Page 102 of Dukes All Night Long

P reparing for bed the third night, Owen knew he could stay no longer, not if he meant to reach Exeter on time for the first session. Besides, there had been no sign of the girl. He packed his few things, prepared to leave early the next day and crawled into bed, determined to sleep.

It proved elusive, plagued as he was by longing and memories.

Thoughts of Lucia had unleashed more arousal than he had felt in a good long while.

Two hours later, he surrendered in frustration and rose from bed naked in the heat.

He padded to the open window and stared into the night, visions of Lucia vivid in his mind.

It has been seven years, you fool. Seven long years. Give it up.

He had been twenty-two, newly sprung from university and bloated with pride. A wealthy sponsor had paid for his year in Rome to study the organ, its long canon of music, and the fine instruments in the great cathedrals. His studies absorbed him completely. Until he met Lucia.

What a fool I was.

In the three days since he first heard the music, the new moon had given way to a waxing crescent, a thin sliver of silver.

He blinked up at it. Was there a crescent moon the night of the concert at the Palazzo Borghese?

His mentor, Monsignore Tornielli, had taken him there to hear Madame Sophia Castellano, the famed contralto.

Owen recalled little until the moment Madame introduced her daughter as “a prodigy upon the pianoforte,” Lucia danced onto the stage, and Owen’s life turned upside down.

Every detail flooded back: her raven hair pulled up in an elaborate knot; the gentle slope of her neck above her upright back; her graceful fingers, strong and true, on the keyboard; her sweet face.

Just seventeen, a tiny sprite full of life, but, when she began to play, she took command.

Mozart to perfection. The music took his heart that night, and it had never been returned to him.

He’d never been able to look at another woman.

Fool. Fool. Fool. His behavior that summer, lovesick and hopelessly na?ve, shamed him.

He had begun to haunt the opera houses where Madame sang and the greenrooms afterward, until his friend the monsignor warned him sternly about the dangers of attachments to opera singers in general and Madame Castellano in particular. Owen would smile, and never mention sweet innocent Lucia.

I was a simple-minded fool!

He paced the little room. By the light of a candle, he put on a robe, poured himself a drink of the brandy Marshall had kindly supplied, and opened a book to distract himself from memories bad and good.

The page blurred before his eyes, memories pushing the words aside.

The sweet memories were the worst: when she agreed to walk out with him; the nights he heard her play; their walks along the Tiber with her dainty fingers entwined with his; the few kisses he stole when he found a modicum of privacy.

Owen shook the thoughts away and attempted once more to read. He managed to turn two pages before the most vivid memory of all forced its way forward, images of the moment that sealed his fate.

They had walked through the markets at Campo Fiori, and he bought her a rose.

The little maid who always trailed after them had become distracted among the vendors, and Owen had pulled Lucia onto a narrow side street and into an alcove.

That afternoon, he did more than steal an innocent kiss.

This time he had unleashed the passion that had been building between them.

At her eager response, he had deepened the kiss, one that seared his soul, marking him for life.

He tossed the book aside. It was the kiss that opened his eyes.

He wanted much more than an untouched girl should give.

Worse, he had realized with overdue awareness that Lucia’s mother had been unaware of their meetings.

That he had been meeting an innocent in secret shamed him, but his intentions were entirely honorable.

When he announced that he would speak to her mother, Lucia begged him not to; she claimed to love him, but begged to go on as they had been. All arrogance and pride, he brushed her tears aside and told her that it would not do. Lucia was no light skirt.

Filled with bluster, he had marched into the Great Madame Castellano’s drawing room and announced that he wished to marry the woman’s daughter.

“I have not yet acquired a position,” he had explained, “but I will have no difficulty doing so.” Wide-eyed numbskull! How she must have laughed later.

The mother had treated his words with scorn and flew into a rage when she discovered they had been meeting. She had him bodily removed from their quarters. He never saw Lucia again.

Madame and Lucia were gone the next day, and no one could or would tell him where they went no matter how he raged. The humility and despair of those days washed over him anew, and he downed his brandy.

You stupid man. You’ve let this blight your life for seven years. Enough.

He donned his slippers, and wrapped his robe tightly, determined to seek the kitchen and warm milk, though he had little confidence it would clear his mind.

I’ll leave tomorrow, and when I’m home in Wales, I will find a wife. A real flesh and blood woman, not some phantom from the past. I’ve been mooning over a shadow for too long.

He was almost to the bottom of the stairs when he heard it. The sounds of a nocturne being played so softly it hadn’t penetrated to his room.