bent to retrieve her satchel. “A praiseworthy resolution, signorina. But I must ask again, in light of what has just happened—will you please reconsider accompanying me back to England? This Bernardo fellow doesn’t seem like the sort to give up and go away. He has been chasing you, hasn’t he? That’s the reason you have been so difficult to locate—you’ve been on the run.”
“I’ve been avoiding Bernardo, sì,” Allegra bit her bottom lip, considering how much and what she wished to tell him. “Bernardo has convinced himself he wants to marry me, and won’t take no for an answer. And he won’t give up; I can see that now. Yes, I think I might go along with you, although it won’t be a simple matter to cross over the border.” She took the satchel from Valerian’s unresisting fingers. “I have no passport, signore, so we will have to sneak out of the country. It may take some time.”
“Valerian Fitzhugh forced to sneak out of Italy? What a lovely picture that conjures,” Valerian remarked, closing the door behind them as they quit the room. “But I do have some friends located in Naples at the moment. We should find help there. It would mean a few nights on the road.”
Allegra nodded once, accepting this. “Very well, signore. But I must warn you—I shan’t sleep with you!”
Valerian looked her up and down, seeing her clearly for the first time in the brighter light of the hallway. She was wildly beautiful in her coarse peasant dress, this Allegra Crispino, her ebony hair a tousled profusion of midnight glory as it tumbled around her face and below her shoulders. Her eyes shone like quality sapphires against her fair skin, and her features were appealingly petite and well formed. Almost as well formed as her delightful body.
However, she was also none too clean, her feet were bare, and the smell of garlic hung around her like a shroud. “My hopes, signorina, are quite cut up, I assure you,” he said at last, tongue-in-cheek, “but I would not think of despoiling Duggy’s granddaughter. Your virtue is safe with me.”
For now, he concluded silently, still holding out some faint hope for the restorative powers of soap and water.
THEY HAD QUIT the pensione and were nearing the corner of the small side street and Valerian’s waiting carriage when two large men jumped out of the shadows of a nearby building to block their way.
His eyes on the men, Valerian asked softly, “Friends of yours? I sense a pattern forming, signorina.”
“Alberto! Giorgio!” Allegra exploded in exasperation as Valerian’s small pistol quickly came into view once more, the sight of the weapon stopping the men in their tracks before they could do any damage. “Am I never to be shed of these dreadful, thickskulled Timoteos?”
Valerian eyed the two men warily as the coachman, who had seen his master’s dilemma, hopped from the seat and came up behind them, an ugly but effective blunderbuss clutched in his hands. “Lord luv a duck, sir, but these sure are big ’uns. Oi told yer there’d be trouble in this part of town. Yer wants ter drop ’em? Oi gots the one on the right.”
“Not yet, Tweed, but I thank you most sincerely for the offer,” Valerian answered. “Signorina Crispino—tell your hulking friends here to be on their way, per favore, or it will be the worse for them.”
Allegra immediately launched into a stream of colloquial, Italian like none Valerian had ever heard before, the whole of her speech punctuated by exaggerated arm movements and eloquent gestures that made him momentarily wonder, were her hands ever to be tied behind her back, if she would then be rendered speechless.
Giorgio and Alberto twisted their heads about to see Tweed—the man extremely unprepossessing with his small stature, skinny frame, and black patch that covered his right eye. His blunderbuss, however—the barrel of which was steadily pointing first toward one of them and then at the other—was another matter, and the two Timoteos exchanged speculative glances before turning back to look at Allegra.
“Bernardo?” Giorgio questioned worryingly. “Dove posso trovare Bernardo? M-m-morto?”
Allegra jabbed Valerian in the ribs with her elbow. “Isn’t that wonderul? Giorgio thinks his brother is dead. Look at him, Signor Fitzhugh—his knobby knees quiver like the strings of a plucked violin. What shall I tell him? Shall I tell him you killed his brother? That you made meatballs of his pretty face? It would serve him right, capisci, for what they have tried to do to me.”
“You’re more than usually animated when you’re bloodthirsty, signorina, but I don’t think I can allow you to do that,” Valerian answered, watching as a single large tear ran down Giorgio’s cheek. The young man’s features were almost as perfect as his brother’s, although the youth standing next to him, Alberto, must have been hiding behind the porta when the family good looks had been handed out, for he was as ugly as Bernardo and Giorgio were beautiful. “Tell me, just for the sake of intellectual curiosity—are all three of them brothers?”
She shook her head. “Alberto is a cugino, a cousin. His mother must have been frightened by a tarantola, don’t you think?”
“A tarantula? He is as darkly hairy as a spider, Signorina Crispino,” Valerian agreed, looking at the unfortunate Alberto, “although I doubt he is as poisonous. But enough of this sport, diverting as it is. Tell them where they can discover their beloved Bernardo so that we may be on our way. I wish to leave the city at dawn, before these pesky Timoteos of yours can launch yet another sneak attack, as repetition has always held the power to bore me.”
Allegra gave a mighty shrug, clearly not happy to end her sport so soon, and told the men that Bernardo was back at the pensione—“sleeping.”
As the pair hastily disappeared down the narrow street, their heavy shoes clanging against the uneven cobblestones, Valerian thanked Tweed for coming to their rescue so promptly and helped Allegra into the closed coach.
“We will return to my hotel, rest for a few hours, bathe, and be on our way. Perhaps, signorina, you will amuse me as we travel to Naples by telling me why these Timoteos are after you—and most especially why Bernardo Timoeteo called you his ‘love.’”
Allegra burrowed her small body into a dark corner of the coach, her full bottom lip jutting forward in a pout. “Sì, signore, if I must—but I warn you, it is not a pretty story!”
Valerian, his long legs stretched out on the opposite seat, his arms folded negligently across his chest, chuckled deep in his throat. “Somehow, signorina, I think I already suspected as much. Oh, and one more thing, if you please. When we reach my hotel you will enter it from the rear with Tweed—discreetly—then join me upstairs in my rooms.”
Allegra sprang forward, her eyes flashing hot sparks in the dark. “Impossible! You would treat me like a prostituta—a harlot? To sneak into your rooms like some filthy puttana? Never! I shall not do it! I should die first!”
Valerian did not move except to slide his gaze to the left to see Allegra throw back her head in an already familiar gesture of defiance. “You’re a tiresome enough brat, aren’t you?” he offered calmly. “I am not treating you like a prostitute, signorina, even if your manner at the moment would insult one of that ancient profession. If you must know the truth, I do not wish to be seen strolling through a lobby with a barefoot young woman who smells like a sausage. If that is poor-spirited of me, so be it, but I do have some reputation for fastidiousness to uphold. Comprende?”
She shrugged expressively yet again, suddenly calm once more. “It is understood. You are meticoloso—a conceited prig.”
Allegra
