To Kiss a Count

Chapter Four

‘La, but I have seldom seen anyone so altered as Miss Thalia Chase!’ Lady Riverton said, clutching Marco’s arm as they made their way through the Pump Room. ‘I don’t remember her being so pale and wan, do you?’

Marco felt his jaw tighten, even as he fought to maintain a careless smile. A fun-loving façade, which was everything in this tightrope game he played. Wan was the last word he would use to describe Thalia. He feared the fiery sparks from her blue eyes would set him ablaze.

He was still a bit unsettled by her sudden appearance there before him. Her presence could so easily send this house of cards tumbling, and then where would he be? Without the silver, without justice for Lady Riverton and her minions. And assuredly without Thalia.

He suppressed the urge to glance back, to see if Thalia still watched him with that contemptuous glare. He kept walking with Lady Riverton, nodding and smiling at everyone as if he had nothing more than pleasure in mind.

That was all they expected of Italians, after all. Sunny, hedonistic pleasure. And those romantic, preconceived notions of theirs served his purpose most admirably. It was easier to get on with his work when no one watched too closely, expected too much.

Yet, somehow, the thought of Thalia Chase’s disapproval pained him.

‘But then, of course Miss Chase would be out of sorts,’ Lady Riverton went on. ‘Her elder sisters are married now, so advantageously! Even her eccentric old father has remarried. Yet she, poor thing, has no prospects.’

‘I hardly think someone who looks like Miss Chase could be entirely without prospects,’ Marco couldn’t resist saying.

Lady Riverton shot him a frown from under her silly hat. ‘You find her pretty, then?’

He shrugged carelessly, and gave her one of those grins he was coming to loathe. But ladies had often told him his smile was well-nigh irresistible; he might as well make us of it.

Indeed, Lady Riverton did relax her hard clasp on his sleeve, smiling at him in return.

‘I amaman,’he said.‘Therefore Icannot help but find Miss Chase pretty. That would be enough for many men, but not for me.’

‘No?’

‘No. I prefer more substance to a lady. Intelligence. Experience.’ He gave her arm a surreptitious touch. ‘Hidden depths.’

Lady Riverton giggled. ‘Count di Fabrizzi, you are far too amusing.’

‘I seek only to please.’

‘That, I think, you could not help but do.’ She surveyed the crowd around them, giving a deep sigh of satisfaction when she saw that they, too, were observed. ‘I am the envy of every lady here, to have your companionship.’

And that was what Marco had wanted, of course, when he had sought Lady Riverton’s renewed acquaintance. He had had no luck finding the whereabouts of the silver any other way, and her own abodes proved to be surprisingly well guarded. She was no fool, though she liked so much to play one.

But she was a woman, and receptive to a handsome man’s flirtations. He had almost gained her trust, was so close. He was sure of it.

Then Thalia appeared.

Lady Riverton excused herself to go and speak to an acquaintance, leaving Marco at last able to slip away. Even his acting skills, honed over years in service to his cause until he could play a gypsy, a king, or a careless flirt to perfection, felt strained in the glasshouse atmosphere of Bath. Under all its pretty gentility, its endless pursuit of diversion, lurked a deep vein of tension. The sense that everyone was just watching, waiting, for something to explode.

Like his head.

Marco slipped out of the doors into the Abbey churchyard. It was just as crowded there, but at least there was fresh air, the open expanse of pearl-grey sky overhead. It had not yet begun to rain, as it always seemed to do in this blasted town, which made everyone linger outside just a bit longer.

Across the yard, past the edifice of the church and the swirl of the milling crowds, Marco caught a glimpse of a bright blue silk pelisse. Thalia had paused to gaze into a shop window, with no sign nearby of her sister and brother-in-law.

Without thinking, without even considering the indisputable fact that he was better off staying far away from her, Marco hurried toward her. He was irresistibly drawn to her, as if her golden hair was a beacon of light and truth in the grey day. A ray of bright honesty in a sordid world.

He remembered how she had portrayed Antigone in that ancient amphitheatre in Santa Lucia, so solemn and certain. He had thought then how Sophocles’s doomed princess suited her, both of them women set on their own course. Determined to do what was right no matter the consequence.

He loved that about her, and hated it, too. Her sister Clio had been his partner in the cause of preserving ancient history for a long time. Clio understood him, for they were alike in their belief that subterfuge and deceit were sometimes required when dealing with their dangerous foes. But Thalia had no deceit in her. She was a warrior of the battlefield. She would happily skewer her enemy, yet she would look them in the eye while she did it.

And he feared he was the one about to be skewered.

She saw his reflection in the shop window, her gaze rising to meet his, but she did not turn around.

‘I’m surprised your friend has let you off the leading strings,’ she said.

Marco laughed despite himself. ‘She is not exactly my friend.’

‘No, I suppose not. It is quite obvious she considers herself to be more than that. I imagine she required a replacement for poor Mr Frobisher.’

That stung. He remembered Frobisher, scurrying around Santa Lucia to do Lady Riverton’s every bidding—until she betrayed him.

Marco longed to tell Thalia what was really going on. They had worked so well together in Sicily, once they had joined forces. Yet the thought of her innocent enthusiasm for the play, of that shining integrity, stopped him. Clio had warned him to keep Thalia out of danger.

And he never wanted to see her in danger again. Not Thalia. Even if the price was her contempt. He had sworn after Maria died that no woman would suffer because of his work again.

‘She is useful in introducing me to your English society,’ he said cautiously.

‘And I must ask myself, why would an Italian nobleman, a count, need an entrée to English society?’she said. She turned away from the window to face him, gazing up at him steadily from beneath her white straw bonnet.

There was certainly nothing wan about her. Her smooth cheeks were pink, her eyes a shining sky-blue. ‘Why are you here?’ she demanded. ‘Really?’

He summoned up every ounce of those theatrical skills, remembering all too well that she was also an accomplished thespian. ‘I heard there was much amusement to be had in Bath. Sicily was too dull after you and your sister left, and Florence is overrun by boring Austrians.’

‘So you came to Bath?’ she said doubtfully, scowling up at him. Those furrows on her brow only made her more adorable, made him want to catch her up in his arms and kiss those ridiculous wrinkles until she laughed with him again.

‘Do you suffer from gout, perchance?’ she said, obviously completely oblivious to his lascivious desires. To the way her white lilac perfume drove him insane. ‘From digestive complaints? All those tomatoes in the Italian diet…’

Marco laughed. ‘Not at all. I wanted a glimpse of your prince’s strange Oriental palace.’

‘Then you are in entirely the wrong place, Count. The Pavilion is in Brighton.’

He slapped his open palm to his forehead. ‘Ah! My terrible English.’

‘Well, at least you have Lady Riverton to rescue you.’ Thalia stepped closer, so close he could see the silvery flecks in her eyes, the blonde curls that had escaped from her bonnet to brush against her brow.

‘We are indeed a long way from Sicily,’ she murmured. ‘But I remember what happened there. You are up to something in Bath, Count di Fabrizzi, and I will discover what it is.’

Marco was afraid of that. He had been acquainted with the Chase sisters long enough to know they never backed away from a challenge. Now he had two of them on his trail, Thalia and Lady Westwood, who had once met him in his gypsy guise in Yorkshire, trying to steal a statue from the Duke of Averton. Would Clio and that Duke, now her husband, show up next?

That was the last thing he needed. Not when matters were so precariously balanced.

‘Miss Chase,’ he said coolly, ‘I know that this is an impossible task for a Chase female, but I would advise you to mind your own business. You have no call to interfere in my personal affairs.’

Her eyes flashed. ‘Your personal affairs, is it? Well, I have no desire to “interfere” with anyone who has the bad taste to associate with Lady Riverton. And I see clearly that there is nothing wrong with your English!’

Marco feared he might fall into those angry eyes and drown. Forget about everything but Thalia, her beauty, her wonderful temper, her talent—and the way she had haunted his thoughts ever since Sicily. He forced himself to step away from her, to give her one of his careless grins.

‘Then I hope we understand each other, Miss Chase,’ he said. ‘I bid you good day.’

‘And good day to you, sir!’she snapped. She spun around in a flurry of blue-and-white skirts, stalking off into the crowd. She was quickly swallowed up by the throngs of people, vanishing as if she had never been there at all.

It took all Marco’s resolve to turn back toward the Pump Room, to not run after her. Not catch her in his arms and tell her everything. The contempt in her eyes cut deeper than any sword.

But she could not know of his real feelings. Not now—not ever.

Chapter Five

‘Fool, fool!’ Thalia muttered, pacing from one end of her chamber to the other. She didn’t know if she meant herself—or Marco di Fabrizzi. Or perhaps they were all fools. It certainly felt like it at that moment.

She reached the carved marble fireplace, and turned to stalk back in the other direction. Even though her room was exceedingly pretty, with creamcoloured wallpaper, and cream-and-blue chintz curtains and hangings, it was not terribly large. It didn’t quite allow for satisfactory stalking, so she plopped herself down at the little writing desk instead.

She had begun a letter to Clio that morning, before they left for the Pump Room, and now Thalia didn’t know how to go on with it. All the family news, the gossip about Bath, seemed so silly beside what she really longed to write.

Dearest Clio—was the Count di Fabrizzi in love with you, as I suspect he was? Was his heart utterly broken when you married the Duke? And is that now why he has turned to the attentions of Lady Riverton?

Thalia frowned as she stared down at the paper, seeing not the half-finished scribbles but Marco’s face at the Pump Room. That handsome, bronzed Italian face, smiling down so flirtatiously at Lady Riverton.

Lady Riverton, of all people! No, she really could not believe it. It had to be a scheme of some sort.

Thalia reached for her pen and ink, hastily adding a long postscript to the letter. Clio would know how to advise her, could tell her the whole truth of what had happened in Santa Lucia. If only Thalia did not suffer agonies of embarrassment that her sister might guess her own feelings!

The Chase sisters were always united against the world, but amongst themselves they could tease unmercifully.

‘My dear Clio,’ she wrote. ‘Since I concluded my missive, a most curious thing occurred. I met with an old acquaintance from Santa Lucia at the Pump Room—and he was not alone…’

She wrote the rest of her tale as fast as she could, and sealed it up before she could change her mind. She also had to write to her father, and to her younger sister Cory. But she found she was too tired after that one letter, and closed up her writing box until later.

As she shut the lid, she glimpsed a bundle of documents tucked away in its depths. Her play, The Dark Castle of Count Orlando.

It was only one act at the moment, Thalia thought wryly, and likely to remain so for some time. The story, full of intrigue, secrets, forbidden romance, and picturesque Italian ruins full of ghosts and curses, had seemed so grand in Santa Lucia. A story of how finding real love could overcome anything at all. Now that she was face to face with its inspiration, though…

She firmly closed the lid, turning the key in the little lock. She had no confidence in her observational skills now. How could she write convincing drama? Convincing romance?

A knock sounded at the chamber door. ‘Come in,’ Thalia called, dropping the key into her desk drawer.

A housemaid entered, bobbing a curtsy as she announced, ‘Lady Westwood is returned, Miss Chase, and asks if you will join her in the drawing room for tea.’

Very glad of the distraction, Thalia hurried downstairs to the gold-and-coral drawing room, where Calliope reclined on the couch. Another maid set out an array of tempting cakes and little sandwiches, but there was no sign of Cameron or little Psyche.

Thalia kissed her sister’s cheek, noticing that, aside from a few damp curls at her temples and a slight pinkness in her cheeks, she seemed unaffected by the waters of the Hot Bath. She also didn’t seem to want to eat, though she sipped at some tea.

‘You weren’t at the baths very long,’ Thalia said, helping herself to a strawberry tart. Sadly, emotional turmoil always made her feel more hungry!

‘It is far too warm,’ Calliope said. ‘I could scarcely breathe.’

‘That, my dear, is why they call it the Hot Bath! Here, have a cucumber sandwich, it will revive you. Where has Cameron gone?’

Calliope obediently nibbled at the sandwich. ‘I sent him to procure some theatre tickets, and to see about the assembly at the Upper Rooms on Tuesday.’

‘Are you quite certain you feel up to all that, Cal? Rest, remember. That is why we came to Bath.’

Calliope frowned down at her half-eaten sandwich. ‘I am tired of resting! And I told you, I will not have you grow bored and leave us.’

‘I would not leave you! And I am not bored. I’m a Chase, remember? We are never bored. There is always reading to do, studying, writing…’

‘Indeed. Though I have not noticed you doing much writing lately.’

‘I will get back to it soon.’ She thought of that Italian play upstairs. Would she ever want to write of the mysteries of love again?

‘Perhaps you are the one who should rest, Thalia. You look weary.’ Calliope paused, setting aside her plate. ‘I have been thinking, perhaps Bath was not the best place to visit. We could leave here, go to Brighton. Or Tunbridge Wells. Maybe even back to Italy! They have spa towns there.’

‘You are not yet strong enough to travel to Italy,’ Thalia protested. ‘And we have just arrived in Bath. What is this urge to leave so suddenly?’

Calliope shrugged. ‘Nothing at all.’

‘Of course it is not nothing. Is it—is it because of meeting with Count di Fabrizzi this morning?’

‘So, you do know this so-called Count.’

‘And so do you!’ Thalia cried. ‘I knew it! But how? I don’t understand anything.’

‘Not even why he might be here?’

‘Especially not that.’

Calliope gave a deep sigh. ‘It is true I have met him before, though in a far different guise. He was pretending to be a gypsy.’

‘A gypsy!’ Thalia gasped. This was turning into a tale far more interesting than any she could ever devise for a play. And Marco just became more and more complex, more incomprehensible to her. ‘When was that?’