Wat Jones entered in his ill-fitting livery holding a small tray with two messages. They never did decide on a role—footman or butler.
“These arrived, Major, one right after the other,” the man said. “I thought they might not keep until morning.”
Jamie took them and dismissed the servant, who looked at him with a skeptical eye.
“I said you may go, Wat,” Jamie told him. “These are probably wedding greetings.” The man shuffled out.
“Who are they from?” Nora asked.
“The first appears to be from the Palazzo di Savoia.” He broke the seal and scanned the contents. “Wedding greetings, as I surmised,” he said, handing it to her. He tore open the other one.
“He must have been informed by Mother Margarita. Congratulations and a summons,” she said.
“Yes, we’re to be honored with a wedding supper in two days,” he said, scanning the second message.
“I suppose we’ll have to get used to it,” Nora said. “Who is the other one from?”
“Wentworth,” he told her, without taking his eyes from it.
“Wentworth? What does he want?” she asked.
“To congratulate us, of course,” he said. “News travels as fast in Rome as in London.”
“Is that all?”
My head on a platter and my liver for his lunch, he thought. He didn’t answer her.
The words in the message filled his head.
Bently
Married the chit? Good. Now you can get to work. I expect to hear from you by week’s end.
Wentworth
“That’s all of it?”Nora asked, reaching for it, frowning deeply.
He stuffed the message in his pocket and yawned deeply. “I fear I need to turn in,” he said. “I have work to do tomorrow.”
He left her, still frowning, without looking back.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Wentworth can do his own damned work,” Jamie growled to an empty room. He slammed his portfolio onto the dainty table in the salon the staff of Palazzo di Savoia had assigned for his lessons and ran an agitated hand through his hair.
Nora has Isabella. I should leave, he thought.
Wentworth or his man would see to her formal guardianship.If I hadn’t spent Wentworth’s money on a damned cameo, I could be gone by now.
“Good afternoon.” Giovanni interrupted his train of thought, and Jamie forced a smile to greet his eager pupil, glad for the distraction.
“Good afternoon,” he said in return.
The young man gave the slightest nod, slipped into his seat, and began to scan the assignment Jamie had given them.
Footsteps in the hall signaled the arrival of the others. He wondered how many of them had bothered with the lesson he had assigned.
Footsteps stopped, and a new voice joined the murmur of conversation—Victor Filiberto.
