Chapter Two
I want to see you again.
I know I left you wanting…
W.
Obscenely rich. Appallingly rich. Abominably rich.
These superlatives went some way to capture the Earl of Eddington’s means. And yet, somehow, they still fell short. As William jogged after Lady Claudia’s father, each room in the Earl’s palazzo assailed him with more . More sky-blue frescoes populated by frolicking allegories, more ancient Roman statues of goddesses, warriors, and warrior-goddesses, more chandeliers, more internal courtyards, more grottoes, more fountains, more, more, more! And he , he had slept on the cold wooden floor of a warehouse for more than ten goddamn years! Sometimes at night he still felt the damp chill of the hard floor behind his back. Who in this world needed to possess this much? Oh, it was sickening!
And yet it was marvellous. Each painting, each fine hand of a goddess, even the opalescent specks on the marble columns hit him like physical blows, leaving him helpless and breathless. The old Earl breezily glided past his statues, his golds, his things hardly noticing them, while he prowled after the old man like a hyena tormented by an insatiable hunger. He would give anything, anything in the world for all of this to be his. He would lie and steal and sell his soul to the devil if he only could. And if he couldn’t, then let him turn into one of those columns, one of those frescoes. Let him turn into the things that he craved, these beautiful, eternal things, and be there forever, until all Time was ground to dust.
‘What do you think of our palazzo , young man?’
‘A charming abode, my lord.’
‘Indeed. This way please, to my study.’
‘Thank you, my lord.’
My lord, my lord, my lord.
The title tasted bitter in his mouth, and yet he couldn’t stop uttering it. There he was again, the William he loathed. A star-struck, obsequious man who would crawl on his knees from St Peter’s Basilica to the Forum for a fraction of what the Earl possessed.
‘A beautiful study, my lord.’
Beautiful indeed. It overlooked the lemon trees in the internal garden on one side, and a slice of bustling Piazza Navona on the other.
‘Do take a seat, Mr Campbell.’
The old Earl examined him with his clear grey eyes, so similar to Lady Claudia’s. His throat tightened, his breath became shallow, a mild sense of panic crawled through him. Oh, the familiar feeling of being no one, of being nothing . He was but a shadow on the precious objects he worked with, whereas men like the Earl would live forever, long beyond their mortal days. Like the Colosseum or the Column of Trajan.
Ah, get a grip!
‘Our little tour has been rather instructive, my lord,’ he tried to sound affable. His miserable time at Oxford had turned him into a rather good actor after all. ‘But something tells me you haven’t invited me here to show me your palazzo .’
‘No, Mr Campbell. I have not.’
Well, it better not be on account of that kiss with Lady Claudia two weeks earlier. Because if anything he was the aggrieved party. After sweeping him right off his feet with a kiss he hadn’t expected in a million years, the cruel woman had left his message unanswered. So if the Earl was about to scold him for imperilling Lady Claudia’s virtue, he was going to tell him the truth and nothing but the truth.
Your daughter is a cad, my lord, and I demand to be compensated with marriage.
‘Now, Mr Campbell, let me get straight to the point.’ The Earl had a rather sympathetic face. In another life, he could have been a jolly baker, a friendly innkeeper perhaps. ‘I have invited you here in the hope we can settle a certain…disagreement between our families. I am aware our relationship hasn’t exactly been cordial since your brother married our little Iris.’
William nodded cautiously.
‘You see, Mr Campbell, Iris is not just a niece to us. She has been like a daughter since her father passed away. So her family is our family too.’ He said it without much conviction, as though he still couldn’t quite believe it. ‘Yes, you and your brothers are family now.’
William bit the inside of his mouth so hard that he tasted blood not to burst into laughter. Family! He and his brothers, three stray dogs who had gone barefoot and hungry until their teens. Three sons of a prostitute who had crawled under the blows of that murderer of their father. Three drifters who had stolen and smuggled and brawled and drunk and climbed into the beds of women who despised them because there was no other way, because life had taught them that they didn’t deserve it any other way! The three Campbell brothers, in short, family to the Earl of Eddington!
His eyes filled with tears in an effort to suppress his laughter. He twisted his mouth into the most charming smile.
‘I won’t skirt around it, Mr Campbell. I am aware that some of us have made you feel rather unwelcome.’
Well, that was a bit of an understatement. The Countess barely tolerated Eric at her dinner table. As for himself, he was banned for breaking the nose of that idiot of Iris’s brother.
‘Oh, but we have felt most welcome, my lord.’
William bowed politely, and his self-loathing at last killed the urge to laugh.
‘I see how much it grieves our little Iris that things are so tense between us. I have invited you here because the circumstances have presented me with the perfect peace offer. It’s just a shame that your brother has departed for his honeymoon, so I cannot make this offer to him directly.’
‘I’m all ears, my lord.’
‘Long story short, Mr Campbell, we need your expertise. And for something rather important.’
Interesting. The Earl was an avid collector, the kind who liked to amass indiscriminately, without a shred of understanding of the objects he stuffed in his vitrines. In short, his favourite kind of client. Good-natured, too rich to care about the actual value of things, and ludicrously easy to deceive.
‘We are building an ornamental pond in the garden of our villa on the Pincio Hill, not too far from here.’
The Earl unfurled a large map on the desk.
‘Look. This is the pond. It covers this entire area. And as it happens, we were not the first who thought of building something there.’
‘Tell me about it,’ William waved his hand in the air. ‘We had the same issue when building our warehouse. You just need to scratch the soil and you’ll uncover heaps of old pots.’
‘Well, we found an awful lot of those.’ The Earl laughed. ‘But also an awful lot of these .’
The Earl placed a tiny crate on the desk and opened it.
Golden snakes with emerald eyes ogled among crumpled straw. He could almost hear them hiss and crawl, the pulse in their shallow throats uttering a curse in an ancient language. How dared they wake them from their slumber?
His hair stood on end.
Lord almighty!
Roman jewellery of the finest make. He kept a blank face, but a glimpse of the damn things was enough. There was money to be made—a fantastic amount of money. What’s more, honest, incorruptible Eric was out of the picture. He could handle the matter exactly as he liked.
‘Pretty, aren’t they?’
‘Lovely, yes.’
‘Well, Mr Campbell, here’s the deal. There’s a small crate full of these in our villa, and there’s more coming as we continue to excavate. I start thinking this must be a veritable treasure, something of importance. I want to donate it all to the Antiquarians’ Club, and I need an expert to draw up a detailed inventory and do a bit of research too. But here’s the catch. I need it done quickly, and by quickly I mean within a month. We’ll be travelling back to England in a couple of weeks, and I want the whole matter settled by then. I need someone reliable. Someone I can trust blindly. And since you are family now…’
‘I see…’
He pretended to consider the matter.
‘You’d be handsomely rewarded for your troubles, Mr Campbell. And I hope that if you decide to assist us with this, we will all get to know each other a little better. And hopefully, my wife will be a bit more accepting. Speaking of which, I must apologise for what the Countess said at the wedding. I really don’t know—’
‘It’s all forgiven, my lord.’
Oh no, it wasn’t. But if that insult had resulted in this peace offer, there was at least some justice in the world.
‘So, Mr Campbell what do you think?’
I think that you are about to make a huge mistake.
‘I think we have a deal, my lord.’
‘Excellent!’
The old Earl gave him a firm handshake. Who knows, maybe the Earl was a decent man after all. What a pity.
‘When would you be able to begin?’
‘If the matter is urgent, I can begin as soon as you like, my lord.’
‘Excellent. Why don’t you come with me to the excavation site in a moment? I’m living in the villa while I supervise the work.’
‘With pleasure, my lord.’
‘Wonderful. I will be focusing intensively on the works for the pond, Mr Campbell. It’s my pet project and I’ve been waiting all year to be here and finish it. From tomorrow, I won’t be able to assist you, but I thought I’d ask my daughter to help you out. The sooner you can produce that inventory, the better.’
Lady Claudia is still in Rome!
The triumphant thrill which bolted through his body almost made him wince. He could swear he was hearing bells ringing.
The Earl addressed a valet.
‘Antonio, please ask the Countess and my daughter to join us here.’ Then the Earl turned to him again, his clear grey eyes suddenly searching. ‘My daughter is exceptionally resourceful, Mr Campbell. Some might say, even too resourceful…’ His words sounded like a warning, but his eyes flitted nervously, almost worriedly. ‘She will look after you while I tend to the works.’
And with that, the Earl had given away three facts, all of which had to be kept in mind if he wanted to succeed. First, that for reasons he couldn’t even begin to fathom, the Earl was a little scared of his daughter. Second, that he did not trust him one bit, “looking after” being a euphemism for “she’ll not let you out of her eyesight while you handle our precious things.” Third, that not a speck of gold dust would be his unless he entered Lady Claudia’s good graces, and he got her to lower her guard. Luckily for him, he knew exactly how to earn a woman’s trust. And this time, he’d relish every moment of it.
‘I’ll have to briefly discuss the matter with the Countess and my daughter, Mr Campbell. If that’s all right with you, would you mind waiting outside for a moment?’
‘With pleasure, my lord.’
He made to stand, but something shifted in the air. Lady Claudia was announced by a waft of lemon and sandalwood. She appeared wearing a silken blue dress so lustrous that it might well have been woven on Mount Olympus. Somehow, she managed to look even more enticing than in the appallingly vivid visions that had plagued him since that kiss in the carriage. Her silver eyes were hazy and vaguely absorbed, the empty gaze of a statue contemplating the abysses of time. She looked so imperious, so majestic, so…distracted?
Of course she was distracted. This woman was not of this world. She was not concerned with the paltry things of mortals.
‘Good morning, Father. Mr Campbell, what a pleasant surprise.’
That husky voice. It had made his breeches feel uncomfortably tight in that carriage. Before he had been caught off guard by her lips and he had kissed her like an inexperienced fool, that is.
Lady Claudia smiled politely and walked in. Like most of her peers, she moved with the elegant, unhurried gait of a spoilt cat. He had tried to perfect that art while in Oxford, not to stand out as the twitchy, nervous boy he had been. It had turned out that one could learn it. It just took a ridiculous amount of effort to keep it up.
‘Lady Claudia.’ His voice was a lot throatier than he would have liked. ‘How lovely to meet you again.’
He searched her eyes for any sign of embarrassment, but she returned his gaze serenely, confirming that a kiss with a mortal man was a mere trifle for a goddess. She sat down next to him. He could smell her expensive perfume, the fragrance of a glorious Italian summer.
Then the oddness of that situation struck him. A young man and a woman sitting at her father’s desk. Anyone looking on would have thought that a marriage was being arranged. It must have been precisely what the Countess thought, because when she appeared her face was comically distorted by horror. He laughed inwardly as she emitted a shriek.
‘What is happening here?!’
‘My darling wife, Mr Campbell was just going to leave us for a few moments. Come in, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you.’
***
Fog. Dense, suffocating fog. Today was bad. Oh, as bad as it could be. Every day for the past year Claudia had been trying to convince herself that she was stronger than it all. But she was not. Not every day at least, and most certainly not the majority of the days. Besides, it was all relative. A good day was an angry day. Then she could at least get some work done. A bad day was a numb day. A day in which a stifling haze settled on her soul like a blanket of dirty snow. A day like today.
So she was more than a little surprised when, in the middle of the wasteland of her thoughts, she noticed a handsome devil chatting amiably with her father. Great. Father must have found out that she had been alone in a carriage with him, and he must be insisting that Mr Campbell do the honourable thing. She’d end up married to a rake. Wouldn’t that be a fitting culmination to a year in which everything had spun out of control?
Still, she had no intention of marrying just because of a kiss in a carriage—especially since it had been the most chaste kiss she had ever received in her life. The talents of Mr Campbell were wildly overstated. He kissed so clumsily that one would have thought he had never kissed a woman before.
Still, his gentleness had not been unwelcome. Oh, no, not unwelcome at all…
Mr Campbell stood, a slender blond devil in an expensive dark blue jacket and a silken cravat. Clumsy kisser or not, women had every reason to fall at his feet. He was so very handsome.
He gave her a conspiratorial smile, making her feel like his accomplice in an unsavoury affair. Then he left.
‘Are you listening, Daughter?’
‘Yes.’ She narrowed her eyes, trying to focus.
‘Mr Campbell will inventory the artefacts.’
‘A terrible idea,’ Mother interjected. ‘I wouldn’t trust his brother anywhere near anything precious, let alone him . He is a savage who cannot control his impulses. Have you forgotten what he did to our poor, sensitive Cecil? And if you knew the things they say about him! That William Campbell is—’
‘—the worst of the lot,’ Father and she completed the sentence in unison.
‘My darling wife, try to understand. Yes, I would have preferred entrusting this delicate work to his brother, but I need it done now. Besides, Mr Campbell will not be alone.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Daughter, I want you to assist him. That is, between us, not to lose sight of him for a second.’
‘This is madness!’ Mother turned purple. ‘She shouldn’t be anywhere near a man! Not after—’
Claudia clenched her jaw and said nothing, defiantly holding her mother’s gaze.
‘Surely Claudia knows better than to court scandal in our own home. Don’t you, Claudia?’
The condescension in Father’s voice was a reminder of why she hadn’t lived with them in ten years. This Roman interlude had been a mistake in so many ways. She should have travelled straight back to England.
‘Claudia?’ Father rapped his fingers on the desk impatiently. ‘Did you hear what I said? I won’t let Mr Campbell around our valuable possessions unless you agree to keep an eye on him.’
The idea didn’t sit well with her. Her trip to Italy was meant to be about recovering. About healing and finding some peace—never mind that she hadn’t found it. Everything about Mr Campbell spelled trouble. And trouble had a way of coming for her like a passionate lover, one she would receive arms-open, jumping excitedly at the door, just to prove that she was smart enough to extricate herself again and again. Oh, yes, Mr Campbell was bad news. And not just because he had been able to get even a woman like herself to kiss him. But because beyond the abyss that separated them, in his catlike eyes, she had recognised that very same appetite for trouble.
‘Are we all in agreement, then?’ Father asked.
‘I don’t know, Father. I always have so much to do…my column…my work for the shelter…’
‘Listen, Claudia. Would I have allowed Iris to marry into that family? No. Would I go anywhere near those Campbells if Iris wasn’t like a daughter to us? No. But we have been dealt a bad hand—’
‘ A bad hand ?’ A familiar fury spread through her limbs like lightning. A bad hand! Them! Because Iris had married a husband who worshipped the very ground she walked on! ‘You should come to my shelter for once. See who’s really been dealt a bad hand.’
‘This is not the point now, Claudia.’ Father frowned. ‘Now. Will you keep an eye on Mr Campbell or not? I am not agreeing to anything unless you promise not to lose sight of him.’
‘Yes, I will.’
If they thought she would waste her time on this nonsense, they were mistaken. She would let him do whatever he pleased, as long as he left her alone.
‘I am glad we are all in agreement then. Let’s give Mr Campbell the good news. Antonio, could you let him in please?’
Mother strode away furiously as Mr Campbell walked in, and Claudia hurried to her desk. She placed her letter box and writing materials between herself and the rest of the room like a rampart from which she could observe the enemy’s manoeuvres unseen. Except, it was but a paltry palisade compared to the enemy’s formidable forces. Oh, Mr Campbell was good-looking! Even in her numbness she sensed little flickers of excitement under her skin, like tiny fireworks in the wide, moonless night. He was standing next to her father all blond and blue and golden and impossibly well-dressed, nodding quietly as Father spoke. His long, delicate fingers were caressing absent-mindedly the head of a gilded snake-shaped bracelet. The touch of those fingers had been feather-light that night. He knew how to make a woman want more…
‘—and my daughter kindly agreed to assist you, Mr Campbell.’
Mr Campbell turned to her, and his face lit up with the triumphant smirk of a sensuous Nero who could barely wait to enjoy the spectacle of watching Rome burn.
‘I am delighted, my lord.’
The gleeful way he uttered that “delighted” said it all, that he was going to have her burn for him, and he would savour every moment of it, because she had had the impudence of ignoring his request to meet again.
‘I believe you had a chance to get to know each other already? Aside from when you met at Iris’s home, that is.’ Father looked at her pleadingly to shake her from her stony silence.
‘Only briefly, alas.’ Mr Campbell looked at her with the most subtle mockery. ‘I had the honour of dancing with Lady Claudia at the ball two weeks ago.’
‘It was a pleasure, Mr Campbell.’
Any more and she would give herself away. She lowered her gaze and pulled the box-turned-rampart closer to her. She extracted a couple of letters and skimmed them. Another day, another catalogue of human miseries, from mundane problems to heart-rendering betrayals. A jilted lover. A mistress to whom marriage was repeatedly promised, in vain. A forced marriage. She sighed and placed them in the pile of letters unfit for publication. She would reply to them privately.
What else? Ah, Sophie had forwarded her a case they had just taken on. Good on Sophie. Claudia had been reluctant to leave the reins of her shelter in someone else’s hands, but Sophie was getting on so well. She opened the letter. A few sentences were enough to know a whole story:
I have tried to change for him. I have tried to be the woman he wants me to be, hoping that he’d marry me at last. But it is never enough. Never enough to protect me from his violence.
Please. Please come and take me away.
It is never enough, Lady Claudia.
Never enough.
Never enough. Those words echoed every day in the corridors of her shelter, where she protected women escaping from violent men. Never enough, never enough, never enough! She was striding down the corridors again, blood pulsating in her temples, the earth shaking under her steps, running, carrying, fetching, shouting. Then sitting at her desk in her office, leaning back in her armchair, rattling her rings on her desk—she had discovered it unnerved men, and the lawyers of rich men in particular, so it had become her favourite sound. The rattling, the shouting—her rage blazed through all her limbs, brighter, angrier , she had to go back! She had to be there for them! They needed her, never mind what had happened to her! Her rage blazed into an inferno, illuminating a violent, charred world…
…and then it flickered wearily again, leaving her empty and exhausted.
She hid her face in her hands and inhaled deeply.
I am done. I don’t have it in me anymore.
She rubbed her eyes and blinked. Two bright blue spheres were staring right at her, searchingly, leaving her nowhere to hide. She gave a start. Mr Campbell was standing right in front of her.
‘Welcome back, darling.’
That sultry, sinful voice, like a caress. Had he kept on talking to her like that in the carriage, he could have gotten way more than just a kiss.
‘I would be most curious to know what saintly Lady Claudia was thinking about just now. She looked so angry.’ He sat on her desk, casually. ‘I think we’ll get along wonderfully, you and I. Because I am so very angry too. All the time, my sweet.’
‘Lady Claudia will do, thank you.’
She had meant to snap back at him, but her voice came out silky. His eyes were truly spectacular. Dark blue and large. Mischief and irony crackled like a current beneath their glassy surface.
‘Just look at all these letters.’ He tilted his head, curious. There was something of the magpie to him. ‘Your admirers?’
He picked up a letter and held it in his elegant fingers. He probably thought his good looks and charm gave him the licence to behave as he pleased. Come to think of it, they probably did.
‘Would you mind putting that back, Mr Campbell?’
‘I very much would, Lady Claudia. You see, I don’t like doing anything for free.’ He hid the letter behind his back. ‘Shall we trade again, darling? It was most pleasant to negotiate with you the other night. A kiss to accompany you home. What could I get now for your letter?’
You insufferable—
She bit her lip. It was clear from the twinkle in his eyes that he was trying to wind her up. But why? She inhaled deeply and summoned that calm, stately person whose wisdom was admired far and wide. The person everyone saw in her.
‘I must have missed something, Mr Campbell. I thought my father had employed you as an antiquarian. I hadn’t realised he had given you permission to court me.’
His eyes flashed with amusement.
‘Oh. I thought a little intimacy would be in order after the other night. You see, for two weeks now I have been wondering what would have happened if you had stayed a little longer. Have you?’
Oh. It turned out this was not just a “numb” or “angry” day. It was a strange and unexpected day. Because a thrilling, obscene image was conjured by his words.
His delicate, long fingers in her hair. His head tilted back in pleasure. The sensation of slowly trailing her tongue along his shaft. A groan of pleasure. The salty, bitter taste of a man…
She inhaled sharply. She hadn’t been ashamed of those thoughts in the past and look where they had landed her.
‘Now, what was that look, saintly Lady Claudia?’ His voice was a sigh of pleasure. He reached for her face and lifted her chin. His light touch filled her with a vague longing. ‘Won’t you tell me what you just pictured, darling, sweet?’
She pushed his hand away with a frown, but his brazenness swept her off her feet. Scandalous, handsome men like him had never been drawn to her. They found her cold and unsympathetic—they were even a little frightened.
‘Mr Campbell.’ She sighed and adopted a patient tone, as though speaking with a misbehaving child. ‘I am sure we both agree that “the other night” was a little accident and nothing more. In the interest of an effective collaboration, there will be no mention of it anymore. You are too fine a businessman to scupper the opportunity of working with a Roman treasure just for the fun of ruffling my feathers.’
Not a muscle moved on his face. She knew from his prologued silence that she had him.
‘All right,’ he said at last.
‘My letter, Mr Campbell.’
He reluctantly held it out to her, then he changed his mind and withdrew it. It was from the way he gleefully lapped up her surprise that she realised that Mr Campbell had not just been teasing her. He had been studying her like a naturalist observing a strange creature in the wild. His words had been twisting and turning her like invisible hands to find out what exactly this stern, serious “Lady Claudia” was, and noting the minutest details. A quiet fury pervaded her. She looked straight into his eyes.
‘My. Letter. Mr. Campbell.’
He held her gaze for what felt like the longest time, but she did not flinch. He relented and placed the letter on the desk. She hadn’t realised he was wearing a ring, last time. A wedding ring, no doubt, but he wore it on his little finger. She scoffed. Probably some sort of game with one of his married lovers.
‘I was just taking my leave to go visit the site,’ he said in a suddenly businesslike tone. ‘I shall see you tomorrow morning here, I would think.’
‘Very well.’
‘Till then. I can barely wait not to ruffle your feathers.’
He winked at her, and just as he had come, he disappeared from the room.