Seduction of an English Beauty. Miranda Jarrett
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and marvel at the proper moments during his hunting stories.”
“I should rather like to meet his grace one day,” he said, so clearly taken with the idea that he gave an extra little nod to reinforce it. “I’ve heard he is a man of great vision. I hope I have the honor of his acquaintance.”
“I can’t fathom why,” Diana said, amused. The only vision she’d grant her father was his ability to stare up at the clouds and predict if they were carrying sufficient rain within to cancel the day’s hunt. “Unless you wish to be bored to tears by how high a gate he can jump on his favorite hunter.”
“We’d find other matters to discuss,” he said, and nodded again. “You, my lady, for one.”
She glanced up at him again, startled into speechlessness. There was only one reason a gentleman wished to address a lady’s father to discuss her, and that was to ask for her hand. Of all the men she’d met in her short life, none had dared venture such a desire. It was early days with Edward, true, and much could go amiss between them before the banns were cried. But for him to hint at such a possibility so soon—ah, that delighted her and stunned her at the same time. He was courting her.
Was he falling in love with her, she wondered, to make such a suggestion?
“Is that notion so appalling to you, my lady?” he asked lightly, making her realize how long she’d been silent. “That I sing your praises to your father? Is that what you were thinking?”
“Magic, my lord.” She smiled up at him, hugging his arm. “That’s what I was thinking. How everything you say and do feels that way to me.”
But instead of agreeing with her, or sharing a similar confession, he only smiled pleasantly, as if he didn’t understand at all.
“I enjoy your company, too, my lady,” he said, stopping to search through his pockets for the entrance fee. He gave the coins to the bored-looking man sitting on a tall stool beneath the awning, and handed Diana through the gate. “Always a garnish, eh? These infernal Romans would bleed a gentleman dry, then try to figure a way to make a profit from his blood.”
“It must cost a great deal to keep a place like this,” Diana said. Despite the lanterns hung sporadically along the walls, the arched passageway ahead was dark and forbidding, and she hung close to Edward’s side. “It’s larger than any building in London. Imagine how many charwomen must be employed in sweeping it out!”
“Imagine, yes, because it never happens,” Edward declared, not bothering to hide his disapproval. “You can see for yourself how shabby the Romans have let things become. They haven’t a care for their heritage. Once this city had a system for water and sewers that would shame London today, and look at it now, so foul a fellow can hardly bear to breathe. It’s almost impossible to believe that these scruffy latter-day Romans actually descended from Caesar’s mighty pagan breed.”
But Diana didn’t care any more about Caesar tonight than she had the previous two days. What she cared most about was Edward. More specifically, what she cared most about was hearing more about how Edward cared for her.
“I hope we’ll see the moon again soon,” she said, trying to steer the conversation back to more interesting topics. She liked moonlight better than these murky passages lit with foul-smelling tallow candles. Moonlight was bright and romantic and flattering to the complexion. Besides, moonlight generally made men want to kiss her, and for all that it was a delightful change to be respected, she thought it was high time for Edward to try to kiss at least her cheek. After what he’d said earlier, he deserved a kiss, but he’d have to be the one to claim it. “It’s nearly full tonight, you know. Didn’t you see? It’s like an enormous silver coin in the sky.”
“Isn’t that like you, my lady, to notice the moon!” She could see the curve of his white teeth as he smiled indulgently at her, as if she’d said something remarkable for its foolishness rather than making perfect sense. “I have to admit my thoughts were elsewhere than dangling up in the sky.”
“The moon doesn’t ‘dangle’ in the sky, my lord.” She gave a little toss to her head and lifted her chin, willing him to kiss her. For a gentleman who was so learned about ancient history, Edward could be remarkably thick about what was happening in the present. “The moon rises and sets quite purposefully each night, just like the sun does by day.”
“Well, yes, I suppose it does.” With a small flourish—but no kiss—he led her around another corner and into the open. “There now! That’s what you’ve come to Rome to see!”
Dutifully Diana looked. The Coliseum seemed far larger from inside than she’d imagined outside from the carriage, an enormous stone ring made ragged and tattered over time. Half of the wall with its rows of arches had been broken away like a shattered teacup, and the flat rows that once had been benches or seats now sprouted tufts of grass and wildflowers. Other tourists and their guides wandered about the different levels with lanterns bobbing in their hands, their figures like aimless ghosts in the gray half light. Diana was disappointed. If the Coliseum by moonlight was the most romantic place in Rome, the way all the guidebooks claimed, then the guidebook writers had far different notions of romance from hers.
“Where did they stage the fights and shows?” she asked, peering downward. The ground floor in the center was crisscrossed with a labyrinth of open corridors that bore no resemblance to the engravings in her old history book. “That looks more like a marketplace with farmers’ stalls than an arena for warriors.”
“That’s because what we see now were once tunnels for bringing in the gladiators and the wild beasts.” Edward’s voice rose with relish. “Once there was a plank decking laid across the top as a kind of stage, covered with sand to soak up the spilled blood of the dying. Oh, imagine the spectacle of it all, my lady! Sixty thousand strong, cheering for the mortal combat from these very stands!”
“I’d rather not.” Diana sighed. This masculine blood-lust of Edward’s seemed awfully similar to her father’s boundless enthusiasm for slaughtering stags, pheasants and foxes at Aston Hall, and on an even grander scale. “What’s that curious little house down there, my lord? Do they offer refreshments? I’m rather thirsty.”
“That’s a papist chapel, my lady,” he said, making his disregard for the chapel plain. “You know how the Romans are, throwing up a church anywhere they can.”
“But in the middle of such a pagan place?” Her earlier travels through France and the great Catholic cathedrals built there had given her a much healthier appreciation for the powers of that faith. “They must have had a reason, a saint they wished to commemorate or some such.”
He frowned, perplexed. “My knowledge is limited to the glorious ancients, my lady, not their ignoble descendants.”
“Perhaps it’s in honor of the fallen gladiators,” she suggested. “Miss Wood said that early Christians were martyred here, and so—”
“My lady, I wouldn’t know,” he said, clearly weary of the topic. He smiled, and swept his hat from his head. “But I’d guess that the keepers might still be persuaded to prepare a glass of orange-water for you. Would it please you, my lady, if I asked them?”
“Oh, thank you, yes, Lord Edward!” She opened her fan and smiled over the top. She wasn’t really that thirsty, but she’d drink a barrel of orange-water if it made Edward forget his glorious ancients and think more of her. “You’re too kind.”
He crooked his arm and offered it to her. “Then come join me, my lady.”
“Down there?” Dubious, she looked from him to the delicate pointed toe of her slipper, raising her hem a fraction to better demonstrate her reason, and to keep his interest as well. “I’m sorry, my lord, but I’m not shod like a mountain goat. I didn’t know we’d leave the carriage tonight. I’ll wait here while you go inquire.”
“Leave you here?” he asked with surprise. “I can hardly abandon you like that, my lady!”
“Of