Romancing the Crown Series

by Romancing the Crown Series (13-in-1 bundle) (v1. 0) (lit)

  She, of course, wasn't part of the cake at all.

  "Quite specific," he said. "About five foot seven, I'd say, with eyes the color of the ocean at twilight and a sad lack of respect for the local police.

  Rose lifted one eyebrow. "Are you here on Captain Mylonas's behalf, then...my lord?"

  "I never visit a beautiful woman on behalf of another man. Certainly not on behalf of a fool. I asked you to call me Drew."

  Ah. Now she knew who he was. "So you did, Lord Andrew."

  His mouth didn't smile, but the creases cupping his lower eyelids deepened and the cool eyes warmed slightly. "Stubborn, aren'tyou."

  "Do pigs fly?" Gemma asked.

  "Ah...no, I don't believe they do."

  Rose grinned. "Aunt Gemma has a fondness for American slang, but she doesn't always get the nuances right. She enjoys American tabloids, too. And Italian tabloids. And—"

  "Really, Rose," Gemma interrupted, flustered. "His lordship can't possibly be interested in my reading habits."

  "No?" Rose's smile widened as she remembered a picture of Lord Andrew Harrington she'd seen in one of her aunt's tabloids a few years ago. Quite a memorable photograph —but it hadn't been Lord Andrew's face that had made it so. His face hadn't shown at all, in fact. "I'm afraid we don't sell sunscreen. If you're planning to expose any, ah, untanned portions of your body to the Mediterranean sun, you'd do better to shop at Serminio's Pharmacy. They have a good selection."

  "Rose!" Gemma exclaimed. "I'm sorry, my lord, she didn't...that is, she probably did mean...but she shouldn't have."

  The creases deepened. "I'm often amazed at how many people remember that excessively candid photograph. Perhaps my sister is right. She claims the photographer caught my best side."

  His best side being his backside? Rose laughed. "Maybe I do like you, after all."

  The door chime sounded again. Tourists, she saw at a glance—a Greek couple with a small child. She delegated them to her aunt with a quick smile. To her surprise, Gemma frowned and didn't step forward to welcome their customers.

  Her zia didn't approve of Lord Andrew Harrington? Or possibly it was Rose's flirting she didn't like. Ah, well. She and Gemma had different ideas about what risks were worth taking. She answered her aunt's silent misgivings with a grin, and reluctantly Gemma moved toward the front of the shop.

  Lord Andrew came up to the counter. "Perhaps you could show me your shop."

  How odd. She couldn't feel him. She felt something, all right—a delightful fizzing, the champagne pleasure of attraction. But she couldn't feel him. The counter was only two feet wide, which normally let a customer's energy brush up against hers. Curious, she tipped her head. "Maybe I will. But I'll have to repeat my aunt's question. Are you looking for something in particular?"

  "Nothing that would be for sale. But something special, yes."

  Oh, he was good. Rose had to smile. "We have some very special things for sale, though, all handmade. Necklaces, earrings."

  He shook his head chidingly. "I'm far too conventional a fellow for earrings—except, of course, for pearls. Pearls must always be acceptable, don't you think?"

  "Certainly, on formal occasions," she agreed solemnly. "I'm afraid we don't have any pearls, however."

  He looked thoughtful. "I believe I have a sister."

  She was enjoying him more and more. "How pleasant for you."

  "No doubt she will have a birthday at some point. I could buy her a present. In fact, I had better buy her a present. You must help me."

  "Jewelry, or something decorative?"

  "Oh..." His gaze flickered over her, then lifted so his eyes could smile at her in that way they had that didn't involve his mouth at all. "Something decorative, I think."

  "For your sister," she reminded him, and left the safety of the counter. Quite deliberately she let her arm brush his as she walked past, and received an answer to the question she couldn't ask any other way.

  Nothing. Even this close, he gave away nothing at all.

  Rose's skin felt freshly scrubbed—tender, alert. Her mind began to fizz like a thoroughly shaken can of soda, but she didn't let her step falter as she led the way to the other side of the store, away from her aunt and the Greek tourists.

  Here the elegantly swirled colors of Murano glass glowed on shelves beside bowls bright with painted designs. Colors giggled and flowed over lead crystal vases, majolica earthenware, millefiori paperweights, ceramic figures and crackle-finish urns. Here, surrounded by beauty forged in fire, she felt relaxed and easy.

  A purely physical reaction. That was all she felt with this man. That and curiosity, a ready appreciation for a quick mind. She turned to face him and she was smiling. But not like a shopkeeper in pursuit of a sale. "What is your sister like? Feminine, rowdy, sophisticated, shy?"

  "Convinced she could do a better job of running my life than I do." He wasn't looking at Rose now, but at a shiny black statue by Gilmarie—a nymph, nude, seated on a stone and casting a roguish glance over one bare shoulder. He traced a finger along a ceramic thigh. " I like this.

  The nymph was explicitly sensual. Rose's eyebrows shot up. "For your sister?"

  ' T have a brother, too.

  "No doubt he comes equipped with a birthday, as well.

  "I'm fairly sure of it. I'm not sure I want this for him, though. I like the look on her face. The invitation." His eyes met Rose's then. There was no hint of a smile now. "Any man would."

  What an odd thing a heart was, pumping along unnoticed most of the time, then suddenly bouncing in great, uneven leaps like a ball tumbling downhill. "She's flirting, not inviting."

  "Is there a difference?"

  "To a woman, yes. I think of flirting as a performance art. Something to be enjoyed in the moment, like dancing. Men are more likely to think of it as akin to cooking—still an art in the right hands, but carried out with a particular goal in mind."

  The creases came back, and one corner of his mouth helped them build his smile this time. "I am a goal-oriented bastard at times."

  So they knew where they stood. He wanted to get her into bed. Rose hadn't decided yet what she wanted, but thought she would enjoy finding out. She didn't doubt for a moment that the decision would be hers. She smiled back. "Are you a patient bastard, too? Even when you don't get what you want?"

  "I can be. Have dinner with me tonight."

  She tipped her head to one side. "Where?"

  "Why don't I surprise you?"

  "I like surprises. But somewhere with people around, I think.

  "A reasonable precaution. Perhaps I should mention that while I may be goal-oriented, I play by the rules.

  "You did say something about being conventional. But then, there's your hair." It was too long, too curly. It contradicted the hard face and remote expression, hinting at sensuality, even exuberance. The color was a pure, pale ash-brown. She wanted to touch it.

  Impulsively she did. "Soft...and hardly businessman-short. It doesn't fit the rest of your image, does it?"

  His face tightened. "I'm not a soft man. Just a busy one. I've been forgetting to get it cut." He caught her hand and drew it between them, toying with her fingers. "You're rough on your hands." He ran a finger along a scabbed scratch on her thumb.

  "I—" She glanced to where he held her hand in his. And stopped breathing.

  After a moment, unsteady, she said, "I make jewelry. Little nicks are inevitable."

  "Is some of the jewelry here yours?"

  "Most of it.1'

  "You have talent." He carried her hand to his mouth and placed a kiss, almost chaste, on the tips of her fingers. "Be ready at seven. Where should I pick you up?"

  "Here. We.. .my aunt and I live above the shop. Use the stairs at the side of the house. Will you be wearing your pearls?"

  "It will be a dressy sort of surprise, but not formal enough for pearls. You would be lovely in black.

  She said something and he didn't stare at her as if she were crazy, so she must
have sounded reasonable. Then he left. She managed to respond appropriately when two more tourists, both female, wandered in while her aunt was ringing up a purchase for the Greek family. Rose sold her tourists a bracelet, three postcards and a beautiful ivory vase.

  But all the while her mind was whirling. She'd recognized his hand. She'd seen it quite recently. For the first time, the only time, she had been touched while walking a fire dream. Touched by his hand. While around them the airport burned in a vision that now—thank God—would never come true.

  Rose had no idea what it meant. But the slamming of her heart against the walls of her chest felt very much like fear.

  Chapter 4

  "Rose wasn't surprised when her aunt joined her that evening while she was getting ready. "I had hoped you would take another look at that ring," said Gemma, settling on the edge of the tub.

  "I haven't decided yet." Rose leaned over the sink, shut one eye and stroked color on the closed lid.

  "You didn't pick up any feeling of urgency when you held it?"

  The hopeful note in Gemma's voice made Rose smile. "No. And you ought to be ashamed of yourself, wishing danger on some poor woman so you can coerce me into working with my Gift.

  "I never would! But there must be some reason the ring came to you. You need to find out what that is." She cocked her head like a curious parrot. "You aren't wearing that to go out with Lord Andrew, are you?"

  Rose grinned, studied the smoky color on one eyelid and applied herself to making the other match it. She was wearing black, as Drew had suggested—a skinny silk swish of a dress with straps thin as spider silk. "Don't you like it?"

  "What there is of it. I hope you know what you're doing."

  "Where would be the fun in that?" She dropped the eye shadow in the caddy that held her play-pretties and dug through the brushes, boxes, tubes, crayons and pencils. Rose didn't always bother with makeup, but when in the mood to indulge, she did enjoy her paints.

  Red lipstick, she thought, but not siren red. More of a mauve, maybe.. .then she saw her aunt's face and paused, creamy color dialed but unapplied. "Zia? What's wrong? This isn't exactly the first time I've gone out with a man."

  "This one is different."

  Rose couldn't deny that, since it was his difference that intrigued her. Quickly she smoothed color over her lips. "Ilikehim."

  Suddenly vehement, Gemma stood. "It isn't him you like, it's his silence. You thought I hadn't noticed? My Gift may be small, but I'd have to be spirit-blind not to notice that nothing at all comes from Lord Andrew Harrington. If you were to close your eyes when he kissed you, you wouldn't know he was there. And that's why you're going out with him."

  "Well, yes." Rose turned, a smile tugging at her mouth. "But trust me. If he kisses me, I'll know he's there."

  Gemma tossed her hands in the air. "Rose, this man is trouble. Even if he weren't wild.. .oh, the stories I've heard about him! I'm sure they can't all be true...but some of them must be, and his birth, his family— you must see how impossible it is. Lord Andrew is looking for fun and games, love. A playmate, nothing more.

  "Maybe I want to play. Have I shocked you?" She put an arm around her aunt's plump shoulders. "Surely not. You know what it's like. If anyone knows, you do."

  Gemma's eyes were troubled as their gazes met and held. "You mustn't think that because I'm alone, you will be. You're only twenty-seven. There's time."

  "I suppose. But—" the twist Rose gave her mouth landed between a smile and a grimace "—I don't think I'm made for celibacy."

  Gemma turned and put her hands on Rose's shoulders. "So, you want a fling? With that man? Bambina, I didn't raise you to be stupid.

  "Is it stupid to go out with a man I find attractive? Whatever happens, it will be my choice. I want—oh, just to be normal. For once, to be normal." Too much bitterness colored that last statement. She moderated her voice, dug deep and found amusement. "I don't have my heart set on a flaming affair. I may have hopes, but no definite plans.

  "That, I gather, is supposed to reassure me." Gemma's voice was tart. "You are going to be hurt."

  "Hey." Rose dropped a kiss on her aunt's soft cheek. "I'm supposed to be the seer around here. No dire predictions, please. I don't expect to be hurt, but if I am, what of it? Most women my age have stumbled in and out of a few heartaches."

  "Bah. I don't know why I try. Once you have your mind made up, there's no reasoning with you. Oh, here, you're going to be late if you don't hurry." She gave Rose a little push, turning her to face the mirror again, picked up a hairbrush and began drawing the bristles firmly through Rose's hair. "I'll braid it for you."

  "Thank you, Zia," Rose said meekly, then, " Ouch! Do you mean to discourage Drew by making me bald before he gets here?"

  "It wouldn't pull if you'd hold still. At your great age you should be able to stand quietly a few minutes... Did you want me to use the clasp you have out? No, hold on to it a moment, I'm not quite ready. No one is born blocked, you know. Somehow, sometime, he was hurt."

  Rose's heart felt suddenly larger as it filled with warmth for this dear woman who could no more hold on to anger than she could add a column of figures and come up with the same answer twice. "Now you're worrying about him."

  "I'm quite capable of worrying about more than one person. And I'm ready for the clasp.. .thank you. I don't know when I've seen someone so completely blocked—well, there's my cousin Pia, poor soul. And old Arturo Domino, but he's crazy.

  Amused, Rose said, "I doubt that Drew talks to aliens on a regular basis. He has a solid feel to him, don't you think?"

  The busy hands gave one last tug to Rose's braid, then Gemma stepped back. "How would I know? How would you, when he keeps himself fully to himself?"

  "A hunch?" She turned, smiling mischievously.

  "Where would you find a hunch when you can't read him, not at all? Sitting out on the stoop, waiting for you to pick it up? Unless... Rose, have you dreamed him?"

  "No. How do I look?"

  ' 'Mia felicità." Gemma's eyes were moist. "So beautiful. Maybe I should be worrying about Lord Andrew. Tonight, you could break a man's heart."

  So of course she had to hug Gemma. "If you make me cry, my mascara is going to run."

  "It would serve you right. Oh, go on, finish getting ready." Gemma pulled away. "You don't have your shoes or your purse, and he will be here any minute. I suppose you had better borrow my Spanish shawl. It won't keep you warm in that dress, but it will look pretty."

  Gemma hurried out. Rose went to get her evening bag and heels from her room, her steps slowed by guilt. The shawl was one of her aunt's chief treasures, a lacy extravagance purchased on a long-ago trip. Gemma had been twenty and still hoping to find a man, the right man. For the women in their family, there was only ever one man. Gemma's mother had traveled with her to Greece, Italy and Spain. So had her younger sister, who eventually became Rose's mother.

  Gemma had found love on that trip. And lost it. He had died before they could marry, this man Gemma seldom spoke of but had never forgotten. Yet the shawl held only happy memories for her.

  I didn't lie, Rose told herself as she stepped into her heels. Not exactly. True, Drew had appeared in her vision, but the sending had been about the bombing, not the man. But she didn't want to tell Gemma about the hand that had touched her during the time that wasn't. Gemma would fuss, wanting Rose to enter into a fire-trance to find the truth. She would assume Drew was tied somehow to Rose's Gift.

  In a sense, he was. Because of her Gift, he might be the only man she would ever be able to go to bed with.

  * * *

  Summer days were long in the southern Mediterranean. At seven in the evening the air was warm as a baby's bath, the light slanting but still rich. Voices called greetings and chatted in high-speed Italian or the musical English that was the island's official tongue, punctuated here and there with German, Greek or Spanish from tourists wandering from shop to shop.

  Not as many tourists as usua
l. Fear had kept many away, a situation that wouldn't be helped by the recent bombing. Drew was considering the economic consequences as he strolled along with the tourists and the natives. It was easier than thinking about what he planned to do that night. And the woman he planned to do it with...or to.

  Sex was a mutual activity. Deceit wasn't.

  It was hard not to like her. That was a problem he hadn't anticipated. He reminded himself that she wasn't, couldn't be, what she seemed. She'd known about the bomb before it went off, which meant she was connected, somehow, to the Brothers of Darkness. Maybe she wasn't really part of them. She might have heard of the attack through a lover or a friend—but if so, she hadn't given the investigators the name of that friend or lover. Whether her silence came from complicity or misguided loyalty, she was guilty of protecting killers. And his own guilt was misplaced.

  Drew returned his attention to the street and the people on it. He'd had to park a few blocks away. Rose Giaberti's shop was on one of the old streets, tight and twisty, that made no provision for such modern intrusions as automobiles.

  There were streets like this in England, narrow and crowded by buildings leaning comfortably into old age, but the light was different. So were the faces—smiling, frowning, emotions flowing freely, with hands gesturing to support a point or touch a friend. People stood closer to each other here. This communal urge toward intimacy might have made a man like him uneasy. Instead, in Montebello he relaxed as he seldom could at home. Here, he was known to be different—British, and therefore foolish about some things. His reserve, therefore, was a national trait, not a personal failing.

  Her shop was still open, he noticed when he reached the two-story stone building. A girl with a pretty smile and short, shaggy hair was ringing something up on the antiquated cash register as he passed the big window. As instructed, Drew climbed the stairs on the side of the house. The balustrade was wooden and old. The steps were much older, and stone.

  At the top of the stairs was a small balcony and a yellow door, which opened at his knock. The aunt invited him in without apologizing for her home, which he liked. Her parlor was modest and colorful, not terribly neat, and a fierce, inexplicable wish suddenly split him, leaving half his mind making sure he said what he should while the other half longed to sit in the faded blue armchair and talk with this warm, silly woman. Just sit and talk, in comfort.