Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
“Who is that gentleman?” Giovanni asked Silas quietly, carefully watching Beatrice and Anna from afar.
Beatrice was glowing. Beatrice was blessed with creamy, pale skin, but dark hair and eyes that were set off deliciously against the frosty white and warm gold of her gown.
Giovanni knew it was a gown designed to make her look both alluring and tempting—Anna had chosen it so that Beatrice would look as appealing as possible to potential suitors, and it was clearly working.
Wherever Giovanni looked around the room, gentlemen’s eyes were darting over towards Silas Klane’s sister as she smiled and laughed with her equally beautiful sister-in-law and the gentleman standing with her.
“Viscount Milton,” Silas answered, sipping his wine and watching his wife coordinate an introduction.
“What sort of man is he?” Giovanni asked, assessing the viscount carefully.
To Giovanni, he looked like every other well-bred society gentleman—if perhaps particularly good-looking—but Giovanni could see the way Beatrice smiled at him generously.
It lit a flame of jealousy inside him. He wished he could look away, but she was too delightful to deny himself.
“A good man, by all reports,” Silas said. “Anna has carefully researched his family, and she knows his mother relatively well.”
“And Mrs. Klane thinks he would be a good match for Beatrice?” Giovanni asked, trying not to sound awkward.
He had known Beatrice for ten years, and had been like another brother to her, but he had never really spoken to Silas about her prospects.
No matter how close he and Silas were, no matter that Giovanni loved Silas as his own blood, the intricacies and politics of Beatrice’s marriage was something Giovanni had never been included in.
“He is wealthy, he has a proud lineage and title, he is young with a good reputation, no debts or vices to speak of,” Silas listed, each point making Giovanni resentful towards this dashing young suitor. “He would make a good husband for my sister.”
“If she likes him,” Giovanni added quietly, instantly regretting it. Silas had always been focused on how important it was for Beatrice’s future for her to marry a man of wealth, but sometimes he could be dismissive of Beatrice’s desire to marry a man she liked.
“Yes, of course,” Silas nodded. “But he is very well-liked. There is no reason why she shouldn’t.”
Giovanni loved his friend, would die in his service and fight his battles for him, but he couldn’t help but sometimes feel frustrated by his obsession with social standing.
Giovanni understood, of course, that Silas had struggled brutally to achieve his status as the dreaded Lucifer of London.
Silas believed that by marrying into a noble household, his sister would finally be protected from any of the scrutiny attached to him.
But it made Silas single-minded—he sometimes couldn’t see how high the standard he set for Beatrice was.
“Beatrice is naturally guarded, Lucifer,” Giovanni said, cautiously trying to broach the topic. “She struggles to…to reveal her heart even to those in her family.”
“I know that,” Silas’s words were very soft, so he would not be overheard. “Especially after what happened to Anna.”
“Indeed,” Giovanni answered quietly, the two of them remembering together the terror and pain of Anna’s kidnapping two years prior.
Giovanni knew that Silas still lived with the fear that something like that could happen again, but to Beatrice, or—God forbid—to his young son.
Giovanni also felt that fear, but rather than want to push Beatrice towards an attachment to someone wealthy who might protect her, Giovanni’s instinct was to hold Beatrice close, to protect her himself.
The idea of her leaving Silas’s home and estate made him nervous.
He just wished that Silas would feel the same. He tried to speak his thoughts again.
“With that in mind, should she not… be attached to someone she knows? Someone she trusts implicitly?”
“Gio, I would never bring someone into the family I did not trust,” Silas said quickly, reaching out to grasp Giovanni’s shoulder briefly. “I would never let anyone get close to us whom I didn’t think would keep our secrets safe.”
On the one hand, Giovanni was glad that Silas didn’t suspect that his concern had more to do with wanting to keep Beatrice near him rather than protecting their old secrets.
On the other hand, he was concerned that Silas had already considered this so carefully.
How far had Silas and Anna discussed this match?
Was this young viscount already preparing a proposal?
“And you think Lord Milton might be that man?” Giovanni asked, his mouth dry. “You’ve decided that he is appropriate?”
“I think he could be,” Silas said cautiously. Giovanni took a sliver of hope from his words. So Silas was not entirely sure of this man. Nothing was set in stone.
“You are not sure?” Giovanni asked, hoping to confirm his thoughts.
“I will be,” Silas said confidently, dashing Giovanni’s small hopes. “In time. Beatrice needs time to grow to know and be comfortable with him. I should never want my sister to marry a man she was not comfortable with. That much is a requirement.”
But you do not require her to love him, Giovanni thought to himself.
He could not say it aloud. Even though Giovanni and Silas had always been able to be honest with one another—Giovanni had never held back from serving Silas some simple truths when it was necessary—this was one thing that he would never be able to share with Silas.
His feelings towards Beatrice needed to be buried deep down inside.
Silas had saved his life; Giovanni owed him everything.
He would never jeopardize the family he had made here in England with the Klanes.
Besides, even if she only thought of him as a second brother, having Beatrice in his life was better than nothing.
“Here comes my wife,” Silas said softly, “it seems Beatrice must like him at least a little.”
Giovanni turned to watch Anna detaching from Beatrice and her suitor as the music for dancing started up.
Giovanni’s hand clenched around his brandy glass as he looked at Beatrice’s hand holding onto Lord Milton’s arm.
It seemed the entire room was watching the eligible young couple moving forward to take their place at the head of the dancers.
Giovanni noticed the twitching fans of the older women, the envious eyes of the young lords and ladies.
“She’s accepted him for two dances,” Anna said breathlessly, quickly slipping her arm into Silas’s, flushing a sweet pink that matched the crimson of her gown. “Two dances! That must be a good sign!”
“Indeed it must,” Silas responded, patting his wife’s hand at his elbow.
Giovanni’s heart clenched at this impossibly intimate and sweet gesture between two people who loved one another dearly.
It was that kind of familiarity with a partner that he longed for, a lover with whom he could share the passion of his body and the minutiae of his life.
Watching Silas find it with Anna had been both encouraging and revealing; now he knew true love was possible. Now he couldn’t settle for less.
“Must it not, Gio?” Silas asked, smiling at his friend.
“I think it must,” Giovanni said, though the words stuck in his throat.
“Oh, she is the belle of the ball!” Anna sighed, her eyes following her sister appreciatively. “I am so glad I persuaded her to wear that dress. It is perfect on her.”
“Indeed, you have done very well with her, my love,” Silas said.
Anna had been in charge of steering Beatrice’s entrance into society since she and Silas had wed.
It was a good thing, too, for Silas and Giovanni would not have had a clue between them.
With her excellent background and connections, Anna had certainly aided the Klane family’s advancement in the Ton.
“Oh, it is all Beatrice’s doing,” Anna said, flapping her fan but smiling happily. “Even though she dislikes society, she has persisted with it, and has been rewarded indeed—despite a bumpy start. Why, she has more suitors than I did when I first came out.”
“Oh, I can only imagine,” Silas teased, rolling his eyes at Giovanni.
It was a long-standing joke that while Anna had been a jewel of society, she had married beneath her in accepting Silas.
What might have caused resentment and bitterness had blossomed into deep love and the advancement of both their families for the better.
“I’m sure your dance card was positively overflowing, my love. ”
“Stop it, Silas!” Anna swatted her husband playfully with her fan, her eyes drawn back to Beatrice again. “Oh, she dances so elegantly. And look how eagerly they prepare for the second,” she whispered.
Anna was not wrong, Giovanni noticed. Beatrice was laughing gently with her partner as they applauded the musicians at the finish of the dance.
She looked to be enjoying herself. The notion stung Giovanni, and he sipped his wine, trying to distract himself by smiling flirtatiously at a red-headed woman who had been quite forward with him earlier.
Her blushes and fluttering eyelids were little consolation when Beatrice was in his line of sight, glowing like a summer flower.
“I can simply not get used to all these gentlemen watching my baby sister with such fascination,” Silas sighed heavily. “It’s always terribly odd, isn’t it, Gio?”
Giovanni nodded without thinking. It was odd for Gio, but not in the way that Silas meant.
When he saw Beatrice, it was hard for him not to see her as she was at home, as she had always been before she came out into society.
When he closed his eyes, he could still see her with her hair loose and flowing in the wind, a laughing smile on her face as she ran across the grounds at Fallenbrook, chasing after Silas’ dogs.
For Giovanni, Beatrice had always been all playfulness and lightness, an oasis of uncomplicated, innocent joy that he had always been thoroughly charmed by.
He had always had a soft spot in his heart for Silas’s young sister and always enjoyed the sweet flirtation they had shared, her wholesome blushes.
Only since she had come out into society did those feelings of tenderness deepened into something else.
Yet now, unlike Silas, it was impossible for him to look at her without seeing the elegant young woman everyone else in the room saw.
Beatrice was the most beautiful lady in the room.
The characteristic playfulness and acerbic disdain that Giovanni knew Beatrice carried for the fa?ades of society were carefully tucked away behind a tidy veneer of ladylike softness and propriety.
Her wild, flowing hair was tamed into a stylish arrangement—piled on her head, with curls falling elegantly across her brow and behind her ears to reveal the long tapering of her white, alabaster neck.
She was glowing. One might be fooled, Giovanni thought, into thinking it was merely a trick of the gold thread sewn into the white satin of her gown or the sparkling diamonds at her throat or in her earrings, but it wasn’t.
She was stunning. She always had been, but now everyone could see it.
“Her dancing has greatly improved,” Anna commented in a whisper. The music was slower this time, more reflective, and a quieter hush had briefly fallen over the room as everyone watched, mesmerized by the elegant, circling couples.
Beatrice and the viscount were at the top of the line of dancers, directly in front of Giovanni.
He tried his best not to look at Beatrice, not to admire the soft shine of pale skin and the beautiful outline of her body, not to catch her eye in any way, but he failed.
Beatrice’s eyes were like the catch of a fishing hook, and as he attempted to brush his gaze casually past her, his own eyes snagged on them.
For a moment, he was sure there was a spark of recognition that his Beatrice—the girl beneath the glitter and finery he knew so well and cared for so deeply—was staring back at him and seeing his true self underneath.
It was as if she knew that those hidden compliments, the secret squeeze of her hand in the dance, concealed the deep attraction he felt for her.
She could feel it; he knew it in his bones.
Then it was gone. In the blink of an eye, she had turned away, the dance had finished and the dancers were once again applauding the musicians. It was like he had imagined it.
She didn’t see me, Giovanni thought to himself, automatically clapping along with the others. He turned and took a long sip of wine, trying to calm himself down. It didn’t happen.
“Well,” Silas muttered beside him. “That’s a turn-up for the books.”
“Oh my!” Anna gasped. “That’s a very good sign!”
Giovanni turned back, following their gazes back to the couple on the dance floor. His stomach lurched as he watched them leaving, arm in arm, walking towards the relative privacy of the terrace, undoubtedly for a more intimate conversation.
Not on my watch, Giovanni thought, setting his wine glass back down.
“I shall go to work, Lucifer,” he said quietly, using his position as the family bodyguard as a welcome cover for following the couple.
“Thank you, Gio,” Silas said, smiling trustingly. He had no idea that a flame of anger and envy inside Giovanni's heart was beginning to burn with even more fury. “Give them plenty of room.”
“Of course,” Giovanni said. Then he turned and made his way towards the terrace with the intention of doing no such thing.