To Deceive a Duke (7 page)

T
he next day Clio did not go to her farmhouse, but to the villa with her father and sisters. She was tired from the sleepless night, the grappa, and was not sure if she should be alone in the secluded meadow until she knew more about the enemy’s plans. She might have been a thief, but never an impulsive one. It didn’t pay to act rashly, if a person wanted to achieve their goals and come out of the fray unscathed.

She had made the mistake of jumping in without the proper preparation in Yorkshire. She would not do that again.

She sat at the edge of the partially uncovered banquet hall of the villa, sketching the elaborate mosaic floor, carefully noting measurements. The people who once lived here were rather different from her prosperous but hard-working farmers. These had been the rulers of this distant outpost, this luxurious little colony built up from nothing to be the bread-basket of a kingdom. And their villa reflected that status, full of sumptuous touches like a thermal bath and elaborate courtyard gardens.

Here, in the banquet hall, the borders of the floor were inlaid with grapes, figs and pomegranates, common Greek
fertility symbols, the purple and red colours still lush and glistening after all these years. They framed scenes of parties such as the ones that must have gone on long into the night here. Diners clad in purple, blue and white robes, lounging on low couches as they gorged themselves on delicacies such as fishcakes, white breads, honeyed sweets and copious vats of wine.

Clio smiled as she drew their laughing, satisfied faces, imagining their drunken conversations. The gossip about the sexual orgies of powerful officials, the talents of actors seen recently at the amphitheatre, favourite poets, onerous new taxes. The peccadilloes of their neighbors. Surely not much had changed over the centuries. Very similar talk could be heard at Lady Riverton’s house, too.

Except for the orgies, of course. No one would even
say
such a word in the presence of an unmarried English lady! Clio laughed aloud. If only they knew how she had augmented her already surprisingly frank classical education with information from Rosa and the other Sicilians. If she had to, she now knew the best ways to breed strong goats. The best sexual positions for a human woman, too, if she wanted to conceive a boy child. The best herbal potions to use if she didn’t want to conceive a child at all. That would surely some day be useful.

‘Shocking,’ she murmured. Yes, if they all knew, Lady Riverton, the Darbys and Elliotts, the Manning-Smythes, she would be cast out of ‘good’ society.

Would that be a terrible thing? Not for herself, maybe, but for her father and sisters. They were what kept her tethered to reality.

‘What is shocking, Clio dear?’ her father asked, coming up beside her to sit down at the edge of the floor.

‘The colours of the tiles,’ Clio answered, gesturing to a pomegranate bursting with ruby-coloured seeds. ‘They could have been laid yesterday.’

‘It’s the soil, of course,’ Sir Walter said. ‘Perfect conditions for preservation, just the right level of acidity. We are quite fortunate.’

‘Indeed we are. Travelling here was a very good idea.’ Clio examined her father over the edge of her sketchbook. He seemed rather tired today, his face reddened from the southern sun, his eyes lined with purplish shadows. He appeared thinner, too, despite Rosa’s excellent cooking.

This kind of work had been his life for so long, but he was not as young as he used to be. Perhaps if he
did
marry Lady Rushworth, it would be a good thing. She would take care of him, as Clio’s mother once had.

He took the book from her hands, examining the drawings. ‘Such careful measurements and proportions, Clio. You were always good at such things.’

‘But not nearly as artistic as Cory! Her sketches grow more accomplished every day.’ Clio gestured toward her sister, working with her watercolour box under the canvas pavilion.

‘So she does. Her works bring this place back to life.’ Sir Walter laughed. ‘She talks of joining an expedition to Egypt when she is older! Painting the pyramids and hieroglyphs.’

‘She would be excellent at that, I’m sure.’

‘My dearest girls. You all were always so fanciful.’

Were?
‘That is because of you and Mother. You always gave us much to be fanciful about.’

‘Indeed we did. Yet I sometimes wonder…’ His voice trailed away, and he stared out into the distance, to the ever-vigilant, ever-patient hulk of Etna.

‘Wonder what, Father?’

‘If we raised all of you the wrong way. We wanted you to love what we loved, to see the great importance of history and art. To think for yourselves.’

Clio laughed. ‘We most assuredly do
that
!’

‘Perhaps we should have been more realistic, though. Should have taught you more of the things young ladies of your position ought to know, and lived less in our own world with our own friends. I begin to fear we did not prepare you well for life.’

‘Oh, no!’ Clio cried. ‘We all love you and Mother so very much. We love the life you’ve given us. None of us could bear the usual missish sort of existence, needlework and idle gossip…’

‘Husband hunting?’ he said teasingly, a glint in his eye.

‘Especially that.’

‘Oh, well, that is another way I have failed you. If your mother were here, she would know how to find suitable matches. I have been shockingly remiss, just drifting along, year after year, selfishly keeping you with me.’

‘Not at all! Isn’t Calliope well married? She’s a countess now. And Cameron is a good man. He loves her very much.’

‘Yes. Love. We never thought of that sort of thing when I was young. But I suppose you modern young Muses won’t do without it.’

‘You suppose correctly! But weren’t you and Mother in love? Despite—’ Clio snapped her mouth shut before she could let out those dreadful words. The secret knowledge she had held all these years, would hold for ever. ‘Despite being so young when you married.’

He smiled sadly. ‘Of course I loved your mother. Who could not? She was so beautiful, so—temperamental. Full of fire. Just like you, Clio.’

‘Like me?’

‘Of all my girls, you are the most like my Celeste. You have her hair, her eyes. Her passion.’

Clio reached out and gently touched his hand. ‘Then I must wait for my perfect match, as she did.’

He laughed. ‘I could never
match
Celeste! No one could. You must simply find someone who can keep up with you, a Herculean task in itself.’ He stood up, prodding at a mosaic flute girl with his walking stick. ‘Oh, I almost forgot! I have invited someone to take a look at the villa this morning. He’ll probably stay and share our picnic luncheon, too.’

Clio slowly closed her sketchbook. Guests at the villa were certainly nothing new. All the English tourists who visited Santa Lucia were avid to see ruins. And they often stayed to eat, too, discussing antiquities far into the siesta hours. But something in her father’s tone, in the way he refused to meet her gaze, aroused her suspicions.

‘What sort of visitors?’ she asked. ‘Not one of those odd men from Palermo who are always offering to be a “security guard”? I don’t trust them!’

‘Certainly not. They only want to steal what they can dig up and sell, destroying everything else in the process. We have our own “security”. No, my dear, it is—well, it is the Duke of Averton.’

‘Averton?’ Clio muttered. She knew she should not be surprised. The man had such a knack for insinuating himself into her life. A duke was always welcome everywhere. But now her own
father
? She had thought he did not much like Averton, or indeed any of the Radcliffes.

But then, Sir Walter knew nothing of what had happened between her and Averton last year. If Clio had her way, he never would.

‘Yes,’ he said, his voice far too cheerful. ‘Thalia told me Lady Riverton said he was in Santa Lucia, and I thought he might be interested to see what we’re doing here.’

‘But, Father! He is so…’

He held up his hand. ‘I know he is a bit more
avid
in his collecting habits than you would like. Yet he is not so bad as you seem to think, Clio. He is a great scholar, particularly knowledgeable about the Punic Wars, which would be very helpful to us at this site.’

He leaned down, laying a gentle touch on her arm, much as one would with a skittish horse. ‘He did make many mistakes when he was a young man, that is true. But, my dear, I have heard that he is trying to make a new start. To live up to his title, his family and responsibilities. Look at the work he has done for the Antiquities Society! I feel we should give him a chance.’

‘Then of course I will welcome him politely, Father. You and Mother
did
raise me to have proper manners, no matter what your doubts on that score.’ And they were surrounded by people here. That would definitely limit the trouble she and Averton could get into. ‘Do we have enough food and wine?’

Her father gave her a relieved smile. Apparently, being so much like her French mother made her unpredictable, too. ‘Lady Rushworth has gone back to Santa Lucia to fetch more provisions, plus some footmen to set up more tables under the pavilion. Silver and china, linens and such.’

Clio laughed. ‘What, is he bringing an army with him? An entourage of retainers?’

‘One never knows with dukes, my dear. Lady Rushworth just thought we should be prepared.’ He paused. ‘But then, Averton has never been like most dukes, has he?’

No, indeed
, Clio thought wryly. Averton had never been like anyone else at all. ‘I will go and help Cory to clear up her paints, then. If I had known we were to have such exalted company, I would have worn my silks and feathers!’

Her father kissed her cheek. ‘You look beautiful no matter what you wear, Clio. I have the suspicion that his Grace thinks so, as well.’

Before Clio could even begin to argue with him, Sir Walter strolled quickly away, whistling as he swung his walking stick. Exactly how much did her father know? And how much did he know that
she
knew?

Along with her worries about Marco’s appearance, and about what Averton knew that she did not, it made her head spin more than any amount of grappa.

Clio helped Cory pack her paintboxes away in her baskets, hanging up finished watercolours to dry along a line specially hung for that purpose. They were really wonderful, Clio thought, examining a scene that was a reconstruction of the villa as it would have been in its prime. The frescoes on the walls were perfectly detailed, the water in the fountain sparkling. Far better than anything Denon had done in Egypt.

‘These are truly wonderful, Cory,’ Clio said.

‘They’re all right,’ Cory answered. ‘I’m having some trouble with the perspective in the thermal baths. If I could just work on it some more today, instead of having to pack it all up! Just to give luncheon to a stupid old duke.’

Clio smothered a laugh at her sister’s petulant irreverence. It would never do to encourage her! Yet it was still quite funny.
Stupid duke
, indeed.

Cory was quite serious, though. ‘I wouldn’t think
you
would care to see him, Clio,’ she said, taking off her paint-
splattered apron and smoothing her pink muslin dress. Like Calliope, she had black hair and fair skin that glowed in pink. The colour just made Clio look like a demented strawberry. Not that her grey work frock was any better.

‘Why is that?’ Clio asked. ‘I don’t mind Father’s guests.’

Cory glanced at her from the corner of her eye. ‘Well, after that quarrel you had with the Duke at the British Museum last year…’

Clio froze.
Oh, blast.
How could she have forgotten that? Cory had been right there in the Elgin room when Averton had cornered Clio and tried to talk to her about the Lily Thief. When she had nearly stabbed him with her hatpin before Cameron de Vere had separated them. She had foolishly thought Cory had not noticed, being so preoccupied with her sketching, but she should have known better. Cory was a Chase, after all. Observation—some might unkindly call it snooping—was their
raison d’être.

‘That was just a misunderstanding,’ Clio said.

‘Was it?’ Cory answered. ‘You and the Duke seem to
misunderstand
each other a lot. Like that time at Herr Mueller’s lecture at the Antiquities Society…’

‘Well, we’re not going to have any such misunderstandings today,’ Clio said firmly. ‘We’re all going to be perfectly polite and have a pleasant luncheon. Correct?’

Cory gave a most impolite snort. ‘I wouldn’t count on that if Thalia comes back from the theatre. She doesn’t like him, either, and you know Thalia is likely to say anything.’

Clio sighed. She
did
know that. Calliope, the most sensible and organised of them, had once likened managing her sisters to herding a pack of feral cats. Not flattering, but probably true. Maybe her father was right about their upbringing.

‘Thalia will be polite, too,’ Clio said sternly, trying to
sound like Calliope. ‘We are
all
going to be polite. Yes, Terpsichore?’

‘I will if you won’t call me that.’ Cory hated her full name.

There was no time to remonstrate further. The Duke himself came into the valley on his gleaming black horse, gazing around him with an air of wary interest. He had no entourage at all, no army of hangers-on. Not even a groom. Just himself, yet he alone seemed to fill up every corner with his vast presence.

He had left off his black garb in the afternoon heat, wearing instead a wheat-coloured linen coat over his buckskin breeches and high boots. His bright hair fell to his shoulders, under the shadowing brim of his hat.

Sir Walter hurried forward to greet him, and even Cory followed, dragging her feet only a bit before making a proper, pretty curtsy. But Clio found she was quite frozen to the spot, unable to move even one step on seeing him again. Seeing, feeling, the reality of his presence.

It was one thing to think about him, to ponder his mysterious motives and try to push away her own tangled feelings for him. But it was always something else entirely to be face to face with him in the stark light of day.