A Rogue in Rome (The Grand Tours of the Aristocracy #4)

Chapter 1

The Start is Not Always the Beginning

Although Vittoria D’Avalos was possessed of an active imagination, the very last thing she expected to happen at her come-out ball was actually happening. The very event her late mother had warned could happen to any unsuspecting young lady.

Ruination.

Being caught in the clutches of a young buck well known for his antics at such fêtes might well mean she would no longer be allowed out in Society. She might even be forced to marry the rogue.

The one who seemed intent on ruining her?

None other than the self-proclaimed Lothario, Don Luciano Nicholas Michael Tucci, heir to a contea located near Naples.

He was far too handsome for his own good, his dark hair, brown eyes, and height causing young girls to blush and their mothers to hope he might one day pay a call when their husbands weren’t at home.

Unfortunately, he knew it.

Widows adored him for his bed sport. Husbands cursed him for his audacity when it came to flirting with their wives. Young ladies were both attracted and repulsed by him, for even if any one of them managed to secure a promise of marriage, none of them wanted an unfaithful husband.

How could this be happening?

Vittoria had only managed to make her way down the stairs and into the ballroom a few minutes ago! Most of the guests were still arriving.

Did Don Luciano Tucci, better known as Don Diavala, not know she would defend her own honor?

Of course not. He didn’t know her from Eve.

But she knew him.

At least, she knew of him. Even if she hadn’t truly been out in Society before this evening, she had overheard gossip whilst shopping. Listened intently as her modiste shared scandalous news of Don Diavala as she hemmed her gowns.

Then there was her great aunt Armenia, who seemed to know of every aristocrat’s various bed partners, probably because she had at one time participated—although apparently not because it was her choice to do so.

Vittoria hadn’t learned his name by way of a formal introduction, for no names had been exchanged that evening. Surrounded by a number of aristocrats, her father was otherwise engaged in his hosting duties and unavailable to do the honors.

When the rake grabbed her hand, led her out to a corridor, and pulled her into an alcove barely hidden by a marble statue of Apollo, the Roman copy a perfect replica of the Greek original, she was already imagining what she might do to him.

If he lifted her skirts, she would pull the knife from her garter and hold it to his throat.

If he attempted a kiss, she would bite his lip until it bled.

If he thought for one second he was going to capture one of her breasts and give it a squeeze, she would do the same to the bulge at the top of his thighs, the one he had proudly displayed upon capturing her hand.

Lorenzo, the footman who saw to the second floor of Palazzo D’Avalos, had explained she could either squeeze his arousal hard or jam her knee into it, effectively forcing her attacker to bend over so she could use the same knee to good effect upon his face, possibly breaking his nose.

A hard chop with the heel of her hand to the back of his neck would send him to the floor in a world of hurt.

She couldn’t consider the other scenarios she had imagined when they were suddenly behind a dark curtain. The image of Apollo’s pose came to her mind’s eye, and she thought of one more way she might defend herself.

“What are you doing?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

“Stealing a kiss, of course. Maybe filling my hand with one of your gorgeous tits? What else would I be doing?” Luciano asked in a hoarse whisper, his rich brown eyes growing darker as his pupils dilated in the dimness.

Her eyes widened with a combination of shock and excitement. This was some of what her mother had warned her could happen, and now she had to decide for certain if she was of a mind to participate or send him to the floor in pain. “Oh, I thought perhaps you intended to take my virtue.”

His brows arched as a smirk lifted the corner of one lip, and Vittoria immediately regretted her words.

For a moment, the sounds from the ballroom—the music, the murmur of conversations, and the baritone voice of the butler announcing the latest arrival to the ball—faded into the background.

All she could hear was his inhalation of breath followed by a chuckle that sounded positively devilish.

Not that she had any idea what a devil’s chuckle would sound like, but if she did, this was it.

Don Luciano Tucci apparently wished to live up to his reputation.

“Is that what you want, my pet?” he asked, one of his dark brows arching in a manner that made him appear positively demonic.

“Are you… are you the diavolo?” she asked, her voice quavering.

She almost believed she was fearful.

Almost.

“They don’t call me Don Diavala because I’m an angel,” he countered, a guttural sound accompanying his words.

“I don’t suppose they do,” she replied in a breathy voice, sliding a silk-gloved hand down his hip and then to where the bulge of his engorged manhood rested at the top of his thighs.

He inhaled sharply when her hand cupped his sac through his tight pantaloons and gently lifted it.

“Anxious, are we?” he asked, his gloved hand sliding up her arm to her elbow.

When he moved it to cover one of her breasts, she, too, inhaled, not intending for her move to cause the mound to fit perfectly into his palm.

She lifted her knee almost in reflex, but given the layers of petticoats beneath her ballgown, the limb proved ineffectual.

Her hand did not, though, her thumb jabbing into soft tissue as her fingers squeezed as hard as they could.

Luciano let out a yowl at the very moment the drape disappeared from in front of them, revealing another young man.

“Mia donna, are you in need of assistance?” the intruder asked in perhaps the worst Italian she had ever heard.

Reacting to her squeeze with a breathless curse, Luciano bent over. At the same moment Vittoria chopped the back of his neck, the interloper shoved a knee up and into the heir’s face.

The unmistakeable sound of cartilage being rearranged was a precursor to a howl of pain that sounded more animalistic than human.

“Come with me,” the other man said, taking her hand in his.

“What?” Before she could decide which fate would be better—being discovered in an alcove with Don Diavala or on the arm of the tall Englishman in the adjacent corridor—it was too late.

She was suddenly out from behind the curtain and walking with her arm on his, their steps measured as Luciano’s moans of pain and curses continued from inside the alcove.

A footman and the butler had already come from around a corner, and in their rush to determine the source of the animalistic yowling, they bumped the caryatid supporting the marble statue of Apollo.

Vittoria almost felt sorry for the Roman god. Surely Apollo didn’t deserve his fate when he toppled from his caryatid and fell on the heir, one of his arrows impaling the very region that had suffered so much indignity only a moment ago.

The servants fared better, but barely, offering expressions of sympathy and the promise of a physician.

Beyond that, Vittoria knew not what fate awaited Don Diavala. The Englishman had already steered her into the library and quickly shut the door.

A phrase her grandmother had said when she was young—something along the lines of ‘from out of the pan and into the fire’—came to mind before she squared her shoulders and planted her hands on her hips.

If this man intended to continue what Don Luciano had started, he would find himself in the same world of hurt.