Regency High Society Vol 2: Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch. Miranda Jarrett

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СКАЧАТЬ as if in her he’d discovered a part of himself that he hadn’t realized was missing, a half that would make his life whole. He understood at last the wordless language that passed between his sister and her husband, and how impossibly dear love, real love, could be, even to a man like him. And passion. Who would have believed how much fire there was in his silver-haired Caro? He wiped his hand across his mouth as he caught himself grinning like a fool at the memory.

      His Caro, his sweet, lovely, fiery Caro.

      His Caro, who was wed to the man he’d sworn to risk his life to rescue.

      Abruptly he turned his back on the city and concentrated instead on the felucca as the skiff bumped alongside. He grabbed the makeshift rope ladder and clambered aboard. For a moment he simply stood there, stunned by the noise and chaos around him.

      Because of the felucca’s narrow hull, space in its hold was at a premium, and the deck teemed with both passengers and animal cargo. Everyone seemed to be arguing and shouting at once, none of it in any language Jeremiah could make out, not spoken this quickly. Sailors and passengers alike wore either long, loose robes and turbans or fitted European clothing, or, in several cases, a combination of both, with one elderly man in a striped robe with a dirty sash and a pair of shiny leather shoes with outsize polished buckles peeking from beneath the hem. The slaves chained to their benches wore nothing so dignified, only filthy trousers or bits of draped loincloths, their broad-shouldered, unwashed bodies glistening in the hot sun, and Jeremiah prayed that beneath their unkempt hair and beards none were Americans. Beyond them, a handful of women clustered together in the scant shade of one of the forward sails, and Jeremiah looked hastily away, well aware of the peril of admiring women, no matter how shrouded, in this part of the world. Lord, what would Caro in her white silk and diamonds have made of this!

      Beside the women on the deck were baskets of squabbling chickens, and tied unceremoniously to one of the felucca’s lines were several goats, their stench unmistakable as the wind shifted toward Jeremiah. It was more a blasted ark than a decent merchant ship, he decided grimly, and however brief the voyage was—Tripoli was scarcely more than two hundred miles from Naples—it wouldn’t be short enough.

      “Ah, signore Capitano Sparhawk!” said a short, round-bellied man whose entire face seemed curved into his smile. “I am seldom so honored, eh? Another captain aboard mia cara Colomba!’

      “Captain Tomaso,” said Jeremiah, his voice determinedly noncommittal. The other captain wore a ring on his pinkie with an opal the size of a pigeon’s egg and his hair was tied back with an elaborate silk bow, a macaronis’ affectation, but his fingernails were ringed black and the cuffs of his shirt were grimy and frayed, and that told more than enough of the man to Jeremiah. At least he spoke English, though after Nelson’s occupation, most Neapolitans in water trade seemed to have some grasp of the language. “A fine day for sailing.”

      “Bellissima!” Tomaso beamed, his smile growing even wider as he patted his belly with both hands. “But wait until you see mia dolce Colomba fly across the water. Then you will see perfection!”

      He bellowed a handful of orders to his men, and the felucca’s sails were dropped to catch the wind. Jeremiah lifted his hat long enough to wipe his sleeve across his brow. It was hot in the sun, and his head ached dully from lack of sleep. Best to go find whatever wretched place passed for his cabin and get some rest.

      Damnation, but he missed Caro!

      “There, Capitano, I told you how she flies, eh?” bragged Tomaso. “Like an angel she is!”

      More like a sow, thought Jeremiah irritably. To him the Colomba felt sluggish and low in the water, the long oars on either side making her unresponsive to the wind. “I’m going below, Tomaso.”

      “Alone, eh? You didn’t bring your graziosa amante, eh? They told me you would.” He kissed his fingertips and winked broadly. “A bellissima donna!”

      “She’s not coming.” And a good thing, too, decided Jeremiah. Though Tomaso and Bertle were as different as shipmasters could be, there was still something intangible there in both men that made Jeremiah uneasy and on his guard. “This is no journey for a lady.”

      “She’s not coming?” Tomaso’s face puckered with sly regret and he clucked his tongue. “My poor fellow, to be scorned! Women, eh, so fickle, so cruel!”

      “Not this lady,” said Jeremiah curtly. He slung the canvas bag with his few belongings over his shoulder. “I’m going below.”

      “Ah, you English!” called Tomaso, not in the least offended. “Always eager for the next place to sling your hammocks!”

      Jeremiah didn’t bother to correct him. Not only did he want no further conversation with the man, but it might also serve him better for now to be believed an Englishman. An Englishman, for all love; Lord, how merrily Caro would laugh at that!

      A gaunt little ship’s boy showed him to what passed for a cabin, a dirty closet half below the waterline. Grateful again that he’d spared Caro this, he wearily hung his hammock and soon drifted off to sleep, lulled by the shuffling of the goats on the deck overhead. He slept deeply, only dreaming once, of Caro skipping along beside him in Portsmouth, the old coverlet sliding off her bare shoulders as she reached out to take his hand.

      It was dark when Jeremiah woke and, disoriented, he tensed with terror, his hand at once on his knife, until he recalled where he was. The felucca and Tomaso and Naples and Tripoli and Davy and Caro, always Caro. He forced his sleep-thick brain to sort it through, striving to calm himself. At least there’d been no nightmares, no Hamil to haunt him, and he sighed, slipping the knife back into its sheath.

      Above him there was a babble of indignant voices he couldn’t hear well enough to understand, among them Tomaso’s apparently trying to intercede. He rolled from the hammock, his mouth dry and his shirt plastered to his chest, and decided to go topside, hoping that the wind off the water might clear his head.

      By the smoking light of an oil lantern hooked to the mast, he could just make out Tomaso’s broad silhouette, gesturing alternately to three of the male passengers. Between them was a smaller figure, one of the women, and Jeremiah watched with idle curiosity, wondering what grievous insult one of the men had brought onto the other through the woman.

      But perhaps it was the woman herself who’d caused the trouble. To Jeremiah’s amusement, she tossed her head and waved one hand back defiantly at Tomaso. This one was no ordinary, obedient Turkish woman, and Jeremiah almost wished Tomaso would let her speak. He could use the entertainment.

      Abruptly Tomaso turned, shaking his head, and then spotted Jeremiah. With a cry of joy he rushed forward, his arms outstretched.

      “Capitano Sparhawk, I was just this moment going to send for you! Only you can answer this. Only you can return peace to my little Colomba!’

      He spoke briskly in Italian to one of the seamen, who grabbed the woman by the arm and dragged her toward Jeremiah and the circle of the lantern’s full light.

      “I told you before, Capitano Sparhawk, that women give men no peace,” declared Tomaso, “and here now is the proof. That signore there says this creature stole from him as he slept, but she swears he lies. She swears it, Capitano, but what is most amazing is that she says too that you will swear on her behalf. Can you believe it, eh? Come here, mia bella cagna!’

      Roughly he shoved the woman closer to Jeremiah, and the black shawl she had wrapped over СКАЧАТЬ