A STOLEN KISS

Valerian looked down at her, seeing the adorable pout that had appeared on her enticingly pink lips, and swallowed hard.

He had to retain the knowledge that she was little more than a child.

He had to remind himself that he was a man of the world, an honorable man, and knew better than to steal a kiss from an innocent.

He had to remember that he, although so much older than she, and the possessor of graying temples, was still a reasonably young man of five and thirty, and not nearly ready to settle down and start his nursery.

He had to keep it clear in his mind that—“Oh, the hell with it!”

Valerian quickly took Allegra’s chin between his fingers. “Imp,” he said, his voice husky. “If you think I’m going to ask your permission for this first, you’re fair and far out!” So saying, he lowered his head to hers and allowed himself to succumb to the sanity-destroying attraction of her moist, pouting mouth.

Kasey Michaels is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than sixty books. She has won the Romance Writers of America RITA Award and the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for her historical romances set in the Regency era, and also writes contemporary romances for Silhouette and Harlequin Books.

The Chaotic Miss Crispino
Kasey Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my niece and godchild, Lisa Scheidler Johnston,

who is as chaotically wonderful as Allegra,

and just as beautiful!

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

VALERIAN FITZHUGH stood before the narrow window he had pushed open in the vain hope that some of the stale, dank air trapped within the small room might be so accommodating as to exchange places with a refreshing modicum of the cooler, damp breeze coming in off the moonlit Arno.

Both the river that divided the city and the lofty dome of the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore were vaguely visible from Fitzhugh’s vantage point, although that particular attribute could not be thought to serve as any real consolation for his reluctant presence in the tumbledown pensione.

Florence, birthplace of the Renaissance, had been one of Valerian’s favorite cities when he had visited Italy during his abbreviated Grand Tour some sixteen years previously, although his youthful adventures had come to an abrupt halt when the brief Treaty of Amiens had been shattered. So it was with a willing heart that he had begun charting his current three-year-long return to the Continent in Brussels the very morning after Napoleon had been vanquished forever at Waterloo.

Touching a hand to his breast pocket, Valerian felt again the much-folded, much-traveled sheets of paper that had led him, two and one half years into his journey—and not without considerable trouble—to this small, dark, damp room on quite the most humble street in Florence.

It was damnably wearying, being an honorable man, but Valerian could not in good conscience turn his back on the plea from Lord Dugdale (his late father’s oldest and dearest friend) that had finally caught up with him at his hotel in Venice—and the crafty Denny Dugdale, never shy when it came to asking for assistance, had known it.

So here Valerian stood, at five minutes past midnight on a wet, wintry night just six days after the ringing in of the year of 1818, waiting for the baron’s difficult-to-run-to-ground granddaughter to return to her pitifully mean second-story room in a decrepit pensione so that he could take a reluctant turn at playing fairy godmother.

“…and chaperon…and traveling companion,” Valerian said aloud, sighing.

He stole a moment from his surveillance of the entrance to the pensione beneath the window to look once more around the small room, his gaze taking in the sagging rope bed, the single, near-gutted candle stuck to a metal dish, the small, chipped dresser, and one worn leather satchel that looked as if it had first been used during the time of Columbus.

“One can only hope the chit knows the English word for soap.” A second long-suffering sigh escaped him as he turned back to the window once more to continue his vigil.

“Chi é? Che cosa cera?”

Valerian hesitated momentarily as the low, faintly husky female voice asked him who he was and what he was looking for. He stiffened in self-reproach because he hadn’t heard her enter the room, then a second later remembered that he had glanced away from the entrance for a minute, probably just as she had come down the narrow alley to the pensione.

Slowly turning to face her through the dimness that the flickering candle did little to dissipate, a benign, non-threatening smile deliberately pasted on his lean, handsome face, he bowed perfunctorily and replied, “Il mio nome é Valerian Fitzhugh, Signorina Crispino. Parla inglese, I sincerely pray?”

The girl took two more daring steps into the room, her arms akimbo, her hot gaze raking him up and down as if measuring his capacity for mayhem. “Sì. Capisco. That is to say, yes, Signor Fitzhugh, I speak English,” she said at last, her accent faint but delightful, “which makes it that much easier for me to order you to vacate my room—presto!”

Instead of obeying her, Valerian leaned against the window frame and crossed his arms in front of his chest. His relaxed pose seemed to prompt her to take yet another two steps into the room, bringing her—considering the size of the chamber—within three feet of her uninvited guest.

“You speak, signore, but do you hear? I said you are to leave my room!”

“Do not be afraid. I am not here to harm you, signorina,” he told her, believing her aggressive action resulted more from bravado than from fearlessness.

Her next words quickly disabused him of that notion. “Harm me? Ha! As if you could. These walls are like paper, signore. One scream from me and the whole household would be in here. Now, go away! Whatever position you are offering me, I must tell you I have no choice but to refuse it. I leave Firenze tonight.”

“Position? I don’t follow you, signorina. But, be that as it may, aren’t you even the least bit interested in how I came to know your name?”

“Such a silly question.” She threw back her head in an eloquent gesture of disdain at his blatant admission of ignorance. “Everyone knows me, signore. I am famosa—famous!”

Valerian’s lips quivered in amusement. “Is that so? And modest too, into the bargain. However, if you don’t mind, we’ll pass over that for the moment and get on to the reason for my presence here.”

She sighed, her impatience obvious as she rolled her eyes upward. “Very well, if you insist. But I have not the time for a long story.”

Valerian spoke quickly, sensing that what he had to tell her was rough ground he would wisely get across as rapidly as possible. “I am not here to employ you. I have been sent here by your English grandfather, to fetch you home. How wonderful that your mother taught you her native tongue. It will simplify things once you are in Brighton. Excuse me, but what is that smell? There are so many vile odors in this room, but this one is new, and particularly unlovely.”

“Smell? How dare you!” Her hands came up as if she were contemplating choking him, then dropped to her sides. “Mia madre? I don’t understand. What do you know of my dearest madre signore? Or of my terrible nonno, who broke her poor heart?”

The hands came up again—for the urge to remove Valerian from the room had overcome her temporary curiosity. “Magnifico, signore! You almost deflected me, didn’t you? But no, I shall not be distracted. I have no time, no interest. It’s those terrible Timoteos. I must pack. I must leave here, at once. As soon as I eat!”

So saying, she reached into the low-cut bodice of the white peasant blouse Valerian had been eyeing with some interest—Miss Crispino might be a mere dab of a girl, the top of her head not quite reaching his shoulders, but her breasts were extremely ample—so that his disappointment could be easily assumed as he watched her retract her hand, holding up a foot-long string of small sausages.

His left eyebrow lifted a fraction, his disappointment tempered by the realization that the blouse remained remarkably well filled. “At least now I know the origin of that unpleasant odor I mentioned earlier. How devilish ingenious of you, Signorina Crispino. I should never have thought to keep sausages in my shirt.”

She waited until she had filled her mouth with a lusty bite of the juicy meat before replying, waving the string of sausages in front of his face, “You never would have thought to steal them from the stall on the corner either, Signor Fitzhugh, from the look of you. But then you don’t give the impression of someone who has ever known hunger.”

“You filched the sausages?”

She took another bite, again thrusting the remainder of the string up near his face. “Ah! I congratulate you, signore. You have, as we say, discovered America—asked the obvious. Of course I filched them. I am a terrible person—a terrible, desperate person.”

“Really.” Valerian remained an unimpressed audience.

“This filching; it is a temporary necessity.” She stepped closer, the nearly overpowering aroma of garlic stinging Valerian’s eyes and aristocratic nostrils. “But I do not sell my favors on the street for food—or for anything! I make my own way, in my own way. You can tell il nonno, my grandfather, that when you see him—which will be in Hell, if my prayers to the Virgin should be answered. Now get out of my way. I must pack.”

She turned to pick up the scuffed leather case but was halted by the simple application of Valerian’s hand to her upper arm. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he commanded softly. “I have wasted nearly a month chasing you from one small città to another. I have stood here patiently and watched as you displayed a lack of good manners that would have distressed your dear mother to tears. Now you, signorina, are going to hear me out.

“Duggy—your grandfather—is dying, and he wants to ease his way through Heaven’s gate by leaving his fortune to his only grandchild. You, Signorina Crispino, more’s the pity, are that grandchild. I am here to offer my assistance in returning you to Brighton, to”—he could not resist a glance at the bodice of her blouse—“the bosom of your family.”

“Basta!” Miss Crispino turned her head to one side and very deliberately spat on the scarred wooden floor. “Enough! I spit on my grandfather! I spit on my mother’s family—seed, sprout, and flower!”

“How utterly charming,” Valerian remarked, unmoved. “Your aunt Agnes will positively adore you, I’m sure—once she has recovered from her faint. Now, if you have finally done with the overblown Italian theatrics, perhaps you will take a moment to listen to what I have to say. Duggy may have disowned your mother for marrying your father, but he has lived to repent the action. He’s dying, signorina, and he wants to make amends for his sins.

“If you can’t bring yourself to forgive him, perhaps you can screw yourself up to the notion of inheriting every last groat the man has collected over the years. It’s not an inconsiderable sum, I assure you.”

She pulled her arm free of his grasp and picked up the satchel. “You begin to interest me, but belle parole non pascolano I gatti, signore—fine words don’t feed cats. How do I know my fickle grandfather won’t have had yet another change of his dark heart by the time I reach this place, this Brighton?”

Valerian answered truthfully, his job done—at least in his mind—now that he had delivered Lord Dugdale’s message. “You don’t know that, I suppose. It is also true that a woman—even one of your obvious, um, talents— would perhaps find it difficult to make her living in England alone. So, as you seem to be getting on so swimmingly here in Italy, I can see that you might be reluctant to trade all this luxury for the chance at a fortune.”

“You make fun of me, signore; you doubt me. But I do not care. My talent it is not inconsiderable.” She busily pulled various bits of clothing from the dresser drawers and flung them into the open satchel. “I inherited it from my magnificent papá, who was the master of his age! I am a most famous cantante— an opera singer—and I am in great demand!”

Valerian watched as she unearthed several rather intimate items of apparel and wadded them into a ball before stuffing them into the satchel, doing her best to keep her back between the undergarments and Valerian’s eyes.

“Really? Then I stand corrected,” he remarked coolly, peeking over her shoulder to see that her hands were shaking. “But I have been in Italy for two months. Isn’t it strange that I have not heard of you?”

“I have been resting, signore,” she said, wincing, for the term was one that many singers used to explain why they were unemployed. She could find work every night of the week if she wanted to—if it weren’t for those horrible Timoteos, curse them all to everlasting damnation!

“It’s my throat,” she lied quickly. “It is strained. But I will be performing again soon—very soon—in Roma.”

“Which of course also explains your rush to quit this charming pensione in the middle of the night,” Valerian said agreeably, wishing he was not interested in knowing why the girl was in such a hurry, or why her hands were trembling. “I should have guessed it. Perhaps you will allow me to transport you safely to the nearest coaching inn?”

She pulled a length of rope from the drawer, using it to tie the satchel closed, as the clasp had come to grief months earlier, not by accident but merely by rotting away with age. She hefted the thing onto her shoulder. “You’d do that, signore? You aren’t going to press me about accompanying you to England?”

Valerian shrugged indifferently. “If you’re asking if I’m about to carry you off will-nilly against your wishes, I fear you have badly mistaken your man. I’ve been most happily traveling across Europe in a long-delayed Grand Tour of sorts, and interrupting it to play ape-leader to a reluctant heiress was not part of my agenda. No, Signorina Crispino, I have wasted enough time with this project. It is time I continue my journey.”

She looked at him carefully, piercingly, for the first time, taking in his well-cut, modish clothes, his tall, leanly muscular frame, and the healthy shock of thick black hair accented by snow-white “angel wings” at the temples—although they didn’t make him look the least angelic, but rather dashing in a disturbing sort of way.

“Naturalmente. If I had looked harder, I should have seen more. Like overcooked pasta, Signor Fitzhugh, you are appealing to the eye, but upon further investigation, can be quickly dismissed as unpalatable, being soft at the center and rather mushy. Now, if you will excuse me?”

Valerian merely bowed, her verbal barb seemingly having no effect on him.

Just as she turned for the door it crashed open, banging loudly against the inside wall and nearly ripping free of its rusted hinges. A heartbeat later a large masculine shape appeared in the doorway. “Ha!” the shape bellowed, his roar one of triumph as he caught sight of Signorina Crispino.

His elation quickly dissipated, however, when he espied Valerian, who was once more standing near the window. The man turned to Signorina Crispino, asking, “Chi?” even as he extracted a small metal mallet from his breeches pocket, raised it above his head, and advanced in Valerian’s direction.

“Bernardo, no! Un momento, per favore!” Allegra made to grab at the man’s arm, but he flicked her away as if she were an annoying fly. “Signor Fitzhugh, be careful! He is crazy and won’t listen to me! I can’t stop him! You must run! Bernardo fará polpette di tuo—he will make meatballs out of you!”

“Sì, the little meatballs!” Bernardo concurred in heavily accented English, grinning his appreciation of that description of what he and his little mallet would soon be doing to Valerian, the weapon gleaming dully in the faint light.

Valerian was not by nature a timid man, far from it, nor was he incapable of protecting himself. He just, frankly, wasn’t in the mood for a fist fight with a man no taller than he was but twice as muscular and at least five years younger. Was this Bernardo even real? No human should be so beautiful—at least not a man. Besides, the fellow was armed, and that didn’t really seem fair.

He decided to even up the odds a bit. Reaching into his breast pocket, Valerian pulled out a small pistol and pointed it at Bernardo, halting him in mid-attack.

“Call off your dog, signorina,” he ordered amicably enough, “before I am forced to place a small hole between the eyebrows on his pretty face. And I so abhor violence.”

Signorina Crispino lifted her slim shoulders in an eloquent shrug before turning her back on the pair of them and heading for the door. “And why would I warn him, signore?” she called over her shoulder. “Shoot him, per favore. You will be doing me a great service. Addio, Bernardo.”

The pistol wavered, only slightly and only for a moment, as Valerian watched the girl go, leaving him standing almost toe to toe with Bernardo, who was jabbering at him in something that sounded like Italian, but not like any Italian the Englishman was accustomed to hearing.

Now what was Valerian going to do? He certainly wasn’t about to shoot the man—he had never really considered doing that—but with that option lost to him, the metal mallet did once more make the two of them an unmatched pair.

“Signorina Crispino—come back here!” he yelled as Bernardo growled low in his throat, raising the mallet another fraction as if unafraid of either Valerian or the weapon in his hand. “I warn you, I shan’t hang alone. Come back here at once or I’ll tell the authorities that you ordered the killing!”

Her head reappeared around the doorjamb. “You English,” she said scathingly. “What a bloodless lot. You can’t even put a hole through a man who is trying to bash in your skull. And as for honor—why, you have none!”

“It’s not that, signorina,” Valerian corrected her urbanely. “It’s just that a prolonged sojourn in one of your quaint Italian prisons until explanations can be made ranks very low on my agenda. I’ve heard the plumbing in those places is not of the best. Now, are you going to call this incarnation of an ancient Roman god off or not? I’m afraid his notion of the Italian language and mine do not coincide, and I don’t wish to insult him further with some verbal misstep.”

Shrugging yet again, Signorina Crispino walked over to Bernardo and gave him a swift kick in the leg in order to gain his attention. “Bernardo, tu hai il cervello di una gallina! Vai al diavolo!”

“Oh, that’s lovely, that is,” Valerian interposed. “Although I hesitate to point this out, I could have told Bernardo here that he has the brain of a chicken. I also could have told him to go lose himself somewhere. Can’t you just tell your lover that I’m harmless—that I’m a friend of your grandfather’s?”

“My lover! You insult me!” she exploded, throwing down the satchel. “As if that were true—could ever be true!” Her hands drawn into tight fists, she wildly looked about the small room in search of a weapon, seizing on the lighted candle that stood in a heavy pewter base, not knowing whom to hit with it first, Bernardo or Valerian.

Bernardo, who seemed to have tired of staring down the short barrel of the pistol, and who did not take kindly to the insults Signorina Crispino had thrown at him, took the decision out of her hands by the simple means of turning to her, his smile wide in his innocently handsome face. “Allegra—mi amore!”

“Ah, how affecting. The Adonis loves you,” Valerian said, earning himself a cutting glance from Allegra.

“Fermata! Stop it—both of you!” she warned tightly just as Valerian’s pistol came down heavily on the side of Bernardo’s head and the man crumpled into a heap at her feet. She looked from Valerian to Bernardo’s inert form and then back at Valerian once again. “Bene, signore. Molto bene. I thought you said you abhorred violence.”

Valerian replaced the pistol in his pocket. “I have learned a new saying since coming to Italy, Signorina Allegra: ‘Quando sé in ballo, bisogna ballare.’ When at a dance, one must dance. Your Bernardo left me no choice. Thank you for coming back, by the way. It was cursed good of you.”

He looked down at the unconscious Bernardo. “I didn’t really wish to hit him. It was like taking a hatchet to a Michelangelo. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a pretty face.”

“Behind which resides the most bricklike brain in the good Lord’s nature,” Allegra retorted, giving Bernardo’s inert figure a small kick. “He speaks some English, you know, but it goes straight out of his head—pouf!—when he has to do more than stand up straight and be handsome. Sogni d’oro, Bernardo— golden dreams to you. Now, Signor Fitzhugh, I suggest we take ourselves out of this place before he rouses, for Bernardo has a very hard head and won’t sleep for long.”

Valerian bent to retrieve her satchel. “A praiseworthy resolution, signorina. But I must ask again, in light of what has just happened—will you please reconsider accompanying me back to England? This Bernardo fellow doesn’t seem like the sort to give up and go away. He has been chasing you, hasn’t he? That’s the reason you have been so difficult to locate—you’ve been on the run.”

“I’ve been avoiding Bernardo, sì,” Allegra bit her bottom lip, considering how much and what she wished to tell him. “Bernardo has convinced himself he wants to marry me, and won’t take no for an answer. And he won’t give up; I can see that now. Yes, I think I might go along with you, although it won’t be a simple matter to cross over the border.” She took the satchel from Valerian’s unresisting fingers. “I have no passport, signore, so we will have to sneak out of the country. It may take some time.”

“Valerian Fitzhugh forced to sneak out of Italy? What a lovely picture that conjures,” Valerian remarked, closing the door behind them as they quit the room. “But I do have some friends located in Naples at the moment. We should find help there. It would mean a few nights on the road.”

Allegra nodded once, accepting this. “Very well, signore. But I must warn you—I shan’t sleep with you!”

Valerian looked her up and down, seeing her clearly for the first time in the brighter light of the hallway. She was wildly beautiful in her coarse peasant dress, this Allegra Crispino, her ebony hair a tousled profusion of midnight glory as it tumbled around her face and below her shoulders. Her eyes shone like quality sapphires against her fair skin, and her features were appealingly petite and well formed. Almost as well formed as her delightful body.

However, she was also none too clean, her feet were bare, and the smell of garlic hung around her like a shroud. “My hopes, signorina, are quite cut up, I assure you,” he said at last, tongue-in-cheek, “but I would not think of despoiling Duggy’s granddaughter. Your virtue is safe with me.”

For now, he concluded silently, still holding out some faint hope for the restorative powers of soap and water.

THEY HAD QUIT the pensione and were nearing the corner of the small side street and Valerian’s waiting carriage when two large men jumped out of the shadows of a nearby building to block their way.

His eyes on the men, Valerian asked softly, “Friends of yours? I sense a pattern forming, signorina.”

“Alberto! Giorgio!” Allegra exploded in exasperation as Valerian’s small pistol quickly came into view once more, the sight of the weapon stopping the men in their tracks before they could do any damage. “Am I never to be shed of these dreadful, thickskulled Timoteos?”

Valerian eyed the two men warily as the coachman, who had seen his master’s dilemma, hopped from the seat and came up behind them, an ugly but effective blunderbuss clutched in his hands. “Lord luv a duck, sir, but these sure are big ’uns. Oi told yer there’d be trouble in this part of town. Yer wants ter drop ’em? Oi gots the one on the right.”

“Not yet, Tweed, but I thank you most sincerely for the offer,” Valerian answered. “Signorina Crispino—tell your hulking friends here to be on their way, per favore, or it will be the worse for them.”

Allegra immediately launched into a stream of colloquial, Italian like none Valerian had ever heard before, the whole of her speech punctuated by exaggerated arm movements and eloquent gestures that made him momentarily wonder, were her hands ever to be tied behind her back, if she would then be rendered speechless.

Giorgio and Alberto twisted their heads about to see Tweed—the man extremely unprepossessing with his small stature, skinny frame, and black patch that covered his right eye. His blunderbuss, however—the barrel of which was steadily pointing first toward one of them and then at the other—was another matter, and the two Timoteos exchanged speculative glances before turning back to look at Allegra.

“Bernardo?” Giorgio questioned worryingly. “Dove posso trovare Bernardo? M-m-morto?”

Allegra jabbed Valerian in the ribs with her elbow. “Isn’t that wonderul? Giorgio thinks his brother is dead. Look at him, Signor Fitzhugh—his knobby knees quiver like the strings of a plucked violin. What shall I tell him? Shall I tell him you killed his brother? That you made meatballs of his pretty face? It would serve him right, capisci, for what they have tried to do to me.”

“You’re more than usually animated when you’re bloodthirsty, signorina, but I don’t think I can allow you to do that,” Valerian answered, watching as a single large tear ran down Giorgio’s cheek. The young man’s features were almost as perfect as his brother’s, although the youth standing next to him, Alberto, must have been hiding behind the porta when the family good looks had been handed out, for he was as ugly as Bernardo and Giorgio were beautiful. “Tell me, just for the sake of intellectual curiosity—are all three of them brothers?”

She shook her head. “Alberto is a cugino, a cousin. His mother must have been frightened by a tarantola, don’t you think?”

“A tarantula? He is as darkly hairy as a spider, Signorina Crispino,” Valerian agreed, looking at the unfortunate Alberto, “although I doubt he is as poisonous. But enough of this sport, diverting as it is. Tell them where they can discover their beloved Bernardo so that we may be on our way. I wish to leave the city at dawn, before these pesky Timoteos of yours can launch yet another sneak attack, as repetition has always held the power to bore me.”

Allegra gave a mighty shrug, clearly not happy to end her sport so soon, and told the men that Bernardo was back at the pensione—“sleeping.”

As the pair hastily disappeared down the narrow street, their heavy shoes clanging against the uneven cobblestones, Valerian thanked Tweed for coming to their rescue so promptly and helped Allegra into the closed coach.

“We will return to my hotel, rest for a few hours, bathe, and be on our way. Perhaps, signorina, you will amuse me as we travel to Naples by telling me why these Timoteos are after you—and most especially why Bernardo Timoeteo called you his ‘love.’”

Allegra burrowed her small body into a dark corner of the coach, her full bottom lip jutting forward in a pout. “Sì, signore, if I must—but I warn you, it is not a pretty story!”

Valerian, his long legs stretched out on the opposite seat, his arms folded negligently across his chest, chuckled deep in his throat. “Somehow, signorina, I think I already suspected as much. Oh, and one more thing, if you please. When we reach my hotel you will enter it from the rear with Tweed—discreetly—then join me upstairs in my rooms.”

Allegra sprang forward, her eyes flashing hot sparks in the dark. “Impossible! You would treat me like a prostituta—a harlot? To sneak into your rooms like some filthy puttana? Never! I shall not do it! I should die first!”

Valerian did not move except to slide his gaze to the left to see Allegra throw back her head in an already familiar gesture of defiance. “You’re a tiresome enough brat, aren’t you?” he offered calmly. “I am not treating you like a prostitute, signorina, even if your manner at the moment would insult one of that ancient profession. If you must know the truth, I do not wish to be seen strolling through a lobby with a barefoot young woman who smells like a sausage. If that is poor-spirited of me, so be it, but I do have some reputation for fastidiousness to uphold. Comprende?”

She shrugged expressively yet again, suddenly calm once more. “It is understood. You are meticoloso—a conceited prig.”

Allegra subsided into the corner, her hand going to her bodice, where the remainder of the sausages still resided. “But I will hate you forever for your terrible insult, signore. Forever!”

CHAPTER TWO

“IT ALL BEGAN about six months ago, signore, shortly after my papá died.”

Valerian sat at his ease on the facing seat of the coach as Allegra began her story. They had spent an uneventful evening at his hotel on the Via del Prato, with Allegra retiring to her rooms without a fuss, her bare feet all but dragging with fatigue.

That was not to say that the morning had been without incident, for she had refused to budge an inch from the hotel without bathing from head to toe in a hip bath she charged Tweed to procure—a sentiment Valerian sincerely seconded—and until she had been served a herculean breakfast of cappuccino, bisteca alla fiorentina, and tortino di carciofi.

Valerian, accustomed to a lighter breakfast since coming to the Continent, denied himself the opportunity to likewise partake of the thick sliced steak but did sample the eggs with artichokes, a dish whose aroma could not be ignored.

Besides her hygienic and epicurean commands, Allegra harbored only one other demand she wished imparted to Valerian. She had thought long and hard about it during the night, she had told him, and she was not about to travel along the road with him for the days and nights it would take the coach to reach Naples, no matter that no Englishman feels he has seen Italy unless he can claim to have bravely run down the inner slope of the long-dead Mount Vesuvius.

It was out of the question, this constant, unchaperoned togetherness, and so she told him—just as if she hadn’t been running about Florence without so much as a cameriera in attendance! They were instead to make straight for the coast and the town of Livorno, whence they could hire a small boat to take them to Napoli.

She had even presented Valerian with a crudely drawn map listing a suitable stop along the way where they could sleep (in separate rooms, of course; this part was heavily underlined), change horses, and be assured of a decent meal of Chianti, minestrone, and funghi alla fiorentina al fuoco di legna. Allegra’s appetite, it was becoming more and more obvious to Valerian, knew no bounds.

Once he had acquiesced to this plan (for any idea that would serve to lessen the amount of time he must spend inside a closed coach with only Allegra for company could only be looked upon as a blessing), they were on their way. Now, an hour later, the coach moving forward at a brisk pace once they had left the city behind them, Allegra finally seemed ready to tell Valerian about the Timoteos.

“Yes,” he said, watching as her lower lip began to quiver at the mention of her father. “I learned of his death shortly after I began my quest to locate you. An inflammation of the lungs, I believe?”

Allegra nodded, averting her eyes, then lifted her chin. “It was that terrible Venezia. So beautiful, you know, but so damp. He died in my arms, just as my dearest madre breathed her last in his three summers earlier in Modena.”

Smiling again, she raised her hands, palms up. “But enough of that! I am the orfana—the orphan—but I make my own way. My fame had already begun to spread and my voice was in demand everywhere. I could have been a prima donna—I could still be a prima donna—the best! If only it weren’t for that stupid Erberto. Erberto was my manager, you understand.” She spread her hands wide, comically rolling her eyes. “Erberto’s mouth, signore—tanto grossa!”

Valerian chuckled in spite of himself. Allegra was so alive, so mercurial, that he felt constantly on the alert—and continually entertained—by her antics. “And what did Erberto’s big mouth do?” he asked as she collapsed against the seat.

She sat forward once more, balancing her elbows on her knees as she spoke so that the lowcut peasant blouse gave him a most pleasant view of her cleavage. Oh, yes, Agnes Kittredge was going to take to her bed for a week once she clapped eyes on her grandniece. “We were in Milano, where I had just had a magnificent triumph at the Teatro alla Scala—”

“You sang at La Scala?” Valerian’s tone was openly skeptical.

Allegra tossed back her head, impaling him with her sapphire glare. “No, signore,” she shot back. “I swept the stage after the horses were taken off! Of course I sang! Now, if you are done with stupid questions, shall I get on with it?”

Valerian shook his head. “Forgive me, signorina. You must possess a great talent.”

She shrugged, then grinned, her natural honesty overcoming her pride. “Dire una piccola bugia—it was just a small fib. In truth, I was only one of the chorus—although I did get to die during the finale. It was a very good death—very dramatic, very heart-wrenching. They had no buffo that night—no comedy—so I did not get a chance to really show my talent. But, be that as it may, Erberto and I retired to a nearby caffé after the performance—for singing always makes me very hungry—and that is when it happened.”

“Let me hazard a guess. Erberto opened his big mouth.”

“Sì! It is like this. Erberto is a fiorentino, a Florentine, and naturally thinks himself a wag and a wit. But mostly he is a grullo, a fool. He is always building himself up by poking fun at someone else. This night his wicked tongue lands on Bernardo Timoteo—something to do with seeing cabbage leaves sticking out of his ears, I think. It is a simple enough jest, hardly what you’d call a triumph of the language, and I am positive it does not linger in stupid Erberto’s memory beyond his next bottle of Ruffina.”

“But Bernardo takes—I mean, took umbrage, and has been chasing the two of you ever since. Now I understand why you were running. But where is this Erberto fellow?”

Allegra leaned forward another six inches, her hands on her hips. “Who is telling this story, signore, you or I? Take umbrage? No, Bernardo does no such thing, for he is not very smart. Beautiful, yes, but very, very stupid. For myself, I believe it is only sometime later, when one of Milano’s good citizens takes the time to explain the insult to Bernardo, that the trouble starts.

“You see, the man probably didn’t much like it that an outsider had infringed on what the people of Milano consider theirs—the God-given right to tickle themselves by poking fun at all Timoteos. Oh, yes, signore. I was in the caffé long enough that night to hear almost everyone there take a turn at poking fun at il bello calzolaio—the beautiful shoemaker.”

“Ah,” Valerian said ruminatingly, interrupting her yet again. “That would explain the metal mallet, wouldn’t it? Oh, I’m sorry, Signorina—please, go on. I’m hanging on your every word, really I am.”

Allegra leaned back, making a great business out of crossing her arms beneath her breasts. “No. I don’t think so. My English is rusty since my madre’s death. You are making fun of me.”

Valerian inclined his head slightly, acknowledging her refusal. “Very well, signorina, if that’s what you have decided. I shan’t beg, you know.” So saying, he pushed his curly brimmed beaver down low over his eyes, showing all intentions of taking a nap as Tweed tooled the coach along the narrow, rutted roads.

He had only counted to twenty-seven when Allegra blurted, “Three nights after the incident in the caffè— with the help of his brother, Giorgio and his hairy spider cousin Alberto—Bernardo waits in the shadows for Erberto to emerge from the opera house after the performance.”

Her voice lowered dramatically. “They have, in their ridiculousness, begun the vendetta—a hunt for revenge—against my manager! Bernardo taps—boom!—on Erberto’s poor skull with that terrible mallet of his even as I watch, helpless.” She spread her hands, palms upward. “There is blood everywhere!”

“Erberto is dead? I had no idea, signorina,” he said, pushing up the brim of his hat, the better to see Allegra. Valerian had been reasonably impressed when Bernardo’s size (as well as the potential for mayhem provided by the metal mallet the man had carried), but he had not really believed the gorgeous young man capable of murder.

“You poor creature, to have been witness to a murder. And they are after you now, to kill you as well in order to cover their tracks. Please, tell me the whole of it.”

She quickly turned her head away, but not before Valerian had seen her smile. “No, no, signore, I won’t go on boring you with my tale of woe. Continue your nap, per favore.”

“Little Italian witch,” Valerian breathed quietly, knowing he had been bested by a mere child, and a female child at that. He sat up straight and offered his apology for teasing her, then begged her to continue with the story of the Timoteos.

“Erberto is not dead—more’s the pity. For even Dante’s terrible inferno is too good for him,” she went on, happy to speak now that she was sure she had Fitzhugh’s undivided attention. “Once he regained his senses the coward beat a hasty retreat—probably all the way to his uncle’s in Sicilia—leaving me alone to starve, for the night of the attack was also the final night of our engagement in Milano. He ran like a rabbit—and took every last bit of my wages with him! I spit on Erberto!”

“Not in my coach, you don’t!” Valerian cut in firmly, lifting one expressive eyebrow.

She shot him a withering glance. “Of course I won’t. Last night I only wished to shock you. You wanted me to be terrible, and I did not wish to be so unkind as to disappoint you. But you would spit on Erberto too, signore, if you knew the whole of it! Bernardo had seen me as I sat in the alley, you understand, holding that thankless Erberto’s broken head in my lap—and the fool fell fatally in love with me at that instant!”

“Then Bernardo really is in love with you?”

“Will you never stop asking silly questions and listen? Consider, signore. There I was, still in my stage costume—and a lovely costume it was, all red and glittering gold—sitting in the moonlight…my sapphire eyes awash with tears for the worthless Erberto…my glorious ebony tresses loosed about my shoulders…Erberto’s broken head cradled in my lap. I am very beautiful, you know, and I believe Bernardo saw me as a caritatevole Madonna.”

“A beneficent madonna? Really?” The child was a complete minx, and Valerian was having a very difficult time keeping his face expressionless as Allegra lifted a hand to push at her hair, striking a dramatic pose. “Don’t you think you might be overreacting—not to mention overacting?”

Her right hand sliced the air in a gesture that dismissed Valerian for a fool. “He follows me, does he not—dogging my every footstep these past six months so that I cannot find work, so that I cannot live without looking over my shoulder? He tells Giorgio and Alberto that, with Erberto gone, the vendetta is now directed at me, so that all three of them have abandoned the shoemaker shop to make my life a misery. They would not follow him else, you understand.

“But Bernardo has told me—once, when he almost caught me—that he wants only to marry me, to make up for the trouble he caused me by chasing Erberto away. Stupido! As if I should spend my life with that empty-headed creature and his beautiful, empty-headed children! No—I choose to run—to spend my life running, a wild pack of Timoteos forever barking at my heels!”

Valerian reached up a hand to straighten his cravat. “I see now that Duggy’s change of heart and imminent demise have come just in time for you, signorina. Considering all that you have told me, I’m surprised it took you so long to accept his offer, for I must admit I too can’t believe you have the makings of a dutiful shoemaker’s wife.”

Rather than become angry, Allegra appeared amused by Valerian’s opinion of her worth as a wife for Bernardo. “I should probably take his little metal mallet to his thick skull within a fortnight, signore,” she admitted with a grin. “But what is this—we are slowing down!”

She scooted over to the window to see that they were coming into the outskirts of a small town. “Ah, Empoli, and just in time! The inn I directed Tweed to take us to has the most delicious bruschetta in the region!”

“Bruschetta?” Valerian repeated, scowling. “That’s bread drenched in garlic, isn’t it?”

“It is nothing so simple. The bread is sliced thick and toasted ever so lightly, then rubbed most generously all over with none but the freshest garlic, olive oil, and salt. I adore it!”

“You will adore it from a distance today, signorina, or else ride up top with Tweed to the next posting inn,” Valerian warned her, his expression as stern as his voice. “I am entranced by Italy in general, but I have never learned to share your national love of garlic.”

Allegra’s chin jutted out as her breast heaved a time or two while she considered this ultimatum. It was raining, and had been raining ever since they had left the hotel. She had been an outside passenger in the wintertime enough to know that she did not wish to be one again. “I will have the minestrone, signore,” she said, giving in even though it pained her. “But you will not know what you have missed!”

“Oh, but I already know what I will miss, signorina,” he corrected her, reaching for the door as Tweed pulled the coach to a halt. “I will miss an afternoon in peace and quiet while you bear Tweed company—probably the last peace and quiet I shall have until we reach Brighton.”

As Valerian pushed down the coach steps, his back to Allegra, she almost gave in to the urge to lift her foot and push him headfirst through the door and out into the muddy inn yard.

“Ah, signore,” was all she said a moment later, comically rolling her big blue eyes as Valerian handed her down from the coach, “you must have a saint on your shoulder. You don’t know how lucky, how very lucky, you are!”

Valerian stared after her as she made her way confidently to the inn’s entrance, her dark head held high, her step fluidly graceful. The feeling that he was in some sort of unrecognizable danger from this small spitfire of a child was growing ever larger in his chest.

THEY REACHED NAPLES two days later, docking at the bottom of the Via Roma just at sundown, and proceeded directly to the rented villa of Mark Antony Betancourt, Marquess of Coniston, and his wife, Candice. The two were good friends of Valerian’s who, upon leaving Rome in October, had instructed him to visit them in their uncle’s villa in Naples after the New Year.

His fingers figuratively crossed that the couple would be in residence and not entertaining this evening, Valerian descended from the hastily rented carriage, bidding Allegra to remain behind while he assured himself that the Marquess was at home.

“Will your Marchesa of Coniston bid me to enter through the servants’ door as well?” Allegra asked, reluctant to move. Her stomach and legs had yet to acknowledge that she was back on dry land, because, as she had told Valerian, she didn’t have “sailor’s feet.”

She waited until he had walked away before adding peevishly, “Or do Englishwomen have better manners than Englishmen?”

Valerian, who had already mounted the three shallow stone steps to the front door, turned to smile back at her. “Candie stand on ceremony? I should think not, signorina. I’m sure she’ll make us both feel most welcome.”

Allegra sniffed and withdrew her head back into the carriage to await developments, as her pride still smarted from having to climb the back stairs at Valerian’s hotel in Florence. Her stomach grumbled as she waited for Valerian to summon her and she smiled, knowing that her appetite was returning to normal. With any luck there would be a good Neapolitan cook installed in the villa’s kitchen.

Five minutes passed before Valerian opened the door to the carriage and held out his hand for her to descend to the narrow flagway.

“I’m to go to the servants’ entrance?” she asked warily.

“The servants’ entrance?” exclaimed a female voice from the doorway. “Valerian, what have you been up to with this poor child? I’ve never before known you to be mean. Cuttingly sarcastic, yes, but never purposely mean. Oh, Tony, Uncle Max—just look at her! She’s beautiful! Have you ever seen anything so small as her waist?”

“And I don’t think it’s her waist we men are looking at, aingeal cailin, don’t you know,” replied a short, rather pudgy man in a curiously lilting baritone. “Reminds me a bit of your sister, Patsy. Isn’t that right, m’boyo?”

“I wouldn’t know, Max,” a third voice supplied, chuckling. “I’m a married man now, you know, and beyond such things.”

“Exactly like your sister, Patsy, my love,” the Marchioness answered, not sounding in the least upset. “I’ve always said I would gladly trade her this tiresome hair for her lovely, full bosom.”

Allegra, whose gaze had been concentrated on Valerian’s face as she tried to take some silent signal from him as to how to go on (a signal which, no matter how hard she looked, never came), lifted her head to confront the three people who had spoken of her as if she weren’t really there to listen. Almost instantly her mouth dropped open as she looked at the Marchioness of Coniston, a woman whose ethereal loveliness literally took her breath away.

The Marchioness was tall, and reed-slim, and her beautiful, pale-complexioned, heart-shaped face was animated by a lovely pair of slanted, lively sherry eyes. But it was her hair, a thick mane more white than blonde which fell nearly to her waist, that totally entranced Allegra. Until the Marchioness smiled, that is. Then Allegra was captured and won by the open friendliness in the young woman’s expression.

“Come inside, Signorina Crispino, do,” the Marchioness commanded, taking Allegra’s hand in hers. “Tony, Uncle Max, come along. Valerian looks as if he could use a tall glass of Chianti.”

“What a wonderful idea, Candie. And it’s a great thirst I’ve worked up this day myself, being good,” Maximilien P. Murphy answered brightly as the five of them headed inside, passing by a small group of interested servants.

Valerian slipped his arm around the older man’s shoulders as they walked across the marble foyer and into the main salotto. “It’s strange that you should mention being good, Max,” he said companionably, “for I’ve been wondering—how would you like to be bad for a while? Nothing terrible, you understand, just perhaps a momentary resurrection of the Conte di Casals, the Italian Count Tony told me you played to perfection in London. Would you impersonate him again—just long enough for the Conte to procure a passport for Signorina Crispino here?”

“That’s it? One tiny passport?” Maximilien answered, frowning. “That’s no harder than tripping off a log. Done and done, my boyo!”

“Valerian! Shame on you. And shame on you, Tony, my love, for telling tales out of school!” the Marchioness, overhearing, accused. “Uncle Max doesn’t do that sort of thing anymore, Valerian. You know that. After all, now that Tony and I have our sweet little Murphy, we want our son to get to know his uncle as a free man—and not just as a poor wretch we take oranges to at the local prigione.”

Allegra, who had been led to a chair by the Marquess, looked up at Lady Coniston in confusion. “Prison! Your uncle is a criminal?” she asked, biting her lip at the insult. “Scusi! I mean to say—” She turned to Valerian, who was now holding a wineglass and looking very much at home and at his ease. “Well, don’t just stand there! Help me, Fitzhugh, per favore! What did I mean to say?”

Lady Coniston promptly sat down beside Allegra and patted her hand. “Don’t apologize, my dear, for it was an honest mistake. You see, dearest Uncle Max and I traveled about the world for many years before Tony and I married, and we—well, you might say we indulged in a wee bit of stage-playing from time to time when the need arose.”

“Is that right? And ’tis that what you call it now, me fine Marchioness? We lived higher than O’Hara’s hog on that ‘stage-playing,’ if memory serves,” Maximilien retorted, his round face turning a violent red, although Allegra, watching him, was very sure he was not really angry, but was only indulging in a little more stage-acting of his own. They were an unusual group, she acknowledged silently, but there was a lot of love in this villa, and she felt a momentary pang at the remembered loss of her own family.

“High as O’Hara’s hog, is it? And twice as much time was spent lower than O’Malley’s well, Uncail. I remember that as well,” Lady Coniston shot back, not without humor. “Now, do we waste time splitting hairs, or do we help Valerian and Signorina Crispino with their little problem? Uncle Max, your Conte di Casals may get the passport, but I don’t wish to hear how. I’m a mother now—and, like my husband, ‘past such things.’”

“It’s turning into an Irish shrew ye are, darlin’,” Max groused before downing a glass of wine.

“Valerian,” she went on, unheeding, still holding Allegra’s hand as she turned to her other guest, “all we heard when Tony and I last saw you in Rome was that you were off to find Lord Dugdale’s long-lost granddaughter and transport her to Brighton. I see the granddaughter before me, and I congratulate you on your success, but I sense that more is involved in this story. Please, if I promise to have the servants lay out some refreshments in the sala da pranzo, you must tell us everything, from the very beginning!”

Allegra’s ears pricked up at the mention of food, her recent seasickness forgotten, and she squeezed Lady Coniston’s hands appreciatively. “I will tell you everything, dear Marchesa, I promise, all about my singing, my life, and even the terrible Timoteos—directly after we have eaten!”

A FULL TWO WEEKS passed in relative bliss for Allegra, for in the Marchioness of Coniston she had found her first true female friend since childhood. Lady Coniston, or Candie, as she had begged Allegra to address her, was more than gracious, more than interested—she was a true sister of the heart.

For Candie had not always led a life of comfort; she had known poverty, she had known fear, and she had learned to make her own way, by whatever means she could. But, like Allegra, she had never sacrificed her honor in order to fill her belly.

Candie had been rewarded for her purity with the love of Tony Betancourt, a man Allegra found to be immensely wonderful, and with the birth of their son, Murphy, an adorable blond cherub of two years who held his uncle Max’s heart in his chubby little hands.

Could there be such a similarly rosy future in Brighton for someone like Allegra? Somehow, she doubted it, no matter how enthusiastic Candie was about her prospects.

To that end, and over Allegra’s protests, Candie had set out to provide her young guest with a complete new wardrobe the very morning after Valerian and Allegra’s arrival in Naples. Although Italian styles were still woefully behind those of Paris, there existed enough modistes sufficiently schooled in the art of copying for Allegra to acquire a fairly extensive wardrobe that would be considered not only acceptable but wonderfully stylish by the ladies of Brighton.

But the Marchioness was not content to merely dress her young guest in fine feathers. Oh, no. She spent long hours schooling Allegra in proper deportment (including at least one stern lecture concerning Allegra’s tendency to gesture with her hands as she spoke, an entirely too Italian habit), and had helped her to weed most Italian words and phrasing from her vocabulary, permitting her to use only those considered suitably Continental and sure to impress her English relatives.

“I was the Conte di Casals’s niece Gina more than once in the past, you understand,” the Marchioness had informed her as the two sat alone late one night over Allegra’s lessons, “so I have a fairly good notion as to how you should go on. Have I told you about the time—I was just a young girl, I believe—that Uncle Max wrangled us an audience with the Pope?”

“His Holiness!” Allegra had exclaimed, much impressed. “I once sang a solo for the Bishop of Bologna, but it is not the same, is it?”

Yes, there were many lessons, but there were just as many stories, and just as many shared reminiscences between the new friends, quite a few of them having to do with the at-times-almost-bizarre courtship of Candice Murphy by Mark Antony Betancourt, Seventh Marquess of Coniston. The Marquess, it seemed, had until his marriage been known all over London as Mister Overnite: a carefree, heartbreakingly handsome man who supposedly had held the modern-day British record for dallying the whole night long in more society matrons’ beds than half the husbands in the Upper Ten Thousand.

It hadn’t been easy for Tony to understand that his bachelor days were effectively over from the first moment he’d clapped eyes on the mischievous Miss Murphy, but—as Candie, blushing, told Allegra—he had lived to give proof to the adage that reformed rakes make the very best of husbands.

As for Allegra’s singing career, it had been left to Valerian to explain to her that this, alas, was over, finally and completely. It was not to be mentioned in company, it was not to be considered as a viable part of her future—it simply was not to be thought of, ever again!

Only the quick-witted Tony had been able to save Valerian from Allegra’s employment of a particularly vile Italian curse, which he did by quickly pointing out that there was nothing wrong with Allegra considering herself a talented amateur.

“Why, as a matter of fact,” he had interjected cleverly, winking at his appreciative wife, “Prinny himself is quite a devotee of Italian opera. You’re bound to be the sensation of the age, Allegra, once you sing for him, for many of his guests perform at the Marine Pavilion after one of his Highness’s hours-long dinner parties.”

“Yes, the dinner parties,” Valerian had added, knowing by now where to aim his darts where Allegra was concerned. “I heard it said that there are often two dozen main dishes served in one evening,” he slid in, watching as Allegra’s sapphire eyes opened wide. “That’s not to mention the many side dishes, cakes, puddings, pastries, and the rest. Although I have not yet had the pleasure, Duggy is one of Old Swellfoot’s cronies, signorina, so you are sure to be invited, if you can just learn to behave yourself.”

All in all, Allegra had become not only resigned to leaving Italy but anxious to reach England and her mother’s birthplace, although it was with tears in her eyes that she waved good-bye to the Betancourts as the ship pulled away from the pier, her newly obtained passport safely in Valerian’s possession.

Then, suddenly, all her new finery to one side and her more refined English forgotten, she pointed to the dock, hopping on one slippered foot as she exclaimed, “Impossible! It is that terrible Bernardo—here, in Napoli! How has he found me? Again he shows up unwanted, come un cane nella chiesa— like a dog in a church!”

As Bernardo ran to the very edge of the pier, tears streaming down his handsome face and looking for all the world as if he was about to throw himself into the water in order to swim out to the ship, Allegra struck her right arm straight out in front of her, tucked her middle two fingers beneath her thumb, and shouted dramatically, “Si rompe il corno!”

Immediately Bernardo stepped back as if stunned, clutching his chest.

“You’re going to break his horns?” Valerian asked from beside her, watching bemusedly as her small but voluptuous figure was shown to advantage by her antics. “Why don’t I believe that is some sort of quaint Italian farewell?”

Allegra threw back her head, her long black hair blowing in the wind, since she had shunned Candie’s suggestion that she wear one of the new bonnets Valerian’s money had bought her. “I wished evil on him, signore. Great evil such as only another Italian can imagine!”

“Oh, you did, did you? And now you will kindly take it off again,” Valerian commanded, shaking his head. “Otherwise the lovesick fool will be on my conscience forevermore. You’re leaving Italy, signorina, so you can afford to be magnanimous. Bernardo Timoteo and his cohorts can no longer harm you.”

Allegra turned to Valerian, her face alight with glee. “Magnifico, signore! You are right! I, Allegra Crispino, will be magnanimous!” She leaned over the railing, waving a white handkerchief at the openly sobbing Bernardo. “Addio, caro Bernardo addio!” she called brightly, until the handsome young man on the pier heard her and began waving in return.

Valerian, well pleased with himself, smiled and waved to Bernardo as well, hardly believing he was actually on his way to Brighton at last, to achieve the long-awaited removal of the mercurial Allegra Crispino from his guardianship.

An odd, unrecognizable sensation in his stomach at the thought of depositing Allegra with Lord Dugdale and then walking away prompted him to turn his head and look down at the strange young girl.

“Allegra!” he was startled into saying, for she was gripping the rail with both hands, huge, crystalline tears running down her wind-reddened cheeks. “Why are you crying? Surely you’re not going to miss having the Timoteo dogs barking at your heels?”

“I shall never see my beloved Italia again, Valerian,” she answered in a small voice, her gaze still intent on the rapidly disappearing shoreline as she gave out with a shuddering sigh. “My madre, my papà they live in that earth. They are lost to me forever; all of what is home to me is now gone, while I sail away to an uncertain future with a grandfather I don’t know. I didn’t know how much it would hurt, Valerian, or how very much frightened I would feel.”

Before he could think, before he could weigh the right or the wrong of it, Valerian gathered Allegra’s small frame close against his chest, where she remained, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist, as, together, they watched the only homeland she had ever known fade from sight.

CHAPTER THREE

AGNES KITTREDGE sat in the outdated drawing room she would most happily have given her best Kashmir shawl to redecorate, awaiting the arrival of her children, seventeen-year-old Isobel and her older brother, Gideon, who had reached the age of three and twenty, Agnes was sure, thanks only to his fond mama’s most assiduous nursing of his delicate constitution.

Mrs. Kittredge’s brother, Baron Dennis Dugdale, was upstairs in his rooms, his gouty right foot swathed in bandages Agnes would much rather see bound tightly about his clearly disordered head.

She was furious, Agnes Kittredge was, pushed nearly to the brink of distraction by the disquieting thought that her beloved brother, Dennis, could have the nerve to recover his health after he had most solemnly promised that his demise was imminent. Was there no one, who could be trusted to keep his word anymore, not even a brother?

Not only had her aging sibling once more become the possessor of depressingly good health, but his general demeanor had reverted to one of such high good humor that Agnes, who had never been a tremendous advocate of levity, was lately finding herself hard-pressed to keep a civil tongue in her head whenever the jolly Baron was about.

Lord Dugdale’s near-constant, jocular remarks alluding to a “change in the wind,” and his oblique hints at a coming “surprise to knock your nose more sideways than it already is, Aggie,” were not only most depressingly annoying, they were beginning to worry her very much.

Everything had always been so settled, so regulated, in the life they all lived at Number 23 in the Royal Crescent Terrace. Agnes ruled, Isobel preened, Gideon gambled, and dearest Denny paid the bills. It was all so simple, so orderly. Now Lord Dugdale was making noises as if this arrangement no longer could be regarded as the ordinary, and that soon there would come a major readjustment in all their lives.

Agnes had agreed with this notion in part at first, when the Baron had spoken so earnestly of his imminent demise. There most assuredly would be changes at Number 23 when that unhappy day finally dawned.

Agnes would still rule, Isobel would still preen, Gideon would still gamble. But forever gone from the scene would be Lord Dugdale and his annoying habit of closely questioning the amount of the bills his family presented to him with every expectation that they be paid at once, and without his first issuing a sermon about the evils of incautious spending.

Once her brother, rest his soul, was safely underground, Agnes would be free to run the household exactly as she wished, without the wearying necessity to beg for every groat. This sort of “change” Agnes had looked forward to with great expectation, nearly unmixed with sorrow for the soon-to-be-departed brother, who, after all, had led a good long life and deserved his rest.

It was all that new doctor’s fault, Agnes had decided when her brother, far from sliding conveniently into his grave, began to make a near-miraculous recovery from a violent uproar of the bowels. Who ever heard of such a thing? No bleeding. No leeches. No thin gruel. Just plenty of fresh air, exercise, and good, hearty food. The treatment should have killed the Baron, but it hadn’t.

Agnes hadn’t allowed the doctor back in the house since the first day Lord Dugdale had sat up and loudly called for his pipe and a full bottle of his favorite cherry ripe.

“Not that it did me a penny worth of good,” she groused, arranging her shawl more firmly about her bony shoulders as she thought of her brother’s refusal to suffer an immediate relapse. “The man’s body has been restored at the cost of his wits. It had been nearly three months, and still we must hear daily about this surprise of his. It is time and more I consider placing the poor, sainted man in an institution where there are those trained in dealing with delusional lunatics such as Denny.”

“Talking to yourself, Mama? I must admit I do know of some who do so from time to time, but then I believe those people are usually rather deep in their cups. Have you been nipping while my back was turned, Mama? It isn’t like you; but then this entire household has been rather irregular for weeks on end now, hasn’t it?”

Agnes Kittredge looked up at the sound of her beloved Gideon’s voice. “Darling!” she exclaimed, patting the space beside her on the settee. “Come sit down and tell me how you feel this morning. You were abroad quite late last night, I believe. The damp night air isn’t good for you, you know. Have you breakfasted? I expressly ordered the eggs be poached this morning, as they are much more suited to your delicate constitution in that form than the hard-cooked variety you persist in eating whenever my back is turned.”

He sat down dutifully, spreading his coattails neatly as he did so. “I shunned eggs entirely this morning, Mama, in favor of dry toast dipped in watered wine, for I woke with the most shocking headache. Do you think it’s coming on to rain? It couldn’t have been the canary I partook of last night, for you know I never drink to excess.”

“Indeed no, Gideon. You would never do that, not with your fragile system.” Agnes turned to look adoringly upon her son. Gideon Kittredge was as handsome as his mother and sister were plain—although how this quirk of nature came about no one save Lord Dugdale, who once mentioned the idea of his sister having played her husband false at least the once, had ever been able to understand the phenomenon.

Gideon had been born scarcely five months after his parents’ marriage, a sickly babe whose small size and poor chances for survival lent at least partial credence to the outrageous fib that he had been born much too soon due to an unfortunate fright his mother had taken at the sight of a tumbling dwarf in the small traveling circus she and her husband had chanced upon the same day Agnes was delivered of her firstborn child.

When Gideon didn’t expire as expected, Agnes, through guilt over her lie or natural motherly devotion only she knew, threw her entire energies into coddling and protecting the child well past the point of necessity or even common sense.

Gideon’s sniffles were a sure sign of a lung inflammation, his cough no less than threatening consumption, his sighs a dire portent of some crippling, disabling condition that must be averted at all costs. Isobel was conceived and born almost without Agnes’s notice and shuffled off to a separate nursery so that she could not contaminate her brother’s air.

When Mister Kittredge had the misfortune to break his neck in a hunting accident, Agnes had little time for grieving, for she was too busy thanking her lucky stars that the man hadn’t instead decided to succumb to some lingering illness that might either be passed on to Gideon or take her away overlong from her main project in life, that of taking care of her son.

That Gideon had grown from a whining, totally unlovable child into a self-indulgent adult concerned only with his own wants and desires could not be surprising. Even less of a revelation was that he thoroughly disliked his mother, the woman having earned his disgust because of his easy ability to manipulate her.

Moving closer to her now, Gideon laid his dark head on Agnes’s shoulder and gazed up into her watery blue eyes. “You appear distressed, dearest Mama. Is there anything I can do to help? I promise I shall not let this crushing headache stay me from performing whatever deed you should ask of me. After all, I owe my life to you, as well I know.”

Agnes blinked twice, masterfully holding back loving tears. “I shouldn’t think to bother your aching head, my darling,” she declared passionately, daring to touch a hand to his smooth cheek. “It’s just your uncle Denny again. I fear he is becoming worse with each passing day.”

Gideon turned his head slightly and stifled a yawn. “Really? In what way?”

“Why, this morning he is insisting on coming downstairs, even though his foot is still wrapped up like some heathen mummy, and his valet has told me your uncle actually intends to see his tailor this afternoon to order an entire new suit of clothes. Now why would he need new clothes? It isn’t as if he doesn’t have a closet full of them.”

“All displaying his love of food, for the dear man seems to find it necessary to wear what he eats,” Gideon supplied helpfully.

“Precisely so, my dear,” Agnes concurred feelingly. “I should think he’d be more concerned with the fact that you have been seen in the same evening dress at least three times this year. If anyone is in dire need of a new wardrobe, dearest, it is you, who shows his tailor to such advantage.”

There was a slight movement at the doorway, followed by a decidedly unladylike snort from Miss Isobel Kittredge, who had just entered the room.

“Toadeating Mama again, Gideon?” the young lady asked, taking up a seat across from the settee. “I’m surprised you haven’t hopped into her lap to ask her to tell you a story. Or would you rather tell her a story, possibly the one about your latest venture into the land of the sharpers?”

Agnes wrinkled her forehead, at least as much as the tightly done-up bun perched atop her head allowed her to do. “Sharpers? What are sharpers, Gideon? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard the term.”

Gideon, sitting up smartly once more, shot his sister a fulminating look. “Pernicious little brat,” he gritted from between his even white teeth as Isobel, obviously well pleased with herself, made a great business out of straightening a lace doily on the table beside her.

“Pernicious, am I?” she countered, lifting hazel eyes as depressingly watery as her mother’s to her brother’s face. “Since you have roused the energy necessary to be insulting, I can only imagine that I am right and you are scorched again.”

“Gideon?” Agnes prompted, fighting the feeling that yet another score of gray hairs were about to sprout overnight on her already nearly white head. “Is your sister correct? Have you been gambling again?”

Sparing a moment to send his sister another fulminating, I’ll-see-to-you-later look, Gideon picked up his mother’s left hand and held it firmly between both of his. “I must admit to a shocking run of bad luck, Mama, but it is nothing to fret about, I promise. The devil was in it last night, that’s all, but I’ll come about as soon as you can get Uncle Denny to advance you a small pittance on the household allowance.”

Agnes’s thin face took on a pinched expression. “How much, Gideon? I cannot fob your uncle off with another story about the price of candles. He has his wits about him again, you know, at least in the area of his finances. Tell me quickly, before I conjure up some horrendous sum.”

“A mere monkey, Mama,” Gideon mumbled into his cravat. “Five hundred pounds. Four hundred, actually, but I also placed a small wager with a certain party about the outcome of a race. Dratted horse stumbled going round the turn.”

“Five hundred pounds! I will never be able to extract so much from your uncle as that!”

“Of course you will, Mama—for me.” He brought his mother’s hand to his mouth, firmly pressing his lips against the papery skin. “And I promise, Mama, I shall eschew racing from this moment on. I don’t know how I got involved in such a harebrained thing, for you know I can’t abide horses. It was all George Watson’s idea—he goaded me into the wager when my spirits were at a low ebb!”

“Of course he did,” Agnes agreed immediately, pressing her cheek against her son’s hands. “I never did like that George—and his grandfather smells entirely too much of the shop to suit me, as I recall. You would be wise to eschew George in the future as well, my darling.”

“George tied him up and forced him to make a wager against his will,” Isobel spat mockingly, shaking her head. “Honestly, Mama, he takes you in like a green goose, over and over again. Gideon is a dedicated gamester. When are you going to get that fact into your head? Why, he probably has a wager with George right now on how long it will take you to come up with the blunt to settle his latest debt.”

“Isobel!” Agnes exclaimed, stung. “You will apologize at once! I vow, your overweening jealousy of your brother makes me wonder if I have nurtured a viper at my bosom.”

Gideon took that moment to cough delicately into his fist.

“Now look what you’ve done!” Agnes exclaimed, immediately pressing a hand to her son’s forehead to check for fever. “You’ve brought on one of Gideon’s spasms. Such an unnatural child!”

“It wasn’t—a-ahumph, a-ahumph—my dearest sister’s viperish tongue—a-aumph—that upset me, Mama,” Gideon corrected quickly, his strong voice giving the lie to his continuing bout of coughing. “It is the money that worries me. George can be so demanding—and it is, after all, a debt of honor. If only I should be assured that Uncle Denny won’t cut up stiff—”

“No, no, of course he won’t. I shan’t even mention your name,” Agnes assured her son even as she shot her smirking daughter a quelling look. “I shall approach your uncle this afternoon.”

“Without fail?” Gideon asked, somehow managing to produce a slight sheen of feverish perspiration on his smooth upper lip.

“Without fail, my darling,” Agnes vowed, then gave a quick silencing wave of her hand as she heard her brother’s limping gait approaching outside in the hallway.

“La, yes,” she exclaimed quickly in an overly hearty voice that was sure to carry as far as the foyer. “I have just come from prayers in my room, yet again thanking the good Lord on my knees for your uncle’s miraculous recovery. I should think the fine air of Brighton has had much to do with his renewed good health, but the good Lord must be thanked for that good air as well, mustn’t He, children?”

“Spouting gibberish again, Aggie?” Lord Dugdale asked from the doorway, where he stood leaning heavily on the bulbous head of his cane. “If you wish to thank anyone, thank Valerian Fitzhugh—for it’s he who saved me, sure as check. Great faith I have in that boy, and it’s sure to be rewarded any day now with the most wonderful surprise a man could push himself up from the brink of the grave to accept.”

He took two more steps into the room before Isobel rose to take his arm, helping him to the chair she had just vacated. “You mustn’t push yourself, Uncle, not on your first day downstairs. There you go,” she complimented as the Baron lowered himself heavily into the chair. “Now if you’ll just let me place this footstool here for you to rest that leg on—there! Mama, Gideon—doesn’t Uncle Denny look much more the thing?”

Lord Dugdale looked from sister to niece to nephew, his squat, heavy body all but wedged into the chair as he presented himself for their scrutiny. What his relatives saw, other than the truly magnificent cocoon of snowy white bandages stuck to the lower half of his right leg and foot, was a no-longer-young man with a sparse, partial circlet of gray hair banding his head directly above his ears, leaving his shiny bald pate to cast a glare in the afternoon sunlight coming through a nearby window.

His eyes, the same watery blue of his sister’s but with a multitude of cunning if not intelligence lurking in their depths, returned their piercing looks, yet his round-as-a-pie plate face was carefully expressionless. Yes, it was the same old Baron Dugdale they had known forever—complete to the food stains on his loosely tied cravat and too-tight waistcoat.

“Well, this is something new, Uncle Denny,” Isobel piped up at last, perching her thin frame on a corner of the footstool as she looked up at the Baron. “You’ve been hinting about this surprise for weeks, but I’ve never heard Mister Fitzhugh’s name mentioned before this moment. Why, it must be three years or more since he’s been home to Brighton. Ever since Waterloo, I imagine. Is that the surprise? That Valerian—I mean, Mister Fitzhugh—is returning home?”

Gideon rose to stand behind the settee. “Don’t drool, Isobel; it doesn’t become you. Why, you were scarcely out of swaddling clothes when Valerian Fitzhugh took off for the Continent. Don’t tell me you still fancy yourself in love with the man. Lord, that’s pathetic!”

Isobel’s normally sallow complexion visibly paled and a small white line tightened about her thin lips. “Gideon Kittredge—you take that back!” she gritted, pointing a shaking finger in his direction. “Mama! Make him take that back!”

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