Loe raamatut: «Lilian And The Irresistible Duke»

Chapter One

April 1843

Lilian huddled beneath her fancy new shawl, enjoying the bracing sea breeze almost as much as the soft heat of the early morning sunrise. Some things were simply too special to miss and her first sighting of Italy was one of them.

What a painting it would make! The wispy clouds peppering the orange-tinged sky, the shadows they cast on the green hills on the horizon, both framing the clusters of pale stone buildings as they trickled down into the town and the imposing high walls of the ancient port, standing tall and proud in the turquoise ocean.

She had seen Turner’s beautiful depictions of Italy years ago, at an exhibition in Somerset House, and had fallen in love with his romantic landscapes, but now she realised even his talented brush had not done this magnificent vista justice. It was more beautiful than she could have ever imagined…not that she had imagined she would ever get to see it.

Hers had been a life of great responsibility and great purpose. Three children to bring up. A devoted wife to a wonderful and philanthropic man. Helping him to build his dream—the Fairclough Foundation—from the ground up so together they could help hundreds of unfortunate women forge better lives for themselves with new skills and a clean slate. Then continuing that dream and raising their family all alone after her beloved husband had been taken from her much too young. Life had been hard. At times, downright impossible. Only a few months ago it had all seemed likely to fall crashing about her ears.

Yet here she was.

Still standing and a little lost, truth be told, because the world seemed to be moving rapidly around her and she no longer knew her place in it. Her purpose had been diminished and she had allowed it to happen. And happily. It was only right that her children should forge ahead with their own lives. The natural order of things was for parents to step aside as they did so.

Yet it didn’t make it any easier. Especially as in her mind she felt no different from the way she had two decades ago. At five and forty she was a long way off old, yet equally well past young. Neither ready to retire to a life of knitting or embroidery nor sure what she might do next. She felt as if she was standing at a crossroads and this unexpected trip to Rome a temporary reprieve from the indecision of which path to tread. An adventure.

A new adventure pursuing a lifelong passion. An adventure entirely for herself for a change. Finally going to see the great masterpieces she had always dreamed of and most particularly Michelangelo’s spectacular ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. A painting she had wanted to see since she had viewed a tiny example of his work briefly on loan to the National Gallery. Art had always been her solace—not that she had any talent for drawing—but it had been a way for her to relax when life got too much. When the world got on top of her, stealing an hour looking at the beauty which others created with a simple brush and palette always rejuvenated her. Something about the Italian painters and landscapes always called to her, but she had never dreamed she would ever visit Italy to actually see it. After a quarter of a century devoting her life to others, she still couldn’t quite believe it. Or get used to the new freedom she had not been ready to experience.

‘I’ll wager you are glad we all talked you into coming now, aren’t you?’ Beside her, Alexandra was grinning. She had seen this panorama many times before and had a whole host of friends here. ‘We shall have a leisurely breakfast, drinking cappuccinos in Civitavecchia and be in Rome with Carlotta in time for dinner. Palazzo delle Santafano is just outside the city. Close enough to see it all and far enough away to escape when the city gets too much.’

Civitavecchia… Palazzo delle Santafano… Cappuccino… Every word in Italian was music to her ears, sounding sinfully mysterious and romantic. She had always been a romantic soul at heart. ‘I cannot imagine it ever getting too much.’ Lilian watched the walls of the port loom ever closer like an excited girl at her first assembly. ‘It is so lovely.’ And so unlike London she might as well be in a different world. But then she had practically crossed the world to get here. Trains, carriages, ships…so many days of travel she no longer knew which day of the week it was and really couldn’t bring herself to care. Not when every day had suddenly seemed like a bold new adventure. She had never seen France, or even the white cliffs of Dover for that matter until she started this trip. Thanks to the Foundation and more than two decades of motherhood in her spartan home at the back of the institute, her life had been rooted in London on the dubious streets close to the Irish Rookery in the shadow of Westminster Abbey.

‘Trust me—it will. The pace of life, the heat, the customs, the people… The Italians are very different from what you are used to. They are a passionate race.’

Lilian knew that. Or rather she suspected as much thanks to her lone encounter with her first and only Italian at Christmas. Pietro Venturi—Duca della Torizia… Another jumble of seductive Italian words.

He had been nothing like any man she had ever met. Dark, much too tall and exotic, he was more confident and considerably less reserved than the typical English male. He had looked boldly into her eyes, lingered over kissing her hand, flirted outrageously and his deep voice and seductive accent had quite taken her by surprise. She blamed that and, of course, the three glasses of wine she had consumed at Lady Fentree’s soirée last Christmas for agreeing to travel back to Alexandra’s house alone with just him in the carriage. And she blamed the alcohol, the shameless flirting, the accent, those intense sultry dark eyes and the intimacy of the carriage for allowing the Duca della Torizia to steal that kiss. And for kissing him so enthusiastically back.

Her first kiss in a decade. Although she still hadn’t made her mind up if it was the unexpected surprise of a single kiss after so long without which made it so scandalously memorable, or the fact that he did it so well and so thoroughly. For its entire duration she quite forgot she was a middle-aged widow who had never shown any desire to be kissed again before he had stolen one.

‘Mrs Fairclough…you have such beautiful eyes…’

He had stared deeply into them, tracing the pad of one finger gently down her cheek and making her skin tingle for the first time in a decade.

‘For some reason they call to me…’

Then his lips had whispered over hers and everything—the carriage, the snow, all her myriad responsibilities, all her problems—everything but him disappeared as she lost herself in his kiss.

And as much as the incident was regrettable in the extreme and completely unlike her, against all her better judgements her mind had frequently wandered back to it since, reminding her body that, although it was older, it still had the capacity to crave a man’s touch just as it always had.

But that brief, chance meeting had signalled the start of something and was perhaps one of the reasons she had agreed to this exciting holiday abroad. While she disagreed she had earned a break from her life as her children had insisted—because she was too selfless by half and they wanted to repay her for everything she had done—Lilian did agree she was due an adventure. She also needed to do something to get away from her children, not because she didn’t love them all to distraction, because she did, but because they were all newly married and ready to start their own adventures. Since her daughter Lottie had taken over the running of the Foundation with her husband, Jasper, Lilian had felt redundant and a little in the way.

She had once been a besotted newlywed herself and knew how all-encompassing and thrilling that heady time was. Love, lust, longing…the sheer joy of one another’s company. She had had that once. Except she had got to enjoy Henry on her own, without a well-meaning parent in the wings, and she wanted the same for them. Millie and Cassius were at Falconmore Hall. Silas and Mary, freshly returned from America, had rented a house close to the Foundation so they could spend some time in England. And Lottie and Jasper had moved in with Lilian. It was they who most needed their privacy. Even with the very best intentions, she had walked in on them too many times in the midst of an embrace and felt awful when they had guiltily pulled apart when they should be basking in the first flush of love. Just as Lilian had shamelessly and greedily basked in it with Henry all those years ago. She had always been a passionate romantic at heart, too.

Not one of her children needed her now. They would, when grandchildren inevitably came along, but for the time being she had no real purpose and didn’t want to be underfoot as they all enjoyed those first precious months with their new spouses. As much as her children loved her in return, they had also been unsubtly keen to reward her for her years of selfless service by acting together to send her on this extended trip abroad. She was both grateful and philosophical about their generosity, but she certainly didn’t intend to squander the opportunity and hoped two months of distance from her old life and purpose might give her some clarity on what to do with it next.

‘What is Carlotta like?’ Their hostess, the Contessa di Bagnoregio, was a great friend of Alexandra from her youth. As a duke’s daughter, and the wife of a viscount who had loved to travel, she was used to mixing with the aristocracy of Europe.

‘A great deal like us. A similar age. Children all grown and flown the nest. Widowed like you. She has a wicked sense of humour, too, and hates being idle. Since her husband died, she has thrown herself into the art world. Her brother deals in it and makes an absolute fortune selling Old Masters to new money. He charms them into buying and she enforces the prices once the remorse of agreeing to them inevitably sets in—believe me, some of them are eye-watering. But if anyone can squeeze blood out of a stone it is she. I would hate to have to do business with her, as she has the reputation of being terrifying. Only a brave few dared argue money with her, but it is always futile as they inevitably end up paying through the nose regardless. She is also hideously philanthropic. The pair of you will get on famously.’

Lilian hoped so. There was nothing worse than staying in the house of someone you felt awkward around and she put no stock in titles or the superiority of blue blood with hers being the common red variety and her link to the aristocracy only tenuous through marriage. Not that her husband had put any stock in his snobbish family. Henry had remained happily estranged from them all after they had cut him off when he had lowered himself to marry someone so indisputably from trade. The one member of his family Henry had tolerated was his cousin Alexandra, who had been the only aristocrat Lilian had had any real contact with until her eldest daughter Millie had married Cassius and become a marchioness. Rank had never held much stock in the Fairclough household where strength of character and deed were judged to be more important measures.

‘Come—we are about to dock. Let us grab what we need from the cabin and eat.’ Alexandra tugged her arm. ‘After we’ve watched those burly men unload some of the cargo first. Nothing quite builds up an appetite like the sight of the rippling muscles of a shirtless sailor.’

‘You are incorrigible.’ As was Alexandra’s beloved husband, George, who had lobbied hard for Lilian to go to Rome with his outrageous wife. Both of them were of the belief she was in dire need of some fun. And to make sure she had it, George had declared it a ladies-only holiday, citing that he had far too many pressing business matters to attend to when she knew he simply did not want her to feel like a spare wheel. Which she was starting to feel quite a bit.

‘One of us has to be—but I am hopeful some of it might rub off on you in the next six weeks. You have been upstanding and sensible for far too long and you will need to be a little incorrigible to have a proper Italian adventure.’

The roads to Rome, although charming, weren’t quite as good as Lilian was used to. Thanks to the incessant potholes and sedentary speed of their driver, who seemed determined to go into every one of them, they arrived at the palazzo after dark. Not only did she get to miss the sight of it in daylight, her smart new travelling dress was a crumpled mess and she ached from head to foot. From what she could make out as they rattled up the long straight drive, the building was huge and rectangular in shape. Friendly lamps burned in several windows framed in lacey foliage she didn’t recognise, but that seemed to grow with abandon up the high walls. They passed through a grand archway and she realised the house was not a solid block, but more a villa built around a huge torchlit courtyard filled with a fountain, classical-looking statues and a profusion of shrubs in enormous terracotta pots.

They were greeted by their hostess, a petite, smiling woman who was not at all as Lilian had imagined her. She had expected to meet someone more formidable rather than this dark-haired, elfin creature who preferred to kiss Lilian noisily on both cheeks rather than incline her head or shake hands like strangers did when introduced at home.

‘Darlings, you must be exhausted! I shall have baths drawn for you both immediately so that you can refresh yourselves and relax before dinner. Apart from the torturous drive from Civitavecchia, which seems to get worse with each passing year, I trust the rest of your long journey was pleasant?’

‘It was indeed, Contessa.’

‘Contessa! We do not need to adhere to formality. Alexandra has told me so much about you in her letters I feel we are friends already. You must call me Carlotta—I insist. And I shall call you Lilian and by tomorrow we shall know all of each other’s secrets like the very best friends always do. We have much in common. I hear your daughters are recently married, exactly like mine, although I have been blessed with bambini already. Two grandsons. Twins. From my eldest daughter and another surprise on the way from my youngest.’

‘I had twins! A boy and a girl. Silas and Millie. Both very recently married alongside my youngest daughter Lottie. But only in the last few months. My daughter-in-law is already expecting, but no sign of…’ What was the lovely word Carlotta had used? ‘bambini yet for the girls. Although I hope it won’t be long.’

‘They married for amore, did they not? That always speeds things along.’ She wiggled her dark eyebrows suggestively. ‘Ah…to be young and in love. So much passione, yes? I miss it. My Gennaro was a vigorous man.’

That she said such things out loud was both shocking and refreshing. Lilian was no prude. She had fallen head over heels in love with her husband and had enjoyed the physical aspect of their marriage immensely, but working at the Foundation, surrounded by so many unfortunate women who had not been afforded the luxury of virtue or tenderness, she knew both sides of passion. Knew it, but had never discussed it openly with anyone.

‘Don’t frighten her yet, Carlotta. Poor Lilian is fresh off the boat and still shackled by her Englishness.’

‘A good point, my friend. I forget how buttoned up you all are. We will feed her and fill her with wine and in a few days some of those buttons will come undone.’ Her hostess grinned wickedly. ‘And if she is lucky, we will find this pretty English rose a hot-blooded Italian lover to rip off the rest.’

‘Oh, I am not here for that!’ Lilian could feel her cheeks heating with a blush, when she never blushed any more and hadn’t for a good fifteen years.

‘Nobody ever is, darling…but it wouldn’t hurt now, would it?’

‘No, really. I have no interest in men any more.’

Of course she didn’t. She was forty-five, for goodness sake. Much too old for flirting. Let alone courting.

‘Why ever not? You are a long way off dead.’

‘Er…’ Although she did have a point. One Lilian had not really considered until the Duca della Torizia had reawakened it and she had begun to think about it again. Something about him had made her body hum.

‘And it is not as if we are talking marriage.’ Carlotta shrugged. ‘Who wants to give up their independence for that again? One of the great benefits of our age and situation is we can indulge our own passions without such enduring complications. Although if the right man came along to tempt me, I might consider it…but he would have to be exceptional.’ She sighed wistfully. ‘In case you haven’t already guessed, I am a hopeless romantic at heart.’ Something else they apparently had in common. ‘But I am scaring you as Alexandra says.’ Carlotta smiled and took her arm. ‘Forgive my earthy Italian nature. I have a tendency to say whatever comes into my head before I consider if it is appropriate.’

‘It is why I love you,’ said Alexandra, linking her arm through her friend’s, too. ‘And why I keep coming back here. It is good to be less English for a while, Lilian. Liberating, in fact. I am rejuvenated each time I come to Rome. Or at least I will be once I have soaked these old bones in that bath you promised, Carlotta. And you are right, the road from Civitavecchia. It is atrocious…’

It took almost an hour for the old friends to catch up and for Lilian to finally see her bedchamber. Except it wasn’t a simple bedchamber. The beautiful suite of rooms was situated on a long landing just around the corner from Lady Alexandra’s and was comprised of a small sitting room, bedroom and separate dressing area complete with an exquisite copper claw-footed bathtub filled with steaming water. She dismissed the maid, using mostly hand gestures as the girl knew no English and her own Italian was non-existent, and unpinned her hair. Sighing, she massaged her aching scalp with her fingers before kicking off her boots and undoing the back of her travelling gown.

She was about to strip it off when she remembered the decadent bar of fine-milled French soap she had treated herself to during their overnight stop in Bordeaux. Such a fine bath deserved fine soap and so did she. This trip was her time to be selfish and self-indulgent after all. She had faithfully promised her children she would enjoy the whole experience the way she wanted to and put any guilt aside for its duration. That meant she would bathe with her fancy soap and revel in every minute of it. She turned and headed to her still-unpacked trunk to fetch it when she realised the trunk was not hers, but Alexandra’s. The footmen must have mixed them up. She could hardly have a bath and have nothing clean to put on afterwards either.

She poked her head out into the hallway to call back her maid, but the girl was gone. She knew Alexandra—her maid would still be there even if her mistress was already soaking in her bath and Lilian selfishly wanted her soap. Rather than retying her dress, she wrapped her shawl tightly around the loose and gaping bodice and decided to make a dash for it before the water got cold. With one hand on the shawl and the other holding the full skirts and petticoats of her uncharacteristically fashionable new dress, she scurried down the hall, staying close to the wall. As she pivoted around the sharp corner, she hit him, her face connecting with the broad expanse of his chest.

‘I am so sorry…’ She had to crane her neck to look at his face and the apology died on her lips a split second before her face heated crimson.