Devil's Daughter (Devil 2)

“I wouldn’t have liked it if we had ended up on the rocks at Minorca,” her mother said.

“Or in the arms of a Barbary pirate?”

“Trust you to think of those barbaric savages as romantic princes,” Adam said, stretching and shading his eyes with his hand.

“You have no passion, Adam,” Arabella said. She leaned back and closed her eyes. “Smell the wild carnations. There is nothing like them in England.”

“Don’t forget the hyacinths, jasmine, and roses in your raptures,” Adam said.

Their mother sat forward. “Ah, the Villa Parese. Home at last.”

Adam and Arabella straightened as the carriage neared the huge scripted iron gates. The gate boy, Marco, was beside the carriage in a flash, grinning up at them.

“Buon giorni, contessa.” He beamed, touching his fingers to his woolen hat.

“Come sta, Marco?” the countess asked, smiling down at the impish face of Sordello’s son.

“Molto bene, contessa, molto bene, grazie.”

“Is il signore here, Marco?” Arabella asked.

“Si, signorina.”

The carriage passed through the tall gates on the graveled drive. Arabella gazed at a white marble fountain, dominated by a statue of Neptune, that stood in the middle of the lawn. She sighed happily at the rush of memories it brought her, of hours spent as a child spinning stories beneath that beautiful bearded god.

She started to say something of the sort to Adam, but noticed that he was frowning. “Whatever is the matter, Adam?”

“Father,” he said shortly. “He wasn’t expecting a parcel of females.”

“A sister and a mother hardly constitute a parcel. Besides, you can leave Father to us. He will soon come around, you will see.”

It was likely true, Adam thought. His father and mother were appallingly loverlike. And as for Arabella, the minx could usually wrap their father about her slender finger.

“Well,” he said to Arabella, “if he takes a strap to you, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Arabella was certain that her father wouldn’t do anything so violent, but she did worry that he would be none too pleased with her arrival. If she couldn’t convince him of his delight, her mother most certainly would.

Their father’s Scottish valet, Scargill, an ancient relic after many years of service with the Welleses, his carrot head of hair now a shock of white, met them in the entrance hall of the villa.

“Well, ye scamp,” he wheezed, looking Adam up and down, “I see ye canna deny the ladies any more than yer father can. It’s hardly pleased the earl will be, I can tell ye.”

The countess laughed. “You grow pessimistic in your old age, Scargill. My lord will be delighted, once he is over the shock.”

“Ye forget his lordship’s temper so quickly?”

“You’re an old fusser,” Arabella said, and kissed him soundly on his wrinkled cheek.

“Little twit. It’s in the library ye’ll find him.”

Though the Villa Parese could have housed a staff of fifteen servants, there were but six, a sop, their father told them, to the Genoese gospel of thrift. Thus only one housemaid peered down at them from the top of the stairs as they stepped through the entrance hall. As if by tacit agreement, Adam and Arabella let their mother precede them through the library doors.

They found the Earl of Clare staring thoughtfully down into the empty grate, his fingertips drumming softly on the cool marble mantel. When he saw them all standing in the doorway, a frown drew his dark brows together.

“What the devil?”

To Adam and Arabella’s embarrassment, but not their surprise, the countess launched herself at their father, threw her arms about his shoulders, and kissed him fully on his mouth. Arabella stared raptly at a vase of fresh-cut flowers on a table, until she heard her father say softly to her mother after a moment, “Little fool, can I never trust you to obey me?”

“So, my lord,” the countess said, “have I mistaken your disapproval for enthusiasm?”