Dane (26 page)

“This is a fruitless tangent,” she said mildly. “The fact remains that I want the land. And my attorneys assure me I have good cause to sue for its return. My son was inebriated with liquor you provided that night at the card table. The game took place in an unnamed establishment owned by your brother, which strangely, no one can seem to locate.

Coercion, etc., etc.” She fluttered a hand.

“It‟s only five acres, overgrown with vines and weeds. You didn‟t tend it well over the years you‟ve owned it. I wonder that you now claim it‟s so dear to you.”

Her lips tightened. “Will you return the land or not?”

“Mother,” Alexa murmured in soft censure, but they both ignored her.

“Not,” he replied.

“A case between us could sit in the courts for a decade. My attorneys could arrange things so you don‟t have access to the land during that time.”

“Why is it so important to you?” he asked again.

Serafina took up her gloves and slapped them into her opposite palm. “Because it belonged to my ancestors decades before your family came here. Your father stole it from mine in much the same way you‟ve taken it from Gaetano.”

“And centuries before any of that, my ancestors planted the olive trees there. Surely that lends my family the prior claim.”

“Prove it,” said Serafina, in the haughty tone of one who believed her superior social standing and wealth would assure her of victory in any argument.

Dane ran his fingers through his hair, fearing she was right. “Name your price and I‟ll pay it. And we‟ll forget the winning of it in a wager with your son.”

Her eyes leapt as if this was an offer she‟d hoped for all along.

“Excellent, but it‟s not money I‟m after. I happen to have a solution that might solve this to the benefit of everyone. May I put it to you?”

“If it involves divesting my family of the grove, save your breath.”

She went on as if she hadn‟t heard. “I gather from the gossips that you are set on acquiring a wife?” She glanced at him enquiringly.

He kept silent, sensing a trap.

“And of course, you‟ve met my Alexa?” she added pointedly.

Understanding dawned and he straightened, his eyes going to her daughter. She flushed under his notice. “You want these five acres so badly you‟re willing to sell your daughter for them? To a man you know nothing about?”

Serafina shrugged, her expression mild. “You and your brothers have shown a decided knack for accumulating wealth and land.” Her gaze swept him. “And you look like good breeding stock.”

Alexa shot her a horrified look. “Mother, please!”

“For you or your daughter?” he said, goading her.

“You needn‟t be crass.”Serafina stood and began strolling the circumference of the room, idly noting various details. She soon neared him, gazing into the hole in the floor that led to the tullanium, the deep cells where prisoners had once been kept.

“Interesting place, isn‟t it?”she offered softly for his ears only. “I can gather evidence that could land you in such a place.”

Every muscle in Dane‟s body tensed, but she hadn‟t finished. “I can have the police visit you and your brothers in your precious grove one night under the full moon. Your behavior there might raise eyebrows,” she went on. “It would be a shame to see men so full of vitality incarcerated, left to wither away.”

Gods! She‟d found them out!

“I wonder that you would wed your offspring to one you consider insane,” he mocked, but inside his guts were roiling.

“We both know you‟re not insane, but I want that land,” she persisted. To her daughter, she said, “Dear, please excuse yourself so that I may speak privately to Lord Satyr.”

“Why?”Alexa asked, looking thoroughly confounded by the bits she‟d overheard. “This involves me. Surely I should be here?”

“Step outside,” Serafina insisted. “I‟ll join you in a moment.”

With a sigh, the girl headed for the door, but Dane caught her arm on her way out. He‟d smelled the faint scent of her attraction to him last night and again now. But still he asked, “You want this? A marriage to me?”

She looked up at him, her eyes shy but hungry. “I will bow to my mother‟s wishes.” Then with a glimmer of the liveliness he recalled from his dance with her at the gala, she added, “And you are far preferable to her previous candidate for me I assure you.”

“That‟s enough, Alexa,” said Serafina. “Wait for me at the bottom of the steps.”

“Alexa knows nothing of your world or your kind,” she told him once her daughter had gone. “I suggest you keep it from her. She‟s never excelled at safeguarding secrets. So, do we have an agreement?”

Dane‟s thoughts whirled. This woman had the power to destroy his family. And to expose ElseWorld! But he despised being manipulated. “I could simply throttle you instead.”

“I wouldn‟t advise it. There are others in my inner circle who know what I know about you,” she threatened. “Come now, you want a wife.

Why not have Alexa? You can see she‟s willing.”

He knew precisely what was holding him back. The thought of a woman—any woman—in his arms or his bed other than Eva held no appeal. But he had to choose someone or give up any hope of remaining in this world or finding Luc. He heaved a frustrated sigh. “The grove stays in my family,” he warned.

She nodded, but he didn‟t trust her and would have it in writing before any wedding took place. But for now, he only nodded his agreement. “And I‟ll want children of her.”

Excitement lit Serafina‟s eyes, obviously pleased she‟d won. “Will you wish to wed before the next full moon?”

He stepped closer, intimidating her with his size. “Tell me exactly what you know about us. And how you know it.”

Her eyes flicked beyond him to ensure that her daughter was out of earshot. “I know enough. I was involved romantically with one of your kind many years ago,” she admitted. “A satyr by the name of Angelo Sontine. A tall, strapping gentleman, much like you and your brothers.

Do you know him?”

Dane shook his head.

She looked a little disappointed at that, but only slipped on her gloves. “I‟ll bid you good day, then. And I‟ll be in touch.”

Her gaze was that of a woman in her forties, but her figure and face were those of a woman only a few years older than Eva or her own daughter. He frowned. “How old are you?”

She smiled, moving away. “I‟m the mother of two grown children.

You can‟t expect me to own my age, surely?”

Gaetano Patrizzi stood at the entrance to his bedchamber, glowering at the pair of women who approached him from the hallway.

“Gaetano! What a handsome boy you‟ve become. And still not married?”The strega took his chin in her fingers. “When you going to make some babies for your mama, eh?”She gave him a hard little pinch as if he were an errant schoolboy.

“Do you think I wanted this situation for myself any more than you?”He pulled from her hold, annoyed.

Unfazed, Strega Anna patted his cheek with her smooth palm. Like most of his mother‟s friends, her skin was remarkably unlined for her age.

“You‟ll father children yet,” Serafina declared as she and her friend barged past him into his room. “Who else to carry on my legacy but my only son? Still, time is passing, and I‟m not getting any younger.”

“Nor older,” the strega quipped.

Both women broke into titters at their private jest.

“But now on to our patient.”Anna gestured toward Gaetano‟s trousers. “Take them off, hurry up, and lie down. I have other patients to see.”

Seething with resentment, Gaetano divested himself of his trousers and flung himself on his back upon his bed. The strega waddled closer and examined his limp phallus, tsking. She pulled out a jar full of a green substance. “Here, we‟ll try this today.”

“Another potion?” Gaetano lay his forearm across his eyes, resigning himself to submitting to yet another humiliation from this woman. She began applying her green paste to his genitals with her fingers. “God, what a stench! What is that foul stuff? It smells like death.” He covered his face with a pillow.

“That pillow brings up a matter I would discuss with you both,” the strega announced, setting her jar aside. “We‟ve been at this for years now.

At this point, I‟m ready to suggest something more drastic. What do you think about asphyxiation?”

Incredulous, Gaetano threw the pillow off to glare at her. “What?”

“Historically, it‟s a treatment some in my profession have prescribed for your condition,” she went on, perfectly serious. “After all, male victims of public hangings have been observed to develop an erection, sometimes even ejaculating. Some take their death erection to the grave.”

“Really?” Serafina asked, sounding fascinated.

“I won‟t submit to such a thing,” Gaetano announced.

“I want grandchildren out of you,” said Serafina. “If we exhaust all other measures, you „ll do it.”

The strega tried to reassure him. “It‟s only a little discomfort. And think of the reward if it works. Isn‟t there some lady you‟d like to poke?”

A vision came to his mind unbidden, of him taking Eva to his bed and plowing her. Of having her honeyed slit yield to his cock, while gazing into those green eyes of hers.

The strega gasped. “Saints in heaven! The paste is having some effect!”

Following her gaze, Gaetano glanced down, hardly daring to believe his own eyes. His cock was tumescent. It bobbed, making an effort to stand.

The two women huddled, bending close to study it. “Is it enough?”

Serafina asked anxiously. “Could he get it inside a woman like that?”

“It‟s a beginning,” encouraged the strega. “Only a little stiffer and he would manage.”

“Enough to give her his seed?”

“If not, he could take himself in hand and spill into my syringe. If he can make seed, I can insert it into his wife. And then”—she snapped her fingers—“all the grandbabies you want!”

“I don‟t have a wife,” Gaetano interjected.

Serafina patted his arm, beaming at him. “Well, in view of this development, perhaps we should purchase more of this paste and then go about finding one for you. But we‟ll have to give the poor lady a clothespin for her nose with this stench.” Both women laughed.

“It‟s not the paste,” Gaetano told them, irritated.

They turned to stare at him.

“Of course it is,” said the strega. “What else?”

“Then what is it?” his mother asked at the same time.

“A woman. A particular woman I was thinking of just then,” he insisted. “Evangeline Delacorte.”

His mother‟s face flushed. “You lie. You‟re attracted to her so you‟re trying to trick me into giving my approval.”

“No!”He gestured to his distended prick. “You see this? It happened last night at the ball when I danced with her, and two times before that when in her company. Just now, when she came into my mind, it happened again. So now do you comprehend the reason for my interest in her?”

Serafina tapped the well-manicured fingernails of one hand on his bedside table, making an audible clicking sound. She glanced at her friend.

“What‟s behind it, do you suppose? Why this French girl? Someone so unremarkable, so unsuitable.”

“Does it matter? She‟s what I want,” Gaetano interrupted. He fanned his nose. “Wash this damn stuff off, will you? It‟s on my hand now, too. God-awful stink.”

The strega went for a basin. “Men often find a lowborn woman stimulating,” she threw over her shoulder in answer to Serafina.

“I am surprised, though,” Serafina mused as the strega returned to wash him. “I always assumed it would take an ElseWorld female to stir him.”

“Evangeline is of ElseWorld blood.”

The women gaped at him in astonishment.

“She went to the Salone di Passione last night,” Gaetano informed them. “Didn‟t leave until this morning.”

His mother‟s eyes sharpened. “You went to her after I warned you not to? How far have things gone between you? Have you—?”

He looked away. “Nothing‟s happened. But I know she‟s one of them. And she‟s not fey. If I didn‟t know better, I‟d say she was satyr herself.”

Serafina‟s interest was truly caught. “Will she accept an offer from you?”

His gaze shot to her. “Of marriage? Last night you told me not to dare dance with her, now you‟re ready for me to announce nuptials?”

“Of course, what else? If she can get a rise out of you, you can whelp heirs on her. Every doctor we‟ve seen has agreed that your seed isn‟t problematic, but rather your ability to deliver it between a woman‟s legs.”

“What if she won‟t have him?”asked Anna.

“She‟ll have him,” Serafina assured her. “Anyone can see what she‟s after. Her eyes light up at the thought of his social standing and his lira.”

“Maybe it‟s me that puts the light in her eyes instead,” said Gaetano.

“Maybe,” his mother agreed doubtfully.

“What if she doesn‟t bear his offspring when all is said and done?”asked the strega, beginning to pack her little bag again.

Serafina shrugged. “What‟s another body in the Tiber? The fish will make short work of her. Another tragic disappearance to puzzle the Carabinieri.”

“And then we can always try things my way—“The strega made a wringing motion with her hands.

“I‟ll choke you if you try it,” Gaetano warned her.

She just smiled, pinched his cheek again, and bussed a parting kiss on Serafina‟s. “Ciao. Let me know if you need me again.”

15

The scene of the outdoor gala was brilliantly illuminated as Eva stepped from her carriage that night. Eagerness rose in her at the thought of seeing Dane again. Though they‟d known each other less than a week, she felt more connected to him than anyone she‟d ever met. She‟d dressed in her best for him, in a gown of creamy taffeta. Odette had tucked pearls in her hair and supplied her with a surfeit of unwelcome advice regarding what she was to accomplish tonight. Securing a human fiancé being at the top of the list. However, Eva had decided to ignore her. She felt that she and Dane had come to an understanding at the close of last evening, and a fragile hope now blossomed in her that they might somehow make matters work between them.