Chapter One
Eleven months earlier
The palace at Al-Min, Tunisia
August 1816
The black abaya thrown over her flimsy harem garb was still warm from its previous wearer.
A scent – bergamot, rosemary and musk – lingered on it that Laura recognized belonged to that person, Elias Nash, one of the two men before her. She breathed in to steady her stomach churning with a mixture of pregnancy sickness and fear.
We’re going to leave! She and Sophia were finally going to be free of this hellish nightmare!
“Selim Omar has just been killed,” Sophia announced.
Laura watched the shocked reactions of the two men, Nash and Captain Kit Hardacre. Her stomach rebelled even more, and she fought hard to remain on her feet.
Strange. She thought she would feel something – joy, triumph – that the man who had abused her for two years was now dead. She had wanted to kill him herself, even dreamed of it. But another had actually done it and Yasmeen had paid with her life.
“We should split up from here,” Nash announced. “Two people will be less conspicuous than four together.” He looked at her as he continued. “Laura and I will leave first.”
She started at the sound of her name and couldn’t help but stare back at him and the captain. It had been so long since she had seen these men. They were supposed to be dead.
Selim Omar had taken great pleasure in cruelly telling Sophia her husband, Kit, had been killed. Yet the captain was here, alive and with the promise of freedom.
Laura had wanted this so much. Perhaps they were ghosts. Perhaps she was dreaming. No. The bile rising up her throat was all too real.
Captain Hardacre watched her, too. He turned to his first officer.
“Then don’t wait for us. Get to the rendezvous, signal the Calliope and get on board as quickly as you can. Sophia, Marco and I will follow.”
Laura reached for Sophia’s hand and squeezed it. The two women huddled close while Hardacre and Nash peered around the door into the courtyard beyond the infirmary. The two men before her were of similar height and age but different appearance. Nash had light brown hair and was of a muscular build, while Hardacre had blond hair and was lithe with a feline grace.
At the sound of running footsteps outside the room, Laura held her breath and only started breathing again when the echo faded.
“Go! Go!” Hardacre urged.
Sophia pushed her forward. Nash held her by the wrist and took off at a sprint. Laura was helpless to do anything more than to follow along behind, running as fast as she could.
Miracle of miracles, they made it outside the palace walls without challenge. The late afternoon summer sunshine started to thaw a piece of her frozen spirit, but they soon left the warmth for the darkened shadows of a small alleyway a block away from the palace.
She panted hard, the burst of physical activity winding her more than she expected. Elias Nash waited. He seemed to realize she needed a moment to catch her breath. He had a kind face.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” he answered softly, squeezing her hand before letting it go. Laura’s eyes fell to the knife at his waist. How careless of her not to have realized that Yasmeen had taken the knife at meal time today. Sophia had noticed. She should have, too.
“The knife? Would you like it?” Nash asked, reaching for the hilt.
Laura shook her head. She was having trouble enough holding herself together, let alone entertain the thought of holding a knife and using it. It was better in his hands than hers.
“This will be all over soon,” he assured her.
She wished she had his faith. She wanted to believe it so much. Early on, she had lived in hope of rescue but, after the first twelve months of her captivity, Laura gave up daring of such a thing.
Only when she was miles away from here – Palermo, perhaps, or even back in London – would she consider the nightmare behind her.
“Are you ready to move off?”
No, she was not ready. Nausea dogged her, but what choice did she have? She nodded instead. Nash smiled as though she’d made the bravest decision in the world. In some small way, perhaps she had. He settled the keffiyeh across his mouth but the look in his light brown eyes seemed to give her courage.
“Stay close beside me,” he said. “We don’t want to arouse suspicions if we don’t have to, so we need to blend in.”
Laura touched her head covering and nodded. They would be killed if they were caught – but better that than enduring another day of living hell in the harem.
*
Elias forced himself to slow his pace so Laura could keep up. Every part of him seemed attuned to her – the sound of her feet in slippers he guessed were not suitable for walking any distance, the rustle of the garments that concealed her from view. Even the very sound of her breathing seemed as loud to him as the bustling sound in the markets ahead of them.
He was also conscious of the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. He listened for the sound of alarm from the palace, and the march of armed men looking for them. So far there had been nothing.
Their journey was taking them downhill toward the harbor. Their rendezvous was to be outside the casbah walls.
Elias was aware of the knife in his belt and another strapped to his ankle. The atmosphere pressed down on him like a brewing storm. Even at sea, he always preferred the moment when he saw the first shard of lightning across the sky and, with it, the first fall of rain, rather than the oppressive expectation ahead of it.
The fact there were no clanging bells or clarion blasts from trumpets was both a blessing and a curse. The alarm would be raised by a hue and cry, a call for all around to find them. The first they might know was a surge of armed men coming toward them.
The storm broke and sooner than he’d have liked. The call to afternoon prayer started with its haunting familiarity, then changed in cadence and tone. He was too far away and not familiar enough with the language to understand the message being called out.
Elias felt a pull on his robe from Laura.
“They are calling the guards onto the street,” she whispered harshly. “Everyone is to go to their homes. They’re looking for us.”
Elias nodded his understanding. “Let’s make sure we can’t be found.”
The dock was only a few hundred yards away and, beyond that, the gate in the wall that connected the casbah to the fishing village around it.
He glanced briefly at the warehouse where their cabin boy had been charged with setting an explosion to draw the attention of pursuers. Perhaps he should detour and warn Marco about their change of plans.
Laura stumbled. She grabbed at his tunic but not quickly enough to stop her fall. Elias immediately crouched beside her. “Are you all right?” he whispered harshly. Laura nodded, although he could see blood from a cut toe and a graze on her left knee where the abaya had torn.
Laura. Laura came first.
Elias helped her to her feet. He hoped the lad could read the situation enough to know their plans had changed and find somewhere safe to hide.
As news spread of an attack at the palace, it felt as though all eyes were on them. They were so close to escape. Elias made sure not to return any glances their way. One suspicion was all it would take to expose them.
Elias spotted the harbor walls and the gates. He found the entrance in the wall, beyond which was their rendezvous point, now barred. The portcullis had dropped, locking them in.
He felt Laura shudder beside him. He took her hand, once again, and squeezed it.
If he were Kit, he’d have made a witty aside and have a new plan half-formed already.
He drew a deep breath.
What we can’t go through, we’ll go around. What we can’t go around, we’ll go over. What we can’t go over, we’ll go under.
So far, the alarm hadn’t reached this part of the casbah. So far, so good.
“Come on.” Elias grabbed Laura’s hand once more and pushed his way through the throng until he reached a second archway close to the start of the sea wall.
Then their luck ran out.
*
Laura was pulled into a blind alley as a group of men came into view. Elias held her close as she fought the tremors.
“Stay still,” he ordered. She did as she was told. His arm around her made her feel safe. The men passed by the entrance to the alley without stopping.
“They’re looking for us,” she said, more to herself than Elias.
“Everyone is looking for us,” he answered.
Laura shook her head.
“I heard them. They were ordered to find us by a man called Sharrouf.”
She heard Nash’s sharp intake of breath.
“Sharrouf? You’re sure of the name?”
Laura nodded. She heard the start of a strangled curse before he let out a long breath instead.
“Then we’ve no time to waste.”
She chanced a glance at her rescuer. A muscle worked at his jaw. His mouth, which she remembered was usually upturned in a ready smile, was grim.
He said nothing as they approached the docks. He was so focused on the activity around them, it was as though she were no longer there at all. Through one of the gates, she saw the azure blue beyond the walls and there, anchored off shore, just as Sophia described, was the Calliope.
Nash’s stride lengthened. Laura struggled to keep up. She slipped once again thanks to her inadequate footwear. He hauled her to his side and kept moving, dragging her down another passageway. This one went beyond the walls. It went to freedom.
Kunt hunak, tawaquf! You there, stop!
Two palace guards stepped out in front of them.
“Get down,” he ordered, pushing Laura between him and one of the wall buttresses. “Stay down until I say otherwise.”
Complying with the order was easy. Her legs were shaking and she was surprised they could even hold her weight. She brought her hands to her face. They, too, were shaking. All she could do was hide and watch through her fingers.
There was no time for Elias to pull out a knife. He ducked just as the first guard swung a scimitar at his neck and surged under, catching the man around the middle. He drove the man back into the wall. The guard’s head struck the stone violently with a sickening sound before he crumpled to the ground.
In an instant, Elias relieved the man of his sword, grasping it firmly in his right hand. He pulled out his own knife with the other.
The second guard, perhaps taken aback by how quickly his compatriot was felled, seemed more cautious, circling, looking for an opportunity to attack. He pitched forward suddenly, thrusting his weapon. Elias deflected it and swung his sword downward. Steel on steel clashed again as the guard blocked the strike but Laura could see he had left himself exposed. Elias turned in under the man’s arm and thrust the knife in his left hand between the guard’s ribs. The man gasped and stumbled away, grasping at his wound.
Elias dropped the sword and held out his hand.
“Laura! Now!”
Without thinking, she emerged from her hiding place and took his hand. Once more, they ran through the passage, to outside the walls of Al-Min.
They hastened toward the shore. Elias let out a piercing whistle, attracting the attention of a group of fishermen mending a net beside a boat beached in the sand. One man raised his head and abandoned his task, immediately on alert.
She recognized that face! It was Giorgio. And the rest of the fishermen were other sailors from the Calliope!
They reached the boat. Elias swung Laura into his arms, dropping her into the craft like a sack of rice.
“Get this thing in the water,” Elias ordered the crew. “Get Miss Laura back to the ship. Sharrouf’s here. We’ve been betrayed.”
Giorgio released a string of curses that seemed to answer for the rest of the men.
“Miss Laura, I…” Elias hesitated, then picked up her hand across the gunwale and brought it to his lips. “I’d hoped…”
He shook his head and offered a wry smile. “Under different circumstances perhaps.”
It was the first time in more than two years she had been looked at by a man as more than an object or with unbridled lust. But she feared the admiration and the yearning she saw in the officer’s eyes.
He was risking his life for his friends, for Sophia… for her… what if this was the last time she saw him?
The thought sent her into a panic. She kept hold of his hand.
“Please, be safe.”
This time, his smile was full. Elias jumped out of the vessel and slapped the side with the flat of his hand.
“Tell Jonathan to prepare to sail. I’m going to warn Kit.”
Giorgio protested. “Marco has orders to…”
Boom!
The sound of the explosion thundered over the harbor.
Laura screamed but the sound of it was lost. A moment later, a cloud of roiling smoke and dust disgorged into the sea.
As it began to clear, she saw two figures stumbling out of the debris. One of them was dressed head to toe in black, the other appeared at a distance to be a lame hunchback.
Elias took off running toward them.
“It’s the captain with Marco. He’s been hurt!” Giorgio sprinted after Elias.
Laura watched Kit Hardacre stumble just as Elias reached him. The first officer took hold of the boy. She could see the lad was still. Too still. Around her, the sailors hurriedly pushed the boat into the water and readied to set sail.
Hardacre limped badly, relying on Giorgio to take his weight. He then accepted the aid of the other sailors to scramble into the boat. The captain’s face was pale. He was injured. Sophia sat next to her, silent tears streaming down her face. Finally, Laura turned to Elias who, with the assistance of Giorgio, had lifted the limp form of the cabin boy into the boat. The boy’s face was waxen.
Why didn’t he stir?
The sails filled with wind, propelling them toward the Calliope.
“I’m sorry, men,” announced Kit, his voice heavy with regret. “Marco’s dead.”