She watched him make his way to the quarterdeck to where Mr. Donnetti stood, legs apart, like a hovering lean eagle, shouting orders to the men.
Those sailors who were not securing the rigging and pulling the lines tight stood at the railing waving to people on the dock. True to the earl’s word, The Cassandra moved sleekly into her berth, her masts, like those on other ships surrounding her, standing tall and bright in the sunlight.
Men climbed nimbly down the port ladders to the long wooden dock and moved easily to catch the lines tossed down from the deck. She heard the heavy anchor drop overboard and made a note to herself to ask the earl the depth of the water in the harbor. The runged gangplank was lowered and Cassie walked quickly to port. She looked up to see the earl striding toward her, a knit shawl in his hand.
“My lady,” he said in a lazy voice, “I see that I must take care of you.”
He handed her the shawl and with a great show of ceremony escorted her down the wooden gangplank. All she heard now was Italian, and she imagined, from some of the curious looks darted at her from assorted men at work along the harbor, that she was the subject. She frowned, for there were many phrases she did not understand.
The earl guided her past scores of bare-chested fishermen, yelling at each other amiably as they mended their nets, to an old barouche harnessed to a slope-shouldered bay mare who looked as ancient as the open carriage.
“Yours, my lord?” she asked, an eyebrow arched as she ran her hand over the cracked black leather seats.
“Do not be uppity, Cassandra. I am guaranteed that the wheels will not fall off.”
As the barouche mov
ed ponderously from dockside to the Via Gramsci, the earl said, “This street is one to be avoided unless one is accompanied by several hardy protectors. It is every bit as notorious for its villains and cut-throats as the wharf areas in London.” They turned onto the Via San Lorenzo, and Cassie sucked in her breath. The cobblestone street was narrow, dangerously so. Pressing against the street and against each other were tall, narrow houses and enormous mansions, sumptuously appointed, and to Cassie’s eyes, outlandishly out of place. The barouche climbed steadily, avoiding streets that were so narrow that three people could scarce walk side by side. When they turned onto the Via Balbi, the earl said, “The famous Genoese architect Bartolomeo Bianco designed this street. The palaces are renowned throughout Europe, particularly Number 10, the Palazzo Reale. The Balbi family commissioned this palace as well as the street in the last century.” He would have continued, but he saw that Cassie, enthralled by the exotic sights, was not heeding him. He smiled and leaned back in the carriage, content to watch her and to see Genoa through her eyes.
The air had cooled perceptibly when the barouche finally rolled off the narrow cobblestone street just outside the western gate of the city. La Lanterna, the earl had called it. The road veered sharply northward and quickly became a rutted path, with wheel tracks so deep in the hardened dirt that the barouche lurched constantly from one side to the other. Cassie’s attention was drawn to the wild profusion of colorful flowers that grew among the bushes along the roadside. She drew a deep breath, savoring the fragrance.
She had always thought of the English countryside as being as neat as a well-made bed, with its lovingly tended verdant fields surrounded by well-trimmed hedges. It seemed to her that nature was allowed to express itself more freely here, without man’s interfering hand. There were so many odd trees and flowers the like of which she had not seen even in books. If her companion had been anyone but the earl, she would have been full of questions.
They were high into the hills when Scargill pulled the bay mare to a halt in front of a weathered wrought-iron gate. Carved at the top of the arch were the words, Villa Parese. A young black-haired boy, his face a deep swarthy hue, suddenly appeared at the side of the barouche. His dark eyes assessed the occupants but an instant before he pulled off his leather hat and bowed deeply.
“Buon giorno, Sordello,” the earl said, leaning toward the boy. “You have grown. It’s nearly a man you’ve become.”
“Si, signore,” the boy said proudly, his lips parting into a wide smile. “Welcome home.” He turned quickly to Cassie and bowed again. “Welcome, signora.”
It was on the tip of Cassie’s tongue to correct him. Signora indeed. But he had moved away to open the huge gates.
“Sordello is the son of my head gardener. He is a bright lad who has already the lust for the sea. In a year or so, I will turn him over to Mr. Donnetti, who will teach him the skills of a cabin boy. How very polite he is, too. Did he not greet my wife with all due deference?”
“I hope your tongue may rot off,” Cassie said through her teeth.
“Ah, but my tongue gives you such pleasure, cara.”
The carriage moved through the gates and onto a graveled drive. A lush green lawn stretched beyond either side of the bordering trees and hedges, more in the English style, Cassie thought, unconsciously nodding her approval. Set toward the middle of the lawn to her left stood a fountain carved of the purest white marble. About its circular basin were carved statues of sea gods, Neptune and his minions, Cassie supposed. The drive curved slightly, and when the barouche emerged from the thick foliage of tree branches, Cassie saw before her the Villa Parese, a great white stone edifice, built in a square and rising two stories. For an instant, she was aware only of the severity of the white in contrast to the incredible array of surrounding color. Blood-red roses climbed trellises to the second-floor balconies, where they wrapped about black iron railings. Full-blossomed hibiscus, geraniums, and other flowers she couldn’t identify, colored bright yellow, purple, and pink, lined the top of the railings in low wooden window boxes. On the front of the façade was a heavy cornice supported by solid corbels, giving the whole, to Cassie’s reluctant eyes, a dignified simplicity. Two huge columns rose from the marble front steps, and the brilliance of the sun made the myriad windows appear as sparkling prisms. It was so very different from the weathered gray stone of Hemphill Hall, where few but the hardiest flowers survived the battering wind from the Channel, and the heavy salt air was so pervasive that one had to lean close to a blossom to smell its fragrance.
“Does the villa please you, Cassandra?” As she remained silent, he added with a smile, “No, you needn’t say it. I know that it is very different from England. As you can see, the villa is set into the side of the hill, and the gardens are terraced into many levels, both up the hill and down.” He drew a deep breath. “The smell is so sweet, unlike any place I have visited.”
Cassie nodded silently, and allowed Scargill to assist her from the carriage.
A man and a woman, both dressed in rather somber black, emerged through the large gothic-arched portal. The man was quite short, and nearly as wide as he was tall. The woman was tall and gaunt, her complexion swarthy. Her full lips were drawn into a thin line. She had the look of a Puritan woman whose portrait Cassie had seen in a neigh-boring house in Essex. Even as the earl greeted them in his soft, musical Italian, Cassie was aware that she was being scrutinized to the tips of her sandals. She shifted her weight to her other foot and tried to avoid the woman’s darting gaze.
“My dear,” the earl continued in Italian, drawing her forward, “I would like you to meet Marrina and Paolo, who keep the Villa Parese running smoothly with or without my presence. Signorina Brougham,” he added smoothly, acknowledging her maiden state.
Cassie mumbled her heavily accented buon giorno, aware that a flush rose to her cheeks at the widening of the woman’s dark eyes. She wondered crazily if Marrina’s scalp did not hurt, so tightly was her hair pulled back into a severe black knot at the nape of her neck.
“Welcome, signorina,” Marrina said stiffly, lowering her eyes from Cassie’s face.
Cassie wanted to yell at her that her being unmarried was of her own choosing, that their master had forced her here against her will. She thought bitterly that she would likely have to suffer the condemnation even of his servants.
The earl led her into an imposing entrance hall, rectangular in shape, whose floor was made of black and white marble set in a triangular design. At the rear of the entrance hall a monumental staircase of intricately carved oak rose gracefully, bending sharply at the landing on the second floor. The heavy sweet fragrance of flowers hung in the cool air from ornate vases, filled with fresh-cut blossom, set at intervals upon delicate gilded tables along the walls. She turned her attention to the earl.
“These are my prized Brussels tapestries of the history of Alexander the Great,” he said, pointing to the colorful thick hangings that stretched from floor to ceiling along an entire side of the entrance hall.
“And these are your Italian ancestors?” she asked, nodding at the dozens of paintings, some life-size, that covered the other wall.