Carpathian 00 - The Scarletti Curse

concern.
    Nicoletta studied her closely. Portia looked far younger than what must be her thirty or so years.
    Margerita, her daughter, appeared to be at least fifteen. Portia wore a long, form-fitting gown that revealed more than it covered, and even in the middle of the night, her hair was dressed perfectly.
    Portia took in the women and child in the room with one swift glance. "Ah"—she crossed herself devoutly—"thank the Madonna, the bambina is well. Come, Vincente, you have suffered much. You must rest."
    "Have you both gone mad?" The voice from the doorway was low but carried a whiplash in it, a hard authority no one would dare to defy. "Sophie nearly died tonight, these women are exhausted with the work they have done, and you do not give them even the courtesy of allowing them to sleep undisturbed?" Don Scarletti moved into the room, his presence immediately dominating the nursery and those who occupied it. "Portia, you and Margerita were too afraid to see to the needs of the bambina when she needed you, yet now, in the middle of the night, you enter the room to awaken her caretakers?"
    The woman winced under the reprimand. "How can you accuse me of such a thing? I was seeing first to Margerita's safety, as a mother should. The servants were to see to the bambina. I ordered them to do Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    so, but they refused, thinking they might encounter the plague. I cannot control the superstitious beliefs of those from the villaggi. They do not listen when they fear the unknown. Surely you do not blame me for their incompetence!"
    "I found the poor piccola abandoned, with waste and vomit all over her." The obsidian eyes were lethal.
    He didn't raise his voice, but he was cutting the woman to pieces, and Nicoletta almost felt sorry for her.
    "I gave the orders to the servants." Portia lifted her chin. "How dare you chastise me in front of ones such as these?" She waved a hand to encompass Nicoletta and the sleeping Maria Pia. "Vincente, please, escort me to my room."
    Vincente obligingly took the woman's hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm. "Grazie, for the life of my bambina" he said sincerely, bowing to Nicoletta in a courtly manner.
    "I am grateful at least one of you knows to whom we owe a debt of thanks," Don Scarletti said softly.
    His voice fairly purred with menace, a velvet lash masking an iron will. Nicoletta found herself trembling for no reason at all. She suddenly didn't want the others to leave the room. Worse, she knew by Maria Pia's breathing that she wasn't faking but was still truly asleep. Nicoletta would find no savior there if Don Scarletti turned the full power of his soul-piercing eyes on her once again.
    Portia now remained silent against the don's accusation, and that told Nicoletta much about the household. Its members feared him nearly as much as she did. There was something cold and aloof about the don. Something in him held away from the others, seemingly relaxed yet coiled and ready to strike like a snake. His family treated him with tremendous deference, as if they, too, sensed he was dangerous.
    Nicoletta allowed her long lashes to drift down as Vincente took Portia Scarletti from the room. She held herself very still, not daring to move a muscle. Silence stretched out so long, she wanted to scream.
    There wasn't a sound, not the rustling of clothes or a hint of movement. Not knowing what the don was doing was worse than facing him. She lay there with her heart pounding, hardly breathing. Waiting.
    Listening. There was no sound.
    Nicoletta began to relax. No one could be that quiet. She sighed with relief. He must have followed the others out of the room. Snuggling deeper into the coverlet, she took a chance and peeked. He was standing over her, as still as the mountains, waiting, his dark eyes fixed on her face. He had known all along that she wasn't asleep and that she would eventually look. For a moment she couldn't breathe, trapped in the intensity of his black gaze. The flames from the hearth seemed to be reflected there, or perhaps it was the volcano seething inside him, deep, hot, and dangerous.
    "I am not fooled so easily as you and the old woman might think." He said it quietly, a soft, ominous statement of fact. Indeed, the words were so soft, she wasn't certain he had actually murmured them. He turned with his peculiar flowing grace and left the room, closing the door behind him with