Chapter Thirty
Elias had never been drunk enough to have a hangover. In fact, best to his recollection, he had never been jig-bitten at all. His limit had always ever been one glass of wine over a meal, or one tot of rum during the worst of the winter gales, or a couple of pints of small beer during the long summer days at sea – or three if the water had gone bad.
He had seen firsthand the effects drink had on a man, and the pounding headache and nausea of which he complained the following day.
Elias imagined it felt rather like this. Of course, he’d been injured before – in battle, by the weather, even shipboard “incidents” were not unusual. But this… this was the worst of them all. He ventured to open his eyes – were blind drunks really blind? He would soon find out.
No, he was not blind, but the headache shifted from the front of his eyes to the back of his head where, even on his pillow, he could feel the tender lump.
Next, his hearing returned with Benjamin’s insistent cry. Before he was even conscious of the act, he stumbled toward the nursery, the pain of his own headache receding.
He found himself in Laura’s room. With the exception of her traveler’s trunk, it still had the same amount of furniture in it. And yet it was like a corpse – the body there but the spirit gone.
Elias walked through into the nursery and, as for Benjamin, he looked like a prisoner inside his cot; he stood, hanging on to the bars, his face red and his mouth agape, showing two small teeth.
“Pa-pa-pa-pa!” he said, bursting into tears once more. As Elias approached, Benjamin raised one arm toward him and then another, but the act unsteadied him and he plopped down his bottom. The wailing continued and Elias’ head pounded.
He picked the babe up and his crying subsided to grizzles, but Elias himself had to swallow a cry of pain when Benjamin grabbed at the hair at the back of his head, pulling at the lump. Elias spotted the coral teething rattle on the shelf and distracted the child with it.
“You should not be up Mr. Elias, you are injured.”
Elias closed his eyes at Gina’s mother hen clucking.
“I’m going to go for a walk and try to get Benjamin to settle so he’ll sleep tonight. Ask one of the boys to help move Benjamin’s nursery into my bedroom,” he said, not even bothering to look at the girl. “I want to keep an eye on him.”
Tito’s words rang in his brain, pealing in time along with the clanging headache. Who wants the child more? The threat was there.
As a cousin to the Ottoman Emperor himself, Selim Omar was a formidable opponent, but why would he risk so much time and money to hunt down one woman and one child? The man had a harem for God’s sake – he must have plenty of sons; why did he care so much about this one?
Before he knew it, Elias found himself at Laura’s studio. It was locked but that didn’t mean much; the timber surrounds in the French doors were slight warped. One solid tug was all it took to open the doors.
The room, warm from being shut up for the day, smelled of turpentine, linseed and an undefinable muddy odor of paint pigments.
If Laura’s bedroom was like a corpse, the studio was a mausoleum. Bottles of paint, rows of pastels and paintbrushes; a tribute to a life lived here, but no longer.
He spotted a small basket just inside the door. It contained wooden blocks in bright colors – colors he recognized from the rainbow array of them on the dresser.
Elias sat Benjamin on the soft faded floor rug and pulled out a block. He didn’t recall making these. Laura must have asked Matteo to cut them and then painted them herself. It was not the act of a woman who didn’t care. Who wants the child more? whispered the voice in his head.
After today, he would arrange to have the windows boarded and the doors properly fixed. The studio would either be perfectly preserved for Laura’s eventual return or be a memorial, a tomb filled with lost dreams and lost love. Elias stood and looked around once more.
An envelope peeked out at him, slotted between two bottles on the second shelf of the dresser. He pulled out the thick wad of brown paper and recognized the flourish of black ink that marked Laura’s hand. The document was addressed to Benjamin Edward Nash.
With half an eye on his son, Elias pulled up a chair to the edge of the rug and sat. He flipped the envelope open. A blob of bright red wax was broken. Whatever it contained, he had to make the assumption that Tito and his employer knew its contents, too.
Inside the brown paper lay a diary and a gold oval locket. He opened the locket first. Each half contained a sliver of ivory on which was painted a miniature. On the right was a portrait of a beautiful young woman, Laura’s mother. It might have been Laura herself – the same shade of hair, the same eye color – except the fashion was twenty years out of date. On the inside of the lid was what must be the Cappleman coat of arms.
Elias put the locket aside and opened the small leather-tooled book, its thick spine creaking. A quick flick through the pages revealed densely packed lines, again in Laura’s handwriting. Only the last four pages were blank. He flipped back to the first page.
Darling Benjamin,
I am your mother.
If you are reading this, I want you to know that, no matter the time and distance that separates us, I always loved you.
The hardest thing I ever had to do in my life was leave you and the man you know as your father. Now that you are older, I hope you can forgive me and, if not, then come to understand why I had to go…
Elias closed the book. This was not for him; this was for her son. But then, if she wanted Benjamin to understand, didn’t he have that right also?
With half an eye on Benjamin, Elias reopened the diary in fading sunlight. Laura had poured her heart out on the pages, utterly unstinting in revealing the physical and mental torture she had endured in the palace of Selim Omar. It was, by far, the most heart-rending exposition he had read from one of the captives of the corsairs, not the least of which because it was written in her own hand rather than a transcript penned by Kit into his record books.
As well as the torments she endured, Laura wrote of Sophia and names he knew only in passing – Yasmeen and Malik – the concubine and the eunuch who precipitated the chaotic events that surrounded the rescue of Laura and Sophia. She wrote of Rabia, Selim Omar’s third wife, the cruel mistress of the harem and mother of the only male issue of the royal sheik.
Elias wondered. Had something happened to that boy? Or was Selim Omar questing for a “spare to the heir”?
Who wants the child more?
Laura had written about him also, telling the future adult Benjamin of his mother’s rescue from Al-Min. And she told him that, regardless of his parentage, Elias was his true father, a man worthy of the title and all it entailed. She spoke of her fondness, respect, and admiration for “your father” and of a growing love she believed her troubled mind had destroyed.
Benjamin was asleep. His napkin needed changing. Elias slipped the diary and locket inside his shirt and scooped up the dozing boy with his rattle. He carried him back to the house in the indigo twilight.
He would come back tomorrow and have the studio locked and barred. It was to be, after all, a tomb.
Benjamin seemed to know his mother was no longer here. The boy had grizzled all day, not even Gina or Serafina could get him to settle. Elias had been holding him for what seemed like hours. His arms ached, but every time he tried to put the babe down, he’d start crying again.
He knew how the boy felt. It was as though he’d been speared through the chest. And, if misery loves company, then they would be stuck together for some time to come.
He looked enviously at his supper, getting cold on the table before him. Perhaps, he could manage a spoonful or two. Elias reached forward tentatively and hastily sated the worst of the gnawing in his stomach.
Benjamin rested his head against Elias’ shoulder. A sideways glanced showed how the child watched him with sleepy, blue eyes – the same eye color as his mother. The knife in Elias’ chest twisted ever so slightly. Would they remain that color? He hoped so.
Had the boy fed? Elias didn’t know, and he put the spoon toward the babe’s lips to coax them open. Benjamin tasted the chicken dish and wrinkled his nose at the unexpected flavor, but, to Elias’ surprise, he opened his mouth again for a second mouthful.
A small victory.
Elias allowed himself a tired smile as a second small victory became a third and a fourth. Kit’s admonishment about weaning Benjamin came to mind. Soon, he wouldn’t need to be breastfed at all. The babe’s eyes slowly closed.
Elias kissed the boy on the top of his head. At last.
Gina emerged from the kitchen and paused to look at them. “You are very good with him, Mr. Elias,” she said. “No father could do more.”
He raised his head and gave the girl a tired smile. She stepped forward and reached for the boy who went unresistingly into her arms. Elias followed them down the hall and into his bedroom. Gina lowered herself and the sleepy babe onto the stool and deftly, with one hand, started to unlace the neck of her dress.
He looked away to give her some privacy but caught her sly smile before he turned his back completely.
“There’s no need to be shy,” she said.
Wasn’t there? Yes, there was.
He may not be very experienced but he wasn’t stupid. He recognized the look of invitation in Gina’s eyes.
He walked to the open window and looked out across the lawns to the forest that edged the boundary of his estate. The room faced south, the sea not visible from this aspect, but he knew where it was. He closed his eyes and imagined the Calliope. On a night like this, the sailing would be slow but smooth. In his mind’s eye, he looked up into the shroud and started to climb, adjusting the rigging as he went to help maximize the push of the breeze.
If he were there now, he would look down and see Laura on deck laughing and dancing, and he would be content to stay here at a distance, simply watching, as long as the haunting sadness of her eyes was banished and a smile remained on her face.
He’d tried. He’d tried so damned hard to make her happy, to bring her peace, and he’d failed. He done as much as any man could do – and yet it still wasn’t enough. He wasn’t enough. Elias swallowed down that bitter realization.
After he had rescued Laura from Al-Min, he had been arrogant enough to think that if Laura could see his feelings for her were not out of pity or misplaced chivalry, that he’d adored her from the first moment they met, she would look beyond his humble circumstances and come to love him as he did her.
But Kit had been right. He wanted to be a savior as well; he wanted to be Laura’s savior. What kind of arrogance was that?
When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom.
Well, he’d certainly been humbled now. He wasn’t enough. Everything he had to give wasn’t enough. How could he compete with England, and the ton, and the aristocrats? At best, he’d be welcomed as an unschooled gentleman farmer with no pedigree to speak of. He could not introduce her to the Royal Academy, he could not keep her in the life she would be used to – endless parties, glittering jewels.
Perhaps not enough for her – but there are others.
Elias shook his head at the thought. He hadn’t wanted others, not before, and certainly not after meeting Laura. Such was the fate of a romantic fool.
He could even smell her perfume right now – rose and jasmine – that’s how deep his delusion lay. He started at the feather-light touch of a hand on his shoulder and became aware of the other hand that roamed, holding him in an embrace. Full breasts pressed against his back and his starved body responded.
“Benjamin is asleep, Mr. Elias,” a feminine voice whispered.
He turned and Gina slipped into his arms which enveloped her body without conscious thought.
He looked down into her rich, brown eyes; her expression was open and uncomplicated. How nice it was to hold someone who wanted to be held. By someone who actually wanted him. He had not been mistaken about the desire in her eyes. She wanted to be kissed and… he wanted to kiss her.
“I have loved you for a long time,” she said, giving voice to temptation. “I know you are sad that Miss Laura has gone, but she could not love you. We both love a child which is not ours. Could we not learn to love each other as well?”
Elias heard an answering call beat within his chest. Laura never gave a promise of her return to either him or to her child. Why should he continue to live the life of a monk for the unrequited love of her? His lips lowered and Gina’s parted to receive him.
The kiss was satisfying but it didn’t burn deep within him as Laura’s had done. A failing on his part? Gina didn’t seem to mind. His lips left hers.
“What about Donato? Your mother told me you were heartbroken when your father forced him to leave.”
“I can forget him, if you can forget Miss Laura…”
He felt as though he’d been doused in cold water.
He shook his head, sobering immediately against the intoxicating promise of intimacy. He moved away from Gina and went to the crib to watch his son sleep the sleep of the innocent. He stroked the boy’s cheek. Benjamin smacked his lips together and continued to dream.
“I can’t forget her,” he whispered, more to himself than to Gina. “Not when I have her son to remind me.”
He drew himself up and turned back to the girl. Gina silently wept; silver trails fell down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Gina. I’m sorry if I gave you any reason to believe there could be anything other than a fondness between us, but—”
“–But Miss Laura told me to take care of you and the little boy!”
“I’m not the one for you, Gina. It’s unfair to give you false hope.” He shook his head and headed to the door. “I know how much that hurts.”