Free Devil's Daughter by Catherine Coulter Page A

before you were born. I wouldn’t want to cross him. Now, my lord, I must go. Vincenzo will be near, and you can send a message to me anytime of the day or night at my lodgings.”
    Adam rose and shook his head. “Thank you, Daniele. With any luck at all, we’ll have this wretched mess resolved and be back in Genoa before too much time. My only real concern is that Napoleon will descend with one of his armies and take Naples.”
    “Nay,” Daniele said, “it will take time to break the treaty. If it should come to pass, my lord, you will simply bundle your sister out of here before she can catch her breath to protest.”

Chapter 6
    “H ow am I supposed to feel like a princess with my slippers pinching my toes?” Arabella whispered behind her white-gloved hand to Rayna Lyndhurst. Rayna was staring wide-eyed at the sprawling magnificence of the Palazzo Reale. The palace was lit with scores of flambeaux, held high by royal liveried servants outside the palace and secured in golden wall sconces within.
    “It was your idea to wear my slippers, Bella. I cannot help it if my feet are smaller than yours.”
    “How kind of you to point that out,” Arabella said on a snort. “Oh, I just heard, Rayna,” she continued in a whisper, not wanting either Lord or Lady Delford to hear her, “that King Ferdinando has returned from his favorite retreat, Belvedere, and will make an appearance tonight. I understand he is sated with his latest mistress and with hunting deer in his private preserves. I also heard it said that he did not pay much attention to the game, but more to Lucia, his overblown mistress.”
    “Is she here tonight?”
    “No, I think she is being protected from other gentlemen’s sight at Belvedere.”
    “Bella, where do you hear all these spicy things? No one tells me anything.”
    “This person or that,” Arabella said, and returned her attention to the vast reception hall. Soaring white marble columns, carved with eager cherubs, divided the huge hall into smaller salons. What seemed to be miles of crimson velvet draperies fell from ceiling to floor along two entire walls. And so many beautifully attired people. The men, she noted with a smile, appeared every bit as flamboyant as the ladies, many of them still wearing wigs, some dyed in dazzling colors.
    She was excited about meeting the King and Queen of Naples, but she was anxious about Adam. She scanned the brightly colored throng for him, but could not see him. She glanced at Rayna, who was standing quietly beside her mother, seeming quite nervous. She was sorry Rayna could not understand the lilting Italian, or smile, as she could, at the chattering nonsense she heard, no different from the nonsense spoken at the fashionable balls in London. She looked back to the hall where the bewigged musicians began playing at the far end of the chamber, and many of the gentlemen and ladies stepped out to dance the minuet. She finally saw Adam in the distance, in conversation with a tall young man. Was it the Comte de la Valle? He certainly didn’t look particularly debauched, with his blond good looks.
    “Come, ladies,” Lord Delford said. “We are about to be graced with the royal presences.”
    Arabella followed in the wake of Lord and Lady Delford. Lord Delford, tall and severely lean, was immaculately dressed in formal black velvet with frothy white lace at his throat and his wrists. His only jewelry was a large emerald signet ring on his right hand and adiamond stickpin in the folds of his cravat. His viscountess looked a bit pale, Arabella thought, as if she hadn’t yet fully recovered from their voyage from Genoa. But she held her head high, her auburn coloring set off by a rich gown of green satin. Rayna was wearing a gown of old ivory satin, with a strand of creamy pearls about her throat. Arabella thought her young friend looked exquisite, but of course, she wouldn’t tell her, not after the insult to her feet. As they neared the royal presences,