A Duke Never Yields (29 page)

But she would soon recover, and so would he. It was only her girlish infatuation that was wounded, after all, and his aristocratic pride. If she continued to keep out of his way, and he continued to bar himself in the library and avoid all contact, why, they should both be quite indifferent in another week or so.

Yes, quite indifferent.

If only life weren’t so bloody empty without him.

Abigail gave her heart a sharp knock to recall it to its duty, and gave her head a careless toss to show how indifferent she’d already become. “He is
studying
, signorina. Shocking, I know, but that
is
why we’re all here, in case you’re unaware. To study. Free from the distractions of the other sex, sapping our little beans dry. I admit, we all had a touch of the spring fever, caught up in the headiness of it all, but by God’s grace we’ve all recovered our proper wits.”

“Your wits, signorina?”

“Yes. Lovely things, wits. Indeed, I’m delighted,
delighted
to hear that His Grace has picked up his Livy at last. His mind could certainly use the improvement.”

“Is not the Livy, signorina.”

“Well, whatever it is. I’m sure it’s most instructive. Most . . . most edifying.”

“
Instructive
, signorina.” Morini tasted the word. “
Si
. Is instructive.”

Abigail narrowed her eyes. “You’re
twinkling
, Morini. You’re cooking something up. I can tell.”

“
Si
, I am cooking.” Morini lifted her hands away from Abigail’s shoulders and gestured to the fire. “I am cooking the tea for the Signora Morley and her guest.”

Abigail looked in bemusement at the teakettle hanging above the hot embers. “Already? How did you . . . ? Oh, never mind. I’d rather not ask. In any case, I didn’t mean
actual
cooking. I mean that you still think there’s hope for us all, that you think you can wave your ghostly fingers and make us all fall crashing into each other, like witless human ninepins.”

“I am not ghost, signorina,” Morini said, in an offended tone.

“You know what I mean. Occult whatever-it-is.” Abigail twirled her finger. “In any case, you can keep your mad schemes to yourself from now on.”

“But signorina, only listen! The visitor, he . . .”

Abigail clapped her hands over her ears. “Not listening!”

“But signorina!”

“Not listening. Not listening. You can scheme all you like, Morini, but
I
”—she straightened herself into dignity, or as much dignity as could be achieved when smelling of goats and holding one’s ears—“am going to change clothes.”

“Is good!” Morini called. “Change the clothes! And while you are in the room, changing the clothes, perhaps you wish to take out the trunk for to carry them?”

Abigail poked her head back around the doorway through which she’d just disappeared. “What’s that? Trunks?”

Morini smiled, smoothed her apron, and went to attend the whistling teakettle in the fireplace. “Because, signorina. I think it is maybe possible you and the signora are soon leaving.”

“Leaving? Why should we leave? Where on earth would we go?”

“Why, for Roma.” Morini poured the hot water into the teapot and looked up, still smiling. “For Roma, signorina. How do they call it? The city of eternity.”

The next day

I
say, Giacomo, old fellow,” called out the Duke of Wallingford, swinging from his horse into the hard-packed dirt of the stableyard, “the geese appear to be scampering about the grounds unchecked. Have you any notion . . .”

“Signore!”

Wallingford found his hands seized, his frame turned about this way and that. Lucifer gave a snort of astonishment.

“Good God, man.” Wallingford disengaged himself with some effort and brushed the sleeves of his riding jacket. He peered at Giacomo, who, undiscouraged by his loss of a dance partner, proceeded to heave and jerk his body about the stableyard like a drunken marionette. “Remember your dignity.”

“Is a miracle, signore! A miracle!”

Lucifer was beginning to look alarmed. Wallingford snatched the reins. “A miracle? What sort of miracle? Has the stable roof begun to leak wine instead of water?”

Giacomo fell to his knees and looked up at the sky.

“I say, are you quite all right, old man?” Wallingford took a concerned step toward him.

The groundskeeper lifted his hands, palms upward. “This day, I give the thanks. I pray at the throne of Our Lord, who give us at last the great blessing.”

“The goats have learned to milk themselves? One of the geese has perhaps laid a golden egg?”

“No, signore.”

Wallingford considered. “
Two
golden eggs?”

“Signore. Is the
women
!”

Wallingford loosened Lucifer’s girth and led the horse to the fence. “The women? Is
that
all? I rather thought you disliked the women. I rather thought, in fact, you jolly well hated them.”

“Is not jolly at all, signore. The women, I hate them seriously. They are so much the trouble,” Giacomo said, following at his elbow. “This is why I am today so happy.” He kissed his fingers.

“So they’ve kept indoors all morning and left the goats to your tender care?”

“No, signore. Is better than that.” Giacomo held up his hands to his Creator. “They are gone!”

Wallingford, in the act of sliding the saddle from Lucifer’s broad black back, turned into stone. “What’s that?” he said at last, through his frozen lips.

“Gone, signore! They leave at the sunrise, in a cart from the village, with the trunks and the hats. They are gone! Gone at last!” Giacomo hugged himself and twirled about like an ancient bandy-legged ballerina.

“Are you certain, Giacomo?” The saddle pressed into his arm. Lucifer sounded an uneasy whuffle.

“I see them myself, Signore Duca. I wave the good-bye.” Giacomo made an illustrative wave, back and forth, adding a flirtatious wiggle of his fingers for effect.

“Quite gone?”

“Gone, the two of them. The devil-sisters.”

“They are not devils, Giacomo. Merely high-spirited.”

“Signore.” Giacomo was reproachful. “You know the women. You have seen the trouble. Your heart, it is light now, yes? Light of the great burden.” He sighed and pressed one hand to his chest. “My heart, it feels full of the gas.”

“The
gas?”

“The gas that we breathe.” Giacomo breathed. “Ah. So light.”

“
Air
, my good man. Your heart is full of
air
. Lighter than air, I believe, is the proper English phrase.” Wallingford tossed the saddle atop the fence with unusual disregard for the condition of the leather—unusual, that is, since he began caring for it himself. Lucifer nudged the small of his back with a gentle muzzle.

“Aha! You see! You, too, feel this thing, this air in your heart.”

Wallingford turned. “What I feel, my good man, is a strong desire to see to my horse and then see to my luncheon. You will forgive me?”

Giacomo returned his hand to his heart and made a happy little bow. “I forgive you, Signore Duca. I go now, I leave you in the peace, to savor the joy.”

“Oh, that’s right,” said Wallingford, fetching a brush. “Go on, take the rest of the day off to celebrate. I daresay I can’t jolly well stop you, as I’m not paying your wages.”

He brushed Lucifer’s coat in long, steady strokes, erasing all signs of saddle and girth. He checked the hooves for stones. He removed the bridle, added a halter, led the horse through the gate and into the paddock. For a moment, he stood at the fence and watched Lucifer canter to the end and back, kicking his heels once or twice with the joy of being alive.

Gone
.

The sun burned quietly, right over the crown of his head, penetrating the snug weave of his straw hat with all the strength of an Italian July. It would be very hot, riding in a cart, along the rough road to Florence and the nearest train connection. He hoped the ladies had brought parasols and water.

He picked up the tack and took it inside the stable, to its proper place.

Though his stomach hurt with hunger, Wallingford did not go to the empty dining room, with its enormous old table, on which a cold luncheon was usually laid out by noon. He went instead to the library, where he’d spent many long hours in the past two weeks. With Roland and Burke gone, with the memory of Abigail’s wretched cold eyes burned on his brain, he had had no other company to distract him.

He had first gone through all the old paperwork, the account books and the estate documents, making careful notes where appropriate. When he felt he had the facts straight, had a solid grasp of the legal and financial history of the castle, he turned to sex.

More specifically, the female anatomy; still more specifically, where its seat of pleasure might be found. He had begun with this single and rather idle goal—merely to satisfy his curiosity, he told himself—but once he had discovered the proper Latin terms, the anatomical descriptions, the degrees of natural variance, he had found himself intrigued. One thing had led to another, and all at once a dizzying new world had opened itself up to Wallingford’s eager mind: a world, moreover, that seemed to have been thoroughly studied and catalogued by the provisioners of the Castel sant’Agata library.

Almost as if they had anticipated his requirements.

By the time he had finished all the anatomical studies, all the titillating Continental memoirs, all the exotic Oriental handbooks, a tiny flame of hope had flickered to life in Wallingford’s breast, among other areas of his body.

Except now, it felt quite extinguished.

Wallingford walked across the threadbare rug to the desk, over which Abigail had bent her abundant torso to such glorious effect on Midsummer’s Eve. He sank into the chair. On the baize-lined surface of the desk, smelling of ink and old paper, a book lay open to a page of illustrations that would cause an immediate run on the market for smelling salts, should it magically appear in a London drawing room at half past four in the afternoon. He gazed for a moment at the entwined figures, at the helpful Latin descriptions below each engraving, and reached out his large hand to close the book.

Just that morning, he had met with his business agent in the village. Just that morning, the fellow had said,
I have those marriage contracts drafted for your approval, Your Grace. Should you like to look them over and make amendments?

The clock had ticked off a few silent seconds, and Wallingford had replied,
Perhaps another time. I’ve a great deal to do today
.

But as he had ridden through the hot air back up the hill, and the sun-soaked castle had appeared around the bend in the road, he had damned himself for a coward. For two weeks, he had hidden himself from Abigail Harewood. For two weeks, he had let the awful memory of her final words beat over and over in his mind, paralyzing his resolve. He had watched her go about her business with her light step and her delicate fairy face: the face that had become so beautiful to him, it made his heart ache whenever she passed by the library window.

It was time to stop hiding, he had thought, riding up the hill. It was time to stop acting like a mere man. That hadn’t achieved much at all.

It was time to act once more like the Duke of almighty Wallingford.

Now, in the warm somnolence of the library, he gazed down at the cover of the book, which was of tooled brown leather, plain and bland. Even its title suggested no more than a dry scientific study on matters of human biology.

Wallingford rose from the chair and walked back out of the room.

He climbed the grand staircase, two steps at a time, the crack of his riding boots echoing from the empty stone walls. He went directly to the ladies’ wing, which he had last visited months ago. He tried each door; they were all unlocked, the hinges well oiled. The first room contained a trundle bed, clearly where young Philip slept with Lady Somerton. The second was a little smaller, tidy, shadowed from the noontime sun. He went to the wardrobe and opened it: nearly empty, except for a blue dress he recognized as one Lady Morley wore, from time to time.

The door to the third room swung open with a faint whoosh. He recognized it at once. He could feel Abigail’s lingering presence, as if some magic elfin dust had been scattered carelessly about the walls. Or perhaps it was the books, which sat on every available surface, even the foot of her narrow bed. Abigail’s bed, Abigail’s cool linen pillow, on which she rested her head every night and slept and dreamed. What did she dream of?

What did she wear, in bed at night?

A washstand sat against the wall, next to the chest of drawers. He stepped toward it. The pitcher and bowl were empty, but a small cake of soap sat on the edge. He picked it up and sniffed it, lemons and blossoms, and his heart hollowed out of his body, his breath stopped. He sank into the chair and put his head in his hands.

*   *   *

W
allingford had never visited the kitchen of the Castel sant’Agata before. He had only the vaguest notion where it lay: somewhere down the corridor past the dining room, he supposed.

In the end, he let his nose guide him, let the scent of baking bread draw him down the hall and through the half-open door. The kitchen was empty, but a kettle hung above the fireplace, and a loaf sat cooling on the large table in the center of the room. A slight hot breeze wafted through the open window.

Wallingford stopped in the center of the room and turned in a slow circle.

“You’re here, aren’t you?” His voice was low. “Morini, isn’t it? The housekeeper. I’ve never seen you, just as Abigail can’t seem to see Giacomo, God knows why. But you’re here. I can feel it. It’s like a tingling in my head, at the back of my neck.”

The room was so quiet, he could hear his own breathing.

“You know where she’s gone, don’t you? I daresay you know everything.”

His boots scuffed against the stones as he turned again.

“I wish . . . I wonder if you could tell me where she’s gone. I’m all alone here, of a sudden, and while I suppose that’s a triumph of some sort, the last man standing and all that, I can’t help feeling that . . .”