Miranda Jarrett - Seduction of an English Beauty

“ Buongiorno, mia gentildonna bella ,” the gentleman began. “ Mi scusa, non posso a meno di— ”

“ Per favore, signore, no ,” Diana said without turning, giving her refusal the stern conviction that Miss Wood would expect from her. Please, sir, no. What could be more direct than that? She’d already had practice enough on this journey; Italian men could be persistent, and if Diana ever wished to see London again, she had to be as discouraging as possible. “ Grazie, no .”

“Ahh.” The man cleared his throat, perplexed. “ No speranza, mia gentildonna? ”

Suspicious, Diana frowned. She thought he was asking her if she could offer him any hope or encouragement, but she wasn’t certain. Her Italian was so limited that she had to be very careful. She’d already suffered through one unfortunate (though amusing) experience when she’d thought a servant had been offering her more tea, and instead he’d been begging to kiss her, and quite shamelessly, too.

“ Sono spiacente, signore, noi non sono stato introdotto .” I’m sorry, sir, but we’ve not been introduced. That had become her well-practiced answer to all questions. “ Grazie, no . No.”

But the man didn’t budge, and Diana sighed wearily. Until now, she’d thought that she and Miss Wood were the only guests at Signor Silvani’s palazzo , and that she’d be left alone here in the common parlor. If this impertinent fellow wouldn’t leave her, then she’d have to leave him, and return to the private suite of rooms she shared with Miss Wood and their servants.

She folded the ivory blades of her fan into her palm, and turned away from him to leave. “ Arrivederci, signore .”

“Don’t go, please, oh, hang it, that is— Parla inglese, mia gentildonna? ”

Surprised, she paused, but didn’t look back. He didn’t sound Italian, but he sounded young and charming, and rather handsome, too, if sound alone could be trusted.

“Of course I speak English, sir,” she said cautiously. “What else would an Englishwoman speak?”

“Then we’ve that much in common,” he said, “because I’m English, too.”

“Are you, sir?” She would have to turn to face him now. What was necessarily discouraging to a forward foreign gentleman would be unforgivably ill-mannered to a gentleman who was English, like herself.

And so she set her face into a polite smile, and turned. The gentleman was not only English, but handsome, with curling blond hair streaked with gold, a smile full of charm and blue eyes that seemed bright enough to light even this gray day. Though not tall, he had the manly sturdiness of an English country gentleman, with a broad chest beneath his well-tailored waistcoat. He was young, too, of an interesting age not much older than her own. Her smile grew and became genuine. How could it not?

“Good day to you, sir.” She didn’t curtsey, guessing his rank to be below hers, but her smile remained, warm and interested. She let her gaze slide past him, looking for Miss Wood to be their chaperone. The parlor was empty except for the two of them and the dreary sound of the rain echoing up into the room’s high coved ceiling. Diana could predict Miss Wood’s lecture: to be alone with a gentleman, English or not, was not acceptable, especially not without a proper introduction.

Diana knew the rest, too. Loneliness didn’t matter. She shouldn’t speak another word to him. She should put aside her smile behind frosty indignation and reserve. She should return at once to her own rooms. If she wanted her banishment from London to end, she mustn’t falter now.

And yet how would a few minutes in this gentleman’s company hurt? From his accent, his manner, and his bearing, she was certain he was a gentleman, just as he must realize she was a lady. And if he were another guest in this particular palazzo, then he must also have impeccable references and a well-lined pocketbook, for these lodgings were the most exclusive in a neighborhood that already catered to aristocratic British travelers.

Surely, then, he’d understand the value of honor, both hers and his own. Surely he could be trusted, especially with a smile like that.

And surely, too, he must understand the little shiver of excitement she felt at doing something that she’d been so expressly forbidden to do.

“I’ve frightened you, haven’t I?” he asked, misreading her silence. “Coming up behind you like that, taking you by surprise. Ah, forgive me, my lady!”

“I’m not so tender as that,” she said. “It takes far more to frighten me. And how did you know I was a lady?”

“I guessed,” he confessed, his smile becoming a grin. “I was right, too, wasn’t I, my lady?”

“You were.” She turned her wrist and tapped him on the arm with her fan, not hard, not really, but enough to make it clear that she still held the advantage. Oh, this was a hundred times more enjoyable than all the musty old galleries in Rome combined—a thousand times! “Just as I will guess, and guess correctly, that you are a gentleman.”

He cocked his head to one side. “A gentleman, but no lord?”

“Perhaps,” she said, narrowing her eyes to appraise him teasingly. “Your tailor would say so, and so would your tutor at school. And if you’re staying here, with Signor Silvani’s blessing, then most likely you are what you claim.”

“But I’m not,” he said. “Staying here, I mean. My rooms are down the street a ways. I’m only visiting my uncle.”

“Your uncle .” Blade by blade, she opened her fan, holding it just below her chin as she smiled over the painted arc. “And now, you see, you’re visiting me .”

“Lady Diana?” Miss Wood’s voice echoed faintly down the hallway from their rooms. “Where are you, my lady?”

Diana snapped her fan shut. “That’s my governess,” she said, her eyes round with urgency. “I can’t let her find you here with me. Hurry, hurry, you must hide!”

“Hide?” The gentleman smiled indulgently. “There’s no need for that, my lady.”

“Oh, yes, there is.” Swiftly, Diana glanced around the room, searching for a hiding place, and grabbed his arm. “There, behind those curtains. I’ll send her on her way as soon as I can.”

But he didn’t move, only patting her hand as it clung to his sleeve. “I’m not ashamed to be here with you, my lady.”

“That is not the point, sir, not when—ah, Miss Wood, you’ve found me!” Diana smiled brightly, and pulled her hand free of the gentleman’s. “I was just coming to answer your call when this gentleman stopped me.”

With her hands clasped at the waist of her plain gray gown, Miss Wood didn’t answer at first, taking her time to judge the situation for herself. Such silence was hardly new to Diana, and she knew that the longer it continued, the less likely her governess was to decide in Diana’s favor. While Miss Wood herself was still a young woman, not yet thirty, in Diana’s eyes she would forever be a model spinster-governess: small, drab, inclined to stoutness, severity and suspicion. If Father had sent her away with the head gaoler of Newgate Prison, he couldn’t have watched her more closely than Miss Wood.

Even now the governess was studying the gentleman, from the silver buckles on his shoes to the top of his gold-colored head, with the same shrewdness that a farmer’s wife used to gauge the worth of vegetables on market day. Finally, she gave a quick little nod, her way of prefacing disagreeable tasks.

“Good day, sir,” she said, her voice as chill as ice as she dropped a perfunctory curtsey. “Forgive me for speaking plainly, sir, but I do not believe you have been properly introduced to her ladyship. My lady, come with me.”