Pleasured by the English Spy

Bronwyn Scott

Author Note

I cannot think of a lovelier place to be than Florence, Italy, in the fall. The days are comfortably cool and the new wine is almost ready. I’ve been wanting to do a story set in and around Florence for some time now. I had the good fortune to live in Florence on a teaching assignment a few years ago and I fell in love with it. So I jumped at the chance to put Andrew Truesdale there on his adventure.

Andrew Truesdale is a friend of Valerian Inglemoore, the Viscount St. Just from The Viscount Claims His Bride (March 2009 Mills & Boon Historical) during Valerian’s years abroad. The Viscount’s circle of friends during this time include Julian Burke, in the January 2009 Undone short eBook Libertine Lord, Pickpocket Miss, Andrew Truesdale, who gets his own story here in Pleasured By the English Spy, Camden Mathison and Valerian’s lovely cousin Emma, both of whom hope for their own adventures in the future.

The Undone short stories have been a fun way to explore some of the experiences Valerian refers to in The Viscount Claims His Bride when he returns home after nine years abroad. Now, when Val is talking about how he sent a Chusan palm home from Italy, you know exactly what he and his friends were doing when that occurred! You can say, “ah, that must have been when….”

For fun facts about Florence and other settings used in my Undone short stories, come visit my blog at www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com

Ciao!

Chapter I

October 1823, Florence Italy

Ah. He could breathe again. Andrew Truesdale steadied the gray-flecked stallion beneath him and sucked in a lungful of country air. Below him lay the red-roofed duomo that majestically marked the landscape of Florence. Beyond it, to the west, lay the dome of the Medici Chapel in the San Lorenzo neighborhood. From the hills above, the city looked peaceful, even stately and organized, each neighborhood marked with churches and towers.

Up here, one was hard-pressed to believe in the chaos below. Hidden from view were twisting streets hardly big enough for the service wagons that traveled through them and the narrow pavements that lined them. Certainly there were things he loved about Florence. The tight spaces were not among that number.

He preferred the wide openness of the countryside, any countryside. It didn’t have to be the English countryside. It was the rhythm of the land he loved. He could see it in the change of the seasons, in the rituals of the harvest. In many ways, he believed October was the best time to be in Italy; the grapes were ready to pick for the new wines, olives hung plump with juice on their branches waiting to be plucked. There would be long days of hard work ahead for those who harvested the land, followed by nights of laughter and feasting as they celebrated the bounty saved in their storehouses, security against the coming year. If life was busy during the harvest it was simple too, with everyone focused on the singular goal of bringing in the crops.

He knew the pattern of this season intimately. He’d been here before, lived here as a boy with his grandparents. It was why he’d been the one chosen to come, the one the British delegation in Vienna had trusted with this mission.

Andrew turned his horse onto the upward path that led to his destination: the Villa of the Breezes, home to the woman whom the British believed held the key to the latest wave of liberal nationalism to gain momentum in the wake of Napoleon’s ruined empire.

He gave the sure-footed stallion full rein to find a way over the hilly path, while he turned his thoughts to the details of his commission. Like most of the diplomatic work he’d been involved with in Vienna, this latest assignment was both straightforward and complicated. A few months earlier another attaché, the Viscount St. Just, had written from Florence, where he’d stopped en route to his destination in Naples. St. Just had sensed something was afoot in the salons of Florence, but hadn’t had the time to investigate further. The corps of diplomats in Vienna, headed by the viscount’s uncle, had decided to send a delegate to Florence.

Andrew was to befriend the widowed contessa who’d come to St. Just’s notice. He was to discover what went on at her salons, what politicos frequented her gatherings. She wouldn’t be the first to attempt to sponsor a nationalist revolution under the cover of a harmless intellectual gathering. If St. Just’s suspicions were borne out, things would get thorny. The complications were in the consequences of Andrew’s findings.

Britain’s position on liberal nationalism was tenuous. Theoretically, Britain supported the desire of territories to bind together into larger nation-states. Under Napoleon’s regime, Italy, a region populated by city-states and principalities, had been converted into the Kingdom of Italy. After Napoleon’s defeat, the country was swamped with a sense of national unity that competed with the Conference of Vienna’s decision to disband the Kingdom of Italy and return the lands to their original status. Lands had been restored, but the wave of nationalism had not subsided.

That put Britain in an awkward position. Britain had supported similar movements in Portugal and Spain but could not openly do the same for Italy. Supporting a unified Italy meant alienating the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which controlled large amounts of land in northern Italy. They would have to be defeated in war in order for Italy to claim those lands. But Britain could not openly fight the Austro-Hungarians. Britain needed their alliance. Without that alliance, Britain risked trouble in regards to the Eastern Question and water rights in Turkey which secured the British passage to India.

It was enough to make any man’s head swim. But that was the diplomatic game these days in the new Europe and Andrew had a very astute mind for it. Any one move anywhere would impact alliances everywhere.

Andrew rounded a final corner, and the long gravel drive to the villa presented itself, lined with tall poplar trees on either side. He had a fair understanding of what he’d see at the far end; a villa designed to be an aristocratic refuge with long windows rounded on the top, columns and terraces to catch the cooling breezes against the summer heat, all of this surrounded by expanses of parkland. After all, this was the home of a widowed contessa who kept a small palazzo in Florence but retreated during the summer months to escape the heat.

Andrew had his own mental picture of the contessa, too: a woman of middle years with a fading beauty, whose sharp wit and political ties made her more attractive to the company she kept than her looks. He knew how to charm that kind of woman. Vienna was full of them. Such flirtations had become de rigueur, his stock in trade as it were. The British delegation must have expected as much when they’d made their selection. Along with his background and fluency in Italian, Andrew Truesdale was a consummate seducer.

With these preconceived notions in mind, Andrew had been a bit surprised to find that the contessa in question was still residing in the hills when he’d arrived in town. A socialite didn’t obey the call of the seasons like a farmer. He’d have thought she would have returned to town and her intellectual milieu at the first sign of cooler weather. But her small palazzo in town was still closed up. The servant stationed there had directed him to the summer villa.

That bit of surprise was nothing compared to the surprise he experienced now. The villa at the end of the drive was majestic enough with its columned main building and the single-story wings that flanked it, but there was no mistaking this for a socialite’s retreat. This was a working villa like his grandparents’ home.

Andrew dismounted and led his horse toward what looked to be a stable-block. A lone groom was on duty, polishing tack.

“Where is everyone?” Andrew asked in flawless Italian, although there was no disguising the accent that lurked underneath his perfect words.

The groom gestured vaguely past the house. “They’re picking the grapes.”

Andrew took that as an invitation to join whomever he found there. He strode forward, rounding the corner of the house. Nature brought him to a full stop. The lands of this house weren’t given to pretty-but-useless expanses of green lawn. They were given to the growing of crops. Groves with their straight rows of olive trees, vineyards with their terraces of vines laden with grapes rose on the gentle slopes. There were weathered buildings too, probably an olive mill of sorts, Andrew guessed, and a workspace for wine making. The hillside was full of people picking grapes; snatches of song floated to him.

He had not expected this. Andrew made his way towards the people, asking the closest one where the contessa was. He was half expecting to hear that she was back at the house. The first person he asked gestured for another to join them. The newcomer was a tall, well-formed young man in his early twenties, a few years younger than Andrew. He shook Andrew’s hand in the English custom and steered him away from the bustling vineyard, wiping sweat from his brow with a handkerchief.

“You’re looking for Olivia, then?” the man asked in decent English.

Ah, the contessa had a name. Olivia. A rather ironic name given the surroundings. Fortunately, the young man was affable and didn’t ask him to state his business.

“She’s in the shed.” His guide nodded towards one of the weathered buildings Andrew had noticed earlier. “Is she expecting you?”

“Not particularly. I was unable to send a precise date of my arrival.” Andrew said vaguely. The young man nodded with careless acceptance of his answer. Andrew was silently grateful there hadn’t been any further questions about his business.

Happy voices shouting in tones of amusement filtered out of the shed through the half-opened door. Andrew pushed the door open wider. His eyes adjusted to the dim interior and he smiled at the once-familiar scene. Women crushing grapes in the giant vat, skirts kilted up high, ready for the ancient Tuscan dance. He hadn’t seen anything like it since he’d left his grandparents.

Glad memories swamped him, and he was content to stand there for the moment, letting the sweet smell of grapes wash over him in a pungent wave, remembering the thrill of the grape harvest, watching the women work. One woman in particular garnered his attention. In the center of the enormous vat was a goddess of nature come to life; black hair, held loosely by a ribbon, spilled in waves down her back. Her legs were long and shapely, tanned where her skirts were drawn up. Watching those legs work to squash the grapes conjured up a hundred hot fantasies. But it was her face that captivated Andrew the most.

Although much of her face was hidden from view in the dimness of the shed, Andrew could see the woman’s smile; warm and lovely, this smile came from the core of her. There was no mistaking that she was lit up with joy from the inside out. Such unadulterated happiness was a rare commodity in his hard-bitten world, where everything was just another move on a chessboard and agendas as well as emotions were meant to be veiled.

The primal man in him surged unexpectedly to the fore. He wanted her with a clarity that precluded all else. He wanted this woman with the honest smile for his own. Never before had Andrew felt such a raw, instantaneous attraction. This was entirely new to him. The force of his desire to claim her was shockingly strong. He was used to playing the tiger, stalking his prey, studying it before he ran it to ground.

“Livvy!” His guide called out beside him. “There’s someone here to see you.”

Confusion paralyzed Andrew’s thoughts for a moment. The contessa was crushing grapes? No one in the big vat had looked old enough to be the contessa of his imaginings. Then his earth goddess nimbly climbed out of the vat and came towards them. She was the contessa? His goddess was the contessa? In no way did she resemble the aging woman he’d pictured in his head, and his body thrummed with the knowledge of it.

Chapter II

Up close, her face was as lovely as the shadows had promised. Almond-shaped eyes tilted slightly upwards at their tips. The soft curve of cheek and jaw gave her face a classic feminine look. This was a face that drove men to protect, to claim. This was a face men would want to come home to. It conjured up visions of uncomplicated pleasures: a simple meal at a rough-hewn table, a rope-strung mattress and a well-worn quilt. Dressed as she was in the cotton skirt and blouse of a peasant, it was not hard to imagine claiming her on that rope bed. The neck of her loose blouse had come open, offering a tantalizing peek of her breasts beneath the fabric. It was proving difficult indeed to reconcile this peasant princess with the contessa he was seeking.

She was all smiles when she spoke. “Who have you found now, Piero?”

Her Italian was easy, natural; to many, it would sound like a native tongue but Andrew heard the difference because it was the same difference he possessed. The Italian widow described in St. Just’s letter was no more Italian than he was. The contessa was English. Had St. Just known?

“It’s the other way around this time, Livvy. He’s found us. He’s looking for you.” Piero said. Only then did Andrew realize he’d failed to give his name.

Andrew stepped forward. “I’m Andrew Truesdale. Are you Contessa di Montebaldi? I’m a friend of Viscount St. Just,” Andrew explained as blandly as he could. He was already reaching inside his coat for his papers and the letter of introduction St. Just had written.

Her smile disappeared, and she speared him with sharp brown eyes the color of earth and agates. “I’m the contessa, and you can put those papers away. If you’re St. Just’s friend I know everything I need to know. I know you’re dangerous.”

Olivia held the stranger’s gaze for a long moment, as if in that span of time she could take his entire measure. Here was another handsome Englishman. He was the second in five months. She’d told Piero this would happen. She’d begged Piero after St. Just’s departure to be more careful. She’d told him he could not bring his “business,” such as it was, to her home any longer. He’d been more circumspect the last few months, but apparently her warning had come too late.

This man was older than St. Just. That had been a mistake she wouldn’t make again. She’d seen St. Just’s youthfulness. The viscount couldn’t have been more than twenty-three, and she’d assumed he hadn’t had the sharp skill to divine what was going on around him. This man was closer to thirty.

This newcomer, this Andrew Truesdale, wore his intelligence in his eyes. He was making no effort to conceal the sharp mind that lay behind those forget-me-not-blue English eyes of his. There was something else in those eyes too, when he looked at her: unambiguous desire. He wanted her. That made him doubly dangerous. She could imagine wanting him too if things were different. He was handsome and golden with his thick hair and tanned face. He carried with him none of the brooding darkness that had accompanied St. Just.

“We’re very busy just now,” she said, wiping her hands on her skirt. “The grapes need to be picked and processed for wine and after that the olives will be ready. Olives have to be milled and pressed within twenty-four hours of harvesting, so it will be a demanding time.” She thought she was successfully fobbing him off, but his eyes told a different story. Was he laughing at her?

“I’ll stay. I don’t mind a hard day’s work. I helped out with countless harvests at my grandparents' during my youth. They owned a farm near Fiesole.”

“That would be great,” Piero enthused, clearly eager to have some new male company. “We can use an extra pair of hands. I’ll show you up to the house and you can get settled.”

Olivia shot Piero a withering look. Her cousin-by-marriage was aiding the enemy without permission, allowing him to turn her dismissal into an invitation. Now there was nothing she could say to his genuine offer without looking exceedingly suspicious. That was hardly what she wanted. Further protest would only serve to confirm St. Just’s original concerns. Now, instead of sending the newcomer off to a pensione to cool his heels, she’d have him underfoot day and night. Tempting her as he was already with those smiling eyes.

She tried to dissuade him anyway. “There’s a lovely inn right inside the town walls. It’s not a long ride from here. Wouldn’t you be more comfortable there? We cannot offer you the level of hospitality we could offer at another time of the year.” If there was an ounce of the gentleman in him, he would understand this was a request to leave. Any well-brought-up Englishman would know this. Had they changed so much in the ten years she’d been away?

His eyes caught hers, silently acknowledging that he received her hidden message, but the slow smile that teased his fine mouth suggested he would not be denied so easily. “I assure you, I will be perfectly comfortable in the bed you offer.” It was said gallantly, but the oblique reference to beds sent a frisson down her spine. She blushed.

“Did I say it incorrectly?” He feigned innocence, cleverly blaming his comment on a lack of skill with the language.

“I understood precisely what you meant,” she retorted archly. She didn’t believe his ploy in the least. He had proven hard to defeat, and he would find her just as difficult. She would not be easily persuaded by his charms, bountiful as they were. But perhaps she could use that to her advantage.

Olivia watched the two men walk towards the house, her whirling mind deliberately slowing so that she could determine what needed to be done and why. The Englishman had come to see if there was substance behind the rumors of revolution and to quash them. It was the quashing part that worried her most. She wasn’t sure what that would entail: a stern message from the British calling for the would-be revolutionaries to desist, or something more? Imprisonment? A few exemplary deaths? Betrayal to the hodgepodge of city-state governments?

She had to protect Piero. He was her late husband’s cousin and he’d been her strong right hand in the three years since her husband’s death. Regardless of how she felt about his politics, he had stood her friend without question, without a secret agenda, which was more than she could say for the tawny-haired Englishman. He was not here to make friends. But perhaps he could be compelled to take a lover, a tiny voice in her head suggested.

Olivia studied the broad-shouldered visitor walking into the distance, taller even than Piero, the sun burnishing his thick hair to a shade of antique gold. Handsome and strong, he was a confident man who would not find it difficult to believe a woman desired him.

Olivia turned back to the shed and the vat of awaiting grapes. She had her plan now. It was simple. He’d already indicated an interest of a sensual nature, given her the tool she needed to bait the trap. She would seduce his secrets out of him, determine how dire the quashing measures were permitted to be and proceed from there.

She would be in charge of how far the faux affaire went. She had no intention of sleeping with the Englishman. She did not take lovers on a whim. But she saw that much could be gained from a dalliance with him—and in short order. Acts of physical closeness heightened the sense of intimacy, whether it truly existed or not. It opened the way for the exchange of confidences—and quickly. Within the week, wagons loaded with olives for the mill would start to arrive, and with them, one wagon would hold the next step to Piero’s dreams of an united Italy.

She must act immediately. She would start tonight at dinner. There was no time to waste in a traditional flirtation drawn out over weeks or months.

Around him in the vineyard, activity came to a standstill in the purpling dusk. Andrew looked up from the vines where he was working and saw the reason for it. A long line of torches paraded from the house, bringing with them the smells of dinner. The workers let out appreciative cheers and hurried to ready the makeshift trestle tables in a nearby clearing.

Andrew helped lift wide planks of wood onto the trestles. The parade of women entered the bustling clearing loaded with baskets and trays. Men rushed to take the torches and lanterns, placing them around the area. Andrew knew the light would be used for dinner and later for picking grapes into the cool of the night.

Long cloths fluttered and settled on the wood planks, transforming them instantly into real tables. At one end of a table, he caught sight of Olivia laughing. Her smile was back. There was no trace of the chilly welcome she’d given him. Her hips swayed gently, unintentionally, as she laid out plates for the meal. There was no time like the present to further his acquaintance with the contessa. Andrew found his way to her side and lifted the basket of dishes from her arm. “Let me help you,” he said, not waiting for a response. But she offered none. She let him take the basket without protest.

“What do you think of our little vineyard?” She laughed up at him, taking a plate from the basket.

“I’d hardly call it little, although vineyards always seem bigger when you have to pick them.”

“I estimate we’ll be done tomorrow. Then it will be time to move on to the olives.”

A woman deposited a pitcher of wine on the table, accidentally jostling Olivia in the process. The contessa swayed towards him, off balance.

Andrew steadied her, appreciating the soft curve of her breast against him where their bodies collided. His body stirred at the scent of her. She smelled of the kitchen and the winery: yeast and bread, grapes and fruit. To him, she smelled of home, the smells he’d hungered for when he’d been sent back to England at fifteen. She gave a small smile that was neither coy nor shy, acknowledging the brief but intimate contact between them.

“Will you sit with me for dinner?” Andrew asked in low tones, his voice surprisingly hoarse.

Dinner at the long tables was a loud, boisterous affair full of good humor and jokes. Wine flowed from never-empty earthenware pitchers, twilight deepened; the torches glowed more intensely against the darkness. People began to drift back to the vineyards, stomachs full, ready to work a few more hours. Snatches of country songs sprang up deep within the rows, calling those at the tables to join their fellows at work.

Andrew rose, reluctant to leave the woman at his side. Their table was nearly empty now. He would not have anyone say he’d played the idler. But Olivia stayed him with a gentle hand on his arm. “They will not miss you. Piero says you worked hard today and you are, after all, a guest.” She held out her hand to him and issued a soft, promising invitation. “Come walk with me.”

Chapter III

She drew him to an already harvested section of the vineyard that looked down into the valley below. Flashes of silver in the dark suggested that a river flowed down there. Perhaps in the daylight he might even see a town. But for now, all he could make out was the shapes of hills and a few contours of the land. Behind them, the torches cast fingers of light in their direction.

“This is one of my favorite views in the daylight,” Olivia said quietly, settling herself on the ground. Andrew sat down beside her, privately wondering when the last time was that he’d sat directly on the ground. The outdoor entertainments in Vienna had been carefully planned excursions to the Black Forest, complete with tents and chairs and glass goblets. He could imagine what his friends—what his best friend, Camden Mathison—would say, seeing him now.