Revenge of the Corsairs

by Elizabeth Ellen Carter

  “That is exactly what I’m preparing for.”

  Kit stood with a heavy sigh. He placed a hand on Elias’ shoulder to help support his injured right leg in gaining his feet, as much as it was to offer comfort to his friend.

  “You spent two years of your life toiling to bring the woman you love back home,” he said. “Ask yourself why you want to give up so easily now.”

  Elias closed his eyes and listened as Kit made his way downstairs, the sound of the slight dragging of his leg obvious as he descended.

  Aye. That was the question. Why would a man who had run headlong into battle, scaled perilous heights, and conquered savage seas be afraid of one simple answer?

  Elias chuffed, shaking his head. He knew the reason why. If Laura told him no, that would be the end of it. He would give her wish to her. He would bow out and she would not suffer his presence again.

  And it would be like amputating a healthy limb. One might survive the surgery and live, one might eventually become accustomed to the pain and loss. But one thing was for certain. He would never be whole again.

  *

  Something pulled Laura from a deep sleep. She lay on her side and ran a hand across her belly, listening. She recognized Kit’s uneven gait down the hall as he crossed the threshold into the bedroom he shared with Sophia.

  The mannered politeness with which he had treated her had somehow changed over the past two months to a form of fraternal affection. Any misgivings she had about his marriage to Sophia had disappeared completely. Their love was real and full, evidenced in so many ways – the small acts of attention and regard, the affection that radiated between them even when they weren’t touching.

  The sound of another set of footsteps brought her from her musing. These were outside. The sound of fine shell grit and gravel under someone’s feet moved past her window in the direction of the wooden gate that separated the two villa gardens. Alfonso and Lyda had gone to bed hours ago, so it had to be Elias. She had expected he would wish to speak to her alone after dinner but he had not. And once the evening conversation had turned to a rather dull discussion about olive and grape harvests, she’d excused herself and gone to bed.

  Now fully awake, she rose. She slipped on a wrapper and opened one of the shutters. It squeaked on its hinges.

  The moon hung low in the western sky. Silhouetted against it was Elias. He’d heard the shutter open, and paused with his hand on the gate. He turned and smiled.

  “‘What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun’,” he whispered.

  “It’s hours too early for the sun,” she whispered back. “Why are you still up? Have you not gone to bed yet?”

  He shrugged and walked softly the several yards to her window, standing a few feet away. “Kit’s insomnia is contagious,” he offered.

  “Oh? And what weighty matter keeps the Calliope’s first officer awake all night?”

  It was good they spoke now, Laura thought. The darkness of night invited confidences that bright daylight would not elicit.

  “You,” he replied.

  Chapter Fourteen

  You.

  Her heart sped up a little. Yes, it’s good to get things out in the open. If experience had taught her anything over the past two years, anticipation was worse than the deed. Sophia was right. The oppressive mantle of the unknown weighed more heavily than having a thing out in the open.

  Laura searched deep within herself. She found the door that hid the self-assured debutante and it was she who asked the question in her stead.

  “Me? I’m deeply honored to know I consume such a large part of your thoughts, Mr. Nash,” she said, her low voice rich with flirtatious inflection.

  “Stop with the act, Laura. I’m not one those callow youths you toyed with back in England.”

  It was a good thing the night air was cool; it provided an antidote for her now-burning cheeks.

  “That would be so much easier if you didn’t act like a lovesick fool!”

  She waited for the protest to her angry response. Deeply, to her shame, she wanted him to come close, and seize her by the arms and kiss her. Instead, he turned his back.

  “A fool, indeed,” he answered softly as he walked again to the gate.

  “Elias, please… don’t go.”

  She saw him hesitate a moment. “I’ll be back in the morning,” he said, opening the gate and passing through without a second glance.

  “Have you ever felt like you’re at sea but you’re standing on dry land?” Laura asked.

  Sophia rose to her feet with a clutch of hen’s eggs in her apron. Laura picked them out one by one and put them in the wicker basket at the crook of her elbow.

  “Are you feeling dizzy? Do you need to sit down?”

  Laura shook her head in answer to each of the questions. “As soon as I think I know what Elias is thinking, he goes and does the opposite.”

  She followed her cousin out of the chicken run and toward the fenced pen where the nanny goats waited impatiently to be milked. Setting the basket of eggs aside on an upturned crate, she picked up a nearby pail and lowered herself onto a stool. A goat trotted over and offered herself. Laura began milking the animal. Over the past two months, she’d become such a dab hand at it that she could continue a conversation while she worked.

  “If he cares for me so much, why doesn’t he say so? I barely know my own mind at the moment; how am I supposed to fathom his?”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to ask him?”

  “That simply isn’t done.”

  Sophia’s laugh was warm and melodic.

  “Under the circumstances, I think the rules of etiquette can be safely suspended.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. How are things supposed to go back to the way they were before? How am I supposed to navigate the right and proper thing to do? Everything is changing!” Laura pulled back the bucket and slapped the goat on the rump. The creature gamboled away to join the others.

  Another goat came to take its place. Laura found the udders unerringly and body-warmed milk streamed into the pail.

  “Has Elias spoken to you? Or to Kit?”

  Sophia shook her head. The two women continued their work in silence until the last of the goats were released to forage at their leisure.

  Laura stood and rubbed her lower back while she took in the view out to sea. Twin shafts of golden morning light speared through heavy, wet clouds, to highlight spots on the water, turning them from dark grey to a deep green with teasing spots of glistening gold on the waves.

  She should paint that.

  A measure of nagging guilt tugged at Laura’s feet as she carried the eggs and one of the pails of milk back to the house. She hadn’t picked up so much as a sketchbook in months.

  The babe shifted, unsettling her a moment. She paused and rubbed what she imagined to be the top of its head. She would be a mother in two months, perhaps less. There was much to consider and prepare for. Maybe it was time to put away childish things.

  The kitchen in Kit’s villa teemed with women. Since it was the largest kitchen on the island, it was also where they all gathered to make another specialty – goat’s milk cheese. Lyda took her pail, pouring the milk into the cauldron while the other women repaired muslin bags and assembled the timber molds. Laura watched the process with interest, although she kept out of their way.

  “It surprised me the first time I saw it,” Sophia admitted. “I’m ashamed not to have given much thought to where food comes from until I had to make it myself.”

  She hooked her arm through Laura’s and led her outside. “We’ll only be in the way in there. It will take at least a day for the milk to be turned into cheese. We’re fortunate the weather is still fine – we’ll be cooking outdoors again tonight.”

  They strolled down the path, doing what Sophia called her “rounds” – making sure nothing was amiss. The pungent aroma of tuna from the previous night’s catch reached her and Laura stopped and swallo
wed against sourness from her stomach. She lowered herself to sit atop a low, stone wall.

  “I think I’ll wait for you here, if you don’t mind.”

  Sophia offered a sympathetic glance before continuing on.

  Laura turned to look at the slope that rose behind her. The men who were not gutting and salting fish were up on the terraced rows, cutting down branches laden with full, round, purple grapes. Catallus seemed to move in a well-ordered dance, dictated by the time of day and the seasons.

  The Season…

  The London Season would begin again soon. Aristocratic and well-to-do families brought together by Parliamentary sittings, as well as the balls and parties in the lead up to Christmas and the New Year. Memories of dances and flirtations returned. She closed her eyes and, if she concentrated hard, she could remember the last time she attended a dance at Almack’s. She hummed fragments of the tune.

  “May I intrude?”

  Laura opened her eyes, and the glittering chandeliers, the gleaming brass instruments in the bandstand, and the colorful ball gowns disappeared, replaced by the vision of a suntanned face and tawny brown eyes.

  “Your presence is never an intrusion.”

  She watched his eyes widen slightly at her welcome. If she looked hard enough, Laura suspected she might even see him thinking.

  “I’m leaving soon on a trading run among the islands, then going back to Palermo,” he said, sitting beside her.

  “When would you be returning?”

  “I’ll be back briefly in early December, then not again until the end of January.”

  She felt a small ache at the news.

  “Your time will be soon,” he stated plainly.

  “I believe the babe will be born in January,” she said.

  He nodded at her answer, his face half-turned away from her. “I wish to offer a proposal and see if it will be acceptable to you.”

  He paused, waiting for her assent. She gave it with a nod of her head.

  “I am a man of some means – not wealthy by London standards – but, still, I have a very comfortable living, and my home at Villagrazia is larger than Kit’s villa here. As you near your confinement, it might be wise to consider being close to a midwife. For this, my home is at your disposal. I can call on experienced women from the village nearby and doctors in Palermo, should there be the need. Relocating there would give you more immediate news from England, too, if you care for it. I can even arrange Sophia to stay with us if you wish.”

  He paused, then opened his mouth as though to say something further – but he did not.

  Laura wasn’t sure how she felt. She had expected an ardent declaration of love, even a proposal of marriage. She watched his eyes closely. They told her the truth: he was withholding something from her.

  Do you love me, Elias Nash?

  “Your suggestion is a sensible one,” she answered. “I accept.”

  She saw his broad shoulders ease at her answer. He rose to his feet, ready to leave, as though, having won that battle, he would withdraw with the smallest of victories.

  “But that’s not the only thing you want to ask, is it?”

  War broke out again across his face, battle lines drawn in the slight creases of his forehead and corners of eyes. Laura wondered who he fought behind those eyes of his.

  “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to say,” he confessed. “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask. I’ve not done a good job of hiding my feelings for you, have I?”

  She blinked and did not answer. He drew a deep breath.

  “I want…” He let out his breath and started again.

  “After the child is born, it will need a father. I want to raise your child as though he were my own. I want to share my name, my home, my protection, and my wealth with you both.”

  Laura swallowed against the abrupt tightness in her throat.

  “And what of your love?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

  *

  And what of your love?

  What about it? She knew very well what he felt for her. What about her love? She did nothing but tug him back and forth. He was never certain of what her answer would be. If he was to declare openly how he felt, he may as well hand her a knife and pull his coat open for her to plunge the blade through his heart with her reply. Yet if he denied his love now, it would be a betrayal of himself.

  “You’re asking too much of me,” he said.

  “Am I?”

  “Yes – until I know my feelings are returned,” he answered.

  Laura turned away.

  “I don’t know if I even want to keep the child. I don’t know if I want to live in Sicily for the rest of my life. I don’t know!”

  One time, during a raid, Elias had been blindsided by a corsair, the blow from a solid timber fid sending searing agony through his head and a second blow across his chest expelled all the air from his lungs. He was blinded and winded. As he sank to the deck, Elias had opened up his eyes to see his bearded assailant turn the club-shaped tool in his hand, until he held its sharpened end over him like an awl, ready to plunge it through his heart.

  Laura’s words brought back that moment and that pain.

  “Then that’s the end of the matter.” Elias turned on his heel.

  “Wait!” Hurt and confusion, was written across Laura’s face, mirroring his own. Elias watched her pull together a large breath. Tears danced along the inside of her lids.

  “You do me the greatest honor, and if I thought my gratitude alone was enough to make you content, then I would answer yes without hesitation.” Molten silver now trailed down her cheeks. “But it wouldn’t be enough, not for you, when you deserve so much more. How can I give you another answer when I don’t know my own mind – let alone my heart?”

  Elias wanted desperately to take comfort in those words – to take it on faith alone that she could grow to love him – but he dared not.

  “Then what can I give that you will accept?” Elias heard the resignation in his voice and hated it.

  Laura dried her eyes on her sleeve, making him feel lower still that he could not even offer her a square of linen.

  “A safe place to have my child,” she whispered. “That’s all I ask.”

  “Then you shall have it.”

  She took a hesitant step forward and Elias closed the gap, enfolding her in his arms. He felt the press of the child between them, firm and rounded, the feather-light touch of her arms across his back. Her golden-brown hair was warm from the sun and silky in his fingers.

  Part of his mind tried to convince him that he could be content with this, a temptation to settle for something less than he knew they could be together. But what could he possibly do to convince her otherwise?

  Time. It would take time.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “It’s time, my lady.”

  Toufik’s voice roused Rabia from a deep and dreamless sleep. She rose and undressed when she heard her little brown mouse of a maid on the other side of the carpet wall pour water into a basin.

  “How soon will they be here?” she asked the eunuch who, naturally, remained on the other side of the carpet.

  “Three to four hours, my lady. Their caravan was spotted by Jabal al-Akhdar tribesmen at first light this morning.”

  Brown Mouse slipped through the curtain with a towel over her arm. Between both hands she held a bowl of lightly steaming water scented with fresh, tangy limon kolonya. Her head was bowed in deference.

  “Are the men ready? They know their orders?”

  Rabia washed and dressed in the loose fitting red and gold trimmed gown of her Berber hosts. Brown Mouse then oiled and braided her hair in two long plaits while she listened to Toufik’s answer.

  “They do, my lady. They are to identify where the boy is and watch him. The tribesmen will lead the raiding party and attack from the east so the caravan is blinded by the morning sun. They have been told to spare no one and to take the entire spoils as their own with the exception of th
e boy and his possessions.”

  Rabia settled a matching veil over her reddish-brown hair and nodded for Brown Mouse to draw the curtain.

  “Does Orhan travel with them?”

  “He does.”

  Rabia allowed a smile to spread across her face. She hated Orhan with a passion.

  Where Selim Omar knew his power and used it to beguile and seduce, his younger brother was a brute and savage. He rutted like an animal. Worse still, he liked to bite like one. Rabia had spent only one night in his bed and vowed never again. Whenever Orhan visited his older brother, she would always give him two of the less promising odalisques.

  If not for her son, she would have gladly left the lesser wives to their fate with the man. It would be no less than they deserved.

  “They know Orhan is to die slowly and in great pain?”

  “They do, indeed, my lady.” Toufik bowed and she was sure she did not mistake the brief smile on his face. Yes, Toufik knew her reasons well enough.

  Outside, the Jabal al-Akhdar encampment came to life. She slipped a number of gold bangles over her wrists and ordered Brown Mouse to bring a meal. She slapped the girl across the back of her head as she left, just to hear her squeak once again.

  “And our return to Constantinople?”

  “We depart from Sozousa. It will take a week for the ship to make ready for us.”

  She felt butterflies of anticipation rise in her stomach, the likes of which she had not experienced in many years – in fact, not since the birth of her son.

  “Then this is it, is it not?” she asked. “Nearly three months in the planning come down to a few hours of work.”

  “‘Planning is half of living’, my lady.”

  There was little to argue in that observation. But she recalled a wise proverb of her own, “get together like a brother, keep watch on one another like a stranger”. Toufik must never forget his place and she must remember hers. No matter what, any external display of vulnerability and weakness could mean the end to everything she had earned, so she made sure her voice was strong when she spoke.

  “Then let us be sure we have planned enough.”