by Romy Sommer
Chapter Four
Isobel bathed and dressed carefully for dinner. By the time she had pinned up her long hair, she was sufficiently composed to face company. The elegant reflection in the mirror, swathed in an evening dress of rose pink that swirled softly about her calves as she turned before the mirror, looked like a stranger, like the woman she wanted to be.
In the drawing room, the Parcheesi boards had been cleared away. The room was empty, apart from her cousin Adam who stood beside the silver butler’s tray and mixed cocktails.
“Your usual, Izzy, or can I tempt you with something exotic tonight?”
It was a game they played, with Adam tempting her to try one of his alcoholic experiments and Isobel always insisting on a small, safe glass of sherry.
But tonight she felt daring.
“I’ll try something exotic.”
Adam’s eyes widened momentarily, but his perpetual grin reasserted itself. He handed her a tall glass of pink liquid, the rim decorated with sugar, and watched as she took a sip. Fire burned through her. The aftertaste was bitter, but the drink fired new courage in her veins.
“What is it?” She tried hard not to sputter.
“It’s a pink gin. Gin with a dash of angostura bitters.” He laughed as she grimaced before taking another sip. “You’ll get the taste for it soon enough.”
“What’s this?” Her uncle’s boisterous voice intruded. He entered the room, as imposing physically as he was verbally. “You finally breaking out of your shell, Izzy?”
A familiar flush burned her cheeks.
“Let her be,” said Adam.
She smiled gratefully at him for coming to her defence, before retreating to the sofa across the room. This was a good spot to view the guests as they arrived. Adam mixed a medley of drinks, each more exotic than the last, as the guests drifted in.
First came the English Major, dapper in his dress uniform, with her aunt on his arm. An incorrigible flirt, the Major’s presence discomforted Isobel, but Aunt Alice didn’t seem to mind. She batted her lashes at him and laughed.
Then came Lotte, who’d lost her husband in the Great War, with the French Baron who’d made his fortune selling banned champagne to the Americans. Frances had hinted that they were lovers. Isobel watched them as they took their drinks and moved to stand beside the long windows. Though they did not touch, she could almost see the sparks between them as they moved, in a subtle dance she was only beginning to appreciate.
Then Christopher, pale and neat, slipped quietly into the room. Taking the glass of creamy liquid Adam offered him, he came to sit beside her on the sofa, keeping a respectable distance between them. No sparks at all.
The last of the guests were the Americans, uncle Padraig’s nephew Tom and his pretty wife, Beatrice, overdressed in a cascade of ostrich feathers. Tom was a business partner of the Baron’s and though Isobel was sure he was a gangster, she liked him most of all the company.
She’d never met anyone like Tom before. He dressed in tight-fitting suits and listened to jazz music, and spoke in a lazy drawl interspersed with slang.
Her parents would definitely not approve.
At last, Frances made her entrance. She wore her coal black hair cut in a stylish bob. Her dark eyes, inherited no doubt from her Irish ancestors, smouldered. She wore a drop-waisted dress of palest gold, with a hemline barely below her knees. A half dozen strings of pearls wound around her neck drew the eye to her décolleté neckline and the swell of breasts beneath. Every man in the room turned towards her, as flowers turned to the sun.
Isobel wished she had the courage to dress as Frances did. But her parents would never allow it.
“Dinner is served, ma’am.” The elderly butler opened the doors for them. Though the guests dressed for dinner, there was no standing on ceremony here, so Isobel downed the rest of her cocktail and followed the others across the vast vestibule to the dining room. She found herself seated between Adam, more intent on flirting with the American Beauty than talking to his gauche young cousin, and her uncle, who was more intent on his wine.
As the first course was cleared, the footman poured more wine into their glasses. Isobel waved him away.
“Do try some,” Adam encouraged. “It’s a local Italian wine and worth the experience.”
“Italian wine, of course, cannot compare to the great French vintages,” the Baron said.
It was the start of a familiar argument, but this time Frances joined in. “There is a lot to like among the local Italian produce.” She winked at Isobel.
Her words echoed Stefano’s. How could she know? Had she seen Isobel with Stefano? Or was she thinking of her own lover?
Isobel’s cheeks burned. She gulped down the rich dark wine as soon as the footman had poured it. In an attempt to change the subject she said, “I visited the Galleria dell’Accademia last year. The artworks are impressive.” But that only brought back the memory of the statue of David, and the image of a firm, masculine body astride Frances. She drowned out the image with another long draught of wine.
The dinner conversation ebbed and flowed about her. Gentle warmth stole through her veins, spreading into her limbs, as she finished a second glass of wine. Warmth that reminded her of Stefano, though the wine had none of the delicious heat she now recognised as desire.
As the servants cleared away the remnants of the meal, Adam suggested playing gramophone records. Isobel rose from her seat and the room eddied about her, followed swiftly by a feeling of lightness and freedom that filled her with the urge to dance.
They pushed the drawing room sofas aside to clear a space, and Tom wheeled out the gramophone cabinet. He loaded a shellac disk onto the turntable and set the needle in place once it was spinning.
“What is this music?” Isobel asked, her feet tapping to the lively music.
“It’s Ragtime. The band is Kid Ory’s Original Creole Jazz Band. The first black jazz band to make a recording. Aren’t they great?” Tom swept her into a two-step, swirling her around the room. His touch was nothing like Stefano’s thrilling touch, but it felt good to float in a man’s arms, to have the weight of his hands on her waist. She allowed herself simply to move with him, not counting the steps as she usually did. She had only ever danced with her school friends before now. There was no comparison at all.
As they shimmied across the terracotta-tiled floor, she spotted Christopher across the room, watching with an expression that looked remarkably like a thundercloud. Was it the dance he disapproved of, or the fact that she was dancing with another man? When Christopher pushed himself away from the wall and invited Tom’s wife, Beatrice, to dance, without the severe look ever subsiding, she decided it was the latter. A small smile tugged at her mouth. It was a delicious feeling, as heady as the wine, to have such an effect on a man.
“You’re a natural,” Tom said as the record ended. He left her breathless on the sofa beside Frances and went to change the music.
“That was so much fun! Is this how it feels to dance at a ball?” she asked Frances. Until this moment, she’d been more than a little afraid of her upcoming social debut. The company of strangers was disconcerting enough without being put on display. Christopher’s attention had almost been a relief, a way out of having to catch the eye of an eligible husband when there were prettier, livelier girls to compete with.
But if dancing with a man meant this dizzying, magical sensation, then perhaps there were some compensations after all for having to endure the Season in order to find a suitable husband. Perhaps she could have a little fun before settling into the life Mother planned for her.
“It’s nothing at all like this,” Frances said. “The girls line the walls and wait to be asked to dance. Then some dull, pimply Englishman asks you to dance and holds you like you’re a stick as he walks you around the floor to the most deadening music. And everyone is whispering and wondering who you’ll catch, like some dreadful disease. It’s a slave market, only better dressed.” She dropped her voice t
o a whisper. “And there’s nothing more substantial than lemonade to bolster the spirits with.”
Isobel was sure she could taste the tang of limoncello in her mouth.
In the centre of the room, Tom cut in on Christopher in order to dance with his wife. Christopher cast a glance in their direction, and Isobel wondered if he considered asking her to dance. She straightened a little in her seat.
Instead, he crossed to the bookshelf at the furthest end of the room. Her heart sank as she watched his retreating back, the heady sense of power deserting her.
“How well do you know Christopher?” she asked Frances.
“I’ve known him all my life. His mother and mine were school friends. But the last time I saw him was before he went up to Cambridge, and he still seemed so young and gawky. He’s grown up rather well.” A ghost of a smile crossed her face. “He has a good heart, but he really needs to lighten up a little. He’s grown so serious. Perhaps he simply needs the right wife.”
There was an undercurrent of affection in Frances’s tone.
Christopher drew a book from the shelf and began to flip through the pages. His straight fair hair flopped forward over a high forehead and bright blue eyes. He was tall and slender, without the athletic build of Stefano or the stockiness of Frances’ lover. Until she’d met Stefano, she’d thought Christopher a handsome man.
“Why don’t you marry him?” she asked her cousin curiously.
She still couldn’t fathom why Frances would choose a foreigner over this perfectly respectable and agreeable man, though she’d spent most of the evening spinning the question around in her head. Pretty and vivacious as she was, her cousin could surely have any man she wanted.
“His parents would never allow it.” Frances shrugged carelessly. “Mother might be listed in Debrett’s, but polite society will never forgive her for marrying an American. Worse, Daddy has money, but he has no family connections worth anything.”
“I thought he was descended from Irish aristocracy?”
Frances leaned closer. “Mother likes to tell people that, but the truth is that Daddy’s family were farmers who fled the potato famine. And you know what?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’ve only met them the couple of times we visited the States, but they’re ever so much nicer than Mother’s family.” She sighed. “There’s so much more to life than a title, you know.”
Isobel didn’t know. But now she understood why her mother had never acknowledged this side of the family – not until this moment, when they could be of use, and were at a sufficient distance not to be an embarrassment.
For Mother, nothing was more important than rank and social position.
Not that it had done her much good. She might have married a man of impeccable breeding, but she’d got nothing more than a draughty house in rural Shropshire where she had to count every penny and survive with the smallest possible compliment of servants. Isobel hadn’t minded, never knowing what she lacked, but it chafed at Mother.
Enter the Barretts, with their wealth and their perfectly acceptable family connections. “You simply must catch his eye, Izzy,” she’d said as she put Isobel on the boat to Naples. “Your future happiness depends on it.”
What she’d meant was our future happiness depends upon it. There were still two more sisters at home to be married off, as Isobel had heard often enough.
But after only ten days in Italy, Isobel wondered whether either money or position ensured happiness after all. In spite of their pariah status, her cousins seemed happy, so perhaps social position didn’t mean as much as she’d been taught.
“What else is there in life?” she wondered out loud.
Though the question was more for herself than Frances, her cousin answered in a voice turned dreamy. “There’s love.”
“You believe love really conquers all?” Isobel couldn’t quite keep the scepticism from her tone. Surely Frances couldn’t imagine she had a future with her Italian lover, no matter how passionately she loved him? If he hadn’t been introduced in the drawing room, he was a nobody.
Frances’ dark eyes burned feverishly. “I know it does.”
“What are you young ladies gossiping about?” Adam called across the room from where he wound up the gramophone.
A familiar blush rose up Isobel’s cheeks but Frances remained cool. She flashed her brother a smile. “Isn’t the Feast of the Assumption this week?”
“It is. On Tuesday. Hope the weather clears by then.”
“It’s the feast day in honour of the Assumption of the Virgin, and it’s a big deal in Positano.” Frances explained to the room at large. “They call it Ferragosto, and the celebrations last two full days. Shall we make a jaunt of it?”
Isobel admired the tone her cousin achieved: exactly the right amount of boredom so no-one would realise how eager she truly was. Only Isobel caught the glint in her eye.
Frances whispered, for her ears only. “Last year Adam went, but Mother wouldn’t let me.”
“Ooh, that sounds like fun!” The American Beauty squealed. “Let’s go, Tommy!”
Please, please, let’s go, Isobel begged silently.
Aunt Alice wrinkled her nose. “There will be a lot of commoners.”
“We’ll be there to escort the young ladies,” Tom said. “It’ll be fun.”
“I disapprove.” Christopher sent Tom a quelling look.
“Then you need not join us,” Tom shot back, his face and tone amiable, though Isobel caught a glimpse of steel in his eyes. For a moment she could see the mobster lurking behind the smooth façade. So did Christopher, she thought, as he sat back and said nothing, merely pressing his lips together in censure.
“Dance with me, sis.” Adam’s diversion lightened the tension in the room. As Frances rose to join her brother on the makeshift dance floor, Christopher laid aside his book and edged around the room to sit beside Isobel on the sofa, in the spot Frances had vacated.
“I cannot approve of this expedition,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I urge you not to join the others. It would not be right for a delicate young lady like you to mix with the lower classes.”
Rebellion flared. “At home, we always attended the harvest dance, and every Christmas Mother hosts a party for the local farmers. Is this any different?”
“This is not England. Here in Italy there is no telling what might happen.”
She couldn’t quite suppress a sigh. Christopher might have a good heart, but his stuffiness grated on her. Would she be able to lighten him up, as Frances had suggested, or if she married him would every pleasure in life be denied her?
Once again, the image flashed into her head of Frances and her lover, limbs entwined, moaning in pleasure. She pressed her hands against her cheeks, but that did nothing to cool the flush that burned her face.
Stefano had asked what she wanted in life. She was slowly discovering that she wanted it all. Not only the safety of a big house and a good name. She wanted fun and laughter and adventure too. And the thrill of passion and pleasure.
Isobel closed her eyes. The room spun gently about her, setting up a whirring in her stomach.
If only she didn’t have to return to dreary London and her parents’ expectations. If only she could stay here in Italy, wandering the sun-dappled olive groves with her sketch pad, or reading poetry … find herself an Italian husband, as Stefano had suggested.
She giggled and opened her eyes to reality.
Mother’s views of foreigners coincided with Christopher’s. She would not allow Isobel to marry an Italian, not unless he were the King of Italy himself.
But before she returned to England, and marriage, she would make the most of every experience. She would taste and explore and live while she could. And tomorrow she would go alone to meet Stefano.
Chapter Five
The narrow path wound away from the house, down through the dappled light of the olive groves, through steep terraces of lemon and orange trees, to the low wall that edged the prop
erty. From here, Isobel could no longer see the sea. It was early enough for the rest of the household to still be asleep, but already the sun was high in the cloudless sky. She pulled the wide brim of her straw hat low over her face to protect her fair skin. She was glad she’d worn nothing more than a loose cotton dress. Already the sheer fabric clung damply to her curves.
The morning bells echoed around the mountains, calling the faithful to mass. Back home in Shropshire, her sisters would be walking across the sodden fields to the parish church, under the watchful eye of the servants and their mother. And she?
She was in Italy, breathing in the heavy fragrance of lemon and flowers, springy grass beneath her feet. And walking alone. Not to worship, but to meet a man. With not an ounce of guilt or shame.
The path dropped steeply and there below her was the road. Her heart began to pound. What if he hadn’t come?
But he had.
Stefano sat on an enormous boulder above the road, his back to her, and though she made no sound, he turned, looking for her. His quick smile lit up his eyes, and that burning look, so full of pleasure at sight of her, made her feel like a Goddess. As though she could do anything; be anything.
He rose and held out a hand to her. “You came.”
“I wouldn’t miss seeing Giotto’s frescoes.”
“But of course.” The corner of his mouth twitched. She didn’t fool him. He knew she would have walked twice the distance to see him.
He helped her down the bank to the road, then loosed her hand as they headed towards the sun, following the dusty, meandering road as it curved around cliffs and chasms. They walked side by side, not close enough to touch, though the air between them crackled with awareness.
She sneaked a look at him. He was bare-headed, and the breeze ruffled his hair. Her fingers itched to brush aside the wayward lock that fell forward over his forehead. He was dressed with a casual elegance that surprised her, a stark contrast to the plain working clothes he’d worn before. The cut of his grey flannel trousers looked tailored, and the soft-collared shirt, which he wore open at the neck, was of finely textured fabric. His Sunday best?
