AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes. The Pareses trace their history back many hundreds of years. You will find their likenesses all over the villa. That gentleman, however, is not Italian. That is my father, the third Earl of Clare, painted when I was very young.”
She heard a softening in his voice and studied the heavyset man whose dark brown eyes seemed to mirror some secret amusement. He appeared a confident man, radiating masculine vitality, just as did his son. How many times she had seen the same arrogant tilt of the head, the same autocratic set of the jaw.
“There are many similarities between the two of you,” she said. “And your mother?”
“She is there,” he said, pointing a dismissing finger toward a portrait whose subject was a woman in her late twenties. Creamy white shoulders rose above a gown of severe black. She was beautiful, yet she seemed to Cass
ie rather cold and haughty.
“You have her eyes,” Cassie said, wondering at the curtness in his voice.
“I trust that the eyes are the only trait I inherited from her.”
She cocked her head at him questioningly.
He shrugged and said only, “She was far from a loving woman. She did not care much for my father, or for me, his son. She wasted no time remarrying after his death. Indeed, she had not the taste to last out her widow’s year. Her son, my half-brother, will doubtless come to visit us soon. He is a likable enough fellow, charming and gallant with the ladies, and with an incurable penchant for extravagant finery.”
Cassie started, for he had not told her of a half-brother.
Before she could ask him more about this hitherto unknown relation, he said, “Come, let us go upstairs, and I will show you our room.”
She flinched at this reminder of their intimacy. She walked stiffly beside him up the wide staircase, while he told her the classical themes of the colorful frescoes upon the white stucco walls and pointed out more Parese ancestors, who were displayed in what seemed an endless procession from the earliest century. The brightly polished oak stairs made not a sound as they ascended. She smiled, remembering the groaning of the stairs at Hemphill Hall when the slightest weight was on them.
The earl turned at the top of the stairs and addressed Scargill, who stood in quiet conversation with Marrina and Paolo in the entrance hall. “Bring up the luggage when it arrives, Scargill.”
“Aye, my lord.” Scargill nodded and turned again to the woman. Cassie heard a sudden sharp tone in his voice but could not make out his words.
The earl chuckled. “If I am not mistaken, Scargill is likely upbraiding Marrina for her overt disapproval of you. No doubt he is telling her that you are to be treated as a valued guest in the villa and not as a mistress brought here for my dissolute pleasures.” He patted her stiff shoulder. “I daresay, cara, if you consented to wed me, she would unbend toward you immediately.”
“I don’t want her to unbend.” Cassie turned away from the carved oak railing to walk quickly down an imposing corridor. There was carpeting under her feet now, of thick, dark blue wool, touched as if with an artist’s brush with small circles of white.
They passed many closed doors, bedchambers undoubtedly, and Cassie would have preferred any one of them to sharing a room with the earl. He paused before a wide double door, turned the ivory knobs, and said grandly, “Our bedchamber, cara, and my favorite room in the villa.”
She stepped past him into an awesomely large room, more nearly the size of a ballroom than a bedchamber. The white stucco walls were only rarely broken by portraits, giving the room an even greater feeling of airiness and space. Gold brocade curtains lined the opposite wall. At either end of the room were white marble fireplaces, adorned with swags of fruit and winged cherubs. The oak floor was strewn with several brightly woven carpets, each individual in color and design. There was an open arch at the southern end of the room, and as she neared it, she realized the room was even larger than she imagined and in the shape of an L.
She turned to the earl, who stood watching her intently.
“It is impressive, my lord,” she allowed. She looked a question toward the heavy brocade curtains.
“Now you will see why this is my favorite of all the villa’s chambers.”
She watched silently as he walked to the end of the curtains and tugged on a velvet cord. The gold brocade material slowly opened upon floor-to-ceiling windows that extended the length of the room. She stared out to a terraced garden filled with exotic flowers, thick ivy, and many kinds of trees. To the north, beyond the highest terrace, were rolling green hills that rose to meet the sky. She tightly clamped her tongue over an exclamation of delight and walked through the arched portal. Genoa spread out before her to the south, its distance only adding to its startling grandeur. The Mediterranean glistened in the afternoon sun, and she could see the tall masts of ships bobbing up and down in the harbor.
The earl suddenly turned a latch on a window and it became a door that led to a long, narrow balcony. Its white stone railing was covered with a profusion of flower boxes that made the air redolent with their scent. There were pink and white carnations, dazzling white camellias, jasmine, and even orange and oleander trees standing upright in pots at either end of the balcony. She leaned over the railing to look down into the terraced gardens and saw white marble statues of men and women in classical poses surrounded by bowers of orange and myrtle blossoms. She heard the cool, tinkling sound of water and saw on a lower terrace a graceful fountain, shaped like a huge cup, covered with ivy. A statue of a small boy, a water jug over his shoulder, stood upon it, pouring a steady stream of water into the fountain.
Cassie drew a deep breath. “It is lovely. Indeed, I have never seen so beautiful a scene in my life. It all seems to fit together perfectly.”
“Yes,” he agreed, leaning his elbows on an open stretch of railing next to her. “If it were not for the more restrained customs that prevail here, I would never miss England.” At her questioning look, he continued, “The Genoese are a very thrifty people. Indeed, many of the gowns I bought for you would be seen as ostentatious here. If you see me dressed frequently in somber black, it is because I wish my Genoese brothers and colleagues to see me as one of them and not some foreign nobleman.” He paused a moment and shook his head ruefully. “There is one item that the Genoese do not consider extravagant, and that is the wig.”
“But you never wear a wig,” she said, smiling up at him despite herself.
“True, and I never shall. But the Genoese as a rule adore them—and the most outlandish concoctions. At the beginning of this century the Doge even passed a law against them, but you’ll notice there is a wig on every head in all the portraits from that period. I believe the law is still entered in the books, but it is not heeded any more now than it was then. You will discover that there are more wig makers in Genoa than there are cafes.”
“My father always wore one,” Cassie said. “White with little sausage rolls over his ears.”
“Yes, I remember,” he said with a smile. He turned and Cassie followed him back into the bedchamber. “There are dressing rooms through that door.” Even as he pointed toward the far end of the bedchamber, he was aware that Cassie was not looking at the dressing room door but at his giant bed, which was set upon a dais, its four thick posts carved with fat, naked cherubs.
He grinned. “It is rather impressive, is it not? My father was quite fond of it. When one becomes used to that expanse of bed, the one aboard The Cassandra seems like a niggardly bunk.”
