gave her cousin a wicked smile. ‘Exactly! What a perfect idea.’ The thought held merit, just the sort of scandal she was looking for, but the list of candidates for such an affair was horribly short. She scanned the piazza, selecting and discarding the men of the contrada. ‘Fabrizio is too old, I think I’d like someone younger, with more stamina. Alberto is young but he smells like garlic.’ She wrinkled her nose.
‘No!’ Contessina was truly shocked now. ‘I only meant to tease, to demonstrate how impossible it is.’
‘How impossible what is?’ Contessina’s brother, Giuliano, sidled up to them, throwing an arm about his sister. He was handsome and wild, always in the throes of a grand affair, but life was different for a male. No one would condemn him for such promiscuity.
‘Getting out of her engagement,’ Contessina supplied.
Elisabeta moved to his other side and looped her arm through his, feeling mischievous. ‘Contessina suggested I take a lover.’
‘I did not!’ Contessina blushed furiously.
Giuliano’s dark eyes sparked with mischief of their own. ‘Ah, a last fling before settling down? A widow could do it, but not one who is affianced to another.’ Giuliano thought for a moment. She could see her daredevil cousin puzzling it out. ‘It could be pulled off, though, as long as you were discreet and the man you chose wasn’t an enemy.’ That meant not a man from Aquila or from Torre, the enemy of her would-be husband’s neighbourhood.
Contessina looked frantically at them, waiting for them to give in and say they were only joking. ‘Stop it!’
But Elisabeta didn’t think she would stop. Why not take a lover? Perhaps just for the night? Perhaps it didn’t have to be publicly scandalous, just a private interlude for herself. She deserved it and she’d been alone for so long. Even if her marriage had not been an intensely passionate one, she missed Lorenzo’s presence. Was it so wrong to want one night in the arms of a strong, handsome man? To seek a little comfort, a little pleasure? No one had to know unless she wanted them to.
‘Who would it be, Elisabeta?’ Giuliano’s playful pressing fuelled her madness. She would do it if the right man presented himself. Surely there must be one...
Elisabeta looked out over the piazza, towards the arch that marked the boundary of their contrada. Her breath hitched. It was as if the saints had conspired to present temptation and scandal personified. A man stepped through the arch. His height alone would make him stand out in any crowd—add to that those shoulders and it made for a remarkable sight. Good lord, they were broad, and that face! Even at a distance, the angles and planes were striking against the rich dark brown of his hair. It was longer than most of the men’s present, skimming his shoulders and falling errantly over his right brow. She cocked her head and gave Giuliano a playful stare. This man wasn’t a rival from an enemy contrada, he was something even more dangerous, a stranger, a man of unknown origins and family. That didn’t make the man dangerous, it made him exciting, and it made him exactly the man she was looking for.
Did she risk it? It would be daring, even for her, but that was what tonight was for. The town’s general spirits were high. The first Palio of the summer was behind them, her uncle victorious, his attentions already turned towards the Palio in August, and tonight people had gathered to celebrate the strawberry harvest: La Sagra del Fragole. Elisabeta doubted she’d be the only person present who allowed themselves to be swept away by the magic of a summer evening. Decision made, Elisabeta spoke her verdict.
‘Him.’ Her eyes studied the newcomer. ‘I choose him.’ Most definitely him. She wasn’t the only one who’d noticed him, though. The attention of most of the feminine eyes in the crowd had gone his direction, she noted. He was that sort of man, the type who could command the female population of any gathering. The real issue was whether or not she could get there first. She would have to move fast. Signora Bernardi was closer and already edging near.
Elisabeta straightened her shoulders and tugged the square neckline of her gown lower, letting the tops of her breasts swell against the tightly laced bodice, to Contessina’s dismay. She didn’t have to reach him first, but she had to make her intentions known, had to convince him she was worth waiting for. She flashed Giuliano a competitor’s smile and crossed the piazza, hips swaying, head held high.
She was the kind of woman men crossed rooms for, or piazzas in this case, and she was headed directly for him. Archer couldn’t say he didn’t see her coming. How could he not see a woman like that; all those shiny black curls cascading down her back, the almond-shaped eyes that tilted ever so slightly at their corners as if they were always full of mischief and mystery, and the gown that set off the rest of her to perfection. The white of her shift peeked enticingly over the square bodice of a pale-green overdress laced over the full, rising curves of her breasts to a tight, slim waist before flaring out into provocatively swaying hips. The knowing smile on her lips suggested it was deliberate. She knew precisely what she was doing and what she wanted. At the moment, that was him.
The thrill of the hunt surged through him. Quicksilver eyes locked on his, and he held her sharp gaze, his own eyes communicating the unspoken message: invitation accepted. On his periphery, he was aware of women falling back, their interest averted by the advent of this woman’s approach. She had staked her claim. If she meant to hunt him, she might be in for a surprise. Like any stallion worth his stud, Archer would be dominated by no woman.
She held out her hand, and he felt the full force of her attentions. ‘Dance with me.’ Not a question, then, she was too bold for that, but a summons, and he would honour it. Archer took her hand. That was where her supremacy ended. In his experience, a bold woman wanted a bold man and he could be that indeed, a commanding stallion to her flirty, teasing mare.
Eyes unwavering, he led her into the dance and fitted his hand to her back, swinging them into the polka without a word. Who needed words when they had eyes like hers? A body like hers, that communicated everything she thought and felt? She gave him a toss of her glorious dark head, tipping it up to meet his. Archer grinned, and she answered with a wide smile of her own, her eyes sparkling with the thrill of the dance.
Archer swung them into the turn and let the energy of the music claim them, his hand confident at her back as if it belonged there, as if they had done this before. He knew how to dance, how to navigate a crowded space, and she knew it too, recognised his skill and delighted in it, just as she was revelling in the sheer joy of the dance. The joy emanating from her was nearly intoxicating. She danced with her heart, her very soul, and it fired him, drove him to reckless abandon.
At the edge of the makeshift dance floor, he manoeuvred them sharply, bringing her up against him with the force of the turn, and did not relinquish her to the decency of distance. The pulse at her neck beat hard from the dancing and possibly from something more. She laughed up at him, confirming the latter. She felt it too, this surge of wildness, this connection between them although they’d not spoken a word—the dance was too fast, they were too breathless for conversation, too in love with the moment to contemplate the use of words.
What moments they were! Archer thought he would remember them for ever. It was an odd sensation given how many moments made up a lifetime, thousands upon thousands, most to be forgotten. Why these moments with a stranger who had lured him into a dance with only a smile and a touch? What made them different? What made them more valuable than all the other moments?
The music was ending. He took them through one last turn, his
