Chapter Eight
They were breaking themselves against rocks.
It had been two weeks since he’d fallen asleep in Ismay’s room and three weeks since they’d concocted their plan to break the engagement.
Long enough to recognise their plan was failing, mainly because it had run up against a counterattack.
The Roses simply chose to ignore their resistance by stampeding right over it like runaway horses dragging a carriage behind them, much as Thomas Rose had done that first day in the study when he’d told Alistair about the pact.
The Roses had also employed the tried-and-true strategy of divide and conquer, keeping them separated for most of the day, which both served the ruse and worked against it.
Mostly the latter. It was hard to disagree with someone whom you didn’t see.
Alistair spent morning until supper at the warehouse with Sir Thomas, meeting with clients and inventorying the goods shipped out by the crateload to various libraries and academic collections in England and elsewhere.
To his surprise, he did not dislike the work.
In fact, he was coming to take a certain pleasure in closing a deal and tracking down what a client needed.
He was good with numbers, and the ledgers were no challenge, but it was the work with people that appealed to him most. Between him and Sir Thomas, there were always stories to tell around the dinner table that kept the conversation lively.
What Ismay did with her days he had no idea.
Short of climbing back into her bedroom, which seemed ill-advised based on their last experience, there was no time to be alone with her.
All he knew was that she arrived at supper each night, exquisitely gowned and glowering, after which the four of them went out for the evening to participate in card parties or attend musicales or the opera now that it was in season.
There was no shortage of entertainments.
Naples was well-endowed when it came to the arts, and the Roses were well-known.
They did not lack for company. After twenty years in the British community there, they were a social staple.
It was no surprise, Alistair thought as he stood beside Sir Thomas at yet another social event—this one a musicale to hear a soprano perform privately—that word of their daughter’s engagement preceded them.
Congratulations flowed each evening, at an alarming rate in Alistair’s opinion.
The more people who knew, the harder it would be to get Sir Thomas to break the engagement.
Currently, the Roses showed no sign of retracting the announcement.
Instead, Sir Thomas effused to others about Alistair’s performance at work, using phrases like the son I never had, which only served to strengthen the perceived bond between Alistair and the Rose family.
Unfortunately, the bond was not merely perceived.
Sir Thomas’s words were dangerous. They warmed him, encouraged him.
He was being successful. He was enjoying life in Naples.
If only this engagement wasn’t hanging over him, if only another’s happiness didn’t hinge on the outcome.
Alistair shook Lord Danton’s hand, smiling and nodding as he had all night.
‘I hope we’ll see you at the warehouse soon.
I am confident we can locate the texts you are looking for.
’ He might need to prove himself unsuitable for Ismay, but he would not deliberately damage Sir Thomas’s business reputation in the process.
‘I will come by the day after tomorrow, and I’ll want you to handle it personally, if you could, Mr Burke-Price.
’ Lord Danton smiled broadly. ‘You’ve found yourself a good one, Rose.
He’s always working, taking advantage of every opportunity even at a social event.
I like that in a young man.’ Then he winked at Alistair.
‘But here’s a tip from someone who has been married for twenty-five years.
Don’t work the night of your engagement party.
Your bride-to-be will require all of your attention.
My wife tells me the engagement party is in a few weeks at Vista Sulla Baia.
’ He leaned close in male conspiracy, his voice lowered.
‘My wife also tells me no expense has been spared.’ Unease speared Alistair.
He’d not known about the party. If that was true, Lord Danton’s wife was far better informed than he was.
If it was true, time was of the essence.
Sir Thomas simply chuckled, his words a validation of Danton’s inquiry.
‘I have only the one daughter to spoil, unlike yourself.’ Alarm dug its talons deeper into Alistair.
Sir Thomas had not denied it. If Lady Danton knew, who else knew?
All of Naples? It was starting to seem likely.
He and Ismay were not going to get out of this if something didn’t change, and fast.
Their hostess rang a little silver bell, calling everyone to their seats for the performance.
Alistair spied Ismay standing with her mother, in a gown of aquamarine silk that brought out her eyes.
He went to her, offering his arm. ‘There’s to be an engagement party.
’ He kept his voice low as they sought their seats.
‘Why wasn’t I told? I had to hear it from Lord Danton. ’
‘When would I have told you?’ she snapped behind her fan. ‘We have no time alone.’ There was some satisfaction in knowing she was frustrated, too. Their plan had been going poorly since the boar hunt. All of this separation made him wonder if their resistance had been anticipated.
‘We have to talk. We are running out of time.’ The soprano was mounting the dais. Alistair thought quickly. ‘After the first song, pretend you feel ill and go out to the garden. I will follow you a few minutes later.’
‘Pretend? I do feel ill,’ Ismay murmured as the soprano sang the first notes of ‘Lusingami speranza’ from Scarlatti’s opera, Il Pompeo.
‘I’ll try not to take that remark personally.
’ Alistair crossed a leg over one knee and settled in for a listen.
The soprano was quite good…and lovely, with long dark hair and an expressive face, just the kind of woman he usually liked, and quite the opposite of blonde, aqua-eyed Ismay.
Had they been in London, he’d have sent a grand bouquet backstage and secured an introduction.
But that would never do under these circumstances.
Sir Thomas would be scandalised at his outrageous behaviour.
Perhaps such an audacious move was required.
Would Sir Thomas be scandalised enough to break the engagement?
Yet, the consequences of something so flagrantly public would have repercussions for them all that outpaced the broken engagement.
Especially for Ismay. It would shame her.
She’d hinted at having been hurt in love before.
He’d rather not be the source of more hurt, even for the sake of the ruse.
The thought prompted other thoughts. Maybe he and Ismay had not been outrageous in the right ways?
By the time she quietly slipped out to the garden, and he’d excused himself with a whisper to Sir Thomas that he was going to check on Ismay, he had a full-blown plan that was audacious in the extreme and not without some danger to themselves.
But perhaps the risk would be worth it if it meant avoiding an enforced marriage neither of them wanted.
The Dantons’ townhome was in the Chiaia neighbourhood along the coastline, sporting views of the bay and a lush garden populated by tall palms and carefully trimmed bushes of winter daphne with its tiny pink-and-white flowers and jasmine-like scent perfuming the night.
It was a beautiful, verdant Eden in which to stroll and admire the Dantons’ collection of statuary and fountains.
It was still something of a novelty to Alistair to see these tokens of summer thriving in October.
In England, trees would be shedding their fiery foliage, the Devon moors becoming mired in mud that would last until March.
But here, flowers bloomed and leaves never fell in this land of eternal sun where there was only spring and summer, never winter.
He found Ismay beside a Neptune fountain, her hand trailing in the water. ‘Our plan isn’t working,’ he offered with no preamble. There was no telling how much time they had out here before someone came to check on them.
‘It’s not been given a chance.’ Ismay looked up, shaking the water from her fingertips.
‘In hindsight, I fear I may have tipped our hand that first night when I spoke with my mother. I asked her what they would do if the match was not amenable to us. Perhaps she and my father suspected we might try that route. In response, they’ve not given us a chance to showcase how unsuited we are to each other.
My father has your days busy at the warehouse, and my mother has packed my schedule with dress fittings for my trousseau, tea with the local leading ladies and wedding plans.
I don’t have a chance to breathe. I haven’t worked on my own studies for weeks now.
’ Alistair heard the little crack in her voice.
She was trying to be angry, instead of panicked, and was not quite succeeding.
He didn’t want her panicked, didn’t want to bring on another attack like the one the night of the announcement.
‘My mother even took me to look at a house off Piazza Vittoria.’ Ismay blew out a breath, steadying herself in an overt effort to tamp the panic down.
‘How can we prove we’re unsuited to one another if we’re never allowed to be together?
At this rate, they’ll keep us too busy to do anything but be pushed towards the altar with no opportunity to push back. ’