The pounding of hammers in another room made Luca’s head throb, but he walked through the house slowly anyway. His papers would keep, and he needed to make decisions about the house. And about Emma.
Did he dare write her a second time?
A young man dressed in the clothing of a well-paid servant appeared in front of Luca, his expression earnest. “Lord Atella? Your Excellency?”
Luca blinked back to the present and offered a brief nod. “I am he.”
The servant held out a piece of paper. “I tried to find you at your hotel, Your Excellency. This is an urgent letter that came to my master’s house by mistake. He apologizes for the misdirection.”
Luca looked down, seeing the laboriously beautiful script had left quite a few margins for error in delivery. The only clear thing in the looping, formal handwriting was his name. “Thank you.” Luca slipped a coin into the young man’s hand, then opened the letter.
As he read the words written by a firm, sweeping hand, and signed with a flourish and kingly seal, Luca’s stomach turned. It was worse than being in a closed carriage. He read the letter again, then put it in his coat and hurried out of the house. His horse waited for him, held by a boy who received more pennies than he’d likely ever held in his life.
Luca pulled the horse’s head around and dashed through the streets as fast as he could, without causing incident. He arrived back at the hotel and hurried to the suite of rooms he and Torlonia had taken.
Torlonia was in the common room, writing a letter at the desk near the window. He jumped when Luca slammed the door behind him, then stood. Luca remained near the door, knowing if he approached the other man he would certainly lay hands upon him. He seethed in silence, every possible start to the conversation he wished to have something that would shame him to say.
“My lord.” Torlonia edged away from the desk. “You seem disquieted. Was something wrong at the future embassy?”
Luca’s hands curled into fists, then uncurled. “I received a letter while I was there. A letter from Ferdinand’s secretary.”
The other man paled. “All letters are supposed to come through me—”
“This one was misdelivered and came directly to my hands.” Luca stalked forward, and Torlonia backed up against the window. “And a good thing, too. This letter, it demands an answer. From me. Directly. Because our king grows tired of hearing your accounts of my inadequacy. It would seem that you, Torlonia, have been writing the court weekly with reports of my failures.”
“That—that isn’t true. How would you even know—?” Torlonia lifted his chin, affecting his usual haughty expression. “What proof do you have of such lies?”
With a violent speed, Luca tore the letter from inside his coat and threw it to the table in the middle of the room. He didn’t dare take another step near the dishonorable man. “This letter, signed by the king’s secretary and bearing the royal seal. It demands that I answer the accusations against me—accusations made by you. What have you done, Torlonia?”
“Nothing.” Torlonia sniffed and cowered. “These are lies.”
“No. This is not a lie.” Luca pointed at the paper. “Sei un bugiardo. You are the liar. I know you disapproved of me. My lack of experience. But we have worked together all this time, and I have valued your counsel. Why would you tell our king that I mock him to his political enemies?” He pointed an accusing finger at the paper. “That I disregard what is best for our people, that I am slothful?”
Torlonia drew himself together, like a man preparing for an attack. “They were supposed to recall you. Not send another letter after I told them you discarded the last. Then I would stay here, the ambassador in your place.” His gaze turned icy, his words dripping with venom. “You are a disgrace. You are not even true nobility. Your family was nothing before Napoleon, and it will be nothing again. I am descended from the greatest Italians—from Michelangelo, from the princes of Rome.”
Luca released his breath in a hiss. “Carbonari.”
For a moment, Torlonia seemed surprised by the word. Then he smiled. “You can prove nothing.”
The door to Luca’s room opened. Bruno came out, looking between both men. “Mio Signore,” he said, his voice shaking. “Please. He has said he will hurt the family—your sisters—you must stop him.”
“Traitor,” Torlonia barked angrily. “I believe in a free Italy,” he shouted, his calm gone again. “And as ambassador to England, I can make certain that happens. The connections, the power, would strengthen our cause. Do you not love your country, Atella? Ferdinand is nothing—he is not Italian, he should not be our king. He is nothing more than an Austrian puppet, and he will run our people into the grave—”
“Silence!” Luca stalked forward, and Torlonia backed up. “You are under arrest, by my order, and charged with treason.”
The traitorous man balked, but puffed his chest out one last time, like a rooster. “No one will believe you. And when you send me back, my friends will see that I am free within hours.”
“We will see,” Luca warned. “Bruno, send for the constables.”
Bruno bobbed a hasty bow. “Sì, mio Signore.”
“I have friends everywhere, Atella.” Torlonia glowered as he spoke, and Luca wanted nothing more than to place a fist through the man’s horrible face.
Luca loomed closer, glaring down at the shorter man just before he took Torlonia’s arm in a tight grip. The monks had a phrase they’d said, time and again, to encourage Luca’s caution when he entered the world once more. “Non ci sono amici tra i serpenti. There are no friends among snakes. I will give my king your scent, Torlonia, and he will set the hounds loose. They will find the den, and that will be the end of your friends.”
In less than an hour, Torlonia’s escort to prison arrived. Luca spent the remainder of the day going through his former secretary’s letters, with Bruno’s help, and contacting every citizen of his kingdom in or near enough London with the news and asking for more information. And help. He needed testimonies to add to his own, and he had a great deal of explaining to do in his letters back to Ferdinand’s court.
Always in the back of his mind, and settled in his heart, were thoughts of Emma. Could she have written him and Torlonia concealed the letter? He found nothing of the kind in the other man’s notes and books. The longer he worked at sorting through the mess, the more he realized the precariousness of his position as ambassador.
If the king didn’t believe him, Luca would lose his position. He would return home to his family’s modest holdings and be nothing more than a landlord of a small village for the rest of his days. If that happened, he could offer Emma nothing. And she deserved everything—all that was good and beautiful in the world, all the adventures she wished, all the experiences that she had read about and yearned to make her own.
He closed his eyes in the early hours of the morning, and he tried to let Emma Arlen go.
Chapter Twenty-One
Emma sat in the library, on her favorite couch, staring at the duke’s globe. The late afternoon sun barely peeked through the clouds, creating the barest smudge of color through the stained-glass windows. The colors were more sickly shades of yellow and green than the usual vibrant hues she loved. But that was how the end of November usually was. Pale. Dull. And cold.
The next day would mark the first of December, and still no word from Luca. No explanation for why he had gone or what the paper he left had meant. She wanted to cry, or scream, but both of those things would only be her pretending to be the scorned heroine in a novel.
The reality of the situation, she knew, was that she had waited too long. If she had written him right away, a letter full of all her questions, she would feel less agony. Instead, she had put the burden upon him, without his knowledge, and all that did was leave her a lonely, miserable heap of a woman.
A soft click made her turn, looking to where the door to the duke’s private study opened. The duke himself exited the room, his eyes immediately
on hers, and his eyebrows raised.
“Emma. What are you doing in here all alone?” He came out into the room, and she started to rise. “No, please. Sit. It has been some time since the two of us have had a moment to speak to each other.” His eyes crinkled at the corners as he sat in the chair nearest hers, and Emma’s heart tightened.
Her own smile was far too forced. “I am afraid I do not have much of interest to discuss, Your Grace.”
The warm, fatherly expression he wore barely changed, but she could read the concern in his eyes. “Emma, my dear child, I cannot think that is true. I am very interested in you. In everything you do, as if you were one of my own daughters. You know this.”
She bit her bottom lip and looked down at her lap, lacing her fingers together. “Yes, Your Grace. I do. Thank you for that.”
“Has this been a happy home for you, Emma?” the duke asked, his voice as gentle as she’d ever heard it. The same tone he’d used when she was much smaller and still afraid of the dark.
“It has,” she answered truthfully, the pain diminishing for the moment. “I love it here. I love being a friend to Josephine, and I love when Her Grace, your mother, clucks like a worried hen over my upbringing. And the duchess is always tender and kind toward me.”
“I am glad to hear it. We all care for you, Emma. In fact, every member of this family cares about you so much that each and every person has been to see me with a most serious thing to discuss.” He paused until she looked up, curiosity compelling her to look while he explained what this meant. “They wished to speak with me to express concern for you, Emma.”
She blinked at him. “For me? But—nothing is wrong.” She forced a laugh. “I’m perfectly well.”
The duke settled into his seat a bit more, then leaned forward with his elbows resting on the arms of the chair. “My wife mentioned it first. Cecilia said you seemed unhappy of late. Then my mother mentioned that you have been far too quiet and unwilling to debate her in matters of poetry.”
Emma’s eyes teared up a bit at that. The dowager had noticed? Had cared enough to tell her son?
The duke continued. “Simon and your cousin Andrew spoke to me together, and Andrew offered to go to London to fetch a certain ambassador back to Clairvoir Castle.”
Emma looked down again, her cheeks burning.
“Then James, young as he is, said you weren’t nearly as fun as you used to be. Isabelle and Rosalind asked if you were ill. But it was Josephine, of course, who was most persistent. She asked if I would write that ambassador your cousin mentioned, and when I said I would not, she asked if she could do the honors instead.”
“Oh no.” Emma raised her head. “Josie didn’t say a word about that to me—and you wouldn’t let her. Would you?” She winced.
The duke slowly shook his head, his eyes full of compassion and understanding. “The only one who ought to write Lord Atella is you, my dear. Have you answered that note he shoved into your cousin’s hand? His last act before leaving, you know.”
Now thoroughly ashamed of herself, Emma lowered her voice. “No, Your Grace. I haven’t written him. It’s been a month. I think—I think I must have lost my chance.” Her voice broke a little, but she cleared her throat and clutched her hands together tighter, trying to keep everything she felt inside. Then she started talking, the words coming too quickly and accompanied by all her fears. “He cannot care for me; he thinks I am only a companion. And I cannot entertain him as a suitor because Josephine is still at home. I promised I would be her companion until she settled on her future. Leaving her now—that would be an act of ingratitude for all the family has done for me.”
“Emma,” the duke interrupted, firm and kind. “That is nonsense. You are part of this family, not a servant, and you owe us nothing. I have long wondered if I was wrong to give in to your requests to act as a companion, and I have never allowed you to be treated as anything less than family. We all want your happiness, especially Josephine. If that means marriage—no matter if it is tomorrow by special license or years from now—I want that for you. Your father and mother would have wanted it for you.”
Then the duke did something he hadn’t done since she was a little girl. He left his chair and kneeled before her, offering his handkerchief so she might dry her eyes. “Your father was as dear to me as a brother. Everything I have done for you has been out of love for him, and then love for you. Dear little Emma. Take up your courage and follow your heart.”
Emma sniffled and smiled through her tears, then dabbed at them. “Thank you, Your Grace.” As another obstacle formed in her thoughts, she twisted the handkerchief in her hands. “But there is one thing I do not understand. Lord Atella—I care deeply for him, though I never meant to. But I know he must wed a woman of high standing. He thinks I am only a paid companion.”
“Ah.” The duke winced and shifted from the floor to the seat beside her. “I am afraid that isn’t true.”
“It isn’t?” Emma studied the duke, trying to make sense of his words. “I never told him otherwise.”
His Grace appeared sheepish for a moment. “Simon thought—after seeing you and the ambassador together—that he might form an attachment to you. But from what I had seen of Lord Atella, I knew him to be a man of honor. He would never make overtures toward a young woman he didn’t think he could marry. As his position demands he marry a woman of some standing, I thought discreetly revealing your status as my ward would remove the only barrier to his affection.” The duke sighed. “Perhaps I ought to have been more direct.”
Emma opened her mouth, emitting a pitiful sound of distress before hastily closing it again. Then she stood and paced away to the window, turned and rushed back. “Your Grace, when did you tell him?”
“The day we came back from the hunting lodge,” the duke said, staring at Emma with raised eyebrows. “Did you notice anything different about him afterward?”
“Yes.” Thinking through their week of friendly exchanges and conversations, of Luca’s more relaxed manner and easy smiles, her heart thudded with excitement. “But not a very great difference. He seemed only more at ease. As though he did not guard himself as carefully as before.”
The duke’s knowing smile returned. “Then it is as I hoped. His knowledge gave him permission to care for you freely.”
As Josephine had said before, she and Emma might read stories of romance and enjoy tales of princes and paupers, but they lived in a world where the highborn gentleman could never wed the dairy maid. An ambassador on a royally appointed mission could never wed a paid companion and keep his place, and his wife would not be accepted into higher society functions.
An Italian count and a duke’s beloved ward could marry without negative consequences or shame attached to the union.
She sat down next to the duke abruptly. Then stood again, worrying the cloth in her hands. Then sat. “Then he might care for me.”
The duke laughed, though not unkindly. “Emma, write to him. I’ll even frank the letter.”
Her mouth popped open. “But you never frank our personal letters—”
“This one is a matter of state, I think, since it’s regarding the future happiness of His Excellency, the ambassador from the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.” He gave her a kiss on the forehead, then stood and walked to the door leading to the corridor. “I hope this means you will find reason to be your usual cheerful self at dinner tonight.”
Emma nodded, though she still harbored some fear. If Luca knew everything, if he did care, why had he not written her again? She needed to write to him. At once.
That decided, she left the library in a rush, practically running through the corridors to get to her own room where she took up pen and paper. She opened her drawer and removed the letter from him, propping it up against her desk so she might read it again before writing her response.
To the Ambassador
Dear Lord Atella…
Chapter Twenty-Two
The echo of Luca’s footsteps
across the newly polished floors was the only sound in the ballroom. Finally, the embassy was complete enough for Luca to move into the grand house. But apart from the furnishings that came with the lease, the building remained empty.
There was no use in putting a personal touch in any of the rooms. No reason to hire servants and staff. Not until he knew what the King would decide about his appointment as ambassador. Another man might well be master of the house. Another couple, husband and wife, might enter the master suite of rooms to retire from a long day of political conversations and social engagements.
The letter in his coat pocket, sweet as its presence was, also reminded him of all the reasons he must wait to move forward with his plans. Emma had written him. He had received the letter only three days previous. She had spent half her words in apology—for waiting too long to write, for misunderstanding his intentions, and for her confessed role in aiding Josephine to avoid Luca from the beginning of their acquaintance.
He had to laugh at himself, and at the two of them, while he read. Had there ever been two such inept lovers?
As he walked the length of the ballroom, studying the way the light picked up the silver threads in the wallpaper, he wondered.
Luca hadn’t written a reply yet. He’d tried. Numerous times. Either he stared at a blank sheet of paper, or he started to explain all that had gone wrong. Even though a few of his fellow countrymen had come forward to add testimony to his of Torlonia’s duplicity, he waited upon the pleasure of the king.
Luca went to one of the windows overlooking the back garden. The plants were starting their winter sleep, leaving the grounds to look dull and gray. The garden, large by London standards, stretched back farther than he could see to a stable block shared by the other grand houses on the street. The whole of it would be beautiful in the spring. Yet all he could think of when he tried to picture a garden full of color and life was the autumn leaves of gold surrounding Emma’s lovely form.
A Companion for the Count: A Regency Romance Page 21
