Книга - To Deceive a Duke

To Deceive a Duke
Amanda McCabe


Danger and desire! Clio Chase is hoping for a quiet season in Sicily with her family. There, she can forget all about the enigmatic Duke of Averton and the strange effect he has on her. That is until he unexpectedly arrives, shattering her peace and warning her of danger…The unsettling attraction is still strong between them, despite the secrets they hide. But, as the unknown threat grows, they are thrown together in the most intimate of ways.Clio knows there is only so long she can resist her mysterious Duke!







‘Clio!’ he growled, his icy calmcracking at last. He dropped thereins, his hands curling into fists.

And Clio felt a stirring of some strange satisfaction.

‘You are the most obstinate woman I have ever seen,’ he muttered. ‘Why can you not just listen to me for once in your life?’

‘Just listen to you? Quietly do what you want, just as everyone does with the exalted Duke? Well, I’m sorry, Your Grace, but I am too busy to stand here arguing with you any longer.’ She strode past him, not sure where she was going, only knowing that she had to get away. Had to escape from those crackling bonds before she exploded!

She gave Averton a wide berth, yet not quite wide enough. Before she had even seen him move, he caught her by the wrists, pulling her close to him. Startled, she dropped her dagger. It landed mere inches from his booted foot, yet he did not glance at it at all. He only watched her.


Amanda McCabe wrote her first romance at the age of sixteen—a vast epic, starring all her friends as the characters, written secretly during algebra class. She’s never since used algebra, but her books have been nominated for many awards, including the RITA


Award, the Romantic Times BOOKreviews Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Booksellers Best, the National Readers’ Choice Award, and the Holt Medallion. She lives in Oklahoma, with a menagerie of two cats, a pug and a bossy miniature poodle, and loves dance classes, collecting cheesy travel souvenirs, and watching the Food Network—even though she doesn’t cook. Visit her at http://ammandamccabe. tripod.com and http://www.riskyregencies.blogspot.com

A recent novel by the same author:

TO CATCH A ROGUE*

*Linked to TO DECEIVE A DUKE




TO DECEIVE A DUKE


Amanda McCabe




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




Author Note


When I was a child, my parents had a photo-filled book about ‘Ancient Places’. I loved that book, and it made me fascinated with archaeology! I even tore up freshly planted grass in the garden, looking for Viking treasure. It all seemed so adventurous and romantic.

The three Chase sisters share my fascination, and they are lucky enough to exist in the Regency period where interest in the ancient world is strong. They can spend their time studying artefacts, digging on archaeological sites—and finding love with gorgeous and dashing men!

When I first met Clio and her Duke, in TO CATCH A ROGUE, I didn’t see how they could overcome their many differences. The fact that Clio knocked him down with a marble statue seemed the least of their troubles! Yet they obviously belonged together; they shared a very powerful attraction, an unusual way of looking at the world. But would that be enough? I had a wonderful time ‘visiting’ Sicily with them, and finding the answer to that question. I hope you enjoy their tale, too!




Prologue







Queen of fragrant Eleusis,

Giver of earth’s good gifts,

Give me your grace, O Demeter.

You, too, Persephone, fairest,

Maiden of all lovely, I offer

Song for your favor.

Clio Chase glanced back over her shoulder as she tiptoed along the narrow corridor of Acropolis House, the labyrinthine London home of the Duke of Averton. No one followed her. Probably they did not even notice her absence from the ballroom, not in such a crush as the Duke’s Grecian masked ball.

Perfect.

It was silent here, unlike the roar of music and shallow conversation. So quiet it was almost like a cave, lit only by a few lamps built to resemble flickering torches. The shifting light touched the dark panelled walls, the low, carved ceiling and the gilt-framed paintings, making them glitter and waver as if alive.

She paused to slip off her heeled green satin shoes, hurrying on stocking feet to the end of the corridor where there was a small, winding staircase, a miniature of the grand one soaring up from the foyer. She held up the heavy green-and-gold silk skirts of her Medusa costume as she hurried up the steps. The Duke was being very cagey about the statue’s whereabouts tonight. But his servants were not all so secretive. Clio had been able to persuade a footman to tell her where Artemis, the Alabaster Goddess, waited.

At the top of the stairs ran a gallery, almost the entire length of the front of the house. Its bank of windows, uncovered, looked out at the front garden and the street beyond, the open gates that still admitted latecomers to the ball.

The gallery was dotted with more lamps, most of them unlit. No doubt waiting for the ‘grand reveal’ of the statue after supper, when they would spring to life as if by magic. Right now the light was dim, falling only in shimmering, narrow bars on some of the treasures displayed there, leaving others in darkness.

Clio found herself holding her breath as she crept along the gallery, peering right and left at all the wonders jumbled together. Her father and his friends were all great collectors and loved to show off their prizes, so she had grown up surrounded by beautiful antiquities. But this—this was something else entirely. A cabinet of curiosities such as she had never seen before.

The gallery almost resembled a warehouse, it was so thick with objects. Ancient stone kouros, stiff and precise, their empty eyes staring back at her. Bronze warriors, marble gods; cases full of Etruscan gold jewellery, lapis scarabs, jewelled perfume bottles. Steles propped against the walls. Shelves of vases, kraters and amphorae. All jumbled together, just to serve one man’s vanity, his lust for collecting.

Clio frowned as she thought of Averton. So handsome that half the women in town were in love with him—but so mysterious. That strange light in his green eyes when he looked at her…

She shook her head, the satin snakes of her headdress trembling. She couldn’t think about him now. She had a task to do.

At the end of the gallery, alone in a pool of candlelight, was an object covered in a sheet of black satin. Only a bit of the separate coral-coloured marble base was visible. Clio approached it carefully, half-expecting some sort of trap, some alarm. All was silent, except for the whining hum of the wind past the windows. She reached out and carefully lifted the sheet, peering beneath.

‘Oh.’ She sighed. It was really her. The Alabaster Goddess. Artemis in all her solitary glory.

The statue was not large. It was easily dwarfed by many of the more elaborate creations in the gallery. But she was so perfectly beautiful, so graceful and elegant, that Clio could understand why she had become such a sensation. Why ladies wanted ‘Artemis’ coiffures and ‘Artemis’ sandals.

Why the Duke hid her away.

Carved of an alabaster so white it seemed to glisten, almost silver, like a first snowfall, she stood poised with her bow raised, a lost arrow set to fly. Her pleated tunic flowed over the curves of her slender body as if caught in a breeze, ending at mid-thigh to reveal strong legs, tensed to run. Her sandals, those ribbon-laced shoes every lady copied this Season, still bore bits of gold leaf, as did the bandeau that held back her curled hair. A crescent moon was attached to the band, proclaiming her to be truly the Goddess of the Moon. Her gaze was focused intently on her prey; she cared nothing for mortal adulation.

Clio stared up at her, enthralled, as she imagined the Delian temple where this goddess once resided, where she once received her worship from true acolytes. Not just ton ladies and their ‘Artemis’ shoes.

‘How beautiful you are,’ she whispered. ‘And how sad.’

Much like the Duke himself.

She reached out to gently touch Artemis’s foot in a gesture of silent sympathy. As she did, she noticed that the goddess stood on a wooden base, a thick block with a thin crack running along its centre. She leaned closer, trying to see if that crack was a fault or deliberate. It seemed such a strange perch for a beautiful goddess.

‘Ah, Miss Chase. Clio. I see you have discovered the whereabouts of my treasure,’ a voice said quietly.

Clio ducked away from Artemis, spinning around to find the Duke himself standing halfway along the gallery. Watching her intently.

Even in the dim light, his eyes gleamed like the snakes in her headdress. He smiled at her gently, deceptively, shrugging the leopard pelt of his Dionysus costume back from his shoulders. He moved closer, light and silent, as if he was a leopard himself.

‘She is beautiful, is she not?’ he said, still so quiet. ‘I knew you would be drawn to her, as I was. She is quite—irresistible, in her mystery and solitude.’

Clio edged back against the goddess. She had indeed found Artemis irresistible. So much so that she had let her guard down, and that was not like her. As the Duke came closer, she reached behind her, her fingers just touching Artemis’s cold sandal. She slid her touch down, finding that crack in the wooden base. She curled her hand around it, as if Artemis could protect her from Averton, from the dark confusion she always felt when he was near.

Just as it was now. He drew ever closer, slow but inescapable, like a leopard in the jungle. He watched her carefully, as if he expected her to bolt like a frightened gazelle. As if he could see all the secrets of her heart.

Clio stiffened her shoulders, tightening her fingers around the base. Suddenly, that silence she had craved in the crowded ballroom seemed oppressive. All the jumbled treasures of the room loomed higher, narrowing on just Artemis and her white glow.

It was like this whenever they met, she and Averton. He impeded her work as the Lily Thief, her mission. Yet they were bound together by invisible, unbreakable cords. They could not stay away from each other.

She would not give him the satisfaction of running now. Not yet.

He finally reached her side, and Clio held her breath. He touched the hem of Artemis’s tunic, his jewelled fingers just inches from Clio’s green silk sleeve. She could feel the warmth of his skin, the bright light of his gaze on her.

That tension between them grew, stretched taut until Clio thought she would scream with it.

‘I cannot let you take her, Clio,’ he said. So gentle. So implacable.

Clio tried to laugh. ‘Oh? Do you think I could just tuck her under my skirt and spirit her out of here? Past all your guards?’

His gaze flickered almost imperceptibly over her green silk skirts. ‘I would not be surprised at anything you did.’

‘I would like to give her a finer home than this,’ Clio said. ‘But I am not such a fool as to try such a thing.’

‘Not tonight, anyway.’

‘As you say.’

His touch slid from Artemis’s stone tunic to Clio’s draped sleeve. Their skin did not even brush, but Clio felt the spark of his caress none the less. She swayed towards him as if spellbound. The crowded ball, the vast city outside—it all vanished. There was only him. Them, together.

And that scared her as nothing else ever had.

‘I know what you’re up to, Clio Chase,’ he murmured, deep and seductive as a lover. ‘And I cannot let you continue. For your own sake.’

Clio reared back from his sorcerer’s caress, the lure of his voice. ‘My sake? Oh, no, your Grace. Everything you do is surely for yourself alone.’

His hand tightened on her arm, not letting her go. ‘There are things you do not know.’

‘About you?’

‘Me—and what is happening here. With the Alabaster Goddess.’

‘I fear I know more about you than I wish to!’ Clio cried. ‘About your greed, your—’

‘Clio!’ He gave her a little shake, pulling her closer to him. So close there was not even a whisper between them.

He played the indolent, careless duke so well, but Clio could feel the iron strength of him next to her. The shift of his muscles. She wanted closer, ever closer.

And that frightened her even more.

‘Why do you never listen to me?’ he growled, his eyes like emerald embers burning into her.

‘Because you never talk to me,’ she whispered. ‘Not really.’

‘How can I talk to someone who so mistrusts me?’ His touch convulsed on her arms, crushing the silk. ‘Oh, Clio. What are you doing to me?’

His lips touched hers, a kiss that was utterly irresistible, like a summer thunderstorm. She tasted her own anger, her own frustration in that kiss, the desperate need of an impossible attraction.

Suddenly, the kiss, the nearness of him, her own heightened emotions—it was all too much. Something snapped inside her, and she had to escape. She pushed the Alabaster Goddess towards him, intending only to put a barrier between them. To remind them who, what, they really were.

Instead, Artemis’s marble elbow connected sharply with his head. Both he and the statue crashed to the floor in a tangle of marble, leopard skin and drops of blood.

Clio gasped to see the red gash on his brow, his closed eyes. ‘Edward!’ she cried, dropping to her knees beside him.

She reached for his wrist, feeling the pulse beating there with a surge of absurd relief. She had not killed him.

Not yet.

‘Stay here,’ she whispered. ‘I must fetch help!’

With that, she dashed away, past all the antiquities, the shadows, not sure what she ran toward—or away from.

She did not even notice the scrap of green silk caught in his hand…


Chapter One

Enna Province, Sicily—six months later

‘“Thou grave, my bridal chamber! Dwelling-place hollowed in earth, the everlasting prison whither I bend my steps, to join the band of kindred, whose more numerous host already Persephone hath counted with the dead…”’

Clio Chase turned her spyglass toward the ruined amphitheatre, where her sister Thalia rehearsed the lines of Antigone. The crumbling stage was far from Clio’s perch atop a rocky hill, yet she could glimpse Thalia’s golden hair glinting in the morning sunlight, could hear the despairing words of Sophocles’ princess as she was led to her death.

That eternal struggle of life and death, beauty and fate, seemed to belong to this bright day, this land. Ancient Sicily, where so many conquerors had overrun the rocky hills and dusty plains, yet none had ever fully possessed it. It belonged to old gods, far older than even the Greeks and Romans could have imagined. A wild place, slave to no master.

Clio turned her glass, purchased from their ship’s captain on the voyage here from Naples, past her sister to the landscape beyond. No London stage director could have imagined such a glorious backdrop! Beyond the steps and stage of the amphitheatre were only mountains, a vast swathe of blue sky. The hills rolled on like a hazy sea, green and brown and purple, until they reached the flat, snow-dusted peak of Etna, cloaked in clouds.

Off in the other direction, just barely seen, were the calm, silvery waters of Lake Pergusa, where Hades had snatched Persephone away to his underworld kingdom.

Between were olive groves, orchards of lemons, limes and oranges, stands of wild fennel, the large prickly pears brought in by the Saracens. Carpets of flowers, yellow, white and dark purple, spread like bright blankets over the meadows, announcing that spring had truly arrived.

‘“Enna—where Nature decks herself in all her varied hues, where the ground is beauteous, carpeted with flowers of many tints,”’ Clio murmured, an Ovid quote she now truly understood. Enna had once been considered the heart of Sicily, the crossroads of the Trinacria, the three provinces, a sacred spot. The home of Demeter and her daughter.

And now it had been invaded by the Chase family, or part of the family anyway. Clio had come here with her father and two of her sisters, Thalia and Terpsichore, after they had seen their eldest sister Calliope off on her honeymoon. Sir Walter Chase had long heard of the archeological wonders to be found in Enna, just waiting to be discovered by a dedicated scholar like himself. His friend Lady Rushworth had followed, having equally heard of the excellent English society to be found in the town of Santa Lucia, high in the dramatic hills. Society of a most intellectual and stimulating sort, escapees from the endless shallow parties in Naples.

Clio lowered her glass, her eyes narrowed as she thought of Santa Lucia. It was certainly a pretty enough town, with its baroque cathedral and old palazzos, with the ruined medieval castle guarding its town walls. But so often when she was there, except for their Sicilian servants and the shopkeepers of the town, it felt as if she had never left England at all. Receiving callers at their rented house, going to card parties at Lady Rushworth’s or dances at Viscountess Riverton’s and the Elliotts’—it was all so London-like.

And she did not want to think about England. About what had happened there, what she had left behind.

Clio drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them close, her old brown muslin work dress like a protective tent around her. The warm breeze, scented with scrubby pine trees and fading almond blossoms, ruffled the auburn hair pinned loosely atop her head. She heard the echo of Thalia’s voice as she went down to her lingering death, felt the hot sun against her skin.

This was where she belonged, in this wild, ancient spot, alone. Not really in Santa Lucia, definitely not in London. Not the Duke of Averton’s castle, so full of its dark, twisting corridors, where secrets and dangers lurked in every corner. Just like the unhappy shades of Hades’ kingdom…

Averton. Clio hugged her legs tighter, pressing her forehead to her knees. Could there ever be one day when she did not think of that blasted man? Did not remember what it felt like when he touched her? When he looked at her with those golden-green eyes and whispered her name. Clio…

‘He is miles away,’ she muttered. ‘Eons! You will probably never see him again.’

Yet even as she tried to reassure herself, she knew, deep down inside, that was not true. He might be far away, hidden in his castle, the famously reclusive yet always much sought-after Duke of ‘Avarice’, but he was never entirely apart from her. The way he looked at her, as if she was yet another Greek vase or marble statue he wanted, needed, to possess.

Well, he still had the Alabaster Goddess, that glorious figure of Artemis stolen from Delos, locked away in his castle. He would never do the same to her! Not even if she had to hide here in the wilds of Sicily for the rest of her days. The Duke was gone, he was past. Just like the Lily Thief.

For yes, once even she, Clio, had held her secrets. Had been the notorious Lily Thief for a few glorious months.

Clio unfolded her legs and stood up, stretching her limbs in the sunlight. How lovely it was to be alone, to be herself with no one to watch her, judge her. To just be Clio, not one of the ‘Chase Muses’. Now that Calliope was wed, everyone looked to her to be next. To marry as well as her sister had—an earl!—and to start her own family, her own conventional life as chatelaine of a household, as a society hostess; to take her place in her family’s scholarly, aristocratic world.

But Calliope loved her new husband, was happy in the life she had chosen. Clio had certainly never found anyone she could esteem as Cal did her earl. Clio did not belong in such a life. Maybe she didn’t belong anywhere at all. Except here.

She lifted her spyglass again, training it on the valley below her rocky perch, the stretch of land between her and Thalia’s theatre. It was really this valley that had brought them to Enna in the first place, an ancient Graeco-Roman site buried in a twelfth-century mudslide and only recently uncovered. Much of the site was still hidden beneath hazelnut orchards, but her father and his friends were working hard at exploring what was revealed: the theatre; part of the agora, or market place; some crumbling walls delineating shops and small houses; a great villa with almost intact mosaic floors in the atrium, which was Sir Walter’s pet project; and a small, roofless temple, probably devoted to Demeter, with its bothros, or well-altar, still ready to accept sacrifices even if the grand silver altar set was long gone.

She could see them through the oval of her glass, her father sweeping off more of the mosaic floor as her fourteen-year-old sister Terpsichore—Cory—sketched the tile scenes of tritons and mermaids. Lady Rushworth, shielded by a giant straw hat, examined some newly found pottery fragments, sorting them into baskets. Other friends and servants scurried around like busy ants. They would not miss her when she crept away. They never did.

Clio snapped the glass shut and tucked it inside her knapsack. Slipping the strap over her shoulder, she turned and made her way up the steep stairs cut into the stony hillside.

When she reached a fork in the steps, with one way leading to Santa Lucia, she glanced up, raising her hand to shield her spectacles from the glare of the sun. The crumbling crenellations of the medieval castle’s tower stood starkly against the bright sky, eternally vigilant as it stared out over the valley. She was again reminded of the Duke, of his Yorkshire castle that matched his strangely archaic, handsome appearance, his long red-gold hair, his strong hands that gripped her own so tightly, holding her prisoner to that intense light in his beautiful green eyes.

Clio frowned at the memory, unconsciously flexing her wrists. He could so easily have been one of the crusaders who had built that tower, standing between the crenellations, surveying his conquered land while his banners whipped in the wind behind him. Secure in the knowledge that his money, his exalted title, his fine looks would always gain him anything he wanted. The world was his.

But not her. Never her.

Clio turned away from the castle, from the safety of Santa Lucia and its old walls, and hurried up a second, even steeper set of stairs. They wound up and around the hill, and she soon left the noise and bustle of the valley behind. Even the sun grew dimmer here, the shadows longer, deeper, colder.

On the other side of the hill, the stairs suddenly switched back, taking her downwards again. Unlike the sunny valley where her family worked, this place still slumbered. It was a meadow, covered with a blanket of white clover, seemingly undisturbed except for the hum of bees, the distant tinkle of goats’ bells in the hills.

She knew people must come here. There was rich fodder for those herds of goats, and wild fennel and oregano for the cooking pots. But she never saw anyone at all. The cook at their hired house, Rosa, had told her this was a sacred spot, a spot where once there had been an altar to Demeter. A crude sheaf of wheat carved into the trunk of a towering hawthorn tree, where offerings of flowers and fruit were often left at its base, seemed to confirm that. As did mysterious holes she found in the ground when she had first arrived, which seemed to indicate previous, illegal excavations.

Demeter never disturbed Clio when she was there. Nor did Persephone and her dark husband. They seemed to know Clio was one of them, that she did their work to bring them back to life.

She passed the tree, giving it a respectful nod. There were fresh lemons piled in a basket in its shade. There was a wide road nearby, a way for horses to get to the village, but she ignored it. Along another path, barely marked in the clover, she hurried her steps until she found what she sought. Her own perfect place.

While her father worked on the villa, once the dwelling place of rich men, and Thalia revived Antigone in the theatre, Clio looked for less exalted remains. Her explorations had brought her here, to this quiet little meadow, where she had found her farmhouse.

She paused at the edge of the site, as she always did when she arrived, drinking in the peaceful, quiet vision. It was not the ancient holiday house of a wealthy family, as the villa was. The people here had been prosperous, but they also worked for their coin. Lived off the fruit of their labour and their land. Once, this clover-covered valley had been fields of wheat and barley, with fruit orchards and groves of olives.

Until it all came to an end, one violent day in the second century BC. Now there were just some waist-high walls of small, uneven pieces of tan-coloured limestone, weatherbeaten and crumbling, to mark where their house once stood. But Clio intended to find more. Much more.

She hurried to the walls, pulling out her stash of tools wrapped in oilcloth and tucked into a sheltered niche. The wooden handle of the small spade fit perfectly into her hand, as a soldier’s sword hilt would in battle. Maybe she did not belong in London, not really, but she did belong here. When she worked, she forgot the world outside. She even forgot Averton—for a time.

All the passion she had once poured into the Lily Thief was now given to her farmhouse. To finding the voices of the people who once lived here.

She went to work.


Chapter Two

‘Is it quite satisfactory, your Grace?’ the agent asked, his voice quivering slightly. ‘Truly, it is the finest palazzo to be had in all of Santa Lucia. The views are most exquisite, and it is quite near the cathedral and the village square. And there is a hunting cottage, too, in the hills, if you require it. The baroness is usually very reluctant to leave her furnishings for the tenants, but for you, of course, she is only too happy…’

Only too happy to have an English ducal arse touchher couches? Edward Radcliffe, the Duke of Averton, examined the flaking, worn gilt of the apricot velvet chairs with some amusement. They looked as if the slightest touch would reduce them to a pile of splinters and shredded upholstery. The baroque flourishes of the place, plaster cherubs peering down from the ceilings and faded apricot-coloured silk wallpaper, seemed no better. Chipped and crumbling away, like an abandoned wedding cake.

It could certainly use a thorough cleaning, as well, for the scuffed marble floor was covered with a fine layer of silvery dust. Cobwebs spun from the elaborate frames of old portraits, where the baroness’s exalted Sicilian forebears gazed down at him in disapproval.

Well, they were not the only ones who disapproved, to be sure. Old Italian barons and their long-nosed wives had nothing on one Englishwoman’s contempt-filled emerald eyes.

Edward turned away from them, away from that cool green gaze that haunted him everywhere he went. He leaned his palms on a chipped marble windowsill, peering down at the scene below. The baroness’s palazzo perched at the edge of the hilltop where the village of Santa Lucia gazed out over the valley. The tall, narrow windows, curtained in dusty gold satin and tarnished tassels, stared right at Etna in the distance, to Lake Pergusa and eventually even to the sea.

The palazzo’s small garden, wild and overgrown, seemed to drop off into sheer space. As if an eagle could launch itself into space and go wheeling out over the amphitheatre and into the mist beyond, right from this garden.

The front of the palazzo, on the other hand, sported a much more respectable-looking courtyard, paved and neatly planted with myrtle trees, with tall limestone walls and wrought-iron gates that opened to the narrow street beyond. Its cobblestone length was silent, and seemed rather little travelled, but it did lead right to the village square with its shops and cathedral, its view of the whole village and everyone in it.

Perfect.

‘Tell me,’ Edward said, not turning his gaze from the theatre, ‘where is the house the Chase family rents?’

‘The Chases?’ the agent said, sounding a bit confused. His mind was obviously slow to turn from views and furnishings to the other inhabitants of Santa Lucia. ‘Ah, yes, the family with the daughters! Their home is on the other side of the square, just beyond the cathedral. They are often seen on walks in the evenings.’

So, not far from here. Edward closed his eyes, and it was as if he felt her very presence beside him. The wilful Muse.

‘I will take the palazzo,’ he said, opening his eyes again to the dazzle of the Sicilian sunlight. ‘It is perfect.’

By the next morning, Edward’s battalions of servants had removed the baroness’s dour-painted ancestors and the worst of the gilt furniture and replaced them with choice selections of the Averton antiquities collection. Graceful red-figure amphorae rested on stands under the shocked stares of the plaster angels. A few marble statues took up places in the newly dusted corners, touches of austere elegance amid all the wedding-cake flourishes.

Edward’s own chamber overlooked the front courtyard and the street beyond. The largest bedroom, which was obviously the baroness’s own to judge from the bedhangings draped from a huge family coat-of-arms, looked upon the grand view of garden and hills. But he preferred this smaller space, where he could watch the town and passers-by.

He examined the arrangements as the servants deposited the last of his trunks and crates. Gilded mouldings carved in the shape of roses, wheat sheaves and arrows garlanded the windows and doors, matching the white-and-gold bed and armoire. The blue-and-red carpet was faded and threadbare, as were the coverlets and bedhangings of blue watered silk. It all lacked the medieval grandeur of his Yorkshire castle, the Gothicism of Acropolis House in London. But the mattress was aired, the room spacious enough—and he could see almost the entire town from the window.

Including the edge of the Chase house.

‘It will all do very well,’ he murmured, watching closely as the footmen carried in the last of the antiquities so carefully shipped from London. A statue of Artemis with her bow raised. The famous ‘Alabaster Goddess’. They placed her next to the fireplace, where she looked as if she was about to shoot down a row of simpering porcelain shepherds and shepherdesses on the mantel. Along her base, barely visible in the veined marble, was a scratch mark from a thief’s lever.

Edward traced it lightly with his fingertip, the tiny groove that was the only reminder of that night in the gallery of his London house. Artemis’s cool fierceness always reminded him of Clio. The goddess of the moon, of the hunt—she never let any mortal man stand in the way of what she wanted, what she believed to be right. She never shied away from any danger.

But Artemis was immortal, the favourite child of all-powerful Zeus, who would never let harm come to her. Clio, despite her daring, was all too human. One day her gallant recklessness would surely catch up with her, and she would tumble heedlessly into the danger. Foolish girl.

Edward turned away from Artemis and her bow, and found himself facing a full-length mirror. What a strange vision he was, framed in the gilt flourishes and ribbons of that rented glass! The shoulder-length fall of reddish-blond hair his valet so often hinted he should cut, for the sake of fashion, was tied back. As stark as his black wool coat and white cravat, skewered with a stickpin carved with a cameo head of Medusa. As stark as the sharp cheekbones and square jaw that was the legacy of all the Radcliffes, handed down from some distant Viking ancestor.

Yes, he looked like a true Radcliffe, the heir to the old dukedom, but he was flawed. His nose, thin and straight as a knife blade in the faces of his late father and older brother, was marred by a badly healed break across the bridge. The legacy of a boyish, long-ago brawl with the man who was now Clio’s brother-in-law.

And, a gift from the Muse herself, a jagged scar on his forehead. Healed to a white line now, it was the exact shape of Artemis’s stone elbow.

Edward laid his fingertips lightly on the mark, feeling its slight roughness. Feeling again the fire of her kiss.

Yet he did not let her go then. He could not. It was as if there was a devil inside him, a dark demon that dwelled there, hidden, from the time he was a boy. A part of him that desired Clio Chase no matter what she did—now matter what he did. But he could not let her stand in the way of his work in Santa Lucia.

Edward reached out and tilted the swinging mirror between its hinges until it faced the faded blue wallpaper, and he was hidden from himself. He took off his coat and tossed it over the foot of the bed, rolling up his shirtsleeves to reveal the glint of his ruby-and-emerald rings. His forearms were well muscled and sun-bronzed, the arms of a man who had been working on archeological sites under the southern sun for many of his years. The frilled sleeves hid those signs of un-ducal labour, just as the rings hid the white calluses at the base of his fingers.

It would never do for anyone to see what he was really up to. What the famously reclusive, famously louche ‘Duke of Avarice’ was truly like.

He unlocked the small, iron-bound box on the dressing table. Stacked in there were letters and papers, bags of coins, but beneath was a false bottom, which had stayed neatly in place ever since the box had left England. Edward levered it upwards and drew out two objects. A tiny silver bowl, Grecian to judge by its decorations, second century BC perhaps. It was exquisite, hammered with a pattern of acorns and beechnuts, etched with rough Greek letters spelling out ‘This belongs to the gods’. A warning, and a promise.

Beside it was a scrap of green-and-gold silk, torn along a seam, edged with sparkling green glass beads.

He laid them both carefully aside, the bowl and the silk. They were the symbols of all that brought him to this place. All that brought him again to Clio’s side—even as he fought against that desire.

But fate, it seemed, always had other plans when it came to him and Clio Chase.


Chapter Three

‘Ah, another invitation from Lady Riverton!’ Clio’s father announced over the breakfast table. He waved the embossed card in the air before depositing it with the rest of the post.

‘Again?’ Clio said, only half-listening as she buttered her toast. Her head was still full of the farmhouse, of her plans for the day. It looked as if it might rain, as it so often did here in the mornings. The sky outside the windows was ominously grey, and she had to cover up yesterday’s work before the house’s cellar filled up with water. ‘We were just at her palazzo last week. Weren’t we?’

‘But this is different,’ Sir Walter said. ‘An evening of amateur theatricals, it says. And her refreshments are usually quite good, you know. Those lobster tarts last time were lovely…’

Clio laughed. ‘Father, I vow you begin to think only of your stomach! But we can attend, if you like.’

‘Perhaps she would let me participate in the theatricals,’ Thalia said, pouring herself more chocolate. ‘I would like to try out some of my Antigone lines on an audience. I am not sure my delivery is quite correct. It all sounds very well in the amphitheatre, but then anything would be terribly dramatic there! I do want it to be right.’

‘Have you yet found anyone for the role of Haemon?’ Clio asked.

Thalia shook her head. ‘All the Sicilians speak so little English, and all the Englishmen lack passion! I don’t know what to do. Perform it all in Greek? Everyone seems to speak it around here.’

‘Lady Riverton will be able to help, I’m sure, Thalia dear,’ Sir Walter said. ‘She does appear to know absolutely everyone.’

‘And she’s a terrible busybody,’ Thalia answered. ‘I don’t want her taking over my play! But I will certainly call on her to ask about the theatricals. Will you come with me, Clio?’

Clio glanced again out the window, where the sky seemed even darker. She hurriedly gulped the last of her tea and said, ‘If you go this afternoon, I can come with you. But I must run an errand this morning. If you will excuse me, Father?’

Sir Walter nodded distractedly as he read another invitation. He was quite accustomed to Clio dashing away at all hours now, which was how she liked it. Even the time she had gone off with the Darbys to see the temple at Agrigento with only a day’s notice had not caused him to bat an eye.

As Clio hurried from the breakfast room, she heard her sister Cory say plaintively, ‘May I go to Lady Riverton’s, too? Please? I have been to no parties at all since we came here, and I am nearly fifteen.’

‘That is because until October you are still only fourteen,’ Thalia answered. ‘You are not out yet, and you should feel lucky for that. You have no social obligations at all, and can do what you please!’

Clio paused at the front door to change to her sturdy boots. If she ran, surely she could stay ahead of the rain and return in plenty of time to call on Lady Riverton. She dashed out the door and down the narrow lane that skirted past the cathedral and into the main square of Santa Lucia.

The village was just stirring to life for the day, fruit, vegetable and fish sellers setting up their booths, the bakery and patisserie opening their doors in a flood of sweet-sugar smells. Maids were fetching water from the fountain, gossiping and laughing. The great carved doors of the cathedral were still closed for morning mass, but soon they would open, letting out the prosperous matrons and pretty maidens of the town. The darkly dangerous-looking men were lounging in the shadows.

The day was still cool, but later the warm sun would bring out the smells of all this life, the salty fish and pungent herbs, the sweet cakes, the earthiness of the horses and dogs. The cathedral bells would ring out, crowds would flood forth to do their marketing, and the English tourists would dash away to view the ancient temples, and the day of Santa Lucia would begin in earnest. The wider politics of the world, King Ferdinand, the ruler of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, far away in Naples with his young Sicilian bride, the collapse of the Sicilian feudal system after the withdrawal of the English forces—none of it mattered here. Not yet, not now. There was shopping and cooking to be done.

Marie, the baker’s wife, leaned from the window to hand her a fresh roll as she dashed by. ‘It will rain, signorina! You should stay inside this morning.’

Clio dashed past Lady Riverton’s grand palazzo. The windows were still shuttered, but when they were opened Lady Riverton could spy on all that happened in Santa Lucia—which was surely just as the youngish widow wanted it.

Clio never really minded attending gatherings there. They were certainly dull enough, to be sure, especially when she had studies of her own to attend to and was forced instead to make polite conversation or listen to some young, talentless miss play at the pianoforte. But most of Lady Riverton’s guests were also interested in antiquities, and the talk was usually lively. And, as her father had said, the food was quite good. If there was something rather odd about Lady Riverton, well, that was no different from dozens of other bored society matrons.

At the edge of town, also with a fine view of things and perched dramatically on the hillside, was the palazzo of the Baroness Picini. It had stood empty since the Chases had arrived at Santa Lucia, the baroness having taken herself off to Naples in the court of the new queen. Today, though, the vast old place was swarming with activity, servants hurrying in and out bearing trunks and crates and furniture. The courtyard gates stood wide open.

More guests for Lady Riverton, then, Clio thought. Despite her curiosity about who might dare to live in the mouldy old pile, she still had work to do, and turned down the steep pathway to the valley.

She reached the farmhouse site just as the first raindrops started to fall. The sunken cellar area where she had begun excavating, digging out clay amphorae and jars once used for oil and wine, smelled of the sweet, earthy rain, the sulphur of lightning and the imagined remnants of the old wine. Clio shook out a tarpaulin, dragging it up and over the cellar opening and tying it down to the limestone walls. She had done it several times before, so it was quick work.

It wasn’t much, but at least it would keep the rain from filling up her excavation trenches before she had finished. So far she had found only the storage jars, a terracotta altar set and one battered silver goblet, but she hoped to discover coins, jewelled goblets and crockery, perhaps even some jewellery. Something to show her father and his friends, so they would not think she had wasted her time on an insignificant site!

She secured the tarpaulin as the rain began to fall in earnest, a soft, warm shower that pattered against the oiled canvas. Clio sat down on another square of canvas spread out on the packed dirt of the cellar, hugging her knees to her chest as she listened to the rain above her head.

It was a strangely soothing sound, cosy as she sat in her ancient house, imagining the blessing of the water falling on the crops in the fields, the flowering orchards. Surely the people who once lived here had done the same thing, thanking Demeter, goddess of the earth and all growing things, for her bounty, making offerings in hopes of a good harvest.

Clio had always loved envisioning the lives of the past. She could hardly get away from history, not with her family! There was her grandfather, who had written a famous treatise, The Archeology of the Ancients; her father, who had so richly inherited those scholarly sensibilities and had used them to co-found the Antiquities Society; her mother, the daughter of a French comte renowned for his collection of Hellenistic silver; her sisters, all the Muses. They had been fed on tales of the old gods, old battles and love affairs, glories that would never die, from the time they were in their cradles.

The classical world was as real to Clio as the everyday life of the London streets and squares—no, it was more real. More vital and true. She always took those stories far more to heart than even her sisters did, and it led her into trouble time and again—until it had all come to a terrible crescendo with the Lily Thief.

Clio closed her eyes tightly as the rain pounded louder above her, trying to block out the memory of Calliope’s shocked eyes as she saw the truth—that Clio was the Lily Thief. ‘How could you do this, Clio?’

Clio never wanted to hurt her sister. She loved Cal so much, loved them all, her entire boisterous, noisy, eccentric family. But so often she felt alone, even when she stood in their midst. Even as the sound and passion broke all around her, just like the rain.

Things had changed since Cal had married and they had come to Sicily, though. Clio loved this island, loved its windswept whispers that seemed to speak only to her. She loved the roughness of the land and the people, the layers of history in the very earth itself. Just like this house, or what was left of it, where families had lived their daily lives, laughed together, made love, quarrelled and died, she felt herself slowly stirring back to warm, vivid life. She poured all her work, her secrets, into this place, and in return it gave her back herself.

Not that everything could be left behind, of course. At night, when she tumbled exhausted into bed, she had such dreams. Such vivid flashes of memory. The Duke of Averton, how his lips felt on hers, the cool brush of his breath on her skin, the heat and life of him, before she had driven him so violently away. The way he watched her, as if he could see into her very soul. See everything about her…

Thunder cracked overhead, loud as a cannon shot, and Clio reared back in surprise. She had almost forgotten where she was, lost in the haze of those memories. The dark gold-green of the duke’s eyes, drawing her ever closer, so close she could almost drown in him.

She peered up to find her tarpaulin still securely bound, though bowed in the centre by the weight of the rain. Surely it would cease soon; these morning showers always passed, the thirsty land soaking up every drop until there was no sign of rain at all. Even now she could hear the thunder retreating back along the valley.

Clio took out her small spade again and went to work on her newest excavation, near the remains of the old stone staircase that once led to the upper floors of the house. She would probably have more luck if she worked faster, Clio thought as she carefully measured out a trench in the pockmarked earth. Tear up the floor and be done with it, as anyone else would. As those deceptively lazy men in Santa Lucia would. But then she couldn’t come here alone, to her quiet sanctuary. Couldn’t lose herself in work and dreams.

She had barely started digging when she noticed something odd, something that hadn’t been there before. An indentation in the dirt, maybe. An old trench someone else had once dug. She pushed her spectacles atop her head, tangling them in her hair, and leaned in to peer closer…

Just then she heard a rumbling noise overhead, like the thunder except it persisted, growing ever louder. She froze, sitting back on her heels, tense, as she realised what it was.

Hoofbeats.

Her skin turned suddenly cold, the back of her neck prickling. The blood quickened in her veins, as it had not since she had left the Lily Thief behind for good. No one ever came out here; the old farm site was too isolated, too insignificant for tourists. She had been warned about bandits, of course, and thieves—Sicily could be a wild, dangerous place. But she had never seen any.

Was that about to change?

Clio carefully laid down the spade, and reached under her skirt for the sheath strapped to her leg just above the boot. In one smooth, silent movement, she drew out her dagger.

It was no dainty, ornamental little antique, but a well-honed, sturdy knife, forged to razor sharpness in the Santa Lucia smithy. Their Sicilian cook and her husband had given it to her when she kept insisting on wandering off by herself. At first they were utterly scandalised. Upper-class Sicilian girls were even more strictly chaperoned and protected than English girls! But when she had persisted, they had given her the dagger, certain that any lady as strangely independent as Clio would know how to use it.

Their kind confidence was not misplaced. Clio had once been the most famous thief in London. She could use a dagger if she had to. But she hoped she would not.

Surely the hoofbeats, which came ever closer, were only those of a traveller who would quickly pass by on the way to more elaborate sites. Still, she had to be careful. Clio silently crept up a few of the crumbling stone steps, poised on her toes, until she could ease back the corner of the tarpaulin and peer out on to the world.

The rain had finally ceased, leaving behind a damp, rich scent, a land that sparkled with waterdrops on flowers and treetops. The sky was still grey, but a few chalky sunbeams broke through. The horse was coming from behind the farmhouse, along the old, overgrown roadway.

Balancing the dagger hilt in one hand, Clio folded back the tarpaulin a bit more, until she could see past the canvas edge. ‘Blast it all,’ she muttered, wondering if she had fallen asleep on the dirt floor and was dreaming—or having a nightmare.

A glossy black horse, much like the ones that had probably drawn Hades’ chariot as he had born down on hapless Persephone, galloped along the road where it skirted around the farm site. And riding it was the very man she believed, or hoped, to be hundreds of miles away. Averton. It could be no other. His bright, Viking hair was loose in the breeze, even longer than when she had last seen him in Yorkshire, falling to his shoulders. His black riding clothes and high leather boots stood in stark contrast to its glow, making him seem one with the horse.

A marauding centaur, then, as well as Hades. A dangerously handsome lord who took what he wanted, regardless of the consequences.

He drew up the horse just beyond the rim of the foundation, so near she could see the sheen of his bronzed skin, shining with rain and sweat. His face, all hard, sharp angles, was expressionless as he gazed around the site. She could feel the fire of his eyes, even across the distance.

White-hot anger burned away her icy poise, her calm wariness. How dare he come here, after all that had happened in England! How dare he invade her farmhouse, her one special place? All her old feelings—her fright, her fury, her fascination—boiled over, and she could be silent no longer.

She threw back the tarpaulin, rushing up the last of the old steps with her blade in hand, as if charging into battle.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded. ‘You, Averton, are on private property, and I will thank you to depart immediately!’

He gazed down at her. His expression did not change—it so seldom did, remaining in its cool lines of ducal contempt even when he confronted thieves in his house. Only a very few times had she seen it alter, that veil of handsome privilege falling away to reveal seething passions and needs that were fearsome to behold.

But his eyes widened a bit as he saw her, the green as bright as sea glass, and she noticed the jagged white scar on his forehead.

‘Oh, so you are suddenly the protector of private property, are you now, Clio Chase?’ he said mockingly. ‘That makes a fascinating change.’

‘What do you want?’ Clio said. She planted her booted feet solidly in the dirt, tightening her fingers on the dagger hilt even as she longed to flee back to her safe, hidden cellar. Back to an hour ago, when she thought him so far away.

‘I want to talk to you,’ he said, in a soft, steady voice. A coaxing voice. ‘That is all, I swear.’

‘So talk.’

His horse pawed at the ground, restless at standing still, and Averton’s black-gloved hands tightened on the reins. ‘If I dismount, will I be in danger of being disembowelled by that rather efficient-looking blade in your hand?’

Clio studied him carefully, eye to eye for one long, tense moment. She had seldom met anyone in her life quite as determined as she was herself. That stubbornness meant she usually got her own way, even in a big family. But she knew, just by looking at him now, just by remembering their past encounters, that here was someone of determination to match her own. He wouldn’t go away easily, and if she tried to run he would just mow her down with his fearsome steed.

She gave a brusque nod. ‘Very well. But stay over there. Don’t come near my house.’

His brow arched sardonically. ‘Your house, is it?’ But he followed her instructions, swinging down from his horse yet staying several feet away, holding loosely to the reins as his horse began to crop at the clover. ‘Is this far enough?’

Clio nodded again. ‘You said you wanted to talk, Averton. It must be something important indeed to bring you all this way.’

‘It is,’ he answered. Yet then he fell silent, just watching her as if he had never seen her before in his life. As if she were some strange creature, a unicorn or phoenix, maybe, that he could not understand.

Clio shifted on her feet. ‘Did someone snatch away your precious Alabaster Goddess? It was not me, I vow. I have been in Sicily for weeks. Or perhaps it was—’

‘Clio,’ he said, in a voice that was quiet, soft, but full of steely command. ‘I have come here because you are in danger.’


Chapter Four

Clio could scarcely understand what she was hearing. Could this just be a dream after all? Every moment she had ever spent with Averton had been bizarre, to be sure, but this…

‘Did you just say I am in danger?’ she asked, studying his face for signs of—what? Joking? Subterfuge? It was not the Duke’s way to make jests, nor hers.

There was no hint of humour or deception in his face, though. No change in those Viking-warrior features at all, except for a tiny tic in the muscle along his jaw as he stared at her.

Clio stared back, hardly daring to move, to breathe. The thunderstorm had left the air heavy and thick, the breeze practically crackling around her. Around them. It was as if snapping tendrils snaked out from the grey sky, wrapping ever tighter around her, binding her closer and closer to him.

It was like a myth, a tale of jealous gods and enchanted spells that bound mortals to them against their every sensible inclination. Every shred of sense.

Clio shook her head, trying to clear it of such dark fancies. It was just this place making her feel so, that web of myth and fantasy that had been woven around her ever since she was a child. And being faced with Averton, of all people, when she least expected him! Was least prepared for him, and the effect he always had on her.

As if she ever could be prepared for him. Every single time she saw him, it was like a lightning storm all over again. Beautiful, treacherous and so completely disorienting.

She took a step back. ‘I know of no dangers here except you. You needn’t have gone to all this trouble to warn me of that.’

His brow creased, as if in a flash of pain, yet that spasm was gone in an instant, banished under a mocking smile. ‘Did I not prove to you in Yorkshire that you are never in danger from me? I sent you and your friend—Marco, was it?—on your merry way, with scarcely a scolding word. Even though you were in the midst of stealing from me. I am the last person you need fear, Clio.’

She swallowed hard, remembering another night, that gallery at Acropolis House. ‘Indeed?’

‘Indeed. I want to be your friend, if you will let me.’

‘My friend, is it?’ she said, nearly choking on a humourless laugh. ‘So, that is why you are here? To offer friendship, along with cryptic warnings of danger? I think it more likely you are here to see what my father has found in his Greek villa. To see what you can snatch to add to your vaunted collections, hidden away in the darkness so no one else can ever see them.’

‘Clio!’ he growled, his icy calm cracking at last. He dropped the reins, his hands curling into fists.

And Clio felt a stirring of some strange satisfaction.

‘You are the most obstinate woman I have ever met,’ he muttered. ‘Why can you not just listen to me for once in your life?’

‘Just listen to you? Quietly do what you want, just as everyone does with the exalted duke? Well, I’m sorry, your Grace, but I am too busy to stand here arguing with you any longer.’ She strode past him, not sure where she was going, only knowing that she had to get away. Had to escape from those crackling bonds before she exploded!

She gave Averton a wide berth, yet not quite wide enough. Before she had even seen him move, he had caught her by the wrists, pulling her close to him. Startled, she dropped her dagger. It landed mere inches from his booted foot, yet he did not glance at it at all. He only watched her.

As she stared up into his face, into the glow of his eyes, those bonds grew tighter and tighter. She could not breathe, could not move at all. She flexed her wrists in his grasp, the fingers of her right hand splayed out until she touched the very edge of his sleeve. The hot, smooth skin of his wrist. She felt the thrum of his pulse there, the tumbling rush of his life’s blood, and his heartbeat seemed to meld with her own.

She heard the quick rush of his breath in her ear, smelled the clean, spicy scent of his skin. He was all around her, a part of her she could not escape, for truly he was not something outside, not a separate being she could run from, deny. He was inside her, part of her very breath and blood.

She arched in his grasp, her head thrown back like Persephone’s as she tried to escape, tried to leap from the speeding chariot to safety. Escape, even as she longed to stay.

‘Then tell me what it is you want here,’ she whispered. ‘Why you came here to find me.’

‘Will you listen, then?’ he said hoarsely. ‘For once?’

‘I…’ she answered. ‘It depends on what you say, I suppose.’

He gave a bark of laughter, his clasp loosening on her wrists. ‘Of course. Always conditions. Always wanting things your own way.’

‘Muses are as spoiled as dukes when it comes to that,’ she said. She raised her hand, still caught in that dream where she was not herself. She lightly touched the white scar with her fingertips, feeling the uneven ridge of it under her touch.

He tensed, as taut as a bowstring, but he did not move away. Perhaps he was as enchanted as she was. She trailed her touch over his temple, the pulse that thrummed there; over his sharp cheekbone, the crooked nose Cam de Vere had once broken in some unspecified brawl. A loose strand of his hair, bright silk, brushed against her hand, clinging. She traced its wave until she found the curve of his lips.

Her fingers hovered over them as they parted, and she felt his very life’s breath. How close, how very close…

‘Clio,’ he groaned. His arms came around her waist, dragging her against him until there was not even a whisper between them. She was a tall woman, nearly as tall as he, but she felt fragile as his hot strength wrapped around her and she was surrounded by only him. She looped her arms about his neck, making him her captive just as she was his.

Their lips met, and there was nothing tentative or shy about the caress. It was quick, hot, desperate. A fervent need to be as one, to fall down into the dark myth and be lost for ever. That was what it was like when she kissed him—like being lost in the corridors of the underworld among all the shades, the misty illusions. She was a fool, an utter fool, to give in again. To reach for something that could only do her ill in the end.

But neither could she turn away, any more than she could tear her own soul out.

She dug her fingers into the fall of his hair, holding him to her as she felt the smooth leather of his gloved caress slide across her shoulders, skimming along her bare skin until she shivered. She leaned deeper into him, losing herself, losing everything…

‘Clio!’ he said, tearing his lips from hers. His hands tightened on her shoulders, pressing her back from him. ‘Clio, what am I doing? I did not come here to…’

And the spell was broken, like one of those invisible cords that bound her to him. She stumbled away, still intoxicated with the smell and taste of him. With the bizarre alchemy that happened whenever they were close.

She glanced away from him, covering her mouth with her trembling hands. She had to get away from him, now! ‘No, you came here to warn me. Well, Averton, consider me warned.’

She snatched up her dagger from the dirt, in the process losing the spectacles she had pushed atop her head while she was digging. She scarcely noticed, though. She was too busy running away, dashing for the footpath along the hills that she knew his horse could not follow.

‘Fool, fool,’ she muttered, scrubbing at her aching eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Bloody fool! How dare you?’

Yet she did not know if she talked to him—or herself.

‘Damn it all!’ Edward cursed, kicking violently at the dirt. This was not what he had planned!

He meant to gently alert Clio to his presence in Sicily, to be polite and calm, and make her see he meant her no harm before he revealed his true purpose. Or part of it, anyway. He had not even known she would be here today. The rain would have kept away any other would-be antiquities hunter. He should have known that it would take more than a bit of thunder to keep Clio Chase away! But he had wanted to see the site, do a bit of reconnaissance work while no one else was about. Get to know his opponent.

Then there she was, suddenly appearing before him, fierce as any Fury, her dagger in hand. Her eyes, usually a serene spring-green, sparkled with shock and anger. ‘You!’ she had cried, as if a demon had landed in front of her.

And all his careful, measured plans, his resolve to not get close to her, exploded and disappeared like a cloud of smoke. That raw, passionate need that drew him to her whenever he saw her, that force that drove him to touch her, be close to her, was there. He could not resist it, any more than he could resist breathing. He forced himself, by sheer steely will, to stay where he was—until she hurried past him, ignoring his warnings with her maddening wilfulness.

Edward pounded his fist against a tree trunk, cursing, oblivious to the slivers that drove themselves through his glove. Oblivious to everything but the way he still smelled her white lily perfume on his skin.

Why, why, had he kissed her? Why had she kissed him? He had understood it far better when she had knocked him senseless with the Alabaster Goddess. He deserved no less. But now he wanted her to be safe, to listen to his warnings and stay out of his way.

Well, that was not all he wanted. Their little scene here, as well as what had happened at Acropolis House, clearly demonstrated that. He wanted Clio in his bed, in his arms, all her passion his at last. Her long legs wrapped around his hips, her head thrown back in a tangle of auburn hair as she cried out his name.

But their kisses could change nothing.

Edward strode toward his horse. As he caught up the reins, he saw the glint of sunlight on Clio’s spectacles. They lay in the dirt, apparently lost when she had stormed away. He picked them up carefully, holding them up to the light. The lenses were strong, but not hugely so; the ground glass magnified the limestone walls only a bit, showing up the old cracks and pits. So, she did need them for the close, painstaking work she did, but she was not blind without them. Perhaps they were a sort of armour, as well. Something to hide behind.

He tucked them carefully inside his coat, and swung up into the saddle. Well, surely she would need them back again. Very soon.


Chapter Five

Earth with its wide roads gaped, and then over the Nysianfield the lord and All-receiver, the many-named son ofKronos, sprang out upon her with his immortal horses…

Clio groaned, and slammed the book shut, pushing it away from her. Perhaps that particular one of the Homeric Hymns, the tale of Hades and Persephone, was not the best choice of reading material this afternoon.

She rubbed her hand over her aching head. In truth, she doubted she could concentrate on anything at all, even so much as a fashion paper. Her thoughts kept turning, leaping, back to the farmhouse, to Averton and his appearance there. As sudden and shocking as if he had ‘sprung out upon her with his immortal horses’.

She had crept back to try to find her spectacles, peering from over the rocky ridge of the hills to be sure he was gone. And so he was, not a trace of him remaining at all. Perhaps she had just imagined him after all? Perhaps he, and his kisses, were the product of sunstroke. Of overwork and exhaustion.

Yet as she tiptoed closer, she saw the marks of horse’s hoofs in the dirt. And her spectacles were gone.

She had hurriedly secured the site, putting away the tarpaulin and tools, and had run home for a quiet afternoon of study. Or so she’d hoped.

Clio could not fathom what had come over her. Kissing Averton? Touching him! Not wanting it all to end, even as every ounce of her good sense screamed at her to get away from him. The man who was rumoured to be a terrible libertine, who respected no wishes not his own, who took every shameful advantage of his exalted rank. Who was, worst of all, a hoarder of antiquities!

Yet she had kissed him. And wanted so much more.

Clio groaned, dropping her head to the hard, polished surface of the desk. If only she could leave this place, this island she loved with such fervour, which had been her refuge until today. She could go back to England, to see how her younger sisters fared at Chase Lodge. She could—

No. The Chase Muses were no cowards. She might not possess the reckless, headlong courage of Thalia, who swam icy lakes and scaled mountains without a care, or the rare grace of Calliope. But she had to be strong, to stand her ground. Even in the face of Averton. Who would work on the farmhouse if she left? Who would discover its secrets?

The Duke himself, probably. He had seemed rather interested in the site that morning, before he realised she was there. And that she could not allow.

Clio pushed herself up from her chair, walking over to the window as she stretched her aching shoulders. She gazed down at their little patch of garden, at the road that led around the cathedral and out to the square. It was quiet in Santa Lucia now, the shops closed for the afternoon siesta as a warm, sunny somnolence settled over the place. Her father sat beneath the shade of their almond tree, reading with Lady Rushworth and Cory, but they were the only living things to be seen.

Clio thought about going for a rest herself, crawling under the brocade blanket of the chaise in her chamber and forgetting the Duke in sleep. But she dismissed the notion. Afternoon sleep was always feverish for her, bringing strange dreams. He would surely appear there, and she didn’t want to see what would happen.

Yet neither could she read and study. She was too restless, too scattered.

There was a knock at the library door, and Clio turned toward it, eager for fresh distraction. ‘Come in!’

It was Thalia who peeped around the threshold. She had changed her classical Antigone robes and veil for a stylish blue-dotted white muslin dress and blue spencer, a chip-straw bonnet with pink ribbons tucked under her arm. With her golden curls swept up and bound with more pink ribbons, her wide blue eyes and creamy skin, she looked the perfect porcelain shepherdess. The angelic beauty.

Many men had been fooled by her pretty, innocent façade—and had been sorry when they discovered the warrior-woman beneath. She often declared she was far too busy to marry, and Clio was inclined to believe her. Where could she find her match, a man with the power and the trickery of Zeus, the golden looks of Apollo, the strength of Hercules?

Thalia, with all her adventurous ‘projects’, was endlessly diverting, always entertaining, and sometimes exhausting. Today, though, Clio was entirely glad of her company.

‘Are you working?’ Thalia asked. She hurried over to the desk, rifling curiously through the books and papers.

‘I was,’ Clio answered. She leaned back against the windowsill, her arms crossed at her waist, watching as Thalia examined first one title, then another. ‘But I can’t seem to concentrate for some reason.’

‘Me, neither. I think it’s the heat. Rosa says summer is coming on, and soon the sun will burn everything brown.’

‘I hope not yet! I need to finish the farmhouse cellar first.’

‘And I’ll have to perform my play. If it is too hot, no one will want to sit on those stone seats and watch.’

‘Except for every young swain in town! They would happily sit and watch you for hours. They’re all achingly in love with you, you know.’

Thalia made a dismissive wave of her hand, tossing the book she held back to the desk. ‘A whole village full of men, English and Italian both, and not one with a jot of interesting conversation in him! They just want to sit and stare like a pack of half-wits.’

Clio laughed. ‘And send flowers, and serenade outside your window.’

‘I haven’t time for such things.’

‘One day you will have to make time. So shall we all, I expect.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Now that Calliope is married, everyone will expect you and me to be next.’

Thalia shook her head. ‘Father doesn’t care if we marry or not! He’s too busy with his villa and mosaics to worry about such trifles.’

Clio glanced back to the garden below, to their father and Lady Rushworth reading together so companionably. He smiled as Lady Rushworth pointed to something in their book, catching her hand to press a quick kiss to her gloved fingers. Lady Rushworth, a widow herself with two grown sons and grandchildren, blushed. Clio had not seen her father so happy since her mother had died.

‘Then again, perhaps the next Chase to wed won’t be a Muse at all,’ she said.

Thalia hurried to her side, gazing down at the scene. ‘You don’t mean—Father will marry Lady Rushworth?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘But they are just friends!’

‘Maybe. But if they do wed, Father won’t want so many Muses underfoot for a while. And, since you are the most beautiful of all of us, you will probably be next.’

Thalia frowned, turning away from the window. ‘Me? I look like a bonbon, whereas you look like a goddess. You are sure to attract someone interesting, someone strong and clever and…’ Her voice trailed away, and Clio saw her golden head bow.

Clio was suddenly worried. Thalia was seldom anything less than running at top speed, charging ahead with her glorious confidence. She reached out and caught Thalia’s hand, drawing her sister back to her side. ‘What’s wrong, Thalia dear? Has something happened?’

Thalia tilted her chin up, smiling, but her china-blue eyes still held a strange glitter. ‘Of course not, Clio. What could possibly have happened? I just don’t care for all this marriage talk, that’s all! Not when I am in danger of being stuck with one of my horrid suitors.’

‘Thalia, there is no danger of being “stuck”! If you really don’t want to marry…’

‘I will marry—when I meet someone who suits me as Cameron does Calliope.’ Thalia gave Clio’s hand a reassuring squeeze before letting go to stroll back to the desk. She reached for a fat letter, holding it up. ‘And I see you’ve heard from Calliope, the new Lady Westwood, today!’

‘Yes, I thought we could all read Calliope’s news together after dinner,’ Clio answered.

Thalia turned the missive over in her hand. ‘Where are they now, do you think? Capri? Tuscany? Venice?’

‘On their way back to England, I expect. Hopefully, they’ll be waiting for us when we return ourselves.’

‘With a new little Chase-de Vere infant on the way.’ Thalia put down the letter. ‘Do you miss her terribly?’

‘Calliope?’ Clio remembered sitting by a Yorkshire stream with Cal. “You can tell me anything from nowon, Clio.” Clio had promised she would keep no more secrets, that she was done with the Lily Thief. And she had truly tried to keep that promise. Tried to live up to her older sister’s confidence. It had gone well, until that very morning, when Averton had appeared. ‘Of course. None of us have ever been parted for long before. Don’t you miss her?’

‘Very much. I just thought it must be worse for you. You and Cal were always so close.’

‘Yes. But I still have you! And I always will, if we’re going to be spinster Muses together.’

Thalia laughed, and the merry sound seemed to help her shrug off whatever hint of melancholy she was suffering. She twirled around and caught Clio’s hand in hers. ‘Cal’s children will be sorry to have such formidable old aunts! I will teach them music and drama, and how to shoot a bow and arrow. You will teach them how to swim for miles, just like you, and how to read history from just a shard of pottery.’

Clio laughed, too, going along with her. ‘How to sew very, very badly?’

‘That, too. But as the child is not here yet we shall have to—oh!’

‘What?’

‘I forgot why I came in here in the first place. I am going to call on Lady Riverton, and you promised to come with me.’

Clio felt a sinking in the pit of her stomach at the mention of Lady Riverton. The widow was the self-styled ‘social leader’ of the small band of English travellers in Santa Lucia. People who, like the Chases, were deeply interested in history and antiquities. Everyone else was sensible, and stayed near the cool delights of the shore, the relative culture of Palermo.

Viscount Riverton had possessed a considerable collection himself, especially of Greek coins. His widow, while she claimed to be carrying on his work, seemed to be only really interested in parties, gossip and hats. She had lots and lots of hats. Clio often thought it was a pity she didn’t also have a many-headed Cerberus to guard her door; then it could wear all of them at once.

But Clio had promised Thalia. ‘I’ll have to change my clothes,’ Clio said, gesturing to her garb. She had left off her heavy boots, but still wore her old brown muslin with its dusty hem. Her hair fell down her back in an untidy auburn plait.

‘Just plop on a fancy bonnet!’ Thalia said. ‘She’ll never notice the rest.’ She ‘plopped’ her own hat on to Clio’s head, tugging at the pink ribbons and singing, ‘Oh la la, aren’t the Chase sisters so terribly à la mode!’

Clio laughed helplessly, trying to spin away from her sister. Thalia wouldn’t let go. ‘Brown and pink, Clio, all the rage from Paris! You must be—oh, I say. Where are your spectacles?’


Chapter Six

Lady Riverton’s palazzo was the grandest in town, if not as dramatically situated as the Baroness Picini’s rambling manse. Lady Riverton’s abode had been refurbished before she took possession, freshly stuccoed and painted so that it gleamed a bright, artificial white in the sun. There were no gaps in the tiles of the roof, no overgrown ivy, no slats missing from the shutters, no chips in her garden fountain, which splashed and gurgled as Clio and Thalia turned in through her polished black gates.

‘We won’t stay long,’ Clio said, waiting for their knock to be answered.

‘Of course not,’ Thalia answered, smoothing her pink kid gloves. ‘I don’t think we could take more than an hour without screaming, do you?’

The butler opened the doors, and Clio thought, as she always did when coming to visit Lady Riverton, that it was like stepping back into England. Unlike the Chases’ own rented house, furnished with comfortable, slightly shabby pieces, Lady Riverton had filled her space with dark, gleaming tables and cabinets. Chairs, couches and hassocks upholstered in blue-striped satin, interspersed with displays of her collections: vases, coffers, fragments of statues, cases showing off her husband’s ancient coins.

Lady Riverton herself sat on a throne-like chair and presided over an elaborate tea table, set with silver, porcelain, platters of tiny sandwiches and pink-iced cakes. Her light brown hair, untouched by any hint of grey, was crowned with a dainty lace cap matching the filmy fichu tucked into her pale green muslin gown. A pair of antique cameos dangled from her ears.

Once, in a different life, those earrings had been just the sort of thing to tempt Clio to ‘liberate’ them. But she had made promises, so all she said as she greeted Lady Riverton was, ‘Such charming earrings.’

Lady Riverton trilled a light laugh, reaching up to toy with one of the fragile cameos. ‘A gift from my dear late husband. He had such excellent taste! I am honoured you have decided to grace my tea table this afternoon, Miss Chase, Miss Thalia. We see so little of you lately, you always seem to be trailing around the fields with your father.’

Clio nodded at the other guests, Lady Elliott—whose husband helped her father at the villa site—and her daughters, Mrs Darby and her daughter—who had taken Clio on their impromptu Agrigento tour—as she and Thalia took their seats. Lady Riverton’s friend, her ‘cicisbeo’ as Thalia called him, Ronald Frobisher, was not present, which was most unusual. ‘There is certainly a great deal to see in Sicily,’ Clio said, accepting a cup of tea. ‘Much work to be done.’

Lady Riverton laughed again. ‘Oh, certainly I know all about that! Viscount Riverton was one of the first to see the vast potential of this site. It was just a dusty valley when he came here with Nelson! I’m most gratified to see his work being carried on so admirably. But I also know that young ladies must have their share of amusement. Before I married, I had far too much energy and natural merriment to live by digging alone!’

‘That is so true!’ cried Miss Darby. ‘I am always telling Mama—’

Mrs Darby laid a gentle hand on her daughter’s arm, stilling the excited flow of words. ‘And we are very gratified you provide such—amusements, Lady Riverton.’

‘Not at all. I so vastly enjoy entertaining, and my dear husband always said my parties were so very elegant.’ She gave another little laugh. ‘He was so indulgent. But I do hope you will all be at my next gathering! An evening of amateur theatricals, very diverting. You all received your invitations?’

Clio calmly sipped at her tea, silently willing Thalia not to have an excited outburst à la Miss Darby. Lady Riverton hardly needed any fodder for her ‘Gracious Hostess’ act. ‘Indeed we did, Lady Riverton. We will be most happy to attend.’

‘So kind of you to ask us,’ Thalia said coolly. Clio was proud of her. ‘That is one thing I miss so much about London, the theatre.’

‘As do I, Miss Thalia,’ Lady Riverton answered. ‘We are both cultured souls, I see! While I cannot procure the likes of Mrs Siddons, I fear, I do hope to show off some of our local talent, which I suspect is quite great. The Manning-Smythes have agreed to stage a scene from Romeo and Juliet. So appropriate, is it not, since they are on their honeymoon? And Miss Darby here will do Ophelia’s mad scene. It is so important to include Shakespeare! His more appropriate bits, at least.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Clio said. ‘The Bard is always welcome. But, as this is Sicily, would it not be a fine thing to include some classical playwrights? For is this not where Ovid and Aeschylus worked?’

‘But the Greeks and Romans are so very violent, aren’t they?’ Lady Riverton murmured, her lace cap quivering. ‘So much blood and vengeance!’

Unlike Shakespeare, of course, Clio thought wryly. No blood or vengeance there.

‘But always so vastly exciting,’ Lady Elliott said over her sandwiches. ‘You have been working yourself on some Sophocles, have you not, Miss Thalia?’

‘Indeed,’ Thalia answered. ‘Antigone. The amphitheatre here is so wondrous, with superb acoustics, it just seemed to call out to be brought to life again! To be used for its true purpose. Yet I fear Antigone features no blood at all.’

‘Yes. All the death is offstage, is it not?’ Mrs Darby said. ‘Still, very dramatic.’

‘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.

‘Clarence,’ suggested Thalia. ‘Oh, no. He would be too fat to get up the hill.’

‘Better,’ Lady Riverton said. ‘It is the Duke of Averton. So handsome and delightful! And he will actually be here for my theatrical evening. Won’t it be glorious?’

Thalia glanced at Clio, her eyes wide. ‘But how could…?’

Clio grabbed her hand, holding it tightly. ‘Glorious, indeed. We do look forward to it, Lady Riverton, but now we really must go before our father misses us. It was lovely to make your acquaintance, Count di Fabrizzi.’

‘Oh, no, Miss Chase,’ Marco said, giving her an elaborate bow. Only the merest shadow in his dark eyes reflected a certain dismay at the mention of the name ‘Averton’. He, too, remembered the Yorkshire dungeon. ‘The pleasure was entirely mine.’

Clio left Lady Riverton’s house, still holding on to Thalia’s hand until they were at a safe distance on the street. When she let go, it was like releasing a tidal wave.

‘Averton!’ Thalia exploded. ‘What is he doing here? How dare he show his face where we are, how dare he come as near us as—as Rome! Handsome he may be, but he is naught but a freebooter, a—’

‘A freebooter?’ Clio said, laughing despite herself. ‘Thalia, he is hardly Drake on the Golden Hind.’

‘No, he is worse. I would wager he only comes here to steal whatever Father finds in his villa. And to harass you some more.’

‘And don’t forget, to attend Lady Riverton’s party. He has definitely come for that.’ Clio spoke with a lightness she was far from feeling, hurrying her steps towards home. She longed for the quiet of her own room. The safe haven she had always found in Santa Lucia felt torn now, reshaped with the arrivals of Averton and Marco. Something was definitely afoot, something she could not see or understand. Not yet, anyway. ‘Danger,’ the Duke had said. How right he was.

Thalia hurried after her. ‘Well, then, I won’t go to that party. I have no wish to see that spoiled, arrogant—’

‘Freebooter? Oh, Thalia, we have to go. We told Lady Riverton we would, and you were looking forward to it. Everyone will need your wonderful Antigone to save them from drowning in sugary faux-Shakespeareness. There will be lots of people there, we won’t even notice Averton. Handsome or not.’

‘Perhaps not,’ Thalia said reluctantly. She was silent for a moment, then added, ‘But we will be sure to notice Count Adonis! And he will notice you.’

Clio was careful not to look at her sister, just walking a bit faster on their way home. ‘Don’t be silly. Why would a gorgeous Italian count notice me, when your golden beauty or Miss Darby’s conspicuous giggles will be near?’

‘He kept looking at you just now,’ Thalia said. Not for the first time, Clio cursed Thalia’s powers of observation. ‘If I was a reader of horrid novels, like our friend Lotty, I would call them “speaking glances”.’

‘You are just imagining things. I think all the theatricality is getting to you.’

‘I think not.’ Thalia opened their own garden gate, and went prancing up to the front door, chanting, ‘Clio has a new admirer!’

‘What?’ cried Cory, who came into the foyer just in time to hear this bit of news. ‘Clio has an admirer? Who is it? Oh! Not that silly Peter Elliott? I thought he was in love with you, Thalia.’

‘Far better,’ Thalia said. ‘A dark Italian count! He kept staring at her over Lady Riverton’s tea table. And he is beautiful.’

‘Perhaps Clio will soon be a contessa!’ Cory said, pretending to swoon. ‘And we will all live with her in Italy for ever. In her grand palazzo, with her hundreds of servants and vast marble halls.’

Clio fled their merry laughter, taking the stairs two at a time until she could slam her chamber door behind her and be alone, in silence, at last. Heaven deliver her from sisters!

And from English Viking dukes and ‘dark Italian counts’. They all knew far too many of her secrets already.


Chapter Seven

Edward watched the sun set from his overgrown back garden, seated on the edge of the old fountain, a Turkish cigarillo in hand. The vast sky was a swirling blend of orange and blood-red, streaked with shimmering gold dust, smoky lavender at the edges. Etna dominated the horizon like a silent queen, swathed in silver mists like a torn bridal veil. The breeze that swept up from the valley was cool, carrying away the heat of the afternoon.

It was unlike anything he had ever seen in all his travels—silent, eternal, dramatic. Every instant the sky shifted and changed. The vestiges of modern Sicily, the bustle of the village streets, the vast tides of tourists, receded and there was only the land itself.

It was like Clio. Changeable, mysterious, remote. Beautiful.

Not that she had been so very remote when they had met that morning. He exhaled a grey plume of smoke, remembering the feel of her in his arms, the taste of her mouth. She was intoxicating, worse than the brandy he had given up years ago. Every time he was near her, he wanted more and more of her! He wanted everything.

Her kisses took him out of himself, until there was only her. Only the two of them, floating high above the dark world, lost in a passion that promised everything. But the problem with soaring above the earth, touching the glory of the sun, was that he always fell, Icarus-like, to the rocks below. He had no heart left to offer her.

Edward took another long drag of the cigarillo, drawing the sour smoke deep inside, feeling it burn its way down his throat as he looked down to the marble ledge beside him. Clio’s spectacles lay there, the vivid sunset glowing on the lenses, reflecting the light back to him. ‘Remember why you’re here,’ he muttered. To finish his task. To make sure no one else got hurt. Not to kiss Clio Chase.

He ground the last of the cigarillo out beneath his boot. Maybe one day she might understand. Clio saw things even he could not fathom; so much was hidden in her eyes. Even if she never understood, never saw, he would take care of her. He thought about his first invitation here in Santa Lucia, to Lady Riverton’s ‘theatrical evening’. It was just the first step in his plan.

Edward turned and strode into the palazzo, wrapping the spectacles up in his silk handkerchief. He shoved the makeshift package at one of the footmen, and said, ‘Deliver this to Miss Chase immediately.’

After dinner, when her father, Thalia and Cory were settled to reading in the drawing room, Clio crept down the back staircase to the kitchens. Lady Riverton thought she knew everything that happened in Santa Lucia, but Clio was sure her ladyship saw only the merest surface. Only the polite English side of things. Clio knew that if she wanted the whole truth, she needed to go to Rosa, their cook.

Rosa had a vast family, sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, who worked in every corner of Santa Lucia, the hills and the valleys, both in legitimate venues and those that were less so. Especially her strange younger son, Giacomo, who appeared to have no profession at all, one of the seemingly indolent men in the piazza. If anyone had heard anything of the English duke, it would be Rosa.

The cook was sitting by the kitchen fire, shelling fresh peas and chatting with her husband, Paolo, who ran the stables. A lamb lay on the table, ready to be dressed for tomorrow’s dinner, which meant her butcher son must have been by. Or perhaps the shepherd son.

Clio sat down with them, enjoying the cosy crackle of the flames against the cool evening. Rosa and Paolo just smiled at her, used to her strange ways by now. Paolo held up a bottle of clear liquid.

‘Grappa, signorina?’ he asked.

‘Yes, grazie,’ Clio answered, watching as he poured out a generous glassful and passed it to her. One of their other sons distilled it himself, and it was rough and strong as she sipped at it. She laughed, wiping at her stinging eyes. ‘It’s, er, very good.’

Rosa laughed. ‘Oh, Signorina Clio! You are an odd one.’

‘Yes, I know. I’ve often been told that.’ If they only knew just how odd. But no one knew, really. No one but Averton. And he was an odd one himself. ‘Rosa, what do you know about the farmhouse site being cursed?’

Rosa made a quick gesture to deflect evil before going on with her pea-shelling, not looking at Clio. ‘Cursed?’

‘Yes. I heard something about it today, and I was surprised you hadn’t warned me.’

‘Pah! You are Inglese, it can’t hurt you.’

Clio took another drink of the grappa. It was really quite nice once she got used to it. So, she took yet another. ‘A strange curse, to respect national boundaries like that.’

‘What Rosa means,’ Paolo said, ‘is that you have to believe in a curse for it to work.’

‘How do you know I don’t?’

Rosa gave a sharp laugh. ‘You’re still here, aren’t you, signorina?’

‘Are you saying there are some who are not still here? Victims of this curse?’

Paolo shrugged. ‘That house was destroyed in a time of great violence. Bloodshed, battles, much fear. The last family who lived there, a Greek family, fled as the Romans drew near. But they were acolytes of Demeter, they called on their goddess to avenge them for the loss of their home as they left. Since that long-ago day, anyone who tries to live there, grow crops there, they fail. They die horrible deaths.’

‘They see the ghosts,’ Rosa added. ‘It drives them mad.’

‘Hmm,’ Clio said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe the ghosts leave me alone because I don’t try to live there. Because my work is meant to help those people who fled, to tell their story.’

‘Perhaps,’ Rosa said. ‘But if anyone comes there with evil intentions…’

Like Averton? Were his intentions ‘evil’? ‘What have you heard about the Englishman who has taken the Picini palazzo?’

Rosa and Paolo exchanged a long glance. ‘Not a great deal yet,’ Rosa said. ‘Our youngest son got a place as footman there. He says this man is very great in your country. A prince of some sort.’

Clio laughed to envision Averton with a crown perched crookedly on his golden head. That grappa was certainly doing its work! She felt all warm and content. Even curses and dukes couldn’t affect her, not now. ‘Not a prince exactly. But very important, yes. I’m surprised to see him here.’

‘You knew him before, signorina?’

‘Yes, in England.’

‘Ah. Our son says this prince seems to have come here for the antiquities, as so many do. He has many objects he moved into the palazzo. He keeps them in his very bedchamber!’

‘Really?’ Clio leaned forward, her interest sharpening. ‘What sort of objects?’

‘Vases, statues.’

‘A statue of Artemis, perhaps? About as tall as me? Alabaster?’

‘I don’t know,’ Rosa said. ‘I will ask Lorenzo. Is this statue important?’

‘It could be.’ Clio sat back, sipping the last of her grappa. ‘If you hear anything else interesting from Lorenzo, will you tell me? I’d like to know what he’s doing here.’

‘Of course, signorina. Is he a bad man, this prince of yours?’

Clio considered this, thought about their kiss, his touch. The madness that came over her every time she saw him. ‘I don’t know yet.’

She thanked Rosa and Paolo for the drink and the information, and left them to their own gossip. At the top of the stairs, she could hear the low murmur of voices from the drawing room, the sound of Thalia playing old English madrigals at the pianoforte. She should rejoin them, but her head was spinning with the grappa, curses, ghosts and thoroughly baffling princes. Instead, she turned toward the second flight of stairs leading to the bedchambers.

Her own room was silent and dark. No one had come yet to light the candles or turn back the bed. Clio walked unsteadily to the window, opening it to lean out and take a deep breath. The vast sky was indigo blue, with only one tiny star and a crescent of moon to light the inky expanse. It was still early; soon, the pearly stars would blink on one by one. Distant Etna was just a blur without her spectacles.

It would be a good night for the Lily Thief, Clio thought idly. Dark enough to avoid detection. But Santa Lucia was quiet, with nothing to distract people from their purloined ancient treasures. Maybe later, when everyone was cosy in bed…

She perched on the wide windowsill, tucking the Turkey-red muslin skirts of her evening gown around her. Those thieving days were behind her now, which was a pity considering the Alabaster Goddess might be so near. Clio peered out over the roofs, past the bulk of the cathedral, to the edge of the Duke’s palazzo. It, too, was a bit blurry, but some of the windows were lit up, glowing bright squares. Someone was home.

What was he doing in there right now? she wondered. Did he gloat over his treasures? Plan how best to drive her even more insane? Did he consider whatever it was that had brought him to Santa Lucia in the first place?

Rosa said it was the hunt for antiquities, like almost everyone else here. But Clio had learned the hard way that Averton never did things as ‘everyone else’ did, and never for the expected reasons. He was a world unto himself, completely indecipherable.

Clio doubted his appearance here in sleepy Santa Lucia, so far from his ducal empire, could be a mere coincidence. So, what was it?

‘I will just have to find out,’ she murmured. She had gained many skills in her Lily Thief days. Maybe it was time to put them to use again. And, with Marco in town, she had a potential accomplice.

If he wasn’t up to mischief himself. Marco was always up to mischief. The question was, what sort was it? What was happening behind the sleepy façades of Santa Lucia?

A knock sounded at her chamber door, and Clio stood up, shaking out her skirts. ‘Yes?’





Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Получить полную версию книги.


Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/amanda-mccabe/to-deceive-a-duke-39875384/) на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.