The Very Daring Duchess Part 7

She felt more alone than she'd ever dreamed, more lonely than she'd ever admit. With a shaky little sigh, she shook her head and pushed the sleeves of her gown high to her elbows, and began to decide which paintings she would send to London.

If ever there were a fool's errand, thought Edward glumly, then this was it, conceived and executed wholly by himself, the greatest fool in Naples at present, which, considering the dim-witted populace of Naples, was no mean accomplishment.

Yet he'd come this far, and now he'd see the foolishness through. A fool he might be, but he didn't quit. Wryly he looked down at the dark red shawl folded over his arm, the long fringes clinging to his sleeve and the rich color of the fine wool glowing in the half-light of the staircase. The shawl's owner glowed like that, too, bright in any shadow, and he resisted the temptation to brush his fingers over the soft cloth again. Last night when he'd gallantly offered to return the shawl to Francesca Robin after she'd left it behind at the amba.s.sador's palazzo, he'd no idea how sensuously evocative a mere strip of cloth could be.

It wasn't just the softness of the wool that reminded him of her skin, or the color that made him think of how her skin turned golden by candlelight. It had been the scent that had clung to the shawl, her scent, spicy and exotic, so filling the closed chaise on his ride back to the inn that he'd thrown open the window to the chilly night air rather than let his senses be overwhelmed.

Velvety skin, pale gold and scented with orange-blossoms and jasmine, a laugh so deep and full of husky promises, a full red mouth made for kissing, made for teasing, made for a man to savor...

Oh, aye, he was a fool, all right, letting himself dwell so indulgently on this sc.r.a.p of fabric, as if he'd nothing more worthwhile to occupy his thoughts. He grumbled wordlessly and shook his head as he headed up the stairs. The door had been open, and though he'd knocked, no servant had appeared to let him in. He remembered the way to the signora's studio, though, and even if she weren't within-and it would likely be best if she weren't-then he'd place the shawl where she'd find it, and leave.

Simple, direct, and uncomplicated, the way he liked to conduct his life. The way he did conduct it, when he wasn't letting himself be beguiled by some infernal Neapolitan chit.

So why, then, was his heart racing with inappropriate antic.i.p.ation?

"Signora Robin?" he called heartily at the door of the studio, not wanting to seem furtive or to frighten her. "Signora Robin! Are you within, miss?"

She was, turning gracefully to meet his gaze before sinking into a curtsey. "My lord captain," she murmured. "Buon giorno."

But though the words might have been the same ones she'd used to greet him and Henry Pye, nothing else was. The cheerful clutter of her studio had been scattered in a whirlwind of destruction, her expression of forlorn determination at odds both with her curtsey and her welcome. This time she wore a coa.r.s.e linen ap.r.o.n instead of a silk gown, no jewelry beyond small gold hoops in her ears, her dark hair bound in a tight braid beneath a peasant-woman's kerchief.

"What has happened here?" he demanded, aghast. "Who did this?"

"Who, indeed?" Wearily she glanced around the room, as if seeing it for the first time. "The best answer the constable could offer was to say it was someone who didn't care for me."

She gave a sad small laugh, and held up a painting that had been slashed, a portrait of some elegant lady whose painted throat had been jaggedly cut. "He told me I should be grateful they hadn't done this to me instead, as if that were any sort of solace."

"But that is reprehensible!" exclaimed Edward, outraged. "For your property to be vandalized like this and you to be insulted-"

"These are troubled times, my lord," she said, carefully setting the ruined painting down on a bench. "That is what the constable told me, and what I must accept."

"But that is not the point," he began, then paused. What exactly was his point? That she'd been robbed, and received no satisfaction from those appointed to help her? Or was it more selfish-that she wasn't the gaudy, flirtatious creature he'd come half-hoping to see again, but a real, more genuine woman facing serious difficulty?

"Troubled times, my lord," she said wistfully, as if comforting him instead. "Dangerous times, too, even for poor artists like me."

"I can have a crew of men here in an hour, signora," he volunteered firmly, more of an order than an offer. "If they can make the Centaur's deck spotless four hours after a battle, think of how swiftly they'll put things to rights for you here."

"And doubtless more tidy than they've ever been before, eh? Ah, to make me as s.h.i.+pshape as that waistcoat of yours!" For the first time her smile seemed to carry a share of her old merriness as she wagged her finger at him, a sly version of every nagging fisherman's wife. "Am I so disreputable that you would rather set your poor men to women's work than leave it to my unworthy hands?"

"I intended to offer you a.s.sistance, signora," he said stiffly. "I meant no insult to your, ah, housewifery skills."

She curtsied broadly, spreading the skirts of her white ap.r.o.n as wide as a sail. "Ah, mi dispiace, mio egregio signore, mi dispiace!"

He hated it when she spoke in Italian like this. His grasp of the language was slight at best, his vocabulary heavily weighted toward navigation and s.h.i.+pyards, and he had a constant, secret fear that every Neapolitan was mocking him without him understanding a single, singsong word of the insult.

"Look here, now, signora," he said, trying to sound stern rather than merely exasperated. "I'm not about to carry on a conversation when I cannot tell what in blazes you're saying."

"Ah." She stood upright, and let her skirts drop to her sides. "I said I was a wicked untidy wench, and then I said I was sorry, my dear sir, very sorry. And I am, too. It's only that certain Italian words are much more, ah, expressive than English. I often don't even realize that I've chosen one over the other, you know."

"You should," he said, wis.h.i.+ng her explanation didn't make quite so much sense. "Here I was simply trying to make you a useful offer of a.s.sistance, and you go babbling off saying the devil knows what."

"But the devil would know," she countered gleefully, "for at least in your proper English world, Signor Lucifer must surely be a gentleman of Naples, yes?"

He stared at her as coolly as he could, his irritation simmering just short of out-and-out anger. It had been years since anyone had dared treat him with this kind of disrespect, and he didn't like it.

He bowed curtly. "It seems we have nothing more to say, signora," he said, determined to leave before she once again twisted his own words back against him. "I shall therefore wish you good day."

Good day, and good riddance, he told himself sternly as he turned toward the door. The chit was a trial, with no place or use in his life.

"No, no, my lord captain, please, wait!"

Francesca's hand on the crook of his arm stopped him at once. He was no more accustomed to a lady's touch than he was to having his words misinterpreted, especially when the lady's little fingers were spreading along his sleeve and stroking and, well, caressing his arm with unusual familiarity. With her standing this close, her scent was there to beguile him again, to fill his head with the same wrongful, l.u.s.tful imaginings that had haunted him last night as he'd held her shawl in the chaise.

He frowned down at her hand, not quite knowing what else to do. To pull free would seem unnecessarily violent, but to ask her to release him would sound ridiculous, as if he were the protesting maiden in some third-rate Drury Lane play.

And how heartily he wished he were back at sea, where life was so much less complicated!

"I apologize, my lord," she said swiftly, as if she feared he'd leave before she'd finished. "Again I must, and again! Your offer was most kind, veramente, the true mark of a generous spirit, and how very much I should like to accept!"

"Then why the devil don't you?" he asked gruffly, still frowning down at that little hand instead of meeting her gaze. Her hand was not a lady's hand but an artist's, the fingertips callused from holding a brush and stained beneath one nail with drawing ink. "My men have little enough to do while we sit idle in the harbor, and this is far too much for you to do alone."

"But I am not alone, you see," she said disingenuously, holding the moment long enough that he, too, held his breath, as if he might honestly care who shared this house with her.

And blast it all, as long as she was keeping her hand on his sleeve, he did.

"I keep two servants," she continued at last, "and they shall continue helping me as soon as they return from the well with more water for scrubbing this floor."

"Then they shouldn't have left the door unlatched when they went, signora," he warned, remembering how easily he'd entered himself.

"They-they did?" she asked, faltering for only a second. "But that is no concern to you, my lord captain. What must matter between us is your offer. For me to accept such a kindness now would be as grievous to you as it would to me."

"Why?" he demanded. "I thought there wasn't any scandal in Naples."

"Not scandal," she said sadly. "Politics, and spies everywhere. If you were an ordinary English gentleman, then I could take you as my lover without scandal, for no one would think anything of it. But because you are an English officer, a gentleman with great power and position, I cannot let your men help me because of politics. Oh, I know, it is ludicrous, but that is what would happen, and there's no help for it, either."

She patted his arm, more consolation than seduction. But it still didn't erase how casually she'd mentioned being his lover, and only a lifetime of the navy's discipline kept his expression impa.s.sive. He'd never stayed on sh.o.r.e long enough to keep any woman as his mistress, nor had the idea ever held much attraction for him. Such arrangements had always struck him as too commercial, anyway, the kind of coldhearted couplings that his older brothers favored.

But that wasn't what Francesca Robin had said, was it? She'd said nothing of the rent to be paid for this house, or the clothes and jewels she desired, or the carriage she needed to impress her friends-all the things that mistresses notoriously expected their gentlemen to provide. No: The word she'd used had been "lover," and she'd made it clear the choosing would be done by her, for pleasure, not for profit.

I could take you as my lover...

"Why, you've returned my shawl," she said, drawing it free from where he'd looped it over his arm. She flung it over her shoulders, arms stretched wide like red wings, and, heedless of how incongruous such a luxurious piece looked with the rough ap.r.o.n and kerchief. "How careless of me to leave it behind last night, but how very thoughtful of you to bring it back."

"I'm glad to be of service, signora," he said, pleased that she was pleased, but wis.h.i.+ng her hand were still upon his arm, connecting them. "I, ah, know how ladies like to keep their things about them."

"Just as I know how gentlemen don't like to be kept from their endeavors by the carelessness of ladies," she said, smiling as she stroked the fringe of her shawl. "I am grateful, my lord captain, most grateful, that you have taken your time on my humble errand. Grazie, grazie, egregio signore!"