Chapter One
Lady Eugenia Townsendtipped her face to Venice’s clear winter light—so unlike London’s gray murk at this time of year—and allowed herself the radical indulgence of being happy.
Freedom at last. After years of being comfortably independent yet thoroughly overmanaged by her formidable friend Lady Pendleton, she had let other people button up her life. (Lady Pendleton, thank heaven, was presently buttoning up someone else’s.) Now, at last, she was mistress of her own destiny.
“Eugenia! Your parasol! Your nose is already turning crimson!”
Eugenia sighed and turned. Miss Catherine Bentley—her younger chaperone by a decade—lowered herself into the cane chair opposite with the unruffled elegance of a duchess (which she most definitely was not). Yes, Catherine was the price of these precious months in Venice with Lord Thornton: part companion, part social barometer, always pontificating precisely what Eugenia ought—or ought not—to be doing.
Steeling herself to respond with quiet restraint, Eugenia smiled and said, “Ah, Catherine, I fear the battle is lost. I am an old woman already.”
An old woman definitely not in need of a chaperone, she added inwardly, irritation pricking as she spied Thornton, his tall frame silhouetted against the opulent interior of the rented palazzo that hadbeen home to their assorted band of English travelers for some months.
As ever, her heart attempted a youthful somersault at the sight of him—salt-and-pepper hair, broad shouldered, and beautifully improved by the Italian light. At her age, somersaults ought to have been relegated to the distant past. Yet Thornton had the peculiar effect of making her feel as hopeful and agile as any schoolroom miss.
His physique, alas, continued to draw admiring glances from ladies far younger than Eugenia—a fact Catherine had taken to pointing out with increasing frequency. And it was Thornton who had insisted that Catherine—the sister of his late wife—should accompany them.
“I thought I might find you ladies with your easels and paints, closeted in the water salon,” Lord Thornton remarked, taking a seat.
“The thought occurred to me, but I was too enraptured by the view to bestir myself,” said Eugenia. She turned back to the sun glinting on the waterway, its elegant backdrop of weathered palazzos rising from the canal like ancient sentinels. “Perhaps it defies being captured. I daresay even Turner himself would struggle to paint that precise shade of blue where the canal meets the lagoon.”
Catherine leaned in toward Thornton’s elbow with a little rustle of disapproval. “Oh, you and all your talk of painters! Why don’t we visit the casino instead?” Though she pretended impeccable respectability, Catherine was not one for scholarly pursuits, preferring the glittering social whirl of Venetian society.
“Or perhaps a ride on a gondola, given the magnificence of the weather,” said Thornton, subtly shifting away from her. “In fact, I took the liberty of ordering a gondolier after Mr. Rothbury suggested it, as he was hurrying off to Count Morosini, who grows ever more demanding for his Italian translations.”
Catherine craned her neck at a shout from the canal below. “Perhaps that is the gondolier already? Goodness, Thornton, no warning? Of course, we ladies must change.” Her tone suggested that Thorntonought to have consulted her first—as though she, rather than Eugenia, were the principal lady of their little Venetian party.
Eugenia twisted slightly to watch as a sleek black gondola with elegant gold trim approached the water entrance of their palazzo, the gondolier’s calls echoing off the ancient facades that lined the canal.
“I didn’t request a gondola until this evening,” Thornton said, rising and joining Eugenia, who had gone to stand at the balustrade.
The boat glided to a stop at the water steps beneath their balcony, two figures now standing ready to disembark. One, dressed in the height of English fashion, tilted her parasol against the late afternoon sun, obscuring her face as the older woman beside her paid the gondolier.
And then, as the younger woman was helped onto dry land, first her golden hair, then her young familiar face came into view. Eugenia gasped, her gloved hand flying to her mouth. “Good heavens! If I’m not mistaken—”
“Indeed, you’re not! That’s Miss Playford,” Thornton cut in, clearly as surprised as Eugenia. “But what on earth is she doing in Venice?”
“On her marriage tour, perhaps?” suggested Catherine, her tone sharpening with interest as she joined them.
“I believe I would have heard if that were the case,” said Eugenia.
“As yes, she was betrothed to Lord Windermere, then came into money and had the sense God gives a sparrow to throw him over.” Catherine’s tone crackled with disapproval. “The sheets called her the Unexpected Heiress. Or Unlikely. I forget which adjective. Alone in Venice? Brave. Or reckless.”
Eugenia glanced between Catherine and Thornton. He was holding his tongue, though Eugenia knew he’d held a soft spot for Miss Playford when he’d first met her at Lady Pendleton’s “Ghostly Gathering” a few years before. The girl had been a quiet, frightened thing then, straight out of the schoolroom and overshadowed by herdomineering aunt.
So, Miss Playford, England’s newest heiress, was here in Venice. Alone.
And Eugenia would offer her every kindness, for it was due to Eugenia’s audacious wager regarding Miss Playford’s marital conquests the year before that had led to Eugenia being in Italy in the first place.
Thank the Lord that the “good sense of a sparrow”—as Catherine put it—had prevailed and Miss Playford had escaped the clutches of that villainous fortune hunter—and kidnapper—Lord Windermere.
“So, Miss Playford has come to conquer Venice.” It seemed that Catherine was determined to remain unimpressed by Miss Playford’s good qualities: her bravery and her beauty.
To Eugenia’s mind, the young woman’s skin appeared even more luminescent than she remembered, and there was an almost ethereal cast to her features. The frightened and timid demeanor that had distinguished her while she had been under her Aunt Pike’s guardianship back in London was no longer in evidence. In its place was a charming poise with a touch of vulnerability that tugged at Eugenia’s soft heart.
“I would imagine Miss Playford is here to make up for her lack of freedom while in her aunt’s care. Neither the aunt nor Lord Windermere was kind to her.”
She cast a pointed glance at Thornton, silently urging him to speak up on the girl’s behalf.
