Dangerous Weakness (19 page)

“In some parts of the world, a declaration of that sort constitutes marriage,” he told her. “We’ll want to formalize it when we can, but, Lily, make no mistake. You are my wife. Nothing that comes next will change that.”

He turned her in his arms and claimed her with a fierce searing kiss, a kiss of possession. The last of her resistance crumbled. She matched his passion in a response that left no doubt. However much she might regret it later, she belonged to him . . . heart, body, and soul.

The little burden between them brought them back to reality with a sudden flurry of movement. Richard pulled away only far enough to look down; he kept his arms around her. With a sad smile, he set his forehead against hers.

“I will get us out of this, Lily.”

Or die trying.
He didn’t say the words, but Lily heard them in her heart all the same.

“Hamidou hasn’t sent for ransom,” Lily told him.

“Not yet. He will. Money matters. In the meantime, we’re safe enough here.”

Pray God that’s true. He can’t possibly know for certain.
She didn’t point that out to him.

“I hope they plan to feed us, though,” he said when he released her. He stretched shoulders she knew ached him. “The sun has been up for over an hour.”

“They sent grains last night.” She shrugged. “It could be worse.”

The ragged door to their prison swung open. A young woman stood, as if on command, holding a bowl of barley cakes and dates. The scar-faced guard loomed behind her. At the sight of the man who had held a dagger to her throat in Constantinople, Lily froze.

Hamidou may negotiate reasonably, but does he control Scarface?

Chapter 31

The girl, who had given Richard only a nervous glance, spoke a few words to Lily. Lily accepted the food and spoke back.
Thanking them? How does she do that? Lily picks up languages as if she absorbs them through her skin.

Lily crossed the room to offer him food with her head inclined.

“What?”

“Just take it,” she whispered with her head bowed. “They expect you to eat first.”

He took a little. “How often will they bring it? You come first.” He took a bite.

“How should I know? I suspect twice a day. Just eat,” Lily said, smiling back at the girl who seemed to examine Lily closely.

Lily withdrew from Richard, and the two women continued to study each other. Lily still wore the silken brocade robes of the Seraglio. Her head covering had disappeared. The girl clucked in what Richard thought was disapproval.

Unlike upper class women in Constantinople, none of the women Richard had seen in this village covered their faces. A striped scarf with broad bands of red, yellow, and black covered this girl’s forehead and wound up into a sort of turban around her head. Black hair escaped the scarf down the sides of her face on either side of her chin.

I imagine that arrangement makes hard work easier to accomplish,
he thought.
She looks harmless enough, but I wouldn’t trust her.
When the girl reached out a hand to touch Lily, he set aside the bowl and took an involuntary step forward. Scarface responded with a step inside, his face thunderous
.
Richard stepped back.
Is he more worried about the girl’s safety or about keeping us in our places?

The two men eyed each other warily while the Berber girl fingered Lily’s silken shawls avidly. Her own dress had been woven with rough fiber in bright colors. A loose dress covered her from chin to sandal-clad feet. The same fabric made a sash. A fish-bone design had been tattooed from lip to chin to neck; it disappeared down her dress.

Lily reciprocated the girl’s interest. She reached a hand to feel the sash.

“Soft. Softer than I expected,” she said. The girl looked puzzled at her English words. Lily tried Turkish. The girl responded in a flurry of speech.

“What does she say?” Richard asked. He once more envied Lily’s command of languages.

“I can’t make it all out. Her Turkish is primitive, and some of it was in Berber. She disapproves of my uncovered head.”

The girl pinned Richard with a look and spoke again.

“She congratulates me on baby I think,” Lily said. “She asked if I couldn’t find a better man. This one let me fall into the hands of pirates.”

“She didn’t say that.”

Lily raised her eyebrow. “I believe that’s what she meant.”

A growl from the guard followed more rapid speech in mix of Turkish and Arabic.

“He grows impatient. You are to eat and go with him,” Lily translated.

“Good. Perhaps we can make progress.”

“The last thing she said is odd.”

“How so?”

“She said, ‘Don’t worry, lady. The Rais is kind and good. You will have help with your baby.’”

Kind and good?
Richard looked at the fierce, scarred face at the door.
Beg leave to doubt it.

Like most of the houses on the God-forsaken island the one in which Hamidou held court had been constructed of mud and brick. Slightly larger than the others, it had a floor of hardened clay that felt cool to Richard’s bare feet. A dozen or so men sat on cushioned benches built into the hardened mud walls on three sides, their eyes curious and assessing.

The Rais himself sat at a table like the one in the captain’s quarters onboard ship. Unlike the one in the captain’s quarters, the table had been oiled and polished. It, like the room, showed every sign of tending. Richard found the terracotta platters adorning the wall to be decorative, if primitive, and the colors of the cushions attractive in the dim confines. Someone cared for this place.

“Ah, the English lord. Come, sit, have tea,” Hamidou greeted him in English.

I’ll tell you where to put your tea,
Richard thought before he swallowed the anger that boiled in his guts. Lily needed him clear-headed.
It never does to lose one’s temper too early in a negotiation.

“My cousins wish to see this powerful man in our midst,” Hamidou said. He swept a look at Richard from bare feet, across ragged robe, to filthy hair. His eyes gleamed. He didn’t need to understand words to understand the amusement of the dozen or so men sitting on benches built into the walls on all sides.

Richard, still standing, looked around the room slowly with a face he prayed looked calmer than he felt. “Your home looks comfortable,” he said.

Hamidou’s mouth twitched. “This is the house of my uncle.” He nodded to an older man in baggy homespun who grinned back through a gap in his teeth. “My own in Algiers is somewhat more”—he hesitated as if seeking the right word—“spacious.”

Two men on the surrounding benches laughed.
Either only two of them know English or only two have been to Hamidou’s “spacious” house.
One of them said something Richard couldn’t translate that provoked more general laughter. One man clapped the old man he assumed was the uncle on the shoulder. The old man shrugged ruefully.

I need Lily,
he thought.
But I don’t want her anywhere near these men. If only she could give me her command of languages.

“Sit, English,” Hamidou commanded.

Richard sat and accepted tea, green like none served in any good English household and served in a glass. He raised the glass and sniffed. The aroma of mint wafted up from the drink.

“We will not poison you, English,” Hamidou said. “Drink.”

He did. He sipped it slowly to give himself time to study the room. He recognized a few of the men from the ship. Others, less formidable in appearance, less festooned with weapons appeared to be locals
. Less festooned, but not unarmed,
he noticed while he waited for Hamidou to make the first move. He didn’t have long to wait.

“Shall we do business, Marquess? What is it you can offer me that I don’t already have?”

Odd question. Aside from money what might he want?

“Money.”

Hamidou shrugged. “We ask for ransom, ships come. My people die.” He leaned forward. “Hostages die. Slavery is better.”

“That will not happen.”

“You can guarantee this?”

“Yes.” Richard took a sip of tea to cover his uncertainty.
Captains will do as I say. If they see me. If they recognize whom they see.
“I can guarantee your safety.”

“Why should you do that?”

“To get freedom for my family.” The word felt strange but right.
I have a family
. A surge of protective determination hardened his resolve.

“I too have family,” Hamidou said. “Many depend on me. Volkov promised much.”

“How much?”

The sum staggered. It would purchase one of the grand ducal palaces in London with enough left over to furnish the place.

“I doubt it,” Richard said.

“You doubt my word?”

Two men, the ones he thought understood English, moved, one with his hand on his sword. Richard refused to flinch.

Never show weakness in negotiations. This pirate won’t respect weakness.
“Volkov couldn’t get his hands on anything close to that,” he said.

“Volkov is a lying pig. He promised what he cannot do.” Hamidou glared back. Words, translated and passed on, caused a billow of excitement among the “cousins.”

“He is indeed a pig,” Richard agreed. “Perhaps you misunderstood him.” He watched Hamidou under lowered lashes.

For a long dangerous moment, Hamidou’s hostile eyes held his before the corsair’s eyes crinkled up in the corners and took on an amused cast.

“The man did garble his Turkish,” Hamidou acknowledged. “But our expenses were high,” he continued briskly. He mentioned a sum two-thirds as high as before. Richard watched translators pass that on. The men on the benches looked solemn.

“I will give you half that.” Richard racked his brain, trying to dredge up every piece of information he had ever read about the slave trade. He had to offer more than he, Lily, and the baby would be worth at auction.

“Three fourths,” Hamidou countered.

The pirate likes to haggle.
Relief flooded him. He stood on familiar ground now. He had brought Czar Alexander to agreement at the Congress of Vienna. He could manage Rais Hamidou.

Richard’s next offer increased only slightly; Hamidou came down by a similar amount. The haggling went on for several long moments, with Richard never moving further than half way to his goal. Hamidou proved equally skilled, a fact that might have amused Richard if the stakes weren’t Lily’s life and freedom.

“So we are agreed?” Hamidou mentioned an amount close to Richard’s goal.

“Yes.”
Let’s end this farce.

Hamidou gave him a hard look. “You give me your word there will be no harm to this island, these people, no revenge, no violence?”

“You would believe my word?”

“I don’t need to. I hold your wife.”

“Do you give me yours that we will come to no harm?”

Hamidou nodded sharply. Richard glanced at Scarface; he held no lever to ensure Hamidou’s promise, but he had to accept it.

Richard leaned forward and growled in a voice for Hamidou’s ears only. “If any harm comes to my wife or baby, I will move heaven and earth to destroy you.”

Hamidou’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t reply. He gestured for writing materials.

Richard wrote out a formal report to Castlereagh seeking ransom and copied it for his father. The government would try to short him; he requested just enough more to ensure that correct amount came. He raised his hand and looked at Hamidou.

“My ring.”

“
Your
ring?”

“You took my grandfather’s ring. I need it to verify this request, to assure them I am making it myself.”

A sharp command sent a young man scrambling. Richard watched him climb a ladder to the upper story. He reached for another piece of paper and began to write.

Will,

I have no time for explanations. Lily and I are in bad straits, being held on an island near Algiers. The Barbary corsair demands the ransom at the foot of this message. Castlereagh and Sudbury have been notified. See to it.

Richard raised his pen. “
See to it?” Will isn’t some flunky, you damned fool.
Richard felt himself sink into an abyss; hope ebbed. He thought of the heavy-handed ways he treated his friends, all of them: Jamie, desperate for money; Andrew, wounded and dying in France; Will, fixated on his fields and family. He had forced his solutions on them, and they found their own way, often in spite of him.
Will ought to ignore me,
he thought.
How does one beg for help?
He never had to do it before. He pushed on.

Lily is almost eight months gone with our child. I trust your discretion in that matter. You must see the desperation of our situation. I know you, Jamie, and Andrew will do whatever is humanly possible. I count on it. I beg you not to fail.

Richard

He squeezed his eyes shut and prayed he wasn’t wrong. A noise brought him back to the man across the table. Hamidou showed Richard the signet ring but pulled it back and sealed the messages himself. Richard choked back the urge to snatch it from him.

“Uncle admires this ring,” Hamidou told him, “but perhaps if the money comes, and if you do as I say, you may have it back. Perhaps. We will send by fastest ship to Malta.”

“Gibraltar. They will get it to London faster,” Richard said.

While he scrawled the addresses on each missive, Hamidou turned to his men in hurried conversation. The discussion went on at some length, but the men appeared to reach agreement.

“Gibraltar is more difficult to approach, but we will do it. Speed is good,” Hamidou said. He handed the messages to three men who left immediately.

Richard rose to follow them, anxious to get to Lily. Hamidou’s hand pulled him back.

“English lord,” Hamidou said, “You will come to no harm at my hand.”

“What of your men?” Richard looked directly at Scarface when he said it.

“They do as I say.”

Richard’s shoulders and back sagged with relief until he noticed the hard black look in Hamidou’s eyes.

“You will see no harm if the ransom comes.” Hamidou held his eyes, and Richard felt his heart pound in his throat.

“My cousins have needs,” the pirate said. “If the ransom does not come in sixty days, we will sell you.”