observing them all with those shocking blue eyes.
Why didn’t he speak?
“Maybe he has mistaken you for someone else,” Emma had suggested when Jane had told her the news of his offer. “Imagine his embarrassment if he comes calling and discovers his fiancée isn’t the correct one!”
But Lord Satyr had made no such demur upon seeing her when he’d arrived that morning.
Her eyes dropped to the sheaf of papers that had earlier been thrust under her nose by his attorney. It was impossible to comprehend the words on them while everyone in the room scrutinized her with such rapt attention.
The attorney inched the papers closer to her hand in an unsubtle attempt to coax her into signing.
“Will you explain this to me?” she asked him, tapping a particular codicil with her pen nib. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud in the quiet room.
“It’s your marriage contract. You are to sign here,” he replied, indicating a blank area on the final page.
Did he think her witless?
“May I take a private moment to study it?” she asked.
Her aunt tittered nervously. “Don’t be absurd, Jane. That could take all morning. And Lord Satyr might mistake it to mean you distrust him. Sign your name and be done with it.”
Jane sensed a restive movement in the shadows. A man rose from the chair. The man from the tent. The one who wished to marry her. Lord Nicholas Satyr.
“Don’t concern yourself, my lord, she will sign,” Izabel cooed prettily. But when she turned to her niece, her eyes were frosted slits. “Won’t you, Jane?”
“I would speak to Signorina Cova in private,” said Lord Satyr. The low rumble of his velvet voice caressed Jane’s nerve endings, causing the pen in her hand to tremble.
“Certainly, signore,” said Izabel, leaping to her feet. She tugged Jane’s father toward the door.
The attorney tossed her an encouraging wink as he ushered himself out, hard on their heels, folding the double doors shut behind them.
Jane stared after the trio, appalled. Her aunt knew the impropriety of leaving an unmarried female in the sole company of a gentleman. What was she thinking?
She turned to find Lord Satyr inspecting her.
“No pipe?” he asked, his lips curving slightly.
It took her a second to comprehend his meaning. The corncob pipe from her gypsy fortune-teller costume, he meant. So he had seen through her disguise.
She shrugged. “The occasion didn’t seem to call for it.”
His smile broadened.
He was extremely handsome, even more so than she remembered, if that were possible. Emma would think him a knight in, well, a dark waistcoat. Now that she studied the coat at close range, Jane saw that it bore a black-on-black design depicting bizarre beasts with tails and wings intertwined with vines and flourishes. On another man it might have looked outlandish, but somehow the peculiar coat served only to accentuate his masculinity.
Nick noted and accepted her interest in his form as useful. Some thought him vain, he knew. But one couldn’t live to nearly thirty years of age and not be aware of the effect one’s looks had on the feminine sex. He knew his features were arranged in an appealing way and used the knowledge to his advantage in social and business dealings. Beyond that, his own attractions were of little interest to him.
Her scent had teased at him since she’d entered the room. It was of spring and new sky and of crushed blossoms and cool, shaded earth.
He shifted closer, wanting more.
Satisfaction zinged through his blood at her nearness, stiffening his cock. There was no doubt this time. Everything about her proclaimed her to be of ElseWorld heritage. In the way of the Faerie, her face and form were delicate and ethereal, her manner and movements graceful.
Stilling, he allowed himself to savor her, to bask in the joy of discovering the woman he would take to wife. The urge to claim her—to mate her here and now—swelled in him, taking him off guard. The need shouldn’t be so strong.
Several days earlier he’d traveled home, returning to Tivoli only yesterday. The sole purpose of his trip had been to take part in the Calling along with his brothers. It was possible to perform the ritual away from his estate, but when his mind and body were given over to the Change, he was vulnerable and preferred not to be among strangers.
When he spoke, Nick gave no clue as to what he’d been thinking. “You’re reluctant to sign. Why?”
Jane’s gaze darted to the door and then back to him. “You must know your offer comes as a surprise.”
“A happy one?” he inquired.
“In my aunt’s view, at least,” she replied with a tight smile.
“And in yours?” he asked.
“In my view,” Jane confided, “you are too fickle. At Villa d’Este, you were quite fixed on another young lady, as I recall.”
“Ah!” Something shifted in his eyes momentarily, making her wary. “I can’t explain my behavior the other day beyond saying that once you left the gardens, I realized a definite attraction in your direction existed. I apologize for the necessity of making formal arrangements for our marriage through your guardians. It’s done this way here in Italy.”
“It’s arranged in much the same way in England, as you must know. But even there, men and women learn something of one another before they marry.” She spread her hands in a gesture of confusion. “How can you want to wed someone you don’t know?”
“From what I have observed at your English balls, there is little interaction before an engagement. Women dress like flowers to attract men to their honey. A few dances, a very few words, and men soon find themselves husbands.”
“I wasn’t dressed to attract when we met.”
“How lucky for me then that I saw through your disguise.”
He was too glib. Annoyed, she tried to read his thoughts.
Nick felt her press at the gates of his mind. Her touch was purposeful but weaker than his will and easily blocked. No doubt this was not her strongest talent. Briefly he wondered what that would prove to be.
Concealment. It rolled from him in waves. Jane’s gaze shifted away. He wasn’t the only one concealing something.
“I sense some underlying reason for your suit of which you aren’t apprising me. Otherwise, why the rush?” she went on.
“It’s difficult for me to be away from my land for great stretches. I recently decided it was time to marry. Now, I’d like to get on with it,” he said.
“And any woman would adequately suit the position? Even one who tells fortunes in disguise for coin?”
“I
