He looked up to see Liepolo, his master winemaker, approaching him. He forced a smile to his lips.
“All goes well with you, Liepolo?”
“Si, my lord. Marrina said that I might find you here. Forgive me, my lord, but I wanted to tell you that the grapevines you had shipped from France have arrived safely.”
“Excellent, Liepolo.” Although he did not care at the moment if the wretched grapes became wine or vinegar, he forced himself to comment appropriately on Liepolo’s plans.
“Wine!”
“What, my lord?” Liepolo asked, eyeing his master uncertainly.
The earl grinned widely and thwacked Liepolo on his stooped shoulder. “Forgive me, Liepolo, but I must leave you now.”
He turned and walked briskly away, leaving his winemaster staring after him.
The earl found Cassie seated in front of her dressing table, already gowned formally for dinner, brushing out her hair.
“Why do we not have our dinner here, Cassandra, on the balcony?”
She cocked her head at him and smiled. “If you like, my lord. Caesare has decided not to join us this evening?”
The earl omitted mention of the note he had hurriedly scrawled to his half-brother, postponing his visit. “He had to make other plans, unexpectedly, I understand.”
Cassie lowered her hairbrush. “In that case, since we are not entertaining, I shall not bother myself with hair pins.”
After Marrina served their dinner, the earl nodded his dismissal, and turned his attention to Cassie. He kept his conversation light and her glass filled with light fruity wine from the Parese vineyards. “Is not the full moon breathtaking, Cassandra?”
“Indeed it is, my lord,” she said, tilting her head upward. The night was clear and myriad clusters of stars shined brightly in the black sky.
“It reminds me of some of the evenings aboard The Cassandra.”
She gave him a censuring look. “The dinners are better here, I think,” she said.
“I thought Arturo had a fine way with octopus,” he said blandly as he filled her glass once again.
“Octopus?” She gulped and looked suspiciously at the scallops on her plate. “You are a wretched tease, my lord,” she said, pursing her lips at him.
“Drink your wine, Cassandra, it will take the taste from your mouth.”
When Marrina returned to clear the dishes from the table, Cassie was seated beside the earl on the settee, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright. She was saying, laughter lurking in her voice, “Really, my lord, your reading of Shakespeare’s sonnets leaves much to be desired. You must be more dramatic in your rendering.”
“Be patient, madam, one must accustom oneself to the poet’s high-flown phrases. More wine?”
She giggled and thrust out her empty glass. “I discover that I am liking your Parese wine more with each glass.”
He allowed her one more glass before he laid down the red leather tooled volume and turned to her.
She saw a look in his dark eyes, one they had not held in a long time. When he lightly touched his fingers to her cheek, she realized vaguely that it was desire she saw.
“I think, my lord,” she said slowly, “that you are trying to make me drunk.”
“But you are already in your cups, Cassandra.” He took the glass from her fingers and gazed at her ruefully. “ Actually, cara, it was my intent to make you only sufficiently drunk so that I could seduce you.”
She stared at him, her expression blank. “You want to make love to me?”
“Of course. Was not my selection of Shakespeare’s most moving sonnets enough of a clue to you?”
She looked away from him and whispered vaguely, the wine slurring her words. “It has been so long. And I am afraid.”
“Afraid of me?”
She shook her head slowly. “More afraid of myself, I think, and what I would feel toward you, if we—”
“If we began to make love again?”
“Yes.”
“What you want and what you feel toward me is not something to fear, cara. You do not still fear that you will see me again as Andrea, do you?”
“I do not believe so. But I am afraid that I will feel nothing, save disgust for myself.”