Devil's Daughter by Catherine Coulter

arms about his shoulders. “I don’t care if you are one of them. I’ll not let you go until you are well. We will speak of this again. Eat the stew, Dono.”
    “Antonio?” Hamil inquired.
    “Eat the stew, boy.”

Chapter 8
Naples
    E dward Lyndhurst greeted his daughter pleasantly when she stepped into the sitting room with her mother. “This wretched climate appears to agree with you, puss,” he said. “You are looking quite lovely.”
    “Thank you, Papa,” Rayna said, eyeing him a bit askance. It was not yet teatime, and she had not lived with her father for eighteen years without learning to recognize the gleam of purpose in his eyes.
    “Sit down, my dear,” Edward Lyndhurst said. “Your mother and I wish to speak with you.”
    Rayna obligingly sat on a blue brocade wing chair, smoothed her narrow skirt, and smiled up at her father. “I have always enjoyed speaking with both of you, sir.”
    “Yes, well . . .” her father began. He paused a moment, fiddling with his watch fob. “You have always been a good-hearted girl, Rayna, and a pleasure to your mother and me.”
    Oh dear, Rayna thought, sitting up straighter. Her father’s tone, though gentle as it always was toward her, was becoming weighted. “I trust so, Father,” she said.
    “We are not in England, my dear.”
    “Indeed, Papa. I have freckles on my nose, and it is still spring. That would never happen in the fog of London.”
    Edward Lyndhurst’s smile was perfunctory at best. Rayna watched him glance toward her mother, then back at her. “What I mean, puss,” he continued stiffly, “is that we are in a foreign land surrounded by people we are not used to. Their ways are different and their customs are much looser.”
    “Good heavens, Papa,” Rayna said. “Of course we are not used to them. But I am trying to learn a bit of Italian, and I am finding that they are not so very different. And as for their being loose, Maria, our housekeeper, told me but last week that if I were an Italian young lady, I would have just come from the convent.”
    “That, my dear,” Jennifer Lyndhurst said sharply, “is not quite what your father meant.”
    “Indeed,” Edward Lyndhurst said. “You have always been protected, Rayna. You know nothing of gentlemen who are not really, well, gentlemen. We are concerned for you. In the future, my dear, when we attend balls or court functions, I would prefer that you not fraternize overly with the gentlemen.”
    Rayna’s usually sweet expression darkened and she shot her mother such a reproachful look that Lady Delford’s eyes widened.
    “Fraternize, Papa?” she asked, turning her eyes full on her father. “Do you mean that I am so naive and lacking in judgment that I should cling to your coat or to Mother’s skirt? Or would you prefer that I pass what is left of my time in Naples in a convent?”
    Lord Edward stared at Rayna in surprise. “I begyour pardon, miss?” he asked calmly, in the tone he used for his sons.
    “I asked you, Papa,” Rayna continued, undaunted, “if you would prefer a convent.” Rayna was aware that her heart was thumping in her breast, but for the first time in her life, she thought her father’s pronouncements sounded positively gothic.
    “Perhaps I should have been more specific, Rayna,” Lord Edward said coldly. “I should have said that I will not have you flirting with any of the young men you will meet here.”
    Rayna could scarce believe her ears. Her mother had betrayed her to her father, all because she had given two dances to the marchese. She looked down at her lemon kid slippers and said mildly, “You have nothing to worry about, Papa, for the young man in question did not find me particularly to his liking.”
    “And who might that be, pray tell?” the viscount demanded, knowing full well whom she meant. It galled him to ask, but he wanted to hear from his own daughter’s mouth that Adam Welles had found her wanting. Damned young puppy. From what