Chapter Four #2
He laughed. ‘Your secret’s safe. I could have betrayed you this afternoon, but I didn’t.
When I spoke with your father, he told me you were lying down.
He completely believed you.’ Alistair held out her chair and took the seat beside her.
She was aware of his gaze as she settled her skirts.
‘What are you playing at, Ismay, that has you misleading your parents and roaming around Naples in trousers?’
‘Who says I’m playing at anything?’
Alistair gave a wry smile. ‘You might be fooling your parents, but you’re not fooling me.
I’ve been here a handful of hours and it is already clear to me that you’re leading a double life.
You can either tell me what you’re doing, or I’ll figure it out on my own.
’ That was the last thing she wanted. She didn’t need Alistair Burke-Price poking his nose into her life.
‘You won’t be here long enough. You’ve delivered your letter, and now you are free to leave, you could go back to Florence and your cousin’s vineyard.’
‘Or perhaps I will stay awhile. You can show me around Naples. I’d like that.
You can take me to all the places you sneak off to.
’ He was teasing her, and it took all of her willpower to maintain an image of outer calm.
What she really wanted to do was kick him.
But that was not the behaviour of a demure lady who wore rose-pink silk to supper.
Thank goodness the first course was being served and it was time to talk to the gentleman on her other side.
If Alistair was smart, he’d let the topic drop.
Alistair was not smart. ‘Is it a man whom you sneak out to meet, Ismay?’ He wasted no time returning to the threads of their previous conversation the moment the second course was served.
‘No!’ she hissed. ‘It most certainly is not.’ This time she did kick him beneath the table.
He suppressed a groan and flashed her a hard look just before his foot came down on top of hers in retribution.
‘That hurt!’ she snapped. ‘My slippers are thin. They’re just decorative.’
‘Yes, I’m sure it did. That’s what you get for kicking me.’ Unbelievable. He was entirely unrepentant, the cad. More than that, he was justifying his behaviour.
‘Well, that’s what you get for making insinuations.’
‘It wasn’t an insinuation. It was a suggestion. Maybe you should sneak out and find a man. It might sweeten your tongue a bit.’
‘Oh, because a man is the answer to all of a woman’s problems, is that it? If I wanted a man, Alistair, I’d have him.’ Her voice rose. Her mother cleared her throat from the foot of the table.
‘Is everything all right? How do you like our local wine, Alistair? It’s made from piedirosso grapes grown on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius.’ Her mother made gracious conversation to smooth over the tension. At the other end of the table her father rose, gesturing to the footmen to fill glasses.
‘Speaking of wine,’ Sir Thomas said and tapped his goblet with his fork, ‘it’s time for a toast and an announcement.
I had thought to wait until the end of dinner, but the moment has presented itself.
As many of you know, my dear friend, Hugh Burke-Price’s son, Alistair, is with us.
He has come all the way from England to fulfil a pledge Hugh and I made to one another upon the birth of my daughter, Ismay. ’
Ismay was instantly alert. This sounded…
ominous. What was all this about a pact at her birth?
She glanced at Alistair who was sitting up straight as if he’d not been kicking her under the table like he was a boy again.
Did he know? Did this have something to do with the contents of the letter he’d brought?
‘This afternoon, Alistair has accepted a position as my partner in Rose Enterprises so that I can consider stepping back from the business…eventually. I’m not quite in my dotage yet.’ Her father chuckled. But that was no laughing matter, not to her.
‘He made you partner?’ Ismay whispered her disbelief, betrayal rocketing through her.
Alistair was to be partner? Not her? Her father would rather entrust it to Alistair Burke-Price—whom he hadn’t seen in two decades, and not since Alistair was a boy—over her, who had worked beside him in the warehouses, unloaded crates, kept the records of lading, balanced the ledgers.
Of course, not once had her partnership been directly discussed.
Still, she’d always thought eventually…like her father’s retirement.
Damn it all for being a born a woman! First her paper, now this.
It was too much, really. Anger pulsed through her.
She wanted to throw her napkin on the table, rip the rose quartz choker from around her neck and tear off the damn pink gown.
She’d tried so hard to be what everyone had wanted, and what had it had gotten her? Absolutely nothing.
She gave Alistair a condemning look. He’d known in the drawing room, when he’d asked to bring her into supper, when he’d teased her about staying awhile.
He knew he was never going to leave. Perhaps he’d lied today on the hill and had known even then.
‘You knew all along,’ she accused, getting no response from Alistair except a minute shake of his head, his gaze locked on her father, his body tight with tension. He was anticipating something else.
‘Wait, there’s more, before we celebrate,’ her father went on, enjoying the attention of the moment. She hazarded a glance at her mother whose face was wreathed in a soft smile of joy. What was going on? Her birthright had been given away. What more could there be?
‘When Ismay was born we knew there would possibly be no more children, no son to follow her. Hugh and I promised one another that if his son attained his thirty-second birthday and my daughter attained her majority without being married, that they would wed one another so that I would have a son-in-law to take over the family business. Tonight, Margaret and I are proud to announce the engagement of our daughter, Ismay Rose, to Alistair Burke-Price in fulfilment of a friendship pact made twenty-eight years ago. Let us raise our full glasses to the happy couple, and the future they will build together. Alistair, welcome to the business and the family.’
‘To Ismay and Alistair!’ The chorus went up around the table amid gasps of surprised delight and a burst of applause.
This would indeed be the talk of Naples tomorrow morning.
What a nightmare! And she’d just sat there and watched it all play out.
Her family had arranged her marriage to her childhood nemesis and never once breathed a word to her, never once warned her what was coming.
This was unreal. The only consolation was that Alistair seemed as shocked as she.
She made a desperate grab for his hand, forcing him to look at her.
She had to ask anyway. He’d hid the partnership from her, perhaps he’d hid this, too. ‘Did you know?’
‘No.’ His blue eyes were hard on hers. ‘Did you?’
‘Absolutely not,’ she retorted. ‘How could you even think that?’
‘Smile, Ismay. The whole table is watching us,’ he coached through gritted teeth. ‘It’s not hard to think it. The dress, the hair. You are certainly attired for the occasion, and you enjoy catching me off guard.’
‘I don’t enjoy it that much. Certainly not enough to pretend I want to marry you.
’ Her own panic was rising. She needed to get out of here and go somewhere she could think.
Wildness crawled up her throat, wanting to manifest in a scream.
This wasn’t going to happen. She was not going to marry Alistair Burke-Price.
She pressed a hand to her stomach. Dear God, she couldn’t breathe.
Her panic heightened. She could not fall apart here. Even her body was betraying her.
‘Are you all right?’ Alistair asked worriedly.
‘Not exactly.’ The words came out in gasps. She was going to faint at the table. That would be memorable in the worst way. She would forever be remembered for fainting at her own engagement.
Alistair mobilised. ‘Might I steal my fiancée away while everyone finishes the meal? We would like a moment’s privacy.
’ He did not wait for permission. He was helping her even though his world had been upended, too.
This was one more thing she was going to owe him for.
Her debt was growing by the hour. He offered her his arm, his mouth at her ear.
‘I’ve got you. Just a few steps and we’ll be out of the dining room. Then I can carry you.’
That did it. She would not suffer the indignity of being carried. ‘I can walk.’ Damn it all, she was going to owe him for this, too. He’d just rescued her from the dining room, but she’d be tarred and feathered before she’d allow him to carry her. ‘I’ll be fine in a moment. I just need some air.’
Alistair gave a cynic’s laugh. ‘It will take more than air to fix this.’
Outside, Ismay leaned against the stone balustrade of the terrace and drew a slow, steadying breath. ‘This would be the perfect time to tell me this is just another of your elaborate pranks, like the time you convinced me there were piranhas in the swimming hole.’
Alistair settled on the bench. ‘Yes, it would. I am so sorry that I can’t.’