To Deceive a Duke (12 page)

The tip of his tongue lightly traced a circle on that soft, trembling skin, closer, ever closer, to her hardened nipple, just barely covered by her gauzy chemise.

Clio groaned again, tightening her grasp on his hips, drawing him deeper into the arc of her body. Through his velvet breeches, she felt the heavy length of his manhood, hard as iron with a desire that echoed her own.

She buried her fingers in his hair, holding him to her as his mouth finally touched her nipple, drawing it in deep to his kiss. She sobbed at the intense feelings, at the connection that was still not quite enough for her. At the desire that burned higher and higher.

As if she were indeed in a dream, a vision conjured by some goddess of the night to torment her. To drive her mad with crazy desire.

Through that haze of passion, she felt him draw back. Felt his kiss slide from her breast, leaving the skin cold as ice, felt him ease away from her until she stood on her own feet again. But he did not leave her entirely; his hands were still at her waist, tense, his forehead braced on her bare shoulder. Their rough, uneven breath mingled, their heartbeats pounding together until surely all the world could hear it.

Clio caressed his tumbled hair, her hand trembling. Oh, when,
when
, would this end? This terrible weakness, this painful yearning. She was not happy with him or without him.

‘Oh, Clio,’ he muttered. ‘What you do to me…’

What
she
did to
him
? Clio almost laughed aloud. But then she just pressed one lingering kiss to his temple, to the life-pulse that beat there, clinging to him for as long as she dared before she let him go. She half-turned from him, adjusting her gown, drawing her veil forward to hide her flushed face. She sucked in one deep breath, then another, until she felt her trembling slow and stop.

‘Clio,’ he growled. ‘I—’

‘No,’ Clio interrupted. Truly, she could not bear it if he apologised! If he made this all into something conventional and sordid. ‘Masquerade balls do seem to cast some strange spell on us, don’t they? Maybe we should avoid them in future.’

‘Not
just
masquerade balls,’ he answered wryly.

True. There were also castles, and ruins, and drawing rooms and meadows. Clio dared not look at him for fear she would jump on him again. So, she just laughed, and hurried on her unsteady feet back to the well-lit, welcoming noise of the piazza, and of real life.

E
dward braced his palms against the rough wall, his eyes closed as he forced himself to breathe in deeply, slowly, trying to calm the fiery riot inside him. But he could still smell the fragrance of Clio’s lily perfume in the air, still feel the warmth of her lingering on the cold wall. She was all around him, part of him.

His hands curled into tight fists as he thought of her, of all the times they met and clashed—and kissed. Her passion ignited needs he thought long buried; it inflamed his own lust until they were both consumed in the bonfire. He so longed for her that every part of his body ached from it—his heart, his flesh, his very soul.

It distracted him from his purpose here, blinded him to all but her, all but what they were when they came together. Something so strange and elemental, something that refused to be constrained.

The man he used to be would not have let himself be restrained. He would have taken what he wanted long ago, would never have denied himself. He was not that spoiled youth any longer. His heedless, impulsive actions had hurt
others terribly. His family, his discarded mistresses, people who had tried to be his friend—and one sad-eyed young woman who haunted him still, a maidservant whose unwise love for that insufferable boy had led to her downfall.

He could not be that person now. Not with Clio. Even if the ache of it, of all that desire, killed him in the end.

Edward laughed ruefully at himself. Who would have imagined, ten or even five years ago, that he would be so constrained by honour? By his own version of courtly love? How astonished his parents and his long-lost brother would be to see it! They thought he would be a useless wastrel all his life.

He rubbed at the small, jagged white scar on his brow, the stark reminder of what happened when he forgot his resolve. He would not forget it again.

Clio made her way shakily back to the
feste
, strolling slowly around the edges of the dance. She watched the twirling, kaleidoscopic patterns through her veil, feeling far removed from all the music, the drunken laughter, as if she saw it all in a dream, a play.

Which was so very odd. This party should be the real life, so full of light and noise, and those frantic caresses in the shadows the dream. A tangle of emotions half-understood in the snare of darkness, but lost when daybreak came. Dispersed like so much smoke and fog.

Yet, more and more, the fleeting moments she spent with him
were
the reality.

Something would have to happen soon. Something would have to change. She could not stumble on like this for ever, wanting him with such a furious desire and yet so afraid of that wanting at the same time. Afraid of losing herself for ever.

Yes, she would have to take action. But what? She had never so longed for Calliope’s sensible presence, her calm advice! She had never felt quite so alone.

Clio took a goblet of wine from one of the tables, sipping at it beneath her veil as she watched the crowd. Her father and Lady Rushworth sat with some of their friends under the shelter of a portal, conversing animatedly as they passed a platter of cheese and olives. Unlike at Lady Riverton’s theatricals, he would have to be dragged away at the break of dawn. ‘Old and tired’, indeed!

Clio scanned the rainbow of brilliant colours, the masks and feathers and ribbons, searching for Thalia. At last she glimpsed her white gown, the gleam of torchlight on her pale hair. She was not dancing, but sat on the cathedral steps, laughing with a man in a red-striped cloak. They leaned together as they talked, and the man pushed his mask atop his head in one graceful, absentminded gesture, his gaze close on Thalia’s face as she spoke.

Clio was startled to see it was Marco. He leaned one elbow on the step above them, gazing up at Thalia as if she was the only person there. The only one whose voice he heard, whose smiles he saw. And Thalia laughed again, her cheeks a pretty apple-pink under the edge of her gilded mask.

Clio frowned. Marco charmed dozens of other women just so, from gypsy camps to Lady Riverton’s drawing room. She had watched him like this before. Thalia was not easily charmed, never easily fooled. Yet she
was
young, and she had the Chase quality of being headstrong and curious. And Marco was handsome, as handsome as Thalia was beautiful. If he hurt her sister…

He would certainly live to regret it. Clio would see to that, if Thalia did not unman him first!

Clio turned away as Thalia and Marco rose and moved back into the dance, hand in hand. Edward had not reappeared, and Clio was finally able to breathe again. She eased her veil aside a bit, strolling around the party, trying to guess who the various masks concealed. The shepherdess in bright pink brocade and diamonds was surely Lady Riverton, and the gentleman in the white fur cloak and painted sheep mask could be Mr Frobisher. The angel was Susan Darby, giggling with the Harlequin who had danced with Thalia when they first arrived. Was he Peter Elliott? For shame, to be transferring his affections from Thalia to Miss Darby so quickly!

Clio laughed, and took another sip of her wine. As she lowered the cup, she noticed a furtive movement just at the edge of the bakery building. A tall, muscular man in a rough brown cloak and white skull mask glanced back over his shoulder, his head swivelling quickly one way and then another before he ducked into the alleyway between the bakery and a shuttered vegetable stall.

It was only a flash of movement, unnoticed by any passer-by, but Clio knew all too well what an air of illicit activity looked like. Felt like. She could practically smell trouble in the breeze, more pungent than any perfume.

She set down her goblet and drew her veil back into place, creeping to the mouth of the alleyway. It was very dark here, darker than even the lane where she had met Edward. Yet her vision, filtered by the black tulle, grew accustomed to the dimness, and she saw a small patch of light at the end, emanating from one of the bakery’s back windows. The man in the skull mask stood just at the edge of its glow, talking quietly with someone else, someone shorter and muffled in a hooded black cloak.

Clio felt her pulse quicken in excitement, with the tingle
of danger and secrecy. Holding her skirts close to still their satin rustle, she backed away before turning and dashing back around the vegetable stall. Hidden behind it, behind a pile of abandoned crates and the stench of rotting produce, she could barely make out their voices.

‘But where can the objects be found?’ one of them said, in a low, hoarse voice, muffled by a hood or mask. Clio could not tell if it was a man or woman, but the desperation was palpable.

‘I told you, we don’t know yet,’ the skull mask said, rough with impatience. He spoke in English, but with a heavy Sicilian accent. Clio frowned in concentration, almost sure she had heard it before.

‘But we have the bowl! Surely the rest must be near where it was found.’

‘That piece must have been separated from the rest of the collection,’ the impatient Sicilian said. ‘We’ll find the rest soon. We’re digging whenever we can. It’s close, I can feel it!’

‘It had better be. This English customer was most pleased with the bowl, and is willing to pay a great deal of money for the rest. The silver is a rare find. It will set us up for life. Why can you not work faster?’

‘You know why!’ the Sicilian said angrily. Clio heard a rustle, as of a hood or mask being pushed back. Clio peered cautiously around the corner, and found that she had indeed recognised that voice. It was Giacomo, Rosa’s rabbit-poaching son.

She felt a startled, sad pang for Rosa and Paolo, for the bitter realization that he
was
up to no good, and not just poaching. That he was one of the great plague of
tombaroli
. How dare he hurt his kind-hearted parents in such a way! How
dare he destroy his own family’s heritage? As Lily Thief, she had fought so hard against such terrible ills. She didn’t want to fight again, not here.

‘Those tomb frescoes last year were much larger and more complicated, and yet you delivered them in half the time,’ the other person said querulously.

‘No one was lurking around that tomb every day,’ Giacomo answered, sullen. ‘And the ghosts keep workers away.’

‘That has never stopped you in the past. Take care of it. The English wants the silver, or nothing. If
you
want the money…’

‘Of course I want the money!’

‘Then do as I say. Take care of the site, and find the rest of the silver. No matter what you have to do. It must be there somewhere! All the indications say so.’

There was a snap of papers being unfolded, and the cloaked person said, ‘This is what the English wants, the pieces in these sketches. Find it all within a fortnight, and there will be a fat bonus in your purse. Fail, and the consequences could be dire—for all of us.’

Clio stretched up on tiptoe, peering closer as the person hurried away, leaving Giacomo alone. He lowered his skull mask back into place, staring down at the sheaf of papers in his hand. Strangely, that hand trembled. She heard him mutter in Italian, something more about ‘ghosts’. In her eagerness to hear him, she leaned too far forwards, accidentally nudging a crate with her toe. Startled by that scraping sound, she drew deeper into the shadows, not daring to breathe.

Giacomo spun around, scanning the alleyway, as nervous as a cat. She could smell his acrid fear.
Tombarolo
he might be, but perhaps not a very good one. Thievery required nerves of steel.

‘Chi è là?’
he called, glaring frantically one way then another. A slip of paper fell from his shaking hand.

‘Ghosts,’ he muttered, rubbing at his face with a shaking hand. He hurried out of the alleyway, tugging his cloak around him as if to ward off those ghosts everyone here seemed so afraid of.

Clio waited, perfectly still, until she was sure he was really gone. Then she tiptoed forwards, scooping up the lost paper.

As she peered down at it in the dim light, she saw it was a sketch of a small incense burner, the drawing carefully detailed and measured. It was carved with an elaborate relief of Demeter. An exquisite piece, even in the pencil sketch, and Clio had never seen anything like it except in the British Museum, which held the remnants of a Greek altar set.

She frowned as she tucked the paper into her sleeve. Giacomo had spoken of a bowl, a part of a great hoard of silver. Also temple pieces, probably, to judge by the fine style of the incense burner. It was a piece a collector, this
English
Giacomo and his cohort spoke of, would indeed pay a great deal for. Where were they digging for these pieces?

And who was the ‘English’?

Clio had a sickening feeling that all the puzzles of the past few days were coming together, and they were centred on this silver. Was it the reason Edward had suddenly showed up in Santa Lucia? Was
he
the English who was after the stolen temple hoard?

She felt dizzy, remembering the long gallery at Acropolis House, packed with antiquities of every description—Greek vases, Roman statues, an Egyptian sarcophagus, Minoan snake goddesses, all jumbled together. She remembered the Alabaster Goddess, reigning over it all. He had vowed then that he had reformed his ways, that he worked for the An
tiquities Society, that his task was to stop the Lily Thief and others of that ilk.

But perhaps the silver was too much of a temptation. Perhaps he had fought against his old ways and lost.

Clio shivered, suddenly icy cold and deeply sad. She crept back around the stall the way she had arrived, slipping back into the party. The moon was lower in the sky now; soon the night would give way to dawn. Yet she sensed that
her
darkness was only just beginning.

She sat down on the steps where she had glimpsed Thalia and Marco earlier, suddenly feeling so very old and tired. The music was louder than ever, but she seemed to be wrapped in silence.

From the crowd emerged a tall figure swathed in dark blue velvet, red-gold hair loose on his shoulders, like an angel. Everyone else moved in drunken, haphazard patterns, yet he was all predatory grace. She watched, still feeling that cold, dream-like distance, as he sat down on the step below hers.

Silently, silently, he leaned back against her legs, his head resting on her knees, heavy and sweet and reassuring through her skirts. She laid one hand lightly on his tousled hair, feeling the rough silk of it under her touch, the familiar rush of his pulse with hers. They sat there, wrapped in quiet, in that deep gulf between them, as the night spun on around them.

Oh, Edward
, she thought sadly.
How can you be a villain?

Or was it merely her heart who was the great betrayer?