The chaotic Miss Crispino

by Kasey Michaels

  “Mama, Uncle Denny doesn’t seem to care a whit that Allegra is spending his money as if he is already belowground,” Isobel added once her brother had finished wiping his streaming eyes and again taken up his familiar stance in front of the mantelpiece, totally neglecting to mention that the crime with which she had just accused Allegra could also most easily be laid at the collective Kittredge feet. “We have to do something quickly, Mama, before she spends his last groat!”

  “Or marries Valerian Fitzhugh,” Gideon slid in neatly, so that Agnes was forced to cough discreetly into her handkerchief at her adored son’s great wit.

  “Mama!” Isobel cried, pushing at her mother’s shoulder. “Make him stop!” She turned to her brother. “You’re horrid, Gideon. Perfectly horrid.” Her eyes narrowing, she attacked in her turn. “How long are you going to hide out behind Mama’s skirts like some cringing coward, avoiding your creditors? That’s why you’re haunting the house, isn’t it, instead of running the streets with your ramshackle gambling friends? Because you don’t dare stick your nose outside for fear someone will break it for you?”

  “That will be enough, Isobel!” Agnes unceremoniously pushed her daughter back against the settee cushions, putting an end to this distasteful exchange. “I should have known better than to think that Isobel could put aside her petty jealousies to help us, Gideon,” she said, rising to go to her son. “But you, my darling, are not so foolish, are you?”

  Gideon, who was indeed that foolish and did not have the faintest idea what the woman was talking about, placed a kiss on his mother’s cheek and murmured, “Ah, Mama, you know me so well.”

  Isobel sighed, giving up the fight as she always did, for she was intelligent enough to know that after a lifetime of losing every battle to her brother, she was not about to win this one. “You don’t seem to be completely cast down by Allegra’s latest mischief, Mama. Do you, perhaps, have some sort of plan to rid us of her?”

  Agnes walked to the doorway, looked both ways into the hall, then shut the door and locked it. “I do have a plan, my children,” she all but whispered, “and it will benefit both of you—all of us—although it will take some personal sacrifice on Gideon’s part.”

  Gideon stood up very straight, “Me, Mama?” he said, incredulous. Why, he had never been asked to do anything personally sacrificing in his life—except maybe that time, at the age of twelve, when he had been forced by his mama to write a thank-you message to his paternal grandmother for giving him, upon that man’s death, his late grandfather’s pearl stickpin. He stuck out his bottom lip, instantly turning mulish. “What must I do now?”

  Agnes Kittredge threw back her thin shoulders and lifted her head, the movement remotely possible of convincing any onlooker that she did indeed possess a chin. “It is quite simple, actually. Isobel will have a free run at Fitzhugh—although why she should think he wants her remains a mystery to me—we shall have our fortune back, and Gideon, you shall have all the blunt you need at your fingertips. All you have to do, distasteful as this may be to you personally, is to wed Allegra Crispino!”

  Isobel gave a small shriek, pressing her hands to her mouth. “It is a glorious idea, Mama! But wait—that would mean that Allegra would still live under this roof. I do not think I should like that, for she is not the most temperate person, and seems to actually enjoy flying into rages.”

  But Agnes wasn’t listening. She was concentrating on the expression that had stolen, unbidden, onto her beloved son’s face, a look that could only be termed “lascivious.” It was so difficult to believe, so crushing to learn that her son, her adorable little boy, could possibly be susceptible to carnal urges.

  “Gideon!” she exclaimed, tottering to a nearby chair, as she was feeling decidedly faint. “Show some respect! You are in the presence of your mother!”

  IT WAS THURSDAY AT LAST, and Allegra was rapidly becoming a bundle of nerves, just as she did before every important performance.

  She had spent an hour that morning simply standing outside the Marine Pavilion, imagining herself as she would look sitting beneath the great chandelier in the Banqueting Room, or walking, arm in arm with the Regent himself, through the Long Corridor, and then—would her heart never stop its fearful pounding that made it feel as if it would burst?—standing directly beneath the vast dome of the Music Room as she gifted her host with an aria from the great Alessandro Scarlatti, father of the modern opera.

  “Or perhaps I should do something lighter, something from Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia,” Allegra mused aloud as Betty tucked a single soft ivory silk rose into the mass of curls that had been combed through so carefully and then heaped atop Allegra’s head. She looked up at the maid. “I do that very well, you know.”

  Betty turned her mistress’s face back toward the mirror. “I’m sure you do, missy, iffen it’s anything like what you was singing earlier in your tub. That was proper wonderful. I had to shoo two of those nosy footmen from your door, they were listening so hard. Was that song from this Sivi—Sigl—oh, you know what I mean.”

  Allegra smiled at her reflection, liking the dramatic touch the rose, set just behind her ear, had given her. So she’d had an audience, had she? It was good to know that her voice had not become too rusty. “It is called, in English, The Barber of Seville. The work is a comedy, you see, and very new, first performed less than two years ago in Roma. My papà always said comedy is my trionfo—my triumph. And yes, the song I sang in my tub was from that opera.”

  Happy to have an audience, and hoping to rid herself of some of her nervousness, Allegra proceeded to hum some of the first aria, only to be interrupted by a loud knocking on the door to her bedchamber.

  “There you are, gel!” Baron Dugdale bellowed, barging into the room without waiting for an answer to his knock. He walked slowly—as his immense bulk would have had him do even if it were not for his bandaged foot and unwieldly, gold-topped cane—carrying a large flat velvet box in his right hand.

  “Here,” he said, pushing the box at Allegra, who had stood up, smoothing the front of her ivory gown. “These belonged to your grandmother. It’s only fitting, I guess, that you should have them. And there’s plenty more where these came from, only pearls is for purity, you know. Yes, your grandmother always told me Mary should wear the pearls first.”

  Allegra looked at the jewelry box, knowing whatever lay inside it should have graced her madre’s neck, and hesitated.

  “What? Are you waiting for me to tell you how beautiful you look, eh? Well, you do, you know. Pretty as a picture. I shall have to use my cane here to beat the men away from you. Now, put these on. I don’t want to be late.”

  “Yes, Nonno,” she responded quickly, shaking off her momentary melancholy. She took the box and gingerly opened it, as if a snake might have taken up residence atop the satin bed within. Then, all restraint flown, she gasped, “Oh, Nonno, they’re beautiful!”

  Betty helped Allegra put the heavy old-fashioned gold-and-pearl earrings in her ears, then lifted the waist-length double strands of lightest pink pearls over her head.

  Allegra turned back to the mirror, her hands going to the pearl ropes as they skimmed over her bare skin and lay lightly against the ivory flower petals. Then she touched the tips of the earrings that cascaded from her ears like miniature waterfalls.

  Tears stung at her eyes as she saw her grandfather’s reflection in the mirror, his face nearly puce with what had to be pride. She whirled about and stood up on tiptoe, giving him a resounding kiss on each cheek.

  “Yes, well—” he blustered, pushing her away. “Are we ready to go now, or are you going to stand there preening all the night long?”

  Taking his arm, Allegra asked, “Is Zia Agnes ready, Nonno? I have not seen her all of the afternoon, or Isobel.”

  “Aggie?” The Baron threw back his head and laughed. “She’s not invited. Nor that die-away daughter of hers either. Whatever could you be thinking, gel? Prinny don’t like prickly weeds cluttering up his
beautiful Pavilion.”

  They made their way slowly down the stairs, a footman at the Baron’s left side to add his support as they went. “Took Aggie the once you understand, but it didn’t work out. She complained the whole night long.” He pulled a face and mimicked his sister in a high, singsong voice. “‘It’s too hot. There is too much food, too many dishes. The singing is too loud, the ladies’ dresses too low. The music is too hearty.’ Odds fish! I’d rather ride bareback on a greased pig than live through another night like that! The woman has no appreciation!”

  Betty, who had run on ahead, met Allegra at the bottom of the stairs with the pink-lined ivory cape that matched Allegra’s gown, its neck a wide ruff of pearl-studded flower petals.

  “Oh, dear, I didn’t know,” Allegra responded, trying to appear downcast after her grandfather had given her what, to her, was the most exciting news of the evening: she would not have to feel Zia Agnes’s frowns following her everywhere she went. “Well, I promise not to complain about the amount of food the Regent serves. I can hardly wait, and have purposely starved myself all day in anticipation.”

  “Meaning, I should imagine, that you carefully limited yourself to no more than two desserts at luncheon. How very brave of you, imp.”

  “Valerian!” Allegra whirled about to see Fitzhugh standing at the entrance to the small drawing room, her heart pounding even more furiously than it had when she thought of performing for the next King of England. “You didn’t tell me you too have been invited to the Marine Pavilion. You are going, aren’t you? You look entirely too magnificent for just an ordinary evening.”

  It was true. Valerian had dressed himself very carefully, daring to wear formal evening clothes made expressly for him during his time in Paris. His black velvet breeches fit him like a second skin. The matching single-breasted, split-tailed coat, piped and lined in the finest white satin, was left open over a formfitting black waistcoat, the white silk being repeated inside the tails of the coat, at his lace-ledged cuffs, and in the formally tied neckcloth and frills that peeped above the shawl collar of yet a second, white satin waistcoat.

  White silk stockings and black leather pumps completed the outfit, as he could not bring himself to wear the remainder of the French Restoration ensemble, which consisted of a sword hung from a special belt, limiting himself to his usual restrained jewelry. He did, however, carry a black ostrich-fringed felt bicorne under his arm, knowing the hat to be de rigueur.

  He had left his estate an hour previously, confident he looked his best, but now, with Allegra walking fully around him, her eyes wide in awe, he silently wished he had remembered the name of his French tailor so that he might send the man a gift.

  He had given a brief consideration to turning down the Prince Regent’s invitation to what was known far and wide to be an interminable evening at the Pavilion—but it had been only a very brief consideration. Allegra was to be present. Allegra, dressed in that beautiful gown, smiling that heartbreaking smile. Allegra, so alive, so vital, and doubtless to be the cynosure of all male eyes. Allegra, who would be the recipient of a dozen compliments—and two dozen invitations to go riding, driving, or otherwise engage in some other pursuit meant to allow a man some time alone with a comely young woman. Would he go to the Pavilion? A herd of Hannibal’s war elephants couldn’t keep him away!

  “Do I pass inspection, imp?” Valerian asked once she had rejoined her grandfather.

  “Oh, Valerian—you, you—” Allegra threw up her arms, unable to find words to explain just how wonderful he looked. “Do you know how nice your angel wings look when you wear black?”

  “Angel wings? I have been likened to many things, imp, but never anything remotely heavenly.”

  “No, no. I mean only the bits of white hair among the black above your ears. I think of them as angel wings.”

  Valerian’s spirits plummeted, for Allegra had just unwittingly reminded him of the more-than-fifteen-year difference in their ages. It was strange, but when he was with Allegra he did not usually feel the least bit old.

  “We all are as imposing as the richest box holders at the Teatro alla Scala,” she went on, heedless of Valerian’s pain. “Nonno, don’t you think Valerian is magnificent? You should wear two waistcoats, Nonno—if only to make it easier to catch more of the little drips when you eat.”

  The Baron, who had been noticeably quiet throughout this exchange, stepped forward, his eyes narrowed. “I didn’t know you was invited, Fitzhugh. You ain’t exactly one of our set, you know. Prinny don’t usually invite young pups.”

  Valerian smiled, his good spirits restored. “That’s true enough, Duggy. I may not be as young as Allegra, but I don’t as yet have one foot in the grave either, do I? But no matter. It seems our dear Regent has heard of my extensive travels and wishes for me to regale him with stories of my adventures. I understand, in fact, that I am to sit at his right hand tonight, beside Lady Hertford, of course.”

  “Eh? Is that so? Well, I suppose that’s all right, then,” the Baron said as a footman jumped about, struggling to throw a cape over the man’s bulk. “Shall we be off, then? I assume we will be taking your carriage, Fitzhugh?”

  “Would you have it any other way, Duggy?” Valerian answered, holding out his arm to Allegra. “My dear? Shall we go?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE MARINE PAVILION was everything Allegra had hoped it would be, and more. Much more. Perhaps, as the hours spent at the heavily laden dining table ground on and the gas chandeliers above their heads hissed out light and enthusiasm-wilting heat, too much more, even for her.

  Seated as she was, between her constantly chattering grandfather, who seemed to be in his element here, and an aging peer whose only claim to celebrity had been the dizzying speed with which he had run through a fortune it had taken his family six generations to amass, Allegra could not even see Valerian, much less hear a word of the lively conversation going on between him and the Regent.

  Perhaps that was why she had unconsciously eaten so heartily of les filets de volaille à la marcchale, forgetting to heed Valerian’s hastily whispered warning as he left her to go to his assigned seat that she should be careful not to partake overmuch from any one course, as another dozen equally appealing courses were sure to follow.

  What seemed to be—and in reality was—several hours later, after having to wave away the tempting les gâteaux glacés au abricots, a truly heartbreaking denial, she forced herself to sample les truffes à l’italienne, if only to judge for herself the authenticy of the chef’s claim. Truffles, she soon found to her delight, did survive translation.

  When it came time to leave the Banqueting Room—a departure was announced none too soon, Allegra mused, deciding that the temperature in the room now missed exceeding that of Hades by no more than a single degree—she was quick to seek out Valerian and ask his opinion of the meal.

  “There was a meal?” he quipped, discreetly wiping his forehead with an handkerchief pulled from his pants pocket. Obviously, in this heat, the black velvet, no matter how flattering, had been a mistake.

  “Prinny kept me talking for so long that I must have missed it. The man is insatiable, Allegra. If it weren’t for his duties and the war, I should imagine he would have spent his entire life tramping from country to country just to see the sights. You know, Allegra, it had never before occurred to me that a man such as our Prince Regent, a man who has so much, could in some ways be so deprived.”

  Allegra smiled sympathetically as they followed the rest of the company of nearly a hundred overdressed guests down the hallway and toward the Music Room. “I had sensed that the Prince is not very popular in England, Valerian, but you sound as if you almost like him.”

  “I do, imp, don’t I? But mostly I feel sorry for him. He lives in a dream world now, all alone, and I doubt that even he can sometimes distinguish between what is real and what is not. Do you know, he as much as told me tonight that he had been at Waterloo with Wellington, distinguishing hims
elf in battle against Napoleon.”

  Allegra frowned, failing to understand the significance of what Valerian had just said. “And he was not? I thought all princes and kings were great soldiers. They are in operas.”

  Valerian directed Allegra to the sight of the bulky Prince Regent, who had chosen to leave off his stays after his daughter’s death, as two footmen helped lower the man into a chair.

  “Not our Prince, Allegra. Until a few years ago, Prinny needed a winch to hoist him onto a horse. Now, well, now he doesn’t even try. A great soldier? I think he will most probably go down in history more as a great spender of his subjects’ money. I earlier heard someone say that the main chandelier alone in the Banqueting Room cost over five thousand pounds. If I sound bitter, Allegra, it is only because the real veterans of Waterloo, like Tweed, my coachman, have not fared half so well.”

  Allegra recalled Tweed, and the black patch the man wore over the place where, before he had gone to war, his right eye had allowed him to look at the world through two eyes. “I suppose that is true, Valerian. War is a terrible thing. But the chandelier is a pretty thing, Valerian, and I think the world sometimes needs pretty things as well, even more than it can know.”

  “There are moments, imp,” Valerian said softly, squeezing her gloved hand, “when you make me feel a complete fool.”

  Allegra felt much depressed as Valerian withdrew his hand, and she began looking about the enormous room in hopes of finding something that would lighten her spirits, something of which her companion did not know the price. It didn’t take her long to discover that there existed not a single thing within the Music Room that failed to please her.

  Her spirits soared, so that she felt more as she had done when first they had arrived at the Pavilion—before les filets de volaille à la marcchale and Valerian’s sad stories about the Regent.