Lilian And The Irresistible Duke

Chapter Four

For the fifth time in as many minutes, he glanced at the door, literally counting the seconds till she came through it. Just as he had last night and the night before. In fact, Pietro could not seem to stop thinking about her despite completely immersing himself in work and having as little to do with her as possible this past week.

That wasn’t completely true.

He had recklessly offered to be her guide at the Sistine Chapel because he wanted to see her face when she finally saw Michelangelo’s greatest masterpiece after her touching and poignant reaction to his fresco, selfishly delaying her planned visit there to fit around his business commitments. And while he had avoided her as much as he could throughout the days, he couldn’t resist seeking out her company at dinner, then talking and harmlessly flirting with her till bedtime. Like clockwork, his feet took him home with plenty of time to change and be seated in the salotto in time to watch her arrival. Something which was rapidly becoming the highlight of his day.

The Lilian who came to dinner was a very different woman from the one he had met in England at Christmas. Gone were the plain, sensible clothes, burdened demeanour and troubled eyes, replaced by a vivacious, glamourous and constantly smiling creature who laughed a great deal and whose emerald eyes sparkled with joy and intelligence. She was loving her visit to Rome and her enjoyment of it was infectious.

Each evening, he made a point of asking about her day and then listened intently as she recounted it with such exuberance and wonder, he felt as if he was seeing the place of his birth and his home for all his forty-eight years on the earth for the first time. For Lilian, everything was an adventure, from the spectacle of the Colosseum and the ghostly ruins of ancient Rome, to the everyday sights, sounds and smells of the street markets. In all cases, it was her reaction which he adored and he blamed the fresco entirely for his new obsession with her.

Pietro had lost count of the number of people he had shown it to. Its rumoured beauty was one of Rome’s most well-known secrets and, aside from all the business connections he regularly brought home to see it to help aid his negotiations with them, there were also curious dinner guests who always asked to see it.

But Lilian’s reaction had been special and different. When nearly everyone encouraged him to have experts study the brushwork to ascertain which parts were by the Great Masters the legend claimed, or commented on how much money that ceiling alone would bring for his house if he ever decided to sell it, she had been more interested in the story of his besotted great-great-great-great-grandparents. She saw the fresco as a declaration of deep and abiding love and was caught up in the romance of his ancestors rather than the value of the painting.

In fact, Lilian had a talent for seeing the intensely personal in everything. The gladiator’s feelings as he walked into the arena of the Colosseum rather than the architecture of the amphitheatre. Bracci’s human inspiration for Oceanus on the Fontana di Trevi. Even the men who carved the stones which built St Peter’s. How they must have felt to be part of the creation of something so significant. In humanising everything in the city he had taken for granted for most of his adult life, she brought a new dimension to it, a new appreciation which was filtering down into his own work. Something which had been sorely missing for a very long time.

Today he had sold a painting by di Banco, a lesser artist of the Renaissance. Pietro had never much cared for his work because the brushwork and skill lacked the sophistication and subtlety of many of his significantly better contemporaries. He had picked up the small portrait, done in oils, for next to nothing a few years back from a conte who had been systematically stripping his villa of valuables. Uninspired by this one, Pietro had consigned the little portrait to storage where it lay forgotten until he sensed he had found a buyer. The Conte didn’t know who the ancestor was so had no emotional attachment to it.

The wealthy English merchant who had bought it only wanted the portrait to give credence to the expensive illusion he was creating—to convince others his money was old and his bloodline was noble, buying the nameless ancestors of others to hang in his new mansion built in the fashionably classical style. These sorts of transactions, although not exciting, were currently very lucrative. Anyone who wasn’t anyone, but desperately wanted to be someone now they had money, knew if they came to Pietro Venturi, he would be able to fill their walls with suitably aged and convincing fake ancestors to impress their visitors while being guaranteed of his silence. In fact, at least a hundred forgotten and unwanted portraits hung in the private gallery behind his main one on the Via del Corso. He had never cared if his clients walked away with a stunning Canaletto cityscape to hang above their fireplace or the cracked portrait of a nameless, forgotten old lady by an unknown artist of yore. All he cared about was making the sale.

Yet Pietro had pondered that crude portrait all day, wondering for the first time about the young man who was staring tentatively out of the aged canvas rather than the handsome profit he would make from it. He wished he had shown it to Lilian before he had sent it off. She would have come up with at least twenty theories about the fellow—who he was, what he was thinking and why he was having his portrait painted in the first place—just as she did each evening when they strolled together around the palazzo and he pointed out some new treasure for her to speculate over. She wouldn’t care how many scudi it had made. He had never met a person more unimpressed with money than Lilian and in turn that lack of interest made him re-evaluate his obsession with it. He had made himself far more money than he could ever spend—perhaps now he should take a leaf out of her book and begin to enjoy life? He envied her her freedom, even though all the restrictions in his life were of his own making.

She came through the door and he drank in the sight of her. ‘You were right, Pietro!’ Typically, she was beaming and brimming with the excitement of the day’s adventure. ‘The Piazza del Popolo was well worth the visit. And so unspoilt. I felt exactly as if I was walking in the Rome of the fifteenth century.’

‘My feet feel as if I’ve been walking since the fifteenth century!’ Alexandra flopped on to the sofa opposite him. ‘If you are going to continually offer her new suggestions to drag me along to, I think you should take some of the responsibility for the walking. I was all done by two. But somebody…’ she glared at her cousin ‘…insisted we traipse all the way down the Via Leonina because a certain somebody…’ then she glared at him ‘…encouraged her to seek out the fresco at the Trinità dei Monti, which also involved the climbing of those ridiculous Spanish Steps. All one hundred and thirty-eight of them!’

He ignored Alexandra’s complaining to focus on her companion. ‘What did you think?’

Lilian’s face said it all. ‘It was a stunning fresco! And you are right, da Volterra is a master. One I had never heard of before. Yet, you can still can see the influence and genius of Michelangelo in the painting—exactly as you said.’

‘It was he who gained da Volterra the commission in the first place. Volterra is said to have based it on Michelangelo’s design and drawings.’ It was so wonderful to be able to converse with another about art. One who reminded him why he had fallen in love with the subject in the first place. He had never met another person who seemed to feel it all as keenly as he did.

‘That doesn’t surprise me. The composition…the way he paints the figures. It leaps out at you. The expressions of grief on the faces of his followers as they reverently lower the body of Christ from the cross brought a tear to my eye. It was so visceral…so utterly tragic.’

Alexandra rolled her eyes, unenthused with their topic of conversation. ‘The pain in my poor feet brings tears to my eyes, too. Not that anyone cares. I hope you know a good cobbler, Carlotta. Another couple of days at this pace and my walking shoes will need new soles.’

‘Yet history has condemned him to be known for ever as Il Braghettone—literally the breeches maker—because he was hired by Pope Pius the Fourth to cover the genitalia on works of art in the Vatican.’

‘Poor da Volterra. To have his greatness forgotten.’ Her eyes locked with his and he realised they were kindred spirits. She understood his thoughts. He understood hers. He could see them in her eyes.

How bizarre…

‘Why don’t you take the carriage? You do not have to walk everywhere.’ His sister, like Alexandra, couldn’t see what all the fuss was about and this, too, was reflected in the amused exasperation in Lilian’s lovely gaze.

‘Because Lilian is determined to immerse herself fully in the experience and, apparently, she would miss things in the comfort of Pietro’s fine conveyance. Like the charming smells wafting from some of the side streets, for instance. The heady combination of rotting vegetables, stagnant water and the sweaty bodies of the great unwashed are also apparently intrinsic to Rome’s charm. It made me want to gag so I had to resort to burying my nose in my handkerchief, but Lilian didn’t appear the least bit offended by the stench. I swear, all her years working at the Foundation have completely destroyed her sense of smell.’

‘I am simply more robust of both body and character than you, Cousin.’ Another thing Pietro liked about her. Lilian was no shrinking violet. The brief years of his marriage had proved he had no time for those. ‘However, to be annoyingly magnanimous and to appease you and your poor old feet, we shall take the carriage to the Pantheon tomorrow.’

‘But Sofia has invited us to take tea with her tomorrow. I accepted on your behalf, Alexandra.’

‘Oh.’ Pietro saw the flash of disappointment on Lilian’s face at his sister’s announcement. ‘Who is Sofia?’

‘The Marchesa di Gariello.’

Pietro tried not to curl his lip in disgust at the mention of her name. Sofia was one of his greatest mistakes. A conniving, shallow and spiteful woman who lived to elevate her own importance by putting down others. She had also been one of the main reasons he had made unbreakable rules about the sort of affairs he had. She had claimed to only want an affair, but, being an old friend of the family, had used her friendship with his sister to attempt to force an engagement, claiming heartbreak and broken promises. And then when those did not work—worse.

‘A great friend from our youth. She hasn’t seen Alexandra in for ever.’ Carlotta’s eyes flicked to his awkwardly. To this day she did not know the half of it. ‘And we do not get to see her so much now either.’ Because Pietro had banned the manipulative witch from his house and had been upfront about his refusal to make promises to any woman beyond a night of unbridled passion ever since to avoid any confusion. He’d had one wife and that experience had taught him he never wanted another. And if he did, which he obviously very much didn’t, she would never be a woman like Sofia!

‘I doubt Lilian has any burning desire to meet Sofia any more than Sofia would want to meet her.’ Sofia liked titles and wealth, expensive things and shallow people, and for some reason he didn’t want the pair of them meeting. ‘If you do not mind accompanying me to my gallery briefly tomorrow, I would be delighted to be your escort at the Pantheon.’ It was an offer which he hadn’t intended to make until the words tumbled out of his mouth. Even after they had, he couldn’t decide if he regretted them.

‘What a splendid idea!’ His sister and her cousin exchanged a knowing look, which thankfully Lilian missed. ‘I doubt you would be particularly interested in the three of us gossiping about nonsense all afternoon and nobody would be a better guide than Pietro.’

‘My poor old feet would thank you,’ Alexandra said.

‘Well…if you do not mind, Pietro? Only I have been dying to see Raphael’s tomb.’

‘It would be my pleasure.’ Which he was surprised to realise it was—albeit a temptation he did not need. Nor did he appreciate the twin knowing expressions of the clearly matchmaking Carlotta and Alexandra. However, bizarrely, he did have an urge to show Lilian his gallery. And most specifically the four preliminary sketches he had been saving for exactly the right buyer for goodness knew how long.

She was already waiting for him by his carriage in the courtyard by the time he came downstairs. In deference to the beautiful spring morning, she wore no coat over her pretty, floral, long-sleeved dress and had chosen to carry her bonnet and crocheted shawl rather than put them on. Clearly looking out impatiently for him, she raised her hand in a cheery wave as he walked towards her and she wiggled her basket. ‘I’ve stolen a few pastries for the journey in case you are hungry.’ He had promised her breakfast in a charming café he knew, where they could sit outside on the cobbles and watch the busy streets she loved so much awaken, but had warned her the drive across the city could take nearly an hour. ‘Unless you don’t want any crumbs in your carriage, in which case I shall leave them behind.’

‘What are a few crumbs between friends?’ He took the basket, then her gloveless hand, indulging his urge to kiss it before he helped her into his carriage. ‘As it is early and quiet, I thought we would take the scenic route. The Tiber is always at its most beautiful first thing in the morning.’

They set off and followed the road which meandered through the old city. He had chosen the river route on purpose, not only to watch her joy as she saw it all with him as he told her all about his homeland, but to show her something he knew she would particularly enjoy. He kept his own counsel until they were practically on top of it and she was engrossed by the ruins on the opposite side of the carriage as it came to its prearranged stop. ‘Look to your left.’

‘At the island? Or the church?’

‘As lovely as they both are, they are not what I wanted to show you.’ He tilted her head to look beyond towards the fast-flowing river water and enjoyed the satisfaction of her gasp.

‘Is that a bridge?’ The ruined, shrub-covered white arches sitting disconnected in the centre of the river had always been his favourite bit of Rome. The ornate imperial carvings of water serpents adorning it were still as crisp now as they would have been when they first emerged beneath the talented stonemason’s chisel.

‘It was, once upon a time. In fact, it was a great bridge in its day, the most important bridge of the old city called the Pons Aemilius. It is a true feat of Roman engineering, connecting one half of the city with the other over the most treacherous stretch of the river.’ He pointed to the rapids buffering it, wondering, as he always did, how the old stones managed to withstand it and had done for two thousand years. ‘But nowadays we modern Romans call it the Ponte Rotto—because that is exactly what it is.’

‘Ponte Rotto?’

He loved how she spoke Italian words with her rounded English vowels, sounding so prim and proper when he knew she was not. ‘It means broken bridge in your language.’

‘I much prefer the way you say it.’ Her eyes were transfixed on the ruin, giving him the chance to study her face unhindered while he waited for the inevitable. Then he smiled when she said exactly what he knew she would say. ‘Imagine all those thousands of people who crossed it…the carts, the horses. Men, women, children, all going about their day.’ She closed her eyes briefly to picture it as she always did. ‘What were they like, do you suppose?’

‘Much like us, I assume. So wrapped up in the minutiae of their daily life that they forgot to marvel at the beauty around them. Or appreciate the sturdy bridge beneath their feet. But it was built to last, as you would expect from that great civilisation, and people walked across it for centuries until it was finally destroyed by a flood just three hundred years ago. Botticelli, Raphael, da Volterra and Michelangelo could feasibly all have walked over it at some point, too.’

‘Gracious.’ Another quaint English word he enjoyed the sound of coming from her mouth. ‘If only that bridge could talk…’

‘As a boy I used to come here and think much the same thing.’ He had forgotten that memory. Forgotten that he had once seen the world exactly like Lilian. ‘Yet I haven’t been here in years. Until you inspired me to remember it. Nor have I seen the Pantheon in for ever either. Clearly too caught up in the minutiae of my own life…’ He tapped the roof of the carriage and they slowly pulled away. ‘I wonder when I became so jaded by life I forgot to stop and look at the beauty?’

‘Life is like that. It drags you along with it and consumes you, until you forget everything except your daily struggles and the burdens they place upon you.’

‘When I met you last winter, you seemed burdened—and now you don’t. What is your secret?’

‘No secret—merely circumstances. Before Christmas my world seemed about to fall apart.’ Her eyes clouded at the memory. ‘I was worried about my son, who had disappeared from the face of the earth. I was worried about my husband’s Foundation and my home because we were running out of money, and I was worried that my eldest daughter was about to marry a man she patently did not love simply to give us all some financial security. It was a trying time.’

‘And now?’

She shrugged and shook her head. ‘And now, everything is miraculously fixed and forgotten. Time apparently does heal all. Things are miraculously so good, my children and the Foundation no longer need me, so I am here, having my first adventure in over twenty years and remembering what it felt like to be young and only responsible for myself for a change, rather than everyone and everything.’ Then she grinned, looking instantly younger. ‘Is it terrible that I have discovered I love it?’

‘Not terrible at all, cara.’ Although Pietro was envious of her newfound happiness. ‘Your children are all grown and married, it is your turn to have fun now. Everyone deserves the occasional adventure and I am so very glad you are enjoying yours. I have decided I need to do more things I enjoy.’ Like spending time with a certain delightful English woman who was doing wonders for his restlessness.

‘I have discovered a new zest for life simply by allowing myself to enjoy the little things here in Rome. You should take a leaf out of my book and do the same. Take pleasure in the little things without feeling guilty for it. You love the details…take the time to discover them. It does wonders for your mood. I have been in a ridiculously good mood since I first stepped ashore and realised I needed this holiday. And it is addictive. Each new day, each new little thing to enjoy makes me happier. So far, I have not found a single thing I dislike about this city.’

‘Give it time, cara…you will. The heat in the summer, for instance, can be unbearable and brings out the worst in people. The roads outside the city are dreadful, making every journey a trial. Then there is the politics here…’ He rolled his eyes dramatically and she laughed at the horrified face he pulled. ‘It drains all the joy from your soul.’