“You appear to be a devotee ofla penna, signore.”
A contralto voice in heavily-accented English halted Ethan’s pencil with an audiblescritch.
He raised his head and sucked in a startled breath.
The lady had lifted her veil.
Gray eyes framed by velvety long lashes met his gaze.
Aye . . . stunned stupid.
Those were literally the only words that Ethan Penn-Leith could string together.
It felt nearly cliché that he—a poet theLondon Timeshad recently heralded as a ‘writer of endless invention’—should be robbed of adjectives by a pretty face. And yet . . .
He sat up straighter, mentally reaching for that roguish part of himself—the one that had charmed bullies at Eton and made friends of enemies at Oxford.
And then . . . Ethan smiled. The very smile Malcolm dubbedThe Swooner, as it had a tendency to cause ladies to faint when deployed.
For the record, Malcolm was not wrong.
This lovely Italian lady did not swoon, more’s the pity.
She did, however, blink. Twice.
So perhaps she was not entirely unmoved.
That slight tick bolstered Ethan’s confidence.
What had she asked him?
Oh, right.
“My pen?” he replied. “I do feel compelled to write when I am inspired, madam. A beautiful vista often does the trick.”
“Ah.” The lady leaned forward to peer out the window. The movement pulled her bodice tighter against her torso and sent a heady breeze of exotic perfume wafting over him. Jasmine, perhaps, with undertones of ambergris and rose. Ethan breathed in deeply. The lady’s dress was well made, but with its puffed sleeves and rounded waistline, the garment was decidedly five years out of fashion. Had she dyed an older dress black for mourning?
Unruffled by Ethan’s gaze, she merely studied the soaring mountains surrounding them.
They had finally reached the beginning of theDolomiti, the craggy granite mountains that stretched for hundreds of miles within the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venice and the Austrian Empire. The rugged terrain rendered the region a bit of a no-man’s-land, an endless expanse of peaks and valleys that hid charming Alpine villages and enterprising bandits in equal numbers.
Should adventure find him, Ethan had come equipped. A Belgian pin-revolver rested in the satchel at his feet—a gift from his brother-in-law, Captain Fox Carnegie. Engraved with Ethan’s name, the gun was the latest in modern weaponry, able to fire off six rounds in rapid succession.
In looking at the elegant lady across from him, he had to wonder—why hadshebraved the danger of the Dolomites?
“I have always adored the mountains of theSüdtirol,” she said, as if responding to his unasked question. The husky timbre of her voice abraded Ethan’s skin, causing all the fine hairs to stand at attention. “The view is remarkably inspiring.”
“I agree,” he grinned. “But that vista is not what inspires me at the moment.”
The lady tilted her eyes back to his in surprise.
Ethan allowed the warmth of his gaze, a brief up-down glance, and a flash of The Swooner to communicate his meaning.
Instead of blushing or lowering her head, the lady merely raised an eyebrow. “Bravo.Cleverly done, sir.”
“Thank ye.”
Beautifulanda quick flirt.
