Rosina flushed, her black eyes flashing with pleasure. Arabella, used to seeing females of all ages flutter at Adam’s attention, yawned.
“Welcome home, signore, signorina,” Rosina said. “It is your sorella who is the beautiful one. All that golden hair, just like her mother’s.”
“My sister, beautiful?”
“Beast,” Arabella said, and poked his ribs.
“Ah, and spirited as ever. It is good that you are all here. Il signore has been lonely, I think. And so much trouble, always trouble. There is no peace in the world, what with that diavolo, that Corsican monster, pillaging.” Rosina sighed, and patted strands of her peppery hair back into its severe bun at the back of her head. “When Scargill told me you had arrived, I sent that lazy Marina to prepare your rooms.”
“I hope Marina doesn’t wander into our parents’ room,” Adam said under his breath. To Rosina he said, “May we have some of your delicious lemonade? Arabella and I will be in the gardens.”
Rosina curtsied and left the library, her stiff black skirts rustling over the marble floors. She would probably grant Adam anything he wished, Arabella thought.
“Come, Bella, we will sit for a while,” Adam said. “I, for one, am a bit blown.”
“If you had shared the helm with me during the storm, you would not be so weak-kneed now,” his sister said. “You probably just want to look at the naked statues in the garden, not the flowers.”
Adam gave his sister a lazy smile and took himself off, knowing she would be at his heels. He strode through the entrance hall, an airy and spacious room hung with Alexandrian tapestries, to the back of the villa. All the rooms were filled with more flowers than furniture, and the scent of fresh jasmine hung in the air. He stepped into the three-tiered gardens, immaculately tended, and gazed up at the Palladian structure of whitewashed stone, thick circular columns, and flower-covered balconies that ran along the entire second floor. Three gardeners worked in the Parese gardens, and the result of their efforts was a barely contained wilderness of flowers that abounded with color. He wandered about a bit, glad to be away from the trimmed and corseted gardens of England, and sat himself on a marble bench beneath a rose bower.
She joined him, spreading her white muslin skirts about her. “I am worried for this place, Adam,” she said. “We have given everything away with the Treaty of Amiens. How could the king and Addington allow it? By God, all the English have left is Trinidad and Ceylon. And Napoleon can take back Naples and the Papal States whenever he wishes. We may not have an Italian home much longer.”
“True,” Adam said, stretching his long legs in front of him. “We must think of it as a respite, both for England and, unfortunately, for France. At least we knew enough not to hand over Malta to the Knights Templar.”
Arabella chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip, gazed up at their parents’ bedchamber, and said unexpectedly, “Since I’ve gotten to know Rayna, I’ve wondered what we would be like if mother had married Edward Lyndhurst instead of Father.”
Adam cocked his head in amusement. “Even though they grew up together, I somehow can’t help but think that Mother would have been a sore trial to the staid Viscount Delford. As for us, Bella, we wouldn’t exist.”
“Thank God that she discovered Father in time. Do you suppose Lord Delford still loves Mother?”
“I can’t think he would be pining, not with five sons and a daughter. His viscountess isn’t a dull mouse either.”
“No,” Arabella said, “and neither is her only daughter.” As she got no particular reaction from her brother, she said, “But why doesn’t the viscount like Father?”
Adam shrugged. “I get the impression the viscount doesn’t particularly approve of any of us, Bella. Remember, he’s a staunch Englishman. He would likely deplore the thought of his children having foreign blood.”
Arabella, whose thoughts had flittered to Vincent Eversley, said suddenly, “Adam, do you have a mistress?”
At his narrowed eyes, she quickly amended, “You are, after all, twenty-six now, and you haven’t married. Surely you aren’t celibate.”
His dark blue eyes gleamed. “I will tell you, Bella, only that I am as fastidious as Father.”
“But Father doesn’t have mistresses.”
“No, of course not, not since he married Mother.”
“When?”
“You should be married. Then I wouldn’t have to suffer your improper questions.”
“Ah, but I’m not, and so you must. Mother won’t ever tell me anything, and Father just looks forbidding.”
“I really don’t remember, Bella. Near to seventeen, I suppose.”
“Good heavens. I’m twenty. I don’t like it at all, Adam, that you know things that I don’t. It isn’t fair.”
He cocked a black brow at her. “Why this sudden interest, Bella?”
“I began to wonder what all the fuss was about after Eversley kissed me. You’re the only one I can ask. I mentioned lovemaking to Rayna Lyndhurst once, and she just stared at me as if I were babbling about some black mystery. With five older brothers, you’d think she’d know something.”