Chapter Ten #2
Alistair was tempted to say yes just so he could touch her lips, make her tremble as she’d trembled last night, all for the sake of toying with her incredible composure.
He shook his head. ‘No, your face is fine. I was just savouring.’ Savouring her, savouring the pizza, the simple perfection of the moment and the irony of it.
How was it that he was sitting beside a fountain over a thousand miles from home, eating street food with a woman he professed to dislike, with a marriage threatening, and yet he was at peace?
He took another bite. ‘The pizza is good. It might be my new favourite food.’ Although, he wondered if it would taste as good without her.
His father always said company made the meal.
She laughed, pleased by his response. ‘I knew you’d like it. It’s rebellious. Like you. Like us.’
‘What did you say to the vendor back there? I caught the words “two slices”, but the rest was beyond me.’
‘I told him we wanted large pieces because you were always hungry.’ She sobered and tilted her head. ‘Like the child in the mercato. It was kind of you to give him the apple.’
‘There are poor children in London, too.’ Alistair shifted, uncomfortable with the hidden thanks in the comment. It had hardly been a heroic act. ‘An apple does very little.’
‘Poverty is one of Naples’s great failings, as I’m sure you noted on our walk down.
People living wherever they can, eating whatever they can.
The poor are entirely dependent on street food since they have no way to prepare food on their own.
But in order to have food, they must have money to buy it.
There is no work.’ She gave a shake of her head.
‘Not enough of it, anyway. Even for those who are better off, work is a struggle. We have a saying here, l’arte di arrangiarsi. ’
‘The art of arranging things,’ Alistair translated, privately proud of himself.
‘It’s a system of favours and networking in order to attach oneself to someone who has more than they do.
For example, a friend of a friend might have a family member who is attached to a nobleman’s household because he provides tomatoes to the kitchen, and perhaps he can help you find a position in the stables, if that makes sense. ’
‘It’s a very precarious way to live.’ Alistair was thoughtful.
‘It’s the result of centuries of mismanagement.
The nobles came and built beautiful homes, and on the surface the city seemed revitalised, but underneath all of that, the problems have kept eating away at it.
Whenever reform has been seriously discussed, nothing has ever concretely resulted.
Unlike England, where reform may be slow but is creeping forward. ’
‘It’s no wonder the people finally rebelled this summer.’ Alistair paused, a thought coming to him. ‘Was your family in any danger during that time?’ There’d been little news with details in it that had reached Florence, or perhaps he simply hadn’t been paying attention.
She shook her head. ‘No, one of the benefits of living on the Vomero Hill is that it’s remote.
It also helps that the British in Naples favour the idea of unification.
Fortunately, it didn’t come to choosing sides.
The rebellion was short, barely ten days if you count the beginning on July second and then by July thirteenth the king had accepted a constitution, after which he fled to Austria and left his son, Francis, as the vicar-general. ’
‘I’m glad you were safe. I don’t like thinking of your family or your home in harm’s way. Sometimes foreigners can be easy targets, regardless of sides.’
Ismay was quick to pick up on the grimness in his remark. ‘Is that what happened in Florence with your cousin, Hayes?’
‘Yes. Hayes and his wife, Evelisse, purchased a vineyard that a member of the Carbonari had been interested in as well, although not for winemaking purposes. He’d wanted it as an outpost for Carbonari activities. Retribution was exacted. And then Hayes and I exacted some retribution of our own.’
She nodded solemnly. ‘I am glad Hayes is safe. He was always kind to me.’ Then she grinned and nudged him gently with the toe of her boot. ‘Even when you were not. You were a horrid boy.’
‘You were a horrid girl.’ Alistair grinned back.
‘Always trying to steal my thunder.’ She wasn’t so horrid now.
She was just lost, flailing in the deep seas of the world, trying to find a path forward before she drowned.
Not unlike himself. It was not a comparison lightly made, and the realisation was a thunder-clap all its own, despite there being no sign of rain.
There was only the rhythmic trickle of the fountain, and yet the discovery left him thunderstruck.
She was like him. He fought the urge to reach for her hand.
There was no reason for the gesture. There was no one to see, no one to gossip about his overfamiliarity and inappropriateness to help perpetuate the ruse.
No reason except the need to feel connected to another.
Ismay cleared her throat in the silence. ‘It’s getting too hot for roaming around. Perhaps we should go see the house so we can tell Mother we did, and then I’ll take you to my favourite bookstore on the way home.’
The rest of the afternoon was for show. Alistair was on his best worst behaviour with the agent at the house.
He cavalierly discussed money and dismissed the rather exorbitant price of the house as if he hadn’t a responsible financial bone in his body.
‘Of course, it’s not my money,’ he said more than once.
‘It’s my soon-to-be father-in-law’s.’ He made sure to make not-so-hidden innuendos about the size of the bed in the master’s chambers, and to his delight, Ismay did not disappoint, answering him smile for smile, laugh for laugh, until they had the estate agent blushing and ahemming behind his hand as he tried to lead the tour.
‘What about parties?’ Ismay asked the embarrassed agent. ‘We are excited to entertain. Card parties, gambling nights, we love a high-stakes card game. Don’t we, mio caro?’ She beamed mischievously, and Alistair suppressed a laugh.