This did not bode well.
“You are staring rather fiercely at that foreign-looking man, Lady Allegra,” Lord Charswood’s voice intruded upon her thoughts. “Are you acquainted?”
How to answer that?
“Somewhat,” she replied, voice too weak to be convincing.
“Interesting.” Charswood looked to Fabrizio who had the good sense to join another gentleman in conversation. “I do believe Lord Hadley said he is Italian, but I have already forgotten his name.”
“An Italian?” Kendall said, frown deepening. “Do you recall his name, Lady Allegra?”
“Fabrizio Sacci.” She saw no point in lying.
Kendall’s chin inched up, the slightest acknowledgment that he recognized the name.
Allie held her brother’s gaze, hoping her expression communicated that the Italian was precisely who Kendall thought he might be.
As far as Allie knew, Fabrizio and Kendall had never met. But they had surely corresponded to coordinate her kidnapping . . . before her brother had forbidden the man from contacting him again.
Did ‘accidentally’ attending the same house party as the duke count as an attempt at contact?
“Mr. Sacci is a colleague of Mr. Mazzini, the leader ofLa Giovine Italia,” Allie continued. “Mazzini is the sort of idealistic man that Lady Isolde would entertain sympathies for, and she certainly would have crossed paths with him in the literary salons of London earlier in the Season. I presume Mr. Sacci is here at Mazzini’s behest.”
No doubt Fabrizio had manipulated events to ensure his invitation here, knowing Allie was still in residence. Kendall’s arrival was merely an unexpected bonus.
“Lady Isolde and her ridiculous friends,” Kendall scoffed, turning his attention to Charswood. “Yet one more reason why women should be permanently barred from our universities. Permit them to be educated, and next you know, they are supporting revolutionaries and promoting forms of government they scarcely understand. If we are not careful, someday they will demand the vote, as well.”
Allie bit back an irritable response tothatmedieval opinion.
Not that it mattered now.
All her troubles had come home to roost today.
Thirty minutes later, an impatient knock sounded on Allie’s bedchamber door, forcing her off her bed to answer it.
She had been lying down, attempting to convince her lacerated spirit that she could leave Ethan behind tomorrow. All she had received for her efforts was a pounding head and even sorer heart.
Kendall’s angry face greeted her from the hallway. Her brother barged into her bedchamber, shutting the door with aclack.
“You must come downstairs for tea,” he commanded. “I require your assistance to help me entertain Charswood and avoid Lady Isolde.”
Allie turned away from him, crossing to the window. “That seems rather cowardly, Kendall. I didn’t realize one helpless woman would overset you so.”
“That woman is anythingbuthelpless,” he shot back.
“Methinks the duke doth protest too much,” Allie muttered under her breath.
“Pardon?”
“Niente.” She waved a hand at him.
He stared at her.
Allie ignored his stony presence and sat at the small vanity table before her bedroom window, attempting to repair her hair.
“I assume this Fabrizio Sacci is the same reprobate I corresponded with in Italy?” her twin finally asked, tone sharp.
“You mean the man you hired to drug and kidnap me?” she asked far too innocently, meeting her brother’s gaze in the mirror. “That man?”
