To Deceive a Duke

‘No blood, you say?’ Lady Riverton said. ‘How interesting. Perhaps, Miss Thalia, you might grace us with a monologue at my little theatricals? Add some appropriate classicism to the proceedings.’

Thalia gave her a gracious smile. ‘If you think your guests would enjoy it, Lady Riverton.’

The purpose of their visit now so neatly achieved, Thalia went on to chat with their hostess about the newest fashions in bonnets—feathers or fruit?—while Clio turned to Mrs Darby. They had become friends on that tour of the ‘valley of the temples’ at Agrigento, but did not see each other as often now that Mr Darby had turned his activities from excavating to writing. A novel, everyone heard, about the original destruction of the old Greek town during the Punic Wars.

‘And how is Mr Darby’s book progressing?’ Clio asked.

Mrs Darby laughed. ‘Well enough, I suppose. He hides himself away in his library after breakfast and does not emerge all day, so something is being worked on.’

‘What do you do yourself, then, while he is scribbling away?’

‘Pay calls, as you see. Go on excursions. I fear it’s becoming rather dull for poor Susan.’ Mrs Darby glanced at her daughter, who was nibbling at a cake with a very dreamy look in her eyes. ‘We have been thinking of hiring a yacht to take us out to some of the other islands. Motya, for the Phoenician sites, perhaps. Maybe you would care to join us?’

Clio thought again of the Duke, of their kiss. Now that he was here, he was not likely to go away again any time soon. It was terribly tempting to run away, to sail off and put the endless blue sea between them! But she could not leave her work. Not just yet. ‘That is very kind of you, Mrs Darby. I have heard such enticing things about the necropolis there. But I am not sure I can leave my family just now.’

‘Yes. We have heard you are hard at work on a more remote site while your father explores that villa of his. It is very brave of you, I must say!’

‘Brave? Not at all. Dull is what most people would call it. The site is just an old ruined farmhouse, but I am enjoying finding clues to everyday life here.’

‘Yet it is so remote! I would fear for Susan out there. And, of course, there is the curse.’

Clio felt a tiny cold shiver along her spine. ‘Curse, Mrs Darby? Is your husband by some chance writing a horrid novel?’

Mrs Darby smiled and shook her head. ‘Oh, Miss Clio. I myself do not believe in such nonsense. I simply happened to overhear your cook gossiping with our housemaid, who I think is her daughter. They didn’t seem to know I speak Italian. They were saying how courageous you are to brave the curse.’

Clio laughed, though she still felt inexplicably cold. As if a goose had walked over her grave. ‘How very amusing. I wonder who placed this curse?’

Mrs Darby shrugged. ‘It seems something terribly violent happened at your farmhouse before it was destroyed. Something that deeply angered the gods. Now it is said that anyone unworthy who dares disturb the ground will be terribly punished. That’s why the site has been so undisturbed all these years.’

‘Perhaps the curse has a time limit,’ Clio suggested, ‘for I am still here.’

‘Or maybe you are considered worthy. Oh, Miss Clio, Sicily is ever fascinating, is it not?’

‘Indeed it is,’ Clio murmured. Well, at least this little tale explained why she had trouble hiring assistants. If only ancient curses could keep Averton away, too.

The drawing room opened amid the quiet buzz of conversation, and the butler announced, ‘The Count di Fabrizzi, my lady.’

Clio’s teacup clattered in its saucer at the sudden announcement. No! Perhaps there were two Fabrizzis in Italy? There simply had to be. She couldn’t take another sudden reappearance, not in one day.

She carefully put the cup and saucer down, schooling her expression into cool lines of casual interest before she looked toward the door.

There were not, after all, two Count Fabrizzis. Only the one she already knew—Marco, who had been one of the Lily Thief’s cohorts, a man deeply concerned with the lost heritage of his homeland. And there he stood, raising Lady Riverton’s lace-mittened hand to his lips for a polite salute as she giggled and blushed.

When she had known him in England, she had been quite aware that he was a titled nobleman from an old Florentine family. Yet he had been disguised as a gypsy, his long black hair tied back with a red bandanna, dressed in plain white shirts and scuffed boots. Now his hair was expertly trimmed into a glossy dark cap that emphasised his chocolate-brown eyes and high Italian cheekbones. He was dressed simply but expensively in a well-cut bottle-green coat, buckskin breeches and a gold-striped silk waistcoat.

Clio folded her hands in her lap, watching the scene warily. She did not feel that lightning shock that went all through her when Averton appeared, that hot fear and excitement. She knew very well Marco would never give away her secrets. But his arrival in Lady Riverton’s drawing room was an unexpected wrinkle in her plans. What was he doing here? What did he hope to gain in Sicily?

If he looked to reincarnate the Lily Thief…

‘Good heavens,’ Mrs Darby murmured. ‘What a beauty.’

Her daughter just giggled, hiding the giddy sound behind her fan.

‘Indeed,’ Clio said, glancing at her sister. Thalia had a frighteningly speculative gleam in her eye. She couldn’t be thinking of recruiting Marco for her play! Could she?

Lady Riverton stood and took Marco’s arm, turning him toward their eager little group. ‘This is the Count di Fabrizzi, who has come all the way from Florence to grace our little society here! He and my dear Lord Riverton were such good friends, you see.’

‘He would never forgive me if I did not pay my deepest respects to his lovely widow,’ Marco said in his liquid accent, giving her a charming smile that made her plump, pretty cheeks turn bright pink. ‘But I fear I will only be in Santa Lucia for a very few days. I have business in Palermo.’

‘Oh, no!’ Lady Riverton cried. ‘Surely your business here cannot be concluded so quickly. And Santa Lucia is so diverting this spring, as I’m sure my friends can tell you. Let me introduce you. Lady Elliott and the Misses Elliott, Mrs Darby and Miss Darby. And the Misses Chase, Clio and Thalia, whom you must have heard of. They are the famous Chase Muses. Ladies, you must join me in urging the Count to stay a little longer.’

‘Oh, yes!’ Lady Elliott declared. ‘If you were a friend of Lord Riverton, you must enjoy antiquities. There are so many around here.’

Lady Riverton urged Marco to sit down in the chair next to hers, pressing a cup of tea and some sandwiches on him. ‘Yes, quite,’ he answered. ‘Ancient history is one of the great passions of my life.’

Miss Darby giggled again behind that fan, until her mother shot her a stern glance.

‘Then you should stay and meet our husbands,’ Lady Elliott went on. ‘As well as Mr Frobisher and the Manning-Smythes. Most of them are working on the site of an ancient Greek town, and have already found many exquisite objects. We expect more great things. I’m sure they would welcome your expertise.’

‘Welcome the free labour,’ Thalia muttered to Clio.

‘You must at least stay for my theatrical evening,’ Lady Riverton said.

‘It sounds most—diverting,’ Marco answered. He gave their hostess another smile, displaying a deep-set dimple in his olive-complected cheek that made even Mrs Darby sigh.

‘You enjoy the theatre, Count?’ Thalia said.

‘When I have the chance to attend,’ Marco answered. He turned his smile on to Thalia, but it turned to a frown of puzzlement when he met her frank, speculative blue eyes.

Well, Clio thought, she could not save Marco if Thalia had decided he would act in her play. Anyone caught in Thalia’s crosshairs was doomed. But she still could not decipher what he was doing here. Marco and the Duke in one place? So strange.

The conversation went along most politely, turning to the social events of Santa Lucia, the objets that had been found thus far in the Greek town. Clio sipped at a fresh cup of tea, studying Marco over the painted china rim. They exchanged only one meaningful glance, a long look that promised much conversation later, but other than that he gave no sign at all that he had ever seen her before. Perhaps Thalia was right about his potential acting skills.

And Clio had to keep up her own, too. Luckily, deception had become second nature to her in her Lily Thief days. But this afternoon, smiling and chatting as if she hadn’t a care, she felt as if a bar of cold iron was pressing down on her. Making her want to scream.

Her cheeks hurt from all that smiling, too.

At last, the half-hour deemed polite for a social call passed, giving Clio and Thalia the excuse they needed to escape. As they collected their shawls and gloves and thanked Lady Riverton, the footman appeared again with a note on a silver tray. Lady Riverton scanned it quickly, and suddenly broke into a triumphant laugh.

Curious, Clio paused in drawing on her gloves. Surely there was little in Santa Lucia correspondence that could be that exciting. Not very much changed here from day to day. Until now.

‘Oh, Count di Fabrizzi, now you really must come to my theatricals!’ Lady Riverton said, carefully refolding the note. ‘It would be quite the triumph to have in attendance both an Italian count and an English duke. Two handsome young noblemen to grace my drawing room!’

‘A duke?’ exclaimed Lady Elliott. ‘I was not aware there were any such personages in the neighborhood.’

‘There is now. He has just accepted my invitation, which I sent round as soon as I heard who had taken the Picini palazzo.’ Lady Riverton gave them a supremely satisfied smile. ‘And you will never guess who it is.’

‘Devonshire!’ guessed Miss Darby.