“Very well, I’m sure.” The proprietor appeared, and Randolph settled the bill with a gratuity that put an ecstatic expression on the man’s face. When the proprietor had left, Randolph continued, “Since it will not cost you your situation, will you accept my escort?”
She hesitated, and he felt a constriction somewhere in his middle. Probably the pizza fighting the antipasto.
Then she smiled. “That would be very nice. I am going back to my pensione, and it is not in the most elegant part of the city.”
As they made their way through the piazza, Randolph carrying her canvas bag, she explained, “I am giving drawing lessons to my landlady, Sofia, who has been a good friend to me over the years. She is free for only an hour or so at the end of the afternoon, and if I am late, she will be deprived of her lesson.”
Would Mrs. Bertram have abandoned the company of a man in order to fulfill a promise to a landlady? Randolph knew the question was so foolish as not to merit an answer.
As they threaded their way through increasingly narrow, crowded streets, Miss Walker gave an irreverent and amusing commentary on the sights. While she did not neglect splendors like the recently rebuilt San Carlo opera house, her real talent lay in identifying Neapolitan sights like the ribbons of wheat paste drying on backyard racks, and the ancient statue of a pagan goddess, now rechristened and worshiped as a Christian saint in spite of a distinctly impious expression.
All too soon they arrived at the pensione, a shabby town house on a noisy street. Miss Walker turned to make her farewell. “Thank you for the luncheon and escort, Lord Randolph. While you are in Italy, stay away from designing young baggages, no matter how dire their straits seem to be.”
Impulsively Randolph said, “The discerning eye that makes you an artist also makes you a fine tour guide. Since you are at liberty now, would you consider acting as my guide? You could protect me from the designing baggages directly.” When she frowned, he said coaxingly, “I would be happy to pay you for your time, at double the rate of the boring fellow who insisted that I eat only English food.”
“It is not a matter of money,” she said, uncertain in the face of his unusual offer. “Why do you want me for a guide?”
“Because I enjoy your company,” he said simply.
For a moment her serene good humor was shadowed by vulnerability. Then she gave a smile different from her earlier expressions of amusement. This smile came from somewhere deeper, and it transformed her plain face to fleeting loveliness. “Then I will be very glad to be your guide.”
Elizabeth woke with a glow of anticipation. At first she could not recollect why. Then she remembered.
It was not yet time to rise, so she opened her eyes and gazed at the ancient fresco on the ceiling. In truth it was badly drawn, but without her spectacles, it looked splendid, a magical landscape inhabited by flawless lads and lasses. One golden lad looked rather like Lord Randolph Lennox must have at eighteen.
She tucked her arms under her head and reveled in the strange and wondrous chance that had brought them together. Perhaps heaven was giving her a special Christmas present as a reward for managing to keep Maria pure until her marriage? Elizabeth chuckled at the thought. The longer she lived in Italy, the more superstitious she became.
Eager to begin the day, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and slid her feet into the waiting slippers. Then she began the slow process of brushing out her hair, which was thick and very curly. In the morning it tumbled over her shoulders in a wild mass and at least once a week she considered cutting it, but never did. A governess had little enough femininity.
Patiently she unsnarled a knot. He had said that he was harmless, but that was only partially true. Certainly he would not threaten her virtue, for he was a gentleman and she wasn’t the kind of woman to rouse a man to unbridled lust. Heavens, not even bridled lust!
But that didn’t mean Lord Randolph was harmless, because of course she would fall in love with him. Any lonely spinster worth her salt would do the same if thrown into the company of a man who was charming, kind, intelligent, and handsome as sin. And he would never even notice, which was as it should be.
After a day or two he would tire of sightseeing, or go north to Rome, or become involved in the glittering circle of court life for which he was so well qualified. And she would begin the task of taming the terrible twins, and tuck the image of Lord Randolph away in her heart, next to that of William.
She might cry a little when he was gone for good, if she wasn’t too busy with the twins. But she wouldn’t be sorry to have known him. Though magic must sometimes be paid for with pain, that was better than never knowing magic at all.
When she was old and gray and dry, she would take his image out and dream a little. If anyone noticed, they would wonder why the old lady had such a cat-in-the-cream pot smile on her withered lips.
Elizabeth glanced into the cracked mirror. With her glasses off and her hair curling madly around her face, she looked more like a blowsy baroque nymph than a governess.
For just a moment she let herself dream. Lord Randolph would fall in love with her beautiful soul and marry her out of hand. England would be home, but they would make long visits to Italy. They would have three children. She might be starting late, but she was healthy.
She would paint powerful unusual canvases that some people would love and others would loathe. His aristocratic family would be delighted that Lord Randolph had found a wife of such fine character and talent.
Her mouth thinned and she put her spectacles on and began tugging her hair back. As the nymph vanished into the governess, she knew that he would not fall in love with her. If he did, she could not marry him. Even in her wildest flights of fancy, she could not escape the knowledge that her actions had put respectable marriage forever out of reach. But that did not mean that Elizabeth could not enjoy this rare, magical interlude.
And she did.
In Rome, she’d heard of an Englishman who had decided that the main point of seeing sights was to say that one had seen them, so he had hired a carriage and crammed the Eternal City into two fevered days so he could devote the rest of his time to dissipation. Fortunately Lord Randolph proved to be a visitor of quite a different stamp, interested in everything and willing to take the time to absorb as well as see.
She began by taking him to all of Naples’s famous sights. When it became clear that he shared her taste for the unusual, she expanded the itinerary to include more eccentric amusements. Over the next week they explored Naples’s narrow, teeming streets, ate fresh fruit, pasta, and ices purchased in the markets, and stopped to enjoy arias of heart-stopping purity that soared from the open windows of tenements.
When it rained they searched dark churches for neglected paintings by great masters, and smiled together at signs that offered, “Indulgences Plenary, daily and perpetual, for living and the dead, as often as wanted.” As Lord Randolph remarked, it was precisely the way a London draper would advertise.
Tactfully, Lord Randolph did not again suggest hiring her services. Instead, he paid for all admissions, meals, and other expenses.
On fair days he hired a carriage and driver and they went into the countryside. They visited Baia, which had been a fashionable Roman bathing resort, and speculated about the palaces that now lay beneath the sea. At Herculaneum they marveled at the city that had emerged after almost two thousand years beneath volcanic mud, and Elizabeth did sketches that populated the ruins with puzzled, ghostly Romans.
