Authors: Juliana Gray
Wallingford shrugged. “It don’t matter, Burke. Not a whit. Don’t you see? We’re all at her mercy. Look at the three of them. Well rested, riding our horses, the damned baggage cart miles behind, no end in sight.” He stopped walking and placed his hands on his hips, scanning the rocky hillside and the befogged valley below. He flung out an arm. “Behold your land of endless sunshine, Burke.
Endless . . . bloody . . . sunshine.
So you see,” he continued, resuming the track, “it don’t matter whether the inn exists or whether it’s her own damned invention. We simply walk, Burke, until she tells us to stop.”
Finn looked down at the damp speckled stones sliding past, at the pattern of his booted feet going
crunch crunch
into the track. “Reason, of course, tells us there must be an end to it. The castle itself can’t be more than a few miles farther. When we reach the access road . . .”
“Ah, Burke. You and your rational brain. Don’t you see? Even if we should reach your castle before Lady Morley’s mythical inn, it won’t be the end of it. Oh no. We’ll be obliged to take them in, offer them shelter until the baggage cart catches up, and then, my good fellow”—his voice rose into a bark, almost frantic—“then we’ll
never see them leave
!”
“Nonsense,” Finn said pragmatically. “They’ve leased their own lodgings, after all. And there’s the wager, which, practically speaking, requires a complete cessation of contact with the opposite sex . . .”
A high peal of laughter wafted down to them from the mist ahead, followed by the rumble of Lord Roland’s genial chuckle.
“The sister,” Wallingford said darkly. “Mark my words, Burke. She’ll be the most trouble of all.”
Finn opened his mouth to question why, but Lady Morley’s voice carried down the road, clipped with excitement, and cut him off.
“Why, here it is!”
Finn turned to the duke. “You see?” he said triumphantly. “The inn.”
Lady Morley had brought her horse to a halt a short distance away and overheard him. “No, not the inn, of course,” she said, waving the map in her gloved hand. “The inn is . . . well, never mind about the inn. Look there, near the bend up ahead. There are our lodgings! Or at least the access road, you see.”
“The access road,” Finn repeated numbly.
“It can’t be above two miles from here,” said Lady Morley cheerfully, “and then we can send you quite on your way, with our deepest appreciation. Although if you’d be so kind as to find the fellow with our baggage and direct him properly, we’d be most abjectly grateful.”
“Now see here, Lady Morley,” Finn burst out. “This has gone on far enough.”
“Really, Burke,” said Lord Roland, visible now, standing next to Miss Abigail Harewood’s horse. Or rather his own horse, which she was riding. “You can’t possibly be proposing that we leave the ladies here and trot off on our merry way. Anything might happen. Brigands, even.”
Finn glowered. “Brigands have been unknown in these parts for at least a century, Penhallow. And I should think that ladies so sturdy and self-sufficient would be grateful for the exercise.”
“Ah, Burke,” Wallingford said placidly. “It’s pointless to argue, merely a waste of valuable energy. Lady Morley wishes us to follow her to her lodgings, and as she’s got our horses, I don’t see we have any means of stopping her.”
Finn crossed his arms and cast a speculative look at Lady Morley. The map dangled from her long fingers, coated with clear wax against the damp, and a rather disturbing idea insinuated its way into his brain. “Lady Morley,” he said, “would you perhaps be so good as to show me your map?”
She eyed him, her elegant brow arched with suspicion. “Haven’t you a map of your own, Mr. Burke?” she inquired coolly.
He returned her look and reached into the inner pocket of his jacket. His map, which was unwaxed, damn it all, had grown damp next to his perspiring body. He unfolded it gingerly and ran his eyes along the erratic squiggles of railway line and road until he came, roughly, to their present location. His chest heaved with relief. By his own best estimate, they were at least a few miles away from their own turnoff from the main road.
In any case, he had the owner’s letter of confirmation still in his pocket, warm and wilting against his chest.
There was nothing to worry about.
“Very well,” he said, turning away from Lady Morley. “I suppose we can spare another hour, since we’ll soon have our horses back.”
“That’s ever so kind,” she replied, and wheeled the horse about, urging it into a trot up the drive. Finn began to walk in her wake. The duke paced along beside him, shielding him from the small signpost at the crossroads that read
CASTEL SANT’AGATA 2 KM
and pointed up the path Lady Morley had taken.
* * *
M
y dear,” said Lady Somerton, ranging up next to Alexandra, “are you quite sure about all of this?”
Alexandra tilted her chin and replied briskly, “All of
what
, Lilibet? Really, it’s rather late to be asking those sorts of questions. We’ve made our decision, haven’t we? We’ve left England behind.”
“I don’t mean that,” her cousin said. “I mean all this business with the duke. This wager of yours, and making them give up their beds, and now the horses.” She spoke, as she always did, in that smooth mellifluous voice of hers, as if nothing on earth could annoy her. Even now she rode Wallingford’s horse with ease, though she’d probably never attempted to ride astride in her life, and certainly not with a five-year-old boy wriggling before her in the saddle.
“I don’t see what you mean,” Alexandra said. “They were quite happy to offer us assistance. We should have done them a disservice if we’d refused; just think of all that offended chivalry. I don’t know about you, darling, but I shouldn’t have been able to live with the guilt.”
Philip made a sudden grab for the reins, and the horse tossed his head at the intrusion. Lilibet’s body shifted, adjusting, and it occurred to Alexandra that her cousin was a much better horsewoman than she’d imagined. “All the same,” Lilibet was saying, as she pried the boy’s fingers away and recalled the horse to its duty, “Wallingford and . . . and the others know where we’re staying, and what we’re doing. They may mention it to their friends, or . . .”
“I assure you,” Alexandra said, a trifle haughty, “they will not. Mention it to whom, anyway? The birds? The rocks?”
“Don’t be tedious, Alex. They’ll write letters, send wires. They won’t cut themselves off completely. They’re men of the world.”
“But that’s the point. They’re supposed to be cutting themselves off, aren’t they? Scholarly seclusion.” Her horse, feeling her rising tension, began to mince his steps.
“But there’s a chance, isn’t there? A chance that word will reach home . . .”
“And then what?” Alexandra asked impatiently. “You’re afraid your husband will come galloping after you? Really, Lilibet.”
“Not for me,” she said, glancing down at the fine light brown hair bobbing along below her chin.
Alexandra spoke in a low voice. “We’re more than a match for Lord Somerton, I assure you. I shall turn him away with a shotgun, if I must.”
“But don’t you see,” Lilibet pleaded, “it’s better, far better, if word never reaches him.”
“If you must know, I’ve already spoken to Mr. Burke,” Alexandra said. “He may be a cad, but I’m confident he’s discreet.”
“Have you, now?” Lilibet said, in a different tone. “That may explain a great deal.”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. That business with the boots. I should almost have said you were flustered.”
“I was not flustered,” Alexandra insisted. “Mr. Burke is a man of no standing . . .”
“No standing?” Lilibet let out a peal of laughter. “Really, Alex. You’ve just given yourself away. No standing, indeed! Even
I’ve
heard of him. That speech he gave to the Royal Society last autumn; why, the
Times
carried it verbatim, with the most breathless introduction. And I suppose he’s made millions from those inventions of his.”
“Millions indeed!” Alexandra sniffed. “One or two, at most. No more.”
“Oh, no more than two million pounds, then.” Lilibet laughed. “A pittance.”
“
Money
does not concern me in the least, Lilibet.” Her voice was sharp.
“They’re sure to knight him, at least. Or perhaps a baronetcy,” Lilibet went on.
“How charming for him. Though I don’t see that it’s any concern of ours; we, after all, have sworn off all that, and I’ve no intention of giving Wallingford the satisfaction of winning . . . Oh, look ahead! Do you see it?” Alexandra shifted the reins to one hand and pointed ahead with her riding crop.
Beyond, in the clearing mist, a dun-colored bristle of medieval towers jutted into the heavy sky, surrounded by tall, unkempt cypress and overgrown with rampant vegetation. It rested, or appeared to rest, on a ridge of some sort, for Alexandra could see nothing behind it but thick, impenetrable gray.
“Good God.” Lilibet shifted her son’s weight and strained to see more. “It looks as though it hasn’t been lived in for years.”
Alexandra urged her horse forward. “Nonsense. It’s just the Italian style. Rustic, you see. It’s all a carefully cultivated wilderness.”
“Look here, Lady Morley!” Mr. Burke’s voice lashed out from behind them. “What sort of game is this?”
Alexandra turned in her saddle and slowed the horse, allowing him to catch up. He came forward in long, angry strides, his face deeply flushed, the sprinkling of freckles almost jumping from the bridge of his nose.
“Game, sir? You have me at a loss.”
“This is the Castel sant’Agata! You can’t deny it!”
“Why, so it is,” she replied, running her thumb around the rim of the riding crop, quite slowly, so the gesture wouldn’t betray her anxiety. “The Castel sant’Agata. You’ve heard of it?”
“Of course I bloody well have!”
“Such language, Mr. Burke!”
“You know very well,” he went on, his voice constrained, as if he were leashing his words tightly, “what the Castel sant’Agata means to us. How, I imagine, did you find out? Did you rifle through our belongings, perhaps? Bribe our driver?”
“Really, Burke!” Lord Roland’s words snapped out with unaccustomed sharpness.
Mr. Burke turned in his direction. “I suppose you think it’s all a dreadful misunderstanding, do you, Penhallow?”
Alexandra felt a pressure begin to collect between her eyes, a gathering sense of foreboding. “I don’t understand you at all, sir. What’s the castle to you?”
He returned to her, arms folded across his chest, eyes glinting narrowly. His ginger hair seemed to have stiffened about his head, the way a dog’s might, when faced by an unexpected threat. “It’s only our home, Lady Morley, for the next year. Only that.”
She let out a relieved laugh. “Your home! Oh, you’re quite mistaken, sir. The Castel sant’Agata is
our
home. We’ve taken it for a year from the owner, a very nice fellow named . . . oh, Rossini. Or Paganini. Something like that.”
“Rosseti,” said Abigail, in a low voice.
“Yes! Rosseti! That’s it exactly.” She patted her coat pocket. “I have his letter and directions right here. A very nice fellow indeed, most accommodating. Though his command of English is not perhaps as exact as one could wish.”
Mr. Burke reached into his inside coat pocket. “The same Signore Rosseti, I suppose,” he said grimly, drawing out a folded paper, “who sent me this letter, confirming receipt of payment for a year’s lease of the Castel sant’Agata, in the district of Arezzo, in the province of Toscana, Italy?”
Alexandra’s breath sucked into her body. “No! It’s not possible! I demand to see your letter!”
“I demand to see yours!”
Wallingford’s voice intruded in a thunderous ducal boom, amplified by four centuries of blood authority. “Look here, the two of you! Enough of this squabbling. Give your letters to me.”
There was no question of disobeying him. Alexandra, with a subdued flourish, delivered the paper into his outstretched hand; Burke handed his over in a defiant slap.
Wallingford unfolded both papers and held them before him, side by side, studying each one by turns.
As if sensing the tension in the air, the horses began to step about, mouths straining against bridles, leather creaking and metal clinking. A cold breeze rolled against them from the north, ruffling the papers in the duke’s hands before continuing on to beat against the castle walls, a quarter mile ahead. Alexandra turned her head to watch the line of cypress shiver in the wind, and it seemed to her that the trees were laughing at her. She looked back at Wallingford, just as his own gaze lifted and met hers.
He began with a ritual clearing of his throat, which didn’t bode well. “Well. Rather awkward. It appears Signore Rosseti is either a senile fool or . . . well, or a scoundrel.” He held up both papers with his two hands. “The letters are nearly identical, except that the ladies appear to have negotiated a better price for the year’s lease than you have, Burke.”
“I was told,” Burke said tightly, “there was no room for negotiation.”
Alexandra laughed. “Oh, rubbish, Mr. Burke. Merely tactics, as anyone knows.”
He shot her an angry look. “We have paid for a year’s lease on the castle, and we intend to take it.”
Alexandra returned his look squarely, and then glanced at Wallingford, who was frowning in deep lines, rearranging his face into his best magistrate’s scowl and girding himself for a lengthy battle of legalities and technicalities.
God, no. Anything but that.
Not after a week of hellish heaving seas in the Bay of Biscay, of long days rattling along in damp provincial train carriages, of hours trudging along the unkempt Italian roads.
Not after all the rain and mud and discomfort, the constant fear of discovery by Somerton or one of his lackeys, the precious coins spent irretrievably away.
Not now, with the damned castle, the long-sought haven, in sight at last.
There was only one thing to do. She wheeled her horse about—Burke’s horse, of course, what beautiful irony—and galloped down the drive toward the castle, hearing with pleasure the outraged masculine shouts chasing her along.