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The duke stood and held out his arms. Still marveling at her grandfather’s wily, improbable scheme, Allegra went into them willingly.
“If you send your man to the small shed behind the stables,” the duke told Will as he released Allegra, “he will find a horse and carriage. Now, off with you both.”
Crossing to his desk, the duke took a fat pouch jingling with coins from a drawer and handed it to Will. “A small gift for your wedding day. You should reach the village on the road to Rome before nightfall. Stop at the Inn of the Crossroads and tell Phillipo you are my guests.”
“But what of my banishment?” Allegra asked. “Is there not to be a public scene?”
The duke displayed what on a lesser man would have been called a grin. “Indeed! When I summon you to appear before me in the morning and you cannot be found, there will be such a scene, no one at the palazzo is likely ever to forget it. I shall roar and fume! Gnash my teeth, curse your name and banish you forever. Ah, such a performance it will be. I am quite looking forward to it. The Austrian will never be able to say we Antinoris do not prize our honor, or that we stood in the way of his desires. You will be safe, my child, and the Antinori land as well.”
Shaking her head, Allegra chuckled. “You truly are a rascal, Grandfather.”
“No, ’tis you English who are knaves!” the duke said solemnly, pointing at Will. “Stealing my granddaughter and my carriage!”
“How can we thank you enough, sir?” Will asked.
“Make my nipotina happy. Go back to the green England for which she pines and build a life. Write to me, and when it’s safe, when this Austrian has gone like the rest, come back and bring me your children to bless.”
Taking Allegra’s hand, he put it in Will’s. “Go with him, my child. Both of you go with God.”
She would marry Will—with her grandfather’s blessing. Happiness swelled Allegra’s heart so that, were it not for the sadness of leaving her grandfather, she felt she might float up to the clouds.
“It seems I’m the granddaughter of a rogue as well as a rogue’s lady,” she told Will after kissing the duke goodbye and asking him to convey her love to Alessandro. “Shall we find that carriage, my love?”
“I feel a wave of criminal impulses about to overcome me,” Will said. Bowing to the duke, he led her away.
They slipped through the silent halls as daylight faded toward dusk. Will found Barrows and sent him ahead to load their luggage into the duke’s carriage.
As the household began stirring, they tiptoed through the private garden beside the duke’s wing that would lead them unobserved to the stables. From the window of his library, Allegra’s grandfather waved goodbye.
Hand in hand, while the rays of the setting sun turned the fountain’s spray to a sparkle of gold, Allegra and Will walked to the waiting carriage and into their future.
