“Everyone remembers how beautiful your mother was. But the only thing my mother could ever talk about was the way your father looked at her. As though she hung the stars and the moon and the sun altogether. They must have loved each other very much.”
“They were happy,” he agreed. It surprised him that he could admit this without pain. In fact, the idea warmed him. “I witnessed it every day of the short time we had together. I’ve never stopped wanting it back. Which makes me a fool.”
“If you are, then everyone else is too.”
“After all my time in the shadows…I’m not sure I fully understand how to live that kind of life.”
He hoped she’d understand what he couldn’t come out and say: he was terrified that if she committed her life to his, he would let her down.
“I disagree, darling. You’ve shown me the complete opposite.”
Diana gently tugged his chin and sealed her mouth against his. He parted her lips easily and slipped his tongue inside, greedy for her taste again.
When she withdrew to place a tender kiss over his heart, she murmured, “The rest of the world doesn’t matter. Wherever I’m with you, however we choose to live, I’m home.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Youlookdelightfully…refreshed,Holt.”
Sunderland sprawled in a chair in the townhouse dining room as he sipped coffee from a steaming cup.
“Wish I could say the same about you,” Ian replied.
The duke’s hair fell rakishly over his forehead and his necktie dangled around the open collar of his shirt, which was also stained with an unmistakable stamp of lip rouge.
“It’s not what you think.” Sunderland flashed him a wicked grin. “Actually, scratch that. What are you thinking?”
“How we survive tonight.” As he downed his own cup of scalding coffee, Ian wished he’d stayed in bed with Diana. He’d only slipped out to run to the bakery so he could buy somepastizzifor her breakfast.
“Crotchety in the morning, aren’t you?” Sunderland clicked his tongue against his teeth. “My evening involved little sleep, but I’m much more pleasant about it.”
Ian didn’t want to visualize what the duke’s evening had involved. Or hear about it. “Everything ready at the Porto Rosso?”
“My team is in place at the hotel,” Sunderland confirmed. “I take it you and Miss Rives agreed on stakes. Should you care to relay all the details of your negotiations, I’m an excellent listener.”
He ignored the duke’s taunt. “Diana has agreed to stake theEver Hart.”
“Her Majesty’s government will not be amused if you lose a ship of that caliber.”
“If I lose, there’s more to worry about than upsetting half a dozen bureaucrats.”
The trace of the smirk faded from the duke’s face. “You’re going to need a strategy if things get dodgy.”
“The best option is to let thepoliziacapture me when they raid the game.”
Sunderland scratched his chin. “Could take a few days to get you out of the clink.”
“It’s a last resort. And I’ll only do it if you swear you can get Diana out of Florence when all hell breaks loose.”
“That I can arrange.” He leaned back in his chair. “My sources also received a report that a shipment of gunpowder went missing from Genoa three days ago. No one’s talking about it because, allegedly, three women stole it.”
Wearing oilskin coats and woolen caps and probably brandishing his pistol, Ian would wager. Since Birdie’s betrayal, they’d been waiting for Widow’s operatives to make some move.
“They wanted the necklace to trade for information aboutIl Giocoso they can eliminate some of the most powerful traffickers in Europe in one go,” Ian surmised.
“They’re getting reckless if they’re planning to plant explosives at the hotel. Hundreds of innocent people could die.”
Ian dreaded telling Diana. “Is the threat credible?”
