To Deceive a Duke (17 page)

T
halia knocked softly at Clio’s bedroom door, leaning close to listen for any hint of sound. She didn’t expect an answer, but half-hoped anyway. All she could hear was the echo of her father and Cory talking together downstairs.

She pushed open the door, slipping inside. It was dim, the curtains drawn over the windows, the bed neatly made. Even after only a day, there was the dusty air of disuse, of abandoned places.

Or maybe playing actress had only made her fanciful. Made her see drama and mystery where there was none.

Her father thought there was certainly no mystery. When they returned from a day’s work at the villa to find a message saying Clio had decided to go to Motya with the Darbys after all, he had taken it quite in his stride. Clio had done such impulsive things before, going off to Agrigento, for instance, and he considered that it would be good for her to leave Santa Lucia for a while.

But Thalia was not so convinced. Yes, it would be good for Clio to get away, to be far from the Duke of Averton, and she
did like to do things on the spur of the moment. Yet she never went away with only one hurried message.

Something was going on, something Thalia didn’t understand, but a deep-seated feeling told her that all was not right.

Calliope and Clio had often concealed things that were unpleasant from her, trying to protect her. To shield her sensibilities, because they saw her as their baby sister. A silly little blonde who could be trusted to do nothing but play the pianoforte and dress up in pretty clothes.

She had had
enough
of that. Enough of being shielded and protected, of holding secrets. She was nineteen now, not a baby, and not a fool. Clio was up to something more than sightseeing, and Thalia wanted to find out what it was.

She quickly searched Clio’s dressing table and wardrobe, finding that her brushes and perfume bottles, her soap and bath salts, and many of her clothes were missing. Just as if she
had
gone on a voyage. Her knapsack, which she carried to her farmhouse site every day, was also missing, which was a bit strange. It held picks and spades, not usually needed for a spot of genteel tourism. Her books and notebooks were still on her desk.

It did look as if Clio had gone on a short holiday, but Thalia was not convinced. Her sister had been acting oddly, ever since that Count di Fabrizzi had appeared in Santa Lucia.

Thalia went to the window, drawing back the curtains to peer down at the street. It grew late in the day; the walkways were full of people hurrying home to their supper, to the cosiness of their own hearths. A young Sicilian couple strolled past, the man carrying the woman’s market basket, their heads close together as they laughed at some secret joke. How they
fit
together, Thalia thought as she watched them. How assured they looked in their belonging.

She wondered wistfully how that felt, to know that you
belonged somewhere, with someone. To find a true safe place. It must be glorious indeed. It must be something worth fighting for.

She thought of the Count’s dark eyes, of his teasing, dimpled smile that hid so very much. He had tried to flirt with her, had danced with her all night at the
feste
, a round of wine and laughter and giddiness that still revealed nothing of him to her. Even as she longed to know more, to know everything, she could tell he was not like other men of her acquaintance, English men who gave her what she wanted with one pleading glance from her cursed blue eyes. One coquettish flutter of her fan.

The Count was not like that. He was wise to her wiles, as she was to his. But she was certain he knew Clio, knew her from before that tea at Lady Riverton’s. Thalia had one great skill from all her theatrical studies—she could read people. Could tell when they had secrets, good, bad, guilty. She saw when they tried to hide those secrets behind polite smiles and pretty compliments.

Count Marco di Fabrizzi had secrets. Many of them. Thalia admitted she had almost been blinded by his charm, his fine looks, by the heady way she felt when he took her in his arms to dance. But not entirely. He was not here just on ‘business’, not just to call on his old friend Lord Riverton’s widow. She was sure of that.

Was he here because he was in love with Clio? Thalia narrowed her eyes on the whispering couple below the window, remembering how Clio had flushed when the Count had entered Lady Riverton’s drawing room. Was Clio in love with him?

Had she eloped with him?

Thalia sighed. How complicated things became, when one
was never told the truth about anything! It consumed so much time having to snoop around, ferreting out secrets. But it could also be vastly rewarding.

It was a valuable thing at times, being thought a pretty bonbon. No one ever guessed at her treasure trove of scandalous discoveries. If she wanted to give up music and theatre, surely she could make a fortune as a novelist!

But before she could become the next Maria Edgeworth, she had one more discovery to make. She had to find what had really become of her sister—before it was too late.

T
he scraping of the key in the lock sounded as loud as cannon fire in Clio’s ears. She couldn’t even breathe, her throat was so tight. Her arm muscles ached as she held the bowl high above her head. Time hung suspended.

Then it sped up in a great, roaring blur. The door swung open, and she lunged forward, bringing her ‘weapon’ down in a swinging arc. She aimed for his thick, stubborn head, but even her agile quickness was not enough. He was a fraction faster, grabbing her wrist just before she could make clanging contact.

His grip tightened until she dropped the bowl, and he kicked it away. She tried to kick
him
in turn, forgetting that she was not wearing her boots until her toes crumpled achingly.

‘Ow!’ she cried, startled. He pressed her back against the wall, his hands on her shoulders deceptively light. They felt like the merest caress, feather-soft, but Clio knew she couldn’t get away even if she tried. She leaned her head back, staring at him tensely. The air hung heavy and static between them.

She couldn’t speak. Her throat was still tight and aching, and she feared if she started shouting at him she would never stop. Her fury would bring the roof down on top of them.

He, too, stared, his face white and strained, his lips set in a hard, determined line. ‘I’m sorry, Clio,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I didn’t want things to come to this.’

‘To
this
?’ she answered, finding her voice at last. ‘To kidnapping? I think that is a crime, even for dukes.’

‘After this is all over, after I know you’re safe, you can do whatever you like,’ he said. ‘Go to the authorities, denounce me, have me transported—shoot me. But for now I will do what I must.’

‘And I’ll do what
I
must!’ Clio cried, her temper beyond all control. The arrogant blackguard! She twisted in his grip, breaking his hold so she could shove him away. She couldn’t bear the heat of his nearness, the piercing green light of his all-seeing eyes, for another moment.

She dashed to the other side of the room, gripping at the bedpost until she thought she would snap the thick wood in two.

‘You have done crazy things in the past, your Grace,’ she cried. ‘But you must be mad indeed to think you can get away with this! My family has surely missed me by now.’

‘I think not, my dear,’ he said, still so infuriatingly calm. ‘They think you’ve gone to Motya with the Darbys, and I know that family plans to go directly home to England after their excursion. It will be a few weeks before you are missed.’

Clio opened her mouth, then closed it again, nonplussed. It was a rather good ruse, she had to admit. Everyone knew she had gone off on impromptu jaunts before. Her father and Thalia would be busy with their respective projects; they wouldn’t question her whereabouts for a while.

‘How did you get my clothes and things?’ she asked.

He gave her a gentle, disquieting smile, more fearsome than any shout. ‘I have my methods.’

Of course he did. The man could surely coax the very birds
from the trees, if not with his title and money, then with his fine looks. The intense charm that affected all women, even Clio, no matter how she fought against it. Denied it.

She fought against it even now, when she was his prisoner.

‘Do you think to compromise me?’ she asked, more and more puzzled. ‘Why would you do that, when dozens of women would happily be your wife or mistress?’

Edward laughed wryly. ‘No one will know you’re here, so you won’t be “compromised”. I would be a fortunate man indeed to have you for my wife
or
mistress. But I’m not fool enough to think that will happen.’

‘Of course it won’t, after this ridiculous escapade! I don’t understand it at all. I don’t understand
you
.’

‘Then we are even, my dear, for you are a mystery to me as well. Why could you not have heeded my warning, have stayed away from your blasted farmhouse?’

‘You surely know me quite well enough to know I never do what I’m told, unless I am given a good reason. Why did you want me away from there so very much? So you could send in your
tombaroli
unobstructed?’

‘I am no thief, Clio. Remember what happened last time you suspected me of such crimes?’

Clio remembered all too well. She had been caught in her own thievery. The one failure of the Lily Thief.

She shook her head, not able to look at him.

‘I should ask what sort of scheme you and your good friend, the so-called Count di Fabrizzi, are up to,’ he said. ‘So convenient, him turning up like that in Santa Lucia. I must say he is more convincing a count than he was a gypsy.’

‘You won’t distract me like that,’ said Clio. ‘We aren’t talking about my sins now, but yours. At least I have never kidnapped anyone.’

‘Perhaps, then, I could distract you like this?’ he said. Before Clio could tell what he was about, he swiftly crossed the room, reaching out to clasp her by the waist. His lips descended on hers in a quick, crashing kiss.

Clio arched back, startled, still angry. But all her fury and confusion, her frustration, flashed out, colliding with her desire for him like alcohol meeting a flame. It burned away all rational thought, all memory of their tangled, complicated past, and left only pure emotion. Pure need.

She threw her arms around him, her fingers wrapped tightly in his hair, holding him to her as her lips parted for his kiss. He groaned, a primitive sound of need to equal her own, his tongue meeting hers, their mouths and bodies and even thoughts enmeshed. He was caught as surely as she was, bound by this push-pull, cat-and-mouse game they could never be free from.

He did terrible things, but then so did she. Kidnapping, theft. Would they each be into such irredeemable mischief without the other? Clio didn’t know, and at the moment she didn’t care. She only knew, only wanted, his kiss. His touch. How could he make her forget, with only a glance, a touch, how very bad they were for each other?

Pulling him with her, Clio stumbled backwards until she fell across the unmade bed, sinking into its feathery softness. She drew him down on top of her, their kiss frantic. She wrapped her legs tightly around his hips, kicking her skirts out of the way. Her stockings abraded against his soft breeches, and she felt the heavy proof of his fierce desire against her thigh. But it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. Not any longer.

Clio let her head fall back against the tumbled sheets, revelling in the shivery sensation of his lips against her jaw, the
arc of her throat. The hot rush of his breath, his heartbeat, all around her, part of her. How
alive
he was, how vital and real! She had lived too long among ancient artifacts, lives long over, and now she wanted his heat and life. His passion. No matter how angry he made her! No matter what happened after.

When she was with him, she knew real emotion, the true urgency of existence and craving and passion. When she was with him, no matter if they argued or kissed, she was alive herself. She couldn’t give that up.

Her eyes still tightly closed, absorbing every feeling and sensation, she slid her touch over his tense shoulders, his taut chest, until she found the buttons of his waistcoat. She made quick work of them, pushing the heavy cloth back so she could unfasten his shirt. The lacings grew tangled under her desperate touch, and she sobbed in frustration. She had had
enough
of half-measures, of broken kisses furtively snatched. She wanted to touch him, feel his bare skin under her hands.

Now!

She caught at one of the knots and tugged hard, breaking it open. She parted the placket of the soft linen, shoving it away from his shoulders. Edward groaned, his face buried in the curve of her neck as her fingers traced the naked skin of his chest.

Clio had only ever seen the nude male form in cold marble statues or flat paintings, had only been able to wonder how Edward would compare to them. How real, living flesh would feel. The curiosity and fantasy had sometimes been quite—intense. But it could not compare with the reality. Not even close.

Her fingers traced over hot, smooth flesh, roughened by a sprinkling of coarse hair. His heart pounded under her caress, his breath quick, yet he did not move away, no matter how
much he might want to. He did not try to snatch control from her. He lay wrapped in her caress, his lips against her shoulder, and let her explore.

She smoothed her palm over his flat nipples, the sharp arc of his collarbone, his muscled shoulders. She would have thought an English duke, waited on slavishly, swathed in ease, would be soft. But his skin was taut over lean, powerful muscles.

Clio tightened her clasp on his shoulders, rolling him to the bed as she rose above him on her knees. She could hardly breathe, hardly think! All she could know was him, the unbearable need that had been building inside her for so long. She had tried so hard to deny it, to push it away, fight against it.

She just could not do that any longer.

Her dress was loose, and she grasped it by its rucked-up hem, pulling it off over her head. Her chemise quickly followed, and she knelt above him clad only in her stockings, gartered above her knees. She shrugged off the temptation to hide behind her hair, pushing the long, tangled strands down her back. She held her breath, staring down at him in what was suddenly a crackling and profound silence.

Edward’s bare chest, sun-golden and touched with the red-blond of his hair, rose and fell with the force of his own breath, the heartbeat that stirred the small amulet on a thin chain. She saw it was a tiny cameo, Clio the Muse of History’s scroll, on ebony.

She knew that he wanted her, as she wanted him, could see the proof of it straining his breeches, but he lay still. His green eyes, dark as a primeval forest, watched her closely.

‘You see, Edward,’ she whispered, ‘I have no weapons. I give in. I surrender.’

He stared at her for a long moment, still wrapped in that heavy silence. Clio started to feel cold, to feel the strongest urge to cover herself. To run for her old shelters of anger and reserve. Was she hideous, then? She was tall and thin, she knew that, and her breasts were small. But she had always assumed that men were not so picky as all that—a naked breast was a naked breast, after all. And Edward
did
seem to want her. Had he not kissed her in London, at the farmhouse, at the
feste
?

But maybe now that she was naked before him in all her thin boniness, now that she offered herself to him, he had changed his mind.

She felt the itchy prickle of tears behind her eyes, and tilted back her head to hide them.
Men
—they were absolutely incomprehensible!

Then she felt the slide of his touch around her bare waist, easing her away so he could sit up. So they were eye to eye. Clio wrapped her legs tightly around him.

‘On the contrary, Clio,’ he said roughly, ‘it is
you
who demand
my
complete surrender.’

‘And do I have it? Do we have a truce between us, if only for today?’

‘You have every part of me. You know that.’

Clio tipped her head back, laughing in a sudden rush of utter exaltation, hotter and wilder than her anger had ever been. ‘Oh, Edward. I only want
one
part of you right now. Now, do be quiet and kiss me.’

He claimed her lips again, their mouths meeting in a desperate clash that held nothing of artful romance or subtle seduction. Only a deep, primitive need that had been too long repressed. Too long denied.

Clio could certainly deny it no longer. Love him or hate
him—or both—he was a part of her. They were like two halves of an ancient coin, mirror images too long separated.

They couldn’t be parted now.

She broke their kiss only to pull off his shirt, then wrapped her arms around him again, leaning into the sharp curve of his body to feel the press of naked skin to naked skin. Heartbeat to heartbeat. They tumbled down to the bed, limbs entangled.

‘Clio,’ he gasped, rearing back from her. ‘You are a lady, and I’m—we shouldn’t do this.’

‘I don’t think we really have a choice,’ Clio said, suddenly desperate at the thought that he might leave her now. Walk away from what they both needed, and had wanted for so long. They
had
to exorcise each other from their blood, or they would never be free.

‘This has been coming for a long time,’ she said. ‘We can’t stop it now. No one will know, and I—well, I know how to prevent complications. You see, I might be young, and, yes, a virgin, but I am not such a
lady
as all that. Now, be a gentleman, and finish what you started!’

He gave a startled laugh, and she dragged him back on top of her, silencing his words with her kiss. Soon there were no words at all, not even rational thought, just emotion, feelings, hot sensation. The joy of being inevitably joined at last.

He quickly shed his breeches, sliding into the welcome of her parted legs as if he was always meant to be just there. Their bodies
fit
, their movements perfectly coordinated like the most beautiful dance. Clio closed her eyes, revelling in the feel of his mouth at her breast, the delicious friction of their damp, hot skin, the frantic need that built and built inside her.

Through that white-hot haze, she felt the press of his
fingers against the seam of her womanhood, parting her for the heavy slide of his penis as he entered her. She tensed at the slight burning, the unfamiliar stretch and ache of it. Her breath caught in her throat, and she gave a tiny whimper.

But even as he drew back she arched upwards, sliding him even deeper inside her, so deep she could vow he touched her soul. As she held him there, the ache subsided, and there was only the deep satisfaction of being part of him. That delicious joy building up again.

‘Oh. That
is
nice,’ she whispered.

Edward laughed roughly. He drew slowly out, then back again, faster and deeper, that wonderful friction expanding, growing, until Clio felt she was soaring up into the sun itself. Surely no one could survive such intensity, such overwhelming, frantic ecstasy!