“Si, and because you are headstrong, we are both in for a good soaking.”
Cassie wrinkled her nose at him. “I suppose you will tell me now that you have not much enjoyed gorging yourself on the cold chicken and cheese. And the prospect is so beautiful. A little rain will not make us melt, Joseph.”
Joseph rose unhurriedly to his feet and sniffed the air. “We will return now, madonna. If you will not take care of yourself, then I must.”
“Very well.” She stretched her stiff legs and shook out her velvet riding skirt. “It has grown somewhat chilly, I will grant you that.”
Joseph’s toes were feeling prickly with cold, but he curbed a sharp retort. Her perversity, he realized, was part of her charm, and like his master, he was not at all immune to it. He quickly packed up the basket and tossed Cassandra into her saddle.
“The feather in your hat will be a wilted mess by the time we return,” he said, not without some satisfaction.
Cassie touched her fingers to the fast drooping feather and laughed. “If it will bring you pleasure, my friend, then I will pray for the clouds to flood us.”
He tried to frown at her, but failed. She was indeed a minx, he thought. It surprised him greatly that after some twenty-five years of silence, he had found himself telling her about his young wife, Maria, and their short year together on Corsica. A lifetime ago, yet when he was with the madonna, the happy memories stirred themselves into life.
It began to rain in earnest, and Joseph motioned to Cassandra to quicken her mare’s pace. He imagined the earl would have his head as it was, for returning her to the villa in sodden clothing. He corrected himself quickly, for the master was rarely unfair. It was Joseph’s self-willed mistress who would receive a good trimming.
Joseph reined in his horse at a sharp bend in the rutted, now slippery road, and looked skyward. Already the afternoon was shadowed and gray, and the air had turned a muddy color.
His horse snorted and reared back in surprise, and Joseph’s hands tightened on the reins. He looked down the winding road that crisscrossed in and out of the hills below them. Four horsemen, heavily cloaked, were riding purposefully up the road, several hundred yards below them. He felt growing alarm, for he recognized neither the horses nor the men. Suddenly, one of the men drew up, raised himself in the saddle, and scanned the hills above him. To Joseph’s horror, the man pointed at him and yelled something to the others. He could hear the pounding hooves as the galloping horses strained forward toward them.
Cassie pulled her mare to a halt beside him. “What is it, Joseph?”
He turned in his saddle to face her and said in a low, hard voice, “Listen carefully, madonna, and do exactly as I tell you. There are four men coming and I know that they mean us no good.” As he spoke, he pulled a pistol from his belt and carefully laid back the hammer.
“Dear God, whatever are you talking about?”
He waved away her question. “Do you know the direction of the villa if you leave the road?”
“I believe so, but—”
“I will halt the men here. You, madonna, will leave the road. You must go carefully, for the incline, though slight, is fast becoming a sea of mud. Ride through the trees yon for at least a mile before you return to the road. Then I want you to ride like the devil himself back to the villa. I will try to catch up with you.”
“Surely you are mistaken. Joseph, I cannot leave you.”
Joseph uttered a loud oath and for the first time since she had met him, she saw the fierce, set lines of the Barbary pirate on his face.
His fear communicated itself to her, and she shivered.
“Go, quickly.” He drew back his hand and slapped her mare’s rump hard with the butt of his pistol.
Cassie looked back at him. He was covering his pistol with his cloak to shield it from the rain, and studying the terrain around him with narrowed, calculating eyes. Cassie guided her mare off the road and down the incline. Brambles tore at her riding skirt and cloak, but she was scarce aware of them. The suddenness of what was happening made her fear somehow unreal, as if she had been thrust into a bizarre nightmare.
The trees were thick, but her Arabian-bred mare nimbly sought out the narrow passages between them, side-stepping dangerously thorned underbrush. Her mare pushed forward until they came upon a narrow, nearly overgrown footpath, Cassie click-clicked her into a canter, and at the same instant, her mare’s ears flattened at the sound of a pistol shot, followed quickly by another. Their retorts merged into a single staccato echo off the hills.
“Joseph,” Cassie croaked, and slewed her head back in the direction she had come.
She heard the loud crashing of horses through the thick underbrush and felt her mouth go dry. She whipped her mare forward, urging her into a gallop. Low-hanging tree branches tore at her riding hat, and her mare snorted angrily as thorny bushes ripped at her legs. The horses’ hooves pounded behind her, through the thick forest, drawing closer. Suddenly, her mare burst through the trees.
She cried out in disbelief. On the road below her, a man sat waiting on his horse, his face shrouded by a black mask. They had guessed what she would do. She eyed the distance between them, bowed her head close to her mare’s neck, dug her heels into her tender sides, and whipped her into a mad gallop down the slope.
Giacomo watched the girl tearing toward him in some surprise. But he was experienced in his work. He grinned in anticipation, for she was bringing sport to what he had thought would be a dull post. He knew she would try to startle his horse out of her path, and he grasped his horse’s reins more firmly. He whipped his horse into a gallop before she reached the road, and when Cassie’s mare veered away at the last instant, he reached out and raked her off her horse’s back. She clawed wildly against his arms, and he could not stop her mare, who was galloping erratically away from him down the hill road. He felt her nails rake at his neck, and with a bellow of fury, struck her jaw with his fist.
Brilliant flashes of white exploded in her head, and she slumped limply against him.
“Good work, Giacomo,” Andrea said, as his mount gained the road. “You haven’t killed her, have you?”
“No, but she’s a feisty wench.” He wrapped his hand roughly about a mass of golden hair that spilled loosely down her back. “She’s a beauty, this one.”