by Raven, Sandy
Immediately she removed the pantalettes and dressed in her new, more suitable attire. She wondered how it was possible that everything fit. It was as if Ren knew her exact measurements. She sat on the edge of the bed, and brushed and braided her hair, tying it off with the leather strap Maysun had given her. She stood, wondering if she should risk his wrath again this morning and go above deck, or wait for him to come for her.
For several minutes she paced the cabin, which grew smaller with each lap. Throwing aside any fear now that she had more appropriate clothing, she opened the door, intending to search him out. She wasn’t prepared for what she saw when she finally reached the deck.
The bank of windows in the cabin faced the bay, and she’d been unable to see the port. Before her now lay the city of Genoa. Reality hit her. Her ordeal was almost over. She would soon have her brother and Maura with her, possibly as early as this afternoon. She quickly spotted Ren on the deck of the ship tied alongside the one she was on.
Ren saw the flash of color on deck and quickly jumped from Sorceress to his lead ship, Warlock. Lia was a vision. The dress Cully bought that morning fit her perfectly, and the color made her eyes appear even more green, if that were possible. The bodice hugged her full breasts and exposed more than he liked with sailors about.
When he reached her, she managed a cautious smile. He could not return it though, for he wasn’t sure how she would react to the information he had.
“I am sorry, Your Grace, but I could not wait below any longer.”
“I was just on my way to see you. I have news.” He led her to the cabin where they could talk privately. He shut the door behind them and held the chair for Lia, then leaned back against the desk, holding her gaze.
“I have had men surrounding your aunt’s house since we arrived. They have also been asking questions around town. Evidently your aunt has been telling everyone that you have run off.” He paused to gauge her reaction thus far. Seeing none, he continued. “And, shortly after you left, your brother’s nurse was found dead in her room.”
“No!” Lia covered her face with her hands and began to cry. “Maura. Oh, God, no.” She looked up at him, her angry green eyes flashing gold sparks. She muttered a barrage of curses in her native tongue, none of which he completely understood. Then, switching to English, she stated, “They killed Maura. I know it.” She stood before him now, waiting for more news. “What about my brother? Tell me, does he still live?”
“We are not sure. No one has seen your brother in weeks. Rumor has it he is very ill and near death. The people in the town are praising your aunt, calling her a saint for taking in her destitute niece and dying nephew.”
Her screams reverberated through the entire ship. She began pacing and ranting in Italian, arms waving about. He wasn’t shocked to hear Lia’s vocabulary, as he’d heard her curse the morning after the auction when she awoke in his bed. But what was disturbing, was the fact that none of her comments discounted the story her aunt had spread about her. Ren wondered if he told her about the tale, how she would react. The community believed what the old lady had been telling them about how Lia had become affiliated with the local Carbonari since moving from Naples, and that she had run off with them of her own volition.
He wanted to ask her if there was any truth to the story at all, but felt it would only agitate her more, and Ren needed her calm. She had to go with them when they went to get the boy, and it had to be done soon before anyone in the aunt’s home suspected anything.
“We must get Luchino before they kill him as well. They were quick to rid themselves of me, and then Maura. That witch is killing my brother and making it appear as though he is ill. Sta vecchia troia. Io amazza. I swear I’ll kill her!”
“Lia, listen to me.” He turned her toward him. “You cannot kill the woman, much as you’d like to. If what you say of her is true, you would be hung for murdering someone not worth dying for. It is best to let the authorities deal with her.” She quieted for a moment, long enough for him to continue. “And your brother will need you if he is to come through this ordeal.”
Her eyes widened in fear.
“I don’t mean to alarm you, but time is of the essence. You must come with us. We must go and get him. Now.”
“Well, what are we doing here? Andiamo!” She yanked open the door, banging it into the chair, and ran down the narrow gangway and up the steps to the deck. Ren followed, breaking into a run to keep up with her.
When they reached the dinghy where Cully and Flynn waited, he quickly introduced his cousins as two of his captains. Handing her into the small boat, he climbed in after her. He gave the order, and they were lowered to the water. Once on the dock Ren said, “taking a carriage will draw less attention than the four of us running through town.” Cully and Flynn agreed and they soon were in a closed carriage with Lia giving directions to the driver. Ren watched her fidget and curse in her native tongue during the entire fifteen minute ride to her aunt’s home. He understood her impatience. He would feel the same if one of his sisters was in a similar predicament.
They pulled up to the house, and Flynn nodded to Ren. “That’s the one,” he said.
Before the carriage had come to a stop, Lia pushed open the door and hopped out, landing surefootedly on the ground. She ran up the few steps to the two tall, narrow wooden doors, and beat on them while Ren, Cully and Flynn hurried up behind her. It seemed an eternity, but finally the door opened and a portly old man with a weathered face and rheumy eyes stared in stunned silence as Lia pushed her way past and began searching the lower level. She alternately called out for her brother and cursed her aunt.
“Luchino! Where are you? Luchino?” She began taking the steps to the second floor two at a time. Ren nodded to Cully who followed her up the stairs. “Luchino, I’m here! I’ve come for you!”
She stopped at the landing, and shouted back at the old man, “Flavio, I want my brother’s things packed and brought down immediately. Wake my aunt, I want to see her before we leave.”
When Lia reached the nursery, she found the door locked. “Luchino! Luchino, are you in there?”
“Lia? Is it really you?” His voice sounded faint, but she heard him. He was here. He was alive.
“Sì, Caro,” she called out to her brother. Lia pushed and kicked at the white door, to no avail. Ren’s man, Cully, motioned her out of the way and moved to break it down. She leaned on the wall opposite the door to catch her breath, relief pouring through her, knowing her brother was still here, still alive. She heard movement in the room and wanted to stop him before he got hurt. “Stand away from the door, Luchino!”
With that Cully took a few steps back and rammed the door with his shoulder—unsuccessfully. He backed up again and kicked. After two more kicks, the door finally splintered away from the frame. Lia ran past Cully into Luchino’s room.
The darkened nursery was stifling hot and airless. Searching for her brother, she found him lying on the floor next to the bed. He appeared sickly white, with sunken eyes and deep, dark circles beneath them. His cheekbones protruded from his once-chubby face. She took his hands and kissed them, tears streaming down her face. “Sweetheart, are you well?”
“I don’t feel good, Lia. I’m tired.” His voice trailed away. She pulled him into her arms. He seemed so thin and frail, not at all like he was when she was abducted.
“Everything will be all right now. I’m taking you away from here.”
“Why did you run away?” her brother asked on a breathless whisper. “Zia Claudina said you ran off with some men, but I know you didn’t. She called you all kinds of bad names.”
“I didn’t run away, but we can talk about that later.” Lia stroked her brother’s hair as she continued to cry unashamedly. “Let’s get you to the ship where we can get your strength back. We have a long trip ahead of us.”
“Ship? We’re going on a ship?”
“Sì, caro. We’re going far away from here. Where Zia Claudina and Ottavia can ne
ver hurt us again. I promise.” She lifted him in her arms easily, and that terrified her. Her brother had been heavier than a sack of grain when she last attempted to lift him. Now he was half that.
At the landing, she handed Luchino over to Cully and ran down the steps, where Ren listened intently to her aunt.
“I’m glad to see that my niece has decided to return and take responsibility for her brother,” Lia overheard her aunt say in Italian. “The poor boy is so very ill, and misses her so. The physician has not given us much hope that he will get better. I’ve done all I can for him, to make him as comfortable as possible in his last days.”
Lia stopped directly in front of her aunt and slapped her, the force of the blow knocking the older woman’s well-coiffed hair askew, leaving a burning pain in her palm and tingles shooting up her arm. “Ran away? You tried to have me killed!”
“Sei una puttana,” her aunt hissed, as she wiped away a drop of blood trickling from her beak-billed nose.
Lia shook with uncontrollable rage. She drew her hand back to strike the woman again, but Ren grabbed her, holding her tight from behind. “You killed a helpless old woman and are now trying to kill a child,” Lia screamed. “Is that your idea of compassion? You tried to have me murdered! You succeeded with Maura, and may God damn your soul for that.”
Ren pulled her back, farther away from her aunt. Still, Lia screamed, “If you ever come near me or my brother again, you’re a dead woman. I will kill you myself. Do you understand me?” When she got no response from her aunt, she screamed it again. “Do you understand me!”
“Get out of my house. You whore,” Claudina yelled back at her. “Get out! You and that incorrigible little bastardo you call a brother.”
Ren released her, and used his body to block her from her aunt. Lia wanted nothing more than to lash out at her again. But, instead, she went to the front door, and yanked it hard, knocking it into the tall ceramic planter box hiding in the corner. The planter crashed to the ground and shattered into hundreds of pieces, spreading dirt and plants onto the terrazzo tiled floor.
“This is not the last you shall hear from me. I will see to it you restore all monies from our trust. You are a murderer and a thief!”
Lia waited for Cully, who still carried Luchino, to enter the carriage first, then lowered her head and stepped in. She took her brother from him and cradled him in her lap.
“That was great, Lia,” Luchino said, his voice raspy and weak. “Are we really leaving Genoa? Can we go home now?”
“Si. We are going to a new home,” she whispered, tenderly stroking the stray curls off Luchino’s forehead and kissed his ashen cheek. When she looked down at her open palm, she saw she held tufts of his hair in her hand.
By this time Ren and Captain Flynn were seated and Ren finally got a look at her brother. “Lia, ask him when he last ate.”
As Ren spoke with Captain Cully, Lia asked her brother a few questions. His voice was soft and raspy, and she repeated what he said for the men in the carriage. “He doesn’t remember the last time he ate a real meal. The servants were ordered not to feed him. His bedroom door was locked, and Ottavia brought him a little piece of bread and one glass of water one time a day.”
Ren turned to the other man, “That’s what I thought.” Turning to Lia he said, “Your brother has been starved. Before we take a long journey on a ship, he should rest and eat. He must build up his strength.”
Lia told her brother what the Englishman said, then she added, “You have lost a lot of weight, and are very weak. But everything will be all right now. I have you, and we’re going to turn you into a chubby little sausage-man again!”
Ren talked in hushed whispers to the other captains. Lia only heard snippets of their conversation because she was busy kissing her baby brother. She alternately said prayers of thanks that he still lived, and cursed her aunt to hell.
“We’ll take rooms at an inn for a few days while your brother gets his strength back.” Ren spoke to her now. “A sea voyage is hard enough on a healthy person, but for a weak child it could be life-threatening. We are in no real hurry. The old woman cannot possibly hurt us now.”
“Thank you, Your Grace,” she replied.
“Lia, is he an Englishman?” her brother asked.
“Yes he is,” she replied. “And he’s my friend. He made it possible for me to come get you.”
“Are we going to England now?” His eyes widened in excitement, and a smile formed on his drawn face.
“Once you’re strong enough.”
“Yay,” he said. His subdued excitement was infectious, causing everyone to smile.
Ren directed the driver to take them to the best inn in town, where he proceeded to hire two rooms. He had the inn-keeper send up two trays. One for himself, the other for Lia and her brother.
Once settled with their respective meals, Lia asked Ren what her aunt had said.
“She said you ran off with some men who are involved with the Carbonari. She wasn’t upset to see you leave, she said, because these men were influencing you in the worst ways.”
“I don’t know anyone involved with the revolutionaries.” She took a sip of her water. “What did she say about Maura?”
“That she was prostrate with grief after you’d run away and died in her sleep.”
Upon hearing Maura’s name, Luchino began to speak softly to her, tears forming in his deep-set brown eyes. “One night, Maura brought me some food. Ottavia caught us. She started beating Maura with the fire poker. When I saw what Ottavia was doing I tried to stop her and she hit me, too. It hurt, but I didn’t cry. Maura couldn’t get out of her bed for days and days after that. And I was locked in my room again.” Her brother’s voice faded to just above a whisper. “Then Maura died.”
Lia reached for her brother and hugged him tightly, thankful to have him back.
“I miss her, Lia. I miss Mama and Papa, too.”
Lia began to cry with her brother. Ren stood and walked to the window. He looked down at the red-tiled roofs of the buildings below and out to the harbor. Somewhere out there, in the forest of masts, were his ships. They would take him home soon. And with him would be Lia and her brother.
He felt like a heel and owed her an apology. She’d been telling him the truth all along. He had accused her of parceling out information to manipulate him. The night of their dinner in Morocco, when she first asked him for help, he thought she couldn’t possibly be faking the tears and emotion she’d poured out to him. Those emotions had touched a chord deep in his heart.
But he never thought Margaret had been lying to him, either. If he were honest with himself, he almost expected Lia to be lying to him. After all, he’d courted Lady Margaret Skeffington for seven months. Ren thought he knew her well enough to offer for her, and was within a matter of days from signing the contract with her father, only to discover she’d been having an affair with his cousin for some time. He’d been made a fool of in front of the entire ton, because he’d thought theirs could have been a successful marriage. In fact, he was so certain of it, he’d given up his mistress before leaving Town for the holidays. His grandmother had planned a ball to coincide with the betrothal announcement the week before Christmas.
It seemed Lia, like he, had some treacherous family members as well.
Ren knew immediately upon meeting the aunt what kind of woman she was, and he hated the type. Behind her cold, emotionless eyes, and surface friendliness, hid a calculating manipulator. He knew several just like her in his own country, title-hungry, money-hungry women, scheming to grab the highest ranking bachelor either for themselves, or their vain, insipid daughters. He had fallen into one of their traps. Luckily fate intervened, saving him from a life with an unfaithful wife and a child that wasn’t his.
Lia had thus far proven herself vastly different from the ladies he was accustomed to. When she spoke to him of economics, literature and science, he knew she’d had a very thorough education, far surpassing what young lad
ies were taught. Her intelligence exceeded that of most men he knew, and her beauty that of any woman he’d ever seen. She had the uncharacteristic traits of bravery, honesty, and loyalty, which he’d never known a woman to possess in such a great amount. She was also an eager lover, willing to give and take more than any mistress he’d ever had.
All this made his decision to proceed with marrying her easier. He told himself again, that the arrangement was perfect—suiting both their needs. She had no place to go, and he needed a wife to provide him an heir.
He tossed back the contents in his glass and set it on the table. He had to inform Angus, Cully and Flynn. Preparations must be made.
Ren watched as Lia, involved in an animated conversation with her brother, explained her whereabouts for the past few months. She certainly gave her brother a very modified version of events. He interrupted them. “I’m going across the hall. Do not leave this room.”
“Yes, Your....” She caught herself and smiled. “Yes, Ren.”
CHAPTER NINE
Lia tucked her brother in one of the two small beds in her room, and sat with him until she was sure he slept. Standing, she walked over to the solitary window which faced the port of Genoa, and used the breeze to help dry her freshly washed hair. She wished she’d thought to bring a comb. When she left the ship she didn’t think she would be bathing at an inn later in the day. Nor had she been sure she’d have her brother with her, safe and in fair health.
Luchino would be fine. After throwing up his earlier meal, he now ate with gusto, stuffing himself, leaving all the vegetables and some of the broth from his stew. Well, she reminded herself, some things never change.
Saying another prayer of thanks for his safe return, she turned and looked around the room. She’d ordered Flavio to pack Luchino’s clothing, but in her haste to be out of her aunt’s home, they’d left without them. Luchino had been in bed, wearing only his nightclothes when they carried him away. The devil take her, but she was not going back to that place ever again. Not even for her brother’s clothing. She would have to ask Ren if he could find an outfit for him. Perhaps a lad on the ship could spare a pair of breeches and a shirt. They might be too large, but they could be made serviceable.