Ariadne's Diadem (3 page)

* * * *

As Hugh emerged from the lodging house to stroll among the exuberant Bacchus Night revelers on the lamplit pavement, he was sure he could hear the menacing rumble of Vesuvius in the distance. But the sound was faint because of the singing and dancing, the throbbing of guitars and tambourines, and the fireworks bursting above the rooftops. In spite of the merrymaking, he was very much on his guard, for Naples possessed an army of beggars known as
lazzaroni,
most of whom were skillful pickpockets, and he had no intention of becoming one of their victims.

He hadn’t gone far when he noticed Teresa del Rosso ahead of him. Her shapely ankles twinkled tantalizingly from beneath the hem of her warm gray-striped gown as she hurried along, and she held her long woolen shawl over her raven hair. As he watched, she turned into the dark alley that led, he knew, to the wine store kept by her mother. Without hesitation he followed her.

The alley was dark and deserted, and when Teresa heard his steps, she turned nervously. She saw his tall shape outlined against the light from the street at the far end of the alley, and by the coat thought she recognized Gervase. Her dark eyes softened, and her pretty lips curved into the sort of knowing smile that proved her chastity had long since been consigned to the realms of distant memory.

“I hoped you would not resist much longer, signor,” she murmured, holding out a hand and melting back into the dark shadows of the store doorway.

Hugh felt desire begin to surge unstoppably through him, and he dropped Gervase’s cane as he went to her. He knew it was a case of mistaken identity, that she would not have welcomed him at all had she known who he really was, but for Gervase she was prepared to surrender all. Bitterness heated Hugh’s lust, and he knew he would punish her for wanting his cousin, not him.

She was soft and yielding, her lips parting beneath his, and there was nothing innocent in the way she pressed into his loins in order to feel his arousal. He trembled as she undid her bodice to reveal those breasts he’d yearned for from the moment he’d arrived in the Riviero de Chiaia. Even in the darkness he could see their plump firmness and the way her nipples turned up eagerly for him. He lowered his head to kiss them, but as his lips brushed the perfumed sweetness of those delectable mounds, the remnants of restraint vanished into the night. His gloved hands were rough as he wrenched up her skirts, then unbuttoned his trousers to take her without further ado.

He hurt her, and she was at last seized with fear. She tried to call for help.
“Aiuto! Aiuto!”

He clamped his hand over her mouth and forced her against the door, but then an old woman entered the alley, advancing toward the courtyard with shuffling infirm steps. At first Hugh thought she’d come in response to Teresa’s choked cries, but then he heard the chink of keys and realized she was coming to unlock the wine store. With a stifled curse he straightened his clothes, but was careful to keep a hand over Teresa’s mouth as he did so. The old woman was still yards away as he looked coldly at Teresa, his eyes shining behind his mask. “I will say you invited my advances, so say nothing unless you wish your mother to learn how many men have sampled her supposedly virginal daughter these past few years,” he whispered harshly in the formal Italian he’d learned at Cambridge University. Then he retrieved the cane before walking swiftly away. He didn’t even glance at the old woman, who paused with a start as he suddenly emerged from the shadows.

Still under the impression that he was Gervase, Teresa gazed hatefully after him. She knew it would be foolish to accuse him because he would carry out his threat, and the last thing she wanted was for her strict mother to find out how immoral her daughter had become. Stepping forward quickly, she seized the old woman’s arms. “You’ll say nothing, Maria, nothing at all! Do you understand?”

The old woman shrugged. “It is none of my business that you are a whore, Teresa del Rosso. I am paid to look after the wine store, not guard your morals.”

A particularly rowdy group of revellers passed the mouth of the alley. They were dressed as fauns and bacchantes and were chanting Bacchus’s name as they brandished wine bottles aloft. One of them was playing panpipes, and a new light entered Teresa’s eyes. The Englishman would not escape, for there were still ways to punish him, old ways that went back into the mists of time.

Chapter Three

As Hugh left the scene in Naples, faraway to the northwest, at Llandower, Anne was seated in the drawing room, finishing her needlework. Her hair was unpinned, and she wore a dark red velvet gown flushed to the color of warm wine by the flickering fire, which flared now and then as the blustering gale drew mournfully down the chimney. The dismal wet weather had continued all day, and she’d been obliged to light Penelope’s candelabra a little earlier than she would have liked.

At last the final stitch was done, and she held her work up to admire. It was only a plaid shawl, but she’d fringed the thick blue-and-green woolen material herself. Plaid accessories were all the rage now because of Sir Walter Scott, and even in the sticks of Monmouthshire one wished to be as fashionable as possible, but as usual she had modified things to suit her own particular taste. Fringes were always modish, although not as long as this, or as intricately knotted. Maybe ladies of true fashion would look down their noses at it, but she was well pleased with her efforts.

The mantelpiece clock struck eleven, and she closed the workbox, then folded the shawl and placed it neatly on top. Getting up, she pulled the guard in front of the fire, and then extinguished all Penelope’s candles except one, which she placed in a waiting candlestick. Shielding the little flame with her hand, she went down to the kitchens to talk with Mrs. Jenkins and enjoy a glass of hot milk, as she did every night.

The plump housekeeper beamed as she entered. “Ah, there you are at last. Miss Anne,” she declared unnecessarily, dusting a chair with her apron in readiness. As a new maid, she had been present when Anne was born, and although she and her late husband had never been blessed with children of their own, she had come to regard herself as Anne’s second mother. She was in her late forties, with soft brown eyes, an unexpectedly youthful pink-and-white complexion, and graying hair that was always concealed beneath a large frilled mobcap. Her apron was starched, and her wine taffeta gown, which once belonged to Anne’s mother, made a familiar rustling sound as she went to put a saucepan of milk on the fire.

The other two servants were also in the kitchen, Joseph at the table surrounded by his woodwork paraphernalia, and Martin, thin and nimble, with spiky brown hair and huge dark eyes, was sprawled on the stone floor with the gardener’s sly lurcher, Jack. Joseph was a fifty-year-old bachelor, and the sort of slow-moving countryman who was never fazed by anything. Still handsome beneath his full beard and weather-beaten complexion, he adhered firmly to the philosophy that everything—no matter how fantastic on the surface—had a logical explanation beneath. His unflappability sometimes drove Mrs. Jenkins to distraction, for she was of a far more impulsive and busy disposition. She often declared that he was about as animated as one of his carvings, and he called her gullible and twitchy, but he said it in the sort of fond way that hinted there was more regard between them than might at first appear.

Anne was usually able to see the gardener’s latest piece of woodwork, but for several weeks now he had always hastily drawn a cloth over it the moment she entered. It was about a foot high by a foot long by four inches wide, but she couldn’t even begin to guess what it was, beyond the fact that it was probably a gift for her approaching birthday. Knowing his skill, she did not doubt that it would be perfect in every detail. She glanced at the cluttered table, where his implements, oils, and waxes were carefully laid out. The smell of linseed and turpentine hung in the air, and there were soft cotton squares stained with brown from whatever he’d just been polishing. A double saucepan stood in the hearth, and she knew he’d just mixed some more of his special beeswax polish, three parts bleached beeswax to nine parts turpentine. That the kitchen was still intact meant that on this occasion he’d taken the necessary care.

Mrs. Jenkins persuaded Anne to eat a slice of currant cake, and every mouthful she took was watched longingly by Martin and Jack. The former was eventually rewarded for his patience, but the lurcher received not a single crumb because the housekeeper rightly held it responsible for the disappearance of many a tidbit from the kitchens. Mrs. Jenkins had never caught the crafty dog in the act, but she vowed that if ever she did, heaven help its mangy hide. Joseph left the animal to its own devices. If it got caught, it only had itself to blame, and if it got away with the crime, then Mrs. J. would have to be more vigilant in future.

The evening ritual over, Anne retired at last to her bedroom, which wasn’t by any means Llandower’s finest chamber in the house, but which had the best view over the maze and grounds toward the Wye. Comfortably furnished in her chosen green-and-gold brocade, with a capacious bed in which she could snuggle on nights such as this, it was warm and welcoming as she stood at the washstand to pour water from the porcelain jug into the bowl. The wind still blustered as she extinguished the candle and then curled up to try to sleep. Fire shadows moved gently on the walls, leaping now and then as another gust of wind tossed rain against the window.

She was tired after a few days that had been hectic from the moment the messenger had arrived from Ballynarray, but sleep would not come. She lay in a half world between slumber and wakefulness, her thoughts wandering over all manner of subjects before inevitably coming to rest on the one thing that made her deeply apprehensive about her coming match— the physical yielding that Gervase Mowbray could, and would, demand of her. Beneath the bedclothes she put her hands to her breasts, a gesture that was half defensive, half wondering. What would her first night as Duchess of Wroxford really be like? Not a romantic occasion of shared tenderness, that much was certain, but would he treat her kindly? Would the consummation be gentle, or would he just take her roughly and consider his duty done?

As she drifted on the boundary of sleep, it seemed she was no longer at Llandower, but in a much grander bed in the principal chamber at Wroxford Park. The door was opening, and her bridegroom was coming in. In her imagination he was tall, but he had no face as he stood looking down at her. He wore a silk dressing robe, and as he loosened the belt she saw he was naked beneath... In her imagination his body was pale, lean but muscular, and very beautiful, as had been the unknown gentleman in the wheat field all those years ago. He was saying something to her, but his voice was a distant echo, and she couldn’t understand. Her heart was pounding, and her mouth was dry as he climbed in beside her. He pulled her toward him in me candlelit darkness and whispered something, but again she could not hear. Then he took her hand and drew it to the hard, upstanding shaft that showed how ready he was to complete this marriage of convenience. He pressed himself into her palm, and the blood thundered through her veins as her fingers closed tentatively around him. Wild emotions ran through her as she felt his heat and urgency, and she wanted to do all the things those other lovers had done, but as he pulled her into his arms and put his lips to hers, the fantasy was shattered by a sudden fierce gust of wind that blew her bedroom window open. It banged back upon its hinges as if it would fly away on the storm, and the curtains billowed as an icy draft swept into the room, where she was very much alone in her bed.

For a moment she lay in confusion, but as the window banged again, she threw the bedclothes aside to get up. Her hair and nightgown were tugged by the gale, and rain spattered her face as she leaned out to seize the window catch. In the darkness below she could see the shivering hedges of the maze and the convoluted path that twisted and turned back upon itself in a pattern known as the City of Troy, because it was said to be a plan of that city’s defenses. The ornamental rotunda in the center of the maze was pale and white, holding her attention for a breathless moment before her fingers felt the catch and she managed to close the window again.

* * * *

Far away in Naples at that moment, Bacchus Night was in full swing as Gervase and Hugh sat in a relatively quiet candlelit comer of the inn farther along the street from their lodgings. Signora del Rosso did not provide meals, and neither cousin tried to persuade her to do so, because she was a dragon of the highest order—in Gervase’s opinion she’d been coughed up by Vesuvius as indigestible, and so would be her cooking.

Macaroni had indeed proved the order of the day, and had been brought to their table by the saucy maid who, from the outset, had made clear her interest in Gervase. Ignoring Hugh, she kept leaning across in such a way that the lighted candle on the table treated Gervase to frequent glimpses of the contents of her tight bodice. Her dark eyes invited, and when he’d tossed her some
scudis,
she’d caught them deftly.
“Grazie,”
she’d whispered, as if thanking him for pleasuring her in love, then she’d very pointedly slipped the coins between the breasts she’d made so certain he noticed.

Later, as the cousins lingered over their postprandial wine, Gervase glanced around the dining room, in which he and Hugh were among the few not to be wearing Carnival costumes. Disguises ranged from animal masks and skins, through several Harlequins and Columbines, to clothes from previous ages, including, he noted with interest, a large number of bacchantes and fauns—or were they satyrs? No, he decided, they were fauns, for satyrs were the Greek counterpart. Not for the first time that evening he wondered how lightheartedly the Neapolitans really regarded their ancient gods. Was it possible that Bacchus was still worshipped in fact as well as fiction? Yes, he decided, looking around again.

Hugh hadn’t had a good evening. First there had been Teresa, and then his visit to the theater had only served to remind him of Kitty Longton’s preference for Gervase. Now his jealous resentment was being further fanned by the serving girl’s obvious liking for that same unfairly privileged cousin. He had drunk more than was wise and was only just on the right side of pleasantness, although his true state hadn’t yet become apparent as he used the candle on the table to light one of his, or rather Gervase’s, Spanish cigars. His deep antagonism was hidden behind a warm smile and tone as he addressed his cousin. “What are your plans after this? Do you intend serving the serving girl? Or will you perhaps languish alone dreaming dreams of sweet Anne Willowby?”