Lucianna by Bertrice Small Page B

explained. “How did you know I was here?”
    “It is already being bandied about the court that the representative for the Florentine silk merchants’ guild is a beautiful woman. The king’s people always know anyone of interest or importance who comes to London.”
    “I would hardly consider myself either,” she replied. “I just came to see my establishment today and will now return home. My father bought me a small house on a pleasant street called Ivy Lane. The Kiras have seen I was supplied with an excellent staff of servants, and Mistress Kira and I have already purchased what I needed to furnish it. I was just planning to close up now, for I am not yet ready for business.”
    “Will you object if I accompany you, Lucianna?”
    “I am flattered,” she replied. Then, leading him from the shop, she locked the door carefully and climbed into her litter with his help, although Lucianna did not really need it. “I regret I have not room for another,” she told him.
    “I have a horse,” he told her, and then he mounted the beast.
    The bearers picked up her transport, and with the earl at her side, they hurried back through the streets to Ivy Lane. To her pleasure, one of the young stable boys hurried forth to take the earl’s animal as he dismounted and accompanied her into the house.
    “How charming,” he said.
    Balia came forward, smiling. “My lord,” she greeted him.
    “Fetch the earl some wine,” Lucianna said. “Come into my little library, my lord. It is the coziest room in the house.”
    He sat where she indicated, but he could not take his eyes from her. She was even more beautiful than he remembered, with her rich golden hair with its reddish highlights and her beautiful blue-green eyes.
    “I have missed you,” he said.
    “Yet you did not correspond with me,” she replied softly.
    “There has been so much to do. I had my estates, which cannot be managed without me, so I am less in London than I would like. And when I am, my time is taken up by the king, who is yet young and must be careful from whence his guidance comes. I have no desire for power, and so I carefully blend myself into the background of the court that I not be noticed or considered a rival to any. I barely have time to eat or to sleep,” he explained.
    “And yet you look well rested and healthy,” she murmured.
    “And I still have my handsome head,” he responded with a grin.
    “Ah, so you think you are handsome?” she said.
    “Do you not think I am?” he countered.
    “You will do, my lord,” Lucianna replied dryly.
    Balia entered with the required wine and left quickly.
    “Nonetheless, I thought of you every day,” he said to her. “Did you think of me, Lucianna?”
    “Now and again, my lord, but I too was consumed by my other duties, and then my father’s guild decided in order to outdo the Milanese, I should come to England posthaste to represent them. There was the packing of my goods, the closing of my house, and the long trip to reach this rainy land.”
    “It will be brighter in the other seasons, but late autumn and winter can be rainy,” he explained.
    “And now I have to arrange for this shop to be properly fitted, and our silks displayed. I doubt I will have time for much else,” she said.
    “But you will make time for me, Lucianna, won’t you?” His lips were smiling, but she saw an anxious look in his eyes that belied his confidence.
    “If you will make time for me, my lord,” she answered.
    “Will you not call me Roberto as you once did?” he asked her.
    “When we are in private as we are now, Roberto, but never in public. To do so would be considered disrespectful, and I will not appear to be some mannerless wench before your people,” Lucianna said. “I am, after all, the granddaughter of a Venetian prince. I will not be disrespected for my calling and love for trade.”
    He heard the pride in her voice. It was a side of her he had never before seen, and while surprised by it,