Dominic (16 page)

Earth World

“I
’m leaving the estate,” Emma announced. How good it felt to say it aloud.

However, no one remarked on her startling statement, and no arguments ensued—simply because there was no one in the immediate vicinity to

hear her, save butterflies, birds, two svelte gazel es, and her three-week-old daughter, Rosetta.

Other than their company, Emma sat alone on the lush, blue-green lawn at the rear of the carriage house that had been her home for just over one

year. Though al here was rendered cheerful by dappled sunlight, she felt anything but cheery.

Upon the lap of her dark bombazine gown lay a letter she’d already read a dozen times. It had been written in a careful hand, each word precise

and wel selected by an elderly, verbose British gentleman of means.

Its contents offered a singular opportunity.

She sighed and rocked her daughter’s crib with fingers stained with intermingled shades of purple, yel ow, carmine, cobalt, and jade. “What do

you think, Rosie? Shal we hie off to London? Wil it be the same place I left fifteen years ago?”

A circular flower bed, divided into twelve equal segments, ringed them. Once careful y tended, the bouquets it grew had been shredded and now

littered the courtyard like brightly colored confetti. Her culpability in this destruction was painted on both hands.

As a girl, she’d designed an horologium florae—a clock based on Carl Linnaeus’s description in his seminal botanical work,
Philosophia

Botanica.
It had enabled her to tel the time simply through observation of the blooming and fading cycles of a variety of wildflower blossoms.

She had created this more elaborate garden a year ago. On the day fol owing her wedding to Carlo. On the day he’d gone to Else World, to war.

It had served as a calendar of months rather than days. The flowers that grew in each planter had been careful y selected to fol ow the pattern of

his monthly comings and goings. Blooming at Moonfuls and fading in the interims. It had been a wife’s gift to her husband, this physical display of her

anticipation of his rare sojourns in her bed.

The cycle had been completed only once since their marriage. He’d been a husband to her only twelve times in one year.

Just moments ago, the fading primroses of February, the violets of March, and a few early daisies of April had al been wrenched from their

moorings and now lay strewn about her. After al , there was no need to mark the passing of time any longer.

Carlo was dead.

Her soiled hands left fingerprints on the letter as she unfolded it a third time.

Salutations, Madame,

It is with utmost pleasure that I summon you to London to assist me in my illustrious endeavors. Your love of the printed word

being as sincerely and clearly evident as my own, and your knowledge of Latin, combined with your experience assisting in the

organization of Lord Nicholas Satyr’s libraries, recommend yourself to me. The library I have recently inherited remains in complete

disarray, and your offer of services is most welcome and fortuitous.

The letter rambled on for several more paragraphs, and then…

The position I humbly extend to you is for a period of one year as I have previously explained. If that is agreeable, you may

present yourself at my offices at 12 Whitehall Street, London, as soon as might prove convenient.

Please accept my wishes for your safe travel and good health in the coming weeks until we meet.

Lord Anthony George Randolph Stanton

Would her employer prove this long-winded in person? His letter had come from London yesterday, having been penned by him three weeks

earlier—the very date Rose had been born. It had come in response to her query regarding employment, which she’d posted wel before her daughter had

been conceived.

She should inform Lord Stanton of the birth before she embarked on her journey, but that exchange of letters might take weeks. He seemed an

enlightened sort, to have accepted a woman as his assistant. So she’d decided to proceed with her plans in the hopes that he would accept her child as

wel . If that proved not to be the case, she would look for another position in London and return here only if none presented itself.

Tonight she would tel the family of her decision. She was determined not to stay here, not to become an idle burden on them. She wanted to be

truly useful, to indulge her passion for books.

The family would be surprised at her resolve to depart them and would expect her to alter her plans upon their objections. After al , she’d always

been untroublesome. Obedient.

Spying a fire lily in the grass, she picked it up, stroking a fingertip along a delicate filament to dust the pol en from an anther at its tip. The stamens

—male sex organs.

Dominic.

A cloud passed over the sun, and she shivered. Just over a week after he’d gone, he’d sent Carlo’s remains through the gate. A rol ed sheet of

parchment addressed to Nicholas had accompanied them, explaining that the circumstances of his death were unknown. There had been no message for

her.

Realizing she was stroking the lily’s smooth, black petals along her col arbone—where Dominic’s lips had traveled—she flung the flower away.

Flushing, she brushed at the trail of pol en dust it had left at her throat.

The marks on her skin made by his hands and mouth had faded, but memories of her night with Dominic remained fresh. Though she’d grown

adept at pushing them away, they sometimes crept up on her unexpectedly.

Especial y at night when al was quiet and lonely. Then they mercilessly haunted her dreams, making her body quake with a confusing, shameful

desire. It was another reason she wanted to put some distance between her and this place that held remembrances of him. Just for a while.

She stood abruptly and shook out her skirt. It was un-adorned black, a dress of ful mourning, edged in crepe. A dress appropriate for a new

widow.

“Come along,
cara mia
.” She lifted Rosetta’s crib and made her way toward the house.

Gazing toward the patchworked hil s in the distance, she felt a pang. It was a joyous time for the Satyr. The grapevines were bursting with an

energy waiting to be unleashed in the form of buds.

By leaving now, she would miss that and the harvest next fal . Miss the fruition of vines over which she had toiled. In years past, the credit for her

work had always gone to Carlo. Al of Italy considered him the vintner rather than she. None knew the truth—that while she was left in charge of their smal

section of the vineyard, he had left the estate for a war that raged in another world.

She hadn’t resented it. It had kept her occupied and had been another thing tying him to her. If she offered him this bounty to cal his own, she’d

reasoned, he would want her. Want to come back. But now he couldn’t come back.

He was dead, his ashes interred in the family columbarium.

A gardener tipped his hat to her as she passed, his eyes ful of sympathy. She nodded and hurried on, feeling the usual spurt of guilt.

Every kind word that came her way made her feel more of a sham, for she didn’t feel a widow’s grief. Instead she was consumed with regret for

her behavior last Moonful. Even though Carlo had initiated the events that had transpired, he hadn’t expected her to find pleasure with Dominic. She might

not have wanted her husband in her bed, but she’d had no right to desire another in his place.

Sometimes she yearned to confess the secrets of that night. To lance the wound they’d left, al owing shameful memories to purge themselves,

flowing forth. Escaping her forever.

Instead she kept her secrets locked inside and waited for their wounding presence to heal, turn to scar, and then fade.

As part of her penance, she accepted others’ condolences and kindnesses with stoic grace. And she devoted herself to her child and the

vineyard. Life went on.

Emma paused, setting Rose’s basket upon the stack-stone wal that enclosed the garden. She took off her spectacles, fogged them with her

breath, and then polished the lenses with a corner of her daughter’s blanket. Replacing them on her nose, she considered the shortening, early afternoon

shadows.

It would soon be time to depart for Jane’s. She gathered the arm of the basket again and headed inside. At dinner tonight, she would tel them.

16

“E
veryone, we have a visitor!” Jane announced.

Emma half rose from her station at her sister’s piano and then sank back onto the long, lacquered bench seat with an uncertain
plunk
. Her cheeks

blanched and then as quickly reddened again as the new guest was ceremoniously shown into the salon.

Dominic.

She drank him in with a hungry sweep of her eyes. Noted the solid strength of him, the watchful silver gaze, the midnight blue highlights in his dark

hair. He wore black leather now instead of the gray wool uniform. He looked self-assured, dangerously attractive.

It had been three weeks since she’d seen him. Three long, arid weeks since they’d been as intimate as a man and woman could be.

Now, impossibly, he was here. In her sister’s home. In the same
salotto
as she. Sitting on Nicholas’s least comfortable medieval-era chair. The

fact that Jane had shown him to that particular seat was an indication she wasn’t as delighted at his visit as she’d sounded.

What did he want?

Jordan and Juliette had gone to Florence that morning and weren’t to return until tomorrow night. During their absence, only Jane, the three Satyr

lords, and she had gathered here at the
castello
for dinner and conversation.

“Wil you take some of the Sangiovese?” she heard Nicholas inquire.

“Grazie.”
Dominic’s rumbled assent sent prickles of sensation along Emma’s nape. Where he’d kissed her. Their eyes caught. His dropped to her

throat, and the faintest of smiles twisted his lips.

Without realizing it, she’d begun stroking the very place on her skin that his mouth had marked. Snatching her hand away, she needlessly adjusted

the spectacles she’d just donned in preparation for playing a selection from one of Giovanni Paisiel o’s operas. Then she lifted the music from the stand

onto her lap, rummaging through it with shaking fingers.

In the general hubbub of greetings, no one noticed her withdrawal at the sight of the new arrival. For al they knew, he was merely a passing

acquaintance of hers, introduced to her only briefly on one previous occasion. The night Rose had been born.

“Emma was just about to make some sort of announcement before she plays for us.” At the sound of Nicholas’s voice, her unseeing eyes froze on

the row of ivory keys before her. Her fingers fiddled with the pages in her lap.

“Emma?” Jane prompted.

Emma straightened her spine. She was being ridiculous. Of course she wouldn’t postpone her plans simply because Dominic had arrived. He

was nothing to do with her. She was to leave soon, and arrangements must be made.

She stacked the sheets of music on the piano stand with a crisp
thwack
.

“I have decided to leave the estate. To go to London,” she heard herself say.

Air was abruptly sucked from the room—drawn into every pair of lungs as objections swel ed in those around her, bursting to be voiced.

“I depart next week,” she rushed on. “I have entered into an agreement of employment—”

“What the devil—?” Lyon protested.

“Emma! Why?” Jane put in at the same time.

“Let her finish,” said Nicholas, shushing them.

“My employment is to be at a gentleman’s library for a period of one year.” Quickly Emma provided them with a smattering of other details, and

then, “I know you wil think it a poor idea, but I am determined. I don’t wish to be a burden any longer.”

“You’re not a burden!” Jane exclaimed.

“You’re an innocent widow with a child.” Lyon scowled. “Easy prey.”

A single, sharp crack rent the air, sending al eyes whipping to Dominic. His right hand had fisted on the stem of his goblet, its grip so vicious it

had snapped an inch-thick column of solid crystal!

“He’s right,” Dominic muttered, oblivious of the servants who scurried to repair the damage he’d wrought.

Emma frowned at his hand as the remnants of the goblet were removed and the wine he’d spil ed mopped up. Tonight it wasn’t protected by that

strange glove. Yet the glass shards didn’t appear to have cut him. “This is none of your affair, signore. I’m a grown woman capable of making my own

decisions.”

“Who is this employer?” Raine demanded, drawing her attention.

“He could be a lecher, for al she knows,” Lyon scoffed before she could speak.

“He’s not! He’s a gentleman!” Emma leaped from the bench. “I wil not argue the matter with you further. The work in his library interests me, and I

plan to fol ow through with my decision.”

Fortunately Rose chose that moment to fuss in an adjacent room, giving Emma a pretext to escape their harangue.

“Excuse me, please.” With a whoosh of her inky skirts, she slipped down the short hal way to the room where her daughter slept.

Two pink fists and two white, beribboned booties waved in the air above a crib that had once held Jane’s son Vincent, who was now nearly grown.

Rose was general y a calm sleeper, but it appeared she’d kicked off her blanket and was wide awake. Gently Emma tucked the lightweight wool around

her. Rose kicked it off again.

“Determined tonight, are we?” she asked softly.

“Hers seems to be the prevailing attitude.”

She straightened at the sound of Dominic’s voice, seeing that he’d come alone. “What do you want?”