Authors: Ruby Royce
"The velocity! The ACCELERATION!" General Cartwright boomed. "To calculate how fast he must have run and how high he must have jumped to be able to take such a healthy girl as Flora Parker off her feet! Astounding. Astounding,
indeed
." He happily puffed on his pipe.
Don't say her name, don't say her name!
"Papa, Flora weighs hardly ninety pounds— contrary to myself. A gentle gush of wind would blow her out of a tree."
Francesco wanted to cover his ears with his hands and sing loudly to avoid hearing that name.
"An impressive specimen," he nodded, folded his arms and fixed the fat canine.
Anything, anything not to see HER.
"Well, your Highness, we've been told that you are a passionate practitioner of naughty— "
NAUGHTY?
He could no longer control his eyeballs and he had to look at her, sitting quietly on an armchair, hands folded in her lap, her hair still damp… she was so lovely it hurt.
It's only a joke, she had said.
"…cal sports. Swimming and sailing and the such?"
"Oh, nautical… yes, Madame."
"Charming!"
"It was not at all recommendable to come swimming here with those injuries, not at all a good idea," Flora said severely. "He might have fainted on the way over and be drowned. It was very unwise."
"One cannot always have one's wishes fulfilled, Miss Parker…" Francesco stated coldly.
For a brief moment the turquoise orchids that were her eyes shot an angry glance at him.
She bit her lip.
Oh good God, let me do that for you, my beauty…
"Will you be in Italy permanently, Highness?" Lady Cartwright inquired.
"I don't know yet. It is possible I may venture to go to the Americas for some time. My cousin is king in Mexico."
"Yes, yes, I know…"
"I want to be as far away from here as possible, as soon as I can."
"Dear Cousin, this is such a lovely country," Eugenia interfered. "Surely you cannot leave, now that it has come back to you?"
General Cartwright puffed on his pipe. "Maybe he's running away from a woman. All those italian princesses must be chasing after you, huh? I've always gone to war when that was the case."
"You did not escape me," Lady Cartwright sniffed.
"Ha."
"What girl would not dream of marrying a Karlsburg Prince!" Lady Cartwright exclaimed, raising her arms towards the ceiling.
"Me!" Flora cried.
The Prince uttered a short, bitter laugh and Lady Cartwright looked at him intensely, obviously sensing some undercurrent.
So, for the first time in his life, Francesco was happy to see his cousin Dominic, who stepped into the drawing-room that very instant. Unexpectedly, Clara followed behind with flushed cheeks.
"Really, Surrey!" Lady Cartwright said sternly. "What have you done? The poor girl is under shock. Here come, Clara, have a sip of Madeira, I find it always restorative."
Dominic did not answer but sat down next to his wife, who gazed at him admiringly. "How did you get him to agree?" she asked.
"I shoved him a little," the Duke grinned wolfishly.
"Marvellous! Oh, Dominic!" She turned to Clara who was standing by the french windows, looking out into the park. "Look, Darling Clara, I told you, he would!"
Clara looked dazed. "Yes. You did."
Francesco had a suspicion. "Santo Cristo! Freckles, has there been some dreadful plot to get the poor man into your claws?"
Clara flushed even more but it was Eugenia who spoke. "Actually I had intended either Darlington or Lackerby to marry Flora…"
"You what?" Flora croaked.
"Well, we thought you needed some rich and highly aristocratic man to shut up you mother, but Lackerby is already engaged - who would have thought - so it had to be Darlington or maybe Raleigh, or Napier. I mentioned it casually to Elizabeth and Clara when they were at Seventree. Clara almost went to pieces and said she would throw herself off the roof if James Crawford ever married, because she had loved him forever and would not want to live if he married Flora or anybody else. Since we could not have her throw herself off the roof and since Darlington will have to get married eventually, it was obvious that there was only one solution. I told Clara she should not worry, her family would take care of it."
"Oh!" cried Lady Cartwright. "I applaud you, Darling! This could have been my very own idea!"
"But," mumbled Clara, "what if he did not mean it? What if he won't have me? What if he goes away forever, to America, or to India?"
Eugenia nodded. "I know how you feel, I was sure Dominic had made off to the West-Indies until he was standing in the drawing-room and proposed to me."
"I never proposed to you. You simply accepted."
"Yes, but that was all because of the West-Indies. Clara, darling, don't you worry. He's a man of his word, he'll marry you all right. But then you'll have to make of it what you can. Nobody promised you happiness.
If
against all expectations he should try to get out of it, well, you do have some very obliging male relatives who would be most willing to shoot him. Your brother, your Uncle Barnham, your cousin…"
"You play with our lives so light-heartedly, Your Grace," Francesco smirked.
"That's exactly it!" Flora stood up. The Prince was alarmed to see that she looked once more like a hairy tomato. "You play with our lives, Gigi! I never asked you to find a husband for me. Have I not said often and loudly that I do not wish to marry, that I wish to be a lady companion? Only because the man of your dreams swept you away in his carriage does not mean that it's everybody's destiny. Some dreams are never meant to come true. And how dare you speak about my mother in such a way? She has never harmed you. Yes, she is ambitious, but can't you understand her? We are poor! We have no castles, or titles, or dowries. We have to rely on the charity of your kind, to be taken along, to be invited, to be part of it all.
You are my best friend and I love you with all my heart but can't you see that I'm different from you? I'm not as beautiful as you are, or as Clara is. I'm not the woman who turns the heads of highly aristocratic men, who gets married by the Napiers or the Raleighs of this world. I know my place. Please let me keep it!" She stormed out of the room.
A whirlwind of emotions had rushed over Francesco as he had listened to her. Understanding, pain, desperation and longing. Now he felt dizzy, unable to react. He felt he should react, but what was he to do? He hardly even knew the girl. He had desired her to the brink of madness but now he saw there was a world behind those orchid eyes. A world he knew nothing about. What was he to do?
Eugenia St. Yves had tears in her eyes. "I must go after her!" she wailed. "Something's very wrong! She has never behaved like that before. Never! She was always the first to joke about her mother's ambitions. And she doesn't want to be a lady companion, I know it! I know it! I have to talk to her."
Dominic held her back. "Let her calm down, Eugenia. Don't forget, she has been ill and today she was almost drowned. And you have to stay calm too, it's not good for— you to be so excited."
Viscount Lackerby, whose presence Francesco had strangely not noticed until now, took a breath as if about to say something.
"Hold it, Lackerby," the General growled.
Lady Cartwright clutched her hands together. "I agree. Flora is suffering from shock, I'm sure. She didn't look happy, even before you mentioned your wedding scheme. Well, I guess, we all need to rest. There has been a lot of turmoil and it's still early in the day. I invoke a siesta. I'm not the lady of the house, Your Royal Highness, but as we are an intimate circle and you are a relation, I hope you won't mind if I take over my daughter's duties. I believe a boat has been made ready for your return to your residence, I gather you wish to leave as soon as possible. I must also thank you again for saving our dear Flora, who will hopefully recover from her indisposition. Please come to see us again before you leave Italy."
"You must!" The General boomed.
"Yes, Francis, do come and see us before you leave," Gigi smiled through her tears. "We can arrange a nice
diner
before you go abroad."
Francesco, still somewhat groggy, watched himself uttering words of salutation and was aware he was leaving Palazzo Sforza, but he could not really wrap his head around it.
He felt like an invader to this tight circle of people.
There was nothing for him here.
Flora, he had understood, was fighting her own demons. Who could understand that better than he?
What had he wanted from her anyway? He had not thought of it yet. Those last few days, when he had lain in painful agony, not pain from his injuries, but pain from his longing for her, from his hunger for her! What had been his plan? Wild summer nights, entangled, sweating? Had he swum across the lake today to seduce her in the reed? An unmarried girl? He must still have been intoxicated by her magical scent, not to see how absurd the idea had really been.
And why had he been so angry when she had said "it was only a joke." Why should he care? Marriage was out of the question for him anyway. Or wasn't it?
Why had it made him so bitter when she said she did not want to marry a Karlsburg prince?
Because I want her to want me to marry her. And she does not.
He closed his eyes. He could simply not make head or tail of it.
I need to get away.
Tomorrow I'll go to Genoa and I'll find a ship for Mexico. I'm through with Europe once and for all.
Still Palazzo Sforza…
Clara rushed up the stairs to her chambers. She needed to be alone with her feelings. There was so much chaos in her and so much joy! So much fear! So much everything! She wanted to throw herself onto her bed like she had done countless times before to dream of James. To roll around in the blankets and dive into a beautiful daydream.
But she could not do it, because her dreams had become reality. James Crawford, The Earl of Darlington, had said that he would marry her. To her brother. In front of two witnesses. She would be James' wife. She, Clara "Freckles" St. Yves, would really be James' wife and nobody else!
It was the "nobody else" that Clara could relate to at present. Never, until the day Eugenia had said she wanted James for Flora, had Clara imagined that he might ever marry anybody. It had simply not entered her head. It had been rather a shock when the realisation struck her that, indeed, he would be getting married one day.
Now she would marry him herself. And nobody else.
From the first time she had seen him as a little girl, she had loved the golden James from the neighbouring estate, who knew everything, could do everything and looked so perfectly handsome and noble that she believed he was Lancelot born again. Or Ivanhoe.
He was the perfect knight!
Her love for him had been her secret, of course. She had not told anybody, not even Frankie, because James belonged only to her.
And now he really belonged to her, but now, she was afraid. She was afraid of seeing him again, of having to talk about it! Of having to say why she would marry him. Of being at home with him! As his wife! Day and night! It was all so mortifying!
She needed to be alone and think, to prepare herself. By now James must have reached the main road north and she would have time until September to invent a strategy for her behaviour towards him once they met again in London.
There was something else. Why had he left so abruptly? Had Dominic actually forced him to marry her? Did her powerful older brother have some hold on James?
She pushed the door open and froze.
There he stood.
James.
He was not on the main road north.
But he
was
wearing his travelling attire.
He held his hat, his gloves and his walking stick in one hand, the other one rested on the backrest of an armchair.
His face was marble. Unmoved. Beautiful. A god. A hero.
"Ah, there you are, Clara. I believe your brother has informed you of our arrangement?" His voice was level, cool.
"Yes", Clara tried to let her own voice assume the same quality but she did it poorly. What she produced was rather a croaking noise.
"It might come to you as a surprise. It did, at first, to me, as well. But when your brother suggested that you and I should marry, I soon saw the practicability of this. I'm not getting any younger and the Darlington fortune and estate need to be continued. You have been born to one of England's best families and you are a sister to my oldest friend, so you are fit to be a Countess of Darlington. And even though I may sometimes have reprimanded you for your behaviour, it was out of a caring consideration for you, which is, I believe, quite a good basis for matrimony. I'm sure you will agree."
Clara nodded, still trying to at least
breathe
evenly.
"I shall leave for London today to inform my family of this settlement and I will have to make some changes to my lodgings, both in London and in Crawford Manor to be able to house you as is your due." He paused.
"But, if for some reason you think that this marriage would not suit you, now is the moment to speak and none of these measures need to be taken."
What did he mean? That she should call it off? So he can marry somebody else? She almost wanted to scream at him saying
"James, I love you, but I'm so scared! What am I to do? You know everything so you must tell me!"
But he was so rational and so aloof! She could not tell him how she really felt without embarrassing him terribly.