Moonlight Square: Books 1-4 (Plus Bonus Prequel Novella), page 22
“Very well,” he said in a long-suffering tone, laughing when she smacked him in the arm to jolt an answer out of him. “All right, all right! You don’t have to beat me, Miss Carvel. I said I’d come.”
“Good! Because I am going to have the most glorious gown made just for the occasion and I am going to be…magnificent!”
“Well, then, this I truly must see.” He sighed. “I suppose you do have to start spending all that blunt of yours. By the way, if any of these flower boys gives you any trouble, just let me know and I’ll thrash ’em for you.”
The offer took her aback. “How sweet.”
“Eh, don’t flatter yourself. It’s only for your brother’s sake, Felicity. Honor and all that rot.”
“Ah, right, of course,” she answered, matching his tone of mock gravity. “I’m sure they won’t perturb me, anyway. But you know, if it ever came to that, you wouldn’t necessarily have to do the thing yourself. You, being a duke and all. Perhaps you could become the patron of a skilled assassin next.”
“That is an excellent idea. It’s not like any woman’s worth getting punched in the face for.”
“Absolutely not!”
“Not even the one who followed me around pestering me since she was old enough to walk.”
“Mm, there’s no accounting for taste. And besides,” she said, “what if you fought my suitors and one of them broke your nose? Let’s be honest, Jason. You really can’t afford to get any uglier.”
He grinned. “Hold on. I’ll think of a snappy rejoinder any minute now.”
“You see? This is what happens when you dull your wits with liquor every night.”
“Don’t scold me, you minx.”
“Somebody has to.”
They were both still grinning at each other over their exchange of playful insults when Mrs. Brown appeared in the parlor doorway.
“Ahem.” She glowered at the easy, romping warmth that filled the room, then greeted him with a wary nod. “Your Grace.”
“Mrs. Brown. Ahem.” The great rakehell stood at attention and gave her a very correct bow.
Felicity smiled at the woman. Nothing could dim her mood now. “Are you ready to go and imbibe from the well of the muses, Mrs. Brown?”
“Just let me get my parasol,” she said with a last suspicious glare.
After she had bustled off, Jason leaned down to murmur in Felicity’s ear. “’Tis my mission today to get on her good side.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Watch and learn,” he whispered.
A few minutes later, they left the house and walked out to his extravagant black town coach. Then, as they set out for the artists’ house, he proceeded to work his charm on the older lady.
He attempted first to draw her out by asking her about her hobbies. Mrs. Brown was reluctant to engage in conversation with him, but resisting the Duke of Netherford was easier said than done. He had been conquering female opposition of all kinds with that devilish smile since the day he was born.
Felicity watched the two of them in amusement, helping him just enough to point out that Mrs. Brown was a fabulous hand at cribbage and produced impeccable embroidery.
Steered onto the right path, he was soon wearing her down. Why he bothered, Felicity scarcely knew. She was rather annoyed at her chaperone, herself. All Felicity had been able to think about for the past two days was Jason, but Mrs. Brown wanted her to direct her interests elsewhere. Anywhere but toward him.
“I doubt he has any interest in marriage,” Mrs. Brown had said with a sniff earlier that day. Felicity had to admit the woman had probably been right.
In truth, she did not know how she had let herself get swept up in him so quickly once again.
I’m only setting myself up to be hurt, she thought.
But she couldn’t seem to stop. It was dizzying, how connected to him she felt once again, despite the time and distance that had passed between them. Their old bond had instantly returned, as though they’d never been estranged. Being with him had always left her rather breathless as a girl. She would have hoped that part of her would have outgrown him by now, but apparently not. Even to this day, all grown up, she was as excited to be near him, as drawn in by his magnetism as she had been in the past.
Perhaps this time she could at least refrain from crawling onto his lap and trying to kiss him…
All she knew was that, for once, her brother wasn’t there to come between them, to pull her back and reel him in.
For once, at last, deliciously, she finally had Jason all to herself.
The question was, what was she going to do with the opportunity?
She considered it as she sat across from him in his elegant carriage, studying him discreetly. He really was a pleasure to look at. As she watched him pretending to be interested in hearing Mrs. Brown describe her latest sewing project, she found herself wondering why he went through so many lovers.
Boredom? Ego? Or did his hunger go deeper? It was as though he was constantly seeking something he could never find. In her heart of hearts, she knew what it was and the blasted man was looking in the wrong place, consuming the wrong thing. Gorging himself on what would never slake his hunger. A man at sea could drink all the water in the ocean and still die of thirst.
With everything in her, Felicity felt—had always felt—that she could give Jason what he needed. Satisfy him completely. A dangerous thought.
For her to try had always been her riskiest impulse, her parents’ occasional worry, and her brother’s greatest fear.
She was not blind to the fact that the effort could end in her destruction. Maybe he had been wise to stay away, she thought with a sigh. For heaven’s sake, she did not wish to be the cause of some hideous Greek-style tragedy with him and her brother shooting each other at twenty paces at dawn.
But it didn’t have to end that way. Not if she could make him love her.
Nakedly admitting that desire to herself took even Felicity by surprise.
The carriage soon rolled to a halt before a handsome middle-class sort of residence in bustling Bloomsbury, home to the British Museum and to countless bookshops and coffeehouses frequented by poets and artists. The redbrick house had a green-painted door, three windows per story, and a wide but shallow balcony running across the width of the second floor.
As soon as his footman got the carriage door for them, Jason stepped out and handed the ladies down. They began walking toward the front door of the house when it swung open before them.
There stood a handsome young man with tousled black hair and romantically disheveled clothes, which immediately identified him as one of the resident artists.
If this had not sufficed, of course, his Italian accent would have done so. “Your Grace! Welcome, signore! Ladies, benvenuto! Come in, come in!”
“Allow me to present the sublimely talented painter, Mr. Omero Caradonna,” Jason said as they stepped into the small entrance hall. He then gave their names to the beautiful lad, who bowed to the ladies with a sweeping continental flourish.
“I am a-so happy you have come! Giovanelli told us you might honor us with a visit today, Your Grace. Alas—” Caradonna winced. “He, himself, is not here at the moment.”
“Ah. Of course he’s not,” Jason said dryly.
“He is a-very sorry. He forgot that he has to teach the pianoforte lesson to the young daughters of de Lord and Lady Edgecombe.”
“I think he’s hiding from me,” Jason murmured in a mild tone.
Caradonna politely pretended not to hear. “But it would be my honor to give your guests the tour, sir! Ladies, if I may, h-here is the parlor,” he said with obvious eagerness to please as he gestured to the doorway behind them. “If you like to see, I have a-dozens of my paintings in various stages of drying all over the walls in here. Come, come!”
As they joined him in the cozy front sitting room, they were soon ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the dizzying array of his artwork on the walls.
“A few of these, of course, are Sanfratello’s. He is mainly a sculptor but also paints from time to time. But not as good as me,” the young Italian added with a jolly little half-smile.
Felicity glanced at him and would have wagered that his sparkly black eyes won him a lot of female hearts. Caradonna answered their casual questions about what inspired him, how long such impressive paintings took to make, where he had studied, and so forth. In due time, they stepped back out into the entrance hall as their tour continued.
“Across from us is a-the business office,” Caradonna explained, “and back here are the rooms Giovanelli uses as his musical conservatory.”
They followed Caradonna as he strode farther into the house, waving them cheerfully into the room behind the parlor. “This is, in truth, de dining room. We still eat here some nights, but Giovanelli has claimed it.”
He glanced around at the ceiling. “He says it has the best acoustics. Ah, the sideboard used to stand over there, but as you see, now it is reserved for de maestro’s pianoforte.”
“The room is very spacious,” Mrs. Brown remarked. “But it is a pity Mr. Giovanelli could not be here himself. I daresay it’s rather disrespectful of him.”
“Is this the piece he’s been working on?” Felicity inquired, glancing over the hand-scrawled pages of a musical score that had been laid out across the large dining table.
A metronome sat in the center, acting as a paperweight.
“Ah, I am not certain, Signorina Carvel.” Caradonna gestured toward the doorway. “Giovanelli has also taken the library across from the way. You like to see?”
They went.
Though the library walls were lined with bookshelves, the furniture had been shoved back to make room for a quartet of plain wooden chairs and music stands, clearly a place for an ensemble to practice. Stringed instruments perched upright on stands. Woodwinds rested on the desk. Jason strummed his fingers lightly over the strings of a large harp in the corner as he drifted past it, but without the resident composer on hand to comment, they grew restless and soon headed upstairs.
“The servants’ quarters are on the top floor. These are our bedchambers, but here, in the front of the house, this is my domain.” Caradonna flashed a grin over his shoulder and then led them to a bright, airy drawing room. “Because of de balcony, this room gets de best light—and de best ventilation. The turpentine odor sometimes bothers the others. Me, I don’t even smell it anymore.”
He smiled at his patron, then, hand on heart, told them, “I am very happy here and very grateful for all His Grace has allowed me to create, as this is de passion and de purpose of my life.”
Felicity smiled at Caradonna and nearly swooned herself, then she glanced at Jason, who was looking slightly abashed by the Italian’s heartfelt thanks.
“And you think what you do doesn’t matter,” she said softly, only to him.
He looked over and his gaze locked on to hers. It was a lovely thing he had done here, making it possible for these artists to express their genius, creating works of beauty for the rest of humanity to enjoy.
“It does seem like a perfect artist’s studio,” Mrs. Brown remarked as she walked over to the French doors that let out onto the balcony.
Above them were large, arched windows through which the spring sunlight poured. There were easels and paintings everywhere; half-built frames; around the walls hung sketches of everything from faces to still lifes to architecture. Rural landscapes in pastels, city scenes in charcoals. Drying brushes were neatly laid out on rags beside paint-stained palettes.
“My goodness,” Felicity murmured as she walked slowly through the room. “You really are amazingly talented, Mr. Caradonna.”
He folded his hands behind his back, beaming at her praise. “Grazie mille, signorina.”
“Explain this one to me,” Mrs. Brown said, pointing at a blurry rendition of what looked like St. James’s Palace. “That is…what does it mean?”
While Caradonna attempted to explain to her chaperone that it didn’t actually mean anything, that he had just liked the lines and the ominous look of the place that night, Felicity leaned closer to gaze at one of his works in progress.
In it, two plump, apple-cheeked children flopped in a large wing chair side by side. The older boy—about four years old, if she had to guess—had his arm around a wee girl, probably aged two.
Felicity smiled, barely noticing Jason, from the corner of her eye, watching her intensely. She was about to ask if the children’s portrait was a commission or just Caradonna’s own pursuit when the very frank sketch of a nude woman draped across a couch startled the question right out of her head.
Egads, the couch in the drawing was identical to the one right over there by the wall. Which could only mean the drawing had been done right here.
She colored at the realization, casting a furtive glance toward the piece of furniture where the naked model had lounged. It dawned on her that, obviously, some rather risqué things went on around here…supposedly in the name of art.
But then, looking closer, it was not just the couch Felicity recognized. She had seen that woman in the sketch before. She suddenly remembered where.
It was the same face she had seen peering down at her from the top of the staircase in Jason’s house the other morning! Her jaw dropped, but she recovered quickly from her shock and turned with a low huff, instantly blushing. So which one is that? she wondered in disdain. Ginger or Velvet?
“Ahem, shall we, er, continue with our tour?” Jason suggested, perhaps noticing how quiet she had become. “Caradonna, would you lead the way to the coach house?”
The artist obliged, leading them outside to the garden, and explaining on the way that both the inventor’s lab and the sculptor’s studio were situated in the coach house, which had been converted into work spaces for them.
“Sanfratello’s marble blocks are so heavy the floor inside the house itself would not support them,” Jason elaborated. “The coach house floor is made of flagstone, and of course it has no steps to get in, like the house does.”
“Si, this way, de finished sculptures can be moved onto wagons and transported to their new homes more easily,” Caradonna chimed in. “As for Mr. Sloan’s laboratory, His Grace deemed it best to put it out there, as well, i-in case of any explosions.”
Mrs. Brown stopped midway down the garden path. “Did you say explosions?”
“Mr. Sloan likes to play with chemicals,” Jason said. “They can be volatile. As can he.”
“Are you sure it’s quite safe?” the older lady asked, frowning anew.
“Very safe, ma’am.” Approaching on the right side of the coach house, he gave a casual knock on the open door of the inventor’s lab. “Sloan?”
The red-haired, bespectacled inventor was younger than Felicity had expected. As Atticus Sloan greeted them absently, she arched a brow at the small whiskered face—a white ferret—peering at them out of the pocket of the inventor’s tatty coat.
“Er, one minute, please,” the inventor said, waving them through his laboratory and on to the sculptor’s studio with an impatient gesture. “I’ve almost got it. I’m terribly sorry, but I-I really must finish this equation before I…”
He never did finish the sentence, staring off into space.
“Of course,” Jason said in amusement, apparently used to him. “Ladies, this way.”
He beckoned them through the doorway that led into the sculptor’s studio in the other half of the coach house. As they walked through the laboratory, Mr. Sloan seemed oblivious to their presence. Ignoring his patron and guests alike, he whirled around, mumbling to himself and his ferret, and resumed furiously scribbling out a long equation on his large chalkboard on the wall.
Odd fellow. How he could even concentrate with all that banging coming from the other side of the building?
Once Felicity stepped through the doorway into the sculptor’s workshop, however, it was like entering a fairyland. A white stone forest of tall marble statues waited ahead, beckoning to be explored…
Heroic figures captured in the midst of dramatic action.
Rearing horses.
Goddesses on pedestals.
Centurions with spears.
Busts of a wrathful Zeus stared down from the shelves, as though the god were tempted to hurl lightning bolts at any intruders.
A life-sized Hermes with winged hat and shoes posed in midflight, off to deliver some message between the gods.
She walked among the statutes in wonder, looking each one up and down, while Jason trailed a few steps behind her. The banging grew louder as she reached the main work in progress in the center of the studio. She tilted her head back and stared up at it in amazement.
It was a massive composition of two figures, male and female, erupting upward in a frozen moment as they contested with each other, larger than life, in three dimensions.
Perched on the scaffolding beside it, chisel in hand, was a short, swarthy man in his forties with thick, hairy forearms and powerful hands. He wore an apron over his clothes and a tool belt around his hips, and his thinning black hair was coated in white dust.
When he saw them, he jumped down off the elevated platform and came around to greet them, wiping off his hands. Felicity was mystified to think that such sublime alabaster fantasies should issue forth from such an ordinary-looking, earthy, little man.
But she liked him at once. Vitale Sanfratello was warm and gracious—and devoid of pretension—as he welcomed them to his studio as though he were just another hardworking craftsman, not a genius of renown.
As soon as Jason did the introductions, Felicity could not hold back. “Mr. Sanfratello, may I just say this statue is remarkable!” she said, staring agog at the marble duo on which he had been working. “What do you call it?”
He just smiled at her, then glanced at Jason, who answered for him.
“It is called The Seduction of Hades. That’s Hades.” He pointed to the musclebound male, then the lithe female. “That’s Persephone, and they’re going into the entrance hall of Netherford Hall as soon as they are done.”
