by Sandra Byrd
Perhaps a half dozen other guests socialized and when Dell’Acqua entered, all took a seat. The cabin was larger than I’d expected, painted yellow with gold gilt on the chair rails. There was a deep window seat—which had been covered in ivory silk, smooth and taut as the skin stretched across a young woman’s collarbone—beneath the stern gallery windows, which had been opened to inhale the night breeze and exhale our spent breath. The room was well lit with lamps, and the oil used to fuel them had been scented with something exotic and earthy. The effect was enchanting. In a display case, in pride of place, rested a perfectly rendered model of his ship.
Marvelous.
Dell’Acqua had placed my name card to his right, a place of honor. I noted that others had remarked upon it, too. Should that place have been reserved for Lord Somerford? I looked at Lady Somerford, who smiled at me, offering both encouragement and approval. At the foot of the table, next to Edward, remained an unfilled chair. Morgan’s. His delay must have been at the last minute.
The meal was splendid, all meat courses, naturally, because when the men were at sea it was fish and fish alone. I had never had meat prepared quite so, basted with oils I had not tasted and roasted herbs I could not remember but savored, all delightfully moist and washed down with fine Italian wine. Dell’Acqua conversed as comfortably with the Englishmen present as Edward did, and perhaps more confidently. We made pleasant, superficial conversation as was appropriate, and I mentioned that my Maltese honey had run dry.
“I shall have some sent to you,” he promised. The courses changed and with that, I was now required to speak with the person seated to my other side.
Dell’Acqua stood after dinner. “I should like to introduce you to the Poseidon. Because ships have narrow passages, I’ve divided us into groups to view different parts at different times. Then, I’ve arranged for musical entertainment on the beach nearby.”
He separated us into groups with officers as guides. Edward tensed when he realized that I would not be joining the group that he and Clementine were in. He relaxed, though, when he saw Lady Leahy was to accompany me, along with Dell’Acqua.
The captain bragged from stem to stern, and Elizabeth and I were appropriately admiring. Once, he ordered his men, in English, to move some crates out of the way. I saw the way one looked at him, half obeying, half smirking, until he barked his order in rough Maltese, which caused immediate compliance.
It was not easy for Dell’Acqua—son of Malta, son of England, son of no one—to bridge two cultures, either.
We progressed to the nearby beach, which had been smoothed. The heels of our slippers pushed into the sand, nearly causing Elizabeth to twist her ankle.
“Why not be Maltese!” the captain asked. “Bare feet!”
We looked at each other and giggled. Could we, would we, do it? We would! I took one slipper off and so she then dared, and we both took the other off and stepped toward the water’s edge, laughing like young girls on our way to build seashell castles.
Some yards away, a string quartet played softly, and there were perhaps two dozen chairs scattered along the long stretch of beach. Torches dotted the landscape here and there, and waiters circulated with cooled water and cooled wine.
“Let’s put our toes in,” Elizabeth encouraged me. She walked near where the water met the land, salt lightly drifting across the sand like a thin shimmer of summer snow.
“What?” It would not be done to remove our stockings, but they were already wet.
“You insisted on taking off the slippers . . .” she challenged me. I could not let such a challenge go unmet. Captain Dell’Acqua turned his head as we rolled down our stockings and let the cold water lap at our toes. After the confines of the captain’s quarters, that cool refreshed me all the way up. Within a minute or two, we made our way back to a set of three chairs near the edge of the water.
“I believe I should like to be back from the water a bit more,” Elizabeth said.
“Ecco, we can move then,” Dell’Acqua offered.
“No.” She held up a hand. “You two remain here and I’ll be there in a moment.” She sat some yards away, within sight but not within hearing distance, thoughtfully taking the third chair with her so no one could join us. My chilled toes reminded me of the pleasures of spontaneity, and her friendship.
Dell’Acqua spoke first, and when he did, the distantly genteel tone he’d used at dinner was replaced by a softer, more intimate tone. “I was disappointed, when I was last at Highcliffe, to hear that you were unwell and unable to join us for dinner.”
“It was a disappointment to me as well,” I replied, matching his warm voice, but I did not elaborate. The others had not arrived at the beach, and I wondered if he’d instructed his men to take them on a more elaborate and lengthy tour than he’d taken us on.
I pointed toward the exterior of his ship. “What am I to make of the devilish pitchfork, Captain Dell’Acqua, which your figurehead has in hand? An indication of your character?”
He smiled wickedly, and my heart and breath quickened. “A trident, Miss Ashton, not a pitchfork but a trident.”
The captain reached over and impulsively touched one of the crystals in my hair. It was unexpected and personal, intimate. The feel of his touch traveled down the strands of hair to my scalp, causing it to prickle, and then that prickle rolled like the surf upon my whole body. “Like the stars,” he said, “but more beautiful. And when I lean near you, I catch the scent of ash and honey and oranges, the orange trees of Malta.”
“It’s neroli,” I said softly. “From Italy.”
“So unlike the English girls,” he said, “who wear frivolous violets.”
“I am an English girl,” I reminded him.
“I stand corrected.” He moved his chair as close to me as, I imagined, he dared.
I did not chide him. Very soon, I should enter service as a governess, or perhaps would have to marry Mr. Morgan, unless . . . I looked at him but dared not hope. I would snatch bits of life and liberty here and now to treasure in my heart, later. “Your cologne. Likewise not English. Italian? Maltese?”
“Ah.” His eyebrows raised. “You’ve noticed the thieves!”
“Have I been introduced to thieves and not realized? Pray tell!”
He grinned. “In the Middle Ages, there were three thieves who robbed dead victims, those who had died of the plague. It couldn’t hurt, isn’t that so? They were dead and did not need their worldly goods any longer.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Maltese thieves?”
“Of course not,” he said. “They were perhaps French, or more likely English.”
I swatted at him with my fan. “Go on.”
“They were caught, and in exchange for their freedom, they shared the formula for a blend of oils that protected them from the plague, which then helped many others. A mix of herbs and cloves, camphor and musk. Thieves’ oil. It’s healing and aromatic. Do you like it?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to say more. Healing indeed—to my spirit, but endangering to my heart! He laughed. “Then it has done more good for me than keeping away illness. As my story proves, even thieves may do good.”
“Is that a confession, Captain?” I waved my fan in a delicate circle.
He grinned and shrugged; his eyes remained guarded. A long pause held with only the lapping surf and the lament of the cello strings to break it. Finally, he spoke. “Do you know any thieves, Miss Ashton? Perhaps smugglers?”
I caught and held his glance. Was he asking after Edward? Was Edward still smuggling? “I shall answer you by way of an English tale, Captain Dell’Acqua.”
“Please,” he said, leaning near me so our arms merged. Mine prickled again, at his touch. “Use my name. Marc Antonio. Marco.”
“I cannot call you Marco!” I exclaimed.
“And I shall call you Annabella.”
“You shall not!”
“Then even better . . . Bella.”
Bella. In Italian, beautifu
l. It was a most promising corruption of my name, and I adored him for speaking it.
“What will Clementine think?” I asked. “Or Lady Leahy?”
“I care not.”
“But I do!” He did not realize how carefully a woman like me, born out of wedlock, must protect her reputation.
“I shall refer to them as Clemmy and Liz,” he said. “And they shall blame the foreigner for my poor manners.” At that, I grinned. This is what comes of allowing myself to walk slipperless. Self-restraint has fled!
I rather enjoyed it.
“My story, Captain,” I said.
“Marco,” he whispered, his dark eyes holding my gaze.
Dare I?
“Marco,” I whispered back and his face flushed with pleasure. “My story!” I redirected. “You are half English, you know; it’s time you come to know our history, as well as exercise some English self-control.”
He nodded compliantly but with a wink. At that moment, the others began to filter onto the beach.
“There is a tale of the Moonrakers,” I began, looking out upon the beach, which grew wider as the tide receded. “Poor, hungry villagers, eager and desperate, as many of our English people are, had buried barrels of brandy under the sand near the beach, waiting to ‘harvest’ them at low tide. All of a sudden, the revenue men came upon them as they dragged the rakes against the sand. ‘What are you doing?’ they demanded.”
“And?” Marco leaned forward.
“The men said, ‘Oh, wise sirs, we’re raking the ground to harvest the moonlight, don’cha know. We can use it instead of costly candles.’ The king’s men laughed at them for being simple country fools, but left them be. They then ‘harvested’ their barrels and sold them as planned—so they could eat! ’Twas a time not too long ago when the poor had to help smuggle salt just so they could have some for themselves, to preserve meat and fish, or they’d eat neither for half the year.”
Marco smiled. “So thieves can do well by themselves and others.”
“Some thieves,” I said, glancing involuntarily at Edward, who had now made it to the beach and had a glass in hand. Marco followed my glance.
Then, hoping I had not said or implied too much about our family, or smuggling, I reached down and picked up an oyster.
“Perhaps there is a pearl within,” I said hopefully.
“You should not eat it, Bella.” He took the shell and tried to crack it open, but could not.
“I shan’t eat it, don’t worry,” I said with a laugh.
“It’s tightly sealed.” Marco held it in his hand. “Which is as it should be. It protects what is inside it. Like my ship.” He reached his hand out expansively. “The hull is tight; nothing shall breach it. ‘Secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster,’ as your Mr. Dickens has written.”
“Our Mr. Dickens,” I corrected. “Was that a confession, Captain? Are you secret and safely self-contained?”
He blushed, and tipped his head down, used, perhaps, to being in control of the banter. “Touché, Miss Ashton.” To soften the barb, I reached over and took the shell from him, brushing the sand from his hand as I did. At the touch of my finger on his palm, he half closed his eyes, and I forced myself to remove my fingers rather than impulsively entwine them in his.
“With your blond, English hair,” I teased, “your beard rather looks like sand.”
“Will you please brush that off, too, then?” He turned his jawline to me, and I looked toward the ground to regain control of my feelings. I wanted to. I wanted, most inappropriately, to reach out and caress his face.
“The heart is very like the hull of a ship, isn’t it?” I fingered the rough, ridged shell, which held its soft treasure inside. “If it’s tightly closed, like this”—I handed the shell back to him—“all is protected, but then you can never find if there is, or is not, a treasure within. Solitary is not a manner in which to live. Unless one is an oyster. And now”—I grinned—“Clemmy approaches.”
At that, he roared with laughter, startling Clementine, who was just upon us, looking stern and a decade older than she was.
“Pari Corajisima,” Marco whispered in Italian. She looks like Lent.
I held back a smile.
“What amuses you so, Captain Dell’Acqua?” Clementine asked.
“Oh . . .” He looked at me and I pleaded with my eyes for him to use her proper name. “Mrs. Everedge, Miss Ashton was imploring me to be English, as I am half English. I said I shall, for the remainder of my time here, if she uses her teaching skills to instruct me as I visit with your husband at Highcliffe now and again. With your permission, of course,” he said. “I plan to spend some time in the next few weeks concluding the affairs Mr. Everedge, Lord Somerford, and I have arranged.”
And then you shall leave, I thought, steadying myself and hiding, I hoped, my despair. A few months earlier I’d told Clementine that if I could, I’d marry a good man and have children. It had seemed theoretical then. Now I wished it to become a reality.
“Of course she may,” Clementine answered him. She glanced at Elizabeth, now sitting with Lord Leahy, but still chaperoning me. “My husband wishes to speak with you,” she said. “If you have time.”
“Ecco, I always have time for Mr. Everedge.”
Later that night Captain Dell’Acqua saw us to our carriages by starlight. He shook the men’s hands and helped each woman into the carriage. Before he took my hand, I slipped, and he reached to catch me. His face drew close to mine, and as I turned one way, in modesty, he turned that same way. We each adjusted, but as we did, our faces turned in unison, close, nearly touching. By his intention? By happenstance? I cared not. His rough beard brushed against my soft skin, then his mouth hovered over mine as I regained my footing and pulled back. Before I did, I felt his lips on mine though they had not actually met. It was bliss.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I lost my footing.”
“It happens to many women,” he teased. “I catch them.” His eyes were soft, but I wondered if they were soft for all women.
“Good night, Bella,” he whispered. “I’ve not lost my footing, but perhaps I’ve lost my bearings.”
I held his gaze and the moment was caught in time. “Good night,” I finally responded, though I barely had breath enough to speak. He lifted me up to my seat. The carriage driver snapped his reins, and we lurched forward. As we drove away, I turned and looked out the window, and I saw him standing there, still, on the pier watching us leave.
Marco.
He caught my eye and lifted a hand, but from within the crowded carriage, I dared not lift one in return.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Elizabeth had told me she had a promising lead for a governess position, and it had now been long enough for me to make a hopeful enquiry. So one morning, after Clementine had left for the day with Edward, to Winchester, I asked Lillian if she and Albert would like to accompany me to Lymington again. She wasn’t exactly qualified to be a chaperone, but I wasn’t exactly required to have one, and Albert added to the layer of social safety.
“I like my situation here, caring for Albert,” Lillian said tentatively.
“Clementine had said we may go, earlier. So why not now?” I answered.
She looked wary, but in the end, as I expected, she was delighted. When we met in the foyer, she had dressed in a light lawn dress the color of ivory piano keys that showed off her strawberry-blond hair to its finest advantage. Albert was cute as mice in a shorts suit, though he was beginning to look girlish in his long curls. Clementine was loath to cut them, I knew.
We took the second-best carriage and a footman drove us as Edward’s driver was in use, of course. The season had tilted forward, the weight of the year behind us. The mid-September sun did not bear down quite so firmly, and the skies were the brilliant azure blue peculiar to autumn by the sea. The driver stopped in front of Mr. Galpine’s, and I instructed him to return in perhaps a half hour’s time.
Mr. Galpine finis
hed assisting the woman ahead of him, a woman I recognized as a distant acquaintance of Clementine’s. She had called on Clementine once since I’d been home, and I hoped she should not visit again and share news of seeing me and Lillian in town.
“Miss Ashton.” Mr. Galpine nodded and bowed toward me and then toward Lillian. “And Miss Miller.”
Her face brightened at the use of her proper name. I imagined few used it.
“How may I help?” he asked.
“I came to enquire if I have any letters,” I said. “I had been expecting some.”
“There were two last week,” he said, and I nodded. They had been from friends in Winchester; Watts had brought them to me.
“Any more since then?”
He stroked his beard. “Well, the one I sent to Highcliffe in the packet of other mail, when your young shepherdess came to collect the mail.”
Emmeline? Came to collect mail? I thought Oliver did, if not a footman or Edward himself. “You’re certain there was one for me, then.”
“Not certain. But I believe so. So many pass through my hands . . .” He made a gesture of his busyness, and Lillian giggled rewardingly.
I had not seen any new letter. If it had existed, where had it gone? “Do you remember who the sender was?”
“No, Miss Ashton, I’m sorry. There are too many things going through the post for me to keep track.” His chest puffed out again, and he turned toward Lillian. “My father started this shop, and the library and post many years ago. Back in those days the recipient had to pay post, of course, so we kept better track of senders in case they needed to be returned.”
Lillian smiled obligingly, and I had a sudden burst of inspiration. Divine, as Lady Somerford would have said. “What year did you stop keeping track?”
He stroked his beard once more and focused his gaze on the ceiling for a moment. “Perhaps the late twenties. My father was keen to collect the postal markings, too, so he kept some of those when allowed. Would you care to see the record books? They are really quite extraordinary.”