Page 39 of The Vagabond Viscount
“I dreamed that he happened to walk into a restaurant where I was dining. He took the chair opposite mine and helped himself to some of my pasta. I just watched, and then he smiled at me and spoke.“I love this food, but I love you more.”
Augusta drew in a ragged breath. There were times when she wished he didn’t appear to her, then others when she feared she would forget what he looked like. Even worse would be losing the memory of his voice. Of his words of love, spoken only to her.
“He was always looking for food.”
What she would give to be able to spend one more hour with him, to tell him how much she missed him. How empty her life had become.
I would give him a plate of pasta twenty feet high just to have that chance.
Serafina slipped her arm around Augusta’s waist and gave her a hug. “I only met him the one time when I was in London, but he seemed like a really nice man. I am so sorry, G.”
Augusta rummaged in her reticule for a handkerchief. She wiped her face, then took a deep breath. Regret was something that would always haunt her steps. But there was nothing she could do. Tears wouldn’t bring Flynn back.
“Come on. Let’s walk. I love nothing better than trudging through the streets of Rome and across the river to the Vatican. It helps to clear my head.”
That was only a half-truth. Augusta liked to walk everywhere because the pounding of her leather-soled boots on the hard cobblestones of the ancient streets was the best way to drown out the constant beat of despair in her heart.
ChapterTwenty
The Morning Herald
12th December 1817
Your Herald correspondent has been informed that the ship which arrived at London Docks from Italy on Tuesday the 9thof December was lacking two expected passengers.
The Duchess of Mowbray and her daughter Lady Augusta Kembal are rumored to still be in Rome. In other news, the Duke of Mowbray and his family have suddenly dropped out of social circulation and are not accepting callers at Mowbray House.
The senior matrons of the haut ton are rumored to be asking why. What could have happened to keep the duke and duchess apart for so long, dear reader?
ChapterTwenty-One
Early March 1818
Rome
Flynn’s right hand moved like lightning. While his gaze remained fixed firmly on the fruit stall across the marketplace, his fingers went to work. The apple was in his grasp and hidden inside his coat pocket in under a second. The Rome fruit vendor had no idea what had just happened.
He turned and made a deliberate show of being genuinely surprised to find himself standing in front of a market stall. The bustling Piazza della Rotonda was full of them, but the well-honed act still worked like magic.
Pointing at the same barrel of apples from which he had just pilfered his breakfast, Flynn asked smoothly in Italian, “How much?”
The stall holder gave him a price, and he scoffed at it. He was still waving his left hand in the air as he walked away, his right digging into his pocket for the apple.
One day, if he managed to have more than two small coins to his name, he would repay all the merchants he had stolen from. Or at least the ones in Rome. He dared not venture back to Florence, where the locals would surely remember the scruffy Englishman who had passed through their city and helped himself to their wares.
His morals had long ago reconciled any misgivings he might have for petty thievery. It was either that or starve.
But Rome was different. It had a long-held tradition of street beggars and pickpockets. He privately enjoyed watching the skillful borseggiatori as they helped themselves to the purses of tourists and locals alike. There was a certain artistry about the way they worked. One which he knew he could never emulate.
Stealing small scraps of food was his forte, and more than once he had managed to talk his way out of trouble by playing the role of the bumbling English tourist. Shaking his head while exclaiming, “I thought they were complimentary,” had held him in good stead.
But living rough under one of Rome’s stone bridges was slowly taking its toll. He may have recovered most of his health following his father’s knife attack, but Flynn feared what a few more months of an Italian winter might bring. And whether he would survive.
I can’t die here. I have to find a way home. This is not my destiny.
The days were cold, and the nights long. His overcoat was well past providing much warmth. He hadn’t yet resorted to begging, but the time was coming when he may well have to set his pride aside and hold out his hand for money.
He’d heard a lot more English accents since arriving in Rome. Tourists visiting the eternal city and wishing to see the sights gave him some hope. Yesterday he had earned a few welcome coins by showing some visitors around the Pantheon, the ancient Roman temple which was now a church. They had been more than pleased to avail themselves of a guide who not only spoke fluent English but who also had a good command of Italian.
