To Kiss a Count Page 9

  ‘Maledetto,’ Marco muttered against her bare shoulder. She felt the light, delicate touch of his lips on the swell of her breast, and she gasped. Was this always how it was, this spiralling ache of burning, raw need? No wonder Calliope and Cameron couldn’t keep their hands off each other, despite the baby screaming…

  At the thought of babies, her eyes flew open. That was where this led, all this delicious lust, sweat, naked skin, panting need. She felt as if she were dangling off a precipice by her fingernails, rocks clattering around her as she nearly fell into oblivion.

  Yet even then she could not quite let go of him. Could not quite untangle her legs from around his waist.

  But Marco seemed to sense her realisation—or perhaps he had one of his own. He leaned his forehead on the wall just beside her, their ragged breath mingling in the humid silence. Slowly, ever so slowly, his hand slid away from her thigh. He unwrapped her from around him and lowered her to the floor.

  As he stepped back, Thalia pressed her hands hard back against the wall, holding herself upright. As she concentrated on not collapsing, she heard the rustle of his clothing straightening, the silken sound of his fingers raking through his hair.

  ‘Remember, Thalia,’ he said, that accent now so thick she could hardly understand. Or maybe it was the blood rushing in her ears. ‘I will not warn you again.’

  Then he was gone, slipping out of the door as swiftly as he had appeared. For an instant, he was silhouetted against the light from the foyer. And Thalia was alone again.

  She finally allowed herself to slide down in a boneless, shivering puddle on the floor.

  ‘Ouch,’ she muttered as something jabbed at her hip. She reached under her skirt and came up with the lost slipper. Cinderella in reverse.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ she whispered. She stuffed her foot into the shoe, staring out into the darkness. She had the distinct sense that the rules of the game had just changed irrevocably. Yet she still had no idea what they were.

  Marco paused in the foyer, bracing his palms on a small carved table. Every fibre of his being cried out for him to smash the ridiculous furniture to bits, to throw it across the room and howl like a barbarian. Maybe then his boiling lust, the heated rage in his blood would cease. Then he could think straight again.

  But he doubted it. Nothing could cool that fever except going back into that dark room and grabbing Thalia into his arms again.

  ‘Cazzarola,’ he growled, pounding his fist on the table. He could still feel her body wrapped around his, taste the sweetness of her lips, her skin. Hear her breathy cries in his ear.

  Never, not even when he was a callow boy, had he been so carried away by desire for a woman. And the fact that she wanted him, too, only stoked the bonfire higher. Thank the gods for that one tiny, piercing ray of sanity that had stopped him from having her right there against the wall.

  Marco shook his head hard, trying to clear it of that sensual haze. Thalia Chase was a lady, his friend’s sister, not some common doxy! He had to be strong, stay away from her, and concentrate on what he had to do. But truly, stealing back that silver would be simple and easy, compared to forgetting about that one soft spot where Thalia’s neck met her white shoulder.

  ‘Blast it all,’ he muttered. He stood up straight, adjusting his cravat and waistcoat, smoothing back his rumpled hair. He thought he could still smell the faint, intoxicating fragrance of white lilacs on his coat, but that was surely only his heated imagination. His memory of the way her soft golden hair smelled.

  From along the corridor, he heard the click of the drawing-room door opening, the swish of a muslin skirt. Quickly, he pasted a polite smile on his lips, preparing to face whoever he encountered and make a hasty exit.

  But it was Calliope Chase—no, Lady Westwood now—who emerged. She was adjusting a shawl over her shoulders, a concerned frown on her face as she glanced around. Every time Marco saw her, he remembered that dungeon in Yorkshire, the eerie space cluttered with ancient treasures hidden away by the Duke of Averton. And Calliope coming upon him and Clio in the act of stealing the Alabaster Goddess.

  That escapade had not gone so well, and as she spotted him there in the foyer he feared this would not go well, either.

  ‘Lady Westwood, lovely as ever,’ he said, giving her a bow.

  Her frown deepened. ‘I am looking for my sister,’ she said shortly. ‘Have you seen her?’

  ‘I fear not. The last time I saw the lovely Miss Chase, she was playing at the pianoforte. A most exquisite performance.’

  Calliope stepped closer to him, her sherry-brown eyes smouldering in her ivory face. ‘I do not know what game you play, Count di Fabrizzi,’ she said. ‘But I will not let you involve Thalia. She is young and romantic, and far too impulsive. I won’t see her hurt, not for any of your schemes.’

  ‘Lady Westwood, I think perhaps you underestimate your sister,’ Marco answered. ‘Impulsive she might be, but she is no fool.’

  ‘I think I know my sister better than you! I vowed I would take care of her while we are here, and I won’t see any repeats of what happened in Yorkshire. The Lily Thief is finished.’

  ‘I am not sure what you speak of, Lady Westwood. But I have no ill intentions toward Miss Thalia—or any of the Chases.’

  Calliope studied him carefully for a moment, those eyes practically burning holes in his flesh. Finally, she turned away to stalk back toward the drawing room. ‘I will be watching you, Count,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘And so will my husband.’

  Magnifico, he thought wryly. That should make his work ever so much easier in Bath. It was just one more incentive to stay away from Thalia Chase.

  And yet, yet—that lilac scent was so haunting.

  Chapter Ten

  Thalia sorted through the pages of her play The Dark Castle of Count Orlando, studying the blotted, crossed-out, rewritten words of that half-formed story. She had conceived of it in Sicily, and the tale made perfect sense there, amid the ruins and windswept plains, the dark schemes that seemed part of everyday life. But the story of the Robin Hood-esque prince and his unwilling young bride in that crumbling castle all seemed silly here in England, its Gothic twists and turns beyond her writing skills.

  After last night, though, secret passions and heady, irresistible cravings for the forbidden seemed all too close. All too real.

  Thalia reached for her pen and ink, staring down at the half-finished scene before her. It was the wedding night of the robber-prince Orlando and his reluctant bride, the hot-tempered Isabella. She had been sold into marriage by her wicked stepfather to this mysterious man. A man she had heard many terrible stories about, but she could not deny the fascination he held for her. That maddening, drugging desire that drew her inexorably to him.

  Oh, yes, indeed. Thalia knew what poor Isabella was feeling.

  She envisioned the stage setting, a chamber in one of the ancient castle’s towers. A vast, red-curtained bed looming in the background. The locked chest holding unimaginable horrors. The full, amber-coloured moon beyond the barred windows. Isabella’s white nightrail stood out as a bright beacon in the shadows. And the prince held out his gloved hand to her, beckoning, enticing…

  But as Thalia pictured it, the scene shifted. It transformed from a tower chamber to a little dark ante-room, warm and close in the night. Echoing with her own gasps and moans of desire.

  Thalia pounded her hand down on the desk, scattering droplets of ink over the manuscript. ‘Enough!’ she muttered. She had stayed up all night going over and over that kiss in her mind. Remembering the way his hand felt on her bare skin, his taut backside against her foot.

  Going over and over it all solved nothing. It didn’t make the events, or her feelings, disappear. It just made her want to do it all again.

  Isabella: Oh, the wickedness of it all! Why must you torment me so? Have you no mercy?

  Prince Orlando: You are my wife now. There can be no torment in the joys of the marriage bed…

  The sud
den flow of words was just as abruptly ended by a knock at the door. Thalia glanced up, startled. Calliope and Cameron had gone off to the Pump Room, leaving her alone in the little library. The house should be quiet enough, at least until Psyche rose from her morning nap.

  ‘Come in,’ Thalia called, sliding the play under more respectable-looking letters.

  It was the butler, bearing a single card on his silver tray. ‘There is a caller, Miss Chase.’

  ‘A caller? At this hour?’

  The butler gave a disapproving sniff. ‘That is what I said to him, but the gentleman was most insistent.’

  Thalia rose, hurrying around the desk to take the card. Count di Fabrizzi, it said, bold black letters on fine cream-coloured vellum. Just as she feared. Or hoped.

  Yet she stared down at it, frowning, as if the words might somehow change. Become something, someone, else. ‘You told him Lord and Lady Westwood are not at home?’

  ‘Of course, Miss Chase. He says it is you he wants to see. I put him in the drawing room, but I could send him away.’

  Thalia shook her head. She had to get this encounter over with sooner or later. It might as well be ‘sooner’.

  Surely, here in her own house, in the light of day, she could be in no danger of losing her senses? It had just been the night, the smell of his cologne, her own frustrations at being shut out—again. That was all past now.

  Right?

  ‘Right,’ she said aloud, slapping the card down on the desk. ‘I will see the Count. If you will be so good as to send in some tea?’

  ‘Of course, Miss Chase,’ he said, sounding rather disapproving.

  Disapproval had never had much impact on Thalia, not from butlers or older sisters. She hurried out of the library and down the quiet corridor before she could stop to think.

  The drawing-room door was half-open, and she paused to peek inside. Marco stood by the window, gazing down at the street as the grey morning light outlined his profile. His glossy black hair was brushed back behind his ears, and he was clean shaven, leaving just the sharp, elegant lines of his face. He looked like an ancient coin, solemn and timeless. A Roman emperor. Count Orlando in his black tower.

  Had this man really held her in his arms in the darkness, gasped her name as he caressed her shoulder, her breast? As he kissed her so passionately?

  Thalia stepped slowly into the drawing room, leaving the door open behind her. At the soft rustle of her skirts, Marco looked up, giving her a half-smile.

  ‘You have a good view from here,’ he said.

  She moved to his side, peering out at the Crescent Fields beyond. The street was crowded with walkers at that time of day, people scurrying on their way to the baths or the shops. On the walkway just below was a small child with his hoop, helped along surprisingly not by his nurse but by his well-dressed father.

  ‘I do like it here,’ she said. ‘We see everyone in Bath going by. It is better than the Pump Room, and not as noisy!’

  She remembered how she had seen Marco walking past once or twice, with Lady Riverton. But there was no sign of her today, just as there had not been last night.

  ‘My father would never have time to do such things with me,’ Marco said lightly, gesturing to the child with the hoop. ‘As a child, I was scarcely allowed out of our palazzo! My mother was sure gypsies were just waiting to snatch me away.’

  Fascinated by this fleeting glimpse behind Marco’s façade, Thalia smiled up at him. ‘Were there so many gypsies in Florence?’

  His own smile widened. ‘A few, here and there. I was most interested in them, but they had far better things to think of than stealing one spoiled little boy. At least I usually found it so, when I sneaked out.’

  Thalia laughed. ‘Somehow I am not surprised to hear you were a disobedient child, Marco! You are fortunate you never came to any harm.’

  ‘As you did not?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Come, Thalia bella. I would wager you were something of a little mischief-maker yourself as a child.’

  She thought of swimming in the pond at Chase Lodge when told not to, of stealing a nip of brandy or a glimpse of one of her father’s hidden erotic etchings from Pompeii. ‘Perhaps I made a bit of mischief, once or twice.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Some things never change.’

  Thalia swallowed hard, remembering their ‘mischief’ of last night. ‘Marco, about the party last night—’

  But she was interrupted by the servants bringing in the tea. Once they had finished laying out the silver and china and departed, leaving her alone again with Marco, she found she did not know what to say.

  ‘Would you care for a cup of tea?’ she asked weakly, leading him to the coral satin couch.

  ‘Grazie,’ he said, sitting down beside her. He was unseemly close, and she could feel the heat of him, smell his scent, reaching out to her. Reminding her.

  And always he watched her with those inscrutable dark eyes, as if he knew her every thought. Her every need.

  She busied herself pouring the tea. ‘Tell me about your father,’ she said. ‘Is he still living?’

  ‘Alas, no. I have sadly lost both my parents, to a fever in Florence many years ago.’

  ‘And you have no siblings?’ she asked. His fingers brushed hers as she passed him the cup, their slightly rough caress against the smooth china yet another reminder. The way they slid over the swell of her breast last night…

  Thalia drew quickly away, causing a single amber drop to fall on his hand. She dabbed at it with a napkin.

  ‘I was the only one of their children to live past infancy,’ he said smoothly, as if ignoring her ridiculous agitation. He slid the napkin out of her tight grasp. ‘Perhaps that was why my mother worried so.’

  Or perhaps the poor woman realised the havoc that would ensue once Marco was released on the unsuspecting female population.

  ‘That is sad,’ she murmured, taking a careful sip of her own tea. ‘My sisters can sometimes be infuriating, but I don’t know what I would do without them.’

  ‘I would have liked a sibling to have adventures with.’

  Thalia laughed ruefully. ‘Oh, we did have adventures! My mother often had fits, as yours did. But Calliope kept us in check, she was always the sensible one.’

  ‘And your father—he must have been busy, like mine.’

  ‘Yes. As a scholar, he was often preoccupied with his studies. He always read to us in the evenings, though, and made certain we were well versed in the works of the ancient world.’ She offered the plate of cakes and bread and butter. ‘Was your father also a scholar? There must be so much scope for such work in Florence.’

  ‘My father was a writer, but his focus was on the Renaissance, the ideals of the Republic,’ Marco answered, taking a little sandwich. He munched on it thoughtfully, as if considering how much to say, before he continued, ‘When Napoleon first took over Tuscany, my father had hopes of him, of the new rule. He hoped it would sweep away the old feudalism, bring in a new day of law and order, of expanded education and greater justice. He and his friends wrote pamphlets of such things, held endless meetings.’

  ‘And did he see his hopes realised?’ Thalia asked quietly.

  Marco shook his head. ‘Not surprisingly, Napoleon let down their liberal ideals, just as everyone else had. My father grew to bitterly resent the lack of any real power for old families like the Fabrizzis; the lack of any real change for anyone at all. He and his friends were beginning to call for a constitutional government, but he died before any real work was accomplished. Now, with the Austrians entrenched, such a thing seems further away than ever.’

  Thalia was fascinated by this peek into his past, into a life she could scarcely imagine. A life of politics and high ideals, of real, important work. ‘And do you write, too, Marco? Do you follow in your father’s footsteps?’

  But the veil dropped back into place. He gave her a careless grin, holding out his empty cup. ‘Now, cara, what would I write about? I could compose an ode
to your sky-coloured eyes, your beautiful, firm—’

  ‘Please do not.’ She snatched the cup from his hand, unaccountably disappointed. As she refilled it, she said, ‘I would rather see a monograph on Florentine history.’

  ‘Then you must write one yourself. As I recall from Santa Lucia, you are a most gifted author.’

  ‘I just scribble little vignettes. I fear I had no such inspiration as the Duomo right outside my door.’

  ‘No, you had something far better.’

  ‘What is that?’

  He held on to her hand as she passed back the cup, folding her fingers into his warm, strong clasp. ‘A close and loving family.’

  Thalia slowly drew her hand away, watching as he placed the cup on the table. ‘Marco—why are you here today?’

  ‘To bring you this.’ He reached down to the floor beside the couch, bringing up the umbrella she had lost in Sydney Gardens. ‘I thought you might need it, in such a rainy place as Bath.’

  ‘That is kind of you,’ she said slowly. ‘But surely you could have sent a servant?’

  ‘I could not entrust a servant with the rest of my errand.’

  ‘The rest of your errand?’

  ‘This.’ Marco reached out to gently cup her cheek in his palm, cradling it softly like the most delicate porcelain. Slowly, as if to give her time to draw away, he lowered his lips to her.

  But Thalia had absolutely no desire to turn away. Indeed, she could think of nothing at all, nothing but the feel of his mouth on hers, the slide of his caress along her cheek. She parted her lips, meeting his tongue with hers. Just like last night, she felt herself sliding down the steep slope of heady desire.

  She clutched at his shoulders, her empty teacup falling to the carpet. He was her only anchor in the whirling world, even as he was the only cause of that dizziness. The sole source of that burning need.

  She wound her arms around his neck, the silk of his hair falling over her hands, binding her to him. He groaned against her mouth, his own arms drawing her even closer into the hard length of his body.