Page 25 of A Dance with the Wayward Duke
“That would be inconvenient.”
“For you?”
“For the man required to retrieve you.”
His smile widened. “You wound me, signorina. I thought perhaps you had developed affection.”
“I am a great admirer of brotherly loyalty.”
“Then you will enjoy me. I am loyal in the most irritating possible way.”
Yes, Marguerite thought. That much had become evident.
He was trying to unsettle her. He had the too-casual air of a man performing lightness for a purpose, turning every rotting plank and narrow passage into a warning. Why?
Marguerite adjusted her grip on the rail. “Brianza is near the lakes, is it not?”
Lorenzo’s step faltered. “You know a great deal about Italian families for an English lady.”
“I have friends in Naples.”
They turned down another passage, narrower than the last, until Lorenzo stopped before a small door.
“Here we are,” he announced. “The palace.”
He opened it. Marguerite stepped inside and felt her heart sink with embarrassing speed.
The cabin was stark. A narrow bed fixed to the wall. A small table bolted to the floor. A chair that looked as if comfort had offended it personally. A washstand. Hooks. Shelves. A stern window admitting a thin slice of gray light. The walls wereplain wood, scrubbed, bare, and disciplined into usefulness with almost moral severity.
Three weeks. Marguerite was to spend three weeks here.
Elsie stepped in behind her and stopped. “Oh,” she said.
That single syllable contained disappointment, accusation, and the death of several Italian fantasies.
Lorenzo leaned one shoulder against the doorframe with theatrical sympathy. “You see? My brother is a duke in England, yes, but English dukedoms are expensive creatures. They eat roofs, tenants, repairs, taxes, servants, debts, and any small hope a man may have of wearing new boots. This ship is not a pleasure yacht. He has little enough for himself.” He tilted his head, inspecting her expression.
Marguerite crossed her arms and lifted her brows.
“You do not sound moved,” Lorenzo murmured.
“I am considering the direction in which I am being moved.”
“Signorina, I only mean that if you imagined—”
“A marble stateroom? A gilded bed? A captain feeding me sugared figs while I recline on velvet?”
His smile flickered. “Some ladies do imagine such things. When a man is a duke.”
“And you have taken it upon yourself to protect your brother from ladies with imaginations.”
His expression sharpened beneath the charm. There it was. At last. Not the laughing brother, not the penniless count, but a guard dog.
“If you wish to leave,” he said, lowering his voice, “I can help you do it before we sail. No shame. No fuss. The boat that brought you can return. Really, you would not want to—”
“The day Marguerite d’Ailes retreats from Naples because of poor upholstery,” she said, “will be the same day a della Rocca successfully passes for a pauper.”
Lorenzo stopped as if she had struck him with a rolled chart.
