“No,” India said firmly. “I am married now, Tom, and I am content to remain here with my lord. Go now, before you are caught. I wish you good luck. Tell my family that I am happy.”
“I am taking you with me, India,” he said in a determined tone. “How can I return home to England without you?”
“Tom, try and understand me.
I am happy. I love Caynan Reis. I am his wife
. We went before the iman months ago. I will not desert my husband, and my family would certainly understand. Admittedly it has been an odd courting, but it is a perfect pairing, I swear to you,” she told him. “Go now! I dare not ask how you gained entry here.”
“You haven’t changed at all,” he said. “You are still as headstrong and stubborn as you ever were, India. I am not leaving without you. Now, fetch your jewel box if you so desire. We must go as soon as your servant returns. My second mate is waiting outside, and we will escort you to the ship. We must sail immediately while we have the cover of this unexpected storm from the north.”
“My lord will come soon, and he will kill you,” India lied.
“Caynan Reis is in the mountains with Aruj Agha,” he answered. “Do you think I should have been so foolish as to enter this palace when your husband was here? And we could not have taken back the ship if Aruj Agha was among us.
Hurry now!”
They both heard the footsteps at the same time. India grew pale, but Thomas Southwood stepped behind the carved door even as it opened, and Meggie bustled into the chamber. “I’ve brought your supper, my lady. Abu thought you would enjoy a nice hot soup tonight.”
“Do not scream, Meggie,” India said, taking the tray from her and setting it down on her cedar table.
The girl looked puzzled momentarily, and then her eyes widened as Thomas Southwood stepped into her line of vision.
“My lady?”
“This is my cousin. He says he has come to rescue me, Meggie. I will not go with him, of course, but if you want to, I will not stop you. I know that you, like me, fret over your mother.”
“There’s nothing for me back in Scotland but me mam, and she probably thinks I am dead along with me da. It’s better left that way, I’m thinking. Ian will hae wed wi Flora MacLean; and she’d make certain I was considered damaged goods. She always hated me because my Ian preferred me to her. Nay, I’ll stay wi you, my lady.”
“You are both coming with me,” Thomas Southwood said, “and I’ll have no further argument from either of you.”
“If you do not leave now, Tom, I shall scream, and the guards will come,” India told him stonily.
“Why can’t you listen to reason?” he demanded of her.
“Why can you not believe me when I tell you I love Caynan Reis, and I am content to remain here in El Sinut?” she countered, glaring angrily at him. “Go, Tom!
Go now!”
He turned away, and then, swinging about, suddenly hit her a blow on the chin, catching her as she collapsed to the floor. “Come on, lassie,” he said to the shocked and wide-eyed Meggie as he moved through the open screen.
“Wait, sir! Let me get us cloaks, or we shall be soaked through with this rain, and the mistress catch her death,” Meggie pleaded.
“Hurry, lassie,” he told her.
Meggie bit her lip as she opened the trunk, drawing out two long, enveloping capes. Should she make a dash for the door, and alert the guards that this man was kidnapping the dey’s wife, or should she just take the capes and follow along? This man was her mistress’s blood relation. Would her lady thank her if the dey had him beheaded? It was a terrible quandary. Meggie finally decided that she didn’t want anyone’s death on her conscience. She put one of the capes about her own shoulders, and, bringing the other to where Thomas Southwood stood, she draped it over her unconscious mistress.
“Get a scarf, lassie,” he commanded her, and she hurried to comply. “Don’t be startled. My second mate is with me, and he’ll help you.”
She followed him and his companion across the garden to the farthest wall where two thick ropes hung down. There they stopped, and Mr. James, using the silk scarf, tied India’s wrists together, and then lifted her up and put her arms about Thomas Southwood’s neck.
“She’s dead weight, Captain. It will be harder,” he said.
“I know, Mr. James, but you heard her resisting me in her usual stubborn fashion. I had no choice but to clip her on the jaw. We could not stay any longer.” He grasped the rope, and began to pull himself slowly and with great effort up the wall.
“Put your arms about me neck, lassie,” the second mate said. “I can make it up sooner than he can, and we can help him, eh?”
Meggie obeyed him wordlessly, and, before she knew it, the mate was shinnying up the rope like a monkey despite the burden upon his back. He made her sit atop the wall and then, reaching down, helped his captain the final few feet. The ropes were then drawn up and thrown over the street side. The descent was far easier, and Meggie found herself on the ground before she knew it. To her surprise, another man was waiting, holding three horses.
“Is m’lady all right?” he whispered nervously.
“She didn’t want to come, the silly wench,” Thomas Southwood said. “I had to hit her for her own good to bring her along.”
A rumble of thunder sounded above them, and the horses nickered and danced nervously.
“Let’s get going,” Thomas Southwood said as Mr. James lifted India from his back. He mounted his animal, and, reaching down, took India up upon his horse, cradling her in his arms, drawing her hood up to keep her from getting soaked.
Next to him the other two men had mounted their horses, and Meggie was riding pillion behind Mr. James. They began their return journey to the harbor, reaching it in what seemed like a rather brief time to the young servant girl. The horses were replaced in the stables by the captain and Mr. James, while Knox carried India aboard, followed closely by Meggie. He settled them in the captain’s cabin.
“Where are we going, sir?” Meggie ventured.
“Why, home, lassie, God be willing,” Knox said. “I have to lock you in until we clears the harbor. Tend to your mistress now. There’s water and fruit on the table. I’m sorry we have no wine, but, as you know, they don’t hold with spirits here.” He closed the door behind him, and Meggie heard the key turn in the lock.
India had been placed upon the captain’s bed, and now Meggie hurried to see if her mistress was returning to consciousness. Quickly she untied the lady’s bound wrists. She gasped softly, and shook her head in disbelief at the purple bruise forming on India’s jaw. “Oh, the brute!” the servant said coldly. “I hope my lady isn’t angered at me for not crying out when I had the chance, but I couldn’t live wi myself if I had hae the deaths of those three men on my conscience.” She shook her head, and, going to the table, poured some water. Raising India up, she gently tried to force a little water down her throat. India coughed, and her golden eyes flew open.
“Meggie!” Her hand went to her jaw. “Ohh, that hurts.” Her glance swept the cabin. “Where are we?” she asked her servant.
“Aboard ship, my lady. He hit you, and then carried you from the palace. Ohh, my lady! Had I cried for the guards they would have killed him, and he’s your kin. I didn’t know what to do!”
“It’s all right, Meggie. I’ll kill him myself,” India said. “Have we left port yet?”
“They’re getting under way now despite this storm,” was the frightened reply. “That Knox has locked us in, I fear.”
“Damnation!” India swore, and attempted to arise, but she fell back with a groan. “Allah! I’m so dizzy.” Then her hands went protectively to her flat belly, but everything else seemed all right.
“Give it a few minutes, my lady,” Meggie advised, “and then we’ll try sitting you up. There ain’t nothing we can do now anyhow.”
“You must keep my secret, Meggie,” India said meaningfully.
The young servant understood, and asked, “Why didn’t you tell him, my lady? Then he would have left you in peace.”
“I was going to if he continued to persist, but he turned away as if he would go. Then he suddenly pivoted about, and hit me. I did not have the chance,” India said. “Now, what am I going to do? We are locked in, and Tom is too busy getting his ship under way. No. I must keep my secret for now. I will think of some way to escape him. I have escaped my family before.”
“That Mr. Knox says we are going home to England, my lady,” Meggie informed her mistress. “It will be weeks before we see land again. You have no place to escape to, I fear.”
“I have learned patience in El Sinut,” India said wisely. “When we arrive in London, we shall give my cousin the slip. My parents have shut up the London house, but I can get into Greenwood, and there is no staff there now but the gatekeeper and his wife. We can easily avoid them. I will get a message to my husband telling him where we are. It will all take time, and my child will probably be born before Caynan Reis can come for me, but he will come. I know it! In the meantime, however, I intend to give my cousin Thomas Southwood as difficult a time as possible,” India concluded with a wicked chuckle. “The heroic fool treated me as if I was still a child, instead of a woman grown. He will pay for that piece of foolishness.”
The ship moved slowly from its dock, edging its way in the choppy waters toward the channel that led between the two lighthouses guarding the harbor. The rain continued to beat down, the thunder booming, the jagged streaks of lightning flashing across the skies. When they had reached the vicinity of the two lighthouses, the sea anchor was thrown out. The longboats were launched, carrying four men each. The boats were rowed quickly to the lighthouses, beached, and then its occupants entered the lighthouses to take the two keeps prisoner, binding, gagging, and blindfolding them exactly as they had the sailors in their vessel’s hole. A lantern signal indicated that both keepers were now incapacitated. While the longboats carrying two sailors each made their way back to the ship, the remaining two sailors at each lighthouse began to turn the winch to lower the chain guarding the harbor.
The longboats returned twice to each lighthouse carrying the captive seamen who were marched into the lighthouses only to have their legs rebound and their blindfolds refastened. Each of them was resettled at a distance from the others to prevent any possible contact that might lead to their premature escape. As they knew where they were, they were no longer frightened. The lighthouse doors were locked, and barred from the outside, the
Royal Charles
raised her sea anchor, sailed from the harbor, and once again moored itself, while the occupants of the two longboats moved their crafts to the sea side of the lighthouse islands, raised the harbor chain up to protect the entry, and rowed back to their ship in very choppy seas.
About them the storm continued to rage, the thunder and the lightning even more pronounced now as they hauled anchor a final time, and began to make their way out into the open sea. Leaving command of his regained vessel in Mr. Bolton’s hands, Captain Thomas Southwood unlocked the door of his quarters and stepped inside, neatly dodging the pitcher of water his cousin Lady India Lindley hurled at him.
“Idiot! Allah help you when my husband learns what you have done! Aruj Agha will scour the seas for me at my lord’s command! And when you are recaptured, Tom Southwood, and they lop your arrogant head from its shoulders, I shall feel not the slightest twinge of guilt!”
“Is this the thanks I get for rescuing you?” he demanded. “You are yet a spoiled child, India.”
“I am nineteen, Tom,” India told him, suddenly serious. “When my mother was nineteen, she had already had two husbands, two children, and was
enceinte
with a third. My grandmother had birthed my mother, and was about to have my uncle James at nineteen. There isn’t a woman in this family who wasn’t grown by nineteen. Why do you persist in treating me like a child, Thomas Southwood? I am a married woman, and quite content to be so. Why did you not listen to me when I said I didn’t want to come with you? Why did you assume I was some mindless infant who needed your protection? Did I ask for it? Did you ask me if I wanted to be
rescued?
No! You invaded my home, brutalized me, and then carried me off. You are a well-meaning idiot, sir.”
“I cannot take you back,” he said wearily.
“I know that,” she told him. “Do you think I would endanger these men who have planned and struggled to make good their escape? If Aruj Agha catches up with you, there will be no mercy. An example will have to be made. That is their way.”
“Do you really love him, India?” he asked her, curious.
“Aye. Have I not said it over and over to you? I am the wife of the dey of El Sinut, and proud to be his wife.”
“It wasn’t a real marriage,” he said, attempting to excuse himself. “It wasn’t a Christian marriage, India, and you are a Christian.”
“Aye, I am a Christian, but if you knew anything,
really knew
, about Islam, you would understand my marriage is quite valid. Besides, he was seeking a Protestant minister in El Sinut to marry us in my faith, although such a thing would have been done in secret. You were to be our witness, Thomas Southwood.”
“He loves you
that
much?” Thomas Southwood was very surprised that Caynan Reis would endanger himself and his position in such a manner. “I think he only told you such a thing to ease your conscience, India. The sultan’s dey in El Sinut would never risk a Christian marriage. It could mean his very life.”