Chapter Eight
With arms and legs near quivering with the strain of exertion, Elias hauled himself over the edge and rolled onto the grass, his face to the sky. He observed the full, white clouds in the sapphire blue heavens, letting the sun and breeze dry the sweat from his body. He allowed himself the satisfaction of his accomplishment, as pointless and as futile as it was.
He closed his eyes in quiet mediation, recalling a psalm he’d read only this morning.
He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.
He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.
Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.
The Lord lifteth up the meek: he casteth the wicked down to the ground.
Elias lay there listening to nothing but the wind whistling through the ruins of the ancient Roman villa which once adorned the hilltop, the faint bleat of goats grazing somewhere about, and the crash of the surf on rocks below.
In his mind’s eye, Elias could also see clearly what the future might hold for Laura and him together if she would just let him. He would love her as she deserved to be loved –with tenderness, respect and high regard. He would love her child as his own. Imagination took hold and he reveled in the fancy of seeing Laura’s smile, the way a room full of people seemed livelier because she was in it.
Then the shadow of reality fell. The haunted look in her eyes, a flinch when a man ventured too close. And the yet-to-be-born babe.
Maaaa!
Elias started. He opened his eyes to find himself face to face with one of the little brown and white goats that had the run of the island.
Maaaa!
He raised himself up on his elbows then tickled the creature behind the ear. The kid bleated again, before skipping away a few paces, thinking it the beginning of a game.
“Where did you come from? We could use an extra set of hands setting up the marquee for tonight.”
That was not the goat speaking.
Elias sat up properly. Jonathan gave him a quizzical look as he walked past where Elias lay before peering over the edge of the cliff. Elias felt the need to justify himself.
“I fancied some fresh air.”
“There’s a perfectly serviceable path up here, you know.”
“‘Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it’,” Elias intoned gravely as he gained his feet.
Jonathan shook his head “It says narrow, Preacher. Not precipitous.”
Elias shrugged and wiped dried blood from his hands. The young goat bleated and approached to nudge his thigh once more.
“You’ve made a conquest. Not as pretty as Laura, though,” Jonathan joked.
“At least this one’s talking to me.”
His friend looked at him with pity. He hated that.
“It takes time to woo a woman. Don’t be so impatient. It took months before Morwena would even have a conversation with me beyond talking business.” Jonathan slapped him on the back and looked at him sympathetically. “Let her get used to her freedom and the outside world again.”
Jonathan’s voice lowered an octave. “Her life has changed forever, Brother, and there are more changes to come. She needs to find her own way forward.”
“You know about Laura’s…” Elias hesitated, “… the child?”
“Kit told me. Sophia told him.” It was Jonathan’s turn to shrug.
Elias grimaced and turned away, staring out to sea and the horizon beyond. “He had no right.”
“It will become obvious to anyone with eyes soon enough,” Jonathan added. “Do you remember what you told Kit and me on the Terpsichore, the night we raided Kaddouri’s stronghold? ‘And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.’ You, Kit, me… we’re that threefold cord. We are stronger together. Never forget that.”
Elias resented the reminder, but he had to acknowledge Jonathan was right, although it hadn’t been easy.
Kit had been extravagant in his use of opiates then and, at times, his behavior was erratic. Jonathan had been full of indignant rage, bitter about what had been stolen from him, while Elias himself, he admitted, had been hopelessly naive. It was a wonder any of them had survived.
He tamped down his feelings and took a deep breath to bring himself back to the surface. He started toward the group of people gathered together in the center of a grassed-over plaza, surrounded by the stumps where Roman columns would have last stood.
Jonathan fell into step, and the two men walked in silence for a dozen or so yards.
“When are you heading back to Palermo?” Elias asked.
“I leave on the noon tide the day after tomorrow,” answered Jonathan. “I have a wife who will be keen to see me home safe and for news of Sophia and Laura’s rescue. The crew has earned their leave, too.”
As they approached, Elias saw the marquee had been fully erected without his help and the villagers had now moved on to prepare the fire pit to cook tomorrow night’s main meal.
“There’s always room for one more on board,” said Jonathan after a moment. “How long has it been since you tended your olive grove at Villagrazia?”
“Too long. The fruit should be ready for harvest in a month or so,” Elias answered. “I’ve missed the past two years.”
“Then it’s right you shouldn’t lose another year,” said Jonathan. “Besides, Morwena says if your olives are any good, she wants to negotiate a good rate from you.”
Elias laughed, a genuine mirthful laugh. “Negotiate? Your wife doesn’t negotiate, Brother. She’s as ruthless as any corsair I’ve ever come across. If she starts talking to me about business, I’ll be paying her to take my crop!”
Jonathan laughed also. “She’ll be delighted to hear it!”
Just before they reached the other villagers, Elias halted. “Thank you,” he said, his tone of voice making it clear that it was for more than just the conversation. “I’ll give you my answer tomorrow.”
*
“I don’t know who Elias Nash thinks he is!”
Laura stalked round and round the kitchen table while Sophia and Lyda sat and shelled peas. And to be sure, she did not miss the knowing look the two women gave one another while she fumed.
“He expresses his regard for me, tells me I should consider my child, tells me I’m not alone and—”
“—Elias knows you’re pregnant?” Sophia interrupted. “Who told him?”
Laura paused mid-stride. “I did, but that’s not the point, it’s the fact that he—”
“Oh, how perfectly dreadful,” Sophia’s tone of voice told Laura that she believed no such thing. “A handsome, thoughtful, eligible man expresses his interest in you. I’m shocked.”
Sophia pushed away the full bowl of peas and grabbed another empty bowl.
Laura scowled at her cousin and resumed her pacing.
It was also obvious to Laura that Lyda was only pretending not to notice the tension between her and Sophia. The large woman stood and placed her bowl of peas on a shelf, covered it with a cloth, and returned to the table with another bowl and a jar. She spread the table with flour and turned out a large lump of dough.
Laura continued around the table until she stood opposite Sophia and waited until her cousin’s dark brown eyes met hers.
“Surely you’re not encouraging his nonsense? Are you asking me to entertain his attentions knowing everything that’s happened to me… to us?” she asked, forcing as much disdain into her voice as she could muster.
“Far from it,” Sophia answered airily. “I already warned Elias nothing could come of his tendre for you. And you’re making me dizzy with your pacing. Do something useful and knead out this bread.”
Lyda gave up her seat and gestured toward the dough. Laura chose to remain standing and punched a fist into the dough before realizing she had never before handled an uncooked loaf of bread. She glanced at Lyda who was miming with her hands what she should do with the lump. Laura copied the action and, after a moment, felt the dough become pliable in her hands. Lyda smiled her approval, then left the kitchen.
Laura shook her head. First Sophia mocks her for being offended by Nash’s intentions and now tells her they’re unsuited?
“You warned Nash away? When?”
“Two years ago. Before… before we were taken. It was in Palermo. He asked me to pass on his regards. I could see he was falling in love with you and I wanted to spare his feelings.”
“To spare his feelings? What about mine?”
Sophia laughed. Laura gritted her teeth and pushed down into the dough as hard as she could with the heel of her hand and then with the other, over and over again, frustration and fury more stoked than relieved by the actions.
“I’ve known you nearly all your life, Laura Cappleman,” her cousin continued. “I saw the way you were with would-be swains who didn’t meet yours and Samuel’s standards. If they weren’t titled and wealthy, you waved them away with not even a smile to soften the blow. Well, Elias is a good man and he deserved better than a selfish, social climbing heiress.”
Laura gasped as if she had been punched in the stomach. She punished the dough once more and spoke tightly. “I had no idea my own cousin held me in such contempt.”
Sophia stood, put an arm around her shoulders, and squeezed as Laura kept working the dough with nerveless fingers.
“I don’t hold you in contempt. I love you. But even so, you have to acknowledge you were a thoughtless young woman back then.”
Laura could scarcely contain her fury – because Sophia was right. She’d thought of nothing but going to parties and being courted by a handsome duke or a viscount, at the very least. She hardly ever considered Sophia’s feelings on anything.
“Have I changed so little?” Laura was almost afraid of the answer. She paused her work and reached up to touch the back of her hand to her eye. It came back wet.
“Darling Laura, you’ve changed very much,” whispered Sophia. “We both have. How could it be otherwise? But we still have to own our past.”
Sophia touched a corner of her apron to her eyes also, then sat down and returned to shelling peas.
“Remember what you told me just a couple of months ago?” she continued. “That you would die if you stayed in Al-Min a moment longer? Well, we’re safe now, we’re free. And you have a future to think about.”
Lyda returned to the kitchen rattling bread tins in her arms, no doubt to alert Laura and Sophia of her return. Sophia rose and put her bowl of shelled peas where Lyda had left hers then used the nearby bellows to blow air into the fire. Tongues of orange flame leapt to attention in response.
Laura dropped her voice so as not to be overheard. “I don’t want to think about the future.”
“Then don’t. But you still have a babe to prepare for.”
Lyda caught Laura’s eye and asked kindly in simple Italian, accompanied by hand gestures, if she would like to put the dough in the tin. Laura did so before looking around for something to wipe the flour from her hands.
“What if I never want to marry?” she said to Sophia.
“Never is a long time, my love. Just take one day at a time. But, as I said, Elias is a good man and, despite my warning him off, he does care for you. If you really don’t want him to pursue you, do the right thing. Just tell him you are flattered by his attention, but you couldn’t possibly consider returning his feelings.”
Unless she planned to lock herself away forever, there was the possibility she might one day wed – but at the thought of being intimate… Laura shuddered.
“Sophia?”
“Yes?”
“Have you and Kit… you know… as husband and wife? I mean since Al-Min?”
Laura saw her cousin blush and gather her thoughts at length.
“Yes.”
Laura waited… and waited. “That’s all? That’s all you have to say?”
It was quite ridiculous really, Laura thought. After all the indignity they had been forced to endure in the harem, they’d never spoken about what had been done to them.
“It’s different when you love someone and you know they love you in return. The act of love is an act of sharing, not taking. Besides…” Sophia paused, as if considering her words carefully. “I never went through exactly what you did.”
An unwelcome feeling trickled down Laura’s back. “What do you mean?”
Sophia sighed and sat down heavily. She frowned down at her clasped hands on the table and revealed how Selim Omar had humiliated her repeatedly in his quarters, how he had forced her to stand before him naked and read aloud stories from books that described in vicious detail, the most vile of sexual practices, while he watched, but never touching her.
“Is that it? Was that all?”
“Yes…” Sophia replied hesitantly.
Laura’s mouth gaped. “You mean he never took you?”
Sophia’s answer was barely above a whisper, “No.”
No? Not fair, not fair, not fair!
Laura boiled with the sensation of having being been cheated. She had been forced to endure him on her – in her – and Sophia had had to do little more than be naked before him? Who hadn’t?
The revelation made her feel even more unfairly done by.
“He made me pregnant!” Laura shouted. “He forced himself on me and made me pregnant!”
Lyda started, then quietly but quickly left the kitchen to the cousins.
Sophia looked up and fixed her with a piercing gaze. “Do you wish he had done the same to me? Do you wish he had abused me in the same way he did you?”
Laura was horrified at hearing her innermost resentment articulated. “No, of course not!”
Sophia dropped her head again. “Sometimes I did. I wished he would just do it and get it over with instead of tormenting me again and again.”
Laura’s head pounded. She could barely hear her cousin’s shaky words. “The first time, he made me strip naked and watched me read aloud the report of Kit’s death to him. But for you, I might have wielded the knife as Yasmeen did.”
Laura’s fury evaporated. She rushed around the table and fell to her knees, throwing her arms around Sophia’s waist as tears fell. “Oh Cousin! I’m sorry. I didn’t know…’
Sophia, chest heaving, stroked Laura’s hair to calm her. “I’m sorry, too,” Sophia said, her voice raw. “I know how much you had to endure, my darling. I felt so guilty hurting for myself, knowing what you were going through. If I could have taken it for you, I would have. But we were each in hell – you, me, Yasmeen – all in our own version of hell…”
The two women held each for several minutes. Finally, Laura rose stiffly to her feet.
“I’m not feeling well. I shall go lie down.”
She wove unsteadily down the hall and closed the bedroom door behind her. She lay on top of the bed. Golden afternoon sunlight spilled through the half-closed shutters making the room not only semi-dark but stuffy. But the energy required to get back up and open them was beyond her at the moment.
Dear God, what was the matter with her? Laura took several deep breaths. While she and Sophia were in the harem, their misery and suffering were shared equally, no matter what happened to them individually. Now they were free – and Sophia was home with a man who risked everything, including his own life to rescue her.
Laura was free also, but for what? She was pregnant but not married. Unless she could return to England, she would have no money of her own. That would mean living off the charity of her cousin as her cousin had once lived off hers. The irony of that stung, and the bitter emotion shocked her and made her feel sick to her stomach.
Sophia was wrong – she hadn’t changed from the self-centered debutante she had been more than two years ago.
What if Samuel had had her declared dead? Even her own money would be gone. What should she do?
There was too much she didn’t have answers for.
She closed her eyes. The easy thing would be to accept what Elias offered this afternoon. Let him take care of everything. She wouldn’t have to think. She could drift along, numb and unfeeling.
Do it!
She fought the voice and its temptation. Sophia said Elias was a good man. Was he? She didn’t know. She didn’t know him at all; hadn’t even guessed he had developed tender feelings for her during that first voyage on the Calliope. And Sophia was right, if she had learned of his regard then, she would have most likely laughed.
But she was not so blind, so caught up in her pain and suffering, to recognize Elias would do anything for her.
Why? What was she to him? A conspicuous act of Christian piety? Something he could tell the great and good of those societies that solicit monies? An exhibit?
Drifting into an exhausted sleep, she saw Elias in front of a pulpit in black robes, pointing at her.
Look at the wretched Magdalene, brought desolate through misadventure! Pity her, brethren, dig deep to stop her suffering. Look at how much she has endured. She must be saved!
Her final conscious thought, as she succumbed to the seduction of her half-waking nightmare, was that Elias Nash’s declaration of devotion could only be as false as her own.