As experienced as Jane was at masking her feelings, she couldn’t keep back a forlorn small sigh at that. She’d miss her time with Signore di Rossi, discussing the beautiful paintings that his family had collected over the centuries. She’d met him soon after she’d arrived in Venice, through a letter of introduction meant for the duke’s daughters. This was the customary way that well-bred English visitors could view private collections on the Continent, a day or two walking the halls of palaces and country houses with a watchful housekeeper as a guide. But to Jane’s surprise, the signor had shown her his pictures himself, and invited her to return the following day, and every day after that.
And the signor was speaking the truth. He had treated her as a friend, almost as an equal. He had respected her observations about art so much that he’d sought her opinions as if they had actual merit. No other gentleman had listened to Jane like that before. Was it any wonder, then, that her visits here to him had become the most anticipated part of her day?
And now—now they must be done.
‘Let me send for refreshment for you,’ the signor continued as he stepped to the bell to summon a servant. ‘It’s early, yes, but not so early that I cannot play the good host to my favourite guest. A plate of biscotti, a cappuccino, a dish of chocolate, or perhaps your English tea?’
‘Thank you, no, signor,’ Jane said, though sorely tempted. She’d come to adore Venetian chocolate in her time here, and it would be one of the things she’d miss most when she returned to England. ‘You are most generous, most kind, but I cannot stay.’
He turned on his heel and stopped, one black brow raised with surprise. ‘How do you mean this, Miss Wood? How can you come, and yet not intend to stay?’
‘Exactly that, signor. I’ve come only to thank you, and to—to say farewell.’
‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘I shall not permit it. I’ve something special and rare to show you today, a manuscript book, drawn by hand four hundred years ago in a Byzantine monastery. The artistry will steal your breath, Miss Wood, with each parchment page brought to life with ground lapis and gold leaf and—’
‘Forgive me, signor, but I cannot stay,’ she repeated. She had to tell him the truth; putting it off like this was not making her task any easier. ‘My master, his Grace the Duke of Aston, unexpectedly arrived in Venice last evening, and he—he is most displeased with me. I have given my notice to resign my place in his service, and must find another directly.’
‘No!’ He rushed back to her, the scarlet silk billowing after him. ‘What manner of man is this duke, to be displeased with you?’
‘He is a very great man in England, signor.’ Jane sighed, thinking of how different the gruff, broad-shouldered duke was from the man before her, like comparing a great shaggy roaring lion to a sleekly self-possessed jaguar. How could she fairly describe the hearty, noble Englishness of his Grace to a gentleman as elegantly refined as Signore di Rossi? ‘I still believe that I did what was best for his daughters, but because His Grace was expecting to find them here in Venice with me, he was…distraught.’
‘For that he has cast you out?’ the signor asked. ‘For doing your duty as best you could?’
‘I did not wait for him to dismiss me,’ Jane said with care. To fault the duke felt disloyal; besides, when she remembered how shocked he’d been, she could almost excuse him. ‘But because I felt it was inevitable, given the degree of his unhappiness, I chose to give notice first.’
Di Rossi stared at her, openly aghast. ‘Yet from your telling, the daughters love you as if you shared the same blood.’
‘They did love me,’ she said sadly, for that, too, was true. Mary and Diana did love her, and she them, but their father loved them, too, and she thought again of the sorrow and pain she’d seen on his face last night. ‘They do. But it is their father, not they, who decides my fate, and I’d rather not wait to hear his judgement.’
The signor frowned and shook his head. ‘That is barbarously unfair, Miss Wood. To punish you for the sins of the daughters!’
‘Daughters in my safe-keeping. I was their governess. I was to watch over them, and keep them from harm.’
‘Love is not harm.’
‘Love without a father’s consent is,’ she countered wistfully. ‘At least it is if the father is an English peer of the realm.’
He shook his head. ‘This puts me in mind of an ancient tale, of a Roman messenger put to death for bringing ill news of a battle to his emperor.’
‘Forgive me, but it was a Spartan messenger.’ She smiled sadly. ‘You see how it is with me, signor. I cannot help myself. I am a governess bred to the marrow of my bones.’
‘Ah, cara mia,’ he said. ‘You were a woman before you ever were a governess.’
Cara mia: my dear. Jane’s cheeks warmed, even as she drew herself up straighter into her customary propriety. She’d learned early in her trip that gentlemen on the Continent tossed about endearments much more freely than Englishmen, yet this—this felt different.
‘These last weeks have been most enjoyable, signor, that is true,’ she said, as briskly as she could, ‘but it is past time I put aside my idleness, and found another place where I can be useful.’
‘To fill your eyes and feed your soul with the beauty of great paintings, the works of the finest masters—that is not idleness,’ he countered. ‘That is useful, Miss Wood, more useful than recalling the lesson of the Spartan messenger.’
‘A well-fed eye does nothing for an empty stomach, signor,’ Jane said, her sadness and regret rising by the second. The end would always have come in time, of course. Even if Mary and Diana had remained with her, they would have been bound to sail for home at the end of February; their passages home had been booked for months along with the rest of their itinerary. But this way, with so little warning, somehow seemed infinitely more wrenching.
‘I must work to support myself,’ she began again. ‘I’ve no choice in the matter. Being a governess is not so very bad, you know.’
‘Yet a governess is not a slave, chained to his oar in the galleys,’ he reasoned. ‘Even an English governess. No matter who employs you next, you’ll have a day to yourself each week, yes? Even the lowest scullery maid has that. A day you can come here to me?’
‘But a governess is expected to set a certain tone of propriety and behaviour, signor,’ she said. ‘Calling on gentlemen would not be considered as either.’
‘Then don’t call,’ he said with maddening logic. ‘I shall meet you elsewhere in the city by agreement. A hooded cloak, a mask, and the thing is done. No one shall ever know which is the governess, which the great lady. Venice is the best city in the world for assignations, you know.’
Any other time, and she might have laughed at the outrageousness of such a suggestion. ‘I am very sorry, signor, but I cannot do that, either. My reputation must be impeccable. I have no resources of my own, you see, nor any—’
‘Miss Wood.’ Gently he took her hand again, though this time from affection, not the polite necessity of assisting her. She understood the difference at once, and tensed in response.
He smiled over their joined hands, his fingers tightening ever so slightly around hers.
‘Signor di Rossi,’ she protested, startled. ‘Please. Please!’
‘Know that you have a friend in Venice,’ he said, his voice rich and low. ‘That is all. Know that you are not without resources, as you fear. Know that you are not…alone.’
Was it a dare, an invitation, an offer? Or simply an expression of fond regard between acquaintances