Her words appeared to have no effect on him, indeed, she wished she could see his face, rather than his profile, for she suspected there was a twinkle in his eyes. She found it galling that he did not even have the grace to respond to her insults.
“Since I lock you in my arms each night, Cassandra, it would appear that my problem is what to do with you during the day. Thus, my dear, the surprise I promised you. I beg you not to be overbearing and rude to him, for poor Joseph really has no choice in the matter. He is fond of you, you know, and I am certain that you would not wish to make him feel uncomfortable.”
“Joseph.” She remained silent for several moments, but when he gazed down at her, his expression serene, she could not help herself. “He is to be my keeper. My guard.”
She fell silent again, contemplating the blackness of his character.
“No insults, cara? I would that you hurl all your venom at me and save only your winsome charm for Joseph. Yes, he will be responsible for you and your safety when I am not available to be.”
A gentle breeze whipped a strand of golden hair across her cheek, and without thought, the earl raised his hand to smooth it away. She frowned at him and walked quickly toward the villa.
The Corsican stood in the entrance hall where the earl had so abruptly left him, his woolen cap in his hands. He looked, Cassie thought, strangely out of place with a marble floor beneath his feet.
“It is good to see you again, Joseph,” she said in her starchily accented Italian, which brought a smile to the earl’s face. “I fear though that you will be bored, since, I presume,” she directed this to the earl, “when you are not my companion, you will have little else to do.”
The earl interposed smoothly, “If Joseph yearns to return to the sea, my love, we will simply have a changing of the guard, so to speak.”
“Madonna, it is my pleasure to be with you again,” Joseph said finally, his voice uncertain.
Cassie smiled at him despite herself. It would be churlish of her to treat him badly, since he was here at the earl’s order. “I hope your stay will be pleasant,” she said at last.
“Excellent,” the earl said, rubbing his hands together. “Your first outing with Joseph will be to the lake, Cassandra. I trust you will not mind my accompanying you, for I have another surprise for you.”
Joseph saw the young mistress stiffen and regard the earl warily. She said something, sharply, in English, which he did not understand.
“Another surprise, my lord? Have you built a wall around the far side of the lake so that I will not swim away?”
“I am sorry to disappoint you, cara, but I have not had the time to construct so formidable a structure. Are you ready, my dear?”
Cassie’s curiosity got the better of her, and she nodded through her frown.
The Parese lake, a narrow, serpentine body of water, lay nestled in a small valley between the rolling hills, surrounded by long-branched trees whose thick leaves cast oddly shaped shadows over its calm blue surface. Cassie had visited the small lake but once and had foregone the pleasure of wading into its inviting water, for the earl had been with her. When they broke through the thick line of trees that bordered its perimeter, Cassie had an almost overpowering urge to strip off her clothes, now sticking uncomfortably to her back from the bright afternoon sun, and swim in its cool depths.
As if he guessed her thoughts, the earl smiled. “Not now, Cassandra. Just think of how embarrassed Joseph would be to see you as naked as a sea nymph.”
She made no reply, for moored to the end of a narrow dock was a sloop, its graceful lines and rigging so like her sailboat in England that she stood, open-mouthed, staring at it in dumb surprise. Painted on its stern in small black letters was the name Fearless.
“Joseph brought her from the harbor this morning.”