Devil's Daughter (25 page)

H
amil stood on the quarterdeck of his
xebec,
his legs spread, his hands on his hips. There was a grim smile on his face as he watched the
Malek
draw closer. He could picture the confusion and helpless fury of the captain. He, Hamil El-Mokrani, Bey of Oran, knew better than anyone that the
Malek
was under tribute.

“Raise the white flag, Boroll,” he said to his captain, “though I strongly doubt the captain will believe our good intentions.”

“At least he isn’t fool enough to fire on us.”

Hamil’s dark eyes glittered in anticipation as the
xebec
drew alongside the merchant ship. He heard the harsh grating of the grappling hooks and felt the deck tilt beneath his feet as the
xebec
scraped against the
Malek’
s hull, and Boroll and his men scrambled aboard her, their scimitars drawn at the ready. The crew of the
Malek
offered no resistance. Their captain was no fool, Hamil thought. Quickly his sailors were herded into a single line across the quarterdeck.

Hamil saw no woman. He strode to the railing and leapt gracefully onto the
Malek’
s deck. A thin man wearing an outlandish wig sped toward him.

“Sir.” The man wheezed in his fear. “We are under tribute. Why do you stop us?”

“You are Captain Alvarez?” Hamil asked.

“Aye, and we journey first to Oran and then to Cádiz. I know the Bey, sir, and he will not approve what you have done.”

Hamil smiled. “Well, then, Alvarez, greet the Bey of Oran, for he stands before you.”

Captain Alvarez’s eyes widened. “Highness, you are dead. It is your half-brother Kamal who holds rule.”

“Hardly dead. You look well, Alvarez.”

“How may I serve you, highness?”

Hamil gazed again down the line of sailors. “Bring up your passengers, Alvarez. I have business with one of them.”

“I have but one passenger, highness. Lord St. Ives, an Englishman.”

“Bring me this lord,” Hamil said.

Adam strode forward, leaving Rayna in Daniele’s substantial shadow. “I am Lord St. Ives,” he said.

Hamil frowned. The bearded man standing before him looked somehow familiar. “What is your given name?”

“Adam Welles.”

“Ah,” Hamil said. “Your father is the earl of Clare.”

Adam bowed slightly. “I understood also that you were dead, highness. Drowned in a storm. You are Hamil?”

“Yes,” Hamil said. He turned abruptly away from him and demanded of the captain, “I am looking for a woman. I was told she was to be a passenger on the
Malek.
Where is she, man? Tell me now, else I’ll have my men sack your precious ship.”

“The contessa,” Adam said slowly. “You search for the contessa.”

Hamil whirled about at Adam’s words. “What do you know of the bitch?”

“I searched for her too, highness, in Naples. Unfortunately, as Captain Alvarez will confirm, although she did hire the ship, she never appeared to take her to Oran. I do not know where she has gone. Perhaps northward to leave from another port.”

Hamil stood silent, deep in thought. “You are alone, Lord St. Ives?” he asked finally.

“No, I have two men and my cabin boy with me.”

“Your destination is Oran?”

“Yes.”

Hamil turned to Alvarez. “Lord St. Ives and his men will accompany me. You may take your leave, captain, but you will not dock at Oran. I believe you and I have much to discuss,” he continued, turning to Adam. “I will deliver you safe to Oran. My oath on it.” He stretched out his hand and Adam grasped it.

“May I say, highness,” Adam said, “I am glad that you live.”

“No more glad than I,” Hamil said.

A silent slave lighted the candles in Hamil’s cabin. Hamil waited until the man had finished his task, then nodded dismissal to him.

“We are in private now, my lord. Be seated and we will talk. Your cabin boy, send him away.”

“I ask that he stay, highness,” Adam said.

Hamil smiled, and gazed thoughtfully at Rayna. “He is a very pretty boy,” he said. “Perhaps you would like to sell him to me? I have a good friend who has a
liking for well-favored boys. No ugly whiskers to mar his pretty face. Yes, I will buy him from you.”

“I must decline, highness,” Adam said politely. “He may be pretty, but his temper is capricious. He is disobedient and impertinent, and would bring no pleasure to this man you speak of. Indeed, he would likely whiten his hair within a month.”

“I am certain,” Hamil said, lowering his eyes as he brushed away a fleck of dust from his white sleeve, “that my friend could make him more conciliatory. Such a foul-tempered youth as you describe, my lord, is in need of the whip. It would soon enough still his tongue. Once he is tamed, my friend would doubtless treat him well.”

“The boy, despite his looks, is no plaything for a pederast, highness. I should dislike seeing him forced to play the part.”

“Ah,” Hamil said, his eyes still lowered. “So he prefers girls, does he?”

“Highness,” Adam said, “I wish the lad to remain in my service. He is my obligation and my responsibility. Now, if you please, we have much to discuss.”

“Certainly,” Hamil said easily. He motioned to the cushions that surrounded a low, round sandalwood table. “Be seated, my lord. As to the boy, it will be as you wish. But his clothes offend me. As a sign of my friendship to you, I will have him better garbed.”

“Oh no—goodness, no!”

Hamil smiled. “I had thought the boy older, my lord, yet his voice has not yet deepened. And I believe you are right. Your servant dares to speak when he should be silent.”

Hamil shrugged, turning away. “Be seated,” he said
again. He poured two goblets of wine and offered one to Adam.

Adam took the goblet and eased down onto the cushions, motioning Rayna to sit behind him. He said without preamble, “Highness, the contessa has had my sister abducted and sent to Oran. I do not know why. I do know that three of our ships were taken this year by the Barbary pirates, and it was she who was selling the cargoes in Naples. But it has done me little good to discover that. My sister is taken. Who, highness, is this contessa?”

“None of your ships were taken until after my presumed death,” Hamil said. “That is true.”

“This contessa, my lord, is the mother of my half-brother Kamal, the man who now rules Oran.”

Surprise held Adam silent for some moments. He said finally, “But she is Italian.”

“Indeed. She was sent to my father, Khar El-Din, some twenty-six years ago from Genoa, by your father. She is the Contessa Giovanna Giusti.”

“My father,” he repeated slowly. “I felt he would know her motive. But why, highness? Why would my father send a woman into captivity?”

“I was very young at the time,” Hamil said. “I do recall my father mentioning that she was involved in an intrigue against your father’s wife.” He frowned with concentration. “I remember that my father received a chest of gold in payment from your father.”

“All these years, Adam,” Rayna said suddenly, sitting forward, “she has waited to revenge herself on your father.”

“Indeed,
signorina,
” Hamil said. “Why do you not remove that ridiculous wool cap? A slave cannot drink
wine in his master’s presence, but a young lady most certainly can.”

Rayna gaped at him.

“I suppose,” Adam said, a black brow cocked at Hamil, “that you have known for some time that my cabin boy was not what he purported to be.”

“I am not blind, my lord. Even in those clothes—well, just to see her walk—” He laughed deeply. “ Forgive me,
signorina,
but I have had little to amuse me these last months.”

Adam pulled off her cap. Her hair tumbled down her back. “This, highness, is Rayna Lyndhurst, my affianced wife.”

“I am charmed,
signorina.
” He poured her a goblet of wine and handed it to her.

Her cheeks were flushed. “I am mortified,” she said.

“Besides being disobedient,” Adam said, “she believes that I cannot conduct my own affairs without her protection. She stowed away aboard the
Malek.
When I discovered her, it was too late to turn back to Naples.”

“I have another friend, my lord,” Hamil said, “who has a fondness for white-skinned women with red hair. Perhaps you would like to—”

Adam burst into laughter, covering Rayna’s horrified gasp. “I will keep her,” he said finally. “I believe she is correct. It is revenge the contessa seeks.”

“To hear a woman speak wisely is refreshing,” Hamil said.

Adam smiled, but his thoughts were elsewhere. “I was right, then. My sister is to be bait. Bait for my father.”

“Yes, it would appear so.”

“Why, highness, have you not returned to Oran to reclaim your throne?”

Hamil stared thoughtfully into his goblet of wine. “My half-brother Kamal,” he said. “I have always held great fondness for him. I do not know if he is involved in this treachery with his mother. I wish to be certain before I proceed.” He raised dark eyes to Adam. “My wife is in Oran, in the palace harem. She still lives— that I know. I will do nothing to place her in danger.” He added, his voice filled with pride, “She carries my child.”

Rayna broke the brief silence. “If the contessa sent Arabella to her son, it does not bode well for his innocence.”

“No,” Hamil said, “it does not.”

“And the contessa will most assuredly return to Oran,” Adam said.

“Of a certainty she will.”

“Will Kamal harm Arabella?” Rayna asked.

The men’s eyes met across the table. Hamil said slowly, “It is true that my brother carries the blood of the corsairs, but he was educated in Europe. I cannot imagine he would harm a gentle, well-bred lady.”

Adam cursed. “My sister, unfortunately, is about as gentle as a desert storm, a—”

“A sirocco,” Hamil supplied. Again he met Adam’s worried gaze. “I understand your feelings about your sister, my lord, but you must understand mine. I had hoped to capture the contessa and wring the truth from her. That failing, I must, somehow, manage to see my half-brother alone, without warning, and learn the truth. If he is part of his mother’s treachery, I cannot risk my wife’s safety.” He rose gracefully from the
cushions. “I will leave you now, my friends. I must tell my captain to set course for Oran.”

Hamil strode from the cabin.

“Perhaps,” Rayna said, “Arabella will be too frightened to anger this Kamal.”

“What is likely is that I shall have to kill him,” Adam said. “If she hasn’t killed him already.”

Kamal flexed his shoulder and winced at the pain the movement brought him. He tried to shake away the image of Arabella’s face, streaked with tears of frustration at her failure to kill him. It came to him again that she had hesitated before she struck. What kind of woman was she? He was, he decided, seven kinds of a fool to see her again.

She looked too proud, too calm, when she stepped into his chamber. Her hair fell nearly to her waist, her dark eyes looked velvet black, like midnight. He felt a stirring in his loins as his eyes fell to her breasts. She stood silently, saying nothing, enduring his scrutiny.

“Come,” he said in an oddly hoarse voice. “I wish to speak with you.”

Arabella glanced at the food set upon the table and felt her throat tighten. She nodded and eased down on the cushions.

A slight Nubian slave boy poured wine into her goblet. She downed it quickly. Her goblet was quickly filled again. She raised her eyes to Kamal’s face as she sipped the sweet wine.

“I trust you wear no hidden weapons tonight,” he said.

“No. Would it matter if I had?”

He gave her a twisted smile, watching her gulp
down some more of her wine. “It is I who should be wary of you,” he said quietly. “I do not know what it is you expect me to do to you, but you needn’t drink yourself into a stupor.”

“Why not?”

“I have never forced a woman. I have no intention of starting now.”

She could not help herself, and the words flowed from her mouth unbidden. “No, but then again, a slave would have no say in the matter, would she?”

He said easily, “You are right, of course. But I have never used a woman, even one of my slaves, harshly.”

Arabella found herself for the first time seeing him as a man, seeing him as the man who would likely take her innocence. Before, she had recognized that he was as striking as a Viking warrior, his hair bronze and gold, his eyes a brilliant blue. His body was powerful.

Now he was a flesh-and-blood man. She observed his high cheekbones, his straight nose, his square, clean-shaven jaw.

“Do you like what you see, Arabella?”

She said honestly, without weighing her words, “I had not seen you as a man before.”

“And you do now?”

“It is difficult not to,” she said. “You are large and the room is small.”

“I see,” he said. He leaned back against the pillows, his eyes narrowing on her face. “There is no knife, and the fork is dull-pronged. If it is your plan to lull me, it will do you no good. And I might be tempted to break your beautiful neck if you attack me again.”