Chapter Eighteen
Waking early, loving late and slipping back to his room undetected before sunrise were the delicious bookends to Alistair’s days; days that were punctuated by erotically charged furtive forays darting into alcoves or dark unused spaces at the events they attended.
The winter social season was fully under way in Naples.
The famed Neapolitan opera, the theatre with late suppers at restaurants afterwards, and balls and card parties filled their evenings, and they took every chance to give this passion between them an outlet.
Perhaps like him, she was searching for a way through, hoping there would be a sign.
Perhaps their passion would wane. It would make it easy to suggest this was merely a physical infatuation.
As soon as the newness of it faded, all else would fade, too.
He was sure of it. It was how it had always worked in the past.
But satiation wasn’t satisfaction, and Alistair was quickly discovering the hungry difference.
The more he had of Ismay, the more he wanted.
The fire was feeding itself—a rather shocking realisation for a man who tired of a mistress in no more than three months and quite often much sooner.
But there was no tiring, there was only the sharp, exquisite edge of desire that he carried with him until the next time and the next.
Alistair lifted his chin as his valet finished tying his cravat.
Tonight was the Eddingtons’ card party. He had it on good authority that card party was a fairly mild term for what the evening actually entailed, with their drawing room turned into a full gaming hell for the night.
But it was tastefully done, Sir Thomas had assured him at dinner, adding that everyone looked forward to it each year, especially the ladies who didn’t have much chance for such fun beyond penny antes at whist. Sir Thomas had offered an indulgent smile for his wife and daughter.
People were also moderate in their betting so as not to give the evening a sordid cast with exorbitant wagers a man might regret in the morning.
He’d offered the last as instruction more than exposition.
Alistair understood the lesson Sir Thomas meant to impart.
It was a plea for him to be on his best behaviour, to show everyone the man who worked beside Sir Thomas at the warehouse as opposed to the dashing rake who escorted Ismay about town.
Ismay had pressed his foot with her toe under the table in warning.
Alistair knew that message, too. They could not let up, not for a minute.
The horse race and the engagement party were just days away now, and Sir Thomas was on the proverbial fence about Alistair’s suitability, just as they’d planned.
A reckless wager tonight would help push him in the right direction.
He would not want to marry his daughter to a wastrel.
‘Thank you, that will be all,’ he dismissed the valet and slipped a ring on his finger—a sapphire of good quality but of no particular sentiment to him.
He’d won it in a wager years ago and kept it because it was an attractive, versatile piece.
Tonight, though, he might wager it, might make up a story about it to increase the stakes behind the bet.
He flexed his hand, feeling the weight of the ring, and stepped out into the hallway. Ismay was just emerging from her room, and she smiled mischievously when she saw him. ‘Are you ready to have some fun?’ She held up a reticule jingling with coins. His Ismay did love a good wager.
‘What fun would you be referring to? The moderate betting your father spoke of, or do you have a different kind of fun in mind?’ Alistair teased in low tones, his body already rousing at the sight of her in an emerald-green gown with a black lace overlay cut more provocatively than her usual style, perhaps because of the occasion.
Gambling nights required something beyond normal fashion.
The waist was tighter, the bodice lower, her breasts pushed up higher.
She laughed and leaned towards him. He could smell the fresh jasmine and the zesty lemon of her perfume.
It took all of his willpower not to drop his eyes to the temptation of her bodice.
He’d clock the first man who gave in to that temptation tonight.
‘I have been to the Eddingtons’ before. There’s a library they never use that gives out onto the garden. ’
They reached the top of the staircase, and Ismay pressed his arm to signal a halt. ‘Wait just a moment. I want to look at you.’ She reached up and patted his cravat—a very domestic gesture to any onlooker, but it had him already thinking about the little-used library.
‘It’s fine, my valet just finished it ten minutes ago,’ he protested at the fussing.
‘It’s a mathematical.’ She gave him a secret smile. ‘I’m studying your knot for later, after I’ve taken your clothes off and have to dress you again.’
‘Careful, my dear,’ he warned at her ear as they started their descent towards her waiting parents.
‘I will need all my wits tonight if I am to push your father to a decision.’ She did not play fair.
She knew full well what her words, her images, would do to him.
Now he had to sit beside her father and across from her mother in the carriage and pretend their daughter hadn’t given him an erection to rival Vesuvius.
* * *
There was already a groundswell of boisterous noise when they arrived at the Eddingtons’ townhome off Via Toledo not far from the Chevalier DuBois’s, where they’d attended the scientific lecture.
Lord Eddington was a short, round, jolly man with keen eyes, who held an undefined ombudsman position in Naples for the British government.
No one was quite sure what he did beyond hosting lavish parties, but Alistair had come to discover Eddington was at the heart of anything British that happened in town.
Whatever the man did, he was not struggling.
Alistair surreptitiously appraised the wealth on display as he escorted Ismay through the crowd—and it was a crowd, what his mother would call a crush, a well-dressed crush with men in dark evening clothes and women in bright silks and jewels standing two and three deep at the gaming tables while tenacious footmen braved the crowds with carefully balanced trays of ice-cold champagne.
Some of Eddington’s wealth was on the walls, displayed in the artwork of Caracciolo and Stanzione, both of whom were reminiscent of Caravaggio, and both of whom were native to Naples.
It was a polite homage to the city, and Alistair wondered out loud if the artists had been selected with that purpose in mind.
‘Most definitely. Eddington does nothing without calculation.’ Ismay laughed.
‘You have become quite the appraiser already. My father has wasted no time teaching you the artefact business. But I think the talent was perhaps already there?’ Ismay unfurled her fan and looked about the room.
‘What else of value is in this room?’ Her eyes sparked. She was testing him.
‘Well, one’s wealth is not always measured in the things one displays but in the people one knows.
’ He slid a glance her direction to see if she was impressed.
‘Everyone here serves a purpose for Eddington. He is a master of l’arte di arrangiarsi.
’ Alistair winked, using her term from the market.
He nodded towards one group. ‘The British ambassador has obvious uses. Colonel Lord Stevenson likely has connections to military contracts.’
‘And my father? What purpose does he serve? He has no government or military position.’ She nodded as a couple they knew walked past.
‘Eddington has been to the warehouse a few times. Your father is a man with a title and represents status to him. Eddington likes to surround himself with titles since he doesn’t have one of his own.
Also, your father can help build his collections and present himself to society as a man of refinement.
’ He leaned close to Ismay. ‘Refinement has not always been easy for Eddington. When he gets in his cups, he talks about life before he was an ombudsman. Let’s just say his wealth is not generational. ’
Another couple he knew passed as did several of Sir Thomas’s clients. ‘You know almost everyone here,’ Ismay commented with an impish smile. ‘I’m not surprised. You’ve made an impact in a short time. You always do.’
Alistair supposed he’d been aware of that on an implicit level.
But standing here tonight, surrounded by all of these people, drove the reality home deeply, explicitly.
Without meaning to, he’d built a life, the beginnings of a career here in Naples.
His days had subtly shaped themselves around having purpose both for now and for the future.
There was much he might do here: work for economic reform, build a support system for the city’s poor, start a women’s scientific journal with Ismay.
In time, he might become a man like Eddington with his own arte di arrangiarsi.
But there was no time for that. He was supposed to leave—leave Ismay and the career, the life, the friends and the purpose he’d found.
He’d not think on it. Those things had not yet come to pass, nor would they if he didn’t do a different type of job tonight.
He took Ismay’s hand and raised it to his lips with a smile.
‘We have work to do. Shall we play some vingt-et-un?’
They found places at a table with her parents and settled in to play, laughing, drinking, flirting with one another in the form of public dares. Ismay challenged him to hit on the dreaded sixteen. ‘I’ll wager five piastra if you take a card,’ she said coyly over her fan.
‘I’ll bust,’ Alistair replied, grinning as he played along.
‘Sixteen is most unlucky to hit on,’ the man beside Ismay explained patiently as if she didn’t know.