The Very Daring Duchess Part 2

"I say, these aren't exactly wicked," he said, clearly disappointed. "How's a fellow to be interested in a jumble of old pots like this?"

"Perhaps the signora keeps the wicked ones for private viewing," suggested Edward dryly. Although he couldn't claim a true collector's eye, most of the signora's paintings struck him as second-rate at best to out-and-out forgeries at their most obvious worst. Privately he was beginning to doubt that her more lurid wares even existed; it wouldn't be the first time that English gentlemen had exaggerated what they'd seen or done abroad. "For only her most special customers."

"By Jove, then I hope she approves of us," said Henry, anxiously smoothing the front of his dark blue uniform coat. "There, Edward, can you see the spot from the sauce last night?"

"For G.o.d's sake, Henry, you look more than well enough. The girl's a wretched shopkeeper, not the queen." Edward sighed, and shook his head over his friend's uncertainty, as if this woman's opinion actually mattered.

Not that he'd never worried like this himself. When he'd been younger, much younger, on leave in London, he and Will-now the Earl of Bonnington-had spent any number of hours in any number of elegant parlors, waiting for some young lady or another to deign to show herself. Strange how they'd all blurred together in his memory, those blue-blooded Georgianas and Charlottes with golden hair and angelic smiles, and when he and Will would reminisce about those long-ago girls now, they couldn't begin to sort one from another.

But while Will had been boundlessly full of charm, a great favorite with the ladies of every age, Edward in his awkward, lovesick youth had found those wellbred girls perpetually, achingly unattainable. They still were, really. No matter how many Frenchmen he'd managed to dispatch, even the greatest heroics always paled beside the prospect of a t.i.tle and the fortune that went with it.

"Ah, buon giorno, good day, good day, my most gallant and deserving of dear gentlemen-heroes!" exclaimed a breathy, feminine voice behind him, followed by some garbled, gulping reply from Henry.

Roused from his memories of the young ladies in London, Edward smiled wryly, thinking of how not one of them would dare greet strange gentlemen with such scandalously warm enthusiasm or with such a lilting, singsong accent, either. He was smiling still as he turned, yet as soon as he did, those sweet-faced young ladies in white muslin were instantly banished by the sight of the signora before him.

She was younger than Edward had expected, no more than twenty-five, her figure round and lush, and if the quality of her paintings had been exaggerated, then the promises of her beauty most certainly had not. Her skin was golden, burnished with rich rose, her eyes as dark and fathomless as midnight, and as full of sensual promise. Her hair was black as well, glossy and gleaming, and parted in the center.

And her dress-Jesus, he'd never seen a female dressed in such a fashion, a mixture of Turkish fantasy and fancy-dress costume that somehow managed to be alluring and enchanting and completely her own. Her gown was peac.o.c.k-blue satin looped up over a yellow-striped petticoat, the sleeves trimmed with brown fur cuffs and the bodice cut low over a sheer linen shift embroidered with scarlet silk. She'd wrapped another length of striped silk into a turban and pinned it into place on the back of her head with a black plume and a garnet brooch, and from her ears she wore large swinging gold hoops strung with single pearls.

Everything about her seemed to shimmer and glow as she walked, emphasizing the curves of her body and the warmth of her smile, and it took every bit of Edward's well-practiced reserve not to gawk outright. It didn't matter that the paintings and sculpture in her studio were trumped-up trash; she was the one true work of art, and a most rare-and likely most costly-one at that.

"Lieutenant Pye, is it not?" she was saying breathlessly as she curtseyed before poor dithering Henry, granting him a stupefying view of her bosom in the process. "How honored-most genuinely honored!-I am to have you grace my little studio! For what your brave navy has done to save this kingdom, to fight back those evil French and their hideous republic-why, whatever you wish, dear Lieutenant Pye, whatever you crave, is yours, yours!"

It was humbug and nonsense, every last pretty word. Edward could see that at once. She didn't have the slightest intention of giving away one broken-down saint. She wouldn't have to, either, because Henry was already reaching for his purse, so besotted that he'd gladly give her double whatever she tried to refuse. The more she fluttered and blushed and praised his gallantry, the more Henry would be willing to pay, and it wouldn't be until later, when he'd found himself in the street with some b.a.s.t.a.r.dized portrait of Aphrodite and an empty pocket to show for it, that he might-might-begin to realize what had happened to him.

Not, of course, that Edward had any intention of letting that happen. That was part of the reason he'd agreed to come with Henry in the first place, to keep him from mischief. This girl might be the most enchanting female ever put on this earth to bedevil honest men, but he'd extricated Henry from worse disasters in the name of friendship and for the good of the service.

"Good day, ma'am," he began, purposefully keeping his voice stern and his bow as perfunctory as possible. "I am Captain Lord Edward Ramsden. Your servant, ma'am."

"Oh, my lord captain, I am the one who must serve you!" She smiled brilliantly and tipped her head to one side as she spread her satin skirts and dropped him a curtsey, flattering him with the same charm that had worked so well with Henry. "An English lord in my humble little home! How my dear, late Papa would have loved to live for such a great day!"

"Indeed," answered Edward with another cursory bow. "And how proud, too, he would have been to see his daughter engaged in so thriving an establishment."

She flushed, his meaning all too plain, and Edward almost regretted the pointedness his words. No respectable Englishwoman would wish her home referred to in such a way, no matter if it were true.

But still she held her ground. "Indeed he would," she answered, her ear-bobs swinging against her cheeks. "Though Papa pa.s.sed most of his life here in Naples, he never forgot his English home, or put aside his loyalty to his English sovereign."

With a graceful sweep of her hand she gestured toward an engraving of King George and his Queen Charlotte. Cynically Edward wondered how long the British king and queen had actually hung there-since Lady Hamilton's first visit, perhaps, or only after the English fleet had sailed into Naples to refit earlier this autumn?

"If dear Papa could but see me here now," she continued, somehow contriving to bring the brightness of genuine tears to her eyes, "in conversation with a gentleman who is next to royalty himself, the son of an English duke!"

"Only a fourth son, ma'am," said Edward, wondering if she kept a copy of the peerage in another chamber for a.s.sessing her customers. "A powerfully long step from royalty. Far better you should honor how I serve His Majesty as a captain in his navy."

She nodded in silent agreement. But there was a new interest in her eyes as she appraised him again, an expression that, in an odd way, put Edward more on his guard than before. He didn't trust cleverness in a woman, especially when it came coupled with beauty. At least now he could understand Lady Hamilton's affection for her: they were much of a piece, two low-born, quick-witted women who weren't above using coquetry and a pretty face to get what they wished.

"Here now, signora, here," asked Henry importantly, clutching a small stone Cupid in his arms. "I'd wager my sister in Brighton would fancy such a gewgaw in her garden, there among the hollyhocks. What's he cost, eh?"

"This little fellow?" she asked, fondly running her fingertip along the statue's nose, and not-quite-accidentally brushing her plump, bare forearm over Henry's hand. "He's very old, you know, very ancient, at least from the time of the Caesars. But would your sister welcome the mischief such a statue would bring with him? Cupid is Venus's little son, you know, and given to making us mortals fall into love most inconveniently."

She smiled coyly, and Henry grinned back, as ripe and simple a moon-calf as Edward had ever seen.

"Give me that infernal thing, Henry," he ordered sharply, wresting the Cupid from his friend's arms. "Before you hand over your gold, use your eyes instead of your-well, use your eyes, d.a.m.n it. This statue is no more from ancient Rome than you are yourself. Mark how these stains in the marble look like someone's spilled tea on it, trying to make it seem old. And here, see how clean these chisel-nicks are in the stone. Wouldn't you think they'd have worn down a bit in, oh, the last thousand years or so?"

Henry scowled down at the fat-cheeked Cupid, then up at Edward. "What are you truly saying, Edward?" he demanded petulantly. "That I'm a right royal jacka.s.s? That I haven't your high-born eyes for art? That the signora here is lying?"

Edward sighed with exasperation, and awkwardly shifted the offending Cupid to his other arm, where its stone wing wouldn't poke him. "What I'm saying is that perhaps you're, ah, confused. Aye, confused. And so's the signora."

The signora smiled with surpa.s.sing sweetness, turning her face upward to Edward as if fair begging to be kissed in the most innocently cunning way imaginable.

"An English ship captain who is also a connoisseur, a scholar," she purred. "Che miracolo, how I do marvel at your great gifts, my lord!"

"I make no such claims, ma'am," he said as brusquely as he could, wishing she would keep to English. It was taxing enough to concentrate on the nodding plume of her turban instead of the myriad of temptations offered lower down on her person. "But I do know I've seen this exact same statue in the garden of the British amba.s.sador's palazzo last week. What are the odds of there being two such here in Naples, eh?"

"Oh, my lord!" she gasped, her hand arching over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with an undeniable emphasis. "To think that a great scholar such as the amba.s.sador has been taken in by a counterfeit!"

"d.a.m.nation, that's not what I'm saying at all!" exclaimed Edward with mushrooming frustration. "What I'm saying, ma'am, what I'm trying to say, is that-"

"Is that this Cupid and the one in the amba.s.sador's garden are both the work of the same master carver." She laughed merrily, and Edward had the uncomfortable feeling that, for the first time since she'd entered the room, her smile was genuine.

What had happened to his logic, his reasonable explanation? What had happened to his control of this situation?

"Signora Francesca," he said as sternly as he could. "You misconstrue my words, ma'am."

"Oh, I rather think not." Gently she took the statue from him, cradling it in her arms as if it were a real baby with its stone eyes turned adoringly up toward her. "I beg you to remember that you are in Naples, my lord, and that here anything-anything!-is possible."

Edward frowned, the sort of black-thunder frown that would have set his crew scurrying to obey.

"Perhaps," he answered, more of a growl, "that is why your King Ferdinando has gotten himself into such an infernal kettle of hot water. If his majesty had relied more on sound judgment and less upon wishful possibilities, then perhaps you Neapolitans, ma'am, would not be relying so heavily upon us English to rescue you from the coals now."

"Perhaps that might be true, my lord," she said, openly mimicking him. "But you see, since I am an English lady as well as a Neapolitan one, a tidy half of each through my parents, then I can claim both wishfulness and judgment, whichever serves me the better. A wise woman must always weigh and consider her options, my lord."

Righteousness welled up inside Edward. Francesca Robin was most certainly not English, nor by anyone's lights could she be considered a lady. Options, indeed. As soon as Napoleon's army appeared, likely she'd recall a grandfather who'd stormed the Bastille and change her name to Francoise. If this was the sort of twin-faced deceit he and his men were offering their lives to defend, then he'd just as soon open the city's gates to the French himself and be done with it.

"Your dubious patriotism, ma'am," he began, "is not what I wish to-"

"Hold now, Edward, and leave off the poor lady," interrupted Henry gallantly. "I came here to see the pictures, not listen to you insult her."

Instantly Edward swung around to face Henry. For the sake of friendship, he would overlook the difference in their ranks when the two of them were alone together, but not before this wretched girl, and not for her sake, either.

"You forget yourself, Lieutenant," he said curtly, and at once Henry straightened to attention.

"Aye, aye, sir," he said, his shoulders back and his eyes forward, the camaraderie that they'd shared earlier with the wine shattered to bits. "I forgot myself, sir."

Silently Edward cursed himself for squabbling with Henry. A chit of a girl, three bottles of wine, and two men who should know better: could there be a worse combination?

"We've tarried here long enough, Lieutenant Pye," he said gruffly. "High time we returned to the ship."

"Pray tarry a moment longer, per favore, lieutenant," said the young woman softly, settling the Cupid into Henry's arms. "You would not wish to leave without this."