like her mother’s. While Emma had inherited their father’s ash-brown hair and eyes, Jane mirrored nothing of him.
Izabel dipped her handkerchief into the small garden fountain. When she returned, it was to scrub dirt from Jane’s cheek with dimpled, beringed hands.
Jane had avoided the touch of others for years, out of necessity. She only permitted it when it was unavoidable or to earn necessary coin in her fortune-telling.
“What does my appearance matter?” she asked, ducking away. “I have no plans to venture out.”
Slapping the soiled cloth onto the stone rim of the fountain, Izabel frowned, etching lines around her lips. “We have a guest. Or, rather, you have a guest.”
“Who?” Jane asked warily.
“You shall see. It will come as a welcome surprise, I’m sure.”
With trepidation, Jane followed her aunt into the salotto. There she found her father waiting, along with a signore who was becoming all too familiar to her.
Both men stood when the ladies passed through the tall white and gold doors.
“Buon giorno, Signorina Cova,” the visitor told her in greeting. Though his mouth smiled under his dark mustache, his small eyes did not. His checked waistcoat was well fitted and tasteful, his trousers creased. His dark hair was slicked and styled. He was as fastidious and presentable as he was repulsive.
“Buon giorno, Signore Nesta,” Jane replied.
Her hand was briefly enfolded in his cold, dry one. He wanted something from her. She felt it. But what? His touch had been too brief for her to meld yet too long for her to bear.
Her aunt sat a distance away, leaving her the chair closest to their visitor. Jane remained outwardly placid as he examined her in an appraising way, with his head slightly cocked as though attempting to determine her value.
She twitched her skirt in annoyance.
He said something in Italian to her aunt and father, and the three of them laughed. Her grasp of Italian was good, but he’d spoken colloquially and too quickly for her to catch his meaning.
“You’re well since we last met?” he inquired in heavily accented English.
“Yes. And you?” she replied.
“Molto bene, grazie.”
An awkward moment passed.
Her aunt sought to fill it. “The gardens are so colorful this time of year, aren’t they, signore? Jane has such a way with the plants. She’s making our gardens the liveliest in the neighborhood.”
Jane’s eyes widened. Suddenly her gardening skills were of value?
Signore Nesta nodded at Jane. “You would have suggestions to offer for the gardens at my villa, perchance? You must visit.”
Jane opened her mouth to decline, but her aunt stepped on her words.
“Oh, yes, we shall endeavor to visit quite soon.” She frowned at Jane. “Niece, Signore Nesta’s cup needs filling.”
Jane picked up the teapot and perfunctorily filled his cup.
When she leaned forward to hand it to him, Signore Nesta’s eyes dropped from her face to her form. She fought the impulse to cover herself. The lecher!
He smirked. “Salud!” he said, offering a mocking toast as he took the cup.
Though the conversation continued to flow around her, Jane didn’t participate further unless a direct question was put to her.
It occurred to her that Signore Nesta’s attention and avid glances meant one thing. That he wanted to wed her, in order that he might touch her with carnal familiarity.
Though she was uninformed regarding the specifics of what happened between married couples in private, she knew husbands expected to put their hands and lips on their wives. To somehow join their bodies together, producing children.
She didn’t want the signore’s hands or lips on her. In fact, now that she’d ascertained the nature of his interest, she felt physically under threat in his presence. He put her in mind of a particular kind of cuspidate, an ivy that pleased the eye but given enough time overpowered and suffocated every living thing around it.
Signore Nesta certainly knew more of the marriage bed than she. His wife had died bearing a third son to him in less than three years. He was still a young man, and she was very much concerned she was slated to become his next brood mare.
If she must marry someday, she’d prefer a husband who paid her scant attention, or maybe one with impaired sight. Signore Nesta’s gimlet eyes watched her every twitch. For that reason alone, he wouldn’t do.
The very last thing she needed was an observant, interfering husband. Such a man would quickly discern that all wasn’t right with her. He would realize she could do…feel…know…things that others couldn’t. Such a man would denounce her when he learned her secrets and discovered what she’d become.
Because whatever she was—she could no longer believe herself to be truly Human.
6
Late the next morning, Izabel dabbed her prim lips with a crisp napkin and then broke the silence pervading the dining room. “’Tis an incredible stroke of luck.”
Dressed in elegant peach satin, she sat to Jane’s left at one end of the oblong, damask-draped dining table. Jane’s father, who more than filled the delicate chair at the opposite end, looked up at her words.
“We must accept with haste lest the offer be withdrawn,” Izabel went on.
“Umm-hmm,” Jane murmured. Her attention was on the book lying open in her lap, half hidden below the lip of the table.
It was Homer’s Odyssey, which she’d enjoyed many times before. But today she studied one particular passage with new interest.
Homer mentioned a curative called allium moly. Hermes had given it to Odysseus as a protection against the magick of Circe the sorceress. Dare she hope it might prove to be the cure for her strangeness?
The idea had come to her yesterday when Emma had read to her from Linnaeus. Both he and the botanist Dioscorides had also spoken of the moly’s curative properties.
They’d described it as the moly she knew, which bore a simple yellow flower. Some termed it lily leek, while to others it was known as sorcerer’s garlic.
She longed to discuss the matter with her sister, though without revealing the reasons for her interest. However, the chair opposite her was empty, since Emma was at lessons with her Italian tutor upstairs.
“Well? Do you not agree?” Izabel’s tone had grown strident.
Jane tore her attention from the book. Alarmed, she realized both her aunt and father were staring at her expectantly. What had she missed?
“Um, I’m not sure….”
