The Chaotic Miss Crispino

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 subsided into the corner, her hand going to her bodice, where the remainder of the sausages still resided. “But I will hate you forever for your terrible insult, signore. Forever!”

CHAPTER TWO

“IT ALL BEGAN about six months ago, signore, shortly after my papá died.”

Valerian sat at his ease on the facing seat of the coach as Allegra began her story. They had spent an uneventful evening at his hotel on the Via del Prato, with Allegra retiring to her rooms without a fuss, her bare feet all but dragging with fatigue.

That was not to say that the morning had been without incident, for she had refused to budge an inch from the hotel without bathing from head to toe in a hip bath she charged Tweed to procure—a sentiment Valerian sincerely seconded—and until she had been served a herculean breakfast of cappuccino, bisteca alla fiorentina, and tortino di carciofi.

Valerian, accustomed to a lighter breakfast since coming to the Continent, denied himself the opportunity to likewise partake of the thick sliced steak but did sample the eggs with artichokes, a dish whose aroma could not be ignored.

Besides her hygienic and epicurean commands, Allegra harbored only one other demand she wished imparted to Valerian. She had thought long and hard about it during the night, she had told him, and she was not about to travel along the road with him for the days and nights it would take the coach to reach Naples, no matter that no Englishman feels he has seen Italy unless he can claim to have bravely run down the inner slope of the long-dead Mount Vesuvius.

It was out of the question, this constant, unchaperoned togetherness, and so she told him—just as if she hadn’t been running about Florence without so much as a cameriera in attendance! They were instead to make straight for the coast and the town of Livorno, whence they could hire a small boat to take them to Napoli.

She had even presented Valerian with a crudely drawn map listing a suitable stop along the way where they could sleep (in separate rooms, of course; this part was heavily underlined), change horses, and be assured of a decent meal of Chianti, minestrone, and funghi alla fiorentina al fuoco di legna. Allegra’s appetite, it was becoming more and more obvious to Valerian, knew no bounds.

Once he had acquiesced to this plan (for any idea that would serve to lessen the amount of time he must spend inside a closed coach with only Allegra for company could only be looked upon as a blessing), they were on their way. Now, an hour later, the coach moving forward at a brisk pace once they had left the city behind them, Allegra finally seemed ready to tell Valerian about the Timoteos.

“Yes,” he said, watching as her lower lip began to quiver at the mention of her father. “I learned of his death shortly after I began my quest to locate you. An inflammation of the lungs, I believe?”

Allegra nodded, averting her eyes, then lifted her chin. “It was that terrible Venezia. So beautiful, you know, but so damp. He died in my arms, just as my dearest madre breathed her last in his three summers earlier in Modena.”

Smiling again, she raised her hands, palms up. “But enough of that! I am the orfana—the orphan—but I make my own way. My fame had already begun to spread and my voice was in demand everywhere. I could have been a prima donna—I could still be a prima donna—the best! If only it weren’t for that stupid Erberto. Erberto was my manager, you understand.” She spread her hands wide, comically rolling her eyes. “Erberto’s mouth, signore—tanto grossa!”

Valerian chuckled in spite of himself. Allegra was so alive, so mercurial, that he felt constantly on the alert—and continually entertained—by her antics. “And what did Erberto’s big mouth do?” he asked as she collapsed against the seat.

She sat forward once more, balancing her elbows on her knees as she spoke so that the lowcut peasant blouse gave him a most pleasant view of her cleavage. Oh, yes, Agnes Kittredge was going to take to her bed for a week once she clapped eyes on her grandniece. “We were in Milano, where I had just had a magnificent triumph at the Teatro alla Scala—”

“You sang at La Scala?” Valerian’s tone was openly skeptical.

Allegra tossed back her head, impaling him with her sapphire glare. “No, signore,” she shot back. “I swept the stage after the horses were taken off! Of course I sang! Now, if you are done with stupid questions, shall I get on with it?”

Valerian shook his head. “Forgive me, signorina. You must possess a great talent.”

She shrugged, then grinned, her natural honesty overcoming her pride. “Dire una piccola bugia—it was just a small fib. In truth, I was only one of the chorus—although I did get to die during the finale. It was a very good death—very dramatic, very heart-wrenching. They had no buffo that night—no comedy—so I did not get a chance to really show my talent. But, be that as it may, Erberto and I retired to a nearby caffé after the performance—for singing always makes me very hungry—and that is when it happened.”

“Let me hazard a guess. Erberto opened his big mouth.”

“Sì! It is like this. Erberto is a fiorentino, a Florentine, and naturally thinks himself a wag and a wit. But mostly he is a grullo, a fool. He is always building himself up by poking fun at someone else. This night his wicked tongue lands on Bernardo Timoteo—something to do with seeing cabbage leaves sticking out of his ears, I think. It is a simple enough jest, hardly what you’d call a triumph of the language, and I am positive it does not linger in stupid Erberto’s memory beyond his next bottle of Ruffina.”

“But Bernardo takes—I mean, took umbrage, and has been chasing the two of you ever since. Now I understand why you were running. But where is this Erberto fellow?”

Allegra leaned forward another six inches, her hands on her hips. “Who is telling this story, signore, you or I? Take umbrage? No, Bernardo does no such thing, for he is not very smart. Beautiful, yes, but very, very stupid. For myself, I believe it is only sometime later, when one of Milano’s good citizens takes the time to explain the insult to Bernardo, that the trouble starts.

“You see, the man probably didn’t much like it that an outsider had infringed on what the people of Milano consider theirs—the God-given right to tickle themselves by poking fun at all Timoteos. Oh, yes, signore. I was in the caffé long enough that night to hear almost everyone there take a turn at poking fun at il bello calzolaio—the beautiful shoemaker.”

“Ah,” Valerian said ruminatingly, interrupting her yet again. “That would explain the metal mallet, wouldn’t it? Oh, I’m sorry, Signorina—please, go on. I’m hanging on your every word, really I am.”

Allegra leaned back, making a great business out of crossing her arms beneath her breasts. “No. I don’t think so. My English is rusty since my madre’s death. You are making fun of me.”

Valerian inclined his head slightly, acknowledging her refusal. “Very well, signorina, if that’s what you have decided. I shan’t beg, you know.” So saying, he pushed his curly brimmed beaver down low over his eyes, showing all intentions of taking a nap as Tweed tooled the coach along the narrow, rutted roads.

He had only counted to twenty-seven when Allegra blurted, “Three nights after the incident in the caffè— with the help of his brother, Giorgio and his hairy spider cousin Alberto—Bernardo waits in the shadows for Erberto to emerge from the opera house after the performance.”

Her voice lowered dramatically. “They have, in their ridiculousness, begun the vendetta—a hunt for revenge—against my manager! Bernardo taps—boom!—on Erberto’s poor skull with that terrible mallet of his even as I watch, helpless.” She spread her hands, palms upward. “There is blood everywhere!”

“Erberto is dead? I had no idea, signorina,” he said, pushing up the brim of his hat, the better to see Allegra. Valerian had been reasonably impressed when Bernardo’s size (as well as the potential for mayhem provided by the metal mallet the man had carried), but he had not really believed the gorgeous young man capable of murder.

“You poor creature, to have been witness to a murder. And they are after you now, to kill you as well in order to cover their tracks. Please, tell me the whole of it.”

She quickly turned her head away, but not before Valerian had seen her smile. “No, no, signore, I won’t go on boring you with my tale of woe. Continue your nap, per favore.”

“Little Italian witch,” Valerian breathed quietly, knowing he had been bested by a mere child, and a female child at that. He sat up straight and offered his apology for teasing her, then begged her to continue with the story of the Timoteos.

“Erberto is not dead—more’s the pity. For even Dante’s terrible inferno is too good for him,” she went on, happy to speak now that she was sure she had Fitzhugh’s undivided attention. “Once he regained his senses the coward beat a hasty retreat—probably all the way to his uncle’s in Sicilia—leaving me alone to starve, for the night of the attack was also the final night of our engagement in Milano. He ran like a rabbit—and took every last bit of my wages with him! I spit on Erberto!”

“Not in my coach, you don’t!” Valerian cut in firmly, lifting one expressive eyebrow.

She shot him a withering glance. “Of course I won’t. Last night I only wished to shock you. You wanted me to be terrible, and I did not wish to be so unkind as to disappoint you. But you would spit on Erberto too, signore, if you knew the whole of it! Bernardo had seen me as I sat in the alley, you understand, holding that thankless Erberto’s broken head in my lap—and the fool fell fatally in love with me at that instant!”

“Then Bernardo really is in love with you?”

“Will you never stop asking silly questions and listen? Consider, signore. There I was, still in my stage costume—and a lovely costume it was, all red and glittering gold—sitting in the moonlight…my sapphire eyes awash with tears for the worthless Erberto…my glorious ebony tresses loosed about my shoulders…Erberto’s broken head cradled in my lap. I am very beautiful, you know, and I believe Bernardo saw me as a caritatevole Madonna.”

“A beneficent madonna? Really?” The child was a complete minx, and Valerian was having a very difficult time keeping his face expressionless as Allegra lifted a hand to push at her hair, striking a dramatic pose. “Don’t you think you might be overreacting—not to mention overacting?”

Her right hand sliced the air in a gesture that dismissed Valerian for a fool. “He follows me, does he not—dogging my every footstep these past six months so that I cannot find work, so that I cannot live without looking over my shoulder? He tells Giorgio and Alberto that, with Erberto gone, the vendetta is now directed at me, so that all three of them have abandoned the shoemaker shop to make my life a misery. They would not follow him else, you understand.

“But Bernardo has told me—once, when he almost caught me—that he wants only to marry me, to make up for the trouble he caused me by chasing Erberto away. Stupido! As if I should spend my life with that empty-headed creature and his beautiful, empty-headed children! No—I choose to run—to spend my life running, a wild pack of Timoteos forever barking at my heels!”

Valerian reached up a hand to straighten his cravat. “I see now that Duggy’s change of heart and imminent demise have come just in time for you, signorina. Considering all that you have told me, I’m surprised it took you so long to accept his offer, for I must admit I too can’t believe you have the makings of a dutiful shoemaker’s wife.”

Rather than become angry, Allegra appeared amused by Valerian’s opinion of her worth as a wife for Bernardo. “I should probably take his little metal mallet to his thick skull within a fortnight, signore,” she admitted with a grin. “But what is this—we are slowing down!”

She scooted over to the window to see that they were coming into the outskirts of a small town. “Ah, Empoli, and just in time! The inn I directed Tweed to take us to has the most delicious bruschetta in the region!”

“Bruschetta?” Valerian repeated, scowling. “That’s bread drenched in garlic, isn’t it?”

“It is nothing so simple. The bread is sliced thick and toasted ever so lightly, then rubbed most generously all over with none but the freshest garlic, olive oil, and salt. I adore it!”

“You will adore it from a distance today, signorina, or else ride up top with Tweed to the next posting inn,” Valerian warned her, his expression as stern as his voice. “I am entranced by Italy in general, but I have never learned to share your national love of garlic.”

Allegra’s chin jutted out as her breast heaved a time or two while she considered this ultimatum. It was raining, and had been raining ever since they had left the hotel. She had been an outside passenger in the wintertime enough to know that she did not wish to be one again. “I will have the minestrone, signore,” she said, giving in even though it pained her. “But you will not know what you have missed!”

“Oh, but I already know what I will miss, signorina,” he corrected her, reaching for the door as Tweed pulled the coach to a halt. “I will miss an afternoon in peace and quiet while you bear Tweed company—probably the last peace and quiet I shall have until we reach Brighton.”

As Valerian pushed down the coach steps, his back to Allegra, she almost gave in to the urge to lift her foot and push him headfirst through the door and out into the muddy inn yard.

“Ah, signore,” was all she said a moment later, comically rolling her big blue eyes as Valerian handed her down from the coach, “you must have a saint on your shoulder. You don’t know how lucky, how very lucky, you are!”

Valerian stared after her as she made her way confidently to the inn’s entrance, her dark head held high, her step fluidly graceful. The feeling that he was in some sort of unrecognizable danger from this small spitfire of a child was growing ever larger in his chest.

THEY REACHED NAPLES two days later, docking at the bottom of the Via Roma just at sundown, and proceeded directly to the rented villa of Mark Antony Betancourt, Marquess of Coniston, and his wife, Candice. The two were good friends of Valerian’s who, upon leaving Rome in October, had instructed him to visit them in their uncle’s villa in Naples after the New Year.

His fingers figuratively crossed that the couple would be in residence and not entertaining this evening, Valerian descended from the hastily rented carriage, bidding Allegra to remain behind while he assured himself that the Marquess was at home.

“Will your Marchesa of Coniston bid me to enter through the servants’ door as well?” Allegra asked, reluctant to move. Her stomach and legs had yet to acknowledge that she was back on dry land, because, as she had told Valerian, she didn’t have “sailor’s feet.”

She waited until he had walked away before adding peevishly, “Or do Englishwomen have better manners than Englishmen?”

Valerian, who had already mounted the three shallow stone steps to the front door, turned to smile back at her. “Candie stand on ceremony? I should think not, signorina. I’m sure she’ll make us both feel most welcome.”

Allegra sniffed and withdrew her head back into the carriage to await developments, as her pride still smarted from having to climb the back stairs at Valerian’s hotel in Florence. Her stomach grumbled as she waited for Valerian to summon her and she smiled, knowing that her appetite was returning to normal. With any luck there would be a good Neapolitan cook installed in the villa’s kitchen.

Five minutes passed before Valerian opened the door to the carriage and held out his hand for her to descend to the narrow flagway.

“I’m to go to the servants’ entrance?” she asked warily.

“The servants’ entrance?” exclaimed a female voice from the doorway. “Valerian, what have you been up to with this poor child? I’ve never before known you to be mean. Cuttingly sarcastic, yes, but never purposely mean. Oh, Tony, Uncle Max—just look at her! She’s beautiful! Have you ever seen anything so small as her waist?”

“And I don’t think it’s her waist we men are looking at, aingeal cailin, don’t you know,” replied a short, rather pudgy man in a curiously lilting baritone. “Reminds me a bit of your sister, Patsy. Isn’t that right, m’boyo?”

“I wouldn’t know, Max,” a third voice supplied, chuckling. “I’m a married man now, you know, and beyond such things.”

“Exactly like your sister, Patsy, my love,” the Marchioness answered, not sounding in the least upset. “I’ve always said I would gladly trade her this tiresome hair for her lovely, full bosom.”

Allegra, whose gaze had been concentrated on Valerian’s face as she tried to take some silent signal from him as to how to go on (a signal which, no matter how hard she looked, never came), lifted her head to confront the three people who had spoken of her as if she weren’t really there to listen. Almost instantly her mouth dropped open as she looked at the Marchioness of Coniston, a woman whose ethereal loveliness literally took her breath away.

The Marchioness was tall, and reed-slim, and her beautiful, pale-complexioned, heart-shaped face was animated by a lovely pair of slanted, lively sherry eyes. But it was her hair, a thick mane more white than blonde which fell nearly to her waist, that totally entranced Allegra. Until the Marchioness smiled, that is. Then Allegra was captured and won by the open friendliness in the young woman’s expression.

“Come inside, Signorina Crispino, do,” the Marchioness commanded, taking Allegra’s hand in hers. “Tony, Uncle Max, come along. Valerian looks as if he could use a tall glass of Chianti.”

“What a wonderful idea, Candie. And it’s a great thirst I’ve worked up this day myself, being good,” Maximilien P. Murphy answered brightly as the five of them headed inside, passing by a small group of interested servants.

Valerian slipped his arm around the older man’s shoulders as they walked across the marble foyer and into the main salotto. “It’s strange that you should mention being good, Max,” he said companionably, “for I’ve been wondering—how would you like to be bad for a while? Nothing terrible, you understand, just perhaps a momentary resurrection of the Conte di Casals, the Italian Count Tony told me you played to perfection in London. Would you impersonate him again—just long enough for the Conte to procure a passport for Signorina Crispino here?”

“That’s it? One tiny passport?” Maximilien answered, frowning. “That’s no harder than tripping off a log. Done and done, my boyo!”

“Valerian! Shame on you. And shame on you, Tony, my love, for telling tales out of school!” the Marchioness, overhearing, accused. “Uncle Max doesn’t do that sort of thing anymore, Valerian. You know that. After all, now that Tony and I have our sweet little Murphy, we want our son to get to know his uncle as a free man—and not just as a poor wretch we take oranges to at the local prigione.”

Allegra, who had been led to a chair by the Marquess, looked up at Lady Coniston in confusion. “Prison! Your uncle is a criminal?” she asked, biting her lip at the insult. “Scusi! I mean to say—” She turned to Valerian, who was now holding a wineglass and looking very much at home and at his ease. “Well, don’t just stand there! Help me, Fitzhugh, per favore! What did I mean to say?”