Revenge of the Corsairs Read online

  It was late. They would drink, some of them would get drunk, then they would sleep off their mourning, and he would be there to watch over them – like a good shepherd.

  And they were good men. He was proud to stand beside them, work alongside them, and fight alongside them. The crew of the Calliope were his friends; his brothers. But he had to keep a part of himself separate.

  There may be “truth in wine”, but there were also different tempers and temperaments. He learned very quickly that a gentle nudge or a quiet word at the right time often defused trouble.

  A soft answer turns away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger.

  He found himself looking across the deck, counting each head, watching to make sure none were the worse for the grog. He returned to the lamp and examined the roster Giorgio had given him a few minutes ago. He crossed out Mr. Grace’s name and replaced it with his own.

  Elias was proud of his work and treated his nickname of Preacher as a badge of honor.

  Bravery was one thing – all these men were brave, all of them had faced death numerous times when going after the slave ships of the Barbary Coast – but to him, bravery meant nothing without self-discipline, the mastery of oneself.

  He liked to think his spiritual guidance helped the Calliope’s crew to that end.

  He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls.

  Elias slapped Gus on shoulder. “How long since the bilge was pumped?”

  The grey-bearded sailor grimaced from around his clay pipe. “Judgin’ by the stench in the cargo hold, it’d be just about due.” Both men looked out among the crew on deck. Of all the tasks on board, this was the least favored.

  “I can get a couple o’the lads to do it now if ye like?”

  Elias shook his head. “No, leave them be tonight. I’ll do it.”

  “Alone? Ye be sure about that, Mr. Nash?”

  Pumping the bilge was easily done by one. But long ago, the crew had decided that a misery shared was a misery halved so the job was done by two.

  “Yeah,” Elias answered, wrinkling his nose. “Just remind Giorgio to leave enough hot water for me to wash.”

  “Right, ye have it.”

  He cared for these men, loved them in a way that only brothers-in-arms could know. They came to him when in difficulties or when they needed another ear to listen. On other ships, they might have gone to their captain but, up until recently, Kit Hardacre had been as unmoored as the rest of them – perhaps even more so.

  Elias passed Kit sitting on a bench with his arms around Sophia, a blanket around them both against the evening chill as they listened to Jonathan play the fiddle. The love those two souls shared was rare. He had been delighted to see their romance blossom from their first meeting, even though neither recognized it at first.

  He went below decks and pulled off his shirt before descending into the bowels of the Calliope. He presumed too much. Sophia and Kit were already married and in love when she was abducted. A husband would not be a man if he didn’t move heaven and earth for the woman he loved.

  And yet, he loved Laura. He was sure of it – right from the moment she walked up the gangplank in London in that blue dress, the color of the summer sky. She looked like a porcelain doll brought to life. He’d never believed in love at first sight and, truth be told, he still wasn’t sure such a thing existed. But what he did know was he wanted the chance to win Laura’s love just like one of those old-fashioned knights of yore.

  Sophia had recognized he was smitten – and even had the wisdom to try to warn him away two years ago.

  And he might have heeded it, too, if not for circumstances.

  I’m pregnant!

  Laura’s bitterly delivered words had torn him in two. It had taken all his self-control to not fly into a violent rage, to resurrect Selim Omar in his mind and kill him over and over again. That was another reason he assigned himself the task of operating the bilge pumps tonight. He would look and smell filthy and disgusting. Right now it suited his mood.

  Laura’s pregnant…

  He knew that was a possibility. How many had he helped rescue over the years? Some barely out of girlhood, pregnant to men who forced themselves repeatedly upon them? In the belly of the ship, Elias marshaled his rage, working the chains on the pump in the dim lamplight until his back and shoulders were in agony and his legs could no longer support their own weight.

  Kit had also asked him at Al-Min if he was prepared for what the terrors of slavery might do to his nascent courtship of Laura.

  Elias had considered the question – of course it would change. If the pregnancy went well, Laura would be a mother – he wouldn’t allow himself to think of her perishing in childbirth. And after, if she permitted, he would be her husband and a father to the babe.

  Simple.

  He shook his head.

  Simpleton.

  Just because things made sense in his own head didn’t mean the rest of the world was going to conveniently fall into line. Particularly a beautiful, brave, stubborn Englishwoman who, right at this moment, cursed every son of Adam as the devil.

  And Elias wasn’t sure how to convince Laura that he was otherwise – that was something his book of chivalry failed to teach.

  It was well after midnight when he returned topside. He called for one of the crew to bring up soap and hot water while he stripped off his filthy clothes.

  Standing naked as the day he was born, Elias ignored the cold and looked up into the spray of stars that intersected the wide expanse of night sky. He stood in awe of it. Did Adam feel like this? Grateful for the magnificent world that surrounded him but self-consciously alone?

  He was lonely. Even living in close quarters with more than a dozen people, Elias never felt more alone.

  If he were a lesser man, he would be jealous of Kit and Sophia, or of Jonathan and Morwena. Elias shook his head and admitted the truth. He was that lesser man, and he was ashamed of it.

  He coveted his friends’ happiness. He envied the fact these women, uniquely beautiful, charming, witty and intelligent, had freely agreed to share their lives and willingly given their love.

  Elias ached for someone to hold him. He ached for the connection of another human soul. Yes, he knew he could take his relief as many others before him had but…

  It is not good for man to be alone.

  He ignored the voice of his late father in his head, the booming Scottish brogue that read the Bible to his children at the table every evening at supper.

  His father wouldn’t understand, but then who would?

  Elias manhandled the tub to the scuppers and let the water flow back into the sea below. By the time he returned the tin to its place, someone had left a towel and fresh clothes for him. He didn’t know who, but he appreciated the kindness. Perhaps one day, a wife might do that for him after his return from time at sea. Elias would return with gifts for a family in a house he was proud to have provided for them and –

  Jonathan slapped him on the back and Elias started awake. “You’re dead on your feet, Brother. Go, get some sleep.”

  He had no idea his mind had been rambling. Elias acknowledged Jonathan with a nod and headed toward the deck chair he had made his bed since Al-Min when he had given his cabin to Kit and Sophia.

  “A proper bed, Elias,” he warned. Elias stopped and turned back.

  “I know you’ve not slept,” Jonathan continued. “You have my quarters to yourself. I’m on the middle watch and Kit is taking morning watch. I don’t want to see you here afore noon.”

  “Aye, ‘Captain’.” Elias found the energy to grin. The Calliope’s navigator returned it.

  Below deck, Elias sank gratefully into the cot and closed his eyes.

  When he first joined Kit and his men on the previous ship, the Terpsichore, one of the first ports of call on their return would be a local brothel. He didn’t judge but he didn’t want to tup a prostitute either, so Elias would find some exc
use when they visited the disorderly houses – usually he’d volunteer to stay behind and remain on duty.

  But one particular close call with Barbary pirates threatened to destroy his resolve.

  This particular night, the Terpsichore had come across a Dutch ship in distress.

  He, along with Jonathan, led a boarding party to rescue any survivors. They had found many dead. Those who lived were wounded most gravely. Little did he know they were not alone.

  A group of pirates had remained, awaiting the return of their galiot. They charged with scimitars drawn. Without thinking, Elias had picked up a Dutchman’s sword and struck, nearly severing a man’s arm. Another rushed him. He had slashed wildly again and struck his opponent’s neck more out of luck than skill.

  Elias had killed his first man that night – not from behind the roar of a cannon – but up close where he could see the man’s face, smell his breath and feel his clothes soak with the lifeblood of another.

  Even now, he could see the look of shock and surprise on the pirate’s face, and even his moment of death when the squirting of arterial blood slowed and then stopped.

  He ought to have been horrified by his actions, but he felt exhilarated. The Terpsichore evaded the returning galiot, sailing away with minimal damage and ten men rescued.

  The close call had changed him. The thrill ebbed after a few hours, leaving him numb to his core. Worse still were the shakes which he hid from the other men. Suddenly, he craved the arms of a woman around him as surely as some men craved drink.

  He rarely drank – another legacy of his Wesleyan upbringing – but tonight he wanted to forget. This time, he hadn’t refused the offer to join them. Tonight, he wanted to savor just being alive.

  The crew had stumbled into the third tavern of the evening, all of them already two sheets to the wind, exuberant with the thrill of surviving another close call with one of Kaddouri’s pirate ships.

  Elias had never been into a brothel before, but he watched Kit and some of the other men scan the room until they found something to their taste – a brunette for Kit, a redhead for Giorgio. Jonathan hadn’t joined them. Little did Elias know then of the burgeoning romance between their navigator and Morwena Gambino.

  Elias had picked up the ale in front of him and drank deeply. His head started to feel woolly – and that was a good thing, because the look of fear on the pirate’s face in his death throes dimmed a little in his mind’s eye.

  A young woman smiled at him – a petite thing with dark hair and eyes – and he smiled back, more out of habit than anything. She seemed to take it as an invitation and sidled herself on his lap, twining her arms around him. His arms went around her heavily-perfumed form and that had felt nice.

  He drank more beer, rather than the spirits his friends indulged in but, after a while, the noise and the odor had become too much. He stood and the girl remained in his arms.

  He needed to go outside but, at that moment, he wasn’t sure where the door was. The girl tugged his hand and he allowed her to lead him. All he wanted to do was take a piss but he ended up in a room with a bed and some threadbare drapes that tried to make the bleak room look luxurious.

  The girl showed him the screen and the chamber pot, which he used to blessed relief. When Elias had emerged, she had stripped down to her shift.

  The thin chemise hid little from his view. Unbidden, his eyes fell on the shadow of small, brown nipples beneath and fell further still to the shadow between her legs.

  He felt his body respond. She was pretty, and she would do anything he wished. She was paid to do anything he wished.

  Do it. Everyone else does.

  No! He had squeezed his eyes shut, and behind the lids lay the grim horror of battle. He’d taken a man’s life face to face today. Actually, more than one.

  He didn’t think he was a man prone to violence, but he was. That realization was shocking. So, too, was the realization that, in this just cause, he would do so again. And willingly.

  What type of man did that make him? He opened his eyes; the young woman was still in front of him. The look of seduction was gone from her eyes. Instead, Elias saw curiosity – perhaps, even pity – he couldn’t be sure because his vision had gone blurry.

  Soon, thin arms, but warm ones, wrapped themselves around him. His head dropped to her shoulders as she drew him close.

  “Hold me,” he whispered.

  Elias had wept that night, his misery bone deep. And the girl had held him just he had asked. It was a comfort he didn’t know he needed until just that moment, when the desire for human connection became overwhelming.

  He couldn’t bring himself to “dip the wick” as some of those others described it. No, not like that. Not with someone he did not love; someone whose interest in him lasted only as long as the time he had paid for.

  Others might mock such quaint, old-fashioned notions, but Elias himself was quite enamored of Geoffroi de Charney’s treatise on chivalrous behavior, Livre de Chevalerie. It was the only book, other than the ship’s Bible, he habitually read.

  Elias would not fault his fellow crew members for sampling what was so freely available. But he could not, and had not.

  Chapter Five

  Rabia, exalted third wife of Sheik Selim Omar, sailed from Al-Min under the cover of darkness like a fugitive.

  She remained at the stern of the ship, standing as regal as a queen, the breeze catching her traveling gown. She listened to the sound of the galiot’s oars dipping in time, stoking her hatred with each stroke.

  How dare the most important woman in Selim Omar’s household be treated so vilely?

  Her son should have been recognized as sheik on his father’s death. She should have ruled in his name. Instead, the boy had been seized by the second wife, Amal, who claimed him as hers.

  Rabia spat forcefully.

  Bitch! Flea-ridden whore!

  For three days, Rabia had suffered the indignity of being a runagate inside the casbah her husband had once ruled.

  She knew she should consider herself lucky she had escaped with her life. The other three wives blamed her for the murder of their husband even though the deed was done by her chief concubine Yasmeen – traitorous bitch! Those evil, grasping women would have slit her throat themselves but they lacked the courage for the task.

  Cowards! Fools!

  They had played their hand but she had escaped. A few cuts and bruises were a small price to pay. And she would not forget. Even now, Rabia plotted her revenge against the remains of Selim Omar’s households.

  More fools them. She would not have been so cowardly had the tables been turned. She would wear her bruises with pride and make them rue the day they were born.

  Rabia closed her eyes. Even now, she could see the naked body of her husband on the bed, drenched in his own blood from just a single stab wound to the heart – an elegant and poetic act.

  Selim Omar’s guards had failed in their duty to protect their master, but they had done the next best thing. With a single savage sweep of a scimitar, Yasmeen had been executed where she stood.

  When Rabia had entered the room, the woman’s decapitated body lay on the floor, still holding the knife.

  It was a sad and wasteful death – hers as well as his. But how could it have been otherwise?

  Yasmeen…

  Rabia shook her head. Regret ached in her breast a moment. She could almost sympathize with the woman. The Arab they had entertained that night was a vile, disgusting creature – and she had known it on sight. There was a cruelty in his eyes and the set of his mouth, but Selim Omar reveled in his reputation for lavish generosity, especially when his ego was flattered.

  If Rabia were ruler, she would have sent the Arab away without an audience – and shaken the dust off her shoe after him for good measure. The motley collection of horses the man offered was not worth giving him the prize that was Yasmeen.

  Rabia trusted no one, not even her husband, but she had come to rely on Yasmeen a good d
eal in recent years. She had been a rare jewel in the household – intelligent, organized, talented – and she was beautiful. The superficial men preferred the lighter skin of the Europeans, but the Somali woman was flawless, as though she had been fashioned from the finest walnut.

  Yasmeen supervised the concubines and odalisques of Rabia’s household with rigor and discipline. Never once did Rabia have problems with her girls. Whenever Selim Omar’s other wives complained about the laziness and backbiting in their court, she took great delight in reminding them how talented, industrious and beautiful her women were. They were the envy of the royal palace. Even her husband’s cousin, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire himself, admired them.

  She cursed Selim Omar as a fool. He had no reason to have gifted Yasmeen to that sadist. It should have been one of the other women. If the Arab liked his women dark, Selim should have given him the olive-skinned, half-caste girl, Sophia Green, instead.

  Sophia and her cousin, Laura…

  Laura Cappleman. That was her name. A pretty girl, skin like alabaster. Light brown hair and a pleasing figure.

  Rabia had chosen well with that one. She recalled the day her husband asked for her opinion on taking the girl. Laura had been first introduced to her at the rented villa at Palermo, flattered at being asked to show off her silly paintings. The English girl had even brought her cousin and her stupid brother with her.

  Of course, Selim Omar would have the girl regardless of what Rabia thought. But giving her willing assent to Laura Cappleman’s kidnapping and addition to the harem was as good as making a gift of the girl to her husband, and Rabia had been rewarded for her good judgment with a sizable purse of gold.

  Over the years, she had amassed quite a fortune this way, and had been careful to keep such treasure secret. One did not become a favored wife of Selim Omar without employing a great measure of cunning and guile.

  But one thing she had not understood was why Selim Omar enjoyed toying with the half-caste Sophia. He had been intrigued by her, even to the point of obsession, but Sophia was dangerous. Rabia knew from their very first meeting that the woman was too clever for her own good. Little did she know she held vipers to her breast.