The Chaotic Miss Crispino. Kasey Michaels

Coniston promptly sat down beside Allegra and patted her hand. “Don’t apologize, my dear, for it was an honest mistake. You see, dearest Uncle Max and I traveled about the world for many years before Tony and I married, and we—well, you might say we indulged in a wee bit of stage-playing from time to time when the need arose.”

      “Is that right? And ’tis that what you call it now, me fine Marchioness? We lived higher than O’Hara’s hog on that ‘stage-playing,’ if memory serves,” Maximilien retorted, his round face turning a violent red, although Allegra, watching him, was very sure he was not really angry, but was only indulging in a little more stage-acting of his own. They were an unusual group, she acknowledged silently, but there was a lot of love in this villa, and she felt a momentary pang at the remembered loss of her own family.

      “High as O’Hara’s hog, is it? And twice as much time was spent lower than O’Malley’s well, Uncail. I remember that as well,” Lady Coniston shot back, not without humor. “Now, do we waste time splitting hairs, or do we help Valerian and Signorina Crispino with their little problem? Uncle Max, your Conte di Casals may get the passport, but I don’t wish to hear how. I’m a mother now—and, like my husband, ‘past such things.’”

      “It’s turning into an Irish shrew ye are, darlin’,” Max groused before downing a glass of wine.

      “Valerian,” she went on, unheeding, still holding Allegra’s hand as she turned to her other guest, “all we heard when Tony and I last saw you in Rome was that you were off to find Lord Dugdale’s long-lost granddaughter and transport her to Brighton. I see the granddaughter before me, and I congratulate you on your success, but I sense that more is involved in this story. Please, if I promise to have the servants lay out some refreshments in the sala da pranzo, you must tell us everything, from the very beginning!”

      Allegra’s ears pricked up at the mention of food, her recent seasickness forgotten, and she squeezed Lady Coniston’s hands appreciatively. “I will tell you everything, dear Marchesa, I promise, all about my singing, my life, and even the terrible Timoteos—directly after we have eaten!”

      A FULL TWO WEEKS passed in relative bliss for Allegra, for in the Marchioness of Coniston she had found her first true female friend since childhood. Lady Coniston, or Candie, as she had begged Allegra to address her, was more than gracious, more than interested—she was a true sister of the heart.

      For Candie had not always led a life of comfort; she had known poverty, she had known fear, and she had learned to make her own way, by whatever means she could. But, like Allegra, she had never sacrificed her honor in order to fill her belly.

      Candie had been rewarded for her purity with the love of Tony Betancourt, a man Allegra found to be immensely wonderful, and with the birth of their son, Murphy, an adorable blond cherub of two years who held his uncle Max’s heart in his chubby little hands.

      Could there be such a similarly rosy future in Brighton for someone like Allegra? Somehow, she doubted it, no matter how enthusiastic Candie was about her prospects.

      To that end, and over Allegra’s protests, Candie had set out to provide her young guest with a complete new wardrobe the very morning after Valerian and Allegra’s arrival in Naples. Although Italian styles were still woefully behind those of Paris, there existed enough modistes sufficiently schooled in the art of copying for Allegra to acquire a fairly extensive wardrobe that would be considered not only acceptable but wonderfully stylish by the ladies of Brighton.

      But the Marchioness was not content to merely dress her young guest in fine feathers. Oh, no. She spent long hours schooling Allegra in proper deportment (including at least one stern lecture concerning Allegra’s tendency to gesture with her hands as she spoke, an entirely too Italian habit), and had helped her to weed most Italian words and phrasing from her vocabulary, permitting her to use only those considered suitably Continental and sure to impress her English relatives.

      “I was the Conte di Casals’s niece Gina more than once in the past, you understand,” the Marchioness had informed her as the two sat alone late one night over Allegra’s lessons, “so I have a fairly good notion as to how you should go on. Have I told you about the time—I was just a young girl, I believe—that Uncle Max wrangled us an audience with the Pope?”

      “His Holiness!” Allegra had exclaimed, much impressed. “I once sang a solo for the Bishop of Bologna, but it is not the same, is it?”

      Yes, there were many lessons, but there were just as many stories, and just as many shared reminiscences between the new friends, quite a few of them having to do with the at-times-almost-bizarre courtship of Candice Murphy by Mark Antony Betancourt, Seventh Marquess of Coniston. The Marquess, it seemed, had until his marriage been known all over London as Mister Overnite: a carefree, heartbreakingly handsome man who supposedly had held the modern-day British record for dallying the whole night long in more society matrons’ beds than half the husbands in the Upper Ten Thousand.

      It hadn’t been easy for Tony to understand that his bachelor days were effectively over from the first moment he’d clapped eyes on the mischievous Miss Murphy, but—as Candie, blushing, told Allegra—he had lived to give proof to the adage that reformed rakes make the very best of husbands.

      As for Allegra’s singing career, it had been left to Valerian to explain to her that this, alas, was over, finally and completely. It was not to be mentioned in company, it was not to be considered as a viable part of her future—it simply was not to be thought of, ever again!

      Only the quick-witted Tony had been able to save Valerian from Allegra’s employment of a particularly vile Italian curse, which he did by quickly pointing out that there was nothing wrong with Allegra considering herself a talented amateur.

      “Why, as a matter of fact,” he had interjected cleverly, winking at his appreciative wife, “Prinny himself is quite a devotee of Italian opera. You’re bound to be the sensation of the age, Allegra, once you sing for him, for many of his guests perform at the Marine Pavilion after one of his Highness’s hours-long dinner parties.”

      “Yes, the dinner parties,” Valerian had added, knowing by now where to aim his darts where Allegra was concerned. “I heard it said that there are often two dozen main dishes served in one evening,” he slid in, watching as Allegra’s sapphire eyes opened wide. “That’s not to mention the many side dishes, cakes, puddings, pastries, and the rest. Although I have not yet had the pleasure, Duggy is one of Old Swellfoot’s cronies, signorina, so you are sure to be invited, if you can just learn to behave yourself.”

      All in all, Allegra had become not only resigned to leaving Italy but anxious to reach England and her mother’s birthplace, although it was with tears in her eyes that she waved good-bye to the Betancourts as the ship pulled away from the pier, her newly obtained passport safely in Valerian’s possession.

      Then, suddenly, all her new finery to one side and her more refined English forgotten, she pointed to the dock, hopping on one slippered foot as she exclaimed, “Impossible! It is that terrible Bernardo—here, in Napoli! How has he found me? Again he shows up unwanted, come un cane nella chiesa— like a dog in a church!”

      As Bernardo ran to the very edge of the pier, tears streaming down his handsome face and looking for all the world as if he was about to throw himself into the water in order to swim out to the ship, Allegra struck her right arm straight out in front of her, tucked her middle two fingers beneath her thumb, and shouted dramatically, “Si rompe il corno!”

      Immediately Bernardo stepped back as if stunned, clutching his chest.

      “You’re going to break his horns?” Valerian asked from beside her, watching bemusedly as her small but voluptuous figure was shown to advantage by her antics. “Why don’t I believe that is some sort of quaint Italian farewell?”

      Allegra threw back her head, her long black hair blowing in the wind, since she had shunned Candie’s suggestion that she wear one of the new bonnets Valerian’s money had bought her. “I wished evil on him, signore. Great evil such as only another Italian can imagine!”

      “Oh,