Neither Uncle Jonas nor Laura noticed when she hung back to look at the Calliope and where its proud captain stood. That’s how she would remember the dashing Kit Hardacre – slightly arrogant, masterful, with an air of glorious recklessness that was breathtaking.
She turned away from the ship with a wistful smile and hurried to catch up with the rest of her party. Yes, Kit Hardacre was a man she would not soon forget – but Samuel would be here shortly. Without the pressure of avoiding the matrimonial snare of marriage-minded misses back in England, he might remember how much he relied on her and how splendid their life would be if he would only asked her to be his bride.
*
Kit watched his passengers leave the dock to walk the few hundred yards to where he knew they were staying – the Hotel de France, once a privately owned palazzo, now a hotel popular with foreigners because of its proximity to the embassies on via Butera.
Palermo teemed with people – particularly foreign visitors, especially now that the ancient city was the second capital of the Kingdom of Two Naples. Sicily was sponsored by Britain over the French-supporting faction in Naples itself. Kit smiled to himself – that brought all sorts of interesting characters to trade… and to spy.
“Il capitano, ahoy!”
Kit greeted the comandante del porto and acknowledged him with a wave, before calling to the bridge for the ship’s manifest and bill of lading.
He turned away and returned to his duties. He would miss his Miss Bluestocking. In the past week, he’d watched something blossom within her. She seemed to come alive on the journey, a flower that needed sunshine to fully open. He enjoyed teasing her and listening to her talk about antiquities. And, he admired her strength and steadiness during the storm when they were under attack.
Elias had been right to warn him. He could safely sail the shoals around the islands of Malta and Crete like one born to it, but he completely foundered when it came to navigating the subtleties of relationships with the opposite sex. His heart had been unmoored, adrift all his life, and, for a few short days, it found a safe harbor in Miss Sophia Green.
He didn’t expect her to take his offer of friendship seriously. He wasn’t sure whether such a thing was possible between men and women. He rarely mixed in the company of women but not for a lack of interest. There had been only one sort of dealing – two, if you counted the tough negotiating of merchant women who bought his cargo.
Kit thought he had been in love once – when he was thirteen, and the wife of the innkeeper who owned him invited him into her bed. Her body was soft and voluptuous, unlike the men who used him. She hugged him and whispered instructions on how to please her while she lay supine.
They never spoke of love, not even in the throes of passion, but she was kind. Always a little extra food for him, and she nearly always found an errand for him to do when the roughest customers came to call.
Their affair lasted a year until a younger boy was brought to the tavern. Kit knew he had lost favor when her eyes would follow the lad and he would be called upon to provide a service to the mistress instead. Kit was also filling out, soon to be as strong as the men who forced themselves on him. Then there was the impossible choice – work to death as an oarsman on a slave galiot or accept another way, one of riches, of ease. All it would take was one irreversible alteration to his manhood…
He had taken neither option. But now, even in the summer sun on a warm Palermo day, Kit felt the gooseflesh move across his back as he considered how close it had been between the choices.
Sophia was gone, and a perverse part of him was glad. She could never truly know him – any pretense at friendship would end if she knew his secrets. But, if she remembered him fondly from time to time, he was happy to leave her with the memories.
The Calliope had finished her “pleasure” cruise – an extended sea trial that saw her evade a slave ship and weather a tempest with flying colors. Now, she was ready to do the job she was built for. Beneath his feet, he could almost feel the ship rise as the cargo of cottons, wool and steam engine parts was unloaded. Fully laden, they’d managed eleven knots; fully empty, Jonathan and Elias were both convinced at full sail she could reach thirteen or even fifteen. He ran his hand over the railing with no small measure of pride.
The thought of finding Kaddouri’s stronghold and wiping him and his evil from the face of the earth stirred him from his semi-maudlin and sentimental thoughts. He would channel anger and vengeance into a form of rough justice. That would be the most effective way to deal with the uncomfortable softness Sophia Green had managed to rouse in him.
*
Sophia opened the French doors onto a little iron balcony and breathed in the sea air.
The room she shared with Laura in the Hotel de France overlooked the harbor and, just over the top of Hotel Trinaeria, she caught the tops of the Porto Felice – the welcoming gates into the city that opened onto a promenade along the sea front.
She caught herself searching the view for the Calliope, despite knowing it was impossible to differentiate the forests of masts – and the unlikely assumption the vessel was still in port. It had been four days since their arrival.
After we arrive in Palermo, we search for news of Kaddouri.
She had spoken to no one about what she had overheard in the church in Lisbon, nor had she mentioned to Uncle Jonas or Laura the mysterious appearance of the large cannon in the middle of the officers’ dining room during the night of the storm – a weapon that was absent when she woke the next day.
The Calliope wasn’t a warship; she was a merchant vessel. Why would she need to be armed with anything more than the small, defensive cannons already on deck?
Sophia tied the fine, white curtains back and stepped around Laura’s things. Her cousin had made herself quite at home – her belongings were everywhere, while Sophia’s remained ordered in her trunk.
After the confines of the Calliope, their room was spacious – quite grand, in fact, with elaborate scrolled architraves, white-painted wall panels with gilt cherubic moldings and framed peacock blue wallpaper setting off an elaborately carved mirror that spread more light throughout the already well-lit room. Sophia accepted the smaller bed in exchange for the desk – which was all she needed for her work. Laura was welcome to the wide rococo bed and the pastoral scenes painted in the roundels on the headboard.
From the balcony, she watched Uncle Jonas leave the hotel and make a brisk pace down the street until he had disappeared around the corner.
He had wasted no time applying for an appointment with the British envoy on the very morning on their arrival, only to learn Lord William Bentinck was away. Viscount Melbourne would be pleased to meet with the distinguished professor – but not until a week after Thursday. Not content to let the grass grow under his feet, Jonas told Sophia he would visit the University at Palermo and renew acquaintances with a colleague.
She was content to make copies of Uncle Jonas’ manuscript so far, including reproducing the paintings that would go to a London publisher.
“Oh! It’s a letter from Samuel!”
Laura dropped onto a lilac velvet seat near the window and opened the envelope. Sophia listened as Laura read. Samuel was to leave Rome to make his way down the peninsula and join them in Sicily in the middle of August. From there, he would escort them home to London by the next convenient passage.
Relief filled her. Only six weeks away. Six weeks to get some valuable work done with Uncle Jonas – and be rid of a small, lingering infatuation with Captain Kit Hardacre.
She opened the satchel that lay on the desk, pulled out the stiffened paper boards, and laid them out in groups on the floor beside her bed. They showed the Roman mosaics in Lisbon and the reproduced maps of Syracuse and Taormina.
She pulled out another and paused. It was Laura’s painting of Kit, his chiseled face angled toward the sun. He looked heroic, like a Greek god.
Narcissus. That had been her first impression of the captain during th
eir unfortunate meeting in England. Now her view was very much different. A Hercules, perhaps? A man forced to go through his labors before he could return home? An adventurer like Jason with his Argonauts on the Argo?
She smiled. That comparison suited him better.
“Are you sure you don’t have a teeny bit of a fondness for our captain?”
Sophia dropped the painting and rounded on Laura who peered over her shoulder.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that! Besides, this is your painting.”
“It may be my painting but it was found in your bag.”
“That’s because I gathered everything up on the night of the storm.”
Laura shrugged. “You can keep it if you wish. I gave the rest of the paintings away to the crew as parting gifts.”
Sophia hesitated a moment and picked up the portrait. The mischievous play of his mouth had been perfectly captured and, for a moment, she found her lips tingling with the memory of the kiss. Once again, her conscience plagued her. She loved Samuel. She knew she did. She loved him with such deep affection – and yet…
“No.”
“No what?”
“No, your painting was intended as a gift. It should belong to the captain.”
“You don’t even know if the Calliope is still in port.”
“I can have someone make inquiries at the harbor master’s office.”
Laura picked up the painting and stood it on a chair. “We’ll keep it here to remind us then.”
Sophia wasn’t sure she wanted such a reminder. But with Laura’s attention now back to her paints, her eye was drawn to her reticule and the calling card Kit had pressed in her hand. She had prided herself on not even looking at it, yet she couldn’t bring herself to throw it away.
She shook her head and returned to her work, successfully ignoring it until well into the afternoon.
Sophia stood, straightened her back and, before she’d given it a moment’s more thought, reached for her bag. She opened the drawstring and withdrew the heavy card, with words in black type.
Importato Estera
M. Gabino
7 via Ballaro
Palermo
Some guests they had dined with last night, a cotton merchant from Manchester and his wife, had told them about the Ballaro street markets less than a mile from their hotel, towards the Palazzo dei Normanni.
Sophia glanced to where Laura napped on the bed and decided to wake her.
Chapter Thirteen
The last of Sicily disappeared over the horizon. The Calliope cut its way through the small chop. Their destination was Pantelleria, a little island halfway between Sicily and Tunisia. It had seen civilizations come and go over the millennia.
She had been fought over by the Carthaginians and the Romans, the Arabs and the Aragonese, the Turks and the Sicilians but Pantelleria took them all to her breast, welcoming everyone with her volcanic hot springs and a white wine so sweet it was a nectar.
An uneasy truce now governed the island; trade was negotiated on its starkly beautiful shores and in the Arab influenced damusi buildings – low squat structures with black lava stone walls and stark white domes. The buildings blended in so well in the landscape that most of the time the island seemed deserted.
Kit stood at the helm, savoring the feel of the wheel under his hands. Jonathan and Elias had spent the past week checking and rechecking their charts for evidence of pirate raiders among the twenty or so land-based raids in the past twelve months.
They were confident Kaddouri’s stronghold was somewhere along the twenty-five mile coast of Tunisia from Hizir and Alavar. Equally, he could be anywhere that would directly take them to the Souk El Berka, which held its slave markets every Friday, where the pious worshipped their God in the morning and traded in human misery in the afternoon.
His gut burned with the fire of animosity and hatred. It was a perverse streak that kept him close to the Barbary Coast.
If he were a wiser man, he would go to the farthest ends of the earth and pretend his own decade in slavery never happened. After all, he was more fortunate than most. He had escaped by sheer chance during an American naval bombardment. But since then, his desire for revenge burned like the sun.
Following his escape, being fluent in English and Arabic, and having seagoing experience, he quickly earned a place as a leading hand. His share from several privateering raids on French ships was parlayed into a vessel of his own. And, before he knew it, he was captain of the misfit crew of his first ship, the Terpsichore.
It was during his time on the privateer he began to learn of others’ experiences with the Barbary Coast pirates. Little fishing settlements nestled along the coastline, quiet and self-sufficient, could go for months without seeing an outsider. Then a visiting priest, a passing ship, or a delegation from a neighboring village would arrive to eerie silence, as though the entire population – every man, woman and child – had simply vanished off the face of the earth. Where once had been the sounds of laughter and families at work, there was nothing but the mournful whistle of the wind through the rocks and the trees.
But other times there was evidence of their fate – decaying bodies, many with hacked limbs providing mute testimony of a futile struggle against overwhelming invaders.
Kit knew Jonathan and Elias were motivated in what they did today by justice. They believed they were doing God’s work. Despite many drunken conversations over the years, however, he could never get Jonathan to admit part of his motivation was revenge for the wife raped and murdered before his eyes, for his three infant children beheaded as they dragged him away in chains. And yet, despite this, he had found love again with the redoubtable Morwena Gabino, whose import business provided cover for the Calliope’s other activities.
Of Elias, he knew even less. He spoke of no family; he had just been there one night in a tavern when five men decided they liked the look of Kit’s jewelry and his fat purse. Elias made it two against five, which proved a winning combination.
Kit couldn’t own to pure motives. When he was younger, outrunning the oared craft had its own thrill, daring closer and closer to the African shore in search of profitable trade. He felt stomach-churning fear every time he saw a pirate galiot or a xebec but he made himself look at them.
Soon, outrunning them was not enough. He relished the surge of terror and power through his veins when he raided their stores, stealing from the Corsairs what had been stolen from others; what had been stolen from him.
And the people they stole back? The gratitude of those they rescued salved his conscience somewhat, but he knew the thrill of the chase, executing feats of ever more daring, had become as addictive as the opiates he had used to cauterize his memory.
On the main deck, Elias paced with the ship’s Bible in his hands, his voice strong.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, he refuseth to let the people go.
Let the people go. Kit’s heart beat in time to those familiar words. He forced himself to unclench his jaw. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Elias cross the deck once more.
“‘Thus saith the Lord, In this thou shalt know that I am the Lord: behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood…’.”
Now it would be the crew of the Calliope who will turn the river to blood.
Let the people go.
Kit shifted on his feet, banishing a minor ache, and watched the sails trimmed. A moment later, a shape appeared on the horizon.
“Land ahoy!”
At the call, Elias closed the book and returned to the quarterdeck to confer with Jonathan and Kit. His eyes narrowed as the settlement of Pantelleria came into view.
Twenty-five miles of hostile coastline, enemy soil. It would take more than just a few bombardments by the Americans to bring this evil to an end. It would take a nation with a real army and a real navy. The British, perhaps? More likely, the Frenc
h, whose taste of empire-building was fed by the unstoppable Napoleon. Kit did not have an army or a navy at his disposal. Just fifteen men and a schooner. His battles would be strategic with no quarter given, no truces and no treaties.
Let my people go…
*
Kit vaulted over the side of the boat. Water lapped his boots. He, along with Jonathan and Elias, hauled the skiff up on the beach. They picked their way around the basalt outcroppings, sleek and sinuous rock – once liquid but now solid. Determined tufts of grass clung tenaciously to what little earth existed close to the shore. But further up the slope, rich volcanic soil yielded a bounty of vines, laden with golden bunches of grapes.
“Good harvest this year,” Jonathan remarked.
“Hopefully, an equally good vintage,” Elias mentioned.
The two men discussed the merits of ordering one barrel or two, then the price the sweet dessert wine might fetch on the tables of England. Kit kept his focus on the rectangular building ahead. If there was news of Kaddouri, he would find it here and, perhaps, learn something to help them narrow down their search.
The three men ducked under the low lintel entrance and conversation ceased. Despite being the middle of the day, the tavern well outside the town was full, its patrons a mix of Italians, Greeks, Turks and Arabs, all distinguishable by their dress.
Jonathan and Elias found a table by the door. The newcomers were treated with suspicion – and little surprise. More was traded here than the fine Pantelleria wine.
“Grapes look good this year,” Kit said to the innkeeper, a lean, almost emaciated man, his skin a walnut brown, weathered by the sun. He may have been in his fifties or sixties – even older, but his arms did not show the waste of old age. He looked wiry and strong.
“Just started harvesting.”
“What’s the expected yield?”
“You buying?”
“Maybe. At the right price.”
The drinkers went back to their conversations. Kit ordered a bottle and some food and waited for the innkeeper to serve them.
Regency Scandals and Scoundrels Collection Page 147