Articoli correlati a The Pirate Prince: 1
When pirate prince Lazar di Fiori returns to the island of Ascension to retrieve his stolen legacy from Allegra Monteverdi's father, he seizes Allegra as the price of his vengeance and carries her off to sea. Original.
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L'autore:
Gaelen Foley has lived in New York, Atlanta, and Charleston, South Carolina, but recently moved back to her hometown in Pittsburgh to be near her large Irish family. She is currently planning her wedding to Dr. Eric Gennes, and working on her next novel.
Estratto. © Riproduzione autorizzata. Diritti riservati.:
May 1785
He took a faceful of sea brine, flung the stinging salt water out of his
eyes with a furious blink, and hauled back on the oars again and again
with all his strength. All around him, the swirling, bucking surf smashed
itself in silver plumes of foam, drenching him as it sought to dash his
longboat against the shark-tooth rocks guarding the cave. Arms and
shoulders burning with the strain, he held the boat steady by sheer
bloody-mindedness until at last, with a barbaric cry of exertion, he
fought his way past the towering, jagged boulders. Passing under the low
arch of rock, he ducked his head as his longboat glided into the cavern's
mouth.
Meanwhile, leagues behind him on the moonlit bay, seven ships waited at
anchor.
Once under the pitch-black granite dome, he wiped the sweat off his brow
with his forearm, slowly catching his breath. He lit a torch, for there
was no one to note his invasion now but the legions of bats hanging and
screeching and fluttering overhead. Finally, he maneuvered the longboat to
the landing and jumped off onto solid ground.
Fifteen years.
It had been fifteen years since Prince Lazar di Fiore last set foot on
Ascencion.
Almost half his life, he mused, or this underworld existence that was no
life at all.
He stared at the soft, sparkling sand beneath his scuffed black boots,
then crouched down on one knee, scooping a fistful of it into one
sun-browned, rope-callused hand. With a bitter, faraway expression, he
loosened his grasp and watched the sand slip through his fingers as easily
as everything else had.
His future.
His family.
And, with the dawn, his soul.
The sand whispered to the ground until all that was left in his hand was a
hard, black little rock. This, too, he let fall.
He wanted none of it.
He stood, shrugging the shoulder strap of his sword back into place. The
wet leather had been chafing his chest for an hour now, vexing the tender
strip of skin where his black vest fell open. He took another swallow of
rum from the silver flask hanging on a thin kid strap inside his vest,
wincing as it fired his belly, then he put it away again.
Lifting his torch, he looked around the cavern until he spotted the
entrance to the secret underground tunnels. They had been hewn from the
mountain centuries before exclusively for his family. Strange to think he
was the last one alive who would ever know that they truly existed, he
mused, and were not just another legend of the great House of the Fiori.
When he reached the rough-cut entrance to the tunnels, he thrust his torch
in ahead of him warily, peering into the shadowy gulf. It was damned
claustrophobic in there for a man accustomed to the open seas.
"Ach, get on with it, quake-buttocks," he muttered aloud just to break the
ponderous silence.
He forced himself in.
The black walls of the secret passageway glistened with trickling water
and slime by torchlight. Shadows cast by the flame made fantastical shapes
that writhed across the sharp-knuckled fists of rock. Beyond the sphere of
his torch's glow, all was black, but somewhere far above him, he knew, his
enemy was congratulating himself at a ball he had thrown in his own honor.
Lazar could barely wait to wreck the party. Soon the tunnels would admit
him inside the sealed city walls, under all of Monteverdi's painstaking
efforts at security.
After half an hour's laborious hike up the steep grade, the tunnel
branched, the left fork leveling out while the right continued upward
until, he knew, it reached the cellars of Belfort, the fallen castle on
top of the mountain.
He would like to have seen the old place, but there was no time for
sentimentality. Without hesitation, he took the path to the left.
At last cool tendrils of fresh air trailed against his cheeks, and the
upward slant of black ahead became a diamond-dusted midnight blue. The
torch hissed as he extinguished it in a small, primordial pool collecting
water from the leaking walls. In darkness, he crept up to the tunnel's
narrow exit.
A formidable macchia made up of thorny vines and weeds hid the cave
entrance from the outside. His heart began to thud as he picked his way
out of the brambles, trying not to make any noticeable rift, until at last
he stepped out into the clearing. He slipped his curved Moorish knife into
his belt, moving slowly, welling with a kind of wonder as he emerged.
Unaware he was holding his breath, he stared about him.
Home.
Everything was tinged with silvery moonlight. The terraced fields, the
olive orchards, the vineyards, the orange grove on the next hill. Fine,
earthy fragrances ribboned through the night breeze to him. And here,
behind him, the solemn old Roman wall still stood, its great stones hoary
with moss, protecting the heart of the kingdom as it had for a thousand
years. Memory sighed through the chinks in the rock.
We are the cornerstone, boy, we, the Fiori. Never forget....
He took a few, faltering steps forward, surrounded by the music of fields,
of crickets and frogs, with the soughing of the surf in the distance. Just
as it had been forever.
His heart wrenched, and for a moment he closed his eyes, tilting his head
back, remembering all too clearly things he could not bear to face again.
A cool breeze crept over the landscape, stirring the leaves on the vines
until the whole orchard, the citrus grove, the grasses, murmured to him
like the voices of beloved ghosts sweeping out of their haunts to greet
him, lost generations of dead kings and queens. They rose and floated in
spires above him, urging him on with ghost whispers, Avenge us.
Yes. He opened eyes that suddenly blazed with muted pain made into rage.
One man alone was to blame for stealing the life that should have been
his. He had a score to settle, by God, and that was the only reason he'd
come. He had no further business in this place. Signore the Governor had
seen to that. But now the don would pay.
Aye, legend said it was not on Sicily, not on nearby Corsica, but here on
this isle that the ancient tradition of la vendetta had been born.
Monteverdi would soon come to know it.
The waiting, the scheming, the biding his time for a full fifteen years,
would be over. By dawn he would have his enemy in his grasp to mete out to
him the measure he deserved. He would slay his kin, take his life, lay his
city to waste.
But the most exquisite torment must come first.
The traitor must suffer as he had suffered. The blood justice he had
hungered for, for so long, would be complete only when Monteverdi stood by
in chains and watched him snuff out the life of the one creature he loved
best in all the world--his innocent young daughter.
When it was done, Lazar would sail away, and he would never lay eyes on
his kingdom again.
Even if it broke what remained of his heart.
Hands clasped behind her back, a polite, attentive smile fixed by
willpower on her face, Allegra Monteverdi stood in the ballroom with a
small group of guests, wondering if anyone else could tell that her
fiancé was slowly getting drunk.
It was rare for the governor's right-hand man to succumb to intemperance,
or any other vice for that matter. She was merely glad he wasn't being
loud or sloppy about it--but then, the Viscount Domenic Clemente was
incapable of doing anything with less than impeccable grace and elegance.
Must have had a spat with the mistress, she thought, eyeing him askance as
he stood talking with some ladies, and emptying his wineglass again.
With detached admiration she noted how his pale gold, lightly powdered
hair gleamed in its neat queue under the crystal chandeliers.
The wine was having an interesting effect on him. In vino veritas--in
wine, truth, the old adage said, and she was curious to catch a glimpse of
the inner man the polished viscount hid, for their wedding was just a few
months away and she could not escape the feeling that she still did not
know him at all.
Furtively, she studied the man whose children she would bear.
When Domenic noticed her gaze, he excused himself from the ladies and
crossed the room to her with a cool smile.
Rather than turning him sentimental, the wine brought out an edge in him,
Allegra thought. There was a sullen, pouting tilt about his mouth. The
crisp, aristocratic angles of his face became sharper, and his green eyes
glinted like the points of emerald blades.
Arriving at her side, he flicked a speculative glance over her body, and
bent to kiss her cheek.
"Hello there, beautiful." He smiled at her blush, brushing her bare arm
with his knuckles, the Mechlin lace of his sleeve tickling her.
"Come, young lady. You owe me a dance," he murmured, but just then the
guests' conversation grabbed Allegra's attention.
"Rabid dogs, I say," one venerable old gentleman declared, speaking loudly
over the music. "These rebels! Hang 'em all, if it's the only way to make
'em mind."
"Hang them?" she exclaimed, turning to him.
"Whatever is the trouble with the lower orders these days?" his wife
complained, a persecuted expression on her doughy face while blue diamonds
dripped from her neck and earlobes. "Always complaining about something.
So violent, so angry! Don't they see if they were not so lazy, they'd have
all they need?"
"Lazy?" she demanded.
"Here we go again." Domenic sighed. Beside her, her betrothed bowed his
head, covering his eyes with one hand.
"Quite right, my dear," the old man endeavored to instruct her. "As I
always say, they need merely to put their backs into their work and stop
blaming everyone else for their troubles."
"What about the latest round of taxes?" she replied. "They haven't bread
to put in their children's mouths."
"What, taxes? Oh, my!" the fat lady exclaimed, peering at her through her
monocle in a mixture of puzzlement and alarm.
"There is talk, you know, of a peasant uprising," another lady told them
in a confidential tone.
Allegra drew breath to explain.
"Darling, please, don't," Domenic murmured. "I am so weary of smoothing
ruffled feathers all night."
"They will kill us all if we don't watch 'em." The old man sagely nodded.
"Like rabid dogs."
"Well, pay them no mind," Allegra said gaily. "'Tis only starvation makes
them cross. Would you care for some cakes? A marzipan? Some chocolates,
perhaps?" Eyes sparkling with anger, she gestured one of the footmen over,
then stood back and watched them feed like high-priced pigs.
Coiffed and powdered, bewigged and brocaded, her father's guests cooed
over the exquisite display of confections, sweets, and pastries on the
servant's silver tray and began consuming them, powdered sugar sprinkling
down the front of their satin finery.
Domenic looked down at her with a long-suffering expression. "Darling," he
said, "really."
"Well, it's true," she tartly replied. These elders of the ancien
régime were past reforming, their heads hopelessly muddled under
their white wigs, their hearts shriveled like dried prunes. The spirit of
the age was change--bold youth--glorious new ideals! Their kind would be
swept away like dust.
"How about that dance?"
She couldn't help but smile at him. "You're just trying to distract me so
I won't speak my mind."
He gave her a slight, narrow smile in answer and leaned down toward her
ear. "No, I'm just trying to get my hands on you."
Oh, dear. Definitely must have quarreled with the mistress. "I see," she
said diplomatically.
Meanwhile she noticed the doughy duchess whispering to the woman beside
her. Both women sent pointed looks her way, eyeing the green-and-black
sash she wore with her high-waisted gown of frothy white silk.
If they didn't comprehend her gown in the new pastoral style inspired by
the ideals of democracy, then the fact that she was wearing the
green-and-black must utterly, she supposed, confound them.
She lifted her head, unwilling to be intimidated. Perhaps no one else in
this room gave a fig whether or not the peasants were starving outside the
palace walls, but she did, and if the only voice she was permitted to give
her protest was the wearing of the old Ascencion colors, she would do it
and be proud.
She had taken the idea from the glamorous and savvy salon hostesses to
whom Aunt Isabelle had introduced her in Paris. They wore
red-white-and-blue sashes to express their sympathies with the American
Colonials during their war with England. Upon arriving here six months
earlier, Allegra had adapted the practice to suit Ascencion's situation,
but here, she found, women with political opinions were frowned upon,
especially when those opinions ran counter to the established government
in power.
Her father's government.
"Governor!" someone cried pleasantly just as the man of the hour came
ambling into their midst.
While her father was greeted by a chorus of cheers, Allegra tensed,
knowing he would be displeased with her if he, too, noticed her
green-and-black sash.
On second thought, she told herself, why worry? Papa never noticed
anything she did.
"Salute, Governor! Here's to another fifteen years," the guests chimed,
raising their wineglasses to him.
Governor Ottavio Monteverdi was a brown-eyed man in his middle fifties, of
medium height, still rather fit except for a respectable paunch. Though
his manner was always slightly tense, he handled his guests smoothly,
seasoned by decades of civil service.
He nodded thanks to one and all in his restrained way, then nodded to her
and glanced up at Domenic.
"Congratulations, sir." Domenic shook the hand of his future
father-in-law, the man whom he was being groomed by the Council to one day
replace as Governor of Ascencion.
"Thank you, my boy."
"Are you enjoying your party, Papa?" she asked, touching his shoulder
fondly.
Instantly his posture stiffened. Chastened, Allegra lowered her hand in
embarrassment.
At Aunt Isabelle's cozy, elegant house in Paris, where she had been raised
for the past nine years since her mother's death, everyone was
demonstrative of family warmth, but here she was still trying to learn
that displays of affection only made Papa uncomfortable.
Ah, he distressed her so, this nervous, gray-haired stranger, she thought
sadly. Such a tidy, meticulous man, held together by the tenuous knowledge
that all the odds and ends on his desk were in their exact, proper order.
After the thrill of finally getting to live under the same roof with her
one remaining parent, she found her father only wanted to keep his
distance from her, she supposed because she reminded him too much of Mama.
She felt his suffering, though he never spoke of it. Somehow she had to
reach out to him. That was the reason she'd gone to such lengths as his
hostess to make his civic anniversary a happy occasion.
He offered her a tense smile, but when his gaze homed in on her
green-and-black striped sash, he froze, paling.
A...
He took a faceful of sea brine, flung the stinging salt water out of his
eyes with a furious blink, and hauled back on the oars again and again
with all his strength. All around him, the swirling, bucking surf smashed
itself in silver plumes of foam, drenching him as it sought to dash his
longboat against the shark-tooth rocks guarding the cave. Arms and
shoulders burning with the strain, he held the boat steady by sheer
bloody-mindedness until at last, with a barbaric cry of exertion, he
fought his way past the towering, jagged boulders. Passing under the low
arch of rock, he ducked his head as his longboat glided into the cavern's
mouth.
Meanwhile, leagues behind him on the moonlit bay, seven ships waited at
anchor.
Once under the pitch-black granite dome, he wiped the sweat off his brow
with his forearm, slowly catching his breath. He lit a torch, for there
was no one to note his invasion now but the legions of bats hanging and
screeching and fluttering overhead. Finally, he maneuvered the longboat to
the landing and jumped off onto solid ground.
Fifteen years.
It had been fifteen years since Prince Lazar di Fiore last set foot on
Ascencion.
Almost half his life, he mused, or this underworld existence that was no
life at all.
He stared at the soft, sparkling sand beneath his scuffed black boots,
then crouched down on one knee, scooping a fistful of it into one
sun-browned, rope-callused hand. With a bitter, faraway expression, he
loosened his grasp and watched the sand slip through his fingers as easily
as everything else had.
His future.
His family.
And, with the dawn, his soul.
The sand whispered to the ground until all that was left in his hand was a
hard, black little rock. This, too, he let fall.
He wanted none of it.
He stood, shrugging the shoulder strap of his sword back into place. The
wet leather had been chafing his chest for an hour now, vexing the tender
strip of skin where his black vest fell open. He took another swallow of
rum from the silver flask hanging on a thin kid strap inside his vest,
wincing as it fired his belly, then he put it away again.
Lifting his torch, he looked around the cavern until he spotted the
entrance to the secret underground tunnels. They had been hewn from the
mountain centuries before exclusively for his family. Strange to think he
was the last one alive who would ever know that they truly existed, he
mused, and were not just another legend of the great House of the Fiori.
When he reached the rough-cut entrance to the tunnels, he thrust his torch
in ahead of him warily, peering into the shadowy gulf. It was damned
claustrophobic in there for a man accustomed to the open seas.
"Ach, get on with it, quake-buttocks," he muttered aloud just to break the
ponderous silence.
He forced himself in.
The black walls of the secret passageway glistened with trickling water
and slime by torchlight. Shadows cast by the flame made fantastical shapes
that writhed across the sharp-knuckled fists of rock. Beyond the sphere of
his torch's glow, all was black, but somewhere far above him, he knew, his
enemy was congratulating himself at a ball he had thrown in his own honor.
Lazar could barely wait to wreck the party. Soon the tunnels would admit
him inside the sealed city walls, under all of Monteverdi's painstaking
efforts at security.
After half an hour's laborious hike up the steep grade, the tunnel
branched, the left fork leveling out while the right continued upward
until, he knew, it reached the cellars of Belfort, the fallen castle on
top of the mountain.
He would like to have seen the old place, but there was no time for
sentimentality. Without hesitation, he took the path to the left.
At last cool tendrils of fresh air trailed against his cheeks, and the
upward slant of black ahead became a diamond-dusted midnight blue. The
torch hissed as he extinguished it in a small, primordial pool collecting
water from the leaking walls. In darkness, he crept up to the tunnel's
narrow exit.
A formidable macchia made up of thorny vines and weeds hid the cave
entrance from the outside. His heart began to thud as he picked his way
out of the brambles, trying not to make any noticeable rift, until at last
he stepped out into the clearing. He slipped his curved Moorish knife into
his belt, moving slowly, welling with a kind of wonder as he emerged.
Unaware he was holding his breath, he stared about him.
Home.
Everything was tinged with silvery moonlight. The terraced fields, the
olive orchards, the vineyards, the orange grove on the next hill. Fine,
earthy fragrances ribboned through the night breeze to him. And here,
behind him, the solemn old Roman wall still stood, its great stones hoary
with moss, protecting the heart of the kingdom as it had for a thousand
years. Memory sighed through the chinks in the rock.
We are the cornerstone, boy, we, the Fiori. Never forget....
He took a few, faltering steps forward, surrounded by the music of fields,
of crickets and frogs, with the soughing of the surf in the distance. Just
as it had been forever.
His heart wrenched, and for a moment he closed his eyes, tilting his head
back, remembering all too clearly things he could not bear to face again.
A cool breeze crept over the landscape, stirring the leaves on the vines
until the whole orchard, the citrus grove, the grasses, murmured to him
like the voices of beloved ghosts sweeping out of their haunts to greet
him, lost generations of dead kings and queens. They rose and floated in
spires above him, urging him on with ghost whispers, Avenge us.
Yes. He opened eyes that suddenly blazed with muted pain made into rage.
One man alone was to blame for stealing the life that should have been
his. He had a score to settle, by God, and that was the only reason he'd
come. He had no further business in this place. Signore the Governor had
seen to that. But now the don would pay.
Aye, legend said it was not on Sicily, not on nearby Corsica, but here on
this isle that the ancient tradition of la vendetta had been born.
Monteverdi would soon come to know it.
The waiting, the scheming, the biding his time for a full fifteen years,
would be over. By dawn he would have his enemy in his grasp to mete out to
him the measure he deserved. He would slay his kin, take his life, lay his
city to waste.
But the most exquisite torment must come first.
The traitor must suffer as he had suffered. The blood justice he had
hungered for, for so long, would be complete only when Monteverdi stood by
in chains and watched him snuff out the life of the one creature he loved
best in all the world--his innocent young daughter.
When it was done, Lazar would sail away, and he would never lay eyes on
his kingdom again.
Even if it broke what remained of his heart.
Hands clasped behind her back, a polite, attentive smile fixed by
willpower on her face, Allegra Monteverdi stood in the ballroom with a
small group of guests, wondering if anyone else could tell that her
fiancé was slowly getting drunk.
It was rare for the governor's right-hand man to succumb to intemperance,
or any other vice for that matter. She was merely glad he wasn't being
loud or sloppy about it--but then, the Viscount Domenic Clemente was
incapable of doing anything with less than impeccable grace and elegance.
Must have had a spat with the mistress, she thought, eyeing him askance as
he stood talking with some ladies, and emptying his wineglass again.
With detached admiration she noted how his pale gold, lightly powdered
hair gleamed in its neat queue under the crystal chandeliers.
The wine was having an interesting effect on him. In vino veritas--in
wine, truth, the old adage said, and she was curious to catch a glimpse of
the inner man the polished viscount hid, for their wedding was just a few
months away and she could not escape the feeling that she still did not
know him at all.
Furtively, she studied the man whose children she would bear.
When Domenic noticed her gaze, he excused himself from the ladies and
crossed the room to her with a cool smile.
Rather than turning him sentimental, the wine brought out an edge in him,
Allegra thought. There was a sullen, pouting tilt about his mouth. The
crisp, aristocratic angles of his face became sharper, and his green eyes
glinted like the points of emerald blades.
Arriving at her side, he flicked a speculative glance over her body, and
bent to kiss her cheek.
"Hello there, beautiful." He smiled at her blush, brushing her bare arm
with his knuckles, the Mechlin lace of his sleeve tickling her.
"Come, young lady. You owe me a dance," he murmured, but just then the
guests' conversation grabbed Allegra's attention.
"Rabid dogs, I say," one venerable old gentleman declared, speaking loudly
over the music. "These rebels! Hang 'em all, if it's the only way to make
'em mind."
"Hang them?" she exclaimed, turning to him.
"Whatever is the trouble with the lower orders these days?" his wife
complained, a persecuted expression on her doughy face while blue diamonds
dripped from her neck and earlobes. "Always complaining about something.
So violent, so angry! Don't they see if they were not so lazy, they'd have
all they need?"
"Lazy?" she demanded.
"Here we go again." Domenic sighed. Beside her, her betrothed bowed his
head, covering his eyes with one hand.
"Quite right, my dear," the old man endeavored to instruct her. "As I
always say, they need merely to put their backs into their work and stop
blaming everyone else for their troubles."
"What about the latest round of taxes?" she replied. "They haven't bread
to put in their children's mouths."
"What, taxes? Oh, my!" the fat lady exclaimed, peering at her through her
monocle in a mixture of puzzlement and alarm.
"There is talk, you know, of a peasant uprising," another lady told them
in a confidential tone.
Allegra drew breath to explain.
"Darling, please, don't," Domenic murmured. "I am so weary of smoothing
ruffled feathers all night."
"They will kill us all if we don't watch 'em." The old man sagely nodded.
"Like rabid dogs."
"Well, pay them no mind," Allegra said gaily. "'Tis only starvation makes
them cross. Would you care for some cakes? A marzipan? Some chocolates,
perhaps?" Eyes sparkling with anger, she gestured one of the footmen over,
then stood back and watched them feed like high-priced pigs.
Coiffed and powdered, bewigged and brocaded, her father's guests cooed
over the exquisite display of confections, sweets, and pastries on the
servant's silver tray and began consuming them, powdered sugar sprinkling
down the front of their satin finery.
Domenic looked down at her with a long-suffering expression. "Darling," he
said, "really."
"Well, it's true," she tartly replied. These elders of the ancien
régime were past reforming, their heads hopelessly muddled under
their white wigs, their hearts shriveled like dried prunes. The spirit of
the age was change--bold youth--glorious new ideals! Their kind would be
swept away like dust.
"How about that dance?"
She couldn't help but smile at him. "You're just trying to distract me so
I won't speak my mind."
He gave her a slight, narrow smile in answer and leaned down toward her
ear. "No, I'm just trying to get my hands on you."
Oh, dear. Definitely must have quarreled with the mistress. "I see," she
said diplomatically.
Meanwhile she noticed the doughy duchess whispering to the woman beside
her. Both women sent pointed looks her way, eyeing the green-and-black
sash she wore with her high-waisted gown of frothy white silk.
If they didn't comprehend her gown in the new pastoral style inspired by
the ideals of democracy, then the fact that she was wearing the
green-and-black must utterly, she supposed, confound them.
She lifted her head, unwilling to be intimidated. Perhaps no one else in
this room gave a fig whether or not the peasants were starving outside the
palace walls, but she did, and if the only voice she was permitted to give
her protest was the wearing of the old Ascencion colors, she would do it
and be proud.
She had taken the idea from the glamorous and savvy salon hostesses to
whom Aunt Isabelle had introduced her in Paris. They wore
red-white-and-blue sashes to express their sympathies with the American
Colonials during their war with England. Upon arriving here six months
earlier, Allegra had adapted the practice to suit Ascencion's situation,
but here, she found, women with political opinions were frowned upon,
especially when those opinions ran counter to the established government
in power.
Her father's government.
"Governor!" someone cried pleasantly just as the man of the hour came
ambling into their midst.
While her father was greeted by a chorus of cheers, Allegra tensed,
knowing he would be displeased with her if he, too, noticed her
green-and-black sash.
On second thought, she told herself, why worry? Papa never noticed
anything she did.
"Salute, Governor! Here's to another fifteen years," the guests chimed,
raising their wineglasses to him.
Governor Ottavio Monteverdi was a brown-eyed man in his middle fifties, of
medium height, still rather fit except for a respectable paunch. Though
his manner was always slightly tense, he handled his guests smoothly,
seasoned by decades of civil service.
He nodded thanks to one and all in his restrained way, then nodded to her
and glanced up at Domenic.
"Congratulations, sir." Domenic shook the hand of his future
father-in-law, the man whom he was being groomed by the Council to one day
replace as Governor of Ascencion.
"Thank you, my boy."
"Are you enjoying your party, Papa?" she asked, touching his shoulder
fondly.
Instantly his posture stiffened. Chastened, Allegra lowered her hand in
embarrassment.
At Aunt Isabelle's cozy, elegant house in Paris, where she had been raised
for the past nine years since her mother's death, everyone was
demonstrative of family warmth, but here she was still trying to learn
that displays of affection only made Papa uncomfortable.
Ah, he distressed her so, this nervous, gray-haired stranger, she thought
sadly. Such a tidy, meticulous man, held together by the tenuous knowledge
that all the odds and ends on his desk were in their exact, proper order.
After the thrill of finally getting to live under the same roof with her
one remaining parent, she found her father only wanted to keep his
distance from her, she supposed because she reminded him too much of Mama.
She felt his suffering, though he never spoke of it. Somehow she had to
reach out to him. That was the reason she'd gone to such lengths as his
hostess to make his civic anniversary a happy occasion.
He offered her a tense smile, but when his gaze homed in on her
green-and-black striped sash, he froze, paling.
A...
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- EditoreIvy Books
- Data di pubblicazione1998
- ISBN 10 0449002470
- ISBN 13 9780449002476
- RilegaturaCopertina flessibile
- Numero di pagine416
- Valutazione libreria
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EUR 24,78
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Descrizione libro Condizione: New. Book is in NEW condition. Codice articolo 0449002470-2-1
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Descrizione libro Condizione: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published. Codice articolo 353-0449002470-new
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Descrizione libro Paperback. Condizione: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Codice articolo Holz_New_0449002470
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Descrizione libro Paperback. Condizione: new. New. Codice articolo Wizard0449002470
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The Pirate Prince (The Ascension Trilogy)
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Descrizione libro Paperback. Condizione: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Codice articolo think0449002470
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EUR 27,63
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Descrizione libro Condizione: new. Codice articolo FrontCover0449002470
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The Pirate Prince
Editore:
Fawcett Books
(1998)
ISBN 10: 0449002470
ISBN 13: 9780449002476
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Mass Market Paperback
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Descrizione libro Mass Market Paperback. Condizione: Brand New. reissue edition. 416 pages. 6.75x4.25x1.00 inches. In Stock. Codice articolo 0449002470
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EUR 21,43
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THE PIRATE PRINCE (THE ASCENSION
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Descrizione libro Condizione: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 0.44. Codice articolo Q-0449002470
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EUR 56,07
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THE PIRATE PRINCE (THE ASCENSION
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Valutazione libreria
Descrizione libro Condizione: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 0.44. Codice articolo Q-9780449002476
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EUR 56,07
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