Wanton Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) (20 page)

      
As she watched through the night, Quinn did grow feverish, tossing and crying out in delirium. All she could do was sponge his body with cool water and wait. All the while her thoughts kept returning to Derrick. Had he fallen from his horse somewhere in the cold reaches of the Apennines...lain bleeding on the hard earth? Was he long dead?

      
Shuddering, she tried to push the ghastly images from her mind.
No, if he were dead, I would know. Some part of me would feel it, I am certain.
Even that reassurance was cold comfort, for her love was lost to her.

      
Quinn came out of his feverish stupor on the second day but remained too weak to do more than allow her to spoon broth into his mouth and issue a few brief orders to his second in command. The scowling Algerian Selim understood not a word of English, or at least pretended not to. Beth knew her safety, probably her very life, rested on Quinn's survival. An odd sort of companiate relationship developed between them over the next few days as they sailed toward his home...and her destiny.

* * * *

The Barbary port of Algiers was a suprisingly large place, appearing from a distance much like other European cities in the Mediterranean. But on closer inspection, Beth could see that it was indeed the bastion of an alien civilization. It extended in a crescent three miles across with two massive walls fortifying it, nearly a hundred feet high in many places. Three hundred brass cannon were positioned on those walls, facing the harbor. Crenellated towers at several points had numerous narrow windows from which the famed Janissary archers could fire a hail of arrows on any invaders fortunate enough to get past the cannon.

      
From slender high minarets across the city the sounds of muezzins calling the faithful to prayer echoed eerily over the waters of the harbor as they sailed in. Beth stood beside Liam Quinn studying the largest building, a monolithic structure in the center of the walled city...the dey's palace.
Will I ever leave once I enter it?
She shivered in spite of the warm sun.

      
As if intuiting her thoughts, Quinn said, “Twill not be so bad, colleen. A woman with your beauty and intelligence can rise far in the hierarchy of the harem.”

      
“I can think of nothing more abhorrent than spending my life cloistered in some man's seraglio.”

      
“Kasseim is well favored, young…once you give him children, he will be generous.”

      
“Will he give my freedom?”

      
“Ah, Beth, you are too single-minded for your own good,” he replied with a shaky sigh, taking a seat on the rail. This was his first time above deck since his injury and he was still weak. “Only have a care that you curb your outspoken American tongue in front of the dey. You would not like his methods of punishing insolence.”

      
“So you have described in gory detail. I have not survived this far to perish at the hands of some petty tyrant.”

      
He looked at her dubiously, then shrugged in regret. “If only we had been able to share one night together...”

      
“It's not too late. Just turn about and sail for Naples.”

      
“So single-minded,” he chided again.

Chapter Eleven

      
From the outside, the Dey of Algiers's palace was a large pile of limestone, plain and unprepossessing. However, the interior was truly amazing. In its labyrinth of open courtyards tropical birds with brilliant plumage sang from the branches of lemon and orange trees; and gardens lush with myrtle, jasmine, roses and tropical flowers of every hue surrounded burbling fountains full of brightly glistening fish. Highly polished marble floors gleamed in hues of pink and green. The slippered footsteps of servants seemed to hiss through the corridors.

      
On a dais four steps above the vast hall the dey reclined on an enormous high-backed throne of beaten gold. He was a small man, his face pale and shriveled. But the hard black light of his narrowed gaze indicated that he was a wily and dangerous man.

      
Derrick Jamison waited for his audience with the dey, all the while studying the undercurrents between the fish-eyed Janissaries and quick-tempered locals. He had languished for nearly two months in the opulent capital, making friends with the dey's eldest son and heir, Kasseim. This had been the last place he wished to be when Bonaparte's army took the field against the allies to decide the fate of Europe.

      
But he had been dispatched to keep an eye on the war between the United States and Algiers. At the end of May, England's old nemesis Commodore Stephen Decatur had been dispatched to North Africa with a fleet of nine American warships. When Decatur's upstart nation had refused to pay the customary tribute to Algiers, the dey foolishly decided to use the young republic as an example. Having followed Decatur's career during the late war between their countries, Derrick had not been surprised by what transpired, all of which he reported in detailed dispatches to London. The commodore was wreaking even more havoc on the dey's corsairs than he had on the Royal Navy.

      
Damned if he didn't admire the Yankee. J
ust as you admire Elizabeth Blackthorne
. In spite of the hopelessness of it all, he could not help replaying their last night together and brooding over the possibility of returning one day to Naples.

      
He knew he only deceived himself with wishful dreams. He had spent his life on the edge, a man without a country who could never reveal the truth of who he was. Leighton might provide him a meager stipend on the condition that he never set foot in England again, but pride forbade him from asking for that. He had few prospects if he left the Foreign Service. None of which would allow him the luxury of supporting a mistress—much less a wife. Beth's family was rich. He could have lived off her, but that was even more galling than crawling to his brother.

      
The thought of marriage still gave him shudders. He would far prefer resuming the freedom of their old relationship, but at the end neither of them had been happy with that arrangement. She had tormented him by lying naked in front of lecherous old Neapolitan painters, dancing indecently close with handsome noblemen and walking about the public markets on the waterfront teasing burly young fishermen until they fair drooled. He had become increasingly jealous, an emotion no other woman had ever succeeded in arousing in him.

      
But Beth had made it clear that she would never wed. Her painting would always come before home and hearth. She would allow no husband to demand attention and loyalty that she did not wish to give. She had told him she wanted no children. Since his elder brother had the duty to provide the Jamison heirs, he had never given the slightest thought to the idea of children. Yet, bizarre as it seemed, seeing Kasseim with his young sons and daughters had made him reconsider the idea of being a father.

      
His melancholy reverie was interrupted by one of the Janissaries, who informed him that the dey would grant him the honor of a brief audience. Grateful to turn his mind to something productive, Jamison approached the throne.

      
“What news of the great battles in Europe?” the dey inquired as a Nubian slave wafted a fan over his sovereign's turbaned head. Although he understood English, the arrogant old man refused to speak it, insisting that all court matters be handled either through translators or in Arabic. Derrick's Arabic was adequate for the task.

      
Hate to disappoint you, old boy.
Derrick knew all the Barbary states considered the conflict between Napoleon and the allies to be a great windfall that they hoped would not end any time soon. As long as it continued, they had free rein to loot the Mediterranean. Smiling after he made the customary bow, he replied, “Excellency, the great battle has been concluded in the Low Countries, near a place called Waterloo. The French have been defeated decisively and their emperor will be well and truly banished this time.”

      
“That is good news indeed,” the dey said after a pregnant pause. His sour expression indicated that he thought it was anything but.

      
Then the dey's chief of eunuchs slithered up from behind the dais and whispered something in his ruler's ear. The old man smiled slyly and dismissed the slave. Waving his ministers to silence, he said to the Englishman, ”I am informed that one of my
rais
has returned with captives to be ransomed...a rather large group including several of your countrymen—and women. I would, of course, be pleased to allow you to speak with the English prisoners and make arrangements for their repatriation.”

      
The dey's attempt to curry favor with his government was transparent. “You are most gracious, Excellency. When might I be permitted to see the prisoners?”

      
“They are being brought to the palace right now. Ham-met will escort you,” he said, indicating the burly eunuch, who bowed obsequiously.

      
Derrick followed the giant from the audience room through a twisting labyrinth of corridors to the courtyard where a dozen heavily armed Janissaries stood guard over around thirty men. As was the Islamic custom, the women had been separated from the men as soon as they reached shore.

      
Poor blighters.
They looked starved and filthy, not to mention frightened within an inch of their sanity. As soon as he identified himself, he was assaulted by a babble of languages: Italian, French and even German, as well as English. After explaining that he himself could only assist British subjects, he assured them that their own legations would be informed and ransoms arranged.

      
In the middle of the discussion, Jamison heard the sounds of an altercation echoing through the latticed partition of the courtyard. Female voices were raised in high-pitched squeals—no, he amended, not all female,at least one was a eunuch attempting unsuccessfully to restore order amid the female prisoners, who apparently had not as yet been ushered into the women's quarters.

      
“I am an American and we grovel before no one—nor strip naked to be inspected like cattle! If you want my clothes, you try to take them—then try to make me press my face in the dirt!”

      
Beth!
Derrick could never mistake her voice. He stood frozen for a moment as the men around him stared at him uneasily. An English merchant named Binghamton volunteered, “That must be the Blackthorne baggage. American,” he sniffed. ”A hussy with a frightful reputation. Took straightaway to the pirate captain's bed without a moment's hesitation. About time she received her comeuppance.”

      
“Really,” Derrick replied coldly.

      
The pompous merchant might have embellished his tale further if a loud Italian oath had not interrupted them, followed by more sounds of scuffling and the high-pitched wail of the eunuch. Beth, disheveled and flushed with fury, came flying into the open courtyard where the men were clustered, pursued by the hapless eunuch, who sported what would soon be a beauty of a black eye.

      
Expecting no help from the wretched male prisoners, she ignored the lot of them and made for the large tree growing beside an exterior wall. But before she could get more than a foothold in the lower branches two of the Janissaries were upon her. Hauling her down, they struggled to subdue her. Derrick stood watching in horrified disbelief, knowing that if he exhibited any undue interest in her, the Janissaries would immediately report it to the dey. That would significantly hinder his options for getting her out of here. He was grateful that she had not recognized him standing at the rear of the crowd of men.

      
She was magnificent, making the tough, wiry Turks expend considerable energy before they finally succeeded in getting her to the entrance of the women's quarters, where a phalanx of eunuchs had now assembled to take charge. Elizabeth Blackthorne, of the illustrious Georgia Blackthornes, was dragged unceremoniously by her hair to meet her fate in the harem of the Dey of Algiers.

* * * *

      
Her head ached from those savages in pantaloons dragging her by her hair. She was filthy from wrestling with the oily slavers who had tried to force her to salaam. In spite of their efforts, she stood up straight, glaring back at them. Beth noted with satisfaction that it had taken four of the strange attendants to hold her down while a fifth stripped off her clothing. But that was small consolation as she stood shivering naked in front of her emasculated captors, cursing Liam Quinn with every fiber of her being.

      
By the time the eunuchs had subdued her, the other female captives from the
Sea Sprite
, who were to be ransomed with their menfolk, had all been ushered away. She stood alone surrounded by the eunuchs,who treated her as nothing more than a commodity, much as butchers would regard a slab of meat. It was eerily unnerving, but nothing compared to the inspection she received when a mysterious woman walked into the room.

      
The apparition was cloaked head to foot in black silk, dripping with jewelry. The old crone must be someone of import, although from what little Beth knew of Islamic society, females were always subservient. Who was she? Someone to decide the fate of a lone American woman? Beth met the old woman's assessing eyes, trying to gauge what was going on behind them.

      
The eunuchs all scraped and bowed before her as if she were the dey himself. She was tall for an Arab woman. Her face resembled a pitted date, long and narrow, the nose faintly hooked at the tip, the lips compressed as if they had never smiled. Her eyes were the most arresting thing about her countenance, black as a starless night, deep set, sweeping up and down the tall voluptuous foreign female.