Regency High Society Vol 2: Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch. Miranda JarrettЧитать онлайн книгу.
such treatment?
But Dorinda knew the value of hiding her outrage, of biding her time. “Now then, my dear,” she began sympathetically. “What exactly is the problem with Captain Sparhawk?”
Caro took a deep breath, steadying her voice before the countess. She didn’t know how she’d survived Jeremiah’s farewell this morning, and, feeling battered and vulnerable, she had come to her former enemy as a last resort. “Jeremiah refuses to let me go with him to Tripoli.”
Dorinda sniffed contemptuously. So the man wished to be rid of her. Dorinda could not blame him, and in a way she respected him more for it. The Italians had a marvelous word, cicisbeo, that they used to describe the acknowledged, ornamental lover of a married woman, a title no honorable man would ever aspire to. What a pity she would never have the pleasure of knowing this Jeremiah herself.
“The way I view it,” she said, “Signor Sparhawk has no choice but to take you with him.”
“Jeremiah says it’s too dangerous, that he won’t put me at risk.” Because he loves me too much. Caro stopped perilously short of saying the words out loud. Already she missed him. “He doesn’t even want me at the dock to see him off.”
“For God’s sake, girl, use your wits!” ordered Dorinda, her anger too great to sustain the feigned sympathy any longer. “I’ll wager you didn’t get to be countess by wringing your hands and wailing. And don’t forget that you are a countess, and no insolent Yankee sailor has any right to tell you what you may or may not do.”
Caro’s head drooped. “I’ve never done anything for myself,” she said softly. “Frederick didn’t wish me to. He considered it unseemly and ill fitting a lady of my station.”
“Fah on what foolishness Frederick wishes! You’re not helpless. You came here after him, didn’t you?”
Caro shook her head, unconvinced.
“Listen to me, girl. I don’t care how you do it—with your face, you should have no difficulty at all—but you owe it to my son to be on that ship. And you will do it, Caroline.” The old woman jabbed at the air with her diamond-weighted finger. “Or you will answer to me.”
As the hired skiff drew closer to the felucca that would carry him to Tripoli, Jeremiah’s misgivings grew. The two stubby masts and patched lateen sails were bad enough, but the dozen oars that bristled from each side of the little ship inspired even less confidence. Oars like that needed men to row them, men that in this part of the world were most likely Christian slaves, and as both a free man and a Christian himself, Jeremiah despised all that galleys represented. As a sailor he wouldn’t have trusted the shabby felucca on the river at home, let alone on the Mediterranean with its sudden storms and uncertain currents, and he wondered again if he’d been wrong to accept passage arranged by the old countess. Not that he had much choice; Naples was at war with Tripoli, too—at least theoretically—and all the other vessels daring to trade illegally between the two countries were bound to be as disreputable as this one.
For reassurance he thought of the pistols and knives hidden beneath his coat, anonymous, serviceable weapons. He had brought little else with him, leaving his sea chest behind at the inn until he returned. Once in Tripoli, he planned to purchase the loose robes that were worn there, and he hoped that with his black hair and weatherworn skin he could at least be inconspicuous.
He looked back over his shoulder at the fairy-tale city he was leaving and picked out the orange-tiled roof of the inn. He did not intend to be gone long, a fortnight at most if he could help it, and despite his warning to Caro, he had every intention of coming back. After a lifetime of sailing away, now for the first time he had a real reason to return.
Saying goodbye to Caro this morning in the bed they’d shared had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done. She hadn’t wept or clung to him, or tried again to convince him not to go; but the wistful, silent love in her eyes was more expressive than a week’s worth of recrimination from any other woman.
What he’d found with her last night went beyond happiness, beyond joy, to something he couldn’t find words to explain. It was almost 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