Free Devil's Daughter by Catherine Coulter Page B

Arabella patted Rayna’s hand.
    “Head up, Rayna,” Arabella whispered. “You are far more beautiful than the queen’s two daughters. I vow they’ll hate you within minutes.”
    “If only I were as tall as you, Bella, instead of squat.”
    “The old satyr has returned to the queen to rest for a while,” the Comte de la Valle was saying to the marchese di Galvani on the far side of the salon. “Do you know that he was ready to leave for Palermo several months ago for hunting? Sent ninety of his hounds over by ship. Acton convinced him it wasn’t wise to leave Naples, with Napoleon breathing down our necks. How the old fool cares for his throne.”
    “A pity,” Adam said obscurely. He kept his gaze fixedly on the queen, not wanting to glance toward Arabella. The queen sat upon a high-backed chair, flanked by her two daughters. She looked pale and painfully aged, Adam thought, with her crimped gray hair and the wrinkles obvious on her face, even from a distance. The Princess Amélie was a tall, quite lovely young woman, but her sister, Christine, some three years older, had unfortunately inherited her father’s rather bulbous nose and his rounded shoulders. The king had not yet made his appearance, and Adam hadheard that the prince royal, Francesco, and his young Bourbon princess, Isabel, were at his farm near the palace at Caserta. He did not particularly care. He would not have come to the reception in any case if it had been his choice, but the Comte de la Valle had baited him, insisting in his hoarse voice that he must see the lion in his den surrounded by all his cubs and keepers before deciding if he deserved to rule.
    “Such a pity that the lazzaroni starve,” Adam said in a sneering voice, “while that fat king fills his belly.”
    “Ah, but the lazzaroni adore King Ferdinando, mon ami. He is one of them, you know. Despite his royal Bourbon blood, he is as ignorant as a pig, talks in the most vulgar parlance I’ve ever heard, and enjoys himself most when he is selling fish in the market.”
    “You sound most critical for a royalist, Gervaise,” Adam said.
    The comte shrugged. “It’s the truth. Prepare to compose your pirate’s face into a more accepting expression, Pietro. Here is his royal majesty.”
    King Ferdinando, closer to sixty now than to the fifty he proclaimed, strolled into the vast salon, nodding to his right and left, acknowledging bows and curtsies. He wore rich purple Genoese velvet, adorned with thick gold braid at the shoulders and over his breast. He greeted the queen and his two daughters when he reached them, and heaved his bulk into his chair beside the queen’s.
    Adam watched him greet Edward Lyndhurst and his wife, his guests of honor, and then bestow his most beguiling stare on the two rather taken-aback young ladies with them. When at last he had looked his fill, hewaved toward the musicians to begin their music again, and strains of the minuet filled the huge chamber.
    “Would you look at that lovely little morsel.”
    Adam turned and saw that the comte was gazing fixedly toward the Lyndhurst party. Adam’s eyes fell upon Arabella, breathtakingly lovely in a gown of pomona-green satin with rich embroidered gold binding the material beneath her breasts. Her honey-colored hair was braided into a high coronet, with thick tresses falling over her shoulder.
    He said in a dismissive voice, “If you like her washed-out coloring, I suppose the girl is passable.”
    “Washed-out? Really, mon ami. That beautiful auburn hair and those exquisite hazel eyes? And she is so very young and untouched.”
    Adam’s eyes followed the comte’s to Rayna Lyndhurst, who was standing slightly behind Arabella. He started at seeing her. The scraggly little peahen of a girl he remembered had emerged as a young lady of glorious plumage. She was standing very close to her mother, gazing timidly about her. He had the unaccountable urge to tell her not to be afraid. It was all show. Adam tried