Devil's Daughter (Devil 2)

Betta, curious as always, sniffed and took herself off.

Adam strode to his mother and leaned down to kiss her upturned cheek. “You must tie Arabella down, Mother,” he said, frowning. “I’ve received a message from Father. I am to leave for Genoa within the hour, and Bella is doubtless in her bedchamber hurling her clothes into a valise. There is trouble. What it is exactly, he doesn’t say.” He grinned crookedly as he handed her a thin envelope. “Perhaps he tells you.”

The countess gingerly spread the single sheet of paper before her on the dressing table. “My love,” she read silently, “I have asked Adam to come to me. We have lost another ship, perhaps to the Barbary pirates. I hope to know the truth of the matter by the time he arrives in Genoa. If I know my son, he is likely at this moment inching toward the door, ready to be away. Keep Arabella safe with you. With any luck, I will be back in England by the summer, with this damnable business over.”

The countess read the letter again more slowly. She smiled at Adam, who was striding impatiently about her bedchamber, just as Anthony had known he would. She dismissed Arabella’s most persistent suitor, Vincent Eversley, from her mind as if he had never existed. If Arabella had any interest in the viscount, her feelings would last, and no man, she knew, would ever forget Arabella.

“Well, Mother, does he explain?”

“He says another ship has been taken, perhaps by the Barbary pirates.”

“Ah,” said Adam, his brilliant blue eyes, his mother’s eyes, narrowing thoughtfully. “It makes no sense. We have paid tribute to those damned pirates for more years than I have been on this earth. Were all our men lost? No survivors?”

“Your father doesn’t say, my love. We will find out quickly enough.”

“We?” Adam repeated, eyeing his mother.

“Have your valet pack for you, Adam. Arabella and I will be ready for your escort in an hour’s time. Who is captaining the Cassandra?”

Adam stared, nonplussed, at his mother. “Surely, Mother,” he began, disregarding her question, “you will reconsider. Our treaty with the French is tenuous at best at the moment. It wouldn’t be safe. Father would be none too pleased if—”

“You are wasting time, Adam,” the countess said. “There is much to be done, if we are to make the evening tide.”

“But what about Eversley? He is due to arrive tomorrow from London, and he will want to see Arabella.”

“I know, dear brother,” Arabella said from the doorway. She eyed her brother with open challenge. Really, she thought, Adam was behaving like an anxious father who wished to be rid of his daughter. “And I am all of twenty years old, and on the shelf, growing longer in the tooth by the month, waiting for dear Eversley to pluck me off. Forget him, Adam. He is not at all like you or Father, and I have decided I won’t have him.”

“Eversley appears to fill all the requirements,” Adam said.

“I want a man, Adam, not a sniveling Carlton House fop.”

“I doubt you know what you’re saying, love.”

“That is quite enough from the both of you,” the countess said coolly, rising to shake out her skirts. “If you will keep down your gorge, Adam, we can all get ready to sail for Genoa. I understand, Arabella,” she continued, turning to her daughter, “that Edward Lyndhurst is to visit his sister, Lady Turbridge, tomorrow, to escort Rayna back to Delford Hall. I will write him a note and let him deal with Viscount Eversley.”

Adam saw his sister’s triumphant smile, and knew he was beaten. He was pulled from the pleasant fancy of throttling her by the touch of his mother’s fingers on his sleeve. “I miss your father, my love. It is time we were all together again.”

Adam gave her a crooked grin. “Just when I thou

ght to be free of petticoats, ma’am, you’ve saddled me with a sister who does not know her place and tries to take mine.”

“Like father, like daughter, Adam,” Arabella said.

Chapter 2

Villa Parese, Genoa

Arabella breathed in the warm flower-scented air and sat back against the plush black leather squabs in the open carriage. She felt glad to be home again. She shook her head, bemused at the thought, for she felt the same way when she returned to England from Italy. She swiveled about to gaze back at the glistening blue Mediterranean, like limpid glass under the bright afternoon sun, dotted with tall-masted ships. The city glittered white, rising from the shore like a beautiful woman, as her father was wont to say, with the sea before her and the glorious snowcapped mountains pressing against her back. Genoa—La Superba.

Though she searched for changes, she saw none in her beloved city now that it was a French protectorate. The peasants trudging beside their donkeys along the dusty road were going about their business, as had the determined shopkeepers in the city. But she feared for them, for she knew Napoleon would not allow them this semblance of freedom for much longer. There was no unity among the Italian states, and Napoleon was drawing them into his insatiable maw as it pleased him. He had already proclaimed several free Italian states the Cisalpine Republic, an excuse to loot their treasuries and quarter French troops in their cities. There was little anyone could do to prevent the French from drawing Genoa into the empire, and if that happened, Genoa could no longer be her home. She dreaded that day. Though with her honey-colored hair she could never pass for an Italian, as could Adam, she was proud of her heritage, proud when her mother chided her, with a twinkle in her eyes, about her passionate Ligurian blood whenever Arabella lost her temper. She was intrigued that she was supposed to be passionate, for she knew nothing about it.

The thought of being confined to England did not appeal to her. No, the Proserpine arrangement of the past twenty years suited her just fine. Englishmen, Arabella had decided, when she was old enough to draw their masculine attention, were not at all to her taste. They were too civilized, too affected. They probably didn’t know about passion either.

“Smell the oleanders and the olive trees,” she said to Adam, who was blissfully resting his chin on his chest. “Adam?”

“Let him sleep, love,” her mother said, lightly patting Arabella’s sleeve. “He spent all his time on deck during the storm.”

“It was a beautiful storm,” Arabella said.