Chapter Two
Damiano Verdiccio, Conte di Conpressio, eldest son of the Marquis di Rossi, currently found himself in the barbaric land of England.
He’d been here before, of course. He had some relations that were English.
His father even had an estate in Hertfordshire that they left a steward to manage, as apparently one could not demand respect in England without the land to back it up.
He had been for several years sent to Eton.
This schooling had not been to turn him into an Englishman, but rather to make him fluent in their harsh language.
Those were some long years, forever hiding his disdain for plodding English habits and food and pretending he was delighted with all he saw.
He was, to his core, continental—a pleasing mix of Sardinian and French.
Now that Napoleon had made himself King of Italy, Damiano leaned more heavily on the French side as a matter of convenience.
If and when Napoleon was defeated and gone, he’d lean more to his Sardinian side.
For now, he made himself useful to that obnoxious little sword-swinger, as he had every intent of keeping his father’s vast estates intact.
Napoleon had not conquered all of Sardinia yet, but he controlled an area close to his father’s land.
They would placate the little man for the moment.
Dictators, profiteers, and usurpers might come and go, but his family’s holdings were eternal.
At least, he would see to it that they remained so under his watch.
So far, he’d been successful, though it had tried his patience endlessly.
He’d been forced to deal with one of Napoleon’s short and irritating attachés forever giving him orders and advice.
Monsieur Bernard spoke to him as if they were equals; Monsieur Bernard had moved himself into the house to be on hand at every possible moment.
Monsieur Bernard even dared to speak directly to the marquis on occasion and Monsieur Bernard had no idea how many times the marquis had directed the maggiordomo to poison the little man’s drink.
Each time, Damiano had been forced to put a stop to it before Monsieur Bernard fell over dead.
These days, if he heard Monsieur Bernard had again had the temerity to speak to the marquis, he just cancelled the order for poison he knew was coming.
His father could not fathom why that presumptuous person was not dead already. The entire situation was tiresome.
If he could, he’d run Monsieur Bernard through with his sword and pitch his lifeless body to the road.
Perhaps he would someday, or he’d let the marquis poison him, but not right now.
For now, Napoleon and his cronies used Damiano for his ability to appear nearly anywhere, including England, thanks to his relations there.
Due to his station, all doors were open to him.
These French idiots might not like that he had a title, but they put up with it for their own purposes.
He put up with them to keep his father’s estate out of their hands.
This particular directive was a bit different though. For one, he was sent to England. For another, he had left Sardinia with two separate missions from two entirely different quarters.
The attaché required that he discover more about the operations of the Mosquito, an ongoing effort to harass the French fleet.
This harassment only occurred at night and seemed only to be one small sloop at a time.
It was not that the effort posed much danger to a frigate, or even that the sloop was most certainly tracking locations.
No, the larger damage this operation was causing was unease within the ranks of seamen.
A few coincidences of the Mosquito appearing at night and a ship sinking in the days afterward had created a mystique of terror surrounding that sloop.
The crews whispered that when the Mosquito was seen, death was soon to follow.
A stupid little boat had somehow become a harbinger of doom.
Seamen always had their eyes out for it—that blink of a lamp that signaled it was nearby.
Imaginations had begun to think they saw flashes of light everywhere.
Whole crews, convinced they were soon to meet their maker, dragged heels and wrote last letters to loved ones that they were certain would never be delivered.
It was all nonsense, he had no doubt, but the men entirely ignored it when the sloop harassed them but their ships did not sink.
They only had eyes for confirmations of their fears.
Nonsense or not, when you expected men to fight you could not allow them to begin believing that unseen dark forces were at work against them.
Especially not seamen, as they were in general prone to superstition.
So, how many people were involved in this Mosquito operation?
How many of these sloops were sneaking around?
Who led the operation? He’d been given the location of the pier that was thought to be the location of at least one of the sloops but that was all he had to go on.
After the outstanding questions had been satisfactorily answered, he was to cut the head off the beast, which ought to send the rest of them involved scattering for the hills.
He had agreed to manage the matter if Monsieur Bernard would take himself elsewhere during his absence.
He claimed the marquis did poorly and did not like company when he was in such a state.
Monsieur Bernard would remain ignorant of the fact that if Damiano was not there to turn round the orders for poison, Monsieur Bernard would soon find himself toes up.
Damiano’s plan was to base himself in London at Lady Tallifer’s house until it was time to strike.
She was a cousin of his father’s and had been happy to provide him with a room.
She was a rather silly woman, but that was probably for the best. When he needed to disappear to Cornwall to deal with the Mosquito, she would swallow whole whatever flimsy excuse he gave her.
In any case, he had need to be in London for a time to execute the other duty given him.
The marquis had directed that he was to find himself a well-connected English bride.
A duke’s daughter, if possible. A princess would have been ideal, but Princess Caroline was too young, Princess Amelia was dead, and the rest of them too old.
It would have been hard if not impossible in any case to get such a thing through the various hoops that must be jumped.
A duke’s daughter was far easier to achieve and there were three of the right age drifting round London this particular year.
He would put on his pleasant manners and his best coat to get it done. His father was depending on him.
The Verdiccio family, unlike most of their equals, believed in hedging their bets.
They’d long built alliances across nations rather than across Sardinia alone.
Other Sardinian families wished to knit together and form an impenetrable club of sorts.
They turned their noses up at anyone not of long Sardinian heritage.
The Verdiccios cast their nets and webs over mountains and seas.
If one place proved impossible, there was always someplace else to go.
With Napoleon having great success on land and less success at sea, an island was an ideal choice just now, and what other island was more suitable than England?
As his father always said, were Sardinia to cease to exist, they would relocate to their estate in Hertfordshire, shorten their name to Verdic, take up fox hunting, stock their cellars with the substandard wines the English preferred, and carry on.
Damiano sighed. The whole venture was likely to be exhausting. He must wed and murder on the same trip. No rest for the weary, he supposed.
Nevertheless, he would get on with it. Just now, he was poised to have a perfectly natural and accidental encounter with one of his quarry.
He’d been tracking the Duke of Pelham’s movements and was informed of which inn he would stop at on the last night of his trip to Town.
He would happen to be there too. A daughter was with him, Valentine or Violet, he thought her name was.
Perhaps he could make quick work of that half of his reason for being in cold and damp England.
Rather cleverly, he’d arrived at the inn two days ago and reserved the only private dining room in the place for the entirety of his stay.
The innkeeper had been leery, as he did expect the Duke of Pelham and that duke would expect to have the room.
However, leeriness was always overcome with the right amount of money.
This particular case proved rather easy, as it seemed the innkeeper was acquainted with the duke from past years and was not an admirer.
Damiano was informed he ought to refuse to put any credence into half of what the duke said, especially anything to do with dishes nobody had heard of or a made-up holiday called Captain Cook Day.
As always, the English managed to take eccentricity to new heights.
Nevertheless, when the duke arrived, Damiano would make a great show of being a generous individual with the most delicate manners imaginable by insisting they must take the room for their convenience. The English were hilariously susceptible to flattery and he planned to use that to his advantage.
*
Valor peered out the carriage window. Day by day, they’d inched their way toward London. This was their last stop overnight. On the morrow, they’d positively be there.
She had soothed herself rather satisfactorily over the idea, she thought.
She’d simply decided that she would only consider a gentleman who was both strong so he might protect her, rather quiet, and had a habit of quietly collecting something, whether that be coins or rare books or some other thing.