Chapter Twenty-Eight
Elias made sure he had something urgent to do in the olive grove that morning. He liked to think of himself as a virtuous man, but he was no martyr. He’d prefer not to see the woman to whom he’d given his heart and soul – and body – leave his life for good.
Nonetheless, it was the practice of the senior officers of the Calliope who were on shore leave to farewell the ship as it left port, whenever possible. He, Kit and Jonathan all knew the dangers that awaited them beyond the safe arms of the harbor. They all knew that any one of a number of misfortunes could befall them at sea.
Each farewell was accompanied by a prayer, both on board and ashore, for a safe journey home, recited from the Common Book of Prayer, a verse beloved of Admiral Horatio Nelson.
O Eternal Lord God, who alone spreadest out the Heavens, and rulest the raging of the seas, who hast compassed the waters with bounds until day and night come to an end; be pleased to receive into thy Almighty and most gracious protection the persons of us Thy servants, and the fleet in which we serve. Preserve us from the dangers of the sea and the violence of the enemy.
Despite his own pain, Elias wouldn’t miss their departure. He’d just make sure Laura was already safely aboard the Calliope before he did so.
He idled away the morning hours, familiar with the routine used to prepare the Calliope for the early afternoon tide. If he left just after the noon hour, he’d be in Palermo in plenty of time to wish them bon voyage from the dock.
Would Benjamin miss his mother? Hopefully, he was too young to know.
The shadows finally retreated beneath the trees, and Elias started back for the house from the grove. Although he had promised himself he wouldn’t, he couldn’t help but go via Laura’s studio one more time.
A movement through the window caught his eye. He walked around and found the French doors were ajar. The cottage should have been locked. Elias stepped back so as not to be easily seen. Perhaps it was only Gina. He saw the figure once more.
“What in the blazes?” he whispered.
It wasn’t Gina.
There was a stranger rummaging in Laura’s desk, a young male – and it wasn’t one of the lads from the estate, either.
Hot rage eclipsed everything but the youth before him. Elias threw the French doors wide and stormed through. He grabbed the intruder by the collar, shoving him face first against the wall before the younger man could even yelp in protest.
Red fury ruled Elias now. Months of frustration and tension found its release in physical violence.
He turned the young man, grasped the front of his shirt and his throat, and used his superior strength to lift and pin the lad to the wall. He held him there, feet dangling. The figure whimpered and struggled uselessly. Elias knew he was hurting him and, right now, he didn’t care.
“How dare you enter a lady’s room,” he growled, slamming him against the wall again for emphasis. “Who are you?”
The pinned figure gasped for air.
Elias tossed him away from the wall. The young man stumbled into the dresser. Glass bottles toppled off the top and onto the floor. One of them broke and the odor of one of Laura’s paints reached Elias, stoking his anger further.
He stepped forward and smashed a solid right hook into the young man’s cheek. The youth, who looked no older than seventeen years, crumpled to the floor.
Elias hauled him to his feet by his shirt front and readied his arm for another punch.
“Answer me!”
The young man’s face was red and he bled from a cut on his cheekbone. He drew his arms up desperately to protect his face.
“Don’t hurt me, please!” he pleaded.
A young woman’s voice screamed. “Donato!”
Elias released the lad with a shove, making him stumble heavily to the floor. He turned his head slightly to find Gina standing in the doorway, her mouth agape.
“You know him?”
The girl nodded. “Yes, Mr. Elias, this is Donato, he was my fidanzato, my beau.”
Elias glared at Donato with contempt. “If you’re back to do right by Gina, you’re off to a poor start.”
Gina had no such reservations, it appeared. She ran around Elias to the bacon-brained fool and dropped to her knees beside him.
“Don, what are you doing here?”
The boy tore his eyes away from Elias and answered Gina.
“I… I had to. I wanted to see you and—”
“When? When did you come back?” Gina snapped. Elias’ temper was beginning to cool and he wondered who this Donato was more afraid of – him or Gina.
“I came back six weeks ago,” he said, his voice sheepish.
“You’ve been here all this time and never once did you come to see me?”
“Gina… I wanted to but I couldn’t! I made a promise to…” He shook his head apparently to clear it. “It doesn’t matter who. I just made a promise to keep my return here a secret, but believe me, I wanted to see you.”
Elias folded his arms and considered the youth’s words. Suddenly, a whole number of things started to make sense.
“This person to whom you made this promise,” he asked. “Did they tell you to come into this building?”
Donato’s head lowered.
“Did they?” Elias demanded in a shout, stepping forward.
The youth scrambled back. “Yes! Yes, they did!”
“Anywhere else? The house?”
The lad nodded glumly. “Yes, after I learned the lady’s bedroom had a window out into the garden.”
“And you came here every day for six weeks?”
Another nod.
“What for?”
Donato swallowed. “They said to find out as much as I could about the lady who lived here.”
Elias glowered. “What did you get out of it?”
“I was paid money…”
“By whom?” Elias put every ounce of menace he could into his voice.
“They threatened my mother if I told!” the youth sobbed. His fear looked real enough.
Gina laid a hand on the lad’s arm. “You have to tell him everything, Don. Mr. Elias is a good man and Miss Laura has done no harm to you. Why would you steal from her?”
“No! I didn’t steal anything! I swear!”
A creeping sensation worked its way up Elias’ neck. So Laura hadn’t been imagining things after all.
“Then what did you do?”
“I just borrowed some letters. They wanted to read them. But I returned them the next day, honest. And I just… looked at things. They were nice so I looked at them.”
“Did you pick them up?”
“Well, yes… but I took nothing, everything is here. They’re all here. I put them back. Only…”
Donato faltered, looking even more hangdog than ever.
“Tell me,” said Elias. “I won’t hit you again – unless you lie to me.”
“Sometimes,” the boy confessed, “I couldn’t remember where I’d picked things up so I just put them down again. I didn’t steal them, please believe me…”
Elias raised his head until he looked at the ceiling. He closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. He was close to feeling physically ill. After everything he had done to help rescue and protect the vulnerable on the seas, he couldn’t keep his own home and the woman he loved safe.
Curses learned from a life at sea, but rarely used, cascaded from his lips.
For once, he was glad Laura had made a quick decision to leave on the Calliope. If she had taken the time to write to her brother first, whoever was spying on them would have known her itinerary. Laura was abducted from a ship on her first passage home. The thought of it happening again turned his stomach to acid.
Think! Think!
“Is this person – the one who is paying – expecting to see you again?”
Donato nodded. “Si, tonight just on dark near the forest outside the village.”
Laura’s ship was scheduled to leave in less than three hours. She would be at sea before the rendezvous tonight. And once the Calliope was at sea, no one would catch her.
And, for the first time, Elias would not be there when the ship set sail.
*
“Well, we can’t wait for him any longer and still make this tide.”
Laura heard the displeasure in Jonathan Afua’s voice. The navigator looked at his pocket watch, the same gold color of the sun overhead. “Your call, Captain.”
“He knows the time we leave.” Kit Hardacre slapped his hand on the rail and turned away. “Cast off, Mr. Afua.”
Jonathan cupped his hands and yelled, “Up gangway! Release the lines!” And to the sailors at the capstan he called, “Prepare to ‘weigh anchor!”
Laura stood at the rail and searched the teeming dock for Elias. Her vision blurred with the noon day glare and burgeoning tears of disappointment.
Did he hate her that much? Laura worried the inside of her lip with her teeth, just to keep control over her tears.
What did she expect? She’d asked for it. She’d even wished for it. Now she had it.
Will you come back?
I don’t know.
Oh, the look in his tawny eyes when he asked. She had always believed eyes were the mirror of the soul and Elias’ told her his was in torment.
The Calliope started to move off the dock as the lines slackened. The stiff breeze also shifted, and she heard part of a conversation behind her between Kit and Sophia.
“It’s not like him to miss this,” said Kit. “Elias is the most conscientious man I know.”
“What do you think is wrong?”
“I can take an educated guess. I’ll speak to him when we get back. Now he’s a father, perhaps it’s time he rethought his commitment to the Calliope.”
Laura swallowed a lump in her throat. Perhaps she was making a mistake.
“Calliope! Calliope!” A young man ran toward them, furiously waving his cap to draw attention to himself.
Slam!
Laura jumped at the sound of the gangway dropping back onto the dock. It made a high grinding noise as it dragged and shifted across the stone with the movement of the ship, slack on its hawsers. The messenger didn’t miss a stride, running up and thrusting an envelope into Kit’s outstretched hand, then leaping back across to the dock even as two burly crewmen began to haul in the gangplank again.
Laura drew closer and watched Kit scan the hastily opened document for a second before he raised his head and yelled. “Aweigh anchor!”
Jonathan approached.
“Captain?”
“Mr. Nash sends his regrets.”
Laura turned away from the rail and headed toward her cabin, ignoring Sophia who called out to her. She needed to re-read her brother’s letters and remind herself, once more, of all the good reasons why she was heading back to England.
*
From across the deck, Kit Hardacre watched Laura reach the quarterdeck, well out of earshot. He whistled to catch Jonathan’s attention and waved him back over.
Sophia approached, too. “What was in the note?” she asked. “What didn’t you want Laura to know?”
“That she’s not unhinged after all. Elias caught an intruder in Laura’s cottage.”
“What? When was this?” Jonathan asked urgently.
“Just as he was about to leave for Palermo. Apparently, someone’s been spying on Laura at Villagrazia for several weeks.”
“That’s awful. Who? And why?”
Kit shook his head in answer to Sophia’s question.
“He doesn’t know, but he’s staying to find out.”
“I’ll go tell her,” said Sophia. “She’ll be relieved to know at least she wasn’t losing her mind.”
Kit snagged his wife’s elbow before she moved away. “You know your cousin best, but before you tell her, consider whether she would be more frightened to learn someone was stalking her.”
Sophia nodded, squeezed his hand and left.
“It doesn’t seem right, leaving a man behind,” said Kit, more to himself than to Jonathan who remained beside him.
Jonathan slapped his captain on the back. “Elias is the most capable and sensible man among us. How much trouble can he get himself into?”
*
Laura heard the sound of the cabin door open and close behind her but she didn’t turn. She hadn’t the energy.
“I owe you an apology.”
Of all the words she imagined Sophia saying to her, those had not been among them.
“It’s a red letter day, indeed, then,” she said, immediately regretting her waspish tone.
“I, that is, we thought… we’re sorry we didn’t believe you when you said someone had been coming into your room and moving things.”
Laura frowned, trying to assemble the meaning of her cousin’s words, and why a woman normally so articulate and smarter than she was stumbling over herself. Then it dawned on her. She turned over on the bed and looked at Sophia.
“This has something to do with Elias’ note.”
Sophia nodded and sat down on the cabin stool.
“He caught someone shortly before he was about to leave.”
Laura sat up and squeezed her eyes shut a moment. When she reopened them, relief flooded her being. Elias didn’t hate her after all! Another thought struck her: She wasn’t going mad!
“I was right,” she whispered. “I was right all along.”
Laura put trembling fingers to her lips and closed her eyes again. She felt the mattress dip beside her as Sophia sat down and slipped an arm around her.
“You were right, and I’m sorry we didn’t believe you.”
“Who was it? Do we know?”
Sophia shook her head. “The note was short and hastily written, I believe. I’m sure it was just some villager playing a cruel prank.”
“I can’t imagine why someone would do anything like that. Everyone in Villagrazia was so kind.”
“Well, whoever it was, you can be sure Elias will deal with them.”
Laura opened her eyes and turned in to Sophia’s embrace. “Thank you. You can’t know what a relief it is.”
Laura buried her face in Sophia’s shoulder. After months of feeling like she was suffocating, Elias had freed her again with his discovery.
I’m not mad, I’m not mad…
She didn’t remember falling into an exhausted sleep in her cousin’s arms but when she awoke hours later, she was tucked in bed and the Calliope was under full sail for England.