Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Next evening
Amelia had never encountered Signore Rossi’s villa by night.
With warm lantern light casting lively shadows against mellow stone walls and sparkling fountains and the scent of lemon and fig drifting on the air, this courtyard would have been enchanting if not for the obvious: all the other people.
Dressed in their evening finery, they milled about, crystal coupes in their hands, ready laughter on their mouths.
Just inside the gate—one foot out, really—Amelia stood observing the scene, feeling like nothing more than a fish out of water.
She’d considered politely refusing Signore’s invitation, as she had all others these last few months, having assumed it would be a bohemian sort of crowd that would do her and her family’s reputation no favors.
And as her gaze swept the courtyard, she suspected she’d been correct. She hadn’t even been announced. To be sure, she’d received no few curious glances, but no one appeared particularly bothered by the presence of an unmarried, unaccompanied lady.
A server stopped before her, his arm laden with a silver tray topped with at least ten coupes effervescing with prosecco. It was clear she was to take one. Which she did. She didn’t have to drink it.
Well, maybe just a sip.
Fizzy and sweet, the prosecco danced on her tongue.
Delightful.
Another sip of prosecco loosed an honest thought.
The reason she was here tonight after refusing Signore’s other invitations.
The possibility existed that he might be here.
After all, this was where she’d first encountered him.
And after their bargain, she couldn’t seem to rid her mind of the dratted man. She’d even dreamt of him last night.
Oh, the dream…
She couldn’t think about the dream.
Yet parts of her, dark and private, couldn’t seem to stop.
She took a long, long sip of prosecco. Somehow, a fresh coupe had found its way into her hand. It helped push the thought away.
Somewhat.
As if her dream had turned into substance, Ripon appeared across the courtyard, on the other side of the nymph fountain.
Her eyes hadn’t the will to leave him be.
Dressed in evening blacks, he was just so very handsome.
Her gaze followed the width of his broad shoulders down the length of arms nearly too muscular for his evening coat to his hands.
Those hands looked slightly ridiculous holding a delicate prosecco coupe.
She might feel jealous of that coupe.
Yet something about him looked different tonight. Then she realized what it was: he wasn’t wearing his customary scowl. Perhaps even the hint of a curve hovered about his mouth, which was as close to a smile as she’d ever seen on him.
Her fingers itched for a paintbrush. A few strokes would capture him as he was now.
His eye began to wander away from his companions, slowly making its way toward… her. Her heart kicked against her ribs. Her breath went short and sharp. His gaze brushed across her and the breath stopped in her lungs as they stood fifty feet apart, unable to release their gazes from one another.
Then it happened.
His mouth turned downward.
The scowl had returned.
A stray giggle wanted to bubble up. She took a sip of prosecco to stifle it.
The scowl deepened.
Which only summoned another giggle.
The prosecco might be stifling the giggles, but the possibility existed it might be provoking them, too.
“Mi scusi, signorina,” came a husky feminine voice to her left.
Somehow, Amelia dragged her eyes away from the duke and found a woman draped in strand upon strand of pink pearls staring at her expectantly. “Si?”
“Are you the sister of the Viscount Archer?”
Amelia gave the woman a subtle once-over. Lush and beautiful and clearly either married or widowed, she was precisely the sort of woman with whom Archie would acquaint himself. “I am Lady Amelia Windermere,” she said.
The woman smiled at the group forming a semicircle around them. “See? I told you she must be.”
Amelia found herself unwillingly drawn into conversation as the striking similarity between the Windermere siblings was discussed—tall, striking, and very blonde—which evolved into a more general discussion about siblings and their similarities and dissimilarities.
Amelia went for another sip of prosecco and found her coupe empty. Serendipitously, at that very moment, a sparkling silver tray appeared before her.
As the conversation began to exhaust itself, Signore Rossi jumped into the breach. “Signorina Amelia es una cima with the watercolor brush. I hope she will allow her work to be shown before she returns to England.”
Interest entered a few sets of eyes, and pride stole through Amelia. She’d never received such praise in the public sphere. She might like it.
Something else she liked: how she felt from her fingertips to her toes. She’d never felt this good in her life. Why had no one ever told her about prosecco? How had she made it to the age of seven and twenty without knowing its magic?
With a renewed confidence, and another few sips of prosecco, she turned toward the lady to her right—a new one had appeared—and asked, “And when are you expecting?” In England, she would never ask such a question in mixed company, but in Italy, such rules didn’t seem to apply.
“Expecting what, mia cara?” the lady asked with a puzzled smile.
“Your baby.”
Puzzlement turned into utter confusion. Perhaps her English wasn’t fluent.
“I only ask,” continued Amelia, “because a dear friend of mine who married before me—actually all my dear friends have married before me.” She dismissed the wave of self-pity that tried to surge.
“Anyway, when she was about your size, she got a case of the hiccups that lasted for an entire fortnight.”
The woman blinked, her brow deeply furrowed.
“You’ll never guess the remedy.”
The woman continued staring at Amelia. Or was she glaring?
“Fresh sardines,” said Amelia. “One bite, and the hiccups were gone. The only problem was that she ate sardines for the remainder of her confinement. One could hardly stand to be in a room with her.” She waved a hand in front of her face. “The breath.”
A solid five seconds beat by before the lady emitted a spew of rapid Italian into Amelia’s face. Once finished, the lady charged away.
Amelia remained unperturbed, even sympathetic. “Expecting ladies can be quite temperamental. All my friends were.”
Signore Rossi cleared his throat. “Signora Fontana is not with child.”
“Oh, dear,” said Amelia, “should I go and—”
A hand wrapped around her upper arm. A large, calloused, strong hand. She glanced up and found the Duke of Ripon staring down at her, his opaque gray eyes giving nothing away. “You’ve done enough.”
Signore Rossi redirected the subject with the fluidity of a skilled host, and the stream of conversation began to flow around Amelia and Ripon.
Awareness of him—of his body only inches from hers—raced along her skin, lighting her veins as it skittered through.
His hand had fallen away, but she could still feel the outline of his fingers on her skin.
By chance, her gaze landed on the older, bespectacled German gentleman across from her. Something about his ear… She squinted. A small, furry animal of some sort—a caterpillar?—appeared to be nesting there. She couldn’t decide if it was repulsive or cute.
As discreetly as possible, she gave a little wave and waggle of her fingers in his direction.
“What are you doing?” Ripon hissed into her ear.
“Trying to get the herr’s attention.”
“Whatever for?” He sounded no small bit suspicious.
Before she could answer, she succeeded in securing the herr’s attention, even as she was all too aware of Ripon at her side. “Pardon me, herr, but I have a question for you.”
“Oh?” the man asked, strangely wary.
“Is the small, furry animal in your ear a pet?”
The herr turned a particular shade of purple that couldn’t be good for his health. “Fr?ulein, who are you to go around a civilized gathering, hurling insults at everyone you lay eyes upon?”
Again, the hand wrapped around her upper arm. This time it tugged.
“That’s quite enough for tonight.”
As Tristan guided Lady Amelia across the courtyard, through Signore Rossi’s open villa, and onto the quiet terrace at the back of the house, it occurred to him that he didn’t have the right.
After all, he wasn’t her brother or husband or even fiancé.
Or lover.
Definitely not that.
But he wasn’t doing it for her. He was doing it for everyone else. A Lady Amelia Windermere with a few drinks in her was a menace to society.
She jerked to a stop, outraged eyes rounding on him. “Who do you think you are? King of the villa?”
“A duke.”
“Yes, well, hyperbole.” She rolled her eyes toward the sky. “I know you’re a duke. Everyone knows, don’t they?”
“Everyone seems to.”
“And you don’t like that, do you?”
What Tristan didn’t like was how Lady Amelia had turned the conversation around on him.
Or how she was looking at him.
As if she could see into him.
That wouldn’t do. He needed to get her out of here. The woman was completely foxed.
“If we follow the path around the villa to the alleyway,” he said, “I can summon my coachman to drive you to your villa.”
Her brow furrowed. “To my villa? Why would I go there?”
“Because you’ve managed to insult every person you’ve spoken to tonight?”
Her head tipped back, and a smile broadened across her face. “But look at the moon.”
He didn’t need to. He was looking at its goddess, her hair shining silver in the light, her eyes the clear blue of an East Indian sea. Her beauty was nearly too much to gaze upon, as if the moon would exact a price from those who stared too long.
Possibly at the direction of her mistress, Lady Amelia backed one step away from him, then another, mischief in her eyes. Then she whirled around and vanished into Rossi’s garden. Tristan had no choice but to follow.