Читать книгу Regency High Society Vol 2: Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch - Louise Allen, Miranda Jarrett - Страница 22

“His concubine?” Caro shook her head in disbelief as she looked from one girl to the other, and very nearly laughed from the sheer preposterousness of the situation. “Is it the custom here for a wife—or wives—to interview a husband’s mistress?”

Leilah flushed and stared down at the floor, but Bella’s brown eyes met Caro’s without flinching. “It is not an interview, Countess of Byfield. If Hamil chooses to keep you, that is his decision.”

“Believe me,” said Caro dryly, “it will be as much my decision as Hamil’s. And please, call me, Caro. Your name is Bella?”

“Isabella, though Hamil prefers Bella. This is Leilah. And we must call you ‘my lady,’ for Hamil wishes it so.” She pursed her lips, determined not to be distracted. “We want you to know that only we wives and our children will be entitled to a full share of our husband’s goods when he dies. As a concubine, you and your children will only receive half a share.”

“Though you would naturally prefer not to divide the estate by even that extra half.” Caro sighed, thinking how whether in Portsmouth or Tripoli, she still seemed to be in the middle of such quarrels. “You needn’t worry at all, you know. I have no wish—none whatsoever—to become Hamil’s mistress.”

“None?” Bella narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Hamil is a man all women desire, my lady. He is strong and virile and very handsome.”

“And he has blessed us both with sons!” blurted Leilah, then at once stared back at the floor.

Caro’s glance fell to Leilah’s thickening waist. “You have other children? But you are scarcely more than children yourselves!”

Bella smiled knowingly. “I was thirteen when Hamil took me from my brother’s ship, and within the year he married me and gave me my first son, Allah be praised. Another son and a daughter have followed, and I am yet but eighteen. You cannot doubt how potent a man my husband is.”

“I most certainly would not,” said Caro hastily. She had been barely older than Bella when she’d wed Frederick, but she herself had been all the children Frederick wanted. By the time Bella reached her own age of twenty-nine, she could well be a grandmother. No wonder they thought she was so appallingly old! Yet in a way she envied them the same way as she’d envied Desire Herendon, and she thought wistfully of how much she’d give to bear Jeremiah’s child.

She smiled gently at the two young faces before her. “You love Hamil, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” answered Bella fervently, and at her side Leilah nodded in agreement. “We do. We love him, and he loves us, as it should be between husbands and wives.”

How simple Bella made it all sound! “Then you will understand that I would not wish to come between you.”

“No?” Bella remained skeptical. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because I, too, have a husband that I love very much, and there is no more room in my heart for another,” said Caro, painfully aware of how much more her words meant. Between Frederick and Jeremiah, her heart was overflowing. “My husband was captured by Hamil and is his prisoner. I came to Tripoli to find him, not to become Hamil’s mistress.”

Swiftly the two girls exchanged glances. “If your husband were returned to you,” asked Leilah carefully, “would you leave and swear never to return?”

“I would swear it now,” said Caro fervently.

Another look passed between Hamil’s wives, and slowly Leilah nodded.

“Leilah’s father is a special friend of the pasha’s,” explained Bella. “If you swear you will leave Tripoli with your husband, and if, until then, you hold true to what you profess and keep yourself from Hamil’s bed, then we shall pledge to help you.”

“I swear, by whatever you wish.” It would be the easiest promise to keep that Caro had ever made, and impulsively she kissed each girl on the cheek. “You will never have anything to fear from me.”

Both Bella and Leilah went still, stunned by such a sign of affection from the woman they’d feared as a rival, then suddenly began to giggle with relief like the young women they were.

“We thought you would be very grand, my lady,” confessed Bella, her serious role as mediator done. “Hamil is most proud of having captured you. A British noblewoman! He told us we must be respectful to you, and speak only English in your presence.”

Caro laughed, amused to hear that anyone would consider her grand and daunting. Certainly no one ever had before. “Your English is better than that of many people born in England itself.”

Bella’s cheeks pinked with pride. “That is Hamil’s doing. He wished his wives to speak his language, and he bought us a tutor, a slave, from your royal city of London, so we might learn only the best.”

“Poor Mr. Peck!” Leilah sighed sadly. “He was a good teacher, but he wasn’t very wise.”

Bella sighed, too. “He was greedy, you see. He stole one of Leilah’s gold necklaces and tried to sell it at the market. Of course he was caught, and Hamil punished him himself, using his own sword to cut off Mr. Peck’s hands. Then he nailed them himself onto the walls near the east gate to warn other thieves against stealing from Hamil’s wives.”

She smiled contentedly, oblivious to the look of horror on Caro’s face. “You see why we cannot believe you wouldn’t want such a man as Hamil for yourself. What other man would show such love, such devotion, to his women?”

“Now I can see that Tomaso was right,” said Hamil with satisfaction. “Ye are every bit the noblewoman he promised ye were.”

At the other end of the dining table, Caro smiled faintly. It was one thing to swear to Bella and Leilah that she would keep away from their husband, but it was quite another to be alone with Hamil himself. His gaze had not left her since she had entered the room, and too well Caro knew that the hunger in his eyes had nothing to do with the mountain of food between them. Through an arched doorway, beneath a large framed looking glass, she saw another mattress on a raised platform much like the bed in her own room, only larger, broader, piled even higher with silken pillows and coverlets in luxurious invitation—an invitation Caro had every intention of refusing.

“An English countess, from one of the greatest families in Britain,” continued Hamil with relish. “No one would e’er doubt your blood an’ breeding to see ye tonight.”

She wondered uneasily what he would say if he knew the truth of her background—not, of course, that she’d any intention of telling him. “A countess, yes,” she said, “but hardly an English one, not dressed like this.”

“These garments are not proper for your rank?” he asked with a strange mixture of outrage and concern. “Ye would wear richer in London?”

“Not richer, no,” she said quickly, not wishing to anger him over something so inconsequential. “Few ladies at any court in Europe would dress so grandly, except, perhaps, General Bonaparte’s wife Josephine.”

“Proper, that is. The general is a great man.” Hamil himself was dressed even more splendidly than usual tonight, wearing a fitted waistcoat so thick with gold embroidery that the silk beneath was completely hidden. To Caro’s surprise, he had left off his turban, and unlike the other Tripolitan men, he had did not shave his head. Cherubic red gold curls surrounded his forehead, completely at odds with the cruel lines of his face. Caro thought again of the poor tutor and shuddered.

“And your chambers, m’lady? Are they pleasing?”

“My room is lovely, thank you, as is this meal.” The table was set with European silver and porcelain dishes—doubtless plunder—but no utensils, for Hamil had adopted the local custom of eating with one hand, scooping the food into his mouth with his fingers. So much, thought Caro unhappily, for claiming a knife for her defense.

Hamil grunted. “Your friend Sparhawk would weep to have such quarters this night.”

“Where is he?” she asked quickly. “Is he still on board your ship?”

“My ship?” He lewdly sucked the mutton grease from his thumb as he watched for her reaction. “The hold would seem like the very palace compared to where he lies now.” Caro’s fingers gripped the arm of her chair. “You have taken him to the quarries?”

“I told ye, m’lady, ye are to waste no more time considering a cowardly brute like that one,” he said carelessly, and tossed the mutton bone onto the floor behind him. “Ye are a lady. Ye deserve better.”

As desperate as Caro was for news of Jeremiah she realized that Hamil had no intention of telling her more, at least not then. He was toying with her, testing her. If she was ever to learn anything from him, she would have to do the same to him.

But while Hamil could taunt her with Jeremiah, all she had to bargain with in return was herself, and to succeed she must remain every inch the highborn countess Hamil believed her to be. If she faltered even for a moment, she would lose all her value to him. She would become simply another female captive, little better than a slave, and there’d be no hope for her, even less for Jeremiah and Frederick.

Oh, yes, the stakes were very high, thought Caro grimly, and it would be the most dangerous game she’d ever played.

“So you believe I deserve better,” she said slowly. “Better meaning yourself?”

He smiled, supremely confident, and sat back in his chair to study her. “Ye met my lassies this afternoon, didn’t ye? They’ve no complaints, the randy little creatures.”

Caro shrugged and crossed her knees, the striped silk gliding seductively across her long legs in a way that riveted his gaze. “They are charming girls, but then they have seen nothing of the world for comparison.”

His smile faded. “And you have, m’lady?”

“I’m not a girl, Hamil Al-Ameer.” She smoothed the silk across her thighs with her open palm, praying that her words sounded more convincing to him than they did to her. “I thought you’d noticed that for yourself.”

Hamil didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The look in his eyes was beyond words, a wolfish predatory look that made her feel like a bleating lamb waiting to be devoured. No, worse than that; she felt as if she were thirteen again.

“No, Caroline, no!” said her mother furiously, cuffing her across the ear while her mother’s friend, the out-of-work actor who was pretending to be Sir Harry, had waited for the chance to fondle Caro again. “You cannot flinch when the gentleman touches you! The gentleman has something you want—his gold—and in exchange you must give him whatever he desires, and that is yourself. Do you understand?”

“But Mama—”

Her mother’s hand had struck her again, harder. “Do you understand, daughter?”

She had pressed her hand to her jaw, fighting back the shameful tears that would only earn her another blow. “Yes, Mama,” she whispered miserably. “I understand.”

Abruptly Caro pushed her chair back from the table and swept across the room to stand before the window, her back to Hamil as she struggled to regain her self-control. She wasn’t thirteen, and she didn’t answer to her mother any longer.

Be calm, she ordered herself fiercely, breathing in the scent of orange blossoms from the garden below. You must not let Hamil see your agitation or know your fear. Be gracious, be genteel. Be Lady Caroline Moncrief, Countess of Byfield, because that is what you are.

“This is a long way from Edinburgh, isn’t it?” she asked lightly. She would make him speak of himself, not her. What man wouldn’t do that? “Why did you leave?”

He didn’t answer at first, and when she looked over her shoulder she found him standing not a foot away from her, and she gasped. How had he crept up on her so silently like that?

“What was in Scotland to make me stay?” he asked with a bitterness that Caro hadn’t expected. “What could I have been there? A fisherman like my father, toiling ev’ry day of my life for less than nothing, a little man livin’ in fear of being taken up one more time by the English press and forced to serve against the French?”

“You would rather kill and imprison your own countrymen?”

“Aye.” His expression was cold, without mercy, and it took all her will not to move away from him. Standing, she saw he wore his saber even now, and a dagger with a long, curving blade tucked into his sash. Was that the same knife that had so scarred her Jeremiah? How many others had died by the same blade, even, perhaps her own poor Frederick, God help him?

“I kill who would kill me first, m’lady,” he said, “and take those prisoners my master the pasha wishes. For ten years I served your King George in his navy. I learned my trade but earned no reward for it.”

“None? I thought that when a prize was taken, even the lowest boy received a share.”

“A pitiful handful o’ coins for the men, m’lady, while the officers need wagons to carry away their share of the gold.” He grunted with disgust. “Oh, aye, your king is eager to have a poor Scotsman fight for him, but without influence or a fine English name there was to be no advancin’ through the ranks for such as me. The pasha values a man for what he is. Here I have power, riches, my bonny little wives and my sons, and I am second only to the pasha himself.”

“Doubtless the pasha is grateful to have you sailing on his behalf instead of against him.” She turned away toward the window to hide her revulsion, thinking of how many lives Hamil had ruined.

“No question of that, m’lady,” said Hamil proudly, “for I’ve filled his coffers as well as my own.”

“You’ve earned fame as well as riches, you know.” She leaned from the window to pluck a cluster of white blossoms from the tree below, trying not to think of how misplaced a man’s pride could be. “Didn’t you see how all on board the Colomba knew you by sight alone? Even in London they fear your name.”

“Fear is respect, m’lady,” he said, watching how the silk slid over her hips as she bent forward at the window. “The only true way to rule other men.”

“And what of your soul?” she asked as she turned back toward him, twirling the flowers beneath her nose. “Is what you gained by converting to Islam worth damning yourself as a Christian for eternity?”

Hamil made a guttural sound of disgust deep in his throat. “When the bloody priests can offer me the same as the pasha, then I’ll go back to the church.”

She sleeked back her hair and tucked the white flower behind her ear. “Then here in Tripoli, Hamil Al-Ameer, it would seem you have all you could ever wish.”

“Aye, m’lady,” he whispered roughly. “Almost.”

He reached to touch her, the curling hair on the back of his hand glinting red gold in the light of the setting sun. As in a dream she watched his hand come closer. A pirate’s hand stained forever with death and sorrow, a hand that had brought such suffering to the ones she loved, ready to mark her with the same sins, closer and closer.…

“You must give the gentleman whatever he desires, Caroline, and that is yourself. Do you understand that much, daughter? Will you ever understand?”

With a hiss Caro jerked beyond Hamil’s reach, her striped skirts swirling about her.

“You think that because you have stolen and killed enough to make you rich that you are a gentleman, too, don’t you?” she cried, panicking. “That is why you want me, isn’t it, an English countess to add to your collection of stolen jewels and plate!”

“What I want, m’lady, is a woman who knows better than to trouble me.” He grabbed her arm and effortlessly twisted it behind her back until she yelped with pain.

“Let me go, Hamil!” she cried, trying desperately to free herself. She could feel his breath warm on her bare shoulder, and the stiff gold threads on his waistcoat prickling into her arm. “Oh, please, let me go, you’re hurting me!”

“That’s what I intended, m’lady,” he said, taking pleasure in her pain. “Countess or whore, all women are the same beneath their skirts. Ye would do well to remember it.”

He shoved her roughly away and she stumbled forward, catching herself on the edge of the table. She turned swiftly to face him, her breathing ragged with pain as she gingerly held her arm. “You’ve no right to do that to me, none at all!”