tale where the brave knight is bewitched by a nymph in the woods.”
“You can laugh at me all you’d like,” Adrian said, sending his friend a sly, sideways grin, “but I’ve spent years dancing and flirting and taking tea with all the wrong women. I knew the moment I pulled Hattie from that carriage and looked in her eyes that she was different.”
“And different is what fires your blood, no?” Gianni teased him.
“It is,” Adrian insisted with a laugh as they turned the corner and started down a shady side street. “I simply wasn’t built for a staid, traditional life, no matter what my father might think. Therefore, I could never be happy with a prissy, traditional lady.” He grinned up at the sliver of blue sky visible between the sloping, tile roofs of the buildings they walked between, breathing in the rich, somewhat pungent scents of the city street. “Lady Hattie is as free and wild a soul as I am. I knew it in an instant, and she confirmed as much in the gazebo. And when you find a woman whose soul matches your own, it doesn’t matter how long your acquaintance has been, she is the one.”
“And yet, she refused your offer of marriage,” Gianni pointed out with a smirk.
“The first time, yes,” Adrian admitted, buzzing with the challenge of winning her instead of being depressed by her refusal. “But she won’t refuse for long. Not after she has a taste of what I can give her.” He arched one eyebrow and shot a quick look to the front of his trousers, which weren’t fitting as well as they usually did.
Gianni laughed out loud as they turned onto an even darker, narrower street. “You speak like an Italian,” he said. “We are, after all, the greatest lovers in the world.”
It was Adrian’s turn to laugh. “You think so?”
“I know it.” Gianni shrugged as though the truth were obvious.
“Care to put your money where your bragging mouth is?” Adrian laughed.
“Another wager, my lord?” Gianni’s grin turned impish. “Haven’t you lost enough of your father’s money already?”
“Perhaps this is my chance to win it back.” Adrian paused, turning to Gianni, who seemed both amused and interested in what he might have to say. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you chasing after a certain chaperone at Villa Angelina the other day.”
Gianni’s smile turned downright wicked. “Ah, the lovely Miss Sewett.”
“She’s far from lovely,” Adrian guffawed.
“Loveliness is in the eye of the beholder,” Gianni insisted with a typically Italian shrug. “The toughest nuts to crack offer the sweetest meat. And Miss Wendine Sewett is the toughest, sweetest nut of all.”
“If you believe that, then I challenge you to crack her,” Adrian said, brimming with mischief at all the ways the potential wager in front of them could go wrong and entertain them all.
“I could crack her easily,” Gianni said. “Just watch me.”
“I will,” Adrian nodded. “I’ve been invited back to Villa Angelina for a picnic this afternoon. You will come with me.”
“Bellissimo!” Gianni shouted. The two of them continued on their way. “The lovely Wendine does not stand a chance against my charms.”
“I rather think you don’t stand a chance against her peevishness,” Adrian laughed. “But by all means, exercise all of your efforts to win her, or rather, to distract her as long as possible so that Lady Hattie and I can finish what she started.”
“Ah, I see your true aim,” Gianni laughed. “You wish me to occupy the hen so that you can make off with the chick. You sly fox, you.”
Adrian slapped Gianni’s shoulder as they reached the next corner. “What are friends for if not to—”
As soon as they turned the corner into another alley, he grabbed Gianni’s arm and yanked him back the way they had come. His heart leapt to his throat for a moment as he slowly peeked around the corner to be sure he’d seen what he thought he’d seen.
Sure enough, Asher McGovern was stepping out of a seedy-looking building halfway down the alley he and Gianni had nearly turned onto. He was dressed in plain clothes well beneath his station and had a hat pulled low over his face, but Adrian recognized him all the same. The look Asher wore as he spoke to a paunchy, balding man with shifty eyes was that of someone who knew he was doing something wrong. The two men seemed to be speaking about something dire in voices much too low for Adrian to hear, but their expressions said it all.
Within seconds, the conversation ended
and Asher walked on, thankfully in the other direction. Adrian let out a breath and watched his retreating back until it disappeared around a building at the other end of the block. By then, the paunchy man had sealed himself back inside his home.
“Isn’t that Lord Addlebury, your darling Hattie’s cousin?” Gianni asked in a whisper that proved he was smart enough to know how to stay quiet.
“It is,” Asher confirmed with a frown. “Though what he’s doing in this part of Sienna and what he was saying to that man are beyond me.”
“Do you know that man?” Gianni asked.
Adrian rolled his shoulders, trying to slough off the tension that had suddenly overtaken him. “No.”
“I do.”
Adrian flinched and stared at Gianni. “You do?”
“By reputation.” Gianni shrugged. “He is not the sort of man any decent person would want to know.” He tapped a finger to his nose and nodded.
“Then why would Asher McGovern speak to him?” Adrian asked, though not to Gianni specifically. He stared down the now deserted alley for a moment, rubbing his chin. There was no way to know what had just happened between Asher and the man. Adrian shook his head to clear away the odd feeling the encounter had left him with. “We should hurry on home so that we can clean up and take ourselves to Villa Angelina,” he said.
“To woo our women?” Gianni asked, his jovial smile returning.
“Of course,” Adrian laughed, though a moment later, he grew serious again. “And to unravel the mystery of whatever Asher is up to.”
Nothing could jolt the ladies of the McGovern clan into action like the announcement that gentleman callers had arrived.
“Lord Whitemarsh and Mr. Rossi have arrived, my lady,” one of the villa’s maids informed Hattie as she, Roselyn, Evangeline, Heather, and Sage lounged in one of the upstairs parlors, biding their time until the real activities of the day began.
“That odious man is back?” Miss Sewett—who was doing her duty and keeping an eye on them all—blanched and then blushed at the announcement.
Hattie grinned from ear to ear, slamming the salacious novel she was reading shut and jumping to her feet. Her heart and a few more interesting parts thrummed at the announcement that Adrian had made good on his promise to return. But it was her sense of mischief that caused her to send conspiratorial glances to Roselyn and Evangeline over the news that Adrian’s friend, Gianni, was there as well.
“We must make ourselves presentable for the gentlemen,” she said, winking at Evangeline.
“Absolutely,” Evangeline agreed, looking like the very devil as she tossed aside her embroidery and stood. “Miss Sewett, I think you should change into a gown more suitable for a Tuscan picnic.”
“Yes,” Roselyn agreed, closing the book she’d been reading as well. “I have just the thing.”
“What sort of nonsense is this?” Miss Sewett squeaked, backing away from Evangeline when she approached. “There is nothing wrong with my uniform.”
“Ugh. The fact that you call it a uniform is telling enough,” Hattie said, closing in on Miss Sewett from the opposite side as Evangeline. Between the two of them, they had her cornered.
“I refuse to change my clothes until supper,” Miss Sewett said, attempting to back up and avoid the two of them.
Heather leapt up from her seat on the room’s small sofa, where she’d been helping Sage adjust the cushions propping up her broken ankle. She boxed Miss Sewett in without a word.
“There’s nothing wrong with your skirt and blouse per se,” Roselyn said, blocking Miss Sewett’s last means of escape. “But this apron is dismal, and your whole ensemble could be perked up a bit.”
“I know just the thing,” Hattie said, fighting not to giggle at what they were about to do to the boorish woman. She stepped away, trusting her cousins to keep Miss Sewett where she was as she made a quick trip to her bedroom, calling over her shoulder, “I purchased a few, darling pieces in Florence the other day that would look divine on you.”
She had never had so much fun in her life—at least while standing upright. The shawls, jewelry, and hats that she and Roselyn pulled from their own wardrobes were more than enough to turn the tired, old clothes that Miss Sewett wore into flowery, lacy accents that had the surprising effect of making Miss Sewett look younger and full of color.
“You simply cannot go for a picnic with your hair looking like this,” Evangeline added once they’d spruced Miss Sewett’s outfit up.
“Stop this at once.” Miss Sewett fussed and batted away every attempt to unpin her hair and brush it out. “This is ridiculous nonsense. I refuse to be made a fool of. My appearance suits my station, and I will not have you upsetting the natural order of things. You young ladies have been woefully mismanaged and allowed to let your fancies run away with you. It is a disgrace and I will not—oh!”
She stopped her tirade after Evangeline managed to brush her dark, wiry hair out and pile it high on her head in the latest fashion. The more pins were put in place to keep the fashion, the less Miss Sewett protested and the more she stared at her reflection in the mirror Roselyn had brought from her bedroom.
“There,” Evangeline said as she finished with the style. “A light touch was all it took.”
“You look beautiful, Miss Sewett,” Hattie said with a smile. In fact, “beautiful” was not the word she would have normally used to describe the woman, but at least she didn’t look like a ferret with indigestion anymore. “I’m certain Mr. Rossi will think so as well.”
“Oh, no.” Miss Sewett’s eyes went wide, and she stood, looking as though she would bolt for England and not stop running until she got there. “I want nothing to do with that horrible man and his horrible…horrible….” She seemed to lose her train of thought as her gaze lost its focus and her cheeks went pink. Slowly, she raised a hand to her hair and asked in the tiniest of voices, “Do you think he will like it?”
It took everything Hattie had not to laugh out loud. She thanked heaven for Mr. Rossi. The man would be the perfect distraction, giving not just her, but all of her cousins an afternoon of running riot instead of being chased after by the battle axe. Surely, Adrian must have known that would be the case. He must have brought Mr. Rossi on purpose, something for which she would be certain to thank him for. Expertly.
“I cannot wait to see the look on Mr. Rossi’s face,” she whispered to Roselyn as their entire group made their way downstairs and out to the lawn, Heather and Evangeline helping Sage limp her way down on the crutches their host had provided.
She knew the moment she spotted Adrian that they were in for an afternoon of wicked behavior. The devilish smile he sent her and the way his whole being seemed to light up when she stepped out into the sunshine of the lawn proved as much.
“Lady Hattie, you look good enough to eat this afternoon,” he said as she approached.
“Then I hope you brought your appetite, my lord,” she said with a saucy smile.
“I most certainly—” He stopped mid-sentence, his mouth hanging open, and glanced past Hattie’s shoulder.
Hattie frowned at the interruption of their flirtation and twisted to see whatever Adrian was seeing. To her disappointment, it was only Asher as he strode out of the house to join the rest of them. She wouldn’t have paid her cousin any mind and had already started turning back to Adrian when she did a double-take.
“Good Lord,” she said. “Whatever has Ash looking as though he hasn’t slept in days?”
Asher was pale and drawn, and his shoulders were bunched far more than usual. His hair was damp and slicked back, as though he’d just come from a bath, but it hadn’t refreshed him.
“What do you know about your cousin’s friends in Sienna?” Adrian asked.
The question was startling enough that Hattie whipped back to face him. “I didn’t know he had friends in Sienna.” She shrugged, but the casual way she’d given her answer didn’t sit well with her. She stepped to Adrian’s side, glancing at Asher with
him. “Is there something I should know?”
Adrian rubbed a hand over the lower half of his face. “I’m not sure. Gianni and I spotted your cousin in Sienna—a bad neighborhood of Sienna—earlier today. He was speaking to a man Gianni seems to think is notorious in some way.”
Hattie sucked in a sudden breath. “Did you happen to see a dark lady with him?”
Adrian dragged his glance away from Asher—who had moved on to have a word with his brother, Thomas, and Trent—and stared at her. “What is the relevance of a dark lady?”
Once again, Hattie pivoted to face Adrian. “It may be nothing, but the other day—” She felt heat rise instantly to her face and tilted her head down so that she could look coyly up at him through her lashes. “After our time in the gazebo, when I returned to the house, I spotted an unknown, dark lady rifling through Asher’s things in the room he’s set aside as his study. I didn’t know who she was, and upon making a few inquiries, no one else even saw her, let alone identified her.”
“How odd.” Adrian frowned. More than that, deep thought furrowed his brow, as though he were trying to unravel a mystery.
Strangely enough, Hattie found the look as alluring as any of the wicked smiles he’d given her in their short acquaintance. It proved that he was intelligent as well as handsome and sultry. She liked an intelligent man. Far too often, skill in bed was all a man had to offer, or, if he was intelligent, he was far more interested in the world inside his own head than in bedsport. The idea that Adrian was skilled in both a vertical and a horizontal position excited her beyond measure.
He must have caught the spark in her expression. His frown of consideration melted into the lusty look he’d given her earlier. “It seems your family is full of secrets, Lady Hattie,” he said, inching closer to her.
“I thought I told you to call me by my given name only,” she said, brushing her fingertips along the lapel of his jacket.
