Prologue
Italian countryside
March 1820
It had beena perfect day—the Tuscan sun warm and inviting, tall grasses swaying in the gentle country breeze—the day Miss Juliet Windermere decided Lord Rory Macbeth, Viscount Kilmuir and future Sixth Earl of Carrick, could take a flying leap off a Scottish mountain.
Ben Nevis would do.
She’d been rambling through a small grove of olive trees, taking in the bright Italian air—the feel of it in her lungs, against the bare skin of her arms—the members of their party thrown to the four winds. Amelia painting by a stream. Delilah reciting lines from Marlowe in a field. Archie and his friends charming a passel of opera singers brought over from Florence with theirjoie de vivreand prosecco.
For her part, Juliet had wandered off—as she was wont to do when the mood struck—to be alone with her own words for a while. Her cousins loved to talk, and she loved to listen and let the words swirl around her mind before committing them to paper. She’d even had a necklace specially made with a large locket containing bits of paper that she wore everywhere. No word—or configuration thereof—would ever be lost.
Then it happened.
In the not-too-far distance, she caught a tree in the periphery of her vision. Not a tree of gnarled twists and turns like the eternal olive, but one thick and solid like an oak one would find in England.
The tree moved.
The tree, it turned out, wasn’t a tree at all, but a man. A rather large hulking man with light red hair that shone the gold of an autumn sunset; bright, opaque blue eyes the hue of a turquoise stone; and an ever-present lopsided smile.
A Scotsman, in fact.
And not just any Scotsman, but the Scotsman with whom she’d been besotted from the time Archie had brought him home from Eton during a school holiday and introduced him as Rory.
And now, she was alone with him.
She caught the instant he noticed her, and the lopsided smile found its way to his mouth. He gave a small wave of greeting, which she returned like for like.
No more, no less.
That was the key to keeping an infatuation secret.Like for like… No more, no less.
No one ever had to know if she never gave herself away.
“A fellow wanderer,” he said, making light conversation in his rumbly Scottish burr that had been known to set butterflies aflight in her stomach.
Her mouth lifted into a smile of greeting—no more, no less. “Ah, yes.”
He drifted toward her, absently snapping a tiny branch off an olive tree. Juliet did the same. Once they’d come within ten or so feet of each other—comfortable talking distance—he stopped, and she stopped. It was close enough that she caught his scent. Clean, as always, with an earthy hint of pine. How was it that he smelled of Scottish pine forests here in Italy?
Sometimes she wondered if she was infatuated with the man himself, or with the idea of him… Then she looked at him and knew it was the man himself. He was so burly and strong and handsome. It was true. But he was also so very nice. An appealing combination in a man, it had to be acknowledged.
His brow crinkled, and his head cocked to the side. He was staring…ather…as if he was only now seeing her for the first time, so centered she felt within his gaze—a place in which she’d never before found herself.
Those butterflies in her stomach multiplied, fluttering through her chest, and making it difficult to breathe.
He closed the distance between them in a few easy strides, and she found herself frozen in place, unable to do naught but wait for his next movement. He reached out and pushed an escaped tendril of hair off her face, and a realization struck her.
This was the moment in the farthest, most secret corner of her heart she’d been waiting for since he’d joined their party in Florence several days ago.
His hand moved down her face…and plucked a dandelion seed off her cheek. He held it up and opened forefinger and thumb, releasing it to the wind.
She emitted a nervous, little laugh that didn’t sound like her in the least. Miss Juliet Windermere was known for her calm nature and quick wit. She was no vapid miss who giggled at the fiddle-faddle of gentlemen. But now, with the object of her secret infatuation standing so near and staring down at her looking serious and intent and so very, very handsome, she hadn’t the faintest notion how to be.
“I’ve never noticed something about you,” he rumbled.
Juliet’s butterflies gave her heart wing. Her palms slicked with perspiration. “Oh?” she asked, breathless.