The Very Daring Duchess Part 3

Edward's frown deepened. d.a.m.nation, did the girl have no shame at all? "I do not believe we shall be making any purchases today, ma'am."

"But I am making a gift of the Cupid to the lieutenant, my lord captain," she murmured sweetly. "Because the lieutenant fancied it, my lord, I'm offering it to him in return for his service to our little kingdom."

Somehow she was managing to make her expression as meek as the women who gathered each morning on the steps of the cathedral before ma.s.s, her head bowed and her eyes full of worshipful thanks. A low actress's trick, Edward told himself sternly, but that still didn't keep him from feeling like an overbearing, ungrateful a.s.s.

Blast her for doing this to him!

"Lieutenant Pye doesn't want the statue," he said, his voice more defensive than he could have wished. "He came here to see your infernal pictures."

Her eyes widened with disingenuous surprise. She was as bright and ever-changing as quicksilver, this girl, and as d.a.m.ned elusive, too. "My pictures, my lord? But my pictures are all around us!"

"The special ones, signora," he said impatiently. "The paintings that you've shown to the other English gentlemen."

"Ahhh," she said, nodding. "My father's paintings. His series ent.i.tled the Oculus Amorandi."

"Eh?" asked Henry, mystified. "The eye what?"

"The Eye on Loving," said Edward. "Rather like the eye of a peeping Tom at the window, I would wager."

"But done in the most scholarly and correct manner after the discovery of a brothel in Pompeii," she said promptly. "Done directly from the wall paintings that portray the most scandalous diversions of the pagan ancients."

"Aye, aye, those paintings," said Henry eagerly. "The wicked ones."

But the signora only sighed, spreading her hands and shrugging with dramatic Neapolitan resignation. "Alas, alas, dearest sirs, I cannot show them to you, no matter how much I wished it."

Edward allowed himself the slightest of smiles. So the pictures truly didn't exist, the way he'd always suspected. Perhaps Signora Francesca wasn't so very hard to pin down after all.

"No, signora?" he asked lightly. "And pray, why ever not?"

She turned the shrug into a graceful half-turn, her skirts shushing so distractingly around her ankles that Edward nearly forgot what he'd asked in the first place.

"These are such unsettled times, my lord," she explained, "uneasy times that make the hair p.r.i.c.kle on the back of a dog's neck. The censors from the royal court have visited me-oh, such unpleasant men!-and forbidden me to display-"

"Censors?" interrupted Edward incredulously. While the Neapolitan court was one of the last to survive Napoleon's Republican army, it was also one of the most louche, corruptly Bourbon to the center of its licentious heart. "If there is one ruler in all Europe that keeps no censors for decency, it must be your King Ferdinando. They say the man has so many b.a.s.t.a.r.ds by so many mistresses he's lost count himself!"

She shrugged again, the golden afternoon sunlight sliding over the skin of her shoulders, not at all scandalized that he'd speak so freely before her.

"I will acknowledge that His Majesty is the most fortunate parent of fourteen children with Queen Maria Carolina," she said coyly. "As for the others-ah, my lord, you must remember that this is a very different place than your London. Who knows what may happen here tomorrow, the next day, or the next?"

"Meaning that if Lieutenant Pye and I were to return here upon another day, you would produce your father's old Oculus for our amus.e.m.e.nt?"

"Who can say for certain, my lord?" the girl answered, her words as insubstantial as a sigh. "But if you return to honor me again on another pretty afternoon, perhaps, perhaps, I will be able to grant what you... wish."

She smiled then, that same charming, clever, conspirator's smile that Edward had found at once so unsettling and so beguiling. It didn't matter that Henry was standing there beside him with the wretched Cupid still clutched in his arms. The air in the studio felt close and velvety soft, the scent from the scarlet flowers heady with the temptation that seemed an inescapable part of Naples, and as natural to this girl as breathing itself.

She was challenging him, teasing him, daring him, and Edward would wager fifty guineas that it wasn't just a hackneyed old statue at stake, either. He recognized the signs well enough: The aristocratic mamas and daughters in London might disdain him, but he'd be a golden prize to a saucy little adventuress like this one. If he accepted the signora's challenge and whatever she was offering with that smile, he'd be soundly congratulated for his good fortune by every one of his friends and fellow officers. Not one man in his acquaintance would fault him.

Not one, that is, except himself.

He'd come here this afternoon for diversion, that was all, and to keep hapless Henry from mischief. He no more sought a mistress than he wanted to buy her ancient rubbish. If he encouraged her, he'd be the same as any other common sailor frolicking with his harlot. The only difference would be the cost.

He straightened his shoulders, shaking off the final mazy effects of the wine, and motioned to the manservant hovering by the doorway for his hat. The last thing he needed to complicate his life was a woman, especially one who was this charming, this clever, this seductively beautiful.

And no matter what she claimed, she wasn't English.

She most decidedly wasn't a lady, either.

"Remember, my lord," she said, still teasing him with her smile. "In Naples, anything is possible."

"Perhaps for you, signora, because you were born here," he said curtly as he took his hat, "but not for an Englishman like me. Good day, ma'am."

And then, being a gentleman of his word, he promptly left.

0="2"2.

The arm was wrong, completely wrong, bent oddly backward as if there were an extra joint at the shoulder, and so distorted that if the arm's owner chose to unbend it, surely her fingers would drag upon the marble floor like an ape's.

Francesca scowled at the drawing, adding another stroke of dark-red chalk to try to fix that awful arm. It wasn't like her to be this unfocused with an important patron sitting before her, or to let herself be so distracted from her work by the memory of a single botched sale three days before.

No, she must be honest with herself. It wasn't the lost sale-though considering the sorry state of her finances, she'd been an impulsive fool to give away the Cupid to the freckle-faced English lieutenant-that was plaguing her now, but the gentleman that had made her do it. She'd known from the moment she'd seen Captain Lord Edward Ramsden's broad-shouldered back that he'd be trouble for her. Stiff and unyielding, the kind of man who refused to be cosseted or charmed into doing anything against his will.

G.o.d knows he'd come by his arrogance honestly. From what she'd been able to learn, he'd been born to wealth and position as a n.o.bleman's son, and those blessings had been coupled with the kind of handsome, emotionless face the English prized in men, weather-beaten, thin-lipped, blue-eyed, and cold as a winter day. Being the captain of one of those huge navy ships in the bay was the final touch, making him a floating dictator and a hero as well.

But instead of being awed or intimidated by the magnificence of Captain Lord Edward Ramsden, Francesca had seen it as a challenge, a chilly wall to be taken apart stone by stone. She'd made light of his rank, and instead lavished her brightest smiles upon his lowly lieutenant. He'd tried to question the authenticity of her wares, and she'd turned his words against him. He'd come to see Papa's infamous Oculus, and so, perversely, she'd held back showing him the paintings with a trumped-up story about censors. She'd shamelessly teased him, coaxed him, out-and-out taunted him, and accomplished nothing beyond humiliating herself with a thoroughness she'd never sunken to with any other man.

And, with the mocking way her fortunes had gone this year, she'd failed, miserably, horribly, absolutely. He'd ridiculed her studio, mocked her wares and her talent, and worst of all, he'd rejected her wit and her charm and her smiles. He'd rejected her.

In the three days since he'd walked from her studio, she'd hated herself for tossing aside her pride, she'd hated him for tempting her to do it, and, most painfully, she'd hated caring. Time was only making the memory worse, and with a sigh of frustration she rubbed her chamois rag over the charcoal sketch and swept the awkwardly drawn arm away forever.

"You are not happy with the drawing, little Robin?" asked her ladyship with concern, sliding her gaze awkwardly toward Francesca without breaking her pose. "You are not pleased?"

"Uno momento, per favore," said Francesca, hurriedly fixing the drawing as best she could. If her ladyship had seen the hopeless incompetence of that dislocated arm, then she'd never pose for Francesca again. Emma, Lady Hamilton was a famous beauty who had been painted and drawn by the very best artists of the day, and she did have certain expectations. Besides, as the English amba.s.sador's wife, she had a right to be shown with arms that matched, no matter how ill-tempered Francesca herself might be on this late afternoon.

"We are not inspired today, are we, my dear little Robin?" asked her ladyship with a sigh of her own as she pulled aside the shawl she'd draped over her head for the pose. "What a wretched sort of G.o.ddess I must look to you like this!"

"Oh, no, my lady," said Francesca quickly. "If the picture doesn't come well, it's my fault, not yours."

"Don't be so wicked n.o.ble, dear Robin," said her ladyship with a philosophical sigh as she plucked a jam-filled biscuit from the tray beside the chair where she'd been portraying Demeter, complete with a small sheaf of wheat in her lap. " 'Tis my fault, and I know it, and has been ever since Sir William and I returned from the villa at Posillipo. I vow that here in Naples, here in this house, I cannot seem to make anything but a muddle of my thoughts."

Francesca nodded solemnly, the one answer she'd dare make. Only Lady Hamilton could fault this grand house for making her feel out of sorts. The Palazzo Sessa was the most elegant home in Naples short of the king's, with every comfort and convenience imaginable for the extravagant entertainments that both her ladyship and her husband so enjoyed. Each chamber was a testimony to the amba.s.sador's renowned taste, as well as to the doting affection he lavished on his much-younger wife. Here in the music room, he'd not only supplied a harp, pianoforte, and harpsichord for her amus.e.m.e.nt, with down-filled cushions to make the chairs more comfortable, but also lined the wall opposite the windows with looking gla.s.ses so that his Emma would always have the splendid view of the bay wherever she turned.

And so, of course, that Sir William could in turn admire Emma. While he'd come to appreciate her quick wit and sweet nature, it had been Emma's great beauty that had attracted him most, and still made her the prize of his collection of rare and beautiful objects. That his wife was the illiterate daughter of a Cheshire blacksmith hadn't fazed him any more than that she'd first come to Naples as the cast-off nineteen-year-old mistress of Sir William's own nephew. She was thirty-three now, her thick chestnut hair not quite as gleaming, her famous figure coa.r.s.ening, but at sixty-eight Sir William admired her still, and loved her all the more.

And while Francesca, like the rest of Naples, realized that Admiral Nelson was far more distracting to Emma than any mere palazzo could be, she was also wise enough to keep pretending for the sake of her commissions. Francesca's trade was already suffering on account of the wars. She could hardly afford to become over-nice about whispers and scandal, too. Besides, what better way to put her own foolish behavior with Captain Lord Edward Ramsden into perspective than to consider the much greater disaster that Lady Hamilton was courting with her own energetic hero of the Nile?

"It is my muse, not yours, that has eluded me today, my lady," she said diplomatically, carefully settling her chalks in their box and dusting her hands together on the chamois. "Besides, the light is already fading. Another afternoon, and I'm sure I'll succeed in capturing the likeness."

"Oh, fiddle, let me be the judge." Lady Hamilton rose and came to stand over Francesca's shoulder, trailing her shawl and biscuit crumbs along the marble floor after her. "You've given me no body to speak of-hah, what license is that!-but my face is rather nice. What was that word Sir William told me the other day-pensive, that was it. My eyes look pensive, wouldn't you say?"

To Francesca, her ladyship expression had looked simply bored, which was part of the reason the drawing had been such a struggle. "Demeter would be pensive, wouldn't she? Isn't she the one whose daughter was carried off to Hades?"