Bride of a Distant Isle (24 page)

After she had closed the door behind her, I wondered why she had not had a similar response if she, too, had eaten the sugars. A terror of anxiety ran through me like an undisciplined child:
Perhaps it was true after all?
I caught, held, and soothed the thought. Clementine had taken but one cube, perhaps, or had grown accustomed to the effects. Her body had accommodated itself to the physic by habit.

That was all.

T
he next afternoon found me recovering in the conservatory, reading books I'd taken down from the library shelves. I'd left a small watercolor I'd done of Pennington, wrapped in brown paper, near the door; it was one I had hoped to give to Elizabeth the night before but then, due to the circumstances, had been unable. Watts would see it sent along to her.

I had fully recovered from the inconveniences of the previous night and was enjoying the afternoon sun slanting through the freshly cleaned windows. Mrs. Watts had hired additional staff to tend to Highcliffe now that it looked as though the house would not be sold; dust sheets were being removed rather than added, and the packing of rooms had stopped.

Shortly after tea, Watts came into the room and announced that Captain Dell'Acqua had come to call.

Clementine stood up. “He is not expected.”

“Shall I tell him you are not in?” Watts asked.

“No, I shall speak with him.” Clementine straightened her dress and made her way to the hall. Within five minutes she returned—Captain Dell'Acqua in tow!

“The captain says his man had confused the days and hours he was to meet at Winchester and then the ropewalks.”

Dell'Acqua, beside her, lifted up his hands as if to gesture, what to do? But I saw the glint in his eye. There had been no mix-up.

“I wondered, therefore, if Mrs. Everedge would allow you to progress with a lesson on English culture,” he said, looking at me. Then he turned toward her. “Your husband thought it was a splendid idea for me to become more comfortable with local ideas.”

Clementine was fighting fatigue, I knew. This was normally the time when she would take a short afternoon nap, but she could not afford to put off the captain and she could not leave me unchaperoned.

“Perhaps we could stroll outside,” I offered. “We could make our way toward the ropewalks, where we're sure to meet up with Edward. Watts might set up a chaise lounge for you to recline upon and watch as the captain and I walk.”

She reluctantly agreed and we made our way down the path and toward the ropewalks, which were not far away.

“It was good of Clemmy to allow this,” Marco offered with a tease.

I grinned. “It was not considerate of you to show up unannounced. I would have prepared differently . . .” Oh dear. Now he'd know I would have preened for him. I expected him to make a tease of that, but he did not.

“You are perfect as you are,” he said. “Always.” He did not seem to be trifling with me. His simple pronouncements, in stark contrast to the ornate offerings of other men, never failed to move me. “Are you quite well today?” Concern showed on his face. “I was most anxious all evening.”

“I am not certain what happened,” I began, because it was true that I was not certain, and I could not make unfounded accusations, nor was I sure that, even if I were certain, I should tell him. “Perhaps something I ate.” We had all eaten exactly the same thing . . . except for the sugar. “But I am quite recovered. Thank you for asking.”

“I was very concerned,” he said. “I wanted to ride back this morning, but I thought perhaps it would be unsuitable and remarked upon and then I would not have this time alone with you. I understand from your cousin that Mr. Morgan prefers you not be left alone in my company.”

Was that why he had not spoken of anything more personal, a commitment of some kind, to me? He had been told I was engaged to Morgan? “Mr. Morgan has no rule over me,” I said.
Yet.
After a long pause, I added, “I look forward to our companionship. But the ropewalks? Were you not supposed to meet Edward and Lord Somerford there today?”

“I shall tell them that you accompanied me to show me where they were, when I arrived, unexpectedly, at Highcliffe,” he said. “I am hoping to soon make my decision as to the ropewalks, perhaps finalizing with your cousin for our mutual arrangements. They will be good for the people of Malta, and they will be good for the people of Lymington—Lord Somerford has confirmed that. Everedge assures us that he has ample men to apply to the task.” He grinned. “There is one other man who is most interested in partnering together. I am still speaking with him as well. I must decide between the two. And then there will be some weeks of negotiations for terms before we'll finally come to a mutually satisfactory arrangement. But things are moving quickly toward a conclusion.”

“And you will return home soon?” I asked quietly.

“Yes, within a month or so,” he said. “To Malta. Is that my home?” He turned from me and looked out over the sea. “My home is the
Poseidon
. I have a family, I have friends and . . . others in Malta. But it doesn't ever quite seem like home.”

I knew that feeling. Highcliffe seemed to be home, but it could never be home because I was always there at someone's mercy.

“You have ‘others' to return to?” I asked, heart heavy. “Perhaps a lady?”

“Now, Miss Ashton,” he began, “Bella. What kind of man would I be if I spoke of things like that?”

In spite of myself, I grinned. “Like most other men.”

“You've known rogues, then.” He had neatly sidestepped my question.

I thought of the men in my family, and the men who had courted me in years past, and Mr. Morgan. “Yes,” I agreed. “I have. Did you always know you were to be a sailor?” I looked out at the peaceful sea to the right, across the Solent toward the Isle of Wight.

“I'll answer that by way of a story,” he said, teasingly reminding me of our last conversation. “And to tutor you, too, in the ways of Malta.”

I leaned forward, and he leaned toward me. Our shoulders touched, and I did not move away, nor did he. He smelled of sand and salt and the sea, with the tiniest remnant of his Arabian-tinged cologne. I could barely concentrate on what he might say for the touch of him; I felt his muscles move beneath his linen shirt. I sent up a silent prayer that Clementine had fallen asleep in the sun and would not come after us.

“When a Maltese baby has his or her first birthday, there is a party, of course. There is always a party in Malta!”

I laughed with him. “Of course.”

“At the baby's birthday, the parents, or in my case, my mother, arrange for a game called
il-quċċija
, in which a good number of objects are placed in front of the child. There might be a hard-boiled egg, a coin, a book, a rosary or a crucifix, a ring of gold, a charcoal pencil. Whatever the child reaches for and holds on to, that is said to be his or her destiny.”

I was certain he'd been a beautiful child. That he would have beautiful children himself, someday.

“What did you reach for, Captain Dell'Acqua?” I asked.

“Marco, please. Call me Marco.”

“Se insiste, Marco.”
It rolled over my tongue in Italian and not English.

“I do insist,” he said. “You speak beautiful Italian. You should learn Maltese.”

“What did you reach for?” I asked, gliding over that comment. He did not look at me as we strolled, but he took my hand in his own and I did not withdraw it. If only that could be true—that he'd reached for my hand, and that was his destiny.

“I reached for a rope knot,” he said, simply. He let go of my hand to show me, with his hands, the shape of one. “All took that to mean I'd be at sea, and as our family was in shipping, it seemed fortuitous. When, some years later, my mother married and my brother was born, and he reached for the crucifix, we knew he would not be able to support us all.” He smiled. “More children followed, and yet, here I am. My destiny has proved true.”

By then we'd reached the area where the ropewalk began, and it was empty. “Where are Edward, Mr. Morgan, and the others?” I asked.

“Perhaps they have already left,” he said. In front of us stretched long, narrow paths of three hundred feet or more; they had cement guidelines where the rope had been manufactured in times past, and where it would be made again, once the arrangements had been completed.

“We'll build a shelter atop this, of course,” Marco said. “So the men are out of the elements.”

“That's kind,” I said.

He bent down and plucked a piece of rope, several feet long, from the ground. It showed some signs of wear; it may have laid there for a dozen years or more.

“Shall I make a knot for you? Like the one I chose?” he asked.

I nodded and he made a quick knot. “A traditional sailor's knot,” he said. He kept hold of one side of the rope and handed the other side to me. “You try.”

“Oh dear, I am not proficient at that,” I said. But I gamely twisted the rope until it was a loose jumble. “I do not recommend that anyone try to secure his ship with that.” I was about to drop my end of the rope but he indicated that I should hold on to it.

He quickly made another knot, one that resembled one heart slipped through another, circles with no end. “Lover's knots,” he said, and as he did, he made another one and another until he was pulling me, clutching the far end of the rope, closer to himself.

“You seem well practiced at lover's knots,” I teased, but my voice had grown rough with emotions: affection for this man, desire for a future I wished could be mine, fear that Edward and Mr. Morgan would return, a wish that the afternoon would never end.

“No, no, that is not true,” he said, and with one final, quick tug on the rope drew me close in front of him. “I have always thought they resembled nothing so much as a noose. Until now, Bella, until now.”

His face was within an inch of mine, and my breath caught. He pulled back.

“My name is Dell'Acqua, ‘of the water,' and not De'Angelis, ‘of the angels.' But I do not want to be numbered among the rogues you have known.” With that, he pulled back from me, but the look on his face let me know that he wished he did not have to.

I wondered what he read upon my face. I let the rope fall to the ground. “We should return,” I said. “They will be wondering where I am.” I certainly did not want Edward to quarantine me. “And I shall tell you a story of England, as I promised Clemmy I would.”

He laughed, then, a sound as rich as the sea, a laugh I imagined could be Poseidon's himself, and placed my hand inside the crook of his arm. “Teach me—I am your most devoted pupil.”

“I shall tell you a story of Hampshire,” I said, “as we are here. In fact, of Winchester, where I used to teach, as you know. That is also where the Benedictine sisters still teach and serve. I had thought, perhaps, to join them.”

He looked at me with great, but silent, surprise, probably happily reaffirming his decision not to kiss me just minutes before. We walked along the seaside path. “My father lives near Winchester,” he said. “It's one reason I decided to make connections locally rather than on other English coasts.”

Now I looked at him in surprise. “Do I know your father? I know many families hereabouts.”

He gently waved away the question, not willing to divulge the name yet, apparently. I wondered why. “Go on,” he encouraged me. “We have not much time before we return to Highcliffe and I should like to hear your story.”

“Winchester Cathedral used to belong to
us
, of course,” I said, and risked a daring wink that earned me a deep laugh and his pulling me a bit closer as we walked. 'Twas worth it. “Before the Reformers stole it. Saint Swithin was one of its most beloved saints. Perhaps one hundred years after his death, in the mid-ninth century, he was chosen patron saint for the Benedictine Monastery. He was known for wisdom, and kindness and holiness, but what he is most renowned for is the simple kindness with which he treated the poor. One day as he was crossing a bridge he met a pitiable woman who had only a basket of eggs to sell.”

We approached Highcliffe; Clementine remained in the distance. Marco slowed his gait.

“Go on,” he urged me.

“The woman was somehow jostled by a passerby, and she dropped her basket and the eggs broke; she was completely bereft, and the saint, seeing her distress, took the basket and miraculously made her eggs whole again. Sometimes the simplest acts reveal the most about a person's character. He was known more for that kindness than for any other. Swithin reminds me of you, Marco.”

He stopped. “Me? A saint? No, my dearest Bella. No.”

“His care for the poor, for the underserved,” I said.

He took my hand again and caressed it slightly before placing it, properly, in the crook of his arm once more as we approached Highcliffe.