Wanton Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) (18 page)

      
“Your family doesn't know you've been risking your life for your country?”

      
He could hear tke shock in her voice. “My orders explicitly forbade telling anyone. What could be more convincing than to be shunned as a coward by one's own family? My father went to his grave thinking I was unfit to bear the Jamison name.”

      
Beth could hear the desolation in those words. He had sacrificed everything for his country and been disgraced for his devotion. By comparison, her desertion of her family to pursue her own dreams seemed shallow and selfish. She did not know how to console him. They lived in such different worlds...and they always would.

      
She looked so vulnerable standing there, pale and ethereal in white silk. He interpreted the pain he saw in her eyes as accusation. “I made you no more promises than you did me,” he said sadly, feeling like a cad and hating himself for it.

      
“I asked nothing of you when we became lovers,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat.
So it has come to this at the end.
“Good-bye, Derrick.”

      
He ached to take her in his arms one last time, but if he did, he feared he might not leave ever...and that could not be. “Good-bye, Beth.” He bowed stiffly and turned away.

      
She watched at the window as he slipped silently through the gardens, moving with startling speed for a man who had been so gravely injured. As she suspected, he made his way into the stable, where Vittoria's prize horses were kept. As the sun rose over the distant ridges on the eastern horizon, he rode the contessa's swiftest stallion into its brilliant light.

* * * *

      
Against the odds, Derrick made it over the Apennines and took ship across the Adriatic. During the voyage he lay abed trying to prepare his report to the Austrian authorities when he reached Trieste. The note signed by Bonaparte's own hand was so hopelessly stained with Derrick's blood that it was crumbling and illegible. Having dealt with the Austrians before, he was not optimistic regarding any effective response from them.

      
At night he tossed in restless sleep, dreaming of Beth Blackthorne. Seeing her face in front of him had been the only thing that kept him riding the cold and rugged trails with his side throbbing wickedly. Her stitches had held. If he had started bleeding while in the wilderness, he would be dead now. To her, he already was. His betrayal had killed her love. Impossible though that love was, he mourned its loss nonetheless.

      
Derrick arrived in Vienna on March 5.He found that Foreign Secretary Castlereagh had returned to London, leaving Wellington in charge of the British delegation to the peace conference. At least the allies' most able commander was present to take the field against Bonaparte. After a terse interview with the duke, a man noted for his brusqueness, Jamison was instructed to deliver his information to their Austrian allies.

      
Derrick cooled his heels in the antechambers of Prince Metternich's palace for several hours before being granted an audience. He seethed, for every moment the allies dithered, Bonaparte drew another mile closer to Paris.

      
As charming as he was ruthless, the prince listened to Jamison's report, delivered in flawless French. Although he gave no indication, Derrick understood every word exchanged in German between Metternich and his ministers. As instructed,he imparted these juicy details to Wellington, using the opportunity to request that he be allowed to serve under the duke in the upcoming conflict. The request was denied.

      
By March 9, Napoleon was once again at the head of a rejoicing French army that had eagerly deserted its hated Bourbon king. Not until the thirteenth was a formal declaration of war announced by Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia. Wellington departed to take command of his troops in Belgium. All of Europe girded for another war. And Derrick Jamison was given his new assignment.

* * * *

      
“What you need is a bracing bit of sea air to clear your mind,
cara,
” Vittoria said to Beth. She had come upon her young friend once again standing at the window of her studio, gazing at the eastern horizon like a lost soul. Beth had not painted since Derrick Jamison had fled two months before. All she had done was mope about her studio, playing at sketching but doing no real work.

      
“You cannot go on this way. I vow, no one has ever died of a broken heart, but you may be the first. You do not even eat!” She pointed an accusatory finger at an untouched plate of oysters sautéed with ripe olives and sweet pimento. No delicacy seemed to tempt Beth's palette and she was losing weight. Vittoria was alarmed.

      
Beth set down her charcoal and turned from the half-finished drawing. ”I don't mean to worry you...it's just that I can't get my bearings. Perhaps I should go home and spend some time with my family.”

      
“Who would immediately barrage you with eligible young bachelors. I do not believe that would solve your problem—only create new ones.”

      
“You mean I might succumb to marriage.”

      
“Wed in haste, repent at leisure,” Vittoria replied. “You're particularly vulnerable right now. The last thing you need is to be placed in a situation where you might make a life-altering decision.”

      
Beth sighed and paced across her cluttered studio to her only view of the bay. ” A sea voyage might be a good idea. I've heard that Sicily has some marvelous ruins, and the Baleric Islands are said to be wild and enchanting. Perhaps they might inspire me to paint again.”

      
“There have been ugly rumors about Algerian corsairs being sighted off the coast of Sicily....” Vittoria's voice faded as she considered the danger.

      
“I have heard those rumors ever since I arrived in Naples,” Beth said dismissively.

      
“You are right. If we cower in port every time a Barbary galley is sighted, we shall never leave Naples again!” Vittoria rubbed her hands eagerly. ”I shall book us passage immediately. Once you gain some perspective on the matter, you will see that the world does not begin and end with Derrick Jamison.”

* * * *

      
The salt spray was invigorating. Beth stood on the deck of the brigantine
Sea Sprite
, breathing in the dawn air as the bow pitched and rolled with each swell. She was the only passenger aboard who had not spent the night wretched with
mal de mer
. Vittoria was also an excellent sailor, but an infected tooth had forced her to remain behind. She had insisted that Beth go ahead and they would rendezvous in Palermo at the end of the month. Meanwhile, Beth had visited several of the lovely little islands off the coast of Spain. Three finished landscapes were already carefully stored in her cabin below.

      
In truth, Beth had enjoyed this time to herself, away from Vittoria's constant fretting. Her friend had become an overprotective surrogate mother, which was the last thing Beth needed. But the contessa had been right about leaving behind Naples and its haunting memories of Derrick. Beth began to feel the earlier zest and passion that had fueled her art. The ocean was a magical place, especially the Mediterranean in the spring. She was up every morning with the dawn, paint palette and canvas in front of her, ready to work.

      
The rough storms of last night had ended just short of daybreak and she was eager to begin. Beth turned from the railing back to her easel, but a loud cry from the crow's nest high over her head distracted her. The lookout was pointing to the southwest. As one sailor scrambled below-decks to summon the captain, the others grew increasingly agitated, jabbering among themselves in a patois of Calabrian and Genoese dialects.

      
A trio of sails grew larger and larger on the horizon. Beth took out her own glass from the paint box at her feet and looked through it. She saw a small swift brig flanked by two schooners, all flying a flag she recognized instantly. She had seen one of those flags on display in Washington when she was a little girl. President Jefferson had dispatched an American fleet to end the demands for tribute. They were Barbary corsairs—slavers and pirates—and they were swiftly gaining on the
Sea Sprite!

Chapter Ten

      
The ships approached like birds of prey, the brig in the lead, with the two schooners spreading out to encircle the wallowing old brigantine. They bristled with cannon, and the decks were filled with men whose blood lust seemed palpable across hundreds of yards of pitching ocean. Beth steadied her trembling hands and readjusted her glass to study the lead ship. A tall man with curly red hair appeared in command.

      
The
rais
. She had heard that many European men turned renegade for the booty, converting to Islam and attacking their former co-religionists with horrible ferocity. The captain towered over his swarthy, slightly built crew. She could not decide which looked more daunting—the crew with their glowing black eyes and drooping mustaches or the
rais
himself, a strapping giant with a flaming red beard. He brandished a wicked-looking scimitar, and his belt was laden with two braces of ornately engraved pistols.

      
His men carried all manner of weaponry, from Moorish fishtail muskets to the fearsome bows with which they were reputed to be able to fire thirty arrows in the time it took an experienced man to load a musket and fire a single shot. The crew hung over the railings as the
rais
ordered a warning shot fired across the bow of the
Sea Sprite.
The deafening report drowned out the cries of panic from the brigantine's crew, whose captain was trying, in vain, to control his frantic men.

      
We shall all be enslaved!

      
Beth had heard stories of the bagnos or slave markets of Barbary. Most prisoners were ransomed, she assured herself. The Algerian flag flew boldly from the mast of the
rais's
ship, and was not Algiers known as “the city that bankrupted God” because of the exorbitant ransom fees paid to its dey? But Beth knew female captives were subjected to horrifying indignities prior to their release. Worse yet,if they were young and nubile, they might vanish into a seraglio, never to be seen again by Western eyes.

      
Your father is a United States senator and a wealthy man,
she repeated to herself as the captain of the
Sea Sprite
struck his colors. She debated returning to her cabin, then decided it was better to put on a bold front.

      
Beth had not counted on the speed with which they would be boarded. The heavily armed corsairs, brandishing scimitars and daggers, swarmed over the railing of the
Sea Sprite
like army ants, knocking the Neapolitan sailors to the deck and placing booted feet on their throats. She stood at the bow, partially obscured by casks of wine that had been lashed against the mast.

      
Beth watched silently, her dagger hidden in the folds of her skirt, as corsairs began herding the terrified passengers onto the deck. Several fat old merchants' wives were bleating like terrified sheep, much to the amusement of the corsairs, who plucked at their clothing and poked them with the tips of their weapons while relieving them of their jewelry. The male passengers were also stripped of any valuables and then forced to lie flat on the wooden planks like the crew.

      
Then one of the corsairs, a taller rangy fellow missing all his front teeth, spotted Beth's bright hair as it blew in the breeze. With a guttural cry he dashed toward the bow of the ship and reached for her with a large beringed hand. He pulled her against his body, which stunk of garlic and sour sweat. His skin was clammy in the early morning damp, and he wore only frayed leather breeches cut off at midcalf. His feet were bare and callused like horn, but when Beth stamped with all of her weight on his instep, he howled in pain and released her.

      
His companions erupted with laughter. Angrily, the corsair withdrew his heavy curved blade and pointed it menacingly at her throat. Beth raised her head haughtily, making no further protest as he once again took her arm roughly. When he lowered his large clumsy weapon and began fondling her breasts, the others now cheered him on, each man eager for his turn at her.

      
As they crowded closer and her captor began tearing open her blouse, Beth hoped to die quickly. Better that than being torn apart by this filthy mob. She slipped the stiletto from her skirt and plunged it into her attacker's gut, driving it deeply,then ripping upward. With a startled oath, he stumbled back, blood flecking his lips as he watched his entrails spill onto the deck.

      
As he fell, she grabbed his scimitar and held it in one hand, her bloody dagger clutched in the other. “All right, come and get me, but before you do, I guarantee a high price for my life,” she gritted out as they stood for a moment, gaping in shock. The stunned reaction did not last long. One wizened old man missing an eye raised his fist and yelled. They advanced as she retreated toward the end of the bow.

      
Her last thoughts as she felt the splintery wood press into her back were of Derrick. A profound sense of regret washed over her as two men rushed her from opposite sides while a third came at her head on. She swung the scimitar in her left hand, opening a slash down her frontal attacker's right arm, then caught the fellow at her left with her dagger, puncturing his Adam's apple. Every instant she waited for the shot or thrust that would end her life.