around, mystified that she felt lucky or grateful when he doubted she’d had enough to eat in days or maybe longer. “Looks like nothing but a lot of work and headaches to me.”
“I need answer to no one but myself,” she replied. “Why should I become the legal property of a person who is no better than me, and in all likelihood my inferior in most respects?” Her thin shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I don’t expect you or anyone to understand. It is merely the choice I have made.”
“The choice you’ve made,” he echoed, feeling disoriented merely talking to the chit. He could not fathom where she had come by her sturdy little opinions, but she certainly seemed in control of her life, which was more than he could say for himself.
The thought irked him.
Hearing riders approaching, he looked over and saw his men coming toward him from the woods. He saw that they had his gold but no Masked Rider. He sent a scowling look over his shoulder at Daniela Chiaramonte, standing there on the step with her hands folded demurely over her too-skinny waist.
He had thought to leave two soldiers posted at the villa to protect her and her family, but he abandoned the idea, for he doubted that the Masked Rider posed any kind of threat to her, considering that the outlaw’s right-hand man was apparently her beau.
The thought made his mood fouler. “If you are quite through instructing me, Lady Daniela, the king awaits my arrival.”
“Goodbye, Prince,” she said politely. “And…happy birthday.”
Was the little baggage mocking him? He looked sharply at her, suspecting that he heard a faint trace of laughter in her voice. Still, for the life of him, all he wanted was to march over to her and kiss that smug smile off her lips; but oh, no, he was not going to do that. He was going to get on his horse and ride far, far away from her. He was good at forgetting women; he made up his mind to expunge this vexing little redhead from his memory on the spot.
Belatedly, he remembered that he had sworn off helping damsels in distress some years ago.
As he swung up into the saddle and urged the horse into motion, he mentally bade the eccentric Lady Daniela good riddance.
Don Giovanni himself would have been at a loss.
CHAPTER
THREE
Still out of humor with the world after his encounter with the vexing redhead and her unheard-of rejection of him in favor of a rustic, Rafe traveled the rest of the way to Belfort without event, though he was on his guard as they passed the poorer, ramshackle outskirts of Ascencion’s sprawling capital.
Nearing the heart of the cosmopolitan Italian city, graceful, wrought-iron street lamps lit the broad, cobbled thoroughfares. People had come out to enjoy the cool of evening. The streets of Belfort rang with laughter and argument from the coffeehouses and taverns they passed. People hailed him everywhere he passed. Dutifully, he waved as he cantered by on the strapping white stallion.
Moving down the street at a trot, the horse coughed under him with the hot, dust-laden night breeze. He patted the animal’s warm, damp neck and a puff of dust rose from it. He winced, for his own throat felt caked with fine clay.
Dust coated everything, with the drought in its fourth month. Even the hardy marigolds in the flower boxes of the tall, fashionable city row houses looked wilted. The elegant fountains in every garden square had been turned off to conserve water.
It would get worse before it got better, he thought grimly. It was early July, but soon the sirocco winds would come slithering up from the heart of the Sahara Desert, flattening North Africa, stretching over the limpid jade waters of the Mediterranean, to lie heavily over all of Southern Europe. During those two or three weeks each year, all hell tended to break loose on the island.
As they turned a corner, Rafe caught a far-off glimpse of a fanciful bronze cupola rising over the city roofs, gleaming in the starlight,
“I need answer to no one but myself,” she replied. “Why should I become the legal property of a person who is no better than me, and in all likelihood my inferior in most respects?” Her thin shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I don’t expect you or anyone to understand. It is merely the choice I have made.”
“The choice you’ve made,” he echoed, feeling disoriented merely talking to the chit. He could not fathom where she had come by her sturdy little opinions, but she certainly seemed in control of her life, which was more than he could say for himself.
The thought irked him.
Hearing riders approaching, he looked over and saw his men coming toward him from the woods. He saw that they had his gold but no Masked Rider. He sent a scowling look over his shoulder at Daniela Chiaramonte, standing there on the step with her hands folded demurely over her too-skinny waist.
He had thought to leave two soldiers posted at the villa to protect her and her family, but he abandoned the idea, for he doubted that the Masked Rider posed any kind of threat to her, considering that the outlaw’s right-hand man was apparently her beau.
The thought made his mood fouler. “If you are quite through instructing me, Lady Daniela, the king awaits my arrival.”
“Goodbye, Prince,” she said politely. “And…happy birthday.”
Was the little baggage mocking him? He looked sharply at her, suspecting that he heard a faint trace of laughter in her voice. Still, for the life of him, all he wanted was to march over to her and kiss that smug smile off her lips; but oh, no, he was not going to do that. He was going to get on his horse and ride far, far away from her. He was good at forgetting women; he made up his mind to expunge this vexing little redhead from his memory on the spot.
Belatedly, he remembered that he had sworn off helping damsels in distress some years ago.
As he swung up into the saddle and urged the horse into motion, he mentally bade the eccentric Lady Daniela good riddance.
Don Giovanni himself would have been at a loss.
CHAPTER
THREE
Still out of humor with the world after his encounter with the vexing redhead and her unheard-of rejection of him in favor of a rustic, Rafe traveled the rest of the way to Belfort without event, though he was on his guard as they passed the poorer, ramshackle outskirts of Ascencion’s sprawling capital.
Nearing the heart of the cosmopolitan Italian city, graceful, wrought-iron street lamps lit the broad, cobbled thoroughfares. People had come out to enjoy the cool of evening. The streets of Belfort rang with laughter and argument from the coffeehouses and taverns they passed. People hailed him everywhere he passed. Dutifully, he waved as he cantered by on the strapping white stallion.
Moving down the street at a trot, the horse coughed under him with the hot, dust-laden night breeze. He patted the animal’s warm, damp neck and a puff of dust rose from it. He winced, for his own throat felt caked with fine clay.
Dust coated everything, with the drought in its fourth month. Even the hardy marigolds in the flower boxes of the tall, fashionable city row houses looked wilted. The elegant fountains in every garden square had been turned off to conserve water.
It would get worse before it got better, he thought grimly. It was early July, but soon the sirocco winds would come slithering up from the heart of the Sahara Desert, flattening North Africa, stretching over the limpid jade waters of the Mediterranean, to lie heavily over all of Southern Europe. During those two or three weeks each year, all hell tended to break loose on the island.
As they turned a corner, Rafe caught a far-off glimpse of a fanciful bronze cupola rising over the city roofs, gleaming in the starlight,
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