“Robert, save your strength. Let me finish,” Nora Haley soothed.
“Go on.” Jamie turned to politely watch the little widow. Her brother appeared to slip beyond speech.
“Father is unaware that Isabella exists, as I told you,” she ground out. “He would be outraged by Robert’s marriage, if he knew of it, outraged by Isabella.”
“He’s a vicar?” Jamie asked.
His employer nodded and went on. “For now, she is in the care of the sisters. Her mother’s family approves of that arrangement.”
“But not of her very English aunt?” he guessed.
Her cheeks flushed, but she didn’t shrink. “They don’t know about me as yet. Robert wishes?—”
“Isabella must be raised Catholic. The Count—” Beaumont’s voice, strong with emotion, startled Jamie. The implication startled him even more.
“What count?” Jamie felt his heart pound.
“The Count di Castellimonte, my wife’s uncle, and her guardian. He—” Beaumont tried to interject, but his burst of strength ebbed as quickly as it had come. “The Count is of no consequence,” he whispered.
No consequence? The Count di Castellimonte, cousin to the King of Sardinia, the kingdom’s eyes and ears in Rome, represented very great consequence—consequence and trouble.Jamie kept his curses silent.
“Every child deserves a family, Major,” Beaumont said before his eyes drifted shut.
Nora Haley touched her brother’s head. “Robert,” she soothed. “We're going to Isabella.”
Beaumont’s eyes flickered back open. “Be careful, Nora. Don't trust…” His voice trailed into silence.
“Don’t trust” sounded like damned good advice to Jamie.If the chit has any sense, she'd demand her money back, even the half in my landlord’s pocket.
The widow stood. “My brother needs his rest, Major. We're going to Isabella now.”
The little wren marched out of her brother’s room and into thestreet without looking to see if Jamie followed. He did, glad to shake the smell of death. He recognized command when he heard it.
“You’ll interpret. That is all I require of you. It’s simple enough.”
Jamie trudged behind his employer.
He believed the tattered remnants of his honor had died when he sold his dress uniform to eat. Now the woman’s “simple” requirements threatened to wake that sense of honor from the dead.
Simple? Only if I forgot that Italians were even less tolerant of independent women than Englishmen. Simple only if Castellimonte couldn’t destroy this chit with a word. Simple only if the foolish woman had any hope of caring for a child that speaks no English and practices a religion that would give her grandfather an attack of apoplexy.
“Major, do you have a question about what I require?”The damned woman sounds like a governess and looks like she’s wound so tightly she might snap.
Jamie unclenched his jaw and stifled his inconvenient attack of conscience. She hired him to interpret, not to investigate counts.Interpret. No more.
She believed his word, and he took her money. He owed her a month. How she chose to use it need not concern him.
“No, Mrs. Haley. No questions. What you require is simple enough.
Chapter Four
An overwhelming urge to throttle her new employee swept through Nora. Cold seeped through her gown, and her back ached from trying to sit upright on a marble bench in the convent garden while he prattled away with a tiny girl.The man has no sense. An intelligent person can’t even converse with him!
The major had evaded her questions about his background. When he did speak, he spouted nonsense all the way to Santo Spirito. He feigned subservience and ignored direct orders. He treated ladies with cool politeness and flirted with elderly nuns and small girls.
Nora had watched helplessly while the major bantered in Italian with the irritable sister who guarded the gate. The nun’s eyes grew wide. Just when Nora thought they would be turned away, the old woman chuckled to herself and let them in. Whatever he had said sounded like it was inappropriate, but it worked.
“Whatever you do, Major, do not antagonize the superior of the convent,” she had admonished when they were shown into a parlor.
