To Kiss a Count

by Amanda McCabe

  He had felt that need, that pull between them, from the moment they had met in Santa Lucia. She was beautiful, true, an English rose with an irresistible vivacious charm. Yet he had known many beautiful women in his life. It was something far beyond that with Thalia, something that captured and held him. A hint of sadness in her eyes, a buried melancholy under all those smiles.

  That wondrous imagination, and a fierce will he had never encountered before.

  He longed to unearth those secrets of hers, to find out everything about her. Unfortunately—or fortunately, he had not yet decided—their lives seemed to be always drawing them in different directions. He had his work, the obligations to his family and country that had been his ever since he was born. It was not always a duty he welcomed, yet it was one he would never forsake.

  It was also a burden he could never put on a lady like Thalia. No matter how her pretty pink lips tempted him to kiss her, to lose himself in her for ever.

  She had turned the corner out of his sight, though he could swear he still smelled her perfume. The faint, lingering scent of springtime white lilacs that so suited her sunny beauty. He could still taste her on his lips.

  He swung away from the crowded street, back into the quiet of the park. He had much work to do today; he could not be distracted by Thalia, by anything. His time in Bath grew short; the letter from Domenico de Lucca proved that.

  As he strode away, his glance fell on the bench where Thalia had awaited his arrival. Her umbrella lay there, forgotten.

  Marco scooped it up, the bundle of black silk. The ivory handle, inlaid with a D for de Vere, was cold. But he gave in to a momentary romantic folly, raising it to his nose to see if it smelled of lilacs. Of the imprint of Thalia’s touch.

  It did not, of course, not really, and he laughed at himself as he tossed the umbrella in the air and caught it again, swinging it like a sword. He had long scorned the idea of his countrymen as hot-blooded romantics, and here he was behaving just so.

  Thalia would surely laugh at him if she could see it. Her sister Clio, his old partner in mischief, certainly would mock him greatly!

  Remembering Clio also reminded him of the promise he made her, the vow not to lead her sister into danger. Thalia was fully capable of throwing herself headlong into danger all on her own. And dragging him right behind her!

  A promise was a promise. But he had never said he would refrain from returning lost umbrellas.

  Chapter Nine

  It is better that you know nothing more, Thalia. Pay no more attention to me…

  Marco’s words echoed in Thalia’s mind, over and over as she paced the length of her bedchamber. Telling her she should not try to decipher what was happening was rather like telling the sun not to shine in the morning. It was impossible.

  She wrapped the folds of her dressing gown closer around her, stopping at the window to peer down at the street below. It grew dark outside, evening crowding close. Only a few carriages passed by, hurrying homewards to prepare for parties and meetings.

  Which was exactly what she should be doing. They were meant to be at the Grimsbys’ card party soon, and she had not even chosen a gown. But how could she possibly concentrate on muslins and slippers, when all she thought about, all she saw, was Marco?

  Thalia rubbed lightly at her lower lip, remembering the feel of his mouth on hers, the taste of him, so sweet and intoxicating. She had been kissed before, and she thought she knew what it meant. She had even imagined what it would be like with Marco. The reality was nothing like her imaginings. It was like nothing she had ever known before at all. It was—was an explosion of fireworks, dazzling, burning bright. Blinding.

  And she wanted more. So very much more.

  She bit her lip, tucking her hands into her sleeves. So, she knew Marco’s kiss now, knew his touch, all too well. But she knew almost nothing else.

  It was startling to realise just what an enigma he was to her. She knew he came from Florence, from an old aristocratic family there, but only because of his title. Because of that bearing of his that brought to mind a Renaissance warlord. Yet she knew nothing else, nothing of his parents, his education. Had he ever been married? Was he—horrors!—married now? How had he come to know Clio?

  Thalia groaned aloud, leaning her forehead against the window. The cool touch of the glass did nothing to calm the fevered tangle of her thoughts.

  No, she did not know Marco well at all. Yet somehow, deep down inside, she felt she knew him so well. She looked into his eyes and thought she saw recognition there.

  Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps their Sicilian playacting had gone to her head, made her imagine a connection that was not there.

  But perhaps, just perhaps, she was right.

  Thalia longed for someone to confide in, someone who could help her. But Calliope didn’t need the worry, and Thalia could tell her sister held some secrets of her own. Secrets that made her not like or trust Marco. Clio was far away, and her other sister too young. Thalia had seldom felt quite so alone, so set adrift from all certainty.

  She missed her mother. Celeste Chase would have known how she felt, what she should do. Calliope and Clio were their father’s daughters, through and through; Thalia had been their mother’s. They shared a certain wild impulsiveness, a romanticism her classical sisters lacked. Yes, her mother would have known what to tell her.

  But Celeste was long gone, and Thalia just had to act on her own.

  ‘Do I make the leap?’ she muttered. Did she follow her impulse, or did she listen to Marco and forget about him?

  A knock sounded at the door, and Mary, her maid, entered with two freshly pressed gowns over her arm, a pink tulle and silk and a pale green muslin. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Thalia, did you say something?’

  Thalia gave her a smile. ‘Just talking to myself, I’m afraid, Mary. I cannot quite decide what to wear this evening.’

  The Grimsbys’ gathering was not quite the ‘small family card party’ they had promised, but neither was it a terrible crush where trains and slippers were in danger of being trod upon. Card tables were set up in their drawing room, along with various couches and chairs set close enough for comfortable chats. A supper was promised for later, but for the moment everyone seemed most content with their games of vingt-et-un and piquet, with a bit of diverting gossip.

  Calliope and Cameron played vingt-et-un, but Thalia had never been much for cards. To be proficient required a patience, a stealth, she did not possess. So she played at the pianoforte instead, entertaining the company with some old Italian airs.

  The songs would have to suffice, as there was no Italian person amid the gathering. Thalia remembered Lady Grimsby had mentioned including Marco in the invitation, but he had not appeared. And neither had Lady Riverton.

  Thalia’s fingertips danced lightly over the keys, weaving a tune of sunny, pastoral meadows and amorous shepherds, yet her thoughts were more like a thundercloud. Perhaps Marco and his be-turbaned escort had found a more amiable venue this evening. Some place darker, more solitary.

  She crashed on a discordant note.

  ‘Shall I turn the pages for you, Miss Chase?’ asked Lady Anne, one of the Grimsbys’ daughters.

  ‘Thank you,’ Thalia answered gratefully, sliding over a bit so the girl could sit beside her on the bench. Being alone with her thoughts and Italian music was not necessarily a good thing.

  With the page turned, Thalia went on with the song, much more smoothly this time. She caught Calliope giving her a strangely thoughtful glance, and Thalia smiled at her.

  ‘Have you been in Bath long, Lady Anne?’ she asked.

  The girl sighed. ‘Oh, for ever and ever, it feels like! It was quite pleasant when we first arrived, but now it is dull.’

  Thalia laughed. ‘Dull? We have received a whole avalanche of invitations since we arrived here. There must be some sort of amusement out there.’

  ‘Oh, yes! But I am not yet out, so cannot dance at the assemblies. I’m only allowed to wa
tch until next year.’

  Thalia smiled at her pout, at the disconsolate droop of her pretty red curls. How well Thalia remembered that feeling! That sense that time was moving so slowly, that all fun and merriment was just passing by.

  But then she found that being a grown-up lady just meant more restrictions. More frustration.

  ‘Observation can have its charms, as well,’ Thalia said. ‘There must be some interesting people in Bath. Some particularly handsome young man, perhaps?’

  Lady Anne giggled as she turned the page. ‘A few, yes. But surely they will all soon be in love with you, Miss Chase. My mother says you have turned down so many proposals, more than any other young lady she knows, and that if your father had any sense he would make you choose…’ Suddenly, her eyes went wide. ‘Oh, I am sorry! My mother also says I prattle on far too much.’

  Thalia laughed. ‘Not at all. It is true I have had one or two offers of marriage, but I have not yet met the right man for me. I shan’t marry until he comes along, and neither should you.’ She gave Lady Anne a conspiratorial nudge with her elbow. ‘Do you have any favourites among the handsome men in Bath?’

  Lady Anne peeked to make sure her mother wasn’t watching. ‘The Count di Fabrizzi! He is just like a hero in a novel. So dark and dashing! He never talks about shooting or cricket, like all the English gentlemen do. All my friends are quite in raptures over him, Miss Chase.’

  Thalia smiled wryly. Of course all the ladies sighed over Marco, just as she did. ‘So, the Count is your fancy, Lady Anne?’

  The girl blushed and giggled. ‘Of course! But he never looks at me, or any of my friends. He dances attendance on Viscountess Riverton, who is so very old. I cannot account for it.’

  Nor could Thalia. Not yet, anyway. ‘Do you hear much talk of the Count around Bath?’

  ‘Ever so much. Yet no one seems to really know anything about him. Isn’t that strange?’

  ‘And the mystery only makes him more intriguing, yes?’

  More giggles. Lud, thought Thalia, had she ever been that silly as a girl? If so, no wonder Cal and Clio had not wanted her always trailing around behind them back then. At least her own fifteen-year-old sister Cory was too preoccupied with art to be so giddy.

  ‘But you can see for yourself, Miss Chase,’ Lady Anne whispered as the drawing-room door opened. ‘For there he is at last. Mama will be so happy that he came after all.’

  ‘Rather late, I must say,’ Thalia murmured. ‘Is it an Italian custom, do you think?’

  ‘Oh, Miss Chase! How can you be so calm? I feel so very flustered just looking at him,’ Anne whispered. ‘I should faint dead away if he spoke to me.’

  Thalia feared she, too, might ‘faint dead away’ as she stared over the top of the sheet music at Marco. Lady Grimsby rose from her table, hurrying forwards in a cloud of amber-coloured silk to greet her new guest. Marco bowed over her hand, smiling that gorgeous smile of his.

  Lady Anne quite forgot to turn the page, so Thalia just moved smoothly into a Mozart divertimento she knew by rote. Her hands slid over the keys automatically, leaving her gaze free to follow Marco around the room. Just like every other lady there.

  Her thoughts had been so full of him all day that it seemed they had never parted at all. As he laughed with their hostess, so handsome, so sunny and charming, she could almost feel foolish for imagining such dark things about him. Suspecting him of unknown plots, ulterior motives.

  But then his gaze met hers across the room, and an intense solemnity passed over his face, like a storm cloud. It was gone just as quickly, and she wondered if she had imagined it. He gave her a small nod, an almost imperceptible quirk of his brow. Then he turned away.

  Thalia’s breath escaped in a great ‘whoosh’, her chest tight from holding it in. She stared down blindly at the keys, at her hands.

  After a moment, when she was sure she could smile blandly, pleasantly, again, she glanced up. Marco was seated between Lady Grimsby and Mrs Smythe-Moreland on a sofa by the windows. And there was no sign of Lady Riverton. Was he, could he be, alone tonight?

  She saw Calliope give her a long look over the cards in her hand, and Thalia just went on smiling and smiling, hoping she looked like a normal person and not an escapee from Bedlam. But inside her mind raced. Would she be cautious, forget Marco as he told her to? Or would she be bold?

  She came to the end of the Mozart, resting her wrists at the edge of the keyboard to the sound of applause.

  ‘That was lovely, Miss Chase,’ Lord Grimsby said. ‘Will you grace us with another?’

  ‘I fear I grow weary, Lord Grimsby,’ she answered. ‘But I should so love to hear your daughter play. I hear she is quite accomplished.’

  Thalia smoothly relinquished her seat to the blushing Lady Anne, surreptitiously tearing off a corner of the sheet music as she went. She used one of the little pencils from a card table to scrawl a message, and strolled past the sofa where Marco was enjoying his coze with the two ladies.

  As she walked by, just for an instant her pink tulle skirts hid Marco from view. She dropped the tiny paper square onto his hand, and kept moving.

  At the tea table, she peeked back over her shoulder to find him watching her again. She gave him a quick nod.

  Yes. She would follow her own nature, and be bold. Bold!

  No. She was not bold, not really. She was more like a scared little mouse.

  Or at least she felt like one, as she stood alone in the dark little ante-chamber off the Grimsbys’ foyer. The only light shone from an arched window overhead, falling in shifting patterns over a clutter of dainty chairs and tables. She could hear nothing beyond the closed door, no reassuring party patter.

  This had seemed as good a place as any, this little room she had glimpsed as they had come in. But now, all alone in the stuffy darkness, she was not so sure.

  Thalia pressed her back against the wall, her heart pounding so loudly she was sure everyone could hear it. Had all those classical heroines, Antigone, Persephone, Eurydice, felt afraid when they went down to the underworld?

  But somehow it was not fear she felt in that heart-pounding, cold-tingling moment. It was sheer excitement. Sheer—aliveness. Such as she had not felt in many months, not since Santa Lucia.

  At last, she heard something besides her own erratic heartbeat. A footstep, just outside the door. The door handle turned, opening slightly to let in a bar of candlelight. It fell across the toe of Thalia’s slipper, and she held her breath.

  ‘Are you there?’ Marco whispered.

  Thalia reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling him into the room and slamming the door shut again with her foot. They were all alone in that heated darkness.

  She spun around, pushing him back against the wall, their bodies pressed together. In the absence of light, all her other senses were heightened. The sound of his breath, the feel of his lean body against hers, so lithe and powerful. So alive and vital against hers. The way he smelled, of that gingery cologne overlaid with the saltiness of his skin.

  She couldn’t help herself. Her palms flattened on his shoulders, sliding up over his starched cravat, the arc of his throat. She traced the sharp line of his jaw, the roughness of whiskers over his smooth, warm skin. Her fingers tangled in his hair, the silken tendrils curling around her bare hands. She went up on tiptoe, pressing even closer against him.

  His breath hissed, and she felt tension in every line of his body. Yet he did not move away. He watched her intently, the two of them wrapped around in that shadowed spell.

  ‘What are you doing, Thalia?’ he said tightly.

  She hardly knew. She hadn’t planned so far ahead when she lured him here with her note. But now she wanted nothing more than to stay just as they were. ‘I could ask you the same thing,’ she whispered. ‘What are you doing, Marco, here in Bath? What game are you playing, really?’

  ‘Cara, I warned you once—forget about me,’ he said, his accent heavy as fine satin. Suddenly, quick as a lightning stri
ke, he seized her by the waist, lifting her off her feet as he twirled her around. Before she could even draw breath, their positions were reversed, and he held her captive.

  She tightened her grasp on his hair, holding on as the whole world tilted around her.

  ‘But you would not listen,’ he murmured in her ear, his warm breath stirring her hair. She shivered, her thoughts turning hazy and unreal. ‘I will not warn you twice.’

  And he kissed her, but not just any kiss. His mouth crashed down on hers, hungry and hot. Thalia’s lips parted, his tongue darting out to seek hers, to taste her deeply.

  His body arched into hers, pushing her back against the wall until there was nothing between them, not even a particle of light. His hand roughly skimmed down her ribs to her hip, grasping at the tulle foam of her skirts as he drew them up and up.

  Thalia cried out into his mouth as she felt his callused palm on her bare thigh, just above the edge of her stocking. His strong, lean fingers curled around her bare skin, lifting her higher against him.

  If he sought to frighten her, to make her run away, she thought, he failed miserably. The way his touch, his rough kiss, made her feel just made her more determined to stay.

  She wrapped her legs around his waist, revelling in the feel of his iron erection against her, the proof that he wanted her, too. This, then, was what she had read about in all those novels! This was what she saw on Greek vases and Pompeian murals. It was sex—it was life. And she wanted more and more of it.

  Marco’s mouth tore away from hers, but her cry of protest turned to a moan as she felt his wet lips trail over her cheek, along her neck. He licked at the sensitive spot just where her shoulder curved, and her head fell back against the wall. Behind her closed eyes she saw the explosion of stars, green and red and silver.

  One of her slippers fell off, clattering to the floor, and she slid her stocking foot along the tight, hard curve of his backside. It clenched under her touch, but she couldn’t pull away. She might never get a chance to satisfy this curiosity again.