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his own mama. He tried to open his eyes, but only the right worked. The left was swollen shut. His head was full of cobwebs and stars and fire.
    Flowers towered over him in the dark. Marigolds loomed. The trumpet heads of daylilies peered down silently at him like the faces of worried women. For a moment he was uncertain where the devil he was or how he had come to be there.
    Then he remembered.
    Domenic Clemente dragged himself up, panting through his mouth, for his nose was not operating properly either. Still rather stunned by those half-dozen sledgehammer blows to the head, he stood looking around him for his wits, weaving on his feet slightly just as three guards came running into the garden.
    “My lord!”
    “You are hurt!”
    “Brilliant deduction,” he growled, shaking off the steadying arm of the nearest man with his left hand while he kept his agonized right wrist close to his chest. “Miss Monteverdi?”
    “He took her off on that horse he stole. We’ve got two squadrons after them right now.”
    “We’ll bring her back in no time, sir. Don’t you worry! We’ll have ’em by morning!”
    “Bring me that man,” he ordered them in a low voice. “He is mine.”
    “Yes, sir!”
    One of the men found Clemente’s dagger nearby and gave it back to him. Domenic put it away.
    “You,” he ordered one man, “fetch the governor to meet with me at once in his office. And you,” he said to the other, “get me the best surgeon in Little Genoa. And you,” he said, nodding to the third, “see that my carriage is ready within half an hour.”
    He needed Maria. As soon as he told his story to the dimwit governor and got medical attention, he was going to the little country house where he kept her. Maria would lick his wounds and soothe his bruised pride for him.
    As for Allegra Monteverdi, prim little bitch, she was just going to have to rely on her father to rescue her. He’d done his share.
    That black-eyed devil kicked your arse, you sniveling, pathetic weakling .
    Snarling at the thought, he tried to put himself back into some order, dusting the soil off his rumpled clothing, raking his left hand through his hair as he made his way into the palace. As he limped down the hall toward Monteverdi’s offices, avoiding the guests, giving the gawking servants cruel looks to make them mind their own business, he brooded on the perilous question of whom the governor would believe if Allegra told her father that he’d tried to have a little fun tonight with his frigid daughter.
    Not that there was any harm in what he’d done. He’d only been acting in Allegra’s best interest, after all, so their wedding night wouldn’t come as so much of a shock to her. Monteverdi must be made to understand that he, Domenic, had merely been trying to protect the girl from that insolent lout.
    Who was that man? If he was one of the rebels, which he had to be, why didn’t he have the coarse, peasant accent? Why had he called himself Allegra’s good friend? The ruffian had teased her as if the two were old friends.
    Perhaps he’d had his brains rattled loose by those blows, Domenic thought, perhaps he’d had too much to drink, but something just didn’t fit.
    If Allegra had obeyed him and called for the bloody guards as he’d commanded, none of this would have happened. Hell, it was her own damned fault she’d been abducted. He had done his best to protect her, but she had been so uncooperative, why, it was almost as if she’d wanted to be abducted.
    An astonishing realization hit him full force.
    She knew that man. Of course she did. Just as the rogue had idly said— a friend, a very good friend .
    Allegra was one of the rebels.
    Domenic stood motionless in the hallway, staring at nothing as he tried to absorb it. Of course.
    She was a traitor.
    All her little displays of rebellion—her wearing of the old Fiori colors, her disrespect for her father and for him, her childish arguments with the guests over matters she