They drew rein beside the craft, sending sand scattering in every direction. Rud leaped from his horse and ducked under its head. Julia slid into his waiting arms. He held her close as his chest swelled, his eyes searching the shining oval of her face, finding there a bright glory more wondrous than the light of the moon over his shoulder.
“Julia,” he said, his voice low and vibrant. “You came!”
“Did you think I would not?”
“With you, I could not know. And now, speak quickly, for the time for riddles and evasion is past and the time for explaining is not yet. I love you beyond the thinking of sane men or the dreaming of women. My need of you burns within me like a flame. But that is not enough. I must know before we go farther — do you love me, Julia?”
It was the remembrance of his declaration of love before Ali Dey, which allowed her to answer with the truth. “I love you, Rudyard Thorpe.”
“Will you leave this godforsaken land and live with me in my country, braving time, the curious, and the woman who passes as my mother, remaining in my heart without parting for our lifetimes?”
“I ask nothing more.”
“And I nothing less. For so long, I have waited to take you away, passing opportunities without number of going alone. Now, the time has come, and I find I cannot bear to take you from here only to lose you again. Better to return to Algiers and brave the wrath of Ali Dey for the chance to keep you as my slave than to be forced to let you go when we reach England.”
“This sword cuts both ways,” Julia answered. “I, too, could have gone alone, as was arranged for me by Mehemet Dey before his death. I would not, because it meant leaving you behind. Today, I thought you were gone, and I meant to follow you, even to the edge of the world if need be. If I am to be the prisoner of your heart, then know you will also be mine!”
The tightness in his face did not ease. “How can I let myself believe, when tonight even Basim was more certain than I that you would come? With O’Toole, the only member of my crew I could trust — all the rest are Muslims — I agreed to wait here. I grew impatient and, I will admit, anxious. I decided to ride into the city and await your passing that I might serve as a rear guard. Seeing me behind you, you tried to run away. As always, you advance toward me, then retreat. Tell me why?”
“Because I love you. What other reason can there be? Feeling safe in your affection, I advance; doubting it, I retreat. As to just now,” she went on, her golden eyes dark with the memory of fear, “I did not know you had sent Basim. I thought you were Ali Dey, riding to take me back.”
“Julia, beloved,” he breathed in apology and gladness, drawing her once more into the haven of his arms. The moon was blotted out by the promise in his eyes and the sweet and fearsome enchantment of his kiss.
O’Toole and Basim had come up now and dismounted. Averting their eyes from the man and woman standing in the sand, they dragged the longboat into the edge of the tideless sea. It was Basim, when all stood ready, who moved to tug at Rud’s elbow.
“My Lord Reuben, would you be taken by the men of the dey in the throes of life’s greatest joy? The boat awaits, and all else that is before you and the Lady Jullanar, Keeper of the Honey.”
Rud turned, casting a rueful glance at Julia for their moment of forgetfulness. “And you, Basim? What is before you?” he inquired. “Will you come with us and share our future?”
“My heart goes with you and your lady, effendi, but my poor self must remain where all is known and familiar, and where my ears may be ready to hear, and my body to answer, the call of the faithful to prayer.”
“If you are certain, O great one, then accept from me, if you will, the gift of the Arabian stallion to carry you like the winged horse of fame to where safety lies for you. I ask that you take the mare also, and care for them both, for there is no time to put them aboard my ship once again. The other mounts you may dispose of as you will.”
“You are all that is generous, effendi,” the dwarf said, his eyes bright as he bowed low. “I will take them with the greatest joy in their possession. Touching on another matter, however, you must tell me what I am to do now with the wealth entrusted to me by Mehemet Dey for the care of his cherished slave, Jullanar.”
From somewhere about his clothing, the dwarf drew forth a pouch and, opening it, poured a glittering stream of loose jewels, the transportable wealth of the east, into his cupped hand. They filled it to heaping with flashing points of fire.
Rud looked to Julia, by his silence passing the decision to her for whom the gift was meant.
Julia looked from her husband to the dwarf, and then out across the sparkling sea. At last, she said, “Give me a few stones, no more than a fourth of the number, that I may have them placed in an ornament which will remind me of the boon of freedom, and serve to keep me from complete dependence upon any man again, even the one I love. For the rest, take them, that you also, Basim, may never call another man master.”
Basim fell to his knees. Taking the hem of her cloak, he raised it to his lips. “Fair mistress,” he said, “There are no words to express my gratitude. I can only promise to honor you all my days and direct the baraka of my body, if such I truly possess, to assure you a life abundant in happiness!”
The exchange of the jewels was made in accordance with Julia’s instructions. Taking the handful the dwarf passed to her, Julia wrapped them in a twist of cloth and tucked them into her bodice, settling them between her breasts.
Mounting the back of the stallion, Basim gathered up the reins of the other horses. He lifted his hand in a last salute, then sent the Arabian plunging away along the shore in the opposite direction from Algiers.
Rud and Julia swung to O’Toole, who stood grinning, holding the longboat precariously to the shore with the grip of one hand. He ducked his head at the first opportunity offered him to greet Julia, and she gave him a brilliant smile in return.
“Shall we go?” Rud inquired, as though there was all of time before them.
“It might be wise,” Julia agreed.
“Praise be,” O’Toole said fervently.
Rud handed Julia into the boat, and she moved to a seat in the prow. O’Toole pushed off as Rud stepped in and then scrambled aboard. The two men settled themselves to the oars, sending the boat toward the moon silvered shape of the ship.
Julia smiled, looking back at her husband. Casually, she stretched to tug the turban from his head and drop it over the side of the boat. The Jewel holding its folds shone with a dark-blue gleam before the water-soaked muffin sank out of sight. The night wind off the sea ruffled the crisp black waves of Rud’s hair, making him look more himself, more the man she married.
“You owe me a sapphire,” he said, his mouth curving in a grin.
“You may collect it — later,” she answered, her eyes bright with promise. Turning in her seat, she set her face homeward.
1
The hired carriage clattered over the rutted streets of the Vieux Carré, enveloped in the misty night air. A girl sat inside the carriage next to the window, her face illuminated by the glow of the side lamps. Her visage formed a memorable profile with an imperious loveliness on the high cheekbones and well-defined brows. There was a willful tilt to the pointed chin and only the smallest hint of vulnerability about the finely shaped mouth.
A well-dressed, rakish man sat next to her. “Well, Catherine?” he asked, his voice full of lazy confidence.
“Well, what Marcus Fitzgerald?” the girl cried, swinging around, her amber-brown eyes full of contempt “What gave you the idea that I would agree to such a suggestion?”
Marcus touched one of the studs in his pleated shirtfront in an uneasy gesture. “You needn’t sound so outraged.”
“Outraged?!” Catherine Mayfield hissed. “If I were a man I would call you out.”
A warm, indignant voice came from a darkened corner of the carriage. “Mais oui, just so. I have never liked this one, this Fitzgerald. I have warned you, and your maman too. He
deserves to have his manners mended on the dueling ground!”
Catherine sent her chaperone, and nursemaid since childhood, a quelling glance. The middle-aged Negro woman shut her mouth with a snap in a kind of arrogant servility, drawing her ample bulk further into the corner. She had been Catherine’s nurse, but she had been the friend and confidant of her mother, Yvonne Mayfield, née Villère, since birth when she was given as a child of three to the newborn as a gift. She had never accepted reprimands from her younger charge with good grace, never given her anything like the allegiance and adoration she gave Catherine’s mother.
There was nothing unusual in the presence of the nurse. She was an acceptable duenna. Many women brought their female attendants with them to the balls to tuck up a curl or mend a flounce. It was customary for refreshments to be provided for the maids, coachmen, and valets, making it a social occasion with much dancing and flirtation in the servants’ quarters also.
Marcus chose to take her censure of her chaperone as a favorable sign. He reached out to place his hand over Catherine’s where it lay on the worn leather seat. “Come,” he said coaxingly. “Would it be so different from the games you played at the convent or the swimming you did with your two male cousins?”
Catherine jerked her hand away. “Childish pranks, no more than that. That was the summer my father died. I was twelve and a little wild with the pain of loss. My mother was absorbed with her suffering, which is why I was allowed so much freedom. My cousins, those terrible twins, were brats only a little older than myself. They thought it a great lark to half drown me in the river — but I learned to swim instead.” And, she added to herself, to run and swing on the grapevines that grew on the plantation where her mother had gone to hide away in her grief.
“I seem to remember,” he went on reflectively, “that you danced barefoot at your first ball—”
“My slippers pinched.”
“And then there was the red slippers and ribbons, the coulour de diable, which you wore to Holy Communion a year or so ago. That caused quite a few hands to be upraised in horror.”
Catherine lifted a white shoulder in a shrug, though a frown drew her brows together. “I was bored.” She had been kept in her room for a month over the incident. It had improved neither her conduct nor the relationship between her and her mother.
“All very understandable,” Marcus agreed soothingly. “But what explanation have you for enticing your friend Sophia Marie’s fiancé out into the courtyard at the soiree announcing their betrothal? He looked bemused and somewhat silly when he returned to the salon with your fan in his waistcoat pocket.”
The girl beside him was silent for so long it seemed she did not intend to answer. At last she said, “It was a stupid wager, one I was extremely sorry I won. It cost me a dear friend.”
“Ha!” Marcus pounced on the admission. “A wager! A stupid wager, but one you won. Surely, then, you can understand my feelings?”
“You are asking me to jeopardize everything, name, social standing, and future prospects, while you risk nothing. Why should I do it? What could be more ruinous to a girl’s good character than to be seen at a quadroon ball? It would brand her as lost to all honor, besides starting terrible rumors of a touch of café au lait in the family. I had as well enter a nunnery, if one would have me, or kill myself, if discovered.”
“You exaggerate, but there would be no danger. It’s a masquerade ball. And you need stay no more than a moment I have only to be seen with a white woman on my arm. No one will ever learn her identity. I have here beside me the half-mask for your face, a turban affair for your hair, and this shawl to cover your gown. Only a moment of your time and it is done. What could be the danger?”
Barely glancing at the brilliant garments he indicated, Catherine said, “You must have felt certain I would agree.”
He gave her his most attractive smile as he shook his head. “I only hoped.”
Catherine felt her lips curving in an unwilling response. Marcus could be attractive when he wanted. He was a well set man of medium height with a distinguished set to his shoulders. He had crisp chestnut hair, audacious hazel eyes, and a countenance saved from being too handsome only by a short Irish nose. He had been one of Catherine’s admirers and most persistent suitors since her first appearance in society two years before at the Conde Street ballroom. He had proposed marriage a number of times, but Catherine had just as often refused. Eventually, she would accept him or someone like him. But her mother, whose duty it was to find a suitable husband, was in no hurry to see her wed and producing the children who would make her a grandmother. As a result Catherine had much more freedom in the choosing than many considered either becoming or good for her. Catherine, intent on pleasure, was in no hurry to exchange her present way of life for the dubious advantages of an alliance ring.
Though his surname was Fitzgerald, Marcus came from an old Louisiana family. His grandfather had been an Irish adventurer who came to the country with little more than his sword and his name. But he put both to good use and was rewarded with a grant of land by the Spanish Crown. Following his marriage to a lovely French-Creole woman, he had built on his land a beautiful home of Spanish design which he called Alhambra. His son, Marcus’s father, had been more of a gentleman of leisure than an adventurer or empire builder. Marcus’s father made big inroads into the estate before his death in a riding accident. Marcus completed the ruin, finally losing the house and unencumbered acreage on the gaming table.
But despite the financial disaster Marcus retained his personal charms. Personable, a good conversationalist and polished dancer, related on his mother’s side to most of the best Creole families, he was a favorite with the hostesses of the city. Family background was more important than money. There was many a Creole father who would have been happy to make a place for such a one at his table for the sake of the alliance — and many a daughter who would have been delighted to accept a meagerly filled bridal basket if it was given by such a parti. If Catherine suspected that Marcus himself would not be content in any such arrangement, she had nothing positive to base her suspicions upon. He had expensive tastes, he dressed well and kept lodgings in a fashionable street; and, though he did not keep his own carriage, he was creditably mounted when he rode out for an evening along the levee. All this was managed without an obvious income, so far as Catherine could see, though Marcus often spoke with irony of his phenomenal luck at the gaming halls and cockpits since the loss of his ancestral home.
But perhaps fortune was frowning on him once again. He was being extraordinarily insistent tonight. The wager he spoke of must be a large one, with greater than average importance to his purse. In that case the events of this evening must have seemed arranged by le bon Dieu. First, Catherine’s mother, complaining of a headache, had decided at the last moment to stay home with cologne on her brow, allowing him to escort Catherine and her duenna alone to the theatre and the small subscription ball given afterward for the relief of the orphans of Santo Domingo. Then, there had been her convenient accident. Catherine, with unaccustomed clumsiness, had spilled wine punch down the front of her gown of celestial blue muslin before places were called for the first quadrille. But had it been just a clumsy accident? In the press of the crowd hadn’t she felt a slight nudge at her shoulder as she lifted the glass to her lips? The impression, lost in the dismay of the moment, came back with undeniable strength as Catherine surveyed the man beside her through narrowed eyes.
Marcus chose that moment to give a warm chuckle. “Let’s not quarrel about it,” he said. “If you feel you can’t, then you can’t. Don’t let it trouble you any longer. It’s just that I have an ingrained dislike for defaulting on a wager. A matter of pride. Do you understand?”
The devil of it was, Catherine did understand. That same distaste for being bested ran in her veins also. She at once felt more in charity with him, and genuinely regretful that she could not oblige him. A smile forced its way to her lips before she turned back to t
he window.
Though only March, the night air was warm. As they crossed one of the more noisy, brightly lighted streets, the smells of cooking seafood, brewing coffee, and orange blossoms from the levee came through the open window, mixed with the inevitable smell of offal from the open gutters that lined the street. A pair of seamen, identifiable by their close fitting caps, tarred pigtails, and the sunburned darkness of their skin, stumbled drunkenly down the street singing a lewd ditty at the top of their lungs. Inside of one of the dimly lit barrooms a fight was in progress marked by the sounds of crashing glass and the thud of falling bodies. The “Kaintocks,” the Mississippi River boatmen, were at it again. They seemed to thrive on violence and pain, preferring an uproar to peace at any time. Then through the open doorway she saw a woman leaning against the wall with her hands behind her. Her head was thrown back in laughter, exposing her bare throat and the white skin of her breasts above a low-cut gown.
With a light gesture of her hand, she drew Marcus’s attention to the woman. “Perhaps a woman like her,” she suggested helpfully.
Marcus shook his head. “A demi-mondaine? No, she must be a lady.”
“With the proper training—” Catherine said, ignoring Dédé’s scandalized gasp and compelling gaze.
“The masquerade ball of the quadroons is tonight — didn’t you notice the scarcity of gentlemen at our charity dance? It was stupid of the orphans committee to choose this Thursday. There will not be another quadroon ball for two weeks, and even then there is no guarantee that it will be a fancy dress affair. It is this evening, or not at all.” He paused, then went on. “But never mind that. Would you ladies care for a rice cake, since you missed the supper table?”
Love and Adventure Collection - Part 1 (Love and Adventure Boxed Sets) Page 46