Authors: Amanda McCabe
She had known who he was, of course. Everyone knew the Radcliffes, their great interest in antiquities and philanthropy—and the trouble they had with their younger, prodigal son. Her own parents commiserated about it, laughing about
how fortunate they were to have only daughters. But Clio was only fifteen then, still practically in the schoolroom, and she had only seen Lord Edward Radcliffe from a distance, riding in the park or at a play or concert. From that distance, he was terribly handsome. Terribly intriguing.
Up close, he was still handsome. But so very—careless. Looking at him she had felt so terribly angry. Here was someone who had things she, as a female, could only dream of—a university education, the chance to travel, to study, to do important things. And he did not seem to even care. Did not even see the beauty all around him at the museum.
She had been angry that day—and sad.
‘You saw
me
,’ she said softly. ‘That day when I was fifteen.’
‘I saw you. And you were so very disdainful, so beautiful. I had lived with my family’s disappointment for years, yet I could not bear when I saw it in your eyes. I found I wanted to be worthy of someone like you.’
‘Someone like me?’ she said incredulously. ‘Someone angry and confused, always searching for something that can never be found?’
‘Someone sure of themselves,’ he contradicted. ‘Someone willing to fight for what they care about.
That
is what I admire in you. That’s what I wanted to be like then.’
Clio felt that ache of tears behind her eyes, and she fought them back. Fought not to fall into his arms and sob like a lost child. All those lonely months and years of feeling no one understood, no one shared her burning desire for more. More than a privileged, civilised life. And here all along was someone who had shared her wandering spirit. Her quest for transcendence.
‘I, too, have done things I regret,’ she said. ‘But I have
found that no one is really lost. Some of us are simply on a different path, a new, undiscovered trail. And redemption can surely be found there in the wilderness, if we seek it.’
‘Or if we are willing to accept it when
it
seeks
us
?’
Clio kissed him, their hands still entwined. It was a slow, sweet kiss, a kiss that said what she could not. All her yearning, all the old pain and uncertainty, everything she longed for. She sought to take away
his
pain, too, to give him forgiveness that was not hers to bestow, to ease the ache of the past. She clung to him, to this moment that meant so much. Meant everything.
She drew back, studying the elegant angles of his aristocratic face in the dying firelight. She traced the line of his mouth, the sweep of his jaw, his crooked nose. Memorising every inch of him so she would always, always remember. His eyes were closed, his jaw clenched as if pained, yet he did not move away. Not even when she softly kissed the corner of his mouth, the pulse that beat at the base of his throat.
‘I think,’ she whispered, resting her forehead on his chest, ‘that we should go to bed now. It’s late.’
Without a word, he wrapped his arms around her, lifting her high in the air as he stood up. Clio held tightly to his neck as he carried her up the stairs into the darkness of the bedroom.
Their
bedroom.
Once she had fought him, feared him. Now—now she trusted him to lead her anywhere. Even into the fearsome unknown of a game of Truth.
E
dward lay propped on the pillows of Clio’s bed,
their
bed, among the tumbled blankets. Clio slept beside him, her arm flung over his chest as if to hold him there. She sighed in her dreams, burrowing deeper under the sheets. The whole chamber smelled of her lily soap, the sweet smell of her skin, the warm, dark presence of
her.
He smoothed her tangled hair back from her brow, wrapping the long, auburn strands over his chest and throat.
It was possibly more than he deserved, yet he savoured it all the same. Beings like muses were mercurial indeed; she would fly away at any moment. But for now, she was his to hold.
He studied the starlight blinking in the small window, growing ever fainter in a sign that night would soon end. But it was a night that had changed so very much. He had never talked of that tavern maid before, of the terrible thing he had done. He never talked of the drinking, the opium, the wild friends, all the things that had carried him so far from what he owed to his family. Carried him away from himself.
It was all years in the past, the work of a heedless, angry boy. The man he was now, the Duke, worked every day for
scholarship and antiquities, for charities and his estates, yet it had never been enough to erase the past. Not until tonight, when he had looked into Clio’s eyes and seen forgiveness. Seen understanding, and the first rays of hope.
Like all muses, she looked on human folly and weakness and saw everything. Saw what drove people to the desperate things they did, and understood and pitied. Her kiss was an absolution, if he could just accept it.
Clio stirred in his arms. She blinked her eyes open, staring out into nothingness as if still caught in dreams. Then she focused on him, and smiled.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘Of course I am. Better than “all right”, as a matter of fact.’ He slid down among the sheets, still warm with her sleep, and wrapped both arms around her as she curled into his body. ‘I have never felt better.’
‘Neither have I. Who would ever have imagined it?’
‘Imagined what?’
‘That you and I would be here now, like this. And no one has even been knocked unconscious or pushed out of a window.’
He laughed. ‘I think one would be hard pressed to push so much as cat out of such a tiny window. But I must say I’m grateful for the lack of bodily harm. It’s more than I deserve, I think.’
‘Indeed it is. Kidnapping is a capital offence, and I will certainly get you back for it one day.’
‘When I least expect it?’
‘Revenge is pointless when it’s looked for, isn’t it? But you are right about one thing.’
‘Just one? And here I’ve fancied I’m right about many things.’
‘So conceited, just like a duke. You’re right that this cottage is in need of a cat.’
He gave a surprised laugh. Whatever he expected her to say—and really, Clio could be counted upon to say anything—it was not that. ‘A cat? So you can push it out of the window in lieu of me?’
She slapped his shoulder indignantly. ‘Certainly not! I have always wanted a cat, but they make my father sneeze. When I was a child, we could only have fat ponies as pets. And a barn owl Cory took in once, fancying herself Athena. This cottage needs a cat, a fluffy grey one. To sleep beside the fire and purr cosily. That would make this place completely perfect.’
‘You like this funny cottage, then?’
‘I adore it. Can we stay here for ever and ever?’
That was a most tempting prospect. To stay hidden here with Clio, to just be Edward and not a duke for the rest of his days. To forget. To be happy. ‘Do you not think we would be missed before “for ever”?’
She frowned, her fingertips tracing light, enticing patterns over his shoulder. She lifted his amulet, studying it in the starlight. The scroll of Clio, Muse of History.
‘I suppose we might be missed,’ she said. ‘My father is absent-minded, but he still might notice if I never came back. So, we just have—how long?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ he answered.
He was afraid she would ask questions about his task, about what drove him to bring her here in the first place. He had no answers for any of that yet. But she just let the amulet drop.
‘So, for ever might still be a possibility,’ she said.
‘What else did you want when you were a child?’ he asked. ‘Besides a cat.’
‘Many things. A library of my very own where I could
work, without my sisters running in and out making noise and distracting me. A lake to go swimming in the summer and skating in the winter, though we actually did have that. Oh, and no music lessons. I could never do better than Thalia at the pianoforte and the harp, and I hated that!’
‘Ah-ha! One thing the muse can’t do.’
‘I also can’t dance well,’ she said, laughing. ‘But I can ride, and swim, and pick locks.’
‘I have ample proof of that one. I’m surprised you didn’t pick the lock on this door and run away.’
‘I didn’t have time. And now—well, it’s rather nice here.’
‘Nice enough to stay for ever.’
‘Even if there is no cat. And that would be easy enough to obtain.’ She was quiet for a long moment, so quiet Edward thought she had fallen asleep. But then she said, ‘What happened after?’
‘After?’
‘After that day at the British Museum. Did you immediately reform? Swear off drink and courtesans?’
‘I had to. For when I left the museum I heard my brother had died, fallen from his horse and snapping his neck. My parents’ Hector was gone, and all they had left was poor, unsatisfactory Paris.’
‘With no Helen?’
‘Alas, no. My parents tried to get me to marry William’s fiancée, but I could not. I tried to make it up to them in other ways, by sobering up, resuming my studies. Going off on a Grand Tour to find antiquities to add to their collection.’
‘What did they think of your efforts?’
‘I don’t know. They died of a fever when I was in Rome. I’m sure they had their doubts, though. It must have troubled my father’s last hours to know I would soon be the Duke.’
‘But if they could see you now, surely they would be proud. They would see that their legacy is in safe hands.’
‘Perhaps not if they saw me right at this moment. In bed with one of the Chase daughters, so very scandalous,’ he said with a laugh.
Clio laughed, too, pushing herself up against the pillows, the sheet drawn across her naked breasts. ‘Perhaps not right this moment, no. But if they saw your work with the Antiquities Society, the monographs you write on your travels and the history of the Punic Wars. The way you don’t drink and don’t—well, you know.’
‘Debauch women?’
A dull pink flush spread across her cheeks, and he almost laughed aloud with the rare wonder of it. Clio Chase, blushing!
‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ she muttered.
‘Of course you would. You are the only woman I have
debauched
in quite a while.’
‘Oh, Edward. You great, romantic fool,’ she said between kisses.
‘So, for all that, do I not deserve a reward?’
In reply, she cast off the sheet and pushed him flat on his back to the mattress, climbing atop his naked body. She kissed him again, a hot, heady flurry of embraces that drove away all thoughts and doubts. Drove away everything but the knowledge that he was making love with
Clio.
That he was hers, and she was his.
‘Clio…’ he muttered.
‘Shh,’ she whispered, stopping his words with her kiss. ‘I’m giving you your reward.’
He fell back on to the bed, his eyes closed as he lost himself in the feel of her lips, her hands. Her fingertips
swept lightly, enticingly over his shoulders, his chest, the sharp plane of his hipbones. Her mouth followed, trailing a hot ribbon across his skin.
Her teeth scraped over his flat nipples, and he sucked in his breath. His hands tangled in her hair, the tangled strands gliding through his fingers as her kisses moved ever lower.
He felt the light touch of her tongue over his ribs, her lips on his taut abdomen. He dared not move, dared not breathe, for fear this dream would vanish. That Clio would be just a vision again, a fantasy.
But Clio was very real, and ever surprising. Her hair tugged at his grip as she knelt between his legs. Her fingertips skimmed over his thighs before alighting, ever so delicately, on his erect penis. The merest brush, but it was like a bolt of lightning, flashing with sizzling heat all through his being. She traced its hard, straining length, her nails gently scraping over the tip.
Edward arched up. ‘Clio!’ he cried hoarsely. Did he protest—or beg her not to stop? He hardly knew; he couldn’t think straight at all with her touch
there
.
‘Be quiet,’ she murmured. Her gaze was rapt on his body, her touch growing more sure. ‘I haven’t done this before, I have to concentrate.’
He gave a strangled laugh. ‘Please, my dear. Concentrate all you like.’ He collapsed back onto the pillows, surrendering utterly to her caress.
She lowered her head, her hair trailing over them both in a dark curtain as she kissed his hip, the top of his tense thigh. Her breath was warm on his skin. Slowly, tentatively, the tip of her tongue touched the veined length of his manhood.
‘Blast it, Clio!’ he groaned. It was almost unbearable.
‘Did I do it wrong?’ she said worriedly. ‘The fresco at Pompeii…’
‘On the contrary. You did it far too correctly.’
She laughed and kissed him again, her tongue sweeping down the length of him as she balanced him lightly in her hand. Finally, he could bear it no more. He clasped her shoulders, pushing her away from him as he rolled her to the bed.
‘Clio, you are
killing
me,’ he said. ‘No more trips to Pompeii, I beg you.’ She parted her legs, welcoming his desperate lunge into her body. She arched up to meet him, thrust for thrust, her arms and thighs wrapped around him until they were as one being, one person. Everything else vanished.
‘Then we’ll die together,’ she gasped.
‘Is that not what romantic fools do?’
‘Oh, yes. And I’m the most foolish of all.’
He found his climax, a hot, bright flash of light that obliterated all before it. Nothing mattered but the heat and scent of
her
.
‘Clio!’ he shouted out. ‘Clio.’
‘Yes,’ she whispered, her own body tensed with the rush of her orgasm. ‘I’m here, my darling. Yes.’
‘W
here are we going?’ Clio asked, laughing. Edward held one of her hands; with the other she touched the edge of the silk scarf covering her eyes. The darkness made her very sensitive to the rough ground under her feet, the scratching noise of leaves and pebbles. To the smell of fresh air, warm and tinged with the earth and green, growing things. It was a whole new world.
Edward laughed, too, his hand tightening on hers as he led her onwards. He also seemed new-made after their late-night revelations. Younger, freer somehow.
She did not know how
she
felt. Not shocked or surprised by his old mistakes. Surely she had heard of worse. But sad that he had been buried with the guilt of it for so long, unable to forgive himself. To put the past behind, and move into a future full of possibilities.
She, too, had not let the past go. It was always with her. But it seemed there
was
something magical about this hidden place, their fairy-tale cottage. Something that lifted a blinding veil and allowed her to see new truths at last.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked again. ‘Are you trying to kidnap me all over?’
‘I should have kidnapped you long ago, if I had but known what delights my latest crime would lead to,’ he said. ‘But I won’t tell you where we’re going. You just have to find out for yourself.’
‘I knew it,’ she said. ‘You’re taking me to the underworld!’
He laughed. ‘And here I thought I was finally emerging from the darkness! Like Orpheus and Eurydice.’
‘That didn’t turn out well at all.’
‘Ah, but in
my
version of the story, it is Eurydice who does the leading, and they emerge safely into the light.’
‘Just like a woman,’ Clio said. ‘We are far too sensible to look back when told not to.’
‘My dear, there are many words I could think of to describe you,’ he said. ‘But “sensible” is not one of them.’
‘Ha! I tell you, I can be quite sensible indeed when needed. Have I not resigned myself to being your prisoner when there was no hope of escape?’
‘Only because I bribed you with books, and cakes, and baths.’
‘And other things, too.’
‘Other things?’
‘Come now, your Grace. You must not underestimate your own attractions.’ She stumbled over a tree root, and his arm came swiftly around her waist, keeping her from falling.
Clio held on to him, the darkness heightening even her awareness of his nearness, the heat and clean scent of him. The way his muscle-corded arms, clad only in the thin linen of his shirtsleeves, felt under her avid touch.
‘So, you think I’m attractive,’ he murmured in her ear.
She shivered, despite the warm spring day. Her body knew his well now, craved its pleasures and intimacy. Craved the closeness. ‘You know you are.’
‘I know no such thing. But I’m glad to know one lady—the most important lady—finds me so.’
Suddenly, he swept her up in his arms. The world tilted dizzily as her feet left the ground, and she clutched at him, laughing giddily. ‘Edward!’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t drop you,’ he said. ‘We’re almost there, and then you can satisfy your curiosity. Both about our destination
and
my “attractive” body. If you are so inclined.’
‘I hardly think so, with my stomach so queasy,’ she gasped.
‘It’s all those infusions you’ve been drinking,’ he teased. ‘Not to mention the vast quantity of bread and cheese you consumed at breakfast. Shocking.’
‘I worked up a great appetite last night. All your fault.’
‘Feel free to call on me whenever you feel the least bit peckish, my dear.’
She felt his steps turn, heading down a slope, and she tightened her clasp on his neck. The shadows at the edges of her blindfold grew closer, as if they entered a dense grove of trees. She heard the wind sing overhead, rustling leaves and birds stirring into flight. He turned again, the new ring of stone under his boots. They seemed to be descending stairs of some sort.
Then she heard an unexpected sound, the soft lapping of water.
‘Is it the River Styx?’ she whispered.
Edward laughed, and lowered her gently to her feet. ‘See for yourself,’ he said, untying the scarf.
For a moment, Clio’s gaze was unfocused from being in darkness. She blinked hard, and found that they
had
entered the underworld. An enchanted realm.
She gazed around in wonderment. They were in a cave, rough stone walls rising steeply to a skylight high above that streamed pale yellow sun down to where they stood on the
bottom riser of a steep flight of flagstone steps. Below was a pool of clear blue-green water. It shimmered in the faint light, curls of silvery steam rising from its surface.
‘It’s not exactly a lake,’ Edward said. ‘And I doubt anyone could ever skate on it. But I thought you might like it.’
‘What is it?’ Clio murmured, entranced by the water, the rough designs painted on the stone walls. Sheaves of wheat and baskets of fruit, she saw, along with heavily pregnant animals and red poppies, the emblem of Demeter.
‘The Grotto of Demeter,’ he answered. ‘I was told about it when I leased the cottage. They say in ancient times acolytes of Demeter performed rites here, asking for the bounty of the harvest and a fruitful season.’
‘It is beautiful.’ She knelt down to trail her fingers through the water. It was warm and soft, as befitted a life-giving goddess. She had the sudden undeniable urge to dive into the pool, to feel its essence all around her, its promise of a bountiful future she could not yet believe in. ‘Can we swim in it? Or is that forbidden?’
Edward smiled. ‘I doubt Demeter would mind. It’s
your
grotto today. A new realm for the Muses.’
Clio laughed, and sat down to tug off her shoes and stockings. Her dress and chemise quickly followed, and she eased herself into the welcoming embrace of the waters. The pool wasn’t very deep; she could rest her feet on the sandy bottom, letting the waves lap over her shoulders. Her loose hair floated around her, and her limbs felt buoyant, as if the water held her up, above all the cares of mortal life.
‘It is wonderful!’ she cried, her voice echoing around them. ‘You come in, too, Edward.’
He smiled at her delight, kneeling down by the edge. His gaze was tender, and strangely wistful. ‘In a minute.’
She eased down until she could float on her back, staring at the sky so far overhead. It was their own underworld indeed, a magical place of old ritual and prayer. A place where all truths were revealed and forgiven. Loves lost and won—and lost again.
But for that moment, she felt only a sweet lassitude, a healing contentment that washed over her with the water.
‘When I was a girl, my sisters and I used to go swimming in a pond at Chase Lodge,’ she said. ‘My mother forbade us to do it, but we would sneak off and do it anyway when she and my father were in town. We couldn’t help it, it was the most fun! We would swing out over the water from a tree branch and dive in, pretending to be mermaids and pirates. But it was cold and murky, nothing like this.’
As she floated there on her back, she heard the soft rustle as he shed his clothes and slid into the water. The waves splashed, signalling his swim to her side. She felt his touch on her bare skin, holding her aloft.
‘I missed having lots of siblings when I was a boy,’ he said. ‘Brothers and sisters to swim and ride with, to make up games and tell ghost stories with on rainy nights. William was so much older, and not much for games anyway.’
Clio laughed. ‘We certainly did all those things, true, but we also argued and fussed, and pulled each other’s hair and called each other names. Well, Thalia and I pulled each other’s hair; Calliope was too good. She was our peacemaker. I sometimes wished I was an only child, so I would have time to study in peace.’
‘Would you really have been able to do without your family?’
She dove down under the water, getting her feet beneath her before she plunged back upwards. She pushed her hair
back over her shoulders, smiling at him. ‘No, of course not. I adore my sisters, though they also drive me mad sometimes.’
‘Drive you mad?’
‘They are always
there
, you see. We aren’t ourselves, we’re a collective—the Chase Muses. Part of each other for all time. It means we always have each other to rely on, but it also means we are obligated. Always and for ever.’ Clio paused. She had never spoken of such things before, never even really thought about them. But somehow, here with Edward in their sacred grotto, she felt she could say anything at all. That all her thoughts and dreams and fears would be understood by him, and him alone.
‘I think perhaps that is one of the reasons I decided to become the Lily Thief,’ she said.
‘Because of your sisters?’ he asked quietly.
‘Yes. Oh, there were the antiquities, of course—that was the most important. To save them from people who did not care for them, to make sure they went to where they truly belong. But also it was something
I
could do. A cause just for me, a secret. It was wrong, I see that now. I went about my ideals in entirely the wrong way. Seeing the disappointment in Calliope’s eyes was the most horrible feeling. But for a while…’
‘For a while you felt truly alive.’
‘Yes,’ Clio said, surprised. ‘How did you know?’
He gave her a wry smile. ‘Because I know what it is to feel numb, dead inside, to try to feel something, anything, by doing things we’re told are wrong. But it didn’t work, not for me or for you. It was as if I watched the world in shades of hazy grey, never vivid, clear colour. Not until now. Your red hair is the first real colour I see.’
Clio feared she might cry. She had gone through years with
no tears, only to become a veritable watering pot when she was near Edward! She swallowed hard against the dry, hard knot in her throat and said, ‘It is
auburn
, I will thank you to remember.’
Edward laughed, catching her around the waist and lifting her high, twirling her through the frothing water. ‘It is red! Everything about you is painted in the most vivid of hues, Clio Chase. Red, and emerald green, and sun yellow. You’re all the heat and noise and passion I’ve ever known.’
Clio laughed, too, giddy with the emotion of it all. She braced her hands on his shoulders, staring down at him as the steam rose around him in a silver veil. She had thought him handsome before, but in that moment he looked so young and free, his beauty positively incandescent. Her golden Sicilian god. ‘I
am
noisy, that’s true.’
‘You are life itself,’ he insisted, lowering her slowly back into the water. They stood there entwined, part of each other in the ancient magic of that place. ‘You saved me.’
‘No, no. You saved yourself.’
‘I turned myself from a careless boy to a semblance of a duke, I suppose,’ he said. ‘I gave up taverns for the dusty halls of the Antiquities Society. Yet I could not have done it without your disapproval.’
‘Ah, well, I am good at disapproval. I managed to keep it up with you for years.’
‘I know. I still feel the stinging effects of it,’ he said, laughing as he reached up to touch the faint white scar on his brow where the Alabaster Goddess had once landed.
Clio kissed that scar, filled with a sudden rush of remorse at the violent memory. ‘I’m so sorry, Edward! I never—’
‘No, I deserved it. My wooing of you was—rough, to say the least. But do you still disapprove of me? After everything?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s true that you should not have snatched me away like that. It’s surely something the “old” Edward would have done! I know that you have your reasons, but you could have talked to me. Explained things.’
‘I only wanted to keep you safe. And time was, is, so short. I couldn’t come up with anything else. I’m sorry.’
‘No, I don’t want your apologies.’ She laid her hands gently against his face, holding his gaze on hers. There could be no running away now, for either of them. No more deception. ‘I want to know what is really happening.’
‘Clio.’ He pressed his fingers over hers, holding her to him. ‘It is dangerous.’
‘Come now. You know me better than anyone ever has. You know I do not shrink from danger. I want to help you, if I can.’ She studied him closely. ‘I know it’s to do with the silver. Are you here to take it for yourself?’
He shook his head, turning to kiss her wrist. ‘Surely
you
know
me
better than that. I have given up adding to my own collection, though pieces like the silver would be tempting indeed.’
‘Then what? You’re working with the Antiquities Society again, like in Yorkshire?’
‘I am trying to.’ He was silent for a long moment, as if weighing his options, weighing her words. Finally, he nodded. He took her hand and led her to a stone bench cut into the wall beneath the waterline.
‘The bowl that I have,’ he said, ‘it came to the attention of the Antiquities Society last year, along with the information that there was certainly more where it was found. Could be an entire temple’s altar set, the likes of which have never been discovered before. But it was in danger of being lost before it could even be seen.’
‘Who discovered it?’
‘Mr Darby, who is, as you know, also a member of the Antiquities Society. He is taking a report back to London. Soon before you arrived here, an informant brought Darby the bowl and told him of the search for more.’
‘What sort of informant?’
‘A former
tombarolo
. He claimed he sought more legitimate ways of making money, but I think he just wanted to play both sides for greater profit. It availed him naught, as he was soon after found dead. But his information seemed legitimate, and I was asked to come to Sicily and help investigate further. We had to hope it was not too late.’
‘And did you know I was here?’
‘No. I knew you were travelling with your family in Italy, but not in Sicily. I assumed you wanted to be as far from me as possible, after what happened in Yorkshire.’
Indeed she had, Clio remembered ruefully. Had longed to run from him, from what she felt and yet could not understand. Her father’s suggestion they go abroad for a time was a godsend. ‘Would you have stayed away if you had known?’