A Lady Never Lies (13 page)

“I’m very sorry,” Finn said quietly.

She didn’t reply. He felt her presence behind him, could sense the steady rhythm of her breath into the stillness.

“Yes,” she said. “I expect you are.”

His fingers idled about the bottom of the gas ring. “Don’t lose hope, Lady Morley. You’re young and beautiful. There are a few good fellows left in the world, I assure you.”

“Beautiful. But I’m not beautiful, not really. I give a good impression of it, I suppose, but it’s not the same thing.”

“Rubbish. You’re quite beautiful.”

She hesitated. “Well, that’s very kind of you. I wish . . .”

“You wish?” His hand clenched against the metal ring.

“I wish . . .” Her shoe moved against the floor, a single hesitant step. “I wish . . . I want to tell you . . . how very beautiful
you
are.”

His heartbeat thundered against his ears. “That’s absurd.”

“No, it isn’t.” Her words came in a rush. “Your brilliant mind, and your face, and your eyes. And your hands—how I love your hands, large and clever, cracking walnuts and soldering wires . . .”

He turned at last and saw her, standing in the middle of his workshop, gilt with sunshine, her face open and vulnerable and more beautiful than anything he’d ever imagined. Something shattered within him, a sharp, almost audible crack, and in two strides he’d crossed the distance between them. Her pink lips parted, releasing a gasp of surprise or perhaps anticipation, and he took her face in his hands and bent his head and kissed her.

* * *

W
hen Alexandra was eight years old, she had come upon the cook in the pantry in late autumn, filling glass bottles from a large iron-hooped oak barrel, one by one, and sealing them tightly with cork and wax. She’d asked the cook what she was doing, and the cook had answered that she was bottling last year’s yield of apple brandy—the Harewood estate was a respectable one, but hardly extravagant—for the master and mistress to drink through the winter. Alexandra, who loved apples, thought this sounded like an excellent plan, and the next afternoon, feeling thirsty, she’d tripped down the stairs to the pantry and opened a bottle of apple brandy and drank herself legless.

Kissing Phineas Burke was rather like that.

For all the suddenness of his approach, for all the passion with which his hands clasped the sides of her face, his lips moved gently on hers, slowly, as if he were savoring her, and the tottering remains of her composure collapsed at last. He tasted of tea and honey and himself, sweet and exotic and so perfectly delicious that her lips opened up beneath his, wanting more, wanting to absorb his flavor through every channel of her body. “Lady Morley,” he murmured, “Alexandra,” and she had never heard anything so deep and harmonious as the sound of her name in his throat, against her lips.

“Phineas,” she breathed back—what luxury, to speak his name—and his hands moved deeper, speared into her hair, dislodged the rest of her pins as he caressed the back of her head in long strokes. “Phineas,” she said again, dreamily.

He stopped and drew back, his breath warm on her skin. “Finn,” he said.

His eyes looked into hers so deeply, so sternly, it took a moment for the word to make its way to her brain.

“Finn?” she repeated breathlessly.

“It’s Finn, not Phineas. My mother calls me Phineas.”

She felt a smile spread across her face. “Finn,” she said, testing the word, and stretched her arms upward to circle his sturdy neck. The hair at his nape felt soft as down under her fingers. “Finn. Darling, marvelous Finn. Say my name again. Say it.”

“Alexandra.” He settled her against him and kissed her again, boldly now. His silken tongue grazed hers, his hands slid downward to span the hollow of her back, and she strained hard against him, wanting to feel every inch of his body, to be surrounded and engulfed by him, until she no longer had to think and plan and act and pretend: She had only to exist.

Had only to be herself at last.

She hadn’t intended to entice him, not exactly. Almost until the end, she’d kept herself under exquisite control, reminding herself that the Dowager Marchioness of Morley maintained an irreproachable dignity at all times, even when wedged underneath the greasy reaches of an experimental motor-car with a feral dust speck gnawing at her throat. She’d listened to the patter of conversation, heard the way Finn defended her, heard the way the Penhallow brothers abused her—rather humbling, that—with admirable fortitude. Even the seductive effect of Finn’s forthright
share my bed
had been shrugged off in the end, in the surge of relief at the duke’s initial departure.

No, she’d held out beautifully, and had even constructed an opening line to dismiss the experience as beneath her notice (
What shocking dust beneath that motor of yours, Mr. Burke! Another minute and I should have been as dirty as you are . . .
) when Wallingford’s words invaded her ears.

Are you, Lady Morley? Are you in love with my friend Burke?

And the answer her brain had returned, reflexively, before she’d had a chance to consider the question, made her legs give way underneath her. Only the thick wooden walls of the cabinet had kept her upright.

Now, of course, that particular task was being performed by Burke himself, to glorious effect. His mouth traveled away from hers, down the line of her jaw to the hollow beneath, some sensitive spot she’d never dreamed existed, now nibbled delicately by his warm lips. The breath left her body. She sagged into his enclosing arms. She could have sworn that the sunlight dimmed for just an instant, beaten back by the mighty flame of their passion.

Finn stiffened.

“What is it?” she gasped out, clinging shamelessly to his neck. It could not end yet. It could not. She hadn’t had nearly enough of him.

“Damn it all.” He took her hand and hauled her back to the cabinet and pressed a hard kiss against her lips before shoving her inside.

A brisk knock sounded on the front door.

“No.” She braced her arm against the cabinet door and eyed him fiercely. “Not this time. I shan’t hide any longer. I’ll call off the wager, do whatever . . .”

The door began to open. Alexandra slipped under Finn’s arm and smoothed at her dress in desperate strokes. Not that any improvement to her disordered clothes would make any difference, she realized, given that her hair tumbled freely around her shoulders and down her back in wild, slatternly chestnut waves.

Perhaps this wasn’t the cleverest idea, after all.

But it was too late. A figure was entering the room, a male figure of medium height, backlit somewhat by the sunshine and not quite distinguishable to Alexandra. It was not, she grasped at once, with a gust of relief, either of the Penhallow brothers.

“Why, Delmonico.” Finn stepped forward. “What a great pleasure. I . . . I hadn’t expected to see you here.”

“Signore Burke! There you are.” The newcomer doffed his hat and held out his hand for a vigorous shake. “How pleased I am to have found you at last.” His English was nearly flawless, enunciated with great care and attention, as if he’d spent considerable time among Englishmen.

“You received my last letter, I take it?” said Finn.

“Yes, I did, though your location was nonetheless difficult to find. What has brought you to this—ah—remote idyll?” Delmonico took in his surroundings with a sharp black eye, which settled with polite brevity on Alexandra before looking away.

Finn laughed. “Privacy, of course. But I beg your pardon, signore; I’ve been remiss. Will you allow me to introduce to you my assistant, Alexandra, Lady Morley?” He turned to her with the greatest respect, as if presenting a valuable treasure for Delmonico’s inspection. “Lady Morley, this is Signore Bartolomeo Delmonico, under whose hospitality we gather in Rome in July, for the automobile exposition.”

Delmonico lifted his eyebrows. The sun struck his olive skin at an angle now, allowing Alexandra a better view of his face, with its regular dark features and friendly expression, cast in relief by a collar of startling height and whiteness. He wore brown English-style tweeds and a round bowler hat, which he removed with one hand while extending the other to grasp the tips of her outstretched fingers with unctuous correctness. “A pleasure, Lady Morley,” he said, and looked back at Finn. “A fortunate fellow you are, to have acquired such an amiable assistant.”

“Lady Morley is remarkably able.”

Alexandra found her voice. “Oh, very able,” she said, acutely conscious that she looked more like a five-shilling strumpet than the assistant of a legendary scientist and inventor. She indicated her grease-streaked dress. “Indeed, I’ve spent most of the morning under the chassis, as you see.”

Delmonico ran his eye up and down her figure. “Indeed. Really, my dear Burke, your gallantry is wanting. Ought you not to have allowed the lady to wear your smock? It is a great shame, I believe, that a dress of such loveliness should be exposed to such filth.”

“You’re quite right, of course,” Finn said, looking guilty. “Remiss of me.”

“I have an apron,” Alexandra protested.

But Delmonico wasn’t listening. His attention had already turned to the automobile in the center of the room, still on its blocks. “So this is it, Mr. Burke? Your great project?” He took a step forward, and a distinct
crunch
rose up from his shoe. “Dear me. Are these perhaps your hairpins, Lady Morley?”

Alexandra’s face grew hot. “Why, yes, Mr. . . . Signore, that is, Delmonico. I believe they are.” She and Finn lurched forward at the same time, but Delmonico beat them to it, leaning downward in a graceful gesture and brushing the dozen or so pins into his left hand, which he held out to her with a knowing smile.

“Thank you.” She twisted her hair back into its knot, shoving the pins ruthlessly into place as the cottage teemed with awkward silence.

“They came loose, you see, while Lady Morley was removing her eye protectors,” Finn burst out.

“Yes, I see,” Delmonico said.

Alexandra tried to remember whether Tuscany was susceptible to earthquakes, and if so whether one (of the mild variety, of course) might be persuaded by fervent prayer to strike at that precise moment. Which was, of course, ridiculous. She was a marchioness. The opinions of a lowly foreign mechanic ought not to carry any weight with her whatsoever.

Nonetheless, the time seemed right for a strategic retreat.

“If you’ll forgive me, Signore Delmonico,” she said, in her loftiest voice, “I believe I shall retire for luncheon. No doubt you and Mr. Burke have a great deal to discuss.” She did not miss the relieved look that flickered across Finn’s rather thunderstruck features.

Delmonico removed his hat and tucked it under his arm. “Lady Morley, I should be desolated to cause you to leave.”

“Nevertheless, leave I must. Good day, signore. Mr. Burke, shall I see you at dinner?”

“Yes, of course.” His green eyes burned into hers.

“Splendid.” She turned and walked with ladylike dignity out the door and into the verdant Italian noontime, acknowledging the murmured masculine farewells behind her with a little wave of her hand. When she had cleared the cottage entirely she began to gather speed, and by the time she had reached the first terraced vineyard she was running, her skirts and petticoats all tangling about her legs, her face and lungs burning, her eyes aching with a half decade’s worth of tears.

* * *

T
here you are!” exclaimed Abigail, as Alexandra thrust through the door from the kitchen garden. “You’re just in time! He’s just arrived! Good heavens, you’re a dreadful mess. What on earth have you done to your hair?”

“Who’s just arrived? Rosseti?” Alexandra asked hopefully. Perhaps the landlord could straighten everything out. Perhaps Signore Rosseti could issue edicts that would return her life, somehow, to the quiet order she had envisioned last winter, without any ginger-haired Irish scientists to disturb her equilibrium, to distract her from her practical goals.

“No, not Rosseti. For goodness’ sake, don’t you remember the priest is coming today?” Abigail slung her arm through Alexandra’s and led her down the narrow hallway to the back staircase. The sun shot directly through the narrow windows, but the stone walls still held the nighttime chill, cooling Alexandra’s flushed body as she brushed past.

“The priest? Good heavens, Abigail. You’ve not gone
papist
, have you?”

“No, goose. But it’s the most charming tradition. You must join in; it will be ever so unsporting if you don’t.” She tugged Alexandra up the stairs with eager energy. “It’s why the maids have been tidying like mad, as I told you yesterday. Sort of a ritual cleansing, I suppose. In any case, the priest has just arrived to do the Easter blessing, sprinkling holy water hither and yon, and then . . .”

Alexandra stopped short, three steps from the top. She put her hands to her head. “Good God! But you must hide me at once! I’m . . . I’m quite
unclean
.”

“He’s only downstairs yet, with his assistant. An adorable young man, the assistant I mean. Such a thumping great pity about that vow of chastity. Come along, I’ll help you scrub off all that grime and change your dress. What on earth have you been doing? Rolling behind the plows?” Abigail pulled her up the rest of the stairs and urged her into a run, down the flagstone hallway to her bedroom.

Ten minutes later, a bit dazed, but clean and modestly clothed in a high-necked gray dress and neat headscarf, Alexandra found herself being presented to Don Pietro, the parish priest, in Abigail’s fluent Italian. Not quite sure of the etiquette, and hardly wishing to incur eternal damnation, she eyed his enormous ring of office and decided against kissing it. She made, instead, a polite little curtsy. “Welcome, Don Pietro,” she said, feeling as though Phineas Burke’s decidedly unchaste kisses were written in scarlet ink on her swollen lips. “We are, er, pleased to offer you hospitality.”

He looked at her quizzically with his elderly eyes, and turned to the young man next to him. Abigail was right, Alexandra thought, casting her eyes to the ground. A fetching chap indeed, all pale skin and golden hair and large poetic eyes, bearing the vessel of holy water with grave care.