“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.
“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?”
They heard her laugh as their father murmured something they couldn’t hear. Then he straightened and said, “Well, Adam, I see you have as much difficulty controlling our women as do I.”
“Sir,” Adam said, “I would as soon face down a hurricane.”
His father merely smiled, his fingers tightening about his wife’s hand. “With two such women, Adam, I am only surprised you were not delivered to me trussed up like a chicken.”
“You see, Adam,” Bella said to her brother, “I told you Father wouldn’t mind.”
“That I did not say,” the earl said, beckoning his daughter into his arms.
“Behold your women, Father,” Arabella said, giving him her most brilliant smile. “We are here to solve your problems for you. Surely you did not expect Adam would be your sole support.”
“Indeed,” the earl said, smiling lazily toward his son, “I suppose that even the best of us occasionally have need of a woman.”
“Bella,” the countess said, “I do not know if we have been complimented or insulted.”
“Bella I will insult, my dear,” the earl said. “You I will appreciate. So, daughter, you left a bereft Eversley to come adventuring?”
Arabella shrugged indifferently. “I forgot him, Papa, our second day out.”
“It is just as well. Eversley, for all his noble antecedents, would likely not do for you, I’m afraid. He is, I think, rather too . . . tame in his tastes.”
“Father,” Adam said abruptly, “have you discovered what has happened to our ships?”
“Perhaps, indirectly,” his father said calmly. “I will tell you about it after you have settled in.”
Adam seemed impatient, and his father added, “It has been over five months since I have seen your beautiful mother. Keep your sister out of mischief until dinner.”
Arabella watched her parents walk arm in arm from the library, her fair head raised to his dark one. “They are likely going to be silly and make love,” she said.
“What would you know about that, little chit?”
“I know a thing or two, Adam,” she said, grinning.
“Bosh,” Adam said.
“For instance,” she continued, her eyes downcast so he wouldn’t see the wicked gleam, “I know it begins with taking off one’s clothes.” She wrinkled her nose and paced about the library for a moment. “Eversley kissed me once. I hated it. His lips were all wet, and he tried to make me open my mouth.”
“Is that all?” Adam asked.
“It was quite enough, thank you. I kicked him in the shin.” Arabella saw a dangerous glitter in his midnight-blue eyes, and narrowed her own, deciding she had goaded him enough. “Really, Adam, I wish you would stop acting like a silly, overprotective man. I can quite take care of myself.” She was thoughtful a moment, then added in a spurt of candor, “I shouldn’t like to have taken my clothes off with Eversley.”
“Thank God for that. There’s quite a bit more to love than just kissing and quoting poetry, Bella, and taking off your clothes, for that matter. You should be careful of men who would try to take advantage of you.”
“And you know all about them?”
“A man learns some things early in life.”
“Well,” she said, her hands on her hips, “I believe I shall learn all about it too. The world is half women, Adam.”
“To my everlasting pleasure.”
Arabella gazed upward. “Do you think you’ll still want to do all that sort of thing when you’re older, like Mother and Father?”
Adam burst into laughter. “I will be older, but I will not be dead.”
Rosina, the housekeeper
, appeared in the doorway, and Adam finished under his breath, “This isn’t proper talk, Bella.” He turned swiftly to Rosina and gave her a big grin. “You are more beautiful than ever, signora,” he said in Italian.
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.”
“Doubtful, given her father. And her brothers probably treat her like a fragile little flower.” Adam was thoughtful for a moment. “I feel some sympathy for the man who must take Rayna to wife. Most English girls, for that matter. He’d have to spend his time pulling her from under the bed and drying her tears.”
“But you haven’t even seen her for—what is it, six years? Rayna is very pretty now, not a skinny little girl any longer. But you’re right, she is wrapped in wool. Perhaps what she needs is a very understanding, gentle man to teach her about things. Do you know, I think her father may not like her to be in my company. He’s always exquisitely polite, just as he is with Father, but distant. Her mother, Lady Delford, well, she’s different. Full of fun and all.”
“Edward Lyndhurst is probably nervous of your influence on his daughter. And you asked the poor girl about lovemaking? For shame, Bella.”
“We shall see,” Arabella said. She glanced toward a white marble statue of one of the Greek gods—which one, she couldn’t remember. “Men are quite lovely, I think. Yet I can’t imagine Eversley looking like that. You probably do, Adam.”
Adam felt himself flush, curse his sister’s eyes. A mistress talking thus was one thing, but a sister, quite another.
“Adam, I don’t suppose you would consider—”
“No.”
“Well, I was just curious, you know. And I am twenty, a veritable spinster now. And you are beautiful.”
Adam grinned despite himself. He wagged his finger at her. “You must learn not to be so . . .”
“Honest?”
“So forward, Bella, and keep your curiosity behind your teeth. If you spoke this way with a man, he would think you the loosest of creatures and treat you accordingly, whether you are Lady Arabella or not.”
“I am not such a fool,” Arabella said. “I would butcher any man who tried anything with me.”
“I do not disbelieve you,” Adam said. “Eversley was lucky, only to have his shin kicked for his impertinence.” Adam glanced up at the balcony of his parents’ bedchamber. The golden brocade curtains were still drawn.
“Surely it must be time for dinner,” he said.
Rosina served dinner on the rear veranda. The earl sat, resplendent in black velvet, at the head of the table, and his countess, arrayed in gold-threaded silk, at its foot.
“I have missed this light, fruity wine from our vineyards,” the countess said. “I propose a toast. To a family united once again.”
Adam sipped his wine, watching his father’s tender glance toward his mother, and wondered briefly if he would ever find a woman who would be the center of his life. Arabella, he no
ticed, seemed to be barely controlling a fit of impatience. He knew well enough that his father could not be rushed, and was content to sit back at his ease and watch the half-moon ascend over the Mediterranean. Arabella suffered through an interminable meal, scarcely tasting the flaky scallops and the fresh garden salad. When the covers were removed and ripe orange slices and nuts set upon the table, she could no longer contain herself.
“Father, will you please tell us what this is about?”
The earl cracked a nut between his long fingers, a slight smile on his lips. The small, scruffy little girl had become a lovely young woman. What had not changed, and it pleased him inordinately, was her straightforwardness, her exuberance, her utter honesty. “Certainly, Bella,” he said pleasantly. “We have lost two ships to date. I must presume that all hands were killed or taken captive, and the ships burned. I have discovered that the cargoes have appeared in Naples—at the court of Naples, to be exact.”
“But the Barbary pirates do not burn captured ships,” Adam said.
“Yes, it is odd.”
“At the court of Naples,” Adam repeated, staring at his father.
“So Daniele Barbaro has discovered. It appears that the bulk of the goods from the Bella have made their way from someone in the court itself to the French. If the Barbary pirates are involved, their motive escapes me.”
“But surely Khar El-Din’s son Hamil would not betray your agreement,” the countess said.
“No, Hamil would not. But I received word some time ago that Hamil is dead, drowned in a storm.”
Arabella, who was gazing intently at her mother, said abruptly, “You sound as if you know this pirate, Khar El-Din.”
The countess flashed a quick look at the earl. “Your father knew him for many years before he died. He was the Bey of Oran, in Algiers.”
“One who died not with a scimitar in his hand,” the earl said, “but in his bed, with his wives surrounding him. Hamil was his son by his first wife, Zabetta.”