'Thou grave, my bridal chamber! Dwelling-place hollowed
in earth, the everlasting prison whither I bend my steps, to
join the band of kindred, whose more numerous host already
Persephone hath counted with the deadโฆ"'
Clio Chase turned her spyglass toward the ruined
amphitheatre, where her sister Thalia rehearsed the lines of
Antigone. The crumbling stage was far from
Clio's perch atop a rocky hill, yet she could glimpse
Thalia's golden hair glinting in the morning sunlight,
could hear the despairing words of Sophocles' princess
as she was led to her death.
That eternal struggle of life and death, beauty and fate,
seemed to belong to this bright day, this land. Ancient
Sicily, where so many conquerors had overrun the rocky hills
and dusty plains, yet none had ever fully possessed it. It
belonged to old gods, far older than even the Greeks and
Romans could have imagined. A wild place, slave to no master.
Clio turned her glass, purchased from their ship's
captain on the voyage here from Naples, past her sister to
the landscape beyond. No London stage director could have
imagined such a glorious backdrop! Beyond the steps and
stage of the amphitheatre were only mountains, a vast swathe
of blue sky. The hills rolled on like a hazy sea, green and
brown and purple, until they reached the flat, snow-dusted
peak of Etna, cloaked in clouds.
Off in the other direction, just barely seen, were the calm,
silvery waters of Lake Pergusa, where Hades had snatched
Persephone away to his underworld kingdom.
Between were olive groves, orchards of lemons, limes and
oranges, stands of wild fennel, the large prickly pears
brought in by the Saracens. Carpets of flowers, yellow,
white and dark purple, spread like bright blankets over the
meadows, announcing that spring had truly arrived.
'Ennaโwhere Nature decks herself in all her varied hues,
where the ground is beauteous, carpeted with flowers of many
tints,"' Clio murmured, an Ovid quote she now truly
understood. Enna had once been considered the heart of
Sicily, the crossroads of the Trinacria, the three
provinces, a sacred spot. The home of Demeter and her daughter.
And now it had been invaded by the Chase family, or part of
the family anyway. Clio had come here with her father and
two of her sisters, Thalia and Terpsichore, after they had
seen their eldest sister Calliope off on her honeymoon. Sir
Walter Chase had long heard of the archeological wonders to
be found in Enna, just waiting to be discovered by a
dedicated scholar like himself. His friend Lady Rushworth
had followed, having equally heard of the excellent English
society to be found in the town of Santa Lucia, high in the
dramatic hills. Society of a most intellectual and
stimulating sort, escapees from the endless shallow parties
in Naples.
Clio lowered her glass, her eyes narrowed as she thought of
Santa Lucia. It was certainly a pretty enough town, with its
baroque cathedral and old palazzos, with the ruined medieval
castle guarding its town walls. But so often when she was
there, except for their Sicilian servants and the
shopkeepers of the town, it felt as if she had never left
England at all. Receiving callers at their rented house,
going to card parties at Lady Rushworth's or dances at
Viscountess Riverton's and the Elliotts'โit was all
so London-like.
And she did not want to think about England. About what had
happened there, what she had left behind.
Clio drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them close, her
old brown muslin work dress like a protective tent around
her. The warm breeze, scented with scrubby pine trees and
fading almond blossoms, ruffled the auburn hair pinned
loosely atop her head. She heard the echo of Thalia's
voice as she went down to her lingering death, felt the hot
sun against her skin.
This was where she belonged, in this wild, ancient
spot, alone. Not really in Santa Lucia, definitely not in
London. Not the Duke of Averton's castle, so full of its
dark, twisting corridors, where secrets and dangers lurked
in every corner. Just like the unhappy shades of Hades'
kingdomโฆ
Averton. Clio hugged her legs tighter, pressing her
forehead to her knees. Could there ever be one day when she
did not think of that blasted man? Did not remember what it
felt like when he touched her? When he looked at her with
those golden-green eyes and whispered her name.
Clioโฆ
'He is miles away,' she muttered. 'Eons! You
will probably never see him again.'
Yet even as she tried to reassure herself, she knew, deep
down inside, that was not true. He might be far away, hidden
in his castle, the famously reclusive yet always much
sought-after Duke of 'Avarice', but he was never
entirely apart from her. The way he looked at her, as if she
was yet another Greek vase or marble statue he wanted,
needed, to possess.
Well, he still had the Alabaster Goddess, that glorious
figure of Artemis stolen from Delos, locked away in his
castle. He would never do the same to
her! Not even
if she had to hide here in the wilds of Sicily for the rest
of her days. The Duke was gone, he was past. Just like the
Lily Thief.
For yes, once even she, Clio, had held her secrets. Had been
the notorious Lily Thief for a few glorious months.
Clio unfolded her legs and stood up, stretching her limbs in
the sunlight. How lovely it was to be alone, to be herself
with no one to watch her, judge her. To just be Clio, not
one of the 'Chase Muses'. Now that Calliope was wed,
everyone looked to her to be next. To marry as well as her
sister hadโan earl!โand to start her own family, her own
conventional life as chatelaine of a household, as a society
hostess; to take her place in her family's scholarly,
aristocratic world.
But Calliope loved her new husband, was happy in the life
she had chosen. Clio had certainly never found anyone she
could esteem as Cal did her earl. Clio did not belong in
such a life. Maybe she didn't belong anywhere at all.
Except here.
She lifted her spyglass again, training it on the valley
below her rocky perch, the stretch of land between her and
Thalia's theatre. It was really this valley that had
brought them to Enna in the first place, an ancient
Graeco-Roman site buried in a twelfth-century mudslide and
only recently uncovered. Much of the site was still hidden
beneath hazelnut orchards, but her father and his friends
were working hard at exploring what was revealed: the
theatre; part of the
agora, or marketplace; some
crumbling walls delineating shops and small houses; a great
villa with almost intact mosaic floors in the atrium, which
was Sir Walter's pet project; and a small, roofless
temple, probably devoted to Demeter, with its
bothros,
or well-altar, still ready to accept sacrifices even if
the grand silver altar set was long gone.
She could see them through the oval of her glass, her father
sweeping off more of the mosaic floor as her
fourteen-year-old sister TerpsichoreโCoryโsketched the tile
scenes of tritons and mermaids. Lady Rushworth, shielded by
a giant straw hat, examined some newly found pottery
fragments, sorting them into baskets. Other friends and
servants scurried around like busy ants. They would not miss
her when she crept away. They never did.
Clio snapped the glass shut and tucked it inside her
knapsack. Slipping the strap over her shoulder, she turned
and made her way up the steep stairs cut into the stony
hillside.
When she reached a fork in the steps, with one way leading
to Santa Lucia, she glanced up, raising her hand to shield
her spectacles from the glare of the sun. The crumbling
crenel-lations of the medieval castle's tower stood
starkly against the bright sky, eternally vigilant as it
stared out over the valley. She was again reminded of the
Duke, of his Yorkshire castle that matched his strangely
archaic, handsome appearance, his long red-gold hair, his
strong hands that gripped her own so tightly, holding her
prisoner to that intense light in his beautiful green eyes.
Clio frowned at the memory, unconsciously flexing her
wrists. He could so easily have been one of the crusaders
who had built that tower, standing between the
crenellations, surveying his conquered land while his
banners whipped in the wind behind him. Secure in the
knowledge that his money, his exalted title, his fine looks
would always gain him anything he wanted. The world was his.
But not her. Never her.
Clio turned away from the castle, from the safety of Santa
Lucia and its old walls, and hurried up a second, even
steeper set of stairs. They wound up and around the hill,
and she soon left the noise and bustle of the valley behind.
Even the sun grew dimmer here, the shadows longer, deeper,
colder.
On the other side of the hill, the stairs suddenly switched
back, taking her downwards again. Unlike the sunny valley
where her family worked, this place still slumbered. It was
a meadow, covered with a blanket of white clover, seemingly
undisturbed except for the hum of bees, the distant tinkle
of goats' bells in the hills.
She knew people must come here. There was rich fodder for
those herds of goats, and wild fennel and oregano for the
cooking pots. But she never saw anyone at all. The cook at
their hired house, Rosa, had told her this was a sacred
spot, a spot where once there had been an altar to Demeter.
A crude sheaf of wheat carved into the trunk of a towering
hawthorn tree, where offerings of flowers and fruit were
often left at its base, seemed to confirm that. As did
mysterious holes she found in the ground when she had first
arrived, which seemed to indicate previous, illegal excavations.
Demeter never disturbed Clio when she was there. Nor did
Persephone and her dark husband. They seemed to know Clio
was one of them, that she did their work to bring them back
to life.
She passed the tree, giving it a respectful nod. There were
fresh lemons piled in a basket in its shade. There was a
wide road nearby, a way for horses to get to the village,
but she ignored it. Along another path, barely marked in the
clover, she hurried her steps until she found what she
sought. Her own perfect place.
While her father worked on the villa, once the dwelling
place of rich men, and Thalia revived
Antigone in
the theatre, Clio looked for less exalted remains. Her
explorations had brought her here, to this quiet little
meadow, where she had found her farmhouse.
She paused at the edge of the site, as she always did when
she arrived, drinking in the peaceful, quiet vision. It was
not the ancient holiday house of a wealthy family, as the
villa was. The people here had been prosperous, but they
also worked for their coin. Lived off the fruit of their
labour and their land. Once, this clover-covered valley had
been fields of wheat and barley, with fruit orchards and
groves of olives.
Until it all came to an end, one violent day in the second
century BC. Now there were just some waist-high walls of
small, uneven pieces of tan-coloured limestone,
weather-beaten and crumbling, to mark where their house once
stood. But Clio intended to find more. Much more.
She hurried to the walls, pulling out her stash of tools
wrapped in oilcloth and tucked into a sheltered niche. The
wooden handle of the small spade fit perfectly into her
hand, as a soldier's sword hilt would in battle. Maybe
she did
not belong in London, not really, but she
did belong here. When she worked, she forgot the world
outside. She even forgot Avertonโfor a time.
All the passion she had once poured into the Lily Thief was
now given to her farmhouse. To finding the voices of the
people who once lived here.
She went to work.
'Is it quite satisfactory, your Grace?' the agent
asked, his voice quivering slightly. 'Truly, it is the
finest palazzo to be had in all of Santa Lucia. The views
are most exquisite, and it is quite near the cathedral and
the village square. And there is a hunting cottage, too, in
the hills, if you require it. The baroness is usually very
reluctant to leave her furnishings for the tenants, but for
you, of course, she is only too happyโฆ'
Only too happy to have an English ducal arse touch her
couches? Edward Radcliffe, the Duke of Averton,
examined the flaking, worn gilt of the apricot velvet chairs
with some amusement. They looked as if the slightest touch
would reduce them to a pile of splinters and shredded
upholstery. The baroque flourishes of the place, plaster
cherubs peering down from the ceilings and faded
apricot-coloured silk wallpaper, seemed no better. Chipped
and crumbling away, like an abandoned wedding cake.
It could certainly use a thorough cleaning, as well, for the
scuffed marble floor was covered with a fine layer of
silvery dust. Cobwebs spun from the elaborate frames of old
portraits, where the baroness's exalted Sicilian
forebears gazed down at him in disapproval.
Well, they were not the only ones who
disapproved,
to be sure. Old Italian barons and their long-nosed
wives had nothing on one Englishwoman's contempt-filled
emerald eyes.
Edward turned away from them, away from that cool green gaze
that haunted him everywhere he went. He leaned his palms on
a chipped marble windowsill, peering down at the scene
below. The baroness's palazzo perched at the edge of the
hilltop where the village of Santa Lucia gazed out over the
valley. The tall, narrow windows, curtained in dusty gold
satin and tarnished tassels, stared right at Etna in the
distance, to Lake Pergusa and eventually even to the sea.
The palazzo's small garden, wild and overgrown, seemed
to drop off into sheer space. As if an eagle could launch
itself into space and go wheeling out over the amphitheatre
and into the mist beyond, right from this garden.
The front of the palazzo, on the other hand, sported a much
more respectable-looking courtyard, paved and neatly planted
with myrtle trees, with tall limestone walls and
wrought-iron gates that opened to the narrow street beyond.
Its cobblestone length was silent, and seemed rather little
travelled, but it did lead right to the village square with
its shops and cathedral, its view of the whole village and
everyone in it.
Perfect.
'Tell me,' Edward said, not turning his gaze from
the theatre, 'where is the house the Chase family
rents?'
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