The chaotic Miss Crispino Read online

  Her head reappeared around the doorjamb. “You English,” she said scathingly. “What a bloodless lot. You can’t even put a hole through a man who is trying to bash in your skull. And as for honor—why, you have none!”

  “It’s not that, signorina,” Valerian corrected her urbanely. “It’s just that a prolonged sojourn in one of your quaint Italian prisons until explanations can be made ranks very low on my agenda. I’ve heard the plumbing in those places is not of the best. Now, are you going to call this incarnation of an ancient Roman god off or not? I’m afraid his notion of the Italian language and mine do not coincide, and I don’t wish to insult him further with some verbal misstep.”

  Shrugging yet again, Signorina Crispino walked over to Bernardo and gave him a swift kick in the leg in order to gain his attention. “Bernardo, tu hai il cervello di una gallina! Vai al diavolo!”

  “Oh, that’s lovely, that is,” Valerian interposed. “Although I hesitate to point this out, I could have told Bernardo here that he has the brain of a chicken. I also could have told him to go lose himself somewhere. Can’t you just tell your lover that I’m harmless—that I’m a friend of your grandfather’s?”

  “My lover! You insult me!” she exploded, throwing down the satchel. “As if that were true—could ever be true!” Her hands drawn into tight fists, she wildly looked about the small room in search of a weapon, seizing on the lighted candle that stood in a heavy pewter base, not knowing whom to hit with it first, Bernardo or Valerian.

  Bernardo, who seemed to have tired of staring down the short barrel of the pistol, and who did not take kindly to the insults Signorina Crispino had thrown at him, took the decision out of her hands by the simple means of turning to her, his smile wide in his innocently handsome face. “Allegra—mi amore!”

  “Ah, how affecting. The Adonis loves you,” Valerian said, earning himself a cutting glance from Allegra.

  “Fermata! Stop it—both of you!” she warned tightly just as Valerian’s pistol came down heavily on the side of Bernardo’s head and the man crumpled into a heap at her feet. She looked from Valerian to Bernardo’s inert form and then back at Valerian once again. “Bene, signore. Molto bene. I thought you said you abhorred violence.”

  Valerian replaced the pistol in his pocket. “I have learned a new saying since coming to Italy, Signorina Allegra: ‘Quando sé in ballo, bisogna ballare.’ When at a dance, one must dance. Your Bernardo left me no choice. Thank you for coming back, by the way. It was cursed good of you.”

  He looked down at the unconscious Bernardo. “I didn’t really wish to hit him. It was like taking a hatchet to a Michelangelo. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a pretty face.”

  “Behind which resides the most bricklike brain in the good Lord’s nature,” Allegra retorted, giving Bernardo’s inert figure a small kick. “He speaks some English, you know, but it goes straight out of his head—pouf!—when he has to do more than stand up straight and be handsome. Sogni d’oro, Bernardo— golden dreams to you. Now, Signor Fitzhugh, I suggest we take ourselves out of this place before he rouses, for Bernardo has a very hard head and won’t sleep for long.”

  Valerian 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 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 h
is 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!”