To Deceive a Duke. Amanda McCabe
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It was a strangely soothing sound, cosy as she sat in her ancient house, imagining the blessing of the water falling on the crops in the fields, the flowering orchards. Surely the people who once lived here had done the same thing, thanking Demeter, goddess of the earth and all growing things, for her bounty, making offerings in hopes of a good harvest.
Clio had always loved envisioning the lives of the past. She could hardly get away from history, not with her family! There was her grandfather, who had written a famous treatise, The Archeology of the Ancients; her father, who had so richly inherited those scholarly sensibilities and had used them to co-found the Antiquities Society; her mother, the daughter of a French comte renowned for his collection of Hellenistic silver; her sisters, all the Muses. They had been fed on tales of the old gods, old battles and love affairs, glories that would never die, from the time they were in their cradles.
The classical world was as real to Clio as the everyday life of the London streets and squares—no, it was more real. More vital and true. She always took those stories far more to heart than even her sisters did, and it led her into trouble time and again—until it had all come to a terrible crescendo with the Lily Thief.
Clio closed her eyes tightly as the rain pounded louder above her, trying to block out the memory of Calliope’s shocked eyes as she saw the truth—that Clio was the Lily Thief. ‘How could you do this, Clio?’
Clio never wanted to hurt her sister. She loved Cal so much, loved them all, her entire boisterous, noisy, eccentric family. But so often she felt alone, even when she stood in their midst. Even as the sound and passion broke all around her, just like the rain.
Things had changed since Cal had married and they had come to Sicily, though. Clio loved this island, loved its windswept whispers that seemed to speak only to her. She loved the roughness of the land and the people, the layers of history in the very earth itself. Just like this house, or what was left of it, where families had lived their daily lives, laughed together, made love, quarrelled and died, she felt herself slowly stirring back to warm, vivid life. She poured all her work, her secrets, into this place, and in return it gave her back herself.
Not that everything could be left behind, of course. At night, when she tumbled exhausted into bed, she had such dreams. Such vivid flashes of memory. The Duke of Averton, how his lips felt on hers, the cool brush of his breath on her skin, the heat and life of him, before she had driven him so violently away. The way he watched her, as if he could see into her very soul. See everything about her…
Thunder cracked overhead, loud as a cannon shot, and Clio reared back in surprise. She had almost forgotten where she was, lost in the haze of those memories. The dark gold-green of the duke’s eyes, drawing her ever closer, so close she could almost drown in him.
She peered up to find her tarpaulin still securely bound, though bowed in the centre by the weight of the rain. Surely it would cease soon; these morning showers always passed, the thirsty land soaking up every drop until there was no sign of rain at all. Even now she could hear the thunder retreating back along the valley.
Clio took out her small spade again and went to work on her newest excavation, near the remains of the old stone staircase that once led to the upper floors of the house. She would probably have more luck if she worked faster, Clio thought as she carefully measured out a trench in the pockmarked earth. Tear up the floor and be done with it, as anyone else would. As those deceptively lazy men in Santa Lucia would. But then she couldn’t come here alone, to her quiet sanctuary. Couldn’t lose herself in work and dreams.
She had barely started digging when she noticed something odd, something that hadn’t been there before. An indentation in the dirt, maybe. An old trench someone else had once dug. She pushed her spectacles atop her head, tangling them in her hair, and leaned in to peer closer…
Just then she heard a rumbling noise overhead, like the thunder except it persisted, growing ever louder. She froze, sitting back on her heels, tense, as she realised what it was.
Hoofbeats.
Her skin turned suddenly cold, the back of her neck prickling. The blood quickened in her veins, as it had not since she had left the Lily Thief behind for good. No one ever came out here; the old farm site was too isolated, too insignificant for tourists. She had been warned about bandits, of course, and thieves—Sicily could be a wild, dangerous place. But she had never seen any.
Was that about to change?
Clio carefully laid down the spade, and reached under her skirt for the sheath strapped to her leg just above the boot. In one smooth, silent movement, she drew out her dagger.
It was no dainty, ornamental little antique, but a well-honed, sturdy knife, forged to razor sharpness in the Santa Lucia smithy. Their Sicilian cook and her husband had given it to her when she kept insisting on wandering off by herself. At first they were utterly scandalised. Upper-class Sicilian girls were even more strictly chaperoned and protected than English girls! But when she had persisted, they had given her the dagger, certain that any lady as strangely independent as Clio would know how to use it.
Their kind confidence was not misplaced. Clio had once been the most famous thief in London. She could use a dagger if she had to. But she hoped she would not.
Surely the hoofbeats, which came ever closer, were only those of a traveller who would quickly pass by on the way to more elaborate sites. Still, she had to be careful. Clio silently crept up a few of the crumbling stone steps, poised on her toes, until she could ease back the corner of the tarpaulin and peer out on to the world.
The rain had finally ceased, leaving behind a damp, rich scent, a land that sparkled with waterdrops on flowers and treetops. The sky was still grey, but a few chalky sunbeams broke through. The horse was coming from behind the farmhouse, along the old, overgrown roadway.
Balancing the dagger hilt in one hand, Clio folded back the tarpaulin a bit more, until she could see past the canvas edge. ‘Blast it all,’ she muttered, wondering if she had fallen asleep on the dirt floor and was dreaming—or having a nightmare.
A glossy black horse, much like the ones that had probably drawn Hades’ chariot as he had born down on hapless Persephone, galloped along the road where it skirted around the farm site. And riding it was the very man she believed, or hoped, to be hundreds of miles away. Averton. It could be no other. His bright, Viking hair was loose in the breeze, even longer than when she had last seen him in Yorkshire, falling to his shoulders. His black riding clothes and high leather boots stood in stark contrast to its glow, making him seem one with the horse.
A marauding centaur, then, as well as Hades. A dangerously handsome lord who took what he wanted, regardless of the consequences.
He drew up the horse just beyond the rim of the foundation, so near she could see the sheen of his bronzed skin, shining with rain and sweat. His face, all hard, sharp angles, was expressionless as he gazed around the site. She could feel the fire of his eyes, even across the distance.
White-hot anger burned away her icy poise, her calm wariness. How dare he come here, after all that had happened in England! How dare he invade her farmhouse, her one special place? All her old feelings—her fright, her fury, her fascination—boiled over, and she could be silent no longer.
She threw back the tarpaulin, rushing up the last of the old steps with her blade in hand, as if charging into battle.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded. ‘You, Averton, are on private property, and I will thank you to depart immediately!’
He gazed down at her. His expression did not change—it so seldom did, remaining in its cool lines of ducal contempt even when he confronted thieves in his house. Only a very few times had she seen it alter, that veil of handsome privilege falling away to reveal seething passions and needs that were fearsome to behold.
But his eyes widened a bit as he saw her, the green as bright as sea glass, and she noticed the jagged white scar on his forehead.
‘Oh, so you are suddenly the protector of private property,