Chapter Two #2
‘I can’t help the truth.’ He gave another smile, his charm as blatantly self-evident as it ever was.
Twenty years hadn’t dimmed it. Today, she’d been momentarily open to that charm before she’d realised who he was.
His English-summer-sky eyes twinkled as if he was in on the joke even though he was the one who was lost on her hill.
She would remind him he was on her territory now and that she’d grown up.
She was not so easily starstruck by a comely boy from her past who’d grown into a handsome man.
In fact, the mythical fascination of men on the whole had long been debunked for her.
Men cheated, men lied and men failed. If Alistair Burke-Price thought he could flirt his way into her good graces, he’d be mistaken.
‘You shouldn’t be out in the sun. There’s a reason Neapolitans engage in riposo during the afternoon.
’ She offered the lesson with a little scorn thrown in to remind him of what he was here: an estraneo, an outsider and, by extension, an intruder.
Alistair Burke-Price didn’t belong in her world.
Wandering around in the hottest part of the day proved it.
His mouth quirked in a wry grin. ‘I don’t think the weather is the only reason people stay inside after lunch.’ He was referring to sex, of course. He’d have to try harder if he meant to surprise her. She didn’t shock as easily as her ten-year-old self had.
‘Still naughty, I see.’ A different kind of naughty, though, a kind that had moved beyond frogs in beds and spiders in soups.
She strode past him, refusing to acknowledge the innuendo with a riposte of her own.
A few paces later, she looked over her shoulder.
‘Well? Are you coming?’ As much as she’d prefer to leave him there to find his own way, Neapolitan hospitality demanded more from her.
Alistair fell into step beside her. ‘If it’s too hot for walking around, what are you doing out?
And in trousers, I might note.’ He flashed her a smile that invited confidence, but she was ready for it.
How many times growing up had she seen him use that smile on others?
And yet, even knowing she should guard against it, she found herself tempted.
She didn’t have to give him all the details.
‘I was in town on business.’
‘For your father?’ He didn’t sound as if he believed her. Too bad. She’d rather hoped he would make that assumption and not push any further. She didn’t want to lie outright.
‘No,’ she confessed. She might obfuscate from time to time, but she didn’t lie, not even to Alistair Burke-Price.
Lies were too complicated. ‘The business was my own.’ She’d gone to confront Professor Loughty about his decision to not publish her paper on Vesuvius in the upcoming quarterly journal of Neapolitan Geological Surveys, a joint effort between British geologists and French members of the Accademia Reale delle Scienze e delle Belle Lettere.
Professor Loughty was the current narrow-minded chair in a long list of equally narrow-minded chairs who thought women were inferior volcanologists.
‘Ah, so you snuck away,’ Alistair surmised.
‘I am supposed to be upstairs in my room lying down with a light headache and a lavender cloth. I would appreciate you keeping my fiction to yourself when we arrive.’
‘Your parents believe that line?’ Alistair gave a bark of laughter. ‘You are hardly the lavender-compress type. You never have been.’
She slid him a quelling look. ‘That’s hardly complimentary.
It was true for about ten minutes. Besides, I am not ten anymore.
I can play the Gently Bred Young Lady when I need to.
’ That wasn’t entirely true. She did try, but more often than not her intelligence and her temper got the better of her as it had today.
She’d bet Alistair Burke-Price could have talked Professor Loughty around.
Although, if it had been Alistair’s paper in question, there would have been no doubts simply because Alistair was male.
‘This is the turn,’ she said before Alistair could ask any more questions about her covert visit to town. ‘You’d not have found it on your own. The house is a mile up the road and hidden from view by trees.’
‘That figures.’ Alistair chuckled. ‘Leave it to Thomas Rose to take up residence in one of the largest cities in Europe and then live as far from everyone as he possibly can in the middle of nowhere.’
‘We are not alone,’ she defended her father. ‘The king has a home up here.’ The old tendency to disagree with Alistair came far too easily even after years of disuse.
‘Naples doesn’t have a king,’ Alistair shot back. ‘It has a vicar-general and a constitutional government.’ Apparently, the desire to argue was mutual. But she had the upper hand on this one. His argument was short-sighted.
‘The king will be back.’ Ismay tossed her braid.
‘I suspect even now he’s rallying support from Austria.
Metternich cannot allow liberalism to spread, and the Neapolitan revolutionaries have weakened themselves with the revolt in Sicily.
’ Ha! She felt a moment’s triumph in having bested him.
There was no room to disagree with her assessment without looking foolish.
She was aware of his gaze on her. He gave a shake of his head. ‘That explains a lot.’
‘Liberalism is like wildfire these days,’ she went on.
‘No, I meant you. That response explains a lot about you. Did anyone ever tell you politics are not the way to impress a man?’
‘Yes, in fact, someone did. I chose not to listen to such bad advice.’ Lord Edward Ashford had told her that right before he’d broken their engagement because he believed they no longer suited. He was not looking for a bride who spoke her own mind. That had been years ago.
‘I’m not trying to impress you or any man,’ she countered.
There was only one way to handle Alistair’s remark: respond in kind with something beyond the pale of decent conversation.
‘Would you rather I talked about my monthly visitor?’ Usually that had men bolting so fast they careened into each other trying to get away.
But Alistair simply threw back his blond head and laughed, loud and long as if he was enjoying himself.
‘You win, Ismay. You never did know when to stop.’ He wiped his eyes. ‘It’s good to know that at least some things never change.’
Those were fighting words. Her temper stirred.
He always got the last word. Not today. Her first reaction was to argue.
He was wrong. She had changed. But to argue would be to prove him doubly right—that she didn’t know when to stop.
Then, why did it feel like she’d lost? She’d fired her best verbal dart, and he remained undaunted, defusing her remark with a laugh.
Perhaps it was because he wasn’t wrong, after all.
‘What business do you have with my father?’ Ismay changed the topic as they ventured up the tree-lined incline leading home. ‘Naples is a long way from England.’ Though, apparently not far enough to outrun her memories.
‘My father has a letter he wants delivered.’
‘He couldn’t use the mail service?’
That got a chuckle out of him. ‘That’s what I said. My father insisted it must be delivered in person. Given the rebellion this summer, perhaps it’s turned out for the best. I came with Cousin Hayes. He’s bought a vineyard outside of Florence and married a British woman living there.’
‘So we’re your last stop. You’ll deliver your letter and go home, then?’ She hoped that was the case.
‘I suppose.’ The question seemed to stump him. ‘I’ve been so focused on the journey I haven’t given much thought to what comes afterwards.’
She laughed. ‘Speaking of things that haven’t changed, you never did think about what came next.’ He’d always been a great one for starting things and not finishing them.
Alistair stopped walking and stared. For a moment she thought she might have succeeded in rendering him speechless at last. Then she realised it was the house that had done that.
She smiled. She knew the feeling. She’d lived here seventeen years and the sight of Vista Sulla Baia still moved her: the verdant parkland filled with flowering bushes leading up to the enormous facade of the neoclassical villa with its carefully spaced windows and shutters, everything balanced and immaculate.
A tiered fountain graced the circular drive, the sound of water making a refreshing splash in the basin at the end of a hot afternoon.
‘This is your home? It’s stunning.’
Ah, something they agreed upon at last. ‘You haven’t seen the best part yet.
The views of the bay are spectacular off the back terrace.
You’re on your own now. I need to make my own way back in before anyone notices I’ve been gone.
My father will be in his study, second door on the right on the main floor.
’ She paused. She hated that she had to ask, that she had to be in his debt.
‘Please don’t tell him you saw me.’ This was important.
She’d beg if she had to. She hoped Alistair would not make her.
The last thing she needed in a day full of unpleasant surprises was one more disappointment.
‘Of course not. Pranksters’ honour.’
‘Thank you.’ She left him then, moving swiftly to get upstairs.
It had taken longer to get home than she’d anticipated.
Her maid would be up to help her dress for supper.
Under other circumstances, she might have engaged in a little eavesdropping outside her father’s office, but unearthing whatever it was Alistair had come to discuss with her father would have to wait.
The sooner this unlooked-for piece of her past was on his way, the better.
Men were nothing but trouble, no matter how handsome they were.