The Vision of a Viscountess

by Linda Rae Sande

  “Indeed. Not the least of which is that I am severely underpaid,” he joked.

  Her eyes widening in concern, she asked, “Oh. Are you in need of funds? Lord Henley gave me far too much money this morning,” she said as she moved to open her reticule.

  “No, my lady,” he answered quickly. When he glanced into the basket that hung from her arm, he realized why she had so much money left over—there was only a length of ribbon and a spool of silk thread lining the bottom of the basket. So much for buying out all the shops in Girgenti. “The ribbon is rather beautiful,” he commented.

  Marianne angled her head as they entered the house. “Thank you. It seems I have lost the ribbon for my braid,” she commented before giving him a curtsy. “I will see you later at dinner, Mr. Singleton.”

  Chapter 24

  A Gypsy Sees a Widow’s Future

  Meanwhile, inside Chiesa di San Nicola

  Chiara crossed herself as she entered the Chiesa di San Nicola, murmuring in Italian before moving to light a candle in the narthex. About to kneel to pray, she had the oddest sensation, as if she were being watched. Reminded of what had happened earlier that afternoon, she turned to discover a black-robed nun regarding her from the other side of the nave.

  “Buon pomeriggio, sorella,” she whispered, giving the old woman a nod. Having come to San Nicola nearly every day to light a candle in honor of her late husband, Chiara was quite sure she didn’t recognize the nun.

  The black-garbed woman stepped forward, glancing about as if she were worried about being discovered in the narthex. “Do not tell anyone I am here,” she whispered.

  Chiara frowned. “Why ever not?” Besides, who would she tell? There was no one else in the church at the moment.

  “I am a Gypsy.”

  Inhaling a deep breath, Chiara glanced around the church before returning her attention to the nun. “What kind of Gypsy?” she countered, recognizing the woman wearing a black habit with a black and white coif. The woman had been watching her and Marianne as they shopped earlier that day.

  “The kind that knows what is best. The kind that recognizes a lonely soul and knows of another that will provide it comfort. I have come to you because it is time.”

  Chiara frowned at the implication. “I am not lonely,” she argued.

  The nun shook her head. “For twenty years, you have pined for someone other than the man you promised fidelity,” she countered. “But that man—that someone—is now within your reach. Do not choose the path of a fool, for that leads to more loneliness. Choose the path of love and devotion. For that path promises a life of fulfillment. A path of eternal happiness. A life blessed.”

  Chiara blinked, and not just because a tear had formed in the corner of one eye. She turned to stare at the candle she had just lit. “Who do you mean?” she finally asked, the quiet narthex causing her words to sound loud in her ears. But when she turned around to face the nun, she frowned.

  No one was there. In fact, the entire church was empty.

  A chill had her entire body shivering just then. A chill and a rather stunning thought.

  The Gypsy had been referring to her son’s father, she was sure.

  Lord Darius.

  Who else could she have meant with her words?

  Chiara Romano crossed herself before rising to her feet.

  Lord Darius?

  I would sooner hang myself, she thought in dismay.

  Chapter 25

  A Sight for Sore Eyes

  In the early evening

  Bathed and dressed for dinner, Jasper dismissed David and made his way to the dining room in search of Marianne. A quick glance into several rooms proved she wasn’t in the villa, so he made his way back to the kitchen to ask about her when David appeared carrying two large pails of steaming water. For James, no doubt, Jasper thought. He couldn’t help but notice how David grinned as he carried the bathwater to the younger archaeologist’s bedchamber.

  He was informed by their cook that his wife had taken her leave of the villa with a book. A bit alarmed—he wasn’t yet sure just how safe Marianne would be outside of the compound—Jasper made his way out of the villa’s enclosed courtyard and glanced up and down the dirt lane. Just off the path that led to the Greco-Roman quarter, he spotted his wife. Perched on what had probably been the base of a column, Marianne was reading a book while Angela leaned against the marble stone and sewed in the shade of an almond tree.

  Deciding the two were in no danger, he was about to head back into the villa when he noticed a mule-drawn cart on its way up the lane. He recognized Lord Darius right away, but his appearance was nothing like how the Duke of Westhaven’s brother usually looked when working in the field. Hurrying down the lane to meet the cart, Jasper called out a greeting.

  “Ah, I see you have decided to dress as well,” Darius said as he paused the cart so Jasper could jump on.

  “I intend to keep up appearances as much as possible,” Jasper claimed as he took a seat next to the older archaeologist.

  Darius tore his attention from Jasper and squinted his eyes in an attempt to make out the identity of a young woman who was over a hundred feet away and apparently enjoying a good book.

  “I didn’t take you for one to acquire live artifacts as part of your excavations,” Darius remarked, his head nodding toward where Marianne sat reading atop a broken column base. “Your latest mistress?”

  Jasper followed his line of sight and lifted a brow. “Why, I’ve a mind to knock you on your bum for that comment,” he countered. “That, sir, is my wife.”

  Frowning, Darius gave him a look of disbelief. “Forgive me, but I was sure I heard your Sophie died. Just last year, wasn’t it? Influenza, or some such?”

  Jasper nodded, rather surprised when the familiar wave of sadness didn’t leave him nearly robbed of breath. “She did. I remarried the day I left England to come here,” he explained.

  Darius, a widower himself, regarded Jasper with a furrowed brow. “I wasn’t aware you were courting anyone,” he replied. “Dr. Curzon would have said something if he knew,” he added, referring to one of their fellow members of the Royal Society who had a reputation as the organization’s most notorious gossip. There were those who claimed the explorer was a contributor to The Tattler, London’s premiere gossip rag, but given the man’s extended absences from the capital, it seemed rather unlikely.

  When Darius halted the mule just before the villas, Jasper jumped down from the cart, realizing he wasn’t going to be able to bamboozle Darius Jones with a variation of the truth as it related to Marianne. The older archaeologist might have spent most of his time researching Roman ruins around Hadrian’s Wall, but the man did have access to newspapers, and a mail coach went through Hexham on a regular basis.

  “Until a week before I left London, I wasn’t courting anyone,” Jasper stated, his chin rising a bit, as if he expected a pithy response.

  He got what he expected.

  “Got caught kissing in the gardens again, did you?” Darius accused with a huge grin.

  Jasper cleared his throat and gave a curt nod. “I did.”

  Darius blinked. And blinked again. “You’re... you’re not joking,” he half-asked.

  Realizing he may as well tell his colleague the whole truth, Jasper directed his gaze towards his wife. “Marianne Slater. Lord Donald Slater’s daughter,” he said as he returned his attention back to Darius. Of course the older man would know of Slater’s distillery just north of the border in Canobie. Darius had probably paid a personal visit to the distillery a time or two. He and Slater shared the distinction of being the lone younger brothers to peers.

  “Miss Slater?” Darius asked in disbelief. “But... she’s blind,” he said with a shake of her head. “What were you thinking?” he asked in disbelief. He gave his head another shake. “You weren’t, of course, or else you were letting your cock do your thinking—”

  “She’s not blind,” Jasper countered, annoyance evident on his tanned f
eatures. “I met her at Lord Attenborough’s ball last month, and I escorted her to the gardens—”

  “—Without the benefit of a chaperone.”

  “Lady Devonville was dancing with her husband at the time, and not in the ballroom, if you catch my meaning,” Jasper said in a low voice, one brow arched up.

  “Talk about a man being led by his cock,” Darius murmured. “As soon as Winslow was buried, Devonville had his eye on Lady Winslow. Told everyone in Parliament that none of them were to go near her, or it would be pistols at dawn.”

  Although Jasper had been attending Parliament that Season, he wasn’t aware of that particular edict. “Careful there, old man. You’re speaking of my... my uncle-in-law,” Jasper warned. After a pause, he added, “I knew what I was doing when I took her to the gardens.” He didn’t really, but Darius didn’t need to know that. He was still trying to figure what had him deciding it was a good idea—nay, a necessity—to take Marianne Slater on a tour of the gardens. Although given what they had been doing the night before—and every night since their wedding—he realized he had merely trusted his instincts.

  Furrowing a bushy eyebrow, Darius dared another glance in the direction of Jasper’s new viscountess. “Did she?”

  Jasper held his breath a moment. Truth be told, he had never learned from her if she was glad or not that they had been forced to marry. She could have called it off, though. Devonville had said as much. If not him, then Cherice had most likely explained to the young woman that she could end the betrothal. Young ladies were allowed to end engagements.

  Men were not.

  “Probably not at the time,” Jasper admitted. “We both just wanted to get out of the crush of the ball.”

  “Ah, your fear of crowded spaces got you again, did it?”

  Jasper inhaled sharply before he nodded. “With the very best result, though. I have no regrets,” he claimed, almost daring Darius to say otherwise. He suddenly frowned. “Well, except for the fact that she won’t always wear her spectacles. It’s true, she cannot see well without them.” He dared another glance in her direction and was pleasantly surprised to see she was wearing her spectacles, her attention on a small animal that appeared to be begging for food near where she sat. Although Angela had been with her, the young woman was now missing.

  “Well, she’s got them on now. Jesus, Henley, you could at least see to it she’s got somethin’ better than those portholes, though. Poor girl looks like Everly when we put kohl on the eyepiece of his microscope, right before he did that presentation for the Society,” Darius said as a huge grin lit his tanned face.

  Jasper rolled his own eyes as he recalled the incident. Harold Tennison, Earl of Everly, had just returned from a trip to India and was giving a lecture on tropical fish at the Royal Society when the incident occurred. Rather unprofessional of Everly’s colleagues, who had thought it funny when the man pressed his face against the eyepiece just before he announced his discovery of a new fish. Half the audience had gasped in fear, thinking he had been somehow infected by whatever was under the microscope’s eyeglass, and the other half did their best not to laugh out loud at the black ring that encircled the man’s right eye. “I welcome any suggestions at what I might do,” Jasper replied, rather hoping Darius would know of someone in Sicily who could arrange an examination of Marianne’s eyes as well as the grinding and mounting of lenses better suited to her station as a viscountess.

  “Are you planning a trip up to Palermo?” Darius wondered as he secured the reins.

  “I am considering it, seeing as how I may have an artifact for their museum,” Jasper replied, referring to one of the mosaics he was unearthing. “Although I haven’t yet arranged it,” Jasper replied, his brow furrowing in thought.

  When he originally made plans to excavate on Sicily, he hadn’t considered going to the mainland. Once he realized he would be married, though, he had thought to take Marianne to Rome when the heat grew too harsh to work in Sicily and then return to the island to continue his work in the fall. If he uncovered any mosaic floors and could determine their origin—Greek or Roman—he intended to do what he must to see to their preservation. He planned to take smaller designs with him to London while leaving the larger examples in a museum on Sicily—if not in Girgenti, then somewhere else on the island. Somewhere like Palermo.

  As for other cities on the mainland, he had already spent a month in Pompeii and helped to excavate some ruins there. Another earlier trip had him directing the excavation of an area just north of Rome, a working class community that had at one time been a port city.

  The island of Sardinia offered a plethora of ruins, and even though most were Greek, there was a treasure trove of Roman ruins if one merely studied some of the inland towns and villages. He had half a mind to simply relocate to Italy and spend the rest of his life uncovering mosaics, but he had responsibilities in England. And there was the expense of living abroad to consider.

  “There is a man who has a shop with nothing but spectacles in Palermo. Ricardo Ricciardini. Gets his glass from Venice. I rather imagine he’s capable of grinding lenses to suit any kind of eyesight,” Darius said with a shrug. “If he cannot, or will not, he will know of someone who can. Venetian glass is the best on the entire planet,” he claimed as he waved his beefy hands in front of his large body.

  “What does the glass matter if it’s to be ground down to make a lens?” Jasper asked in annoyance.

  Darius blinked. “The very best lenses start with the very best glass,” he explained, reaching out with one hand to rest it on the younger man’s shoulder as the other lifted in a gesture familiar among Italians. Jasper expected he might even kiss his fingertips, but the archaeologist merely dropped his hand when he finished his proclamation. “No bubbles. No bolle. No imperfections.”

  “And the...” Jasper paused to use a finger to circle one eye. “Wires?”

  The older man allowed a grin. “They have that specialty as well.” He paused a moment and leaned in closer. “The Italians invented eyeglasses. Back in the thirteenth century. They are the best at it. The best at all of it. Why, they’ll have your viscountess looking like the wisest woman in all of Europe,” he said as he turned his attention back to where Marianne had been seated. “And looking as beautiful, as well.”

  Except Marianne was no longer seated—and no longer wearing her spectacles—but extending her arms to an older woman who had appeared from somewhere beyond the almond orchards. A younger woman walked by her side.

  Darius blinked but continued to stare, watching as Lady Henley greeted the woman, an Italian whose dark hair was nearly black. Despite her age, the woman wasn’t as plump as most of the women who lived in Girgenti, nor did she display a dour expression, as if everyone in her family had somehow disappointed her. This woman was smiling, and in doing so, displaying white teeth and sparkling eyes he suddenly wanted aimed in his direction.

  Jasper noted his colleague’s stare, a grin forming as he realized Darius Jones was experiencing the same sort of attraction Jasper had felt that night at Lord Attenborough’s ball, when he had the strange feeling of being watched. Of feeling lust. Well, not lust, exactly, but a combination of desire and curiosity.

  “Who is she?” Darius asked, his eyes still on the Italian woman who now walked arm-in-arm with Marianne toward the lane. The younger girl trailed behind them.

  “My wife’s companion and our hostess,” Jasper said as he finally turned his attention back to Darius. “She owns this villa you recommended, in fact.” From the way Darius stared at the woman, Jasper wondered if he had ever met her in person. “I thought you knew her.”

  But Darius didn’t seem to recognize her despite his open appreciation. “By God, the Gypsy was right,” he murmured, sotto voce.

  “Gypsy?” Jasper repeated. When Darius didn’t respond, he added, “Would you like an introduction?” He gave a start when he realized Darius hadn’t heard a word he said. The man simply stared at Chiara as if he was transfixed.
“Look who’s being led by his cock now,” Jasper said with a hint of humor.

  The comment was lost on Darius, though, for the man continued to watch the three women as they made their way up the lane.

  “She speaks English,” Jasper said as he leaned towards the older archaeologist.

  “I can speak Italian,” Darius claimed. A moment passed before he added, “Well enough.”

  “Would you like an introduction?”

  Darius finally tore his eyes from Chiara. “Eventually. Maybe. No,” he finally replied with a shake of his head, as if he was suddenly brought back to his senses. He turned his attention to the ground below. “So, what has Signorina Aurora made us for dinner?” he asked, as if the past twenty minutes hadn’t happened.

  Blinking at the man’s change in behavior, Jasper gave a shrug and admitted that he had absolutely no idea.

  Despite Darius’ attempt to seem unaffected by Chiara, Jasper knew the man was astonished. Happens to the best of us, he thought as he dared another glance in Marianne’s direction, at the exact same time she lifted her gaze to meet his. He gave a wave and allowed a smile, rather glad she had done the same to him that night at Lord Attenborough’s ball.

  “Ladies,” he said as he reached for Marianne’s gloved hand. “Dr. Jones will be joining us for dinner this evening.”

  Darius gave a start as he stared at Marianne. “Miss Slater!” he said in a voice that suggested disbelief, his gaze going between her and Jasper. “Forgive me. I... I haven’t seen you in an age...” He reached for her gloved hand and brushed his lips over the back of it. His attention went to Jasper. “How is it you two met?” he asked, the twinkle in his eye suggesting he was going to once again tease Jasper.

  “At Lord Attenborough’s ball,” Marianne replied, a grin forming when she recognized Darius. It had been several years since the last time she had seen the older man in the company of her father.