Lessons of Desire (6 page)

"Did your mother encourage her in her adultery?" His words sounded hoarse and harsh to his ears. "Did she preach her belief in free love in her letters?" He pictured the radical, renowned Artemis Blair turning his mother's head in ways that would result in so much grief.

"I believe they corresponded about literature and such. My mother only mentioned her once, upon news of her passing."

"What did she say?" It came out more a snarl than a question.

"She said.
He should have let her go, bur
of
course, being a man, he could not."

That only made thunder rumble through the clouds in his mind. He wanted to say of course a man cannot allow the mother of his children to leave on a romantic whim. Of course his father had refused her that freedom.

Only she had found a way to leave anyway, in her own manner.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a crew member taking too long with some rigging. The man dallied at his chore while he feasted his eyes on the beauty of Phaedra Blair.

The storm in his head howled. Lightning flashed. He narrowed his eyes and spoke four words. The man hurried away.

Miss Blair noticed. "What did you say to him?"

"Nothing significant. A simple Neapolitan phrase that requests privacy." He did not bother explaining that the words roughly translated to
move on or die.

A snapping wind helped them make good time. The landscape became increasingly dramatic as they angled across the bay to the Sorrento peninsula. High hills hugged the coast, dropping down to the sea in steep, green drops. Small beaches held some boats, and houses hugged the cliff, hanging like so many white and pastel cubes above the water.

They rounded the tip of the small peninsula, passed the isle of Capri, and sailed into the Bay of Salerno. Steeper, perilous, inaccessible hills loomed above them. The scenery awed Phaedra. Lord Elliot had been correct. It would have been a pity to miss this.

"What is happening up there?" She pointed to some activity halfway up the cliff side.

"The king is building a road to Amalfi. They are carving it right into the hillside."

She noted how the road would be above the fishing villages. "Either way, one must climb up or down."

"At least people will not have to rely on boats or donkeys. Arid the prospects from up there will be spectacular." He pointed ahead of them, down the coast. "Positano is right beyond that promontory. You can already see the old Norman watchtower
0II
it. There are many of them on this coast, built to protect the medieval Norman kingdom that used to be here from the Saracen threat."

She walked to the bow of the boat so she could see better as the tower came into view. The old, angular stone tower rose several levels high, medieval in its construction and isolated
0II
its finger of land. Small windows punctuated it like those on an ancient castle. It appeared a foreign and northern intrusion on this sun-washed land.

"Those high windows face due east and west," she said. "There is nothing between that one and the sea's horizon, and nothing between the other and the peak of the high hill. Will we be here several days?" "I expect so."

She had lost track of the calendar while she was a guest of Sansoni. Now she worked it out. "The summer solstice approaches. I wonder if the tower will be used in some ritual."

"This is a Catholic land. Such superstitions were suppressed thousands of years ago."

Although Lord Elliot responded, she could tell he was not truly with her. A silence claimed him that had little to do with sounds. It existed internally, as if his life spirit had retreated to secret chambers of his soul.

She regretted making even the vaguest reference to his mother's situation. It had slid out in her pique at his arrogance in assuming he was right and she was amusingly wrong. She should have known not to engage in an argument about how she thought and lived. When it came to such things this man was as foreign to her as the fishermen in these picturesque villages.

They passed very close to the tower, cutting close as the wind billowed their sails. It appeared deserted.

"Who is this friend we will be visiting?" she asked. "Since we will arrive soon, perhaps I should know his name."

"Matthias Greenwood. He was one of my tutors at university."

She swallowed her surprise. She knew Greenwood. She had tried in vain to locate his home in Naples. "Will he not mind that you have brought more baggage than he expects?"

"He will be delighted lo have the company of the daughter of Artemis Blair. He stepped into her circle on occasion, I believe"

"Yes he did. I met him several times, the last at my mother's funeral." Matthias Greenwood was one of many scholars who had come to honor the woman who confounded the world.

He was also someone who might shed some light on the "other" man. She had thought this delay in going to Pompeii would be a nuisance. Instead Lord Elliot was helping her check one thing off her list of things to accomplish in this land.

"He admired her. He said if she had been a man, she would have been recognized as one of the best experts on ancient Roman letters in England." Lord Elliot still spoke in a distracted tone, as if only half his mind paid a Hen I ion.

Phaedra looked upon the town of Positano with more optimism, and not only because her mission might be furthered there. She did not conform to stupid social rules, but most of the world did. She had wondered how she would be received when she arrived with Lord Elliot. Traveling with him implied things she did not countenance and would not like lo have assumed.

Mr. Greenwood would probably know better than to assume any tiling al all.

She sensed her companion looking at her and turned her head. He had returned to the world, most thoroughly.

"He often entertains a mixed entourage" he said. "There may be other guests visiting him. You will behave yourself, won't you?"

She trusted he did not expect her to play the docile mistress in some vain attempt to become a woman these guests could tolerate.

Even if she wanted to create that deception, she would not begin to know how.

Positano lay on its own little cove that was cluttered with boats. The pastel buildings of the town hovered above the sea, stacked one above the other on the precipitous slope of the mountain. The town dropped steeply right to the shore.

Phaedra took in the view of towering cliff, endless sapphire water, and deep green foliage. She had never seen anything so physically dramatic in her life.

"Which house belongs to Mr. Greenwood?" she asked.

Lord Elliot moved close and extended his arm so her sight could follow it. "That one up there, with the columns."

Those columns supported a long, covered veranda on the topmost house. It rose a little distance above the town itself. Its breadth created a crown on the village cascading beneath it.

"Are we supposed to fly up there, or will he be dropping a basket down for us?"

One of their crew had wandered off. He now returned with the answer. Two boys followed him with donkeys.

Phaedra allowed the boys to help her onto the back of her animal. Lord Elliot merely swung his leg to get astride his. He dwarfed the animal, and his boots scraped the ground. The crew tied their portmanteaus and valises on two more donkeys.

She laughed at the picture they made. "What a retinue you have. Lord Elliot. You will make an impressive procession through the town. Perhaps I will get out my sketchbook, to preserve for the world how finely you sit on that great steed of yours."

He kicked his donkey forward to take the lead, swatting her animal's rump as he passed. "Tend to your own pretty seat. Miss Blair. Be careful you do not fall off or you will not stop rolling until you are in the bay."

She understood his meaning at once. Their donkeys paced up lanes so steep that they had been paved in deep, shallow steps. She thought she really might fall into the sea. The animals were sure-footed, but her perch, sitting sidesaddle, left her clinging on for her life.

They created a small spectacle. Villagers peered out their doorways and windows, curious about the foreigners heading to the villa atop the town. Children gathered behind them, making a true procession. Two girls walked alongside her for a while, poking with curiosity at the red ends of her hair hanging beneath the shawl's bottom edge. A few women made little curtsies as Lord Elliot passed, knowing from his bearing and manner that he had been born to the blood.

She relaxed as she adapted to the donkey's gait. She dared not look back, but she allowed herself to notice the houses, handsome in their rustic stone construction. Simple balconies and tiled roofs helped create a jumble of forms and color. A few larger ones sported colorful majolica tiles around the main doors. They all appeared very ancient, like the tower. Stucco covered most of them, often worked in decorative flourishes and moldings. Some houses were white but many bore tints of red and pink.

Sounds of community life rang around her as people called to one another through open windows and down market streets. Somewhere a man lazily sang an aria from a Rossini opera, accompanying whatever labor he performed.

The lanes leveled as they approached the villa. It was as if someone had removed a chunk of the hillside so the big house could be built.

A man appeared inside the arched open loggia whose roof was supported by the columns. He stood tall, straight, and slim, with a shock of white hair and an aquiline nose. A jaw of uncompromising squareness gave way to a cleft chin. Phaedra had only met Matthias Greenwood a few times, but his appearance was so distinctive that one did not forget it.

He waved a greeting, then stepped out and walked toward them.

"Rothwell! What a relief you are finally here. My company is badly in need of your wit."

They greeted each other. Elliot introduced Phaedra.

"I have already had the honor, Roth well. I am happy to see you again, Miss Blair, and under less trying circumstances than the last time. Your mother was much esteemed by inferior scholars like myself, and generous to us. I was grateful for the introductions her reception afforded me."

Servants appeared and Matthias rattled off instructions regarding the baggage. "Come inside and refresh yourselves. My other guests take their siestas but they will join us soon."

She walked up the stone path and followed Matthias into the loggia. She glanced through its arches and her breath caught.

The view was unreal, a prospect that begged for a paintbrush and canvas. If gazing up this hill was impressive, looking down left one in awe. The town's roofs and ribbons of lane spilled straight down. The drop was so steep one marveled that anything had been built here. The endless sea, the low sky, the embrace of the promontory—it all created a vast, dreamlike panorama from a precarious hold on the world, one that was thrilling and romantic, drenched in beauty but tinged with danger.

"It is a wonder that you do not simply live in this loggia and ignore whether the rest of your home falls to ruin. Mr. Greenwood."

"I almost do. Miss Blair. Here and on the other terraces and balconies. I go to the parish church even though I am not a Catholic, and light candles for the soul of the distant relative whose legacy allows me to live in paradise."

A woman greeted them when they entered the airy, marble-floored drawing room. She was an elegant, olive-skinned native of the country. She possessed a lovely, soulful face permanently touched with a melancholic expression. Her name was Signora Roviale, and the manner in which she came forward and saw to their comfort indicated that this was her home. Matthias Greenwood did not live in paradise alone.

Another guest ambled in soon after a servant brought some wine. Phaedra recognized him too. He had not been at her mother's funeral, but he had called at their home once or twice when she was a girl. He was so handsome in a golden, fine-boned, noble way that she had almost developed a
tendre
the first time she saw him.

"See who is here to celebrate your visit, Roth well," Matthias said. "I wrote and told him you would come down from Naples, and he and his wife traveled from Rome just for you. Miss Blair, allow me to introduce Mr. Randall Whitmarsh, gentleman, scholar, and another refugee from England."

Mr. Whitmarsh had adopted Continental fashion and manners, reflecting his long years abroad. He muttered
bellissima
as he bent to kiss her hand, and fussed just enough to prove he had left reserve back in England when he adopted Rome as his main home.

"It is a joy to meet the daughter of the indomitable Artemis Blair," he said, bestowing a charming, admiring smile.

Phaedra was not above enjoying a handsome man's attention. She noticed that Lord Elliot kept glancing askance at Mr. Whitmarsh's long hold of her hand.

"I learned recently of Richard Dairy's passing," Mr. Whitmarsh said, parting her hand. "I see that you are still in mourning, but it was perhaps healthy to come abroad so your grief is assuaged."

"My choice in fashion made ordering a mourning wardrobe unnecessary, but my father would not have wanted that anyway. He specifically forbade me to mourn when I last saw him."

She extricated her hand from the gentle grasp of Mr. Whitmarsh. "I did not anticipate that I would meet so many who knew my mother in remote Positano, of all places."

"We three are all members of the Society of the Dilettanti. Miss Blair. As a woman your mother could not join, but we all eventually called to pay her homage" Mr. Whitmarsh said. "Considering her expertise in Roman letters, it is not so surprising that you meet those who knew her if you visit the lands of the ancient empire."

"Are you also a member of the society, Lord Elliot?"

"I joined after my grand tour."

She had been merely eighteen when her mother died, and not yet admitted into those salons and dinners where Artemis entertained scholars and artists. Yet, here in front of her were members of her mother's circle, even if they had merely stepped inside the outer edge on occasion.

She would have to find out if either of these men had noticed or heard on which man Artemis had settled her late affections.

She was relieved that she and Signora Roviale would not be the only women in this house party. Soon Mrs. Whitmarsh came down from her chamber.

Phaedra knew at once that Mrs. Whitmarsh was not as open-minded as her husband. A little, pale bird of a woman, she did not speak much, but she possessed a face so malleable that one knew her thoughts. Upon realizing Phaedra and Lord Elliot had arrived together. Mrs. Whitmarsh smiled thinly, glanced to Signora Roviale with subtle scorn, and retreated into silent, resigned disapproval of the company of fallen women.

While they dined alfresco in the long loggia that evening, Lord Elliot graciously drew Mrs. Whitmarsh into conversation that she would enjoy and talked about London society. Phaedra allowed the gentlemen to regale her with advice about the ancient wonders she should not miss.

"You must go to Paestum," Matthias exhorted. "Rothwell, I command that you take her there. I do not understand all these English visitors who tromp through bakeries and brothels in Pompeii, when nearby are some of the finest Greek temples in the world that they ignore."

"If Miss Blair desires it, we will visit the temples," Lord Elliot said.

Matthias appeared very much the university don at the moment. White hair disheveled, jaw chiseling the air, and aquiline nose poised high, he intoned his lesson as if she were the student that the universities had never allowed a woman to be.

"That is why I am here. Miss Blair. Rothwell and Whitmarsh admire the Romans, but my focus is more ancient. This land was a colony of the Greeks when Rome was still a small town with five cattle. When you see Paestum you will understand the superior Greek mind"