Six weeks later

Standing behind Grace as she leaned back against him, David smiled as his seeking fingers traced the delicate pattern around her eyes. A gentle breeze stirred the open shutters as they gazed out over the city.

“The sun is making you squint. I can feel its warmth on my skin,” he murmured.

Grace shivered with pleasure. She felt lazy and peaceful. A little over a month ago she and David had sought comfort in each other’s arms in David’s London bedchamber just after Laurence and Mrs Willowbank had tried to direct their lives once more. They’d both been shivering, on that occasion, too. From fear.

The silence that had followed his mother’s departure after David had again declared his intention to marry Grace had been a welcome contrast to the earlier shouting and shrieking, but it had been ominous, too. Grace already knew to her cost how unyielding—and unforgiving—Mrs Willowbank could be.

But David had held her close and reassured her—of his feelings and his unwavering devotion and honourable intentions. “There was something about you that felt so right from the moment I touched your hair,” he’d whispered, nuzzling her neck. “I’d dreamed about you so often, I just thought it was me imagining you in a different guise.”

Not for one moment had Grace imagined they were to enjoy a happy-ever-after. Men like David did not marry girls like her.

But David had refused to let her leave him, declaring she’d slink back into the underworld where he’d be unable to find her—which was just what Grace had intended.

Instead, David had helped to lace Grace back into her corset and put on her clothes so that by the time Mrs Willowbank had returned with a barrage of uncles and others she’d brought along to shore up her arguments, she could face her detractors with dignity.

She’d not even blushed when she’d recognised the family lawyer as a client who regularly enjoyed the offerings of Madame Chambon’s salon though he’d turned crimson when she’d sent him a knowing smile. With her perfectly modulated vowels, her gracious bearing and her cool self possession, Grace could have passed for any of the fine ladies Mrs Willowbank might have introduced to her son, so David told her.

He’d told everyone else that Grace was infinitely more preferable to him than any of the fine ladies Mrs Willowbank had ever introduced to him. Not that he needed his mother’s help to choose himself a wife—or her approval—he’d added. He’d done that for himself and as he was twenty-one with an independent fortune, he could do what he liked.

He’d made the most of his authority.

As the fine linen curtains of their honeymoon villa billowed about them, Grace exhaled gently, twining her hand up behind her to cup David’s beautiful cheek. “In the distance I can see the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte. There are rolling hills—”

David stopped her words with a gentle finger upon her lips. “A mountain behind, and the red roofs of the village in front. You don’t need to tell me, Grace, for I carried this scene in my heart and my head every day I was in Cambridge and dreaming of when you and I would come to Florence to take up Señor Borteli’s offer.”

“And now we are here.” She twisted in his embrace to rest her head upon his chest. A strong, muscled and comfort-inducing chest that belonged to a young man who knew his mind. He’d made that clear before Mrs Willowbank had departed with the uncles and lawyers and goodness knew who else.

And he’d made Grace his wife.

“Come in,” Grace now called out in reply to the soft rap upon the door.

“Señor Borteli is here to see you and he’s brought a friend…a sculptor.” The little maid curtsied. “Shall I send them up?”

Grace drew in her breath and squeezed David’s arm. “A sculptor? Is there something you’ve neglected to tell me, David?” She felt ridiculously gratified to see the light dancing in David’s sightless eyes as he enveloped her in a hug. It was so easy to read him. He’d been keeping this secret until he knew he’d not disappoint her.

David nodded slightly as he turned towards the maid who was awaiting orders. “I think your mistress needs just a moment to prepare herself, Maisy,” he said. “You’ve always known just what she needs for every occasion so why don’t you fetch the jewels you think she should wear when she sits for the portrait that will make her the toast of Florence.”

“Yes, sir.”

Grace smiled. Maisy had been invaluable in assisting them in their flight from England. While Madame Chambon’s exorbitant fee had been settled by Mrs Willowbank in advance, Grace knew her employer would not release her without a battle, so Maisy had bundled up Grace’s most valuable belongings and met the eloping couple secretly at the docks. Naturally Grace had been in need of a lady’s maid and the girl had been overjoyed to step into the role.

“So, not only is my portrait to be painted by Italy’s most famous portraitist?”—Grace cupped David’s face and touched her lips gently to his—“I am to be modelled in clay by the city’s most eminent sculptor?”

David gripped her wrists lightly, his lips parting in a smile, his eyes alive with warmth and love. “That’s what I hope to become by the time I’ve been properly instructed. And you, my darling, will forever more be—as you were in the old days—my muse.”