Which was so very odd. This party should be the real life, so full of light and noise, and those frantic caresses in the shadows the dream. A tangle of emotions half-understood in the snare of darkness, but lost when daybreak came. Dispersed like so much smoke and fog.
Yet, more and more, the fleeting moments she spent with him were the reality.
Something would have to happen soon. Something would have to change. She could not stumble on like this for ever, wanting him with such a furious desire and yet so afraid of that wanting at the same time. Afraid of losing herself for ever.
Yes, she would have to take action. But what? She had never so longed for Calliope’s sensible presence, her calm advice! She had never felt quite so alone.
Clio took a goblet of wine from one of the tables, sipping at it beneath her veil as she watched the crowd. Her father and Lady Rushworth sat with some of their friends under the shelter of a portal, conversing animatedly as they passed a platter of cheese and olives. Unlike at Lady Riverton’s theatricals, he would have to be dragged away at the break of dawn. ‘Old and tired’, indeed!
Clio scanned the rainbow of brilliant colours, the masks and feathers and ribbons, searching for Thalia. At last she glimpsed her white gown, the gleam of torchlight on her pale hair. She was not dancing, but sat on the cathedral steps, laughing with a man in a red-striped cloak. They leaned together as they talked, and the man pushed his mask atop his head in one graceful, absentminded gesture, his gaze close on Thalia’s face as she spoke.
Clio was startled to see it was Marco. He leaned one elbow on the step above them, gazing up at Thalia as if she was the only person there. The only one whose voice he heard, whose smiles he saw. And Thalia laughed again, her cheeks a pretty apple-pink under the edge of her gilded mask.
Clio frowned. Marco charmed dozens of other women just so, from gypsy camps to Lady Riverton’s drawing room. She had watched him like this before. Thalia was not easily charmed, never easily fooled. Yet she was young, and she had the Chase quality of being headstrong and curious. And Marco was handsome, as handsome as Thalia was beautiful. If he hurt her sister…
He would certainly live to regret it. Clio would see to that, if Thalia did not unman him first!
Clio turned away as Thalia and Marco rose and moved back into the dance, hand in hand. Edward had not reappeared, and Clio was finally able to breathe again. She eased her veil aside a bit, strolling around the party, trying to guess who the various masks concealed. The shepherdess in bright pink brocade and diamonds was surely Lady Riverton, and the gentleman in the white fur cloak and painted sheep mask could be Mr Frobisher. The angel was Susan Darby, giggling with the Harlequin who had danced with Thalia when they first arrived. Was he Peter Elliott? For shame, to be transferring his affections from Thalia to Miss Darby so quickly!
Clio laughed, and took another sip of her wine. As she lowered the cup, she noticed a furtive movement just at the edge of the bakery building. A tall, muscular man in a rough brown cloak and white skull mask glanced back over his shoulder, his head swivelling quickly one way and then another before he ducked into the alleyway between the bakery and a shuttered vegetable stall.
It was only a flash of movement, unnoticed by any passer-by, but Clio knew all too well what an air of illicit activity looked like. Felt like. She could practically smell trouble in the breeze, more pungent than any perfume.
She set down her goblet and drew her veil back into place, creeping to the mouth of the alleyway. It was very dark here, darker than even the lane where she had met Edward. Yet her vision, filtered by the black tulle, grew accustomed to the dimness, and she saw a small patch of light at the end, emanating from one of the bakery’s back windows. The man in the skull mask stood just at the edge of its glow, talking quietly with someone else, someone shorter and muffled in a hooded black cloak.
Clio felt her pulse quicken in excitement, with the tingle of danger and secrecy. Holding her skirts close to still their satin rustle, she backed away before turning and dashing back around the vegetable stall. Hidden behind it, behind a pile of abandoned crates and the stench of rotting produce, she could barely make out their voices.
‘But where can the objects be found?’ one of them said, in a low, hoarse voice, muffled by a hood or mask. Clio could not tell if it was a man or woman, but the desperation was palpable.
‘I told you, we don’t know yet,’ the skull mask said, rough with impatience. He spoke in English, but with a heavy Sicilian accent. Clio frowned in concentration, almost sure she had heard it before.
‘But we have the bowl! Surely the rest must be near where it was found.’
‘That piece must have been separated from the rest of the collection,’ the impatient Sicilian said. ‘We’ll find the rest soon. We’re digging whenever we can. It’s close, I can feel it!’
‘It had better be. This English customer was most pleased with the bowl, and is willing to pay a great deal of money for the rest. The silver is a rare find. It will set us up for life. Why can you not work faster?’
‘You know why!’ the Sicilian said angrily. Clio heard a rustle, as of a hood or mask being pushed back. Clio peered cautiously around the corner, and found that she had indeed recognised that voice. It was Giacomo, Rosa’s rabbit-poaching son.
She felt a startled, sad pang for Rosa and Paolo, for the bitter realization that he was up to no good, and not just poaching. That he was one of the great plague of tombaroli. How dare he hurt his kind-hearted parents in such a way! How dare he destroy his own family’s heritage? As Lily Thief, she had fought so hard against such terrible ills. She didn’t want to fight again, not here.
‘Those tomb frescoes last year were much larger and more complicated, and yet you delivered them in half the time,’ the other person said querulously.
‘No one was lurking around that tomb every day,’ Giacomo answered, sullen. ‘And the ghosts keep workers away.’
‘That has never stopped you in the past. Take care of it. The English wants the silver, or nothing. If you want the money…’
‘Of course I want the money!’
‘Then do as I say. Take care of the site, and find the rest of the silver. No matter what you have to do. It must be there somewhere! All the indications say so.’
There was a snap of papers being unfolded, and the cloaked person said, ‘This is what the English wants, the pieces in these sketches. Find it all within a fortnight, and there will be a fat bonus in your purse. Fail, and the consequences could be dire—for all of us.’
Clio stretched up on tiptoe, peering closer as the person hurried away, leaving Giacomo alone. He lowered his skull mask back into place, staring down at the sheaf of papers in his hand. Strangely, that hand trembled. She heard him mutter in Italian, something more about ‘ghosts’. In her eagerness to hear him, she leaned too far forwards, accidentally nudging a crate with her toe. Startled by that scraping sound, she drew deeper into the shadows, not daring to breathe.
Giacomo spun around, scanning the alleyway, as nervous as a cat. She could smell his acrid fear. Tombarolo he might be, but perhaps not a very good one. Thievery required nerves of steel.
‘Chi è là?’ he called, glaring frantically one way then another. A slip of paper fell from his shaking hand.
‘Ghosts,’ he muttered, rubbing at his face with a shaking hand. He hurried out of the alleyway, tugging his cloak around him as if to ward off those ghosts everyone here seemed so afraid of.
Clio waited, perfectly still, until she was sure he was really gone. Then she tiptoed forwards, scooping up the lost paper.
As she peered down at it in the dim light, she saw it was a sketch of a small incense burner, the drawing carefully detailed and measured. It was carved with an elaborate relief of Demeter. An exquisite piece, even in the pencil sketch, and Clio had never seen anything like it except in the British Museum, which held the remnants of a Greek altar set.
She frowned as she tucked the paper into her sleeve. G
iacomo had spoken of a bowl, a part of a great hoard of silver. Also temple pieces, probably, to judge by the fine style of the incense burner. It was a piece a collector, this English Giacomo and his cohort spoke of, would indeed pay a great deal for. Where were they digging for these pieces?
And who was the ‘English’?
Clio had a sickening feeling that all the puzzles of the past few days were coming together, and they were centred on this silver. Was it the reason Edward had suddenly showed up in Santa Lucia? Was he the English who was after the stolen temple hoard?
She felt dizzy, remembering the long gallery at Acropolis House, packed with antiquities of every description—Greek vases, Roman statues, an Egyptian sarcophagus, Minoan snake goddesses, all jumbled together. She remembered the Alabaster Goddess, reigning over it all. He had vowed then that he had reformed his ways, that he worked for the Antiquities Society, that his task was to stop the Lily Thief and others of that ilk.
But perhaps the silver was too much of a temptation. Perhaps he had fought against his old ways and lost.
Clio shivered, suddenly icy cold and deeply sad. She crept back around the stall the way she had arrived, slipping back into the party. The moon was lower in the sky now; soon the night would give way to dawn. Yet she sensed that her darkness was only just beginning.
She sat down on the steps where she had glimpsed Thalia and Marco earlier, suddenly feeling so very old and tired. The music was louder than ever, but she seemed to be wrapped in silence.
From the crowd emerged a tall figure swathed in dark blue velvet, red-gold hair loose on his shoulders, like an angel. Everyone else moved in drunken, haphazard patterns, yet he was all predatory grace. She watched, still feeling that cold, dream-like distance, as he sat down on the step below hers.
Silently, silently, he leaned back against her legs, his head resting on her knees, heavy and sweet and reassuring through her skirts. She laid one hand lightly on his tousled hair, feeling the rough silk of it under her touch, the familiar rush of his pulse with hers. They sat there, wrapped in quiet, in that deep gulf between them, as the night spun on around them.
Oh, Edward, she thought sadly. How can you be a villain?
Or was it merely her heart who was the great betrayer?
Chapter Fourteen
The dinner party seemed to be going quite well.
Clio gazed out over the company from her place at the foot of the table. ‘Hostess’ was not her favourite role to play, but since Calliope’s marriage it had fallen on her. Only until her father wed Lady Rushworth, of course. Luckily, Sir Walter did not often like to entertain in a formal way, and her domestic duties were not onerous.
And, she had to admit, there was something quite satisfying when a gathering came together so neatly. The conversation hummed along, assisted by the cosy number of guests, all with similar interests. Rosa’s delicious food was much complimented, even though Lady Riverton threatened to steal her away for her own kitchen. The flowers, artful displays of local wildflowers designed by Thalia, were most lovely. And her father seemed happy, with the attentions of Lady Rushworth on his right and Mrs Darby on his left, both avid to hear about his newest discoveries at the villa.
Yes, it was all going very well indeed. The servants, relatives of Rosa and Paolo, hired for the evening, moved smoothly and quietly around the table. They made sure no one’s plate or glass was empty, and left Clio with very little to do.
Except think. Which she had done ceaselessly since the feste. Her mind whirled until she thought she would scream with it all, and still she could make no sense of anything. The silver hoard that might or might not be real. The tombaroli and the ‘English’ who was going to pay them untold riches for their loot. The Duke—how did he fit in? It could be no coincidence he was in Santa Lucia just now, with a vast stash of illicit antiquities in the offing. Was he on another errand for the Antiquities Society, or had he fallen back into his old, unscrupulous collecting ways?
Did anyone, could anyone, ever really change? Or was the temptation sometimes just too great?
That was a conundrum she found herself wrestling with, far too often of late.
She nibbled at the cassata, studying the occupants of the table carefully. They were almost all ‘English’, all interested in antiquities and collecting. Which of them, behind their smiles and fine clothes, their polite chatter, would deal with thieves? Would steal and hide away what did not belong to them, but to the people of this island? To history?
Marco would surely know. He must have heard something about a discovery as rich and rare as a stash of temple silver. Yet they had had no chance of private consultation since he had come to Santa Lucia, and he had kept up his guise of light-hearted, flirtatious nobleman beautifully. Quite the actor, Marco was.
He sat next to Thalia, the two of them talking quietly over the dessert. Clio wondered what they spoke of after their little scene at the feste, their dances together. But their voices were too soft for her to overhear more than scattered words and laughter.
Edward was across the table from them, listening to Susan Darby’s awed prattle with a polite smile on his lips. He had not touched the wine, Clio noticed, and barely eaten, though his compliments on the cooking seemed most sincere. He had not glanced at Clio since bowing over her hand at arrival.
She could tell nothing from his expression, his eyes, his oh-so-polite conversation. Even if they were alone, she knew she could not ask him about the silver. Could not confront him outright, as someone like Thalia surely would, an Amazon with no fear of attacking from the front. She would learn nothing, and the outcome of any battle would be uncertain indeed.
Despite their desperate intimacy, their kisses and caresses in the dark of the night, there was still a gulf between them of doubt and suspicion. A gulf she didn’t know how to bridge, not with her own caution and reserve.
‘I still have hopes, too, that Miss Chase will join us,’ Mrs Darby said. The sound of her name shook Clio from her brooding, and she looked down the table to where Mrs Darby chatted with her father.
‘I beg your pardon, Mrs Darby?’ Clio said.
‘I was just telling Sir Walter of our planned tour to Motya. The Phoenician sites, they say, are really quite worth seeing, especially the necropolis. The excursion would be so much more delightful if you were with us!’
‘That is very kind of you, Mrs Darby,’ answered Clio. ‘I enjoyed accompanying you to Agrigento so much. But I fear I am too taken up here with work.’
‘You should go, my dear,’ her father urged. ‘Mrs Darby tells me it is only an excursion of a few days, and the change of scenery would do you good. You have been working too hard of late.’
‘Miss Thalia and I would be sure to take good care of your father while you’re gone,’ Lady Rushworth added. ‘They do say the sea air is most bracing and reviving.’
Sea air? Did she look so much the pale invalid, then, that they all wanted to bundle her off for a salt-water cure? Clio felt the weight of Edward’s gaze on her.
‘I will certainly consider your kind offer, Mrs Darby,’ Clio said.
‘Excellent! We will not leave for a couple of days yet, plenty of time to make arrangements,’ Mrs Darby answered. ‘We plan to head home to England directly after the tour, so it will be the last time we can spend time with you until you yourself return to London.’
‘You must come!’ Susan Darby cried. ‘Or I will be the only young person on the tour.’
‘A great inducement indeed,’ Clio said with a smile. ‘We will be sorry to lose your society here in Santa Lucia.’
‘And we shall be sorry to go,’ said Mrs Darby. ‘But my husband wants to seek a London publisher for his book. Is that not so, my dear?’
The conversation turned to Mr Darby’s manuscript, and Clio sat back in her chair, gesturing to the servants to begin clearing. The Motya excursion was tempting, she had to admit. To run away from the confusion Santa Lucia had become, to just be a simple tourist for a few days
, with her guidebook and the pleasant, undemanding company of the Darbys.
To be away from Edward.
Yet surely even miles of land, the vast sea itself, could not erase the way his kiss felt on her naked skin. The desire that trembled through her whenever he touched her.
No, she had to stay, to face whatever this was between them. To discover what was happening here in sleepy, suddenly sinister Santa Lucia.
The ladies soon departed the dining room, leaving the men to their brandy and no doubt more talk about Sir Walter’s villa. Clio made certain the tea tray was laid out in the drawing room before sitting down next to Thalia.
‘You were having quite the coze with Count di Fabrizzi,’ Clio whispered teasingly.
Thalia’s eyes gave a quick lightning flash, veiled by her long lashes as she took a sip of tea. ‘I have merely been attempting to persuade him to take part in my play.’
‘Oh, indeed? So, it is merely for the sake of theatre that you spend time with him?’
‘Of course.’
‘It has nothing to do with his handsome eyes?’
‘Clio!’
Clio laughed. ‘You teased me about him before. It is my turn now.’
Thalia bit her lip, but Clio could see a smile threatening to break through. ‘True. Very well, I admit he does have—handsome eyes. But I think his affections are already engaged.’
‘Indeed?’ Clio asked in dawning curiosity. She studied the ladies in the room: silly but pretty Susan Darby; her still-lovely mother; Lady Elliott with her bright red ringlets; and Lady Riverton, who was chatting loudly about some new jewellery she had just purchased. Who could it be? Or maybe it was a dark-eyed signorina back in Florence! Marco had broken so many hearts, surely turn-about was only fair. ‘Has he confided in you? Who is it?’
To Deceive a Duke Page 12
