Advancing to Lynton, she handed him a folded note.
Dread keeping him silent, Will waited while Lynton read it. “It seems,” he said, looking up from the missive, “that my cousin, after thanking me for my kind attentions in her regard, prefers to go her own way in the world.”
“What does that mean?” Will burst out.
“I have no idea, except that she may have rushed off on some ill-judged start, just as she used to do when she was a girl. And you think I ought to give her the funds to live independently!” Lynton cast Will an exasperated glance. “What she needs is a sensible husband to curb her wild ways and teach her how to behave properly!”
Just then another servant rushed into the parlor, housekeeper’s keys jangling at her waist. “Ah, Mrs. Bessborough,” Lynton said, waving Allegra’s note at the woman. “Perhaps you can shed some light on this mystery?”
Waving her hands in distress, the housekeeper said, “Miss Allegra’s old bandbox is gone from the attic, along with a valise and a half-dozen gowns from her wardrobe. I do fear, my lord, that she has left us for good.”
“Left?” Lynton repeated. “Are you sure, Bessie? She cannot have been so improper as to have departed alone, without even a maid to accompany her! How am I to find a respectable gentleman to take her off my hands when she comports herself like the veriest hoyden!”
“Why don’t you worry about that after we find her,” Will suggested through gritted teeth. Turning to the housekeeper, he said, “Mrs.—Bessborough, wasn’t it? Have you any idea where Miss Antinori might have gone?”
“No! Oh, I do fear for her, my lord,” the housekeeper wailed. “She’s got no kin save the Lyntons and none of them high-and-mighty ton maidens was friendly enough for her to have gone to pay them a visit. Unless…”
“What?” Will demanded.
“Well, after the late Lord Lynton died, she did mention looking into a position as a governess. Now, if I can just recall the name of the agency…”
“I think I’ve heard enough,” Lord Lynton interposed. “Damn the girl, running off in so hasty and intemperate a manner. And we were to dine with Lady Cowper tonight! How am I to explain her absence in a way that does not give the most grievous offence? I did my best by her, trying to gain her entrée back into the society her mother abandoned—at some risk to my own position, I might add. Funded it handsomely as well, and this is my thanks? Well, I wash my hands of her! I only hope Lady Cowper will not hold the insult against my dear Evangeline next Season.”
“That certainly would be inconvenient,” Will said.
“Indeed,” Lynton replied, sublimely ignorant of the irony in Will’s tone. “Good day, Tavener. Hobbs, if anything requires my attention, I shall be in the library.”
“You don’t intend to look for her?” Will asked.
About to leave the room, Lynton paused. “Allegra apparently left this house of her own free will. If she would rather ruin herself running off to become a governess than accept the arrangements I tried to make for her protection, there is nothing further to be done. I will not rush about the city like a looby, trying to discover her whereabouts so I may entreat her to return. She’s made her choice and—” he waved the note at Will “—absolved me of all further responsibility. I shall take her at her word.”
The housekeeper uttered a quickly stifled protest while the maid began to weep quietly. “Ass,” Will muttered as Lynton exited, wishing they were still alone so he might leave the mark of his displeasure on that self-absorbed highbred brow. But now he had more pressing concerns.
“Think, Mrs. Bessborough,” he urged, seizing the housekeeper’s arm. “Try to remember the agency’s name, so I may find Miss Antinori before anything happens to her.”
“Oh, Mrs. B!” the maid interjected, raising her tear-stained face. “Might the name be Waters?”
“Waters, yes, that’s it,” the housekeeper cried. “Bless you, Lizzie! That would be Waters and Tremain in Lower Bond Street, my lord.”
“Thank you both! I’ll be off there directly. Pray that I may soon bring her safely home to you.”
“Indeed I shall,” Mrs. Bessborough said. “She’s a good lass, no matter what some folk might say who should know better.”
Striding into the hall, Will found Hobbs already on station. “Find her quickly, my lord,” the butler urged in an undertone as he handed Will his hat and cane.
“I’ll do my best,” Will promised and hurried down the stairs to his waiting mount.
WILL HAD TO ASK directions twice before he found the offices of Waters and Tremain, “Furnishers of Genteel Employment for Ladies and Gentlemen.” He entered a small anteroom to the jingle of a bell that roused a drowsy clerk at a desk opposite the entry.
“Lord Tavener to see Mr. Waters immediately on a matter of greatest urgency,” he said, handing him his card.
“I’ll see if he is available,” the lad said and trotted off.
“He’d better be,” Will muttered, in no frame of mind to be kept waiting.
Thankfully for Mr. Waters, since Will was prepared to storm into his office whether invited or not, the lad returned to usher Will into his employer’s presence.
Will scarcely spared a glance for the spacious office to which the clerk escorted him, focusing instead on the thin man standing behind the desk. “I’m Tavener, sir, and I need your cooperation on a matter of utmost urgency.”
“So my clerk said,” Mr. Waters replied, bowing before he gestured Will to a chair. “With what can I assist you?”
“I have reason to believe a young lady has lately consulted you about employment. Due to a…misunder-standing with her family, she believed it necessary that she hire herself out as a governess. I wish to find her and bring her back home. The young lady’s name is Allegra Antinori.”
The man studied him. “I do not usually reveal the identities or the positions obtained by the individuals who use my service,” he said.
Will took a menacing step closer. “Can I persuade you to make an exception to that policy?”
Not appearing alarmed in the slightest by Will’s implicit threat, Mr. Waters said, a slight smile on his face, “Although I expect you could be very…persuasive, my lord, my recollection is that the young lady’s London relations are named ‘Lynton,’ not ‘Tavener.’ May I ask what your concern is in this matter?”
“I am a…close friend of the family and come on behalf of her guardian, who was…preoccupied with another matter.”
“Of more pressing importance than recovering his ward?” Mr. Waters said.
“Nothing is more important to me,” Will said flatly. “Please, tell me where she is.”
For a long moment Mr. Waters studied him. Finally he said, “To prosper in my profession, one must make quick and accurate judgments about an individual’s character. I believe you have a genuine concern for Miss Antinori.”
“I wish her only the best,” Will said.
The man nodded. “Then if what you conceive to be best for her is her return to Lynton House, I’m afraid I must disappoint you. ’Tis rather unusual to place an employee so quickly, but Miss Antinori had already been in contact with me concerning a position, and it so happened that a nearly ideal opening had just come up. Agreeing it would suit her talents and interests perfectly, last night she accepted a position as secretary to Sir Henry Malvern and governess to his daughter. Sir Henry wished to take his wife and child with him to see the lands he was unable, due to the unfortunate war just ended, to visit during his Grand Tour. They intended to leave this morning for Portsmouth, where he had booked passage to Italy.”
“They left just this morning?” Will asked, focusing on the only part of the man’s recitation that concerned him. “Then there may still be time to intercept her!”
Striding to the desk, he seized Mr. Waters’s hand and gave it a brusque shake. “Thank you, sir.”
“Good luck finding your lady, my lord,” the man called behind him, for Will was already headed out the do
or.
Portsmouth, Will thought, his mind racing as he descended the stairs two at a time. Recovering his horse from the urchin he’d paid a penny to hold it, he leapt into the saddle. Though every impulse urged him to ride for Portsmouth at once, he knew he would have to delay long enough to make a few preparations.
Reaching Chelsea as swiftly as the crowded streets allowed, he sent Barrows out to pawn his ring and some of his mother’s jewelry. He’d need cash to hire horses after his own was spent, for dinner and accommodations for Allegra at an inn before they started their journey back.
While he waited for Barrows, he packed a saddlebag of cheese, bread and ham, then headed into his chamber. He’d need to put together a razor and a change of clothing to make himself presentable when he escorted her home—before that starched-up prig Lynton reneged completely on the agreement Will had so recently coerced him into.
As he entered his chamber, Will saw, propped on his desk next to the crumpled list, a sealed note with his name in the same feminine hand. Pulse racing, he tore it open.
“Thank you again, dear Will, for your many kindnesses,” he read. “You mustn’t worry, for I have been fortunate enough to obtain a position which will exactly meet my needs. For some time, Sir Henry Malvern had been looking for a secretary fluent in Italian to accompany him and his family on a tour through Italy and the Levant. With his departure imminent, he had despaired of finding one. But after meeting him and his wife, I convinced them that I could handle the duties of secretary as well as assist his wife with their daughter Eliza, a charming little girl of four. We leave immediately for Rome.
“You may only imagine, after the—” there was a slight break where a word had been crossed out “—disappointments of London, how excited I am at the prospect of finally seeing my beloved father’s homeland. The only thing I regret leaving in England, my dear Will, is our friendship. Thank you again, and adieu. Allegra.”
He put the letter to his lips, where a faint trace of her lavender scent teased his nose. Then, carefully tucking it beside her list, he went to finish his packing.
He could understand her anticipation at visiting the land of her father. Hopefully, she would be even more enthusiastic about the prospect of purchasing the country manor about which she’d always dreamt.
Even if Will had to pummel Lynton again into honoring his commitment to provide her one.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE NEXT MORNING, Allegra sat at a table in the Malverns’ private parlor at The Hoisted Anchor, gazing out at the ships in the harbor and enjoying the tangy scent of salt air through the open window while she waited for little Eliza to wake from her nap. After their arrival last night, the captain of the ship that was to take them to Italy informed Sir Henry that, if the weather continued fair, they would sail today on the afternoon tide.
Since the sun was shining brightly under a brisk blue sky, Allegra assumed they would indeed begin their journey today.
She leaned her face into the breeze, allowing herself to feel only anticipation. It was a relief beyond measure to have left London. To be leaving England.
She hoped her abrupt departure wouldn’t come as a disappointment to Mrs. Randall. However, after witnessing that lady’s delight at visiting Hemley, she trusted the joy of returning home to the country would offset any distress engendered by the premature ending of her London sojourn.
Allegra wished she might have been able to give her chaperone—and Bessie, Lizzie and Hobbs—a better goodbye than a note slipped under her chamber door, but time had been short. Nor did she think she would have been able to tolerate combating the objections they likely would have raised about her decision to abandon her Season.
As for Rob’s reaction upon discovering her absence, the wound was still too deep and too raw for her to bear thinking about him at all.
She was glad she’d seen Will, though. Just remembering his vivid blue eyes and impudent smile lifted her spirits. She dipped her head to offer a fervent prayer that he might use her list to find a sunny-tempered lass with the intelligence to appreciate his clever wit, the wisdom to see beyond Brookwillow’s current state of dilapidation and the industry to enjoy the challenge of helping him restore it.
Will would give his wife so much else to enjoy…. Allegra sighed, warmth rekindling within her as she remembered their kiss. He’d invested in it everything she’d sought and more, igniting the passion deep within her until the fury of it burned away, for those few moments at least, all the humiliation and heartache. She’d wanted it to go on forever, to give herself into his hands and let him teach her every delight possible between a skilled lover and an eager lass.
Thank heavens she’d chosen to kiss him in the park at dusk, where there’d been no possibility of abandoning herself completely to the agony searing her soul and the desire consuming her body. How difficult it had been to stop short of experiencing to the fullest the passion that she was giving up forever in choosing life as a governess. But she knew sometime later, when she could think more clearly, she’d be thankful she had not disgraced herself by tumbling him in a park corner like some Haymarket whore.
Though, in demanding his kiss, she’d still behaved like the veriest wanton. ’Twas a measure of the blessed numbness that still sustained her that she felt only a faint embarrassment at recalling it. If she wanted to keep her position, however, she would have to comport herself from now on with absolute propriety.
And she did wish to retain this position. Beyond the unparalleled opportunity to visit her father’s country, she meant to enjoy every minute with Eliza. Teaching, tending and loving that delightful little girl was likely as close as she would ever come to having a child of her own.
She pushed aside that painful fact, along with a score of equally hurtful realizations she did not yet have the strength to contemplate. Raising her face once more, she willed the crisp breeze to blow through her mind as it was through her hair, carrying away distress, humiliation and regret, leaving only the determination to make the best of her situation, as Mama always had.
Perhaps in Italy, she might discover Papa’s kin. Would they be as ashamed at finding they possessed a half-English relation as her mother’s aristocratic family had always been of her Italian heritage?
All will be well in the end, Papa had promised. From her reticule she took out her talisman, his last letter. “‘You have your mother’s grace and the Antinori fierceness,’” she reminded herself, pressing the missive to her lips. Closing her eyes, she tried to remember Papa as, with vivid gestures and face alight, he’d described his homeland to her.
She imagined herself already at the far side of the Mediterranean, looking up from the ship’s deck at an endless spine of steep, sharp cliffs that towered over the azure sea. Traveling inland to mountaintop cities with a vista of gently rounded hills folding themselves into the distance, their sides clothed in grapevines punctuated by tall cypress trees, all of it shimmering in a clear, limpid light unlike anything to be found in misty England.
She thought she could almost hear the lilting sound of his native tongue, sweetly familiar to her ears. Until with a start, she realized that she was hearing Italian, words of inquiry and protest followed by loud, impatient English replies, both emanating from the taproom below.
Curious, she quickly replaced the precious letter in her reticule and went downstairs.
She met the innkeeper on the stairway, shaking his head. “Pardon, sir,” she hailed him, “but can I be of assistance? I couldn’t help but overhear your discussion and I speak Italian.”
“That’d be a blessing, miss, for I couldn’t make out a thing that gent was asking. If foreigners want to traipse about the countryside, you’d think they’d trouble to learn the language first.” Jerking his thumb toward the taproom, he said, “I left him in there.”
Allegra continued into the public room where a dark-haired stranger sat at a table, what she recognized as a London guidebook in his hands. “Excuse me, sir,” she began in he
r father’s tongue. “I understand you are seeking information. May I be of some help?”
The man jerked his head up, a look of amazement and relief on his face. “Ah, signorina, at last a civilized person instead of these barbarous English! A thousand thanks for your assistance. From this book, I think I shall need to hire a carriage to get to London—and perhaps elsewhere in this benighted country, though I beseech the Holy Mother to let me find the gentleman I seek in that city! But excuse me, signorina,” he said, jumping up to sweep her a bow. “Signore Luigi DiCastello, at your service.”
Allegra returned him a curtsey. “You seek an Italian gentleman in London? Is he with the theater? Most of your countrymen here perform at the opera or upon the stage.”
The visitor sniffed. “The man I seek is not a common performer, but a musician, a composer, a gentleman of genius! Might you know of this man? Let me show you his name, written by my master on letters addressed to him that I am entrusted to deliver.”
Musician. Composer. Genius. Was it possible? But no, surely this man couldn’t be seeking her father. The possibility was simply too far-fetched to belive. To her knowledge, there had been no letters from Italy in all the time she was growing up. Why might someone wish to contact him now?
Unless…this had something to do with the “great scheme” for their future to which Mama had alluded when she told Allegra Papa had refused her musician-suitor’s request for her hand. “I should like to see the letters,” Allegra replied.
Extracting a leather portfolio from his bag, Signore DiCastello pulled out two sheaves of letters bound together with ribbon. “The man I seek,” he said, holding them out to her, “is Signore Emilio Antinori. Here are the letters to him from my master. These others, written by Signore Emilio some years ago, were given to me so that I might verify his identity once I find him by matching his hand.”
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