“Where are the boys?”
“They’re at your villa looking to see if there is anything to salvage,” the housekeeper answered.
“Then send one of the lads from here to fetch them back. I have something important to say and I want you all to hear it.”
Gina placed a rich, black coffee on the table before him, but she did not meet his eyes.
“News? You’re leaving us?”
“I’m not going to discuss it now, Gina.”
“But I have lost everything! And to lose you, too…” The girl burst into tears and fled from the kitchen. Benjamin watched her go, unconcerned by her tears, and even waved goodbye before looking back up at Elias for another spoonful of porridge.
“I have absolutely no success with women. Did you know that, Serafina? All I do is make them cry and run away from me.”
Serafina stood slowly, not hiding the aches and pains caused by her dramatic escape, nor her frustration. She dismissed his self-pitying joke with a wave of her hand.
“She’s a foolish young girl,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ll send one of the boys to the villa to bring the others back. And don’t you worry about Miss Laura, either. She’ll come back, mark my words. She will return with the Calliope, ready to be your bride.”
“Ah, the second sight, eh?”
Serafina gave him an enigmatic smile in return.
“You keep your secrets and I’ll keep mine, eh?”
Elias raised his coffee mug.
“It’s a deal.”
Soon, Elias was alone in the kitchen with Benjamin. The boy was no longer content just to sit on his knee, so he lowered the babe to the floor and found a pair of battered, old, copper saucepans and a wooden spoon. Benjamin stared at the new objects placed on the floor before him. Elias tapped the spoon on the side of one saucepan, then the other – the different sizes causing different tones. The boy looked fascinated, so Elias did it again and again. Each time, the action was greeted by giggles from Benjamin who now reached out for the spoon. The child flailed wildly with it and quickly found the best way to make the biggest noise.
He laughed and Elias laughed with him.
He loved this boy.
And Selim Omar had demonstrated two nights ago how much he was willing to pay to take him. He’d sent assassins – and a man of his wealth and power could send wave after wave of them. Elias knew it was only by the grace of God that none of his household had been killed.
So what now?
Benjamin’s safety came first of all, then that of the members of his household, followed by that of the village folk.
Kit had once told him that, whenever he planned for battle, he would go to sleep and wake up in a strange dream world where he could stop time and make different choices, take different approaches, and let them play out to see if they ended in victory or death.
People would talk to him in his mind, Kit said – both friend and foe alike. They would tell him things and give him clues.
No wonder Kit had needed the laudanum.
Last night, Elias had tried ignoring his body’s aches and pains to close his eyes and run through every scenario in the same way Kit had described. It didn’t work. All he could visualize was the inevitable bloodshed and death. He was helpless against it.
The ideas he had were dull and ordinary. They could rebuild Arcadia as a fortress; the villagers could form a militia; they could inform the authorities and hope troops would arrive in time – or that he would be taken seriously at all. None of them solved the root of the problem, and it was one that needed solving now. Time did not stop for him.
He fought the terror of overwhelming odds as Saint George warred with the dragon –before falling into a deep, real, and dreamless sleep of exhaustion.
When he awoke before dawn, there was understanding but no happy answers.
The man has a harem for God’s sake – he must have plenty of sons. Why does he care so much about this one?
Elias had asked himself the question more than a month ago, but now he realized his error. He only assumed the man had plenty of sons. What if he didn’t? What if something had happened to the male heir? What if all the other women at his disposal had borne only daughters?
The question had unlocked a door – which opened onto a gasping chasm.
It was not masculine pride or so-called “honor” that forced Selim Omar to this. It was desperation. If he did not produce an heir, his wealth would be given to another who had earned the Sultan’s favor. Cousin or not, blood ties mattered little when power was at stake.
And a desperate man was a dangerous man.
And a dangerous man would do everything in his power to claim Benjamin. He would kill however many people it took, destroy anything and everything that got in his way. So, in the end, Elias found the way forward simple.
To protect his household and the village he’d grown to love, Elias would have to leave with Benjamin and make the boy disappear to keep the child safe and give himself time to end this madness.
By the time the sun emerged, Elias felt a strange sort of peace despite his exhaustion. This was the way it had to be done. It was logical. It involved the least amount of risk to everyone he cared about. There was just one catch…
If he failed, Laura would never be able to find her son.
While Benjamin played on the blanket under a weeping willow tree, Elias took off his boots and examined his feet. Satisfied with the way they were healing, he rewrapped the bandages and put his boots back on.
This was day two of their pilgrimage. Benjamin seemed to like being carried in a sling on his back, as Elias had seen the Tuareg women do, but this afternoon he carried the child in front. He wanted to look at him, take in the boy’s face, and remember him and his mother.
Tomorrow would be the last time he would hold Benjamin, possibly – probably – forever.
Tonight, he would set up camp outside the town of Monreal. An incongruous place, it was nothing more than a little old hunting village, although oranges and almonds by the acre were now cultivated on the southern face of Monte Caputo, the mountain on which it was located. Yet Monreal had one of the most beautiful cathedrals Elias had ever seen and attracted visitors from all around.
He could not think of a better place to take his son for protection. The building was as much a defensive keep as it was a cathedral. It seemed plain on the outside to serve just that purpose. But on the inside, the glass mosaics – dating back to the twelfth century and the reign of the Norman king William the Good – were magnificent.
He prayed he had bought himself enough time. Based on how long it had been since his first encounter with Tito and the arrival of the assassins, Elias figured he had a couple of weeks to set things in motion before Selim Omar learned about the failure of his men and plotted his next move. By that stage, Elias planned to be on the offensive.
As unpleasant as it was, he had examined the corpses of the men who died in the house. The one in the hall was burned beyond recognition; that of the man in the bedroom had fared better – in fact, well enough to retrieve his assassin’s pouch from underneath his body which had protected it from the flames. The pouch, like that of the man who died on the lawn, would prove useful – he just wasn’t sure how yet.
Red sky in the morning, sailor’s warning.
The rosy, pink tint to the sky was beautiful rather than threatening, but old habits died hard. Elias had woken before dawn. He scrubbed his hands through a week’s worth of beard, knowing he looked and smelled like a beggar.
Benjamin slept on his back, his tiny mouth open slightly as he dreamed. Elias had put the boy to bed dressed. He pulled out Laura’s gold locket and worked the hinge until the locket snapped in two. Using one of the nappy pins, he attached the back half containing the portrait of Laura’s mother to the boy’s clothes. A letter he had written and sealed earlier, he tucked into the babe’s clothing.
My name is Benjamin and the beautiful woman is my grandmother, the
very image of my mother. Maman had to go away but one day she will come back for me. Hopefully, soon. This is how you will recognize her when she comes.
My papa has gone to war. He may not return.
Please care for me.
Although Elias was not a Roman Catholic, he had attended enough churches over the years to know the ritual. The first of the masses would be said soon and he wanted to be sure that someone would find Benjamin.
By rote, Elias made the sign of the cross and mouthed the responses, all the while looking down into the trusting blue eyes of the boy he called his son. No, damn it – Benjamin was his son. And he was going to settle the matter for good.
He had positioned himself apart from most of the congregation. He kissed Benjamin and put him down on the pew beside him, then waited until the child’s attention was caught by one of the altar boys carrying the censer along the aisle. Elias stood and the ache in his heart felt like a physical blow. He slipped into the shadows, his eyes still on the child.
Then he turned around and walked out of the cathedral to make the long, lonely walk to Palermo, hating himself and what he had to do when his ears filled with Benjamin’s hiccoughing cries behind him.
Chapter Thirty-Five
August 1817
Laura’s hands shook so she hid them in her skirts.
This was ridiculous! She examined the drawing room from ceiling to floor. She knew this room and the people in it; this was not the rented villa in Palermo where she displayed her paintings and met Rabia for the very first time.
The flattery and attention Selim Omar’s wife had shown her works had been a sham – the woman was not interested in her artwork; Laura herself had been the commodity being evaluated. How little she knew then.
Instead of the thirty paintings she had for that exhibition, Laura could only offer Madame Vigée-Le Brun five. Victoria and Samuel had both gushed over them, calling them works of genius.
Kit, Jonathan and Morwena had little to add other than general admiration. Only Sophia had asked her the most important question.
“Are you pleased with them?” she asked, when Laura finally brought her works down from her studio. Her cousin’s brown eyes bore deep into her soul.
Laura wasn’t sure she liked the answer that lay deep inside her. She dodged the question instead.
“Whether I like them or not is irrelevant; what matters is whether or not Madame Vigée-Le Brun likes them.”
The cousins walked around the room, examining each painting in turn. The first two were the still life of the flowers and a portrait of Victoria – as much a gift to her brother and sister-in-law as it was a work of art. The third was a study of the afternoon ride of the bon ton in Rotten Row. The fourth, a landscape painted in Hampstead Heath.
The final was painting Laura still had reservations about showing.
It depicted a Tunisian market scene, a watercolor filled with all the shades of yellow – lemon, honey, flax, gold, butter, all blended from leftovers of yellow ochre. The painting was an exercise in monochrome technique. The figures of the traders and their merchandise – slaves and animals – all sketched in black and only differentiated against shades of yellow by the occasional splash of lurid vermillion and cobalt blue.
Sophia inclined her head and went out through the doors to the balcony. Then she leaned back in.
“She’s here!”
Laura hurried to the balcony balustrade to catch a glimpse of the renowned French portrait artist.
This woman had painted Marie Antoinette and members of the Russian royal family. She was all drama and scandal. Some claimed she seduced her sitters and shared confidences with the notorious Lady Hamilton – not that Laura could tell a thing about her from one floor up. She watched as the footman aided her from the carriage. Beneath the pert straw sunhat, Laura caught a glimpse of a riot of silvery curls.
Now in her autumn years, Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun had returned to France, content to live a quieter life, but she occasionally left her idyllic country cottage to accept the accolades in England and France for her portraits and landscapes. She was an artist acclaimed with the greats of the ages and her visit was a privilege.
Laura felt like a schoolgirl, excited that a boring lesson was to be enlivened by the arrival of a guest. As soon as Madame Vigée-Le Brun crossed the threshold, she hurried to the top of the stairs where she stopped and gathered her composure, reminding herself she was not a child but a young woman – and, most of all, a fellow artist.
But, like a child, she fretted – Madame had to like her work. She simply had to.
“Of course, she will love your work,” Sophia whispered. “Find your courage. You’ve come so far to meet her.”
Victoria presided over tea in the drawing room, and Laura was relieved to discover Madame was a charming woman. Although not as petite as Emma Hamilton, there was still something in her of a little porcelain doll brought to life, with hazel eyes that enchanted and rosebud lips over even, white teeth. Some artists painted self-portraits as a matter of conceit, but Madame Vigée-Le Brun did so because she was an ideal subject. A beauty, particularly in her youth.
“You will forgive me for staring, Madame, I have seen the portrait of you as a young woman and I…”
Their guest took Laura’s attention with equanimity. “An artist never apologizes for what she sees. She stares, she thinks, she does more than just put paint on canvas. Art is the eyes of humanity. It is how we see the world. Without artists, civilization is deaf, dumb and blind.”
The French woman accepted another cup of Earl Grey tea and turned her own attention to Laura.
“You are an artist, are you not?”
“That is what I hope you will tell me.”
The answer didn’t seem to impress the older woman. Her nose wrinkled, accenting the lines on a face lightly covered by powder.
“If you do not know, then you cannot suppose I will provide the answer for you.”
“But, that’s why we invited you, Madame,” Victoria protested.
“Non,” she replied, turning to her hostess. “You invited me here to evaluate the merits of this young lady’s work, to see her technique, to see if she has captured the transcendent,” She returned her gaze to Laura. “Only this one can tell us whether she is an artist or not.”
Laura let her tea go cold. This was awful, perfectly awful.
It was a mistake for Samuel to have arranged this interview. It was a mistake for her to have come back to England. She trailed behind Victoria, Madame Vigée-Le Brun and Sophia, nursing the same kind of dread and disgust with herself whenever she had had to dance or play an instrument for one of Selim Omar’s guests.
“If you will permit me, Madame Cappleman, I wish to view the paintings with Miss Laura. Alone, s’il vous plait.”
Victoria blinked rapidly and looked to her for confirmation. Laura had no idea what her expression conveyed. Panic, most likely. In the end, it was Sophia who assured her it was satisfactory.
Her works stood on easels, like soldiers at attention, facing into the soft light filtered in through the light muslin curtains.
Madame Vigée-Le Brun stood in front of the still life. She pulled a small pince-nez from her reticule to take a close look. After a minute or two, the great French artist left that painting without comment and examined the portrait of Victoria.
Pull yourself together, Laura! If she were to enter the Royal Academy’s exhibition, her works would be judged worthy or wanting in a heartbeat. If she were to exhibit at all, many people would be staring at her work. Yet this, somehow, seemed different.
After a length of time, the French woman looked up from the portrait and spoke. “I understand from your sister-in-law that you have returned to England only recently.”
“Yes. I spent time abroad.”
“Did you do anything? Did you see anything?”
Laura’s mouth dried. “I, ah, I mean, I spent time in Sicily and…”
The artist removed the glasse
s. “And you experienced nothing?”
“I beg your pardon?”
The older woman let out a long, put-upon sigh. “All I see is practiced technique, adequate color choice, and a schoolgirl’s sensibilities.”
Laura couldn’t help the gasp that escaped her mouth.
“I’m sure you are a delight to your friends and family, who no doubt praise you endlessly, but I am not here to coddle or to give you false flattery. I do not see the soul of an artist in these paintings.”
Laura fought a trembling of shame, and fear, and disappointment. It was a small miracle she was able to reply, “Then I am sorry to have wasted your time, Madame.”
The woman shrugged. “I said I would look at your works and I will.”
The third painting, she studied for a few seconds; the fourth, the landscape, received nothing more than a cursory glance. “I spent three years in Rome, I was inducted into the Accademia di San Luca,” she continued conversationally, either unaware or unconcerned Laura’s hope had turned to dust.
“How very nice for you,” replied Laura, bitterness dripping from each word.
“What I am trying to say to you, ma fille, is your work seems utterly unmarked by your time abroad. That, I fear, makes you a dabbler, someone who pretends to be an artist. If you can live on La Méditerranée and not be influenced by such histoire, people, and surroundings, then I’m afraid you will be nothing more than a very little talent.”
Laura looked down. Her knuckles were white, but her face, she was sure, was puce. Her disappointment of a few moments ago was now a rage. How dare that woman say she was unmarked!
“How dare you?” she repeated out loud, unaware Madame Vigée-Le Brun had approached her final painting.
“You have no idea what happened to me there. No idea! I have been scarred to the depths of my soul. I was seized and imprisoned for nearly two years in an Ottoman harem. I was violated repeatedly by a man who had the power of life and death over me. The only good thing I have left is painting. Can you blame me for not wanting it tainted?”
When she looked up, Madame Vigée-Le Brun was not looking at her; she peered instead at the last painting, the Tunisian market scene. “La! That is it – c’est de cela que je parlais!”
Revenge of the Corsairs Page 28