Several minutes later, the earl’s fingers poised over his queen. He moved her slowly into position and raised his head. “Checkmate, my dear.”
“Drat,” Cassie said, frowning at her defeated king. “I do not suppose I can claim you had the greater luck?”
“You can, but it would only serve to make me feel all the more superior.”
“Wretched man. Very well, I grant you this game.” She looked at him from beneath her lashes. “I choose to believe that you have bested me only because you have had so many more years of practice.”
“You do not consider it likely that I am simply the more intelligent?”
The gleam of mischief in his dark eyes robbed his words of any insult, and she succumbed to a giggle. “Must you always have the last word, my lord? It is too bad of you.” She drew up, her eyes drawn to his. His gaze was dark with tenderness, and she gulped.
“Another game, my lord?”
He obliged her.
Cassie eyed the swaying palm trees with disgust. “It is autumn,” she muttered darkly. “You are supposed to lose all those ridiculous leaves.”
The earl stood quietly on the balcony of their bedchamber and watched Cassie walking about the gardens. She had returned but minutes before from the Parese vineyards, her interest, he knew, not in the science of the grape, but rather in Liepolo, his master winemaker, and his gaggle of children. Particularly Alvise, a naughty three-year-old, whose pranks brought rosy color to her cheeks and a ready laugh to her lips. He silently blessed Liepolo for being the sire of such a large family.
The earl walked back downstairs to his library. He kicked the dying embers in the fireplace with the toe of his boot and stared thoughtfully at the orange sparks that flew upward into the flu. A month had passed since Cassie’s rape and Joseph’s death. A month, and he was still no closer to finding Andrea and the fourth man. Without them, it was unlikely that he would ever discover who had paid them.
At least Cassandra was physically healthy again. Since he had not approached her sexually, he could only guess that the bruises were gone from her body. He had had to buy her more nightgowns, for she cringed at the thought of his seeing her naked. She had allowed him but once to touch her, some ten day after her rape. Since she adamantly refused to allow Signore Bissone to examine her, it was the earl who had removed her stitches.
The day they were to be married was weeks past, and he had said nothing to her about it. He was content to wait.
He sat at his desk and opened an account ledger. He concentrated for some minutes on the columns of numbers, then flipped the ledger closed with a grunt of disgust at his wayward attention, rose and walked to the gardens. He wanted to be with Cassandra, to see her laugh, perhaps.
The earl raised his body from the copper bathtub and shook himself, somewhat in the manner of a wet mongrel. He wrapped a towel about his waist and strolled into the bedchamber, only to draw up short at the sound of Rosina gasping at him. Rosina stood behind Cassie with a brush in her hand, her face a vivid shade of red. Cassie sat comfortably in front of her dressing table, consuming an orange. “You may go to bed now, Rosina,” Cassie said in an amused voice.
When he heard the bedchamber door close upon the maid, he walked forward to stand behind Cassie. She was covered in a thick blue velvet dressing gown. Beneath it, he knew, was a nightgown. “You know, cara, I have been thinking.”
“It is a marvelous process, my lord, and I am most pleased that you have finally been granted the privilege.”
He grinned, wrapped a thick tress of hair about his fingers, and pulled. She yelped and turned on him. “If you cannot use your wits, my lord, may I suggest—” She stopped in mid-sentence. The earl looked at her quizzically and saw that she was staring at him pointedly in the mirror. His knot was working itself loose and the towel had pulled open.