Chapter Fourteen
Ismay didn’t want to bring up the discussion she’d had with her mother, but she had to.
Their plan required it. She’d meant to tell Alistair before their visit with Monticelli was over, and now it nearly was.
There hadn’t been a good time to discuss something so mundane as their engagement ruse, what with Alistair nearly falling off the mountain.
Ismay stood on the veranda of Monticelli’s villa, coffee mug in hand, staring at the mountain, which continued to smoke and belch and rumble.
She could not stop seeing those terrible moments two nights ago in her head.
One moment Alistair had been there, right behind her, and the next he’d simply disappeared, vanished.
He’d nearly died because of her. She’d been the one who wanted to go up the mountain, and he—who didn’t like heights, which had been a shocking revelation to her—had come because she’d asked him.
Just as he would leave soon because she’d asked him.
‘I think I like the mountain better at a distance.’ Alistair stepped out onto the veranda to join her.
‘Are you cold? I brought your shawl.’ The mountain had changed them, softened them.
Alistair was more solicitous; she was less sharp.
Perhaps there was something to the French concept of venire ensemble.
They had come together as a result of their climb.
She let him drape the shawl around her shoulders.
There was a bitter wind this morning. While the chill would never equal the biting cold of an English winter, the weather had definitely turned.
‘Thank you. I wanted to speak with you, privately.’ Verandas were good for that. A couple could be seen, thus satisfying the need for respectability, while not being heard satisfied the need for privacy.
‘Is everything all right?’ He was immediately concerned, another sign of the softening between them.
‘My mother spoke with me before we left. The ruse is succeeding. She and my father are concerned about the quality of our attachment. We are too wild together. She has asked me to consider the wisdom of marriage to you. I am to decide before the engagement party.’ She studied him cautiously, looking for signs of a reaction.
How would he take the news? How did she want him to take the news?
If it was a relief for him, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see him celebrate being rid of her simply because she was not exactly celebrating being rid of him.
And yet, that was what they’d worked for, wasn’t it? To be rid of each other?
‘You don’t sound like this is good news to you.’ Alistair leaned his elbows on the railing and looked out to the olive groves on the slopes. He was clearly being careful with his words, careful not to commit himself one way or the other. In short, he was being careful with her.
‘It’s the way it has come about that bothers me. It’s being shaped as entirely your fault. You have led me astray and caused me to act in ways that are against my better judgement. I am your victim.’
He considered this with a nod. ‘It’s better that way. Society will forgive you, and it will be your parents breaking the engagement, just as we wanted.’
‘But the blame will fall on you alone. That was not intended,’ Ismay countered. She wanted him to understand she was not happy with that development.
‘Iz, it’s all right.’ It was the fourth time he’d called her that. He’d started doing it on the mountain, and it did queer things to her stomach, causing it to flip and flutter. He made the nickname sound warm, intimate. ‘Smile, you shall soon be free.’
‘Just when I was getting used to you,’ she teased to lighten the moment.
He grinned. ‘Were you? Getting used to me?’ He elbowed her.
‘I was getting used to you, too. You’re not as bad as I remember.
But you know where this ends if we don’t end it.
Neither of us is looking for long-term commitments.
’ They were silent for a long while, listening to the wind soughing in the olive trees.
‘It’s not like I’m leaving tomorrow, Iz.
We have two weeks until you have to formally break it off.
We can still have fun.’ His eyes twinkled.
‘We can really take advantage of our situation. We can’t let up now, or your mother will change her mind.
’ He was right about that. If Alistair should ostensibly reform, her mother would reverse course.
That made her smile. ‘What are you suggesting?’
‘I am suggesting we break a few rules before it’s over. Just to keep the pressure on, of course. Then we’ll cap it off with a spectacularly bad wager at Danton’s horse race the day before the party.’
Or not. It was all up to her now. Her mother’s ultimatum had put it all squarely on her shoulders.
It wouldn’t be fair to trap Alistair at the last by not crying off.
He would despise her for it, and she would hate herself for the duplicity.
‘Here’s to one last prank, then.’ Her voice trembled, and she felt her throat tighten. No, no, no. Not now.
‘Breathe, Iz.’ Alistair spoke softly. ‘You’ve got this.
Don’t let it conquer you. There’s nothing to be afraid of.
’ The mountain chose that moment to rumble, as if in disapproval, the ground shaking.
She lost her balance, but Alistair was there to steady her, to hold her close until the tremor passed.
‘It’s nothing,’ she assured Alistair, transferring her own panic to concern for him.
There’d been a series of small earthquakes since they’d gotten back from the climb.
The tremors had rattled Monticelli’s dishes.
‘I’m fine, too.’ She took a deep breath.
She liked the safety of his embrace, the swift reaction of his protection a little too much.
She would have to learn to live without it.
He guided her to a chair on the terrace. ‘Even so, sit for a bit, Iz. There’s no rush. Tell me about these attacks. You mentioned that you’ve not always had them. When did they start?’
She looked down at her hands. ‘It’s embarrassing and silly. I don’t want to discuss it.’ His hands moved into her view, covering hers.
‘I’m afraid of heights. That’s silly, too, and embarrassing. I’ve told you my fear so now you need to tell me yours.’ He peered up at her with a grin, and she laughed.
‘All right, I’ll tell you,’ she said, relenting. He was far too irresistible. ‘They started after Edward broke the engagement. They just come out of the blue.’
Alistair’s brow scrunched. ‘Do you really believe that? Because I don’t think that’s true.
Every time we talk about long-term commitment, you panic.
The afternoon after the science lecture, you were afraid I’d not keep my word about breaking the engagement, and you panicked.
The other times, too. But you didn’t panic when I fell off the mountain. ’
‘You don’t like long-term relationships either.’
‘That’s not the point. The point is that your attacks have a source.’ She felt him squeeze her hand. ‘I don’t want you panicking over me, Iz. My word is good.’
She offered a tremulous smile and said softly, ‘I know.’ Sometimes that worried her, too. What did she fear most? That Alistair would leave and break her heart, or that he would stay and she would break his? Disappoint him as she’d disappointed Edward and her parents?
The mountain trembled again, providing distraction. ‘I think your friend, Monticelli, is a brave man to live on the very slopes that bore the brunt of the 79 AD eruption. Or he is less intelligent than I gave him credit for.’
‘He should be worried. I have discussed it with him and encouraged him to think about relocating for the time being. The mountain is up to something, although to be fair, it’s been erupting steadily for the better part of the century.
But these tremors are different. If we could study them, measure them, track them, I think they would offer insight into the state of the volcano.
They could act as an early warning system.
’ She shielded her eyes and looked up the slopes.
She’d like to get up there again in daylight and have a real look around.
‘Is that what your paper was about?’ Alistair appeared genuinely interested, but that was one of his gifts, making someone, anyone, feel as if they had the sum of his attentions.
‘Yes. Professor Loughty said it was too hypothetical, fantastical even, because we have no way to track or study earthquakes with any precision. The tools simply don’t exist.’
‘Yet.’ Alistair’s smile warmed her, or maybe it was the confidence behind that one word. ‘You could invent them.’
‘Build my own experiment from the ground up?’
‘If you must.’ The ground shook again, and Alistair’s grip on her tightened. ‘Would Monticelli come home with us? I don’t like the idea of leaving him here.’
‘He has a place in town if he so desires. He’s just being stubborn. He says San Gennaro will protect him.’
Alistair raised a brow. ‘The scientist is superstitious? Does he understand that combination makes no sense?’
She laughed at the reaction. ‘Well, he was a monk first. At their cores, faith and science aren’t all that different. Both of them seek answers to the unknown.’
‘How does he think San Gennaro will protect him?’ Alistair was still trying to piece the dichotomy together.
‘By liquefying his dried blood, of course,’ she replied with a straight face just to watch Alistair’s disbelief. ‘December sixteenth is the next liquefaction.’ She wished she hadn’t added the last. Alistair wouldn’t be here by then. She didn’t need the reminder.
‘You will have to explain that to me on the way home. Shall we say farewell to our host? I think I’ve had enough of Mount Vesuvius up close for a while.’
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