“A picnic in wintertime, Claire?” Lady Cainewood raised a skeptical brow. “Won’t you be cold?”
Lifting her chin, Claire marched past her elder sister and claimed her place at the head of the table. This was everyone’s cue to take their own places, which they did.
Beneath the table they found foot warmers and sheepskins enough to dispel all of Lady Cainewood’s doubts. Once the steaming teapot went round, the guests were quite as comfortable as they could wish.
As the duke, Jonathan had been assigned a spot beside Claire again, of course, with Mrs. Chase on his other side. His spirits revived by hot tea and Cheshire sandwiches, he lounged among a heap of cushions, feeling almost carefree. Though he would have liked to chat with Mr. Hawkins, a well-traveled sort always full of interesting stories, at the moment their relative placement allowed for no more than perfunctory conversation.
Instead, Jonathan admired the view beyond the tent opening, which was principally of the adjacent bath house. Or rather, what once had been a bath house, for all that remained of it were crumbling foundations, the rough outlines of an elegant plunge pool, and a remarkable mosaic floor.
Somebody had swept the mosaic clear of snow. Worked in thousands of tiny millennia-and-a-half-old tiles, it depicted intricate patterns of entwined snakes surrounding the head of Medusa. Though her face was ugly and cold-eyed, Jonathan knew the Roman Britons had looked upon the monster as a protector, and privately he greeted her with all the warmth of an old friend.
“Mrs. Chase,” he then felt so enlivened as to inquire, “I wonder whether you share your husband’s antiquarian bent?”
“My Nathaniel, an antiquarian?” Mrs. Chase threw back her head and laughed. “Begging your grace’s pardon, but whatever gave you such an idea?”
Jonathan frowned. “Yesterday he expressed an interest in Roman amphorae.”
“Oh, he did once make a mint off a pair of those”—she leaned closer and whispered—“which, between ourselves, may or may not have been genuine.” She emitted a little laugh, or maybe a tiny snort. “But I assure you that is quite as far as his interest extends.”
Jonathan was dismayed by this revelation and, perhaps out of habit, looked to Claire to share his feelings. But she clearly hadn’t heard the exchange. Instead she seemed absorbed in gazing upon the Medusa, her brow once again crossed with anxious lines.
Amid feeble and fading hopes, Jonathan hadn’t forgotten her offer of friendship; and just at present, she appeared sorely in need of a friend. Perhaps he’d try his hand at being one and see whether he could cheer her up.
Casting about for a neutral, friendly overture, he finally settled on: “Is this your first visit to the ruins, Lady Claire?”
Turning to him with brows arched in surprise, she shook her head. “My brother brought me here in the spring.”
He felt a pang of disappointment.
He’d wanted to be the one to show her this place.
“Your friend Mr. Lysons was kind enough to give me a tour,” she went on stiffly. Then she appeared seized by some unsettling recollection, and an abashed look crossed her face. “I was sorry to hear of his passing soon afterward.”
Jonathan’s speech being hindered by a sudden tightness in his throat, he merely nodded his thanks.
Mr. Lysons had died in June, but the news hadn’t reached Italy till September. He’d been a good man, a venerated scholar, and something of a mentor to Jonathan during his years at Oxford. In fact, he was the first man who’d ever encouraged Jonathan’s academic interest, rather than prodding him toward other pursuits more befitting a duke.
“He seemed very fond of you,” she added gently.
“Oh?” Jonathan cleared his throat. “Mentioned me, did he?”
She smiled sidelong. “He spoke of little else.” Deepening her voice like a man’s, she added: “‘These tremendously important shards were assembled by young Jonathan.’”
He gave a hearty chuckle at that. “You do a fair impersonation.”
Her eyes danced. “‘Young Jonathan reckoned this inscrutable heap of rocks was the stables, though any fool can see it was a garden shed.’”
“Bah! Speculation on both sides, sir!”
“‘And then we discovered our seven-hundredth hypo-whatsit the day Jonathan fell through the floor.’”
“Treachery,” Jonathan cried, wiping away tears of mirth. “He promised to keep that incident secret! And the word is hypocaust.”
“La, if you say so!” When Claire’s laughter subsided, she drained her tea, regarding Jonathan over the cup with a friendlier expression. “Setting jokes aside, Mr. Lysons spoke of you like a son. One who made him quite proud.”
Jonathan’s pleasure mingled with a familiar feeling of guilt, for he was all too aware he’d been a poor ‘son’ to Mr. Lysons this year. While the old scholar kept up their longtime correspondence, the young protégé, mired in gloom and self-pity, rarely found the will to answer his letters.
And then it was too late.
