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Before Alessandro could return a heated reply, she said quickly, “Overwhelmed as I am by your courtesy, Count, I fear I am fatigued. Grandfather and Duke Alessandro were just bidding me good-night before I retire.”
As if he recognized and appreciated her sudden weariness for the tactic to avoid him it was, the count smiled. “Would that I might do my poor part to assist you, Duchessa,” he murmured. “Another evening, perhaps. Another evening soon.”
Though she wasn’t truly tired, Allegra had no more desire to return to the fawning attention and gallant compliments that awaited her in the ballroom than she did to suffer the count’s lustful hand at her elbow. Leaning up to kiss her grandfather’s cheek, she said, “Good night, nonno, Alessandro.” According the count the smallest of nods, she turned away, her duenna hastening to follow.
From behind her came the count’s soft laughter. “Ah, a disdainful woman,” she heard him say to Alessandro as she hurried toward the entrance. “How much more satisfying to compel the surrender of such a one than to master any of those witless creatures so eager to please a man.”
Closing the door upon his words, Allegra repressed another shiver. Sensitive situation or not, she vowed she’d risk creating a political incident before she’d allow the count to “compel” her “surrender.”
Up in her room half an hour later, her formal dress discarded in favor of a silk night rail, Allegra leaned upon the stone balustrade of the balcony outside her chamber. She wasn’t in the least sleepy, nor did she feel like perusing a book. The stars spangling the heavens and the faint sound of a plaintive melody emanating from the distant ballroom fueled a restless longing in her heart.
Wonderful as it had been to have spent the last three months in pampered luxury, she’d gradually come to think ’twas like living in a theater in which she was the principal player, surrounded by a cast of maids, dressers, friseurs and footmen who refused to let her do anything more useful than choose what new gown she would wear and which elegant hairstyle and bonnet would accompany it.
Though she felt guilty about the reaction after all the love and attention her grandfather had lavished upon her, she had come to feel more hemmed in than ever before in her life.
She’d thought the restrictions imposed upon her by the ton in London confining, but the limitations on a well-bred lady’s behavior here were even greater. She soon discovered she was not permitted to walk a step outside the house without Signora Bertrude, a solemn older lady chosen by her grandfather specifically, Allegra surmised, judging by the duenna’s sole topic of conversation, to school her in choosing a husband. Often when she walked in the gardens, the signora summoned a maid or a footman to join them as well.
With difficulty Allegra had persuaded her grandfather to allow her to ride about the grounds rather than be driven in a coach. But when she rode, she was preceded by an outrider and accompanied by at least two grooms.
When, feeling a compulsion to venture beyond the estate, she expressed a desire to visit the nearest town and inspect the shops, her duenna replied that the duchessa need only state what she required and the requisite tradesmen would be summoned to bring their wares to the palazzo for her consideration.
Though she supposed a gentleman had more freedom, Allegra was beginning to appreciate why her father had chosen to leave this house and pursue his music abroad.
She missed being able to ride and walk and shop without an entourage. And as much as Italy excited her admiration with its beauty and diversity, she was finding she missed the deep green hills and quiet dales of England.
Her grandfather’s house was exquisite and the affection he’d shown her heartwarming, but the bitter truth was that she didn’t feel she belonged here, either.
To her initial surprise but growing understanding, she’d also found that she did not miss Rob. Once the first wave of hurt and humiliation eased, she began to realize she had probably never felt more for him than the vestiges of youthful hero worship that, confused by grief and desperate for a home, she’d attempted, but never quite succeeded, to convince herself was love.
As had been brought so forcefully and painfully to her attention during her last interview with him, she hadn’t really known the mature Rob at all, as he didn’t know or appreciate her. Aside from a mutual grief over his father’s death, they no longer had anything in common.
The new Lord Lynton had considered it inappropriate to ride with her or teach her fencing or billiards, as he’d done with careless grace when they were younger. Of course, she forced herself to recall, surprised to find the memory no longer stung so sharply, all along he’d been in love with another girl, one who, from what she’d gleaned, was as blond and proper and biddable as Allegra was not.
Despite their shared past, only in her wishful imagining had there ever been the possibility of a future with Rob. He’d seen her simply as a responsibility he needed to turn over to someone else so he might get on with his own life unencumbered.
Admitting that no longer hurt as it once had. In fact, she was beginning to develop a reluctant understanding of his position, though she still fiercely resented his characterization of her family.
She had to smile, recalling that the only man she’d had any interest in being turned over to was the one man in London Rob seemed most to dislike.
He was also the one person she’d missed most since leaving England. How many times had she met some unusual or interesting new personage, experienced a new sight or smell or taste, and wished Will were here to share it with her! How often she’d imagined his reaction to some new circumstance, wished she might have the benefit of his intelligent observations or smiled to think of the witty rejoinders he might have made.
She missed the friendship they’d developed, where she might express what she thought and felt without eliciting the alarmed or disapproving looks her comments sometimes evoked in her Italian family and servants.
Just as keenly, she missed the titillating warmth of being near Will, the velvet timbre of his voice that could send shivers of wicked delight across her skin, the look from those vivid blue eyes that made her lips and cheeks burn and her stomach churn with need.
She placed a hand over it now. If it had been Will instead of the count who wished to stroll in the dark garden with her, or tiptoe up to her chamber to help her into—or out of—her night rail, she would have had a very different response.
Where might he be now? she wondered. Waltzing across some ballroom with one of the ladies on her list? Or perhaps even engaged to be married?
If he wasn’t yet, he soon would be. His love of Brookwillow was too strong for him to shrink from doing whatever he must to secure its restoration.
If she ever wished to contact him again, she should do so before he pledged his troth to another woman. Unlike Rob, who believed Will possessed no sense of honor, Allegra knew that once he exchanged his vows, though he might dally discreetly, he would never distress or embarrass his wife by openly corresponding with another woman.
Suddenly she felt the overwhelming need to share all that she’d experienced with Will before that event occurred. Besides, she’d promised to let him know how she was doing, hadn’t she?
Fired by the greatest sense of enthusiasm and purpose she’d experienced since finding Papa’s family, Allegra carried a brace of candles to her desk, took out a quill, ink and paper and began to write.
THREE WEEKS LATER, Will sat at his desk, reading through again the missive he’d received this morning from Allegra. His heart had leapt in his chest when Phillips had handed him the post and he’d seen the letter with his name upon it in her flowing hand. Wanting to savor it, he’d waited until after the day’s work was completed to take it into the library where, glass of wine in hand, he meant to slowly devour every word.
Even after having read it through twice, though, the news she’d conveyed still astounded him. As the full import sank in, he threw back his head and laughed.
Allegra Antinori, scorned by the ton as the daughter of a lowly musician, was in truth the granddaughter of a duke. Indeed, a duchessa in her own right. The woman he’d once asked to marry him outranked him by several degrees!
The Malverns’ travels must have taken them beyond the reach of the regular post, for surely they knew of this and if they’d conveyed the news to London, Lucilla would have heard it. He had no doubt that, knowing how isolated he was from ton gossip, she would have informed him at once.
As proud and fiercely grateful as he was to learn of her radical rise in station, the dismaying implications of her news soon sobered him.
’Twas unthinkable now to imagine going to Italy and begging Allegra to return with him as the wife of a lowly baron on an insignificant bit of English countryside. Not when her grandfather doubtless envisioned arranging a grand match for her with a gentleman of the highest rank.
For a moment, the pain that squeezed his chest robbed him of breath. As it eased, he picked up his wineglass with trembling hand and downed a large swallow. His hard work at Brookwillow, he thought sardonically, had done little to accomplish one purpose for which he’d originally thought to bury himself in the country. Allegra Antinori still had a stranglehold upon his heart.
