like a bold new adventure. She had never seen France, or even the white cliffs of Dover for that matter until she started this trip. Thanks to the Foundation and more than two decades of motherhood in her spartan home at the back of the institute, her life had been rooted in London on the dubious streets close to the Irish Rookery in the shadow of Westminster Abbey.
‘Trust me—it will. The pace of life, the heat, the customs, the people… The Italians are very different from what you are used to. They are a passionate race.’
Lilian knew that. Or rather she suspected as much thanks to her lone encounter with her first and only Italian at Christmas. Pietro Venturi—Duca della Torizia… Another jumble of seductive Italian words.
He had been nothing like any man she had ever met. Dark, much too tall and exotic, he was more confident and considerably less reserved than the typical English male. He had looked boldly into her eyes, lingered over kissing her hand, flirted outrageously and his deep voice and seductive accent had quite taken her by surprise. She blamed that and, of course, the three glasses of wine she had consumed at Lady Fentree’s soirée last Christmas for agreeing to travel back to Alexandra’s house alone with just him in the carriage. And she blamed the alcohol, the shameless flirting, the accent, those intense sultry dark eyes and the intimacy of the carriage for allowing the Duca della Torizia to steal that kiss. And for kissing him so enthusiastically back.
Her first kiss in a decade. Although she still hadn’t made her mind up if it was the unexpected surprise of a single kiss after so long without which made it so scandalously memorable, or the fact that he did it so well and so thoroughly. For its entire duration she quite forgot she was a middle-aged widow who had never shown any desire to be kissed again before he had stolen one.
‘Mrs Fairclough…you have such beautiful eyes…’
He had stared deeply into them, tracing the pad of one finger gently down her cheek and making her skin tingle for the first time in a decade.
‘For some reason they call to me…’
Then his lips had whispered over hers and everything—the carriage, the snow, all her myriad responsibilities, all her problems—everything but him disappeared as she lost herself in his kiss.
And as much as the incident was regrettable in the extreme and completely unlike her, against all her better judgements her mind had frequently wandered back to it since, reminding her body that, although it was older, it still had the capacity to crave a man’s touch just as it always had.
But that brief, chance meeting had signalled the start of something and was perhaps one of the reasons she had agreed to this exciting holiday abroad. While she disagreed she had earned a break from her life as her children had insisted—because she was too selfless by half and they wanted to repay her for everything she had done—Lilian did agree she was due an adventure. She also needed to do something to get away from her children, not because she didn’t love them all to distraction, because she did, but because they were all newly married and ready to start their own adventures. Since her daughter Lottie had taken over the running of the Foundation with her husband, Jasper, Lilian had felt redundant and a little in the way.
She had once been a besotted newlywed herself and knew how all-encompassing and thrilling that heady time was. Love, lust, longing…the sheer joy of one another’s company. She had had that once. Except she had got to enjoy Henry on her own, without a well-meaning parent in the wings, and she wanted the same for them. Millie and Cassius were at Falconmore Hall. Silas and Mary, freshly returned from America, had rented a house close to the Foundation so they could spend some time in England. And Lottie and Jasper had moved in with Lilian. It was they who most needed their privacy. Even with the very best intentions, she had walked in on them too many times in the midst of an embrace and felt awful when they had guiltily pulled apart when they should be basking in the first flush of love. Just as Lilian had shamelessly and greedily basked in it with Henry all those years ago. She had always been a passionate romantic at heart, too.
Not one of her children needed her now. They would, when grandchildren inevitably came along, but for the time being she had no real purpose and didn’t want to be underfoot as they all enjoyed those first precious months with their new spouses. As much as her children loved her in return, they had also been unsubtly keen to reward her for her years of selfless service by acting together to send her on this extended trip abroad. She was both grateful and philosophical about their generosity, but she certainly didn’t intend to squander the opportunity and hoped two months of distance from her old life and purpose might give her some clarity on what to do with it next.
‘What is Carlotta like?’ Their hostess, the Contessa di Bagnoregio, was a great friend of Alexandra from her youth. As a duke’s daughter, and the wife of a viscount who had loved to travel, she was used to mixing with the aristocracy of Europe.
‘A great deal like us. A similar age. Children all grown and flown the nest. Widowed like you. She has a wicked sense of humour, too, and hates being idle. Since her husband died, she has thrown herself into the art world. Her brother deals in it and makes an absolute fortune selling Old Masters to new money. He charms them into buying and she enforces the prices once the remorse of agreeing to them inevitably sets in—believe me, some of them are eye-watering. But if anyone can squeeze blood out of a stone it is she. I would hate to have to do business with her, as she has the reputation of being terrifying. Only a brave few dared argue money with her, but it is always futile as they inevitably end up paying through the nose regardless. She is also hideously philanthropic. The pair of you will get on famously.’
Lilian hoped so. There was nothing worse than staying in the house of someone you felt awkward around and she put no stock in titles or the superiority of blue blood with hers being the common red variety and her link to the aristocracy only tenuous through marriage. Not that her husband had put any stock in his snobbish family. Henry had remained happily estranged from them all after they had cut him off when he had lowered himself to marry someone so indisputably from trade. The one member of his family Henry had tolerated was his cousin Alexandra, who had been the only aristocrat Lilian had had any real contact with until her eldest daughter Millie had married Cassius and become a marchioness. Rank had never held much stock in the Fairclough household where strength of character and deed were judged to be more important measures.
‘Come—we are about to dock. Let us grab what we need from the cabin and eat.’ Alexandra tugged her arm. ‘After we’ve watched those burly men unload some of the cargo first. Nothing quite builds up an appetite like the sight of the rippling muscles of a shirtless sailor.’
‘You are incorrigible.’ As was Alexandra’s beloved husband, George, who had lobbied hard for Lilian to go to Rome with his outrageous wife. Both of them were of the belief she was in dire need of some fun. And to make sure she had it, George had declared it a ladies-only holiday, citing that he had far too many pressing business matters to attend to when she knew he simply did not want her to feel like a spare wheel. Which she was starting to feel quite a bit.
‘One of us has to be—but I am hopeful some of it might rub off on you in the next six weeks. You have been upstanding and sensible for far too long and you will need to be a little incorrigible to have a proper Italian adventure.’
The roads to Rome, although charming, weren’t quite as good as Lilian was used to. Thanks to the incessant potholes and sedentary speed of their driver, who seemed determined to go into every one of them, they arrived at the palazzo after dark. Not only did she get to miss the sight of it in daylight, her smart new travelling dress was a crumpled mess and she ached from head to foot. From what she could make out as they rattled up the long
