friends, who quickly included her in their midst.
The gypsy fortune-teller. It had to be.
But King Feydon had claimed he’d bedded a highborn woman, not a gypsy. Had the girl fallen on hard times?
His chin lifted, and he searched the wind. There it was. The very faintest hint—the merest thread of Faerie spice.
Eyes narrowed, he scanned the grounds, questing, and found the formal entrance at the north end of the gardens. There. The arch of glass over the walkway. The very portal through which the fortune-teller had recently fled. With her departure, the scent of Faerie had fled as well.
Abruptly he excused himself from Signorina Rossini and the cluster of guests. He ignored the almost unanimous start of surprise at his curt withdrawal. Features honed with determination, he began his hunt anew.
Outside the garden gate, he trod the expanses of lawn, passing the occasional fountain or pond. Beyond, when the greenery turned to the paving stones of a thoroughfare, he instinctively headed toward the Aniene River.
He caught sight of the fortune-teller again some distance ahead, scampering over the wide uneven bricks underfoot. She traveled alone, foolish girl. It was a fashionable area, but she could easily find herself in trouble in the nooks and crannies of these twisting streets.
Now and then she became lost from his sight, for she had nearly a fifty-yard lead on him. But his gait was longer than hers, and he easily gained ground.
Occasionally she glanced back as though sensing his pursuit. He kept to the shadows, hidden.
After some blocks, he saw her enter an ironwork gate leading to a private town house. From an alley across the lane, he assessed the dwelling and found it well kept and luxurious, though unostentatious. Was it that of her family, or was she a guest in another’s household? Or a servant? Was she already wed? Would her relatives prove difficult?
So many questions, and no answers to be had this night.
In ElseWorld, Satyrs sought their mates in a more forthright manner than was the custom of Human society. Unfortunately that meant he couldn’t follow her inside and take her with him tonight.
Fortunately he could display infinite patience when it was required. Tomorrow he would visit his attorney and determine the nature of her family. Their financial circumstances and social standing would inform him regarding how best to proceed.
Briefly he wondered at the danger to her person about which King Feydon had hinted. The house she’d entered appeared innocuous, like dozens of others along the street. However, he had more than a passing acquaintance with the secrets that ordinary stone walls could conceal.
The clatter of carriage wheels drew his attention. A portly man sat in the passing open-air coach, his eyes closed and an expression of agonized delight on his face.
When his conveyance hit a pothole, a flustered feminine head popped up from between his sausage thighs. Her hair was mussed and her lips moist. For a moment, her glance tangled with Nick’s. She boldly eyed the swell of his crotch and winked.
A prostitute. A very comely one. He smiled his admiration, and she smiled back. Then, with resignation, her head ducked over the signore’s lap once again, and the carriage rattled out of sight.
With no more reason to linger, Nick slipped back to the garden and hailed his private coach. His physical needs could be denied no longer.
Overhead, clouds had gathered and thickened, obscuring starlight. But the heavy tautness in his loins told him the moon was waxing. It was a dangerous time for one such as he to be without a woman for so long.
The Calling would occur three days hence, at Moonful, as it did with monthly regularity. When the night sky’s orb hung swollen and round, his passion would unleash. It was essential he curtail his business here in Tivoli and return to Satyr land before the Calling overtook him.
Hours later, he entered the sumptuous abode of Mona, one of his favorite meretrici in Rome. She greeted him effusively, and he found himself engulfed in her bosom and smothered by the falseness of her perfume. For the first time he felt vaguely repulsed by its brazenness, so unlike the delicate fragrance he’d tracked earlier that evening.
He pulled away and saw she had readied herself for him. She was dressed as he liked, in a manner which proclaimed she’d once been part of accepted society. No bawdy-house woman here, but rather a figure that might have graced the finest ballroom if she hadn’t fallen into financial difficulty and chosen this profession as a way out.
Her mild plumpness and elegance pleased him. His taste in women varied, but on the whole he preferred them cultured and genteel—at least on the outside.
A movement in the salon doorway attracted his notice, and he turned to observe another of her kind waiting in the dimness beyond. He’d sent word ahead that he would be calling. Mona had obviously prepared some sort of entertainment for him.
The other woman wore a scarlet bombazine gown that appeared determined to bind its wearer as tightly as his trousers restrained his burgeoning cock. Though the gown’s design bordered on prim, its waist was sharply curtailed and its bodice forced her ample bosom high.
Marking his interest, Mona waved a manicured hand toward her companion, inviting her closer for his inspection.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she teased throatily, linking her arm with his and the other woman’s to draw their threesome more intimately together. “My sister will be joining us.”
Giggling, the younger version of his meretrice jiggled coyly, purposely attracting his gaze to the undulating globes that swelled precariously above the neckline of her gown.
“Angela!” Mona scolded. “Lord Satyr comes to us seeking refinement, not the behavior one might expect from a whore of the back alleys.”
The younger woman straightened, chastised.
Nick smiled at her, flashing even white teeth. Her expression melted as she quickly fell under his thrall.
Both women had lush figures but were different of feature. He doubted they were related. Still he gave Mona high marks for the creativity she displayed. The fantasy of having sisters attend him was always quite diverting.
Nick shook off the notion that such pleasures, though as necessary to him as breathing, had come to seem empty in recent months. The addition of a wife and children to his household would prove a welcome distraction from a growing awareness that there was a void in his life.
“Vino, signore?” asked Mona, pressing her bosom into his arm. Candlelight flickered on the bottle she lifted from the liquor cart. It bore the Satyr Vineyard emblem, an embossed SV.
He nodded.
A soft hand grazed the fabric over his crotch, as though by accident. Her supposed sister. He ignored the overture for the moment and lifted the glass that was poured for him, anticipating the first swallow.
The intimate touch at his trousers grew bolder as the shimmering liquid spilled over his tongue. The tart sweetness tightened his taste buds even as the skilled fingers released his engorged prick to the caress of a feminine mouth.
Ah! There was nothing like the taste of Satyr…wine.
4
Wine! It disgusted her!
Jane kicked the empty bottle she’d tripped over just inside her aunt’s gate.
Normally she wasn’t so clumsy. But after leaving Villa d’Este, she’d been rattled by the bizarre notion that she was being pursued. A few more steps and she’d be on the stairs leading inside Aunt Izabel’s town house.
She picked up the wine bottle for closer examination and rubbed her thumb over the raised insignia molded into its side—“SV.”
When she’d lived in London, she’d discovered many such bottles in various hiding places. This one was her father’s, no doubt, as all