Bedazzled

by Bertrice Small

  “You are both coming with me,” Thomas Southwood said, “and I’ll have no further argument from either of you.”

  “If you do not leave now, Tom, I shall scream, and the guards will come,” India told him stonily.

  “Why can’t you listen to reason?” he demanded of her.

  “Why can you not believe me when I tell you I love Caynan Reis, and I am content to remain here in El Sinut?” she countered, glaring angrily at him. “Go, Tom! Go now!”

  He turned away, and then, swinging about, suddenly hit her a blow on the chin, catching her as she collapsed to the floor. “Come on, lassie,” he said to the shocked and wide-eyed Meggie as he moved through the open screen.

  “Wait, sir! Let me get us cloaks, or we shall be soaked through with this rain, and the mistress catch her death,” Meggie pleaded.

  “Hurry, lassie,” he told her.

  Meggie bit her lip as she opened the trunk, drawing out two long, enveloping capes. Should she make a dash for the door, and alert the guards that this man was kidnapping the dey’s wife, or should she just take the capes and follow along? This man was her mistress’s blood relation. Would her lady thank her if the dey had him beheaded? It was a terrible quandary. Meggie finally decided that she didn’t want anyone’s death on her conscience. She put one of the capes about her own shoulders, and, bringing the other to where Thomas Southwood stood, she draped it over her unconscious mistress.

  “Get a scarf, lassie,” he commanded her, and she hurried to comply. “Don’t be startled. My second mate is with me, and he’ll help you.”

  She followed him and his companion across the garden to the farthest wall where two thick ropes hung down. There they stopped, and Mr. James, using the silk scarf, tied India’s wrists together, and then lifted her up and put her arms about Thomas Southwood’s neck.

  “She’s dead weight, Captain. It will be harder,” he said.

  “I know, Mr. James, but you heard her resisting me in her usual stubborn fashion. I had no choice but to clip her on the jaw. We could not stay any longer.” He grasped the rope, and began to pull himself slowly and with great effort up the wall.

  “Put your arms about me neck, lassie,” the second mate said. “I can make it up sooner than he can, and we can help him, eh?”

  Meggie obeyed him wordlessly, and, before she knew it, the mate was shinnying up the rope like a monkey despite the burden upon his back. He made her sit atop the wall and then, reaching down, helped his captain the final few feet. The ropes were then drawn up and thrown over the street side. The descent was far easier, and Meggie found herself on the ground before she knew it. To her surprise, another man was waiting, holding three horses.

  “Is m’lady all right?” he whispered nervously.

  “She didn’t want to come, the silly wench,” Thomas Southwood said. “I had to hit her for her own good to bring her along.”

  A rumble of thunder sounded above them, and the horses nickered and danced nervously.

  “Let’s get going,” Thomas Southwood said as Mr. James lifted India from his back. He mounted his animal, and, reaching down, took India up upon his horse, cradling her in his arms, drawing her hood up to keep her from getting soaked.

  Next to him the other two men had mounted their horses, and Meggie was riding pillion behind Mr. James. They began their return journey to the harbor, reaching it in what seemed like a rather brief time to the young servant girl. The horses were replaced in the stables by the captain and Mr. James, while Knox carried India aboard, followed closely by Meggie. He settled them in the captain’s cabin.

  “Where are we going, sir?” Meggie ventured.

  “Why, home, lassie, God be willing,” Knox said. “I have to lock you in until we clears the harbor. Tend to your mistress now. There’s water and fruit on the table. I’m sorry we have no wine, but, as you know, they don’t hold with spirits here.” He closed the door behind him, and Meggie heard the key turn in the lock.

  India had been placed upon the captain’s bed, and now Meggie hurried to see if her mistress was returning to consciousness. Quickly she untied the lady’s bound wrists. She gasped softly, and shook her head in disbelief at the purple bruise forming on India’s jaw. “Oh, the brute!” the servant said coldly. “I hope my lady isn’t angered at me for not crying out when I had the chance, but I couldn’t live wi myself if I had hae the deaths of those three men on my conscience.” She shook her head, and, going to the table, poured some water. Raising India up, she gently tried to force a little water down her throat. India coughed, and her golden eyes flew open.

  “Meggie!” Her hand went to her jaw. “Ohh, that hurts.” Her glance swept the cabin. “Where are we?” she asked her servant.

  “Aboard ship, my lady. He hit you, and then carried you from the palace. Ohh, my lady! Had I cried for the guards they would have killed him, and he’s your kin. I didn’t know what to do!”

  “It’s all right, Meggie. I’ll kill him myself,” India said. “Have we left port yet?”

  “They’re getting under way now despite this storm,” was the frightened reply. “That Knox has locked us in, I fear.”

  “Damnation!” India swore, and attempted to arise, but she fell back with a groan. “Allah! I’m so dizzy.” Then her hands went protectively to her flat belly, but everything else seemed all right.

  “Give it a few minutes, my lady,” Meggie advised, “and then we’ll try sitting you up. There ain’t nothing we can do now anyhow.”

  “You must keep my secret, Meggie,” India said meaningfully.

  The young servant understood, and asked, “Why didn’t you tell him, my lady? Then he would have left you in peace.”

  “I was going to if he continued to persist, but he turned away as if he would go. Then he suddenly pivoted about, and hit me. I did not have the chance,” India said. “Now, what am I going to do? We are locked in, and Tom is too busy getting his ship under way. No. I must keep my secret for now. I will think of some way to escape him. I have escaped my family before.”

  “That Mr. Knox says we are going home to England, my lady,” Meggie informed her mistress. “It will be weeks before we see land again. You have no place to escape to, I fear.”

  “I have learned patience in El Sinut,” India said wisely. “When we arrive in London, we shall give my cousin the slip. My parents have shut up the London house, but I can get into Greenwood, and there is no staff there now but the gatekeeper and his wife. We can easily avoid them. I will get a message to my husband telling him where we are. It will all take time, and my child will probably be born before Caynan Reis can come for me, but he will come. I know it! In the meantime, however, I intend to give my cousin Thomas Southwood as difficult a time as possible,” India concluded with a wicked chuckle. “The heroic fool treated me as if I was still a child, instead of a woman grown. He will pay for that piece of foolishness.”

  The ship moved slowly from its dock, edging its way in the choppy waters toward the channel that led between the two lighthouses guarding the harbor. The rain continued to beat down, the thunder booming, the jagged streaks of lightning flashing across the skies. When they had reached the vicinity of the two lighthouses, the sea anchor was thrown out. The longboats were launched, carrying four men each. The boats were rowed quickly to the lighthouses, beached, and then its occupants entered the lighthouses to take the two keeps prisoner, binding, gagging, and blindfolding them exactly as they had the sailors in their vessel’s hole. A lantern signal indicated that both keepers were now incapacitated. While the longboats carrying two sailors each made their way back to the ship, the remaining two sailors at each lighthouse began to turn the winch to lower the chain guarding the harbor.

  The longboats returned twice to each lighthouse carrying the captive seamen who were marched into the lighthouses only to have their legs rebound and their blindfolds refastened. Each of them was resettled at a distance from the others to prevent any possible contact that might lead to their premature
escape. As they knew where they were, they were no longer frightened. The lighthouse doors were locked, and barred from the outside, the Royal Charles raised her sea anchor, sailed from the harbor, and once again moored itself, while the occupants of the two longboats moved their crafts to the sea side of the lighthouse islands, raised the harbor chain up to protect the entry, and rowed back to their ship in very choppy seas.

  About them the storm continued to rage, the thunder and the lightning even more pronounced now as they hauled anchor a final time, and began to make their way out into the open sea. Leaving command of his regained vessel in Mr. Bolton’s hands, Captain Thomas Southwood unlocked the door of his quarters and stepped inside, neatly dodging the pitcher of water his cousin Lady India Lindley hurled at him.

  “Idiot! Allah help you when my husband learns what you have done! Aruj Agha will scour the seas for me at my lord’s command! And when you are recaptured, Tom Southwood, and they lop your arrogant head from its shoulders, I shall feel not the slightest twinge of guilt!”

  “Is this the thanks I get for rescuing you?” he demanded. “You are yet a spoiled child, India.”

  “I am nineteen, Tom,” India told him, suddenly serious. “When my mother was nineteen, she had already had two husbands, two children, and was enceinte with a third. My grandmother had birthed my mother, and was about to have my uncle James at nineteen. There isn’t a woman in this family who wasn’t grown by nineteen. Why do you persist in treating me like a child, Thomas Southwood? I am a married woman, and quite content to be so. Why did you not listen to me when I said I didn’t want to come with you? Why did you assume I was some mindless infant who needed your protection? Did I ask for it? Did you ask me if I wanted to be rescued? No! You invaded my home, brutalized me, and then carried me off. You are a well-meaning idiot, sir.”

  “I cannot take you back,” he said wearily.

  “I know that,” she told him. “Do you think I would endanger these men who have planned and struggled to make good their escape? If Aruj Agha catches up with you, there will be no mercy. An example will have to be made. That is their way.”

  “Do you really love him, India?” he asked her, curious.

  “Aye. Have I not said it over and over to you? I am the wife of the dey of El Sinut, and proud to be his wife.”

  “It wasn’t a real marriage,” he said, attempting to excuse himself. “It wasn’t a Christian marriage, India, and you are a Christian.”

  “Aye, I am a Christian, but if you knew anything, really knew, about Islam, you would understand my marriage is quite valid. Besides, he was seeking a Protestant minister in El Sinut to marry us in my faith, although such a thing would have been done in secret. You were to be our witness, Thomas Southwood.”

  “He loves you that much?” Thomas Southwood was very surprised that Caynan Reis would endanger himself and his position in such a manner. “I think he only told you such a thing to ease your conscience, India. The sultan’s dey in El Sinut would never risk a Christian marriage. It could mean his very life.”

  “He would have done it, and allowed nothing to happen to us. Did you know there is a plot by the janissaries against the young sultan? Their agent came to Caynan Reis, and sought his allegiance. He said he would only give it to them if the deys of Algiers and Tunis agreed. He sent this man on his way, and then sent word to Istanbul to the valideh of the plot. He intended asking the valideh for autonomy for El Sinut as a reward when she offered one, so that our sons would have their own lands,” India told her startled cousin. “Do you think I should know these things if I was not my lord’s beloved, and trusted by him? Do you think the harem women knew of all of this, Thomas Southwood? But you would rescue me, and force me back to Scotland!” She glared at him.

  Thomas Southwood had a momentary doubt that perhaps he had not done the right thing in forcing his cousin India aboard his vessel, but he quickly pushed it away. She didn’t understand at all. Caynan Reis would have gotten a child or two on her, and then taken a second, possibly even a third and fourth wife. India, he knew, would not have stood for such rivals, and been unhappy. She was better off going back to her family at Glenkirk. Back to the life she knew and understood. They would explain away her year’s absence, and find her a husband. She would forget Caynan Reis. Her great wealth would smooth over any difficulties.

  He looked directly at her. “It is too dangerous for me to continue on to England with you aboard. We may encounter Barbary corsairs, and have to fight our way out this time, particularly now that we are so well armed. I am taking you to Naples to your grandmother, Lady Stewart-Hepburn. When you return home in a few months’ time, it will be said you have been with her all this time.”

  “And what will be said about poor Adrian Leigh?” India demanded.

  “God’s boots, India! You don’t still care for that arrogant little toad, do you?”

  “No, I care nothing for him,” India said scathingly. “I love my husband, but Adrian ended up in the galleys because of me. Why didn’t you take him with us tonight?”

  “I couldn’t without involving all the galley slaves on Aruj Agha’s ship. For God’s sake, India! Your former swain is chained with four other men on a bench. I didn’t have the authority to unlock those chains, and if I had attempted to take Adrian off that vessel, there would have been a riot. Our entire escape would have been thwarted. Besides, Adrian Leigh deserves whatever he gets for cajoling you into your rash runaway.”

  “You really are a bastard, Tom,” India said. “If this is to be my cabin while you make your run for Naples, then get out of it! I don’t want to see you again. Ever again! How easy it is for you to ruin other people’s lives, and all for the sake of your damned ship!”

  “This damned ship will help to get you home,” he said angrily.

  “El Sinut is my home now,” she replied stonily.

  Chapter 15

  The morning after their flight from El Sinut dawned clear. The Mediterranean sun shone golden in a cloudless blue sky, and the brisk winds left in the wake of the storm had swung about to the southwest, speeding their progress toward Naples. It would certainly have been discovered by now that the dey’s wife and her servant were missing. It would have been ascertained that the English round ship was no longer in the harbor of El Sinut. The chief eunuch, Baba Hassan, would have connected the disappearance of India and Meggie with that of the ship. Particularly if someone finally saw the single grapnel atop the far wall of the dey’s private garden. Mr. James had freed, and tossed down to the alley the grapnel by which his captain and India had descended, but having gotten to the ground with Meggie, he had been unable to loose his own grapnel. They had left it. It was unlikely they would be caught before they reached Naples. By the time Caynan Reis and Aruj Agha were sent for, returned to the city, and sailed in pursuit after them, another two days would have gone by.

  They sailed on through virtually unoccupied seas that first day, and the next day as well. Finally, on the third morning, they approached Naples. India stood at the rail, enchanted with the muted peach-and-lavender sky. Pearly gray mist hung suspended in the air like sheer, shredded silk. Here and there tiny islands appeared out of the foggy waters. She could just see the small fishing boats in the fog. She heard the call of a church bell over the smooth seas. A gentle breeze puffed at the sails, causing the ship to glide along almost like a fairy vessel. The air was very damp, and warm.

  “Well,” Tom Southwood said, coming up to stand by her side, “you’ll be at your grandmother’s in a few hours, India. I want you to stay aboard until I have gone to Lady Stewart-Hepburn’s villa and spoken with her. I’m sure she is aware of your disappearance a year ago. She’ll send a message to your family posthaste, I have not a doubt. I’ll be glad to have you off my hands, quite frankly. You’re a very troublesome wench, India.”

  “And you’re a pompous fool, dear cousin,” she responded.

  “In time you will forgive me, and realize that what I did was for your own good, In
dia,” he said gently.

  India turned her face to him, her golden eyes almost amber with her irritation. “Go to the devil!” she told him, and then returned to her cabin where Meggie was awaiting her.

  “Captain was seeking you, my lady,” the girl said.

  “He found me,” India replied. “I shall be glad to be quit of him. Hopefully Lady Stewart-Hepburn will not be so condescending.”

  “You do not call her Grandmother?” Meggie asked.

  “She is my stepfather’s mother, and I only met her in France two years ago. She has lived in Naples for many years now. For my stepfather’s sake, I call her Grandmama, but I was never comfortable with it. My Lindley grandparents were dead before my father and mother were wed. The only grandparents I have ever known have been the earl and countess of BrocCairn, Mama’s parents, although the earl is also my mother’s stepfather. Most of the women in my family have been wed to any number of husbands. We are very long-lived, Meggie.”

  Knox had brought them a small repast, some flat bread, dates, and a small carafe of fresh water. The two women ate, and then Meggie fetched a basin of water so they might wash. They had no trunks, and were wearing the same garments in which they had left El Sinut. There was not even a comb for their hair, and all of India’s precious jewelry had been left behind. At least that, she hoped, would tell her husband that she hadn’t departed willingly from his side. Caynan! Her heart cried out to him over the many miles now between them. I love you! Please find me! Please!

  The ship anchored in the Bay of Naples. They had exchanged the banner that flew atop their mast earlier that morning for two flags, one indicating they were an English ship, and the other below it to announce they belonged to the O’Malley-Small Trading Company. Captain Thomas Southwood left his vessel, and was rowed ashore. There he immediately registered his ship with the harbormaster, explaining they had escaped captivity in the Barbary States by stealing back the Royal Charles. He requested that a ship’s painter be sent out to his vessel to repaint the correct name on its side and stern. Then, asking directions to the Villa del Pesce d’Oro, he rented a horse and made his way to the small estate, outside of the city and on the sea.