To Deceive a Duke (15 page)

C
lio backed away until she felt the hard edge of the dressing table against her hips, trapping her in place. She tightened her fingers over the bowl, staring at Edward, unable to look away. She was truly caught, like a helpless fly covered over in sticky, irresistibly beautiful amber.

Somehow, she was not even surprised to see him there. The whole hazy, unreal scene had the cold air of inevitability about it. The feeling that the two of them had played this through before and would again, on and on into eternity.

‘Where did you get this?’ she whispered, holding up the bowl.

‘I think a more pertinent question for the moment, my dear, is why do
you
have it?’ he answered. He moved slowly toward her, graceful and intent as a predatory tiger. He reached out and clasped her wrist in a lover-like caress, yet Clio found she could not move. His touch was like a velvet-lined iron manacle.

He plucked the bowl from her numb fingers, holding it up to the lamplight. The flickering golden-red flames shimmered on the old silver. ‘Have you gone back to your old
ways, perhaps?’ he said. He did not watch her, his veiled gaze never leaving the bowl, yet Clio could not turn her stare away from him.

What was his intention? What would he do? Clio swallowed hard against the sudden cold wave of uncertain fear and growing excitement. The very unreadable quality she hated about him was also one of the things that made her feel so very
alive
when she was with him.

The infuriating man!

‘I have not resurrected the Lily Thief,’ she said, her voice tight.

His glance flickered over her black garb. ‘Indeed? Just out for a lark, then?’

Clio flexed her fingers and twisted her wrist hard, breaking free of his grasp. She edged away from him until she stood with her back to the wall. She knew she could never escape from this room, not until he chose to let her go, but at least when they were not touching she could think more clearly.

Could remember why she was here. To find out the truth about the silver. To find out if he was the ‘English’ collector who would pay any price to possess it. The fact that he had the bowl at all pointed to ‘yes’.

The question was, what was she going to do about it? What
could
she do, caught here as she was?

‘I heard a rumour in town,’ she said. ‘Strange tales of a cache of fabulous Hellenistic silver, lost for hundreds of years. About people who would pay vast sums to keep that silver to themselves, no matter where it rightfully belongs. No matter who they hurt.’

‘If such a treasure exists, I would say its “rightful” owners are long dead,’ Edward said calmly. He laid the bowl back into the box with the silk, closing the lid over it. ‘But I have heard
such tales myself. Santa Lucia—indeed, all of Sicily—is rife with such things.’

‘Is that why you came here, then? To follow Sicilian tales of treasure?’

‘Why have any of us come here, Clio?’ He turned to face her, his back to the box. His expression was still that veiled, blank look. Calm and faintly contemptuous as any classical statue hewn in marble. ‘I am not the villain in this scene.’

‘Then why do you have that bowl? Where did you come by it? Where is the rest of the silver?’

‘So many questions, my dear. But I do not feel inclined to indulge someone who has broken into my home and rifled through my possessions—again. And after all your assurances that your life of crime was over. Tsk. What would your sister, the oh-so-proper Lady Westwood, say?’

Clio felt a lava flow of bubbling, sparkling anger rise up inside her, red-black and irresistible. She flew toward him, beating at his shoulders and chest with her fists, furious at his calm, at that little half-smile on his beautiful lips that hinted he just might be enjoying this little confrontation.

That smile vanished at the fury of her onslaught. He caught her shoulders in his iron clasp, holding her immobilised, a tiny, angry vein throbbing in his hard-set jaw. A ragged sob escaped Clio’s lips, born of fear and frustration, of not seeing, not understanding. Not being in control.

‘Tell me why you have that bowl!’ she cried. ‘Why are you here?’

Edward gave her a small shake, as if to awaken her, awaken them both, from the enveloping spell of their mutual anger and need. ‘I have told you why I’m here,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I can help you, if you will let me. But, blast it, Clio! You make it hard indeed. Creeping around at night, climbing in windows…’

‘How are you helping me? I
have
to climb in windows, to discover for myself what is happening when no one will tell me.’

‘I cannot tell you, Clio.’

‘Cannot, or will not? Because you think I am a mere weak female, who must be protected for her own good?’

‘You are hardly a “mere weak” anything, Clio Chase. You are the most fearsomely courageous person I have ever seen, not to mention the most stubborn.’

Clio swallowed back the bitter knot of tears, more confused than ever. ‘Then you know I am stubborn enough to not give up, to discover what is going on here on my own. Why won’t you just make things easier for us both, and tell me?’

‘Because, my dear, I do not yet know myself. You have been a terrible distraction.’

A distraction from buying the silver? ‘
I
have been a distraction? What of you? I have not been able to see to my work since you arrived here. My studies, the farmhouse, all neglected.’

‘Perhaps that is all for the best,’ he muttered.

Clio unclenched her fists, her palms flat against his chest. She felt the rich silkiness of satin, the crisp linen of his evening clothes, the strong, primitive beat of his heart beneath. The pounding of his life’s blood, mingled with the fevered rhythm of her own. ‘What do you mean?’

His touch gentled on her shoulders, sliding around her back. ‘I mean that your precious farmhouse has something to do with the silver.’

‘How can that be? The people who lived there were prosperous enough, but they could never have afforded pieces like the silver. I have seen nothing like it at the site. Besides, the
tombaroli
would have looted anything of value long ago.’

‘Despite the curse of the angry spirits?’

‘I don’t understand,’ Clio said. She didn’t know if she meant the silver, or the strange, crackling energy pulsing between them. The invisible power that bound her to him wherever she went.

‘Just please listen to me for once in your life, Clio,’ he said, his touch tightening along her back, drawing her closer to him. ‘Give up the Lily Thief, stay away from the farmhouse, and watch your back wherever you go. Forget about the blasted silver. It might not even exist.’

Clio shook her head. ‘I
do
watch my back, Edward. But if that silver exists, if it is indeed a cache of lost temple pieces, it’s too precious and sacred to let disappear. To see it vanish into some greedy collector’s vault.’

She glanced over at the Alabaster Goddess, still poised in her eternal vigilance. Clio had let
her
down, had lost her to Edward. She couldn’t lose the silver, too. How could she trust him when he hid the bowl away?

She turned from Artemis, staring up at Edward as if she could read the truth in his eyes. His face was half in gloomy darkness, lit by the flickering caress of the low-burning lamp. It was all sharply sculpted angles, smooth, sun-touched skin, the map of some undiscovered country.

He watched her, too, with a wary hunger to match her own.

‘What will you do to me, then?’ she whispered. ‘You have no dungeon here, as you do in your Yorkshire castle.’

‘I’m sure there must be one somewhere,’ he muttered roughly. She felt his caress move up the arc of her spine, felt him remove her cap. Her hair, loosely pinned up, tumbled down over her shoulders. His fingers twined lightly in the strands, holding her his prisoner as surely as any dungeon.

‘All those Normans and Bourbons,’ he continued. ‘They had to hold their captives somewhere.’

‘Not to mention the Romans and Saracens,’ Clio said. ‘The Spanish mercenaries…’

‘Perhaps there is a nice, quiet little oubliette somewhere in the castle,’ he said, pulling her closer and closer until there was not even a ray of light between them. Clio slid her arms around his neck, closing her eyes to breathe deeply of his warm scent, to let herself be surrounded by him. To forget, for just a moment.

‘An oubliette?’ she murmured.

‘Oh, yes,’ he answered softly, his breath stirring her loose curls, moving over her aching skin like a cool breeze. ‘A nice, quiet, dark hole, just big enough for two people to fall into and hide there for ever.’

Clio was sure she
was
falling, tumbling end over end into him and how he made her feel, leaving all else behind. Sense, practicality, even identity—they were all as nothing when she was with him. ‘So, there are two prisoners, then?’

‘Oh, Clio,’ he said, his voice so rough and sad. ‘Of course there are.’

And he kissed her, a kiss full of all the need and longing Clio could not express, could not even understand. Her fingers tightened on the nape of his neck, holding him to her, leaning into him. He tasted of lemons, of the night, of ancient mysteries, of all she had ever wanted and yet was forbidden. He was all she fought against, yet he felt like her only haven in a stormy world. She couldn’t stay away from him.

Their lips slid away from each other, from the desperate melding of their kiss. He leaned his forehead to hers, and they stood there in heated silence, wrapped in a longing that could not be broken. They could not move forwards, yet neither could they snap that bond and move away.

‘What will you do with me?’ she asked, her words like a
whipcrack in the quiet. A lash that tore at their tenuous control.

Edward laughed harshly. ‘Right now, I am going to take you home, before I forget who we are and carry you to that bed over there. Tomorrow, the day after? I have not yet decided. But I want you to stay away from your farmhouse, at least for a while.’ He drew back, cradling her face between his hands as he studied her closely. As if he could read all her secrets in her eyes. ‘Listen to me, Clio. Stay away.’

‘So, I must still watch my back, eh?’ she said. She reached up and closed her fingers around one of his wrists, holding him to her.

‘Did you not say you always do that anyway?’

‘I do, and my vigilance is usually rewarded. No one has ever caught me, except you.’

‘I could say the same about
you
.’ Edward scooped her cap up from the floor, handing it to her before he turned away. Their touch was broken, yet Clio still felt him wrapped tightly around all her senses. Like a beautiful, drugging dream that made her forget all else, made her want to bask in its glow for ever.

She, too, turned away, toward the dressing-table mirror. She looped up her hair, tucking it into the cap again. In the unforgiving glass she saw that her cheeks glowed a brilliant pink. Her eyes were fever-bright, glittering with desires and fears she dared not yet name. Even to herself.

The closed box lid was before her, concealing the silver and the scrap of green silk, hiding all that they meant. For a while, a moment, she could pretend they did not exist. That there was only her and Edward, and their kiss in the night.

But soon the sun would come up, and shine its mercilessly revealing rays on the world, on reality. She would still have
to find the truth about the silver, try to save it, because it was in her nature to do so. Just as it was Edward’s nature to stop her however he could, for reasons known only to him.

She would truly have to watch her back, as she did not know which would prove more dangerous, the
tombaroli
or Edward. Or even if they were one and the same.

She tucked the last wayward strand of auburn hair into her cap, and spun around to find Edward holding out his own black velvet cloak to her.

‘It has a hood,’ he said, draping the soft folds over her shoulders. His hands lingered there for a long, sweet moment, as if he would not, could not, let her go. ‘In case we should pass anyone on the street.’

Clio gave a ragged laugh, drawing the cloak closer around her. The fabric smelled of him, still held his lingering warmth. ‘Which would be worse, to be thought a thief, or to be thought your paramour?’

‘Why not both?’ he said roughly.

‘Why not indeed?’ Clio drew up the hood, retreating into its satin-lined concealment. It made her feel rather like a ghost herself, able to flit around ruins dispensing curses.

‘Well, shall we go the way you came?’ Edward said, gesturing to the windows. ‘Or shall we be dull and take the door?’

‘The door, I think,’ Clio answered. ‘I am not so young as I once was, and clambering in windows is harder than I remembered.’

‘The door it is, then.’ Edward took her arm firmly through the enveloping layers of wool and velvet, leading her out into the silent corridor. ‘Just out of curiosity, my dear, how
did
you manage to gain entry to my house?’

‘I am not sure I ought to give away all my secrets,’ Clio
said, as they hurried out of the door and into the hush of the sleeping town. They were alone for a few minutes more. ‘But you will no doubt discover it anyway. I climbed the tree in your back garden and found an unlocked window to one of the bedchambers.’

‘Very clever of you,’ he said. ‘You are a veritable Artemis of athletic prowess.’

She glanced at him suspiciously from under the hood. ‘Are you making jest of me?’

‘Not at all, my dear. Your ingenuity never fails to astonish me. You find your way into places that seem quite impregnable.’

Clio laughed quietly. ‘Indeed, I rather pride myself on that. But you are lucky I am not Artemis in truth.’

‘And why is that?’

‘Surely you remember Actaeon? He committed the unpardonable sin of watching the goddess while she bathed. Then she turned him into a stag and shot him full of arrows.’ Clio saw her house just ahead, dark and dreaming in the night. It appeared no one had yet missed her. She hurried towards it, turning back at the gate to find him watching her.