“Please...” About to lead the way out of her room, Orla
nda paused, allowing Alexa to continue in what she hoped was a steady voice: “Since you have shown me enough consideration thus far to be direct and open in your speech and manner, I hope you will not mind too much if I beg that you will grant me the same consideration just once more and tell me, if you please—” after a slight hesitation Alexa forced herself to go on stubbornly “—in what way I might have betrayed myself? I have been making great efforts to guard against showing my feelings too openly, and had actually begun to think that I had succeeded in controlling any telltale reactions that might too easily give me away. Was I badly mistaken?”
Orlanda regarded her steadily for a moment before she said with a slight smile and a shrug: “I think you know, cara, that I only referred to what I believe I could sense in you. There were no others about to observe you and draw their own inferences, as you know. What would you like me to tell you? And are you sure that you might want to hear me say it out loud?”
Alexa’s eyes wavered uncertainly, and she bit her lip. Then her head went up almost defiantly. “I think, after all, that I am quite sure I would like to hear what you thought you could sense in me, apart from a certain amount of lewd curiosity, I suppose. I have seen many similar exhibitions on many other occasions.”
“Ah?” Orlanda said mildly. “And—if you’ll forgive the directness you begged for—did you always, on such occasions, wish that you were the woman being made love to?” Ignoring the flush that came up in Alexa’s face and her startled expression, Orlanda went on pitilessly: “What I know I sensed, my dear, was that you longed to be Maddalena tonight. You wanted the man with her to do the same things with you that he did with her—touch you in the same way and in the same places and give you the same kind of pleasure that she enjoyed.”
Alexa’s face went from red to white, and her fingers tightened on the back of the chair as if it had been a life raft that could save her from drowning. She felt totally incapable of speech as a shiver that was half-despair and half-apprehension darted through her body. How was it possible that her darkest, most carefully hidden thoughts could have been so easily read? And, oh God, now that they had been plucked out into the light, she could not deny that everything Orlanda had said was the truth.
Orlanda’s manner seemed to change in some subtle way as she studied Alexa’s white face and dilating eyes. She said in an almost speculative tone, “You saw his face. Do you know who he is and what his connections are? Ah, now you do have me curious!”
As if she had suddenly been released from some spell, Alexa stammered, “Con.. .connections? I don’t...”
“Perhaps you do not know after all.” Orlanda suddenly gave a strangely mirthless laugh before adding: “Ah well, my dear, since you are Solange’s niece perhaps this once I will break one of my strictest rules for you. When I spoke of ‘connections’ I was speaking of family connections. On your paternal side, that is. Why, Maddalena’s guest tonight happens to be none other than your father’s heir, the future Marquess of Newbury. Although, of course, he is presently Viscount Embry. Lord Nicholas Dameron, Viscount Embry, to give him his full name. And he’s quite the stud too, in addition to being a well-built figure of a man, wouldn’t you agree, cara? I cannot help but think of how amusing as well as ironical it might have been if you had taken him from Maddalena. But I daresay that your mind is not as devious as mine is...and in a way that’s a pity, I suppose. For if I were in your shoes I would have made the most of the situation and all its deliciously intriguing possibilities—in more ways than one!”
As the meaning and significance of those casually uttered words penetrated the numbness she had felt at first, Alexa heard the blood start pounding in her temples, so loudly, it seemed, that she was almost deafened. From the very beginning, then, he had lied and pretended and deliberately deceived her, even going so far as to call himself by a false name! And for what reason? Could he have known even before she did whose child she was and the kind of embarrassment her very existence might pose to certain people, especially if she learned of her antecedents and might turn up in England some day to claim her rights? Ah, how clearly she saw now why he had prevented her from meeting Lord Charles, and perhaps eloping with him.
The very thought of the extent of the monstrous deceit he had practiced made Alexa begin to grit her teeth and actually shake with such uncontrollable fury that for some moments even Orlanda became alarmed that she was suffering from some kind of seizure. Quickly putting an arm about the girl’s waist, she exclaimed with genuine concern, “My poor child! If I’d had any idea of what a shock...perhaps you had better sit down again for a while, yes? A glass of brandy...”
“No!” The sharp, almost harsh voice that Alexa heard from somewhere outside herself did not sound in the very least like hers. “No, brandy is not what I need at all! A devious mind—isn’t that what you said? A mind devious enough and clever enough to conceive of ways whereby deceivers might be duped themselves!” She gave a laugh filled with such bitter rage that even Orlanda stepped back to stare at her strangely while Alexa, not quite aware of it herself, suddenly began almost to prowl back and forth with her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “Oh, how I hate and despise them all! And thank God I don’t bear that cursed name any longer! Damerons—with their arrogance that sets them up above everyone else, and their false pride and their damned hypocrisy! But before I have finished with them they will have neither pride nor position nor arrogance left—I swear it!”
Alexa gave that short, almost ugly laugh again as she suddenly stopped her frenzied walking back and forth and stood still, staring narrow-eyed at Orlanda, who had found herself almost frozen into silence. “Do you think that I could learn to be very devious indeed? And a good actress? I know now that I could learn anything and do anything that would help me to accomplish the revenge that I plan. And you hate them too, don’t you? But if you won’t help me then perhaps my aunt Solange will, once I have met her and explained everything to her. And if not, then I have been made wealthy enough to hire lawyers and anyone else I might need to help me. But I will do it, you know!” Her voice suddenly quietened, but there was a note of hardness underlying it that had never been there before. “They will not be able to get Lady Travers out of the way as easily as they did my poor mother and aunt and God knows how many others who were thought to interfere with the old witch’s plan. Didn’t you tell me that was what you used to call her? Ah, perhaps I am enough like my grandmother to be the one to defeat her by using her weapons! What do you think, my wise new friend? And will you help me with your advice and your guidance?”
During all of this impassioned speech Orlanda had been regarding Alexa with enigmatic eyes that gave nothing away, and now she merely gave a shrug and a resigned somewhat impatient sigh before saying with a wave of her hand: “Well then, I suppose we might as well sit down again while we talk, for I must tell you that your prowling back and forth like a caged leopard was beginning to make me quite nervous, and I do not think very well when I am set on edge. Please...!” Another impatient wave of her hand made Alexa sink back into a chair rather reluctantly while Orlanda walked over to a glass-fronted cabinet containing glasses and several crystal decanters. She said over her shoulder: “ I for one am going to indulge in a glass of brandy. Shall I bring you one as well?” Without waiting for Alexa’s reply she had already poured it out; and now she carried both glasses back, handing one to Alexa before she sat down herself and leaned back comfortably. She looked across at the young woman’s rather flushed but determined face with a slight smile. “So you want my advice and my guidance, you say. Hmm...” Holding her glass up, Orlanda pretended to study the sparkling amber liquid with concentration before she looked at Alexa again and said: “In that case, cara, I do think that the first thing I will have to learn from you—before you make certain explanations that I’m sure you’ll agree you owe to me— is—” and now her eyes met Alexa’s measuringly “—if you’ll forgive the blunt question...exactly how far are you prepared to go in order to attain your ends?”
Chapter 27
If they were not finishing each other’s sentences, the twin Viscounts, as they were popularly known in their circles, were usually engaged in an argument, as they were now.
“Tell you, it was her! Wasn’t foxed enough at the time to mistake it!”
“All covered up, Myles old fellow. No way you could possibly tell, you know. Wasn’t before, was she?”
“Makes no difference! Hair—not a common color, you’ll admit. Hands too. Always notice hands. Fingers. Wore the same ring, too! Ruby, I think. Remember the setting, though. Unusual.”
“Well, I’m not convinced yet! Think about it. Hardly the kind of place a lady would visit, what? And this is Rome, that was Naples. Unlikely, you’ll have to admit! Both agreed at the time, didn’t we, that she had to be a lady? Spoke like one. Sounded too much like Mama when she decides to put us in our places. And you know as well as I do Damiano wouldn’t rent the family home to just anybody! No, no, old boy. Not possible! Imagining things.”
“Know when I am and sure when I’m not, Roger! Was her all right, likely or not. Anyway, remember what Grange told us after he’d been here last year? Ladies, he said. Why else would they wear masks when the others don
’t?”
“Still don’t convince me, Myles. Not the type, in spite of...”
“In spite of what?”
The twins, comfortably seated on lawn chairs that had been placed in the shadiest part of the flag stoned terrace overlooking an ornamental garden complete with statues and fountains scattered among carefully trimmed grass and shrubs, now started almost guiltily as they looked up, their mouths falling open with dismay.
“I suppose I should apologize for interrupting such an interesting conversation?” Viscount Embry drawled as he walked up the steps that led up to the terrace from the lawn below. Two pairs of slightly protuberant blue eyes topped by straw-colored hair seemed to become even more protuberant when they noticed that he was not only bareheaded under the hot sun but shirtless and shoeless as well, his closely fitting fawn trousers carelessly rolled up to just below knee level. As usual, that darkly saturnine face of his remained completely unreadable as he surveyed the twins through narrowed, lazy-lidded eyes that went from one red face to the other before he added pleasantly: “I had been trying to get some sleep in the sun, you know; but once the sound of your voices had waked me up, I must admit that I could not help becoming quite intrigued. Unusually colored hair, didn’t you say, Myles? Hands— or no, it was a finger, wasn’t it? With an unusually set ruby ring. And you did mention your friend the Conte di Menotto, didn’t you? The same one whose villa in Naples we committed a faux pas by visiting, even if it was only the lady’s maid you encountered—or could it have been the lady herself? I am afraid that my memory sometimes plays tricks on me, so you will correct me if I’m wrong, won’t you?”
“Ah—uh—sorry if we woke you up, Embry! Didn’t know you were trying to catch a nap. Would not have argued so loudly if we had.” The Viscount Selby spoke rapidly, casting his brother a significant look as he did.
“That’s right. Couldn’t know you were taking a nap, could we? No one told us. In any case—not safe to take naps in the sun, I’ve been told. Sunstroke, you know!”
“How careless of me.” Embry’s voice remained bland, but his eyes were as hard as stones, making the younger men squirm uncomfortably before, with a dangerously swift change of mood, he shrugged and said lightly: “I suppose my fortunate escape from the dire consequences of being unwise enough to fall asleep in the hot sun calls for an offering to the Roman gods! Or better yet, a goddess. Venus, perhaps? I believe I’ve read that it was customary to visit her temple at least once every week, to give thanks, or to settle arguments.”
After he had sauntered back to the house, the twins exchanged uneasy glances. “I say, do you think he knows? Didn’t think we said anything significant, did you?”