A Companion for the Count: A Regency Romance by Britton, Sally (story reading .txt) 📗

“You could make a portion of the pasta,” Miss Arlen said with a wave of her hand, her gaze directed elsewhere. “Think of it—you could tell all the duke’s dinner guests of how you made it. The traditions behind it. Not only would that be an impressive thing for you personally, but would it not further your goals as ambassador? It would show how you trust the duke, preparing food for his table. A strong political gesture.”

“A political gesture,” he repeated dumbly. She was talking about pasta. Not kissing. Good. But— “You want me to make pasta?”

“Or at least oversee the process.” She faced him again, brimming with excitement given the way she bounced forward on her toes. “Lord Atella, the idea is marvelous. Might I accompany you to watch the pasta be made?”

He considered the request as well as he could, his mind muddled. All the talk of food had confused him. Had he eaten breakfast? Had tea? He couldn’t remember. Perhaps he was only hungry. “You—yes. I suppose—”

“Thank you. This will be marvelous. Then I can tell Lady Josephine about it, too. But first you must speak to the duchess, and then the cook, to have things arranged.” She shivered and wrapped her arms about herself. “I think that is enough planning for this afternoon. There is no need to rush things.”

“No need,” he murmured in agreement. “Then ought I escort you back to the castle?”

“I think that would be best. Those clouds look like they wish to make it rain.” She pointed upward to the west, where light gray clouds had been replaced by obvious thunderheads.

“Then we had best hurry,” he said, and gestured for her to precede him through the grotto entrance. They did not speak again, with the wind snatching away their very breath and the threat of rain imminent, until they parted ways in the corridor, with servants taking their things.

Luca went to his room directly after making his polite bow. He retrieved his book from its locked drawer, opened it to the pages where he recorded his progress with Lady Josephine, and wrote a stern note to himself.

Courting a lady cannot begin by kissing her companion.

He underlined it. Twice, for good measure.

Then he leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, his thoughts melting away until only one concern remained.

“I agreed to make pasta.” He groaned and covered his face with one hand. “Sono scemo. A complete fool.”

And that was the one thing he couldn’t afford to be seen as by anyone—a fool.

Chapter Thirteen

Josephine laughed far too much when Emma revealed the outcome of her tête-à-tête with the ambassador. And she laughed again on the afternoon appointed for the pasta-making. To the point that Emma finally threw a cushion at her friend’s face. Josephine caught the cushion before it fell to the floor, then threw herself onto Emma’s bed while Emma sat at her desk writing a letter.

“You cannot blame me for laughing. You have put the poor man in a horrid position. However did you get him to agree to cook?” She giggled and rolled onto her side to stare at Emma with widened eyes. “Can you imagine what an Englishman would’ve done had you suggested such a thing? You would have been put out of polite society.”

Emma scoffed and signed the letter to the new Mrs. Gardiner with a flourish. “They would have treated the suggestion as a jest. Lord Atella seemed genuinely interested in the idea, though.” All to impress Lady Josephine. Who only laughed.

The momentary irritation Emma felt toward her friend bothered her. She folded the letter. It would go through the regular post, as the duke did not frank the personal letters of the household—though he certainly could have gotten away with it.

“What is the point of having a national mail system if we are never to use it properly?” he had said on more than one occasion when a member of the family muttered about the expense of sending and receiving letters.

“Do you wish to come to the kitchen with me?” Emma asked, not meeting Josephine’s eye, instead folding her letter carefully.

“That would rather defeat the purpose of the event.” Josephine threw a pillow in the air and caught it again. “I am entertaining Grandmama and her friends this afternoon in the music room. If Lord Atella wasn’t already engaged to cook, he would have been invited. Once again, you have spared me.”

“He isn’t all that terrible,” Emma murmured quietly.

“Of course he isn’t. He is an ambassador.” Josephine tossed and caught the pillow again and again as she spoke, her tone one of boredom. “He knows precisely what to say to be agreeable to everyone in the room. That is the role of a politician, be they noble or gentry, foreign or domestic. They make friends with everyone, ask for favors, and all to further their own interests.”

All true. Emma had heard the duke caution his children with similar words as he prepared them for their roles in Society—a society that thrived on connection and favors. Emma knew the lessons, too.

However, all her interactions with Lord Atella had felt genuine. Especially the last one, alone with him in the garden, beneath the autumn-wreathed myrtle. Her favorite tree—her favorite place in all the gardens.

Why had she taken him there? To get out of the wind had been the obvious answer at the time. But now she wondered. And fretted. When spring came, the tree would burst with pink blooms before any of its neighbors unfurled their tiny white buds.

She had always liked that particular tree for that reason—it was so bright and glorious while everything around it still slept. Yet now when she visited it in the spring she would think of Lord Atella, and how she had tricked him into a performance that the one he intended to impress did not care about. Not one whit.

Hopefully, the rest of the duke’s