His eyes, the same watery blue of his sister’s but with a multitude of cunning if not intelligence lurking in their depths, returned their piercing looks, yet his round-as-a-pie plate face was carefully expressionless. Yes, it was the same old Baron Dugdale they had known forever—complete to the food stains on his loosely tied cravat and too-tight waistcoat.
“Well, this is something new, Uncle Denny,” Isobel piped up at last, perching her thin frame on a corner of the footstool as she looked up at the Baron. “You’ve been hinting about this surprise for weeks, but I’ve never heard Mister Fitzhugh’s name mentioned before this moment. Why, it must be three years or more since he’s been home to Brighton. Ever since Waterloo, I imagine. Is that the surprise? That Valerian—I mean, Mister Fitzhugh—is returning home?”
Gideon rose to stand behind the settee. “Don’t drool, Isobel; it doesn’t become you. Why, you were scarcely out of swaddling clothes when Valerian Fitzhugh took off for the Continent. Don’t tell me you still fancy yourself in love with the man. Lord, that’s pathetic!”
Isobel’s normally sallow complexion visibly paled and a small white line tightened about her thin lips. “Gideon Kittredge—you take that back!” she gritted, pointing a shaking finger in his direction. “Mama! Make him take that back!”
“I won’t take it back,” Gideon declared, moving to stand more directly behind his mother. “You’ve been embroidering slippers with his name on them every Christmas in the hope he’ll come back from the Continent and sweep you off your feet and into his waiting arms. Well, let me tell you, sister mine, those slippers will grow whiskers before Valerian Fitzhugh tosses more than a crust of bread in your direction!”
“Children—children! Stop this at once!” Agnes pleaded, sure that Gideon would soon overheat himself with his exertion. “Isobel, remember your brother’s frail constitution.”
“Odds bobs, woman,” Lord Dugdale chortled. “The little bugger has the constitution of a horse, if only you’d scrape the scales of mother love from your eyes long enough to see it. Now, does anyone wish to hear about my surprise or not? With Valerian’s letter reaching me the very day I turned my head away from death’s dark door, I figure the time is about right for my little announcement. Any later and it will most probably be too late.”
“I fear, dear Baron, you have already left it too late, if I have guessed correctly and you have failed to acquaint your family with the purpose of my mission,” pronounced a smoothly articulate voice from the doorway to the hall. “Pardon me for having bypassed your butler and choosing to announce myself, but after all this time I could barely contain my anxiety to present you with my traveling companion.”
“Valerian!” Isobel all but screamed, hopping up from the footstool to raise a trembling hand to her nonexistent breast. “Mama, Gideon—look! It is Valerian!”
Fitzhugh walked fully into the room to make his bows to the company. “Such a rousing welcome, Miss Kittredge,” he said, inclining his head over her outstretched paw. “I vow I would have returned to Brighton much earlier had I known I would be accorded such a heartwarming greeting. I left you a child, but I have returned to see the woman.”
He turned to the Baron. “Having seen no crepe hatchment on the knocker, I had already assumed you still lingered, awaiting my return, but now I see that you have made a full recovery. This knowledge makes my time spent fulfilling your request even more personally rewarding, as I have a sentimental heart and shall greatly enjoy this coming family reunion.”
Baron Dugdale snorted once, pushing himself about in the chair so as to get a look at the now vacant doorway. “Never mind all that sweet talk, man—where is she? You wrote from Florence, promising to have her here within three months. What did you do—leave her at the dock to guard the luggage? Must I fetch her the rest of the way myself?”
“Her?” Agnes directed a long, dispassionate stare at her brother until at last, her eyes narrowing even as twin flags of color began waving brightly in her thin cheeks, she declared tightly, “Dennis Dugdale—you didn’t! You couldn’t! You wouldn’t! How dare you? I won’t have that foreign baggage in my house!”
With Agnes’s words the drawing room was immediately transformed into a hotbed of mingled questions and accusations, all delivered in full voice and with the sharp rapidity of gunshots.
“Your house? Your house! I could be three days dead and it would still be my house, woman. It will always be my house!”
“Who did Valerian bring from Florence, Mama? Do you know her? Is it some relative of Aunt Mary’s husband? But I thought Uncle Denny disowned Aunt Mary years ago, and Aunt Mary’s dead, isn’t she?”
“A foreign woman? I knew you were off to France and such. So you’ve been in Italy as well, have you, you lucky dog? Tell me, are Italian women as hot-blooded as I’ve heard, old man? Does she sing? I hear they all warble like little songbirds. What’s Uncle going to do with her—give her to Prinny?”
“My hartshorn! Where is my hartshorn? Quickly, Gideon—my hartshorn. I shall perish in a fit, I just know it!”
“I’ll give you a fit, you daft female! Odds bobs, but I don’t know why I’ve put up with you all these long years!”
“Rompere le uova nel paniere di qualcuno.”
Immediately there came a crashing silence throughout the drawing room as all the voices cut off abruptly and all heads turned to locate the person who had uttered the foreign gibberish.
Valerian turned as well, to see that Allegra had entered the room, still clad in her traveling cloak, to stand slightly behind him, her hand barely touching his arm. “Yes, indeed, Signorina Crispino,” he agreed quietly, “it certainly would appear as if we have well and truly broken the eggs in someone’s basket. In all their baskets, as a matter of fact, save your grandfather’s. He is that gentleman seated over there—the gentleman wearing that extremely wide smile.”
Valerian turned back to the occupants of the room, bowing once more. “Mrs. Agnes Kittredge, Miss Isobel Kittredge—Gideon. Allow me to present to you Signorina Allegra Crispino, daughter of the late Mary Dugdale Crispino and only granddaughter of Baron Dennis Dugdale. Signorina Crispino—your loving, devoted family.”
“Come state?” Allegra asked, her chin high as she dared anyone to say a single word more. “Grazie per la cordiale accoglienza!”
Valerian looked down at Allegra curiously, wondering why the young woman had chosen to speak in Italian after all of his and Candie’s warnings to the contrary, but he decided to go along with her for the moment, for he was sure she was justifiably nervous at this first meeting.
“Signorina Crispino asks how you all are and thanks you for your most cordial welcome. Italians, you may infer from her words, are not unconversant with sarcasm,” he added quietly as her fingertips dug into his forearm.
“We’ve had a most arduous journey here from Naples, what with storms at sea and Signorina Crispino’s lack of what she delightfully terms ‘sailor’s feet,’ but we are here now, having dispensed with the signorina’s temporary chaperon at the dock a scant hour ago. Her baggage will be delivered directly, at which time I am sure she will wish to retire to her rooms for a rest. In the meantime, I am assured you, Mrs. Kittredge, will endeavor to make your niece as comfortable as possible.”
“But of course!” Agnes exclaimed quickly, seeing the warning in her brother’s eyes and not daring any further revolt—at least not at this moment. “We must make dear Mary’s child welcome! Unfortunately, we have no room ready—thanks to my dear brother’s misguided love of surprises—but we shall just have to make do, won’t we, Isobel? How long will the dear child be staying in our country? This is just a visit—isn’t it?”
Allegra’s slightly husky voice was low and laden with disdain. “Tu hai il cuore di un coniglio.”
Valerian’s lips quivered appreciatively as Allegra’s quick remark threatened to unleash a bark of laughter that could only serve to shatter the already tense atmosphere in the room into a million jagged pieces.
But Allegra had taken one look and seen straight through the woman to her self-serving core. Indeed, as Allegra had said, Agnes Kittredge possessed the heart of a rabbit. The woman might detest the thought of being kind to Allegra with every fiber of her being, but she wasn’t about to jeopardize her own position in the household by standing on her principles in front of her clearly determined brother.
“Signorina Crispino says for me to tell you that you are very kind, Mrs. Kittredge,” Valerian said at last, when the prolonged silence had become almost unbearable, Allegra’s ever-tightening grip on his forearm threatening to shut off his blood supply to that necessary limb.
“Yes, yes, enough of that, boy,” the Baron interrupted testily. “This is demmed awkward, but I can’t get up just anytime I want. This miserable foot, you understand. Bring the gel round here so I can get a good look at her. I never thought I’d live to see the day my Mary’s child would be here with me. I did her mother a terrible wrong, you know, cutting her off without a farthing when she ran off with that Italian bastard—but it’s time and more I made amends.
“Ah, there she is,” he said, sighing, as Valerian all but pushed Allegra forward so that she stood in front of the footstool. “Take off her cloak, for pity’s sake, so I can really see her. Little thing, ain’t she—all eyes and hair.”
Allegra’s small hands balled into fists at her sides and she glared up at Valerian accusingly. Leaning down close to her ear as he helped her off with her cloak, he whispered in Italian, “It isn’t my fault the old boy’s still alive. Besides, I think you’ll fare better this way than if you had to deal directly with your aunt. She’d make the Timoteos look like a stroll in the park, to my way of thinking.”
A moment later Allegra was divested of her cloak, to stand before her grandfather in the modishly styled morning gown of green-and-white sprigged muslin Candie had deemed demure enough, yet sufficiently sophisticated, to give a good first impression.
Lord Dugdale rubbed his hands together in glee as his watery blue eyes made a careful assessment of his granddaughter. “Oh, this is more than I could have hoped for, Valerian, truly it is. Why, she’ll have half the bucks in Brighton drooling all over her slippers! She doesn’t much favor my Mary, except perhaps a little around the chin—it’s Mary’s stubborn chin to the life—but I don’t see any of the father in her either, thank God. Yes, with her looks and figure—and the plum I plan to give her—she’ll do just fine!”
“A plum! Never say you’re going to give her a plum!”
This outburst came from Gideon, who had been remarkably quiet up to this point as he had been very preoccupied in cudgeling his brain to find some way of bringing the conversation around to his crushing need for five hundred pounds before nightfall. However, the mention of a dowry of one hundred thousand pounds had served to bring him unhesitatingly to attention. “Why don’t you give her the house and all the rest while you’re at it?” he asked facetiously.
“I plan to, nephew,” Lord Dugdale responded swiftly, still looking at Allegra. “But not quite yet. I’ve more than made up my mind to stay aboveground a while longer, just so that I can see my granddaughter comfortably settled.”
“The—the house? This house? And all your fortune? Denny—what about me? What about Gideon—my children?”
Lord Dugdale reached out to take hold of Allegra’s hands, smiling up into his granddaughter’s stony face. “What about ’em, Agnes? You’ll all have your allowances as usual and a roof over your heads. But that’s all I can give you. I had a vision, you see, whilst I lay dying. An angel came to me and asked how I thought I could face Saint Peter at the Golden Gates, knowing what terrible sin I had committed against my only child.”
He sat forward, not without great effort, and looked around Allegra to his sister. “I’ll feed you and yours, Agnes, and I’ll house and clothe you, but you must understand. I’ll be damned for a bloody fool if I’ll burn in Hell for you!”
Allegra tugged at Valerian’s sleeve so that he bent down to hear her whisper in Italian, “I’ve heard enough for now. I think it would be a very good time for me to drop into a most graceful, affecting swoon, don’t you? Please catch me, per favore, for I shouldn’t wish to fall on Nonno’s poor foot.”
Before Valerian could protest, Allegra raised a hand to her temple, moaned once—a truly wonderful, anguished, theatrical moan—as her huge sapphire eyes fluttered closed behind a thick veil of long, sweeping black lashes.
A moment later, and much against his inclination, Valerian found himself cradling her small, limp body against his chest.
CHAPTER FOUR
VALERIAN STOOD outside the small bedchamber into which he had ten minutes previously deposited the limp yet curiously clinging body of Allegra Crispino, still wondering how he, a normally well-regulated, rational man of no mean intelligence, had come to be in his current insane position.
Much as he had been simultaneously attracted to and repelled by Allegra during the time they had spent together in Italy, he had more than once rejoined in her inability to leave her cabin after their ship had put to sea. This lengthy respite from her volatile presence, which had lasted for the entirety of their journey to Brighton, had almost totally cured him of his curious attraction for the imp—or so he’d thought, until the moment she had “fainted” into his arms.
He’d had every intention—every serious, well-thought-out intention—of depositing Allegra with her English relatives within an hour of docking and then retiring to the comfort (and personal safety) of his own estate just outside the seaside town for a well-deserved rest.
He knew now, however—intentions being what they were, and Allegra being who she was—that the “thought” never really had much chance of being transformed into “deed.” Besides, if nothing else, he could console himself with the notion that he was just too curious to leave.
He should have realized Allegra was up to something the moment the little minx had opened her mouth downstairs and spoken in Italian, rather than the English he and Candie had warned her would be a major asset in having her accepted by her mother’s family.
But why should he have been taken off guard? Allegra’s actions since entering the Baron’s residence, Valerian thought now—considering the day he’d already had—should not have surprised him in the least. They should only have made him wonder if there existed any limit to Allegra’s capacity for outrageous unpredictability.
He once more considered the fact that she’d had the audacity to emerge from her stateroom this morning looking as fresh and as lovely as only a naturally beautiful woman could appear. If she really had been ill for the length of the journey, as her hastily employed English chaperon had most earnestly informed him she was, the ravages of mal de mer certainly hadn’t shown either in her face or on her still petitely voluptuous figure.
Her adorably vibrant face; her soft, yielding figure. Valerian shook his head, banishing such dangerous thoughts, and brought himself back to the matter at hand.
She had cried illness, yet she appeared even more healthy now than she had after a week of rest and indulgence in Naples. He had very much wanted to question her about this seeming inconsistency, but Allegra had kept him so busy answering her rapid-fire questions about Brighton as the carriage had rumbled through the streets that there hadn’t been time.
No. He had to be honest with himself. He hadn’t wanted to ask her how she’d managed to banish her supposed seasickness so quickly. What he had really wanted to know, still longed to know, was why she had felt the need to take such pains to elude his company while they had been aboard ship. Was he truly that repulsive to her?
If only they’d had more time to talk. If only her arrival hadn’t thrown the entire household into such turmoil, thanks mostly, Valerian had decided, to both Baron Dugdale’s refusal to expire as promised and his decision to keep his granddaughter’s advent into the Dugdale household a secret.
He had been embarrassed for the lot of them, Valerian ha
d, but he could not in all honesty say that he had expected less from the Kittredges or the Baron, none of whom were known for either their tact or their reticence.
Valerian pulled out his pocket watch and marked the time, suddenly once more anxious to be on his way. He should have quit the house the moment he had safely deposited Allegra on the bed. That’s what any sane man—even a very curious sane man—would have done. Perhaps he could convince himself it had only been Allegra’s swift delivery of a discreet yet painful warning pinch to his ribs when he had voiced to Agnes Kittredge his intention to depart that had kept him here so long.
Valerian took a deep breath and let it out in an aggrieved sigh.
No matter what the reason, no matter which excuse he chose to employ, here in the hallway he would remain, like some caged, pacing tiger, his mind a muddled mess, waiting for the performance to begin in the center ring of the circus—or Allegra’s newly designated bedchamber, which, to Valerian’s mind, was much the same thing.
The door behind him opened, putting an end to his agitated travels up and down the hall carpet.
“She’s calling for you, Valerian,” Agnes Kittredge said, her tone grudging as she exited the bedchamber to stand in front of him in the hallway. Her displeasure at having to deliver such a message was clearly evident on her thin, pinched face.
“I somehow sensed that she would,” Valerian returned, sighing.
“This Allegro person,” Agnes persisted, “does she speak any English at all? How can she claim to be English and not know her mother tongue? Foreigners are such a contrary lot, refusing to learn our language. Mary has a lot to answer for, bless her departed soul, if this person truly is who you claim her to be.”
The chaotic Miss Crispino Page 5
