Alexa had begun to laugh by then. “I’m sure I do not deserve such a wonderful and understanding friend as you are. And how very much I love you and appreciate you.”
Her voice sounded light as she related the whole incident and made it all sound quite amusing and droll. But when she had been awakened by Bridget, panting and puffing as if she had been running for miles, and had had an apron of all things dropped on her... It was a small wonder that when she sat up to find what had caused such a commotion, her eyes had flashed with anger instead of amusement.
It was only when she saw those two faces that looked so similar as to be almost identical, gaping at her with popping blue eyes that seemed unable to believe what they saw... Only then had she remembered rather belatedly to snatch the apron up before her, hoping as she did that it covered as much of her body as possible.
“Good—God!” one of them said fervently.
“Say that again!” the other echoed in a rather fainter voice.
They were obviously brothers, alike enough to be twins. And obviously quite young as well. Sent down from Oxford, she guessed. But they were not so young that they had not yet discovered women; and that fact was quickly apparent to Alexa, who had learned to look for certain signs.
“I beg your pardon?” Her voice carried all the frosty dignity of a Dowager Duchess and had the immediate effect of making both young men stutter and avert their eyes.
“Oh, beg yours, I’m sure. Didn’t know...”
“Didn’t intend to intrude, that is. Looking for Damiano, you know...”
“I am afraid I do not know! And if by ‘Damiano’ you mean the Conte di Menotto, then I must inform you that he was kind enough to rent his home here to my husband; with the assurance that we would have absolute privacy!”
“Mistake! Never dreamed... Terribly sorry...!”
“What we mean, er—madam—is that—most abject apologies! Husband...”
“My husband, gentlemen. And you are gentlemen, I trust?”
Into the delicate pause she left open, both voices blundered at once.
“Assure you, madam—Ladyship...?”
“Viscount Selby. This is m’brother—Viscount too...”
“Rowell. We’re twins, you know. Fortunate there were enough titles to go around.”
“And now that it is established that you are twin brothers and gentlemen, I trust that you will leave me to my privacy and remember only that my maid explained the mistake you made? I am quite sure that would be what you father and your mother would advise; although of course they need not know that their sons have been guilty of such a breach of good manners and good taste, need they? I’m sure my husband must know them well—he knows everyone!”
“No! Not for the world! Saw nothing—did you, Roger? Mistake!”
“He’s right. Blind. Deaf. Quite dumb. On our way back home. Never saw you before!”
“Quite so, gentlemen. And you’ll excuse me if I don’t wake my husband up to show you out? We tend to become too informal here, I suppose.”
They had stuttered and stumbled over their booted feet and their shamefaced apologies as they left, and she had heard the slam of the gate that must have followed their departure. But it had been another lesson for her, Alexa confessed when she had finished. “I should not have been so careless as to fall asleep in the sun, and especially there, when we have our own private terrace up here. Should I be worried about meeting them again socially?‘”
“My dear, you should not worry about anything at all. And I am quite confident that you are perfectly capable of carrying anything off—even to the point of acting as if you have never set eyes on each other before.”
“Of course I would. And oh, how glad I am now that we shall be going to Rome tomorrow.”
For the rest of the evening Sir John made an effort to appear>as cheerful and lighthearted as she had become, although his mind continued to mull over everything that Bowles had imparted to him with that purposefully impassive look he sometimes adopted to hide disapproval.
His suspicions might not be correct, Sir John told himself. And if, by some unfortunate and untimely coincidence they were—well, suspicions were not enough reason to spoil Alexa’s last evening in Naples, especially after she had felt so guilty.
So, when they went down to dinner, he made an effort to keep the tenor of their conversation as light as possible; and by the time they were back upstairs to prepare for bed, he had become convinced that he had done the right thing. After all, he was probably quite mistaken in imagining, from poor Bowles’s rather indignant description, that the third gentleman who had lingered by the gate engaged in idle conversation with his valet could possibly be the same man that Alexa had told him of. And once she had begun to trust him enough to lose her reserve with him, she had told him almost everything that had transpired between the two of them—from their first moonlight meeting to their last, with all its fateful consequences.
Ignorance! Sir John had thought then, with a surge of silent anger. Keeping young girls unaware of the facts of life and reproduction and even their own bodies, and leaving them so damned vulnerable! When Martin went off the deep end that way, there could have been developments that would have left her scarred for life—and still in ignorance! Even after it was all over and she was safe with him—even then she had not really understood what might have happened. Intuition—and a sense of something not healthy—that much she had only sensed, without knowing anything about the physical aspects involved nor their possible repercussions.
It was for this reason, believing firmly that knowledge was not only the greatest defense but the best weapon of attack as well, that he had arranged for Alexa to be educated and instructed in certain realities. She had been eager to learn and quick to absorb everything; and he had with a sense of satisfaction seen in her a new sureness and poise. But—and this was the only thing to disturb him slightly for her sake—she was still so very young, and still vulnerable merely for that reason in spite of all her recent “education.” The Spanish cousin of Lord Charles who had refused to take her once he found she was a virgin, the same man who had taught her what pleasure of the senses was before he had warned her harshly against succumbing to such weakness... There was still some strong attraction there that made her constantly remember and promise herself revenge. Attraction or urge, it was all the same thing. He, even he as he had become, could still remember sometimes how it had felt to desire blindly with the loins in spite of all the protests and objections of a rational mind. It was irrational, and you knew it; impossible—you knew that too! Something as primeval and unexplainable as the effect of the waxing and waning moon on ocean tides; and sometimes this kind of passion was as inescapable as it was inevitable. He could only hope that this was not the case with Alexa and wonder at the same time what would happen between them if they ever met again.
Chapter 25