"A fairly sizable stone hit my shoulder, but nothing seems to be broken." He winced as he stood and brushed himself off, then examined a ripped sleeve ruefully. "However, my hat is gone forever and my coat seems unlikely to recover. My valet will be heartbroken—this coat is one of his favorites."
This time Elizabeth was grateful to accept his assistance in rising. "Is it one of your favorites as well?"
"I am not permitted to have opinions about matters that fall within Burns's purview, and that definitely includes coats." He looked beyond Elizabeth, then gave a soft whistle. "Fortunate that Sofia gave us so much food, for I fear that we may be here longer than we expected."
Still a little unsteady, Elizabeth turned cautiously, grateful when Lord Randolph put a firm hand on her arm. She bit her lip in dismay at the sight behind. About ten feet of the path had disappeared completely, and it made her dizzy to look down, knowing how near an escape she had had. Beyond the gap, the path seemed intact but was covered with rubble until it curved out of sight around the hill. "I hope Vanni is all right," she said, "for both his sake and ours."
"I'm sure he is," Lord Randolph said. "He and the carriage were on solid, level ground."
Confirmation came almost immediately when the driver's voice shouted from around the corner, "Signorina, signore!"
Elizabeth called back, reassuring him that they were well, then explain- ] ing that part of the path had collapsed so they could not clear the rubble away themselves. After the driver replied, she translated for her companion. "Vanni say the path is clear and solid just around the corner, so it shouldn't be too hard to remove the fallen earth from that direction. He will go back to Balzano to get men to dig and planks to bridge the gap."
"What if the town has been badly hit by the earthquake?" Randolph asked grimly. "They may have more serious concerns than two stranded ] foreigners."
Elizabeth relayed his comment, then the driver's response. "Vanni says | that this was only a little tremor. If the earth had not been soft from rain, | there would be no problem here."
"Let us hope he is right. Tell him that I will pay the men he brings an i exorbitant amount of money for their help, and double that if they can get | us out this evening."
Another round of shouting and answer. Elizabeth shook her head at the reply. "Vanni says that it would be impossible to get anyone to come | tonight since it's Christmas Eve, but he swears that tomorrow we will be free sometime between Mass and the midday meal."
Randolph sighed. "I suppose that will have to do." He turned and picked up the basket from where he had dropped it when the tremor hit. It had survived intact, if somewhat the worse for wear.
Elizabeth followed him back to the temple site. Still a little shaky from her escape, she was content to sit and watch while he explored the whole area, foot by foot. Eventually he returned to her. "If, God forbid, Vanni doesn't return, I think I could manage to climb over and around the landslide area, so we won't be trapped here indefinitely."
She looked at the steep rock face and shuddered. "Let us hope that it doesn't come to that."
"I don't think it will, but I am happier for knowing that there are alternatives." He looked at the sky and frowned. "The sun will be down in another hour, and it is going to be very cold here without any shelter. Fortunately I brought my flint and steel, so we can light a fire, but there is precious little fuel. I imagine that previous visitors used most of what was available. Still, we should find enough wood to keep from freezing tonight."
For the next half hour, the two of them gathered wood and stacked it by a shallow depression in the rocky cliff. It wasn't even remotely a cave, but it offered the best available protection from the weather. Elizabeth wrinkled her nose at the results. "It isn't a very impressive woodpile."
"No, but it should be enough." He retrieved the lap rug from the basket and handed it to her. "You had better wrap yourself in this."
She accepted the lap rug gratefully and wrapped it around her shoulders, wishing that it was twice as large and thrice as heavy. "Women's clothing is not designed for winter, just as men's clothing is usually too heavy for hot weather," she said philosophically, "but with this I will do well enough."
For lack of anything more productive to do, Elizabeth sat down with her back to the cliff, drawing her knees up and linking her arms around them. To the southwest, the massive black silhouette of Vesuvius dominated the horizon. The only signs of man were a few distant farm buildings. The scene could as easily have been Roman as in this civilized year of 1817.
Above the rugged hills, the sky was shot with gold and vermilion, while a nest of violet clouds hugged the horizon and welcomed the molten sun. Nodding toward the sunset, she said, "We may have a long, uncomfortable night ahead, but that is almost adequate compensation. How often do we take the time to enjoy a sunset?"
"Not often enough," Randolph agreed, settling down on the temple steps so he could admire nature's flamboyant artistry.
But in spite of the spectacular sky, Elizabeth found that more of her attention was on her companion, who sat less than a dozen feet away. Hatless and disheveled, his hair touched to liquid gold by the waning sun, he was no longer the impeccable English gentleman. Now the power that underlay his gentle courtesy was visible, and she felt a faint sense of disquiet. Might Lord Randolph decide to take advantage of their enforced proximity to attempt seduction? If he did, she would be helpless before his superior strength. . . .
With an appalled shock, Elizabeth realized that she wanted him to try to seduce her. In fact, her devious lower nature was delighting in a situation that would allow her to submit with a clear conscience, absolved of sin. Unfortunately, her vicarage morals were not so easily fooled.
Hugging her knees closer, she chastised herself for being a shameless, disgusting creature. If Lord Randolph was the sort of man who would take advantage of their situation to force his attentions on her, he was not the man she had fallen in love with and she wouldn't want him. Besides, she doubted that he had any such interest in her; he had said himself that his offer was foolish fancy. By now, he was probably thanking his lucky stars that she had refused.
But if he wasn't, this temporary captivity must be even more awkward for him than for her. He was the one who had been rejected. He must be hating the sight of her.
Oblivious to her lurid thoughts, Randolph said with a trace of wryf amusement, "I knew Christmas in Italy would be different from home, but I never dreamed just how different."
"Yes," Elizabeth agreed somberly, "but at least we're alive. If we had started down the path a few seconds sooner ..."
"Very true," he said, his voice dry. "So I suppose there was some value to my misbegotten proposal, since it delayed us."
"I know that being trapped here with me must be difficult for you. I'm sorry," she said in a small voice.
He shrugged his broad shoulders. "Don't apologize—the fault is mine. I should have known that one seldom gets a second chance where love and marriage are concerned. For my sins of bad judgment, I must pay the price."
His words cut too close to the bone, and she drew a shuddering breath. "You are right. For whatever reason—bad judgment, bad luck— most of us only get one chance for happiness. We think it will last an eternity, and then it vanishes like smoke in our hands."
He turned to face her, a silhouette against the bright sky. "What happened to your chance, Elizabeth? Why are you spending your life raising oilier women's children rather than your own?"
She sighed. "It's not a very dramatic story. William and I were childhood sweethearts. He was the younger son of the squire, I was the daughter of the vicar. Our families were not enthralled by the match, for neither of us had any prospects, but we were young, optimistic, willing to work hard. We had our whole lives planned. William's father bought him a pair of colors and off he went to the Peninsula. I was teaching and saving my salary. When he became a captain, we would marry and I would follow the drum."
"But that didn't hap
pen."
"No," she whispered. "Within a year he was dead. Not even nobly, righting the French, but of a fever."
"I'm sorry," he said gently. "That was a dreadful waste of a brave young life, and a tragic loss for you."
In her fragile mood, his compassion almost broke her. She made an effort to collect herself. "I feel fortunate for what little we had, even if it was much less than we had expected." She tried a smile, without complete success. "Really, it was a great stroke of luck that even one man wanted to marry me. I'm not the sort to inspire a grand passion, and without a portion I wasn't very marriageable. If William and I hadn't grown up together, I doubt he would have looked twice at me, but as it was, we ... well, we were part of each other."
"I wish you would stop demeaning yourself," Randolph said sternly. "Beauty and fortune have their place, but they are not what make a good wife."
"As you learned to your cost?" she asked quietly.
"As I learned, to my cost." He stood abruptly. "I'd better start a fire while there is still a little light."
It was fortunate that Lord Randolph had flint and steel, and a penknife to whittle dry wood shavings from the inside of a branch. Soon a small fire was crackling away. He sat back on his heels, staying close enough to feed the blaze easily. "Having a fire brings civilization a little closer."
Elizabeth did not agree. Even with a fire, civilization seemed very distant, and she found herself speaking with a boldness that normally she would not have dared. "You said that you had committed the sin of bad judgment," she said tentatively. "If your sin was falling in love with a beautiful face, then finding that the lady's character was not so fine as her features, that is not such a great crime. Many young men do the same."
Lord Randolph must have felt the same lessening of civilized constraints, because he answered rather than giving her the set-down she deserved. "True, but that is not what I did. My crime was much worse. Like you, I fell in love young. Unlike you, our families were delighted. Lady Alyson was a great heiress, and I was a good match for her—of similar rank, wealthy enough so as not to be a fortune-hunter. And as a younger son, I would have ample time to devote to managing her property when she inherited."
Throwing the last shred of her manners to the winds, Elizabeth asked, "Was the problem that she did not love you?"
The muscles of his face went taut in the flickering light. "No, she did love me. And I, in one moment of foolish cowardice, hurt her unforgivably and wrecked both our lives."
The silence that followed was so long that finally Elizabeth said, "I realize that this is absolutely none of my business, but I am perishing of curiosity. Is what happened so unspeakable?"
His face eased. "Having said that much, I suppose I should tell the rest. I made the mistake of calling on Alyson with one of my more boisterous friends along. While we were waiting for her in the drawing room, my friend asked why I was marrying her. If Alyson had been a little golden nymph, he could have understood, but she wasn't at all in the common way."
Randolph sighed. "I should have hit him. Instead, because my feelings for Alyson were too private to expose to someone who might make sport of them, I said breezily that I was marrying her for her money. I knew that was a reason he would understand."
Elizabeth had a horrible feeling that she knew what happened next.% "Alyson overheard and cried off?"
"Worse than that." Carefully he laid two larger pieces of wood on the fire. "I didn't learn the whole story until quite recently. She did overhear and told her father she wouldn't marry me if I were the last man on earth, but wouldn't explain why she had changed her mind. Thinking she was just being missish, her father became very gothic and locked her in her room, swearing that he would keep her there until she agreed to go through with the marriage. Feeling betrayed by both her father and me, Alyson ran away. She stayed away for twelve long years. Just this last September she returned and reconciled with her father."
"Good heavens," Elizabeth said blankly. "How did she survive so long on her own?"
"First she taught. Later, by chance, she became a land steward, quite a successful one. As I said, she was not in the common way. You remind me of her." Randolph glanced up from the fire, which he had been watching with unnecessary vigilance. "After Alyson vanished, I wondered if it was my fault, so when she returned I asked her. She confirmed that she had overheard me, and that was why she had run away." He gave a bitter laugh. "This story would be better told at Easter than Christmas. I felt like Peter must have when he realized that he had denied his Master three times before the cock crowed."
Elizabeth's heart ached for both of them—two young lovers shattered by a moment of foolishness. No wonder Randolph could not forgive himself. And the fact that Lady Alyson had run away from her whole life was vivid proof of the anguish she had felt at the apparent betrayal of the man she had loved and trusted.
Elizabeth tried to imagine what Randolph's meeting with his former love had been like, but imagination boggled. "Calling on her must have taken a great deal of courage."
"I decided that it was easier to know for sure than to continue to live with guilty uncertainty." The corner of his mouth twisted up in wry self-mockery. "In fact, Alyson was amazingly easy on me. I wouldn't have blamed her if she had greeted me with a dueling pistol, but instead she said that the fault lay as much with her and her father as with me, and that her life had not been ruined in the least."
"Your Alyson sounds like a remarkable woman."
"She is, but she's not my Alyson anymore. A few weeks after emerging from exile, she married one of the most notorious rakes in England, and I have it on the best authority that he is a reformed man: sober, responsible, and as besotted with her as she is with him. Alyson is happy now, and she deserves to be. She is one of those rare people who forged herself a second chance for happiness." Randolph linked his fingers together and stared into the fire. "I've been telling myself since September that it all worked out for the best. Her strength of character would have been wasted on me. I have no interesting vices to reform, and doubtless would have bored her very quickly."
"Do you still love her?"
He sighed, his face empty. "The young man I was loved the young J woman she was. Neither of those people exists anymore."
It wasn't quite an answer, but at least now Elizabeth understood why'j he had offered her a carte blanche: it was because she resembled the | woman he had loved. Where did his wife fit into the picture? In the lonely years after Lady Alyson disappeared, he must have married without love, ] and lived to regret it. Elizabeth did not dare ask about his marriage; sh.ej had already been unpardonably inquisitive. Sadly she said, "Perhaps it isf only the young who are foolish enough, or brave enough, to fall in love and that is the reason why there are few second chances."
Having let her hair down metaphorically, Elizabeth decided that it| was time to do so literally as well, or she would have a headache before^ morning. After removing her hairpins and tucking them in the basket so| they wouldn't get lost, she combed her tangled curls with her fingers in a;i futile attempt to restore order. When Randolph glanced over, she;! explained, "In case any wolves or other beasts find their way up here, I am letting my hair down so that I can play Medusa and turn them to stone." ;
He chuckled, his earlier melancholy broken. "You should wear your) hair down more often—it becomes you."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes in comic disbelief, and he wondered if she;: ever believed compliments. In truth, by firelight and with her brown hair crackling with red and gold highlights, she looked very winsome. Perhaps, not beautiful, but thoroughly delectable.
He hastily looked back at the fire, knowing that that was a dangerous train of thought under these circumstances, when she had made it clear! that he did not fit into her plans for the future. Apparently, having loved well and truly, she did not want to marry without love. Perhaps she was wiser than he, for he had tried that once, with disastrous consequences. Nonetheless, the more he saw of Elizabeth Wal
ker, the more he thought that they would deal very well together, if she were willing to lower her : standards and accept him.
Perhaps speaking so openly of their pasts should have made them more awkward with each other, but the reverse was true. The evening drifted by in companionable silence, broken by occasional desultory conversation. They sat a couple of feet apart with their backs against the cliff wall, which offered some protection from the bitter December wind. Vesuvius was close enough for a faint glow to be visible against the night sky. It was a dramatic but disquieting sight. Fortunately the little fire offered cheery comfort as well as some warmth.
Eventually they made further inroads on the picnic basket and still had enough food for another meal or two. After they had eaten and drunk some of the wine, Randolph asked, "How are you managing? It's cold now, and it will be considerably colder by tomorrow morning." "I'm fine, thank you."
Elizabeth's voice sounded a little stiff, and when Randolph looked more closely and saw how she was huddled into the lap rug, he understood why. "You're freezing, aren't you? And too practical to say so when we haven't enough wood to burn it at a faster rate." "You said it, not I."
Randolph peeled his coat off and handed it to her. "Put this on." "Don't be silly," she said, refusing to accept it and keeping her hands tucked under the lap rug. "That would just mean that you'd freeze, too. I will do very well." There was a suggestion of chattering teeth under her brave words.
"You don't appear to be doing well. Come, take my coat," he coaxed. "Cold has never bothered me much, while six years in Italy have probably thinned your blood to the point where you are more sensitive to cold than the average Englishwoman."
Elizabeth looked mulish; she definitely had much in common with Alyson. Why did tall, stubborn, independent females who were not in the common way appeal to him so much? He smiled a little, realizing that his question contained its own answer. "Very well, if you won't accept my coat, we will have to resort to a time-honored method of keeping warm."