Chapter 3 #2
“Oh yes,” Beatrice nodded. “French, German, Italian…a little Spanish, a quite shameful amount of Dutch.”
“Why, you are more learned than most princesses!” Lord Milton laughed, looking at her like she was the most interesting girl in the world.
She wished that it gave her pleasure to see it, but it actually only made her feel uncomfortable, as if she didn’t deserve such admiration.
Beatrice shrugged casually, trying not to show her discomfort.
“I have always had an aptitude for languages,” she said dismissively.
She didn’t say that one required an aptitude for languages when one was shuffled from country to country.
Even with an empty stomach and a bit too much to drink, there were some things she could never say.
That her many languages were learned at markets and inns, rather than at the feet of an elegant governess.
That until she was thirteen years old, her life was one of transience and secrets, and she had not been kept like most ladies were, as caged pretty birds in fine drawing rooms. Until Silas had made the largest part of his fortune and had found a suitable home for her to be safely tucked away in, she had been as free to roam as he and Giovanni had been.
She had run up the Spanish Steps in Rome when she was eight years old.
When she was eleven, Gio had taken her to race paper boats on the Seine, her dress rolled up around her knees as they paddled near the Louvre. She smiled.
“Something amusing, Miss Klane?” Lord Milton asked, smiling down at her. “You look as if you had a happy thought.”
“Oh, I was just thinking of my childhood in Paris,” she said, clearing her throat. “It is an elegant city.”
She realized then how different her marriage would be to Silas’s.
Everyone in the Ton knew that Silas had a checkered past, but no one expected her to have been raised as anything other than a proper lady.
Whilst Silas could share the darkest parts of his past with Anna, and Anna partly expected it because of his reputation, Beatrice felt as if she could never share those parts of herself with anyone.
She knew that Silas had revealed to Anna the horrors they had endured, partly to keep her safe.
By becoming part of the Klane family, Anna had become a part of their secrets, too.
But the opposite would be true of Beatrice.
Surely a potential husband would be horrified to find out that Silas had been forced to kill their father to save their own lives, that their father had killed their mother, that they had lived in squalor in her early years.
Even after a walk down the aisle, there was every chance such information would be enough to sour a husband against her.
No, Beatrice knew in her heart that her life would be full of half-secrets until the day she died.
Unless I married Giovanni, a traitorous part of her mind thought, but Beatrice pushed the thought away, scolding herself for drinking too much and indulging in maudlin thoughts.
She had a husband to find, a viscount to impress, and a girlish infatuation to quash.
She had no time for her imaginings of Giovanni.
“Well, you are quite impressive,” the viscount said, smiling gently. “How proud your brother and family must be of you.”
“Thank you.”
His gentleness touched Beatrice, but not sure that his words had echoes in truth. She suspected that Anna might have been more proud of her if she had come into society with more grace and less criticism, and Silas might have been more proud of her if she had secured a match already.
“I am proud of them also,” she said, her eyes instinctively moving back towards the hall where Anna and Silas stood within.
“So you should be,” Lord Milton said softly.
Beatrice looked up into his face quickly, searching it for signs of mockery.
The idea that she should be proud that her brother was Lucifer of London was not one she had heard touted around the Ton much.
However, she saw only sincerity in the viscount’s pale eyes.
“I am surprised to hear you say so,” Beatrice stepped towards him, angling her body so any of the other guests might not read her lips.
She kept her voice low as they huddled in the corner of the terrace, elbows touching as they looked out over the rose garden, hoping no one was close enough to hear them.
“Most gentlemen do not think of my brother as… distinguished.”
“Ah.” Lord Milton pursed his lips, keeping his gaze straight ahead. He had clearly decided that he didn’t want to be overheard either.
“Well, trust me, Miss Klane, when I say that I care more about what a man has become than where he has come from.”
Beatrice felt herself relax at his words. She did not feel set afire by them, and merely being close to him did not make her heart tremble, but she did feel safe next to him. Many marriages started with less.
“That is… most admirable, my lord.” Beatrice said quietly. “And I thank you.”
“It is I who must thank you, Miss Klane,” the viscount’s eyes met hers. “I did not have high hopes for this evening, but it has surpassed all my expectations.”
“Is that so?” Beatrice allowed herself a flirty smile, a demure fluttering of her eyelashes.
If society had taught her one thing, it was how to put a man under her spell.
Beatrice prided herself that she was not vain, but that did not mean she was unaware of the effect her stormy eyes and dark curls had upon men.
She didn’t usually like to use such techniques, but his kindness and her dizziness made it seem like a very good idea.
Under the cover of pressing the rose against her nose again, she risked a quick glance at his face.
His pupils were dark and enlarged and his face was filled with a curiosity that she recognized quickly as the first flush of desire.
“It is,” he said. Beatrice watched his Adam’s apple bob, and he glanced around before leaning a little closer under the pretense of touching the delicate petals of the rose she held in her hand.
“Might I be permitted to call on you, Miss Klane? Perhaps this week?”
It was subtle, but Beatrice could feel the strings Anna had pulled to arrange this match tightening around her. If she wanted this man, he would be hers; Beatrice felt fairly certain of it. She wished that she felt more excited by the prospect.
“Indeed, you may, my lord,” Beatrice consented, fluttering her fan. “You may call on us in Grosvenor square at your leisure. We are at the Klane townhouse for the season.”
“It shall be my pleasure.” The viscount was smiling broadly, and Beatrice was glad for his happiness. Suddenly a sharp voice cut through their quiet moment.
“Miss Klane!”
Beatrice jumped and turned, the tone immediately making her feel guilty despite knowing she was doing exactly what she was supposed to do. Then she realized why. Giovanni was only a few steps away, glaring at them both.
Giovanni had been watching them for a while, loitering in the doorway with his hands behind his back and his stance wide, the typical stance of a servant that made him instantly invisible to all of the members of society around him.
It had always amazed him how easy it was to traverse fluidly through the different levels of society simply by altering his body language.
He sometimes wondered if the genteel ladies and gentlemen around them realized that all of their systems for making themselves greater than others, for feeling superior, were not traits they were magically given at birth, but simply the tools of an actor.
They could be learned, they could be falsified—he and Silas and Beatrice were the living proof of it.
Silently, he watched Beatrice, content ensuring she was safe while he happily blended into the background.
Then the viscount had given her the rose.
It’s fine, Giovanni had told himself angrily. He’s a potential suitor; that’s what he should be doing—it’s just cheap parlor tricks. It won’t capture her attention—why would it?
But then they had turned away from the crowd, deliberately turning their backs so no one could see them.
It was a very bold move for a courting couple, who should take pains to show that nothing inappropriate was being said.
It was the kind of thing couples who were serious about making a match did.
They’re just talking, he reassured himself. She’s spoken with dozens of men this season, there is no reason to think that anything?—
Then Lord Milton was leaning closer, touching the fine petals of the rose in the intimate space between them, his face full of raw desire, and Beatrice—his little Beatrice—was looking up at him with such flirtation.
Giovanni saw red. Before he could account for his behavior, he was slinking unseen through the crowd until he was beside them.
He cleared his throat. They didn’t hear him.
They kept looking at each other, making plans for the viscount to call on Beatrice, as if she were any other lady he might be courting.
He would not allow Beatrice to be taken in by such cheap tricks.
It was his job to protect her and he was determined to do so.
“Miss Klane!” He said a little too sharply.
She jumped and turned to him, her face flushed adorably pink with guilt, just as she used to do when he would catch her sneaking spoonfuls of jam from the kitchen as a young girl.
“Gio!” She pressed a hand to her heart, the rose crushing against her cleavage. Giovanni couldn’t stop his eyes from following it, but then instantly looked at Lord Milton, whose gaze was fixed on the same location of the white bloom against her white skin.
The cad! Giovanni folded his arms, raising his eyebrows at the viscount who, realizing he was being watched, dropped his gaze quickly and blushed deeply.
“Lord Milton, let me introduce Signore Giovanni Amante, my brother’s business associate.”