* * * *
Mrs Webbs greeted them at the back door. Her plump and round-cheeked brown face wore a broad grin. She wiped her hands on her white apron. “Miss Eliot, Mr Van Moerdijk, what are you doing calling at the servants’ door?”
Emily smiled. “Do you still have kittens?”
“Sure do, five left now.”
“I have been sent to retrieve the black and white one and the grey stripy one.”
Again Mrs Webb smiled, flashing strong white teeth against her brown skin. “So, Miss Elizabeth finally made up her mind?”
“Yes, and I am afraid she is quite beside herself with worry that someone else has already taken them home.”
“I knew she’d pick those two, I made sure no one took them,” Mrs Webbs said.
Peter scoffed. “How could you know that?”
“Ha, Mr Peter, I am a grandmother twelve times over. I can always tell.”
Emily followed her into the humid, cinnamon-and-apple-scented warmth of the kitchen then sucked in her breath at the sight of Alex’s golden head shining in the firelight. He was deeply engrossed in a conversation with the short, dark-haired François. They were sitting at the large kitchen table, drinking mugs of steaming coffee. At François’ feet, Aimee sat on the floor by the wooden crate lined with a blanket that held the kittens. She watched them with large, soft, blue-grey eyes, framed by golden lashes.
Alex turned around, pausing mid-sentence. The pupils of his eyes enlarged.
Emily’s own body froze.
Chapter Nine
As Alex’s gaze continued to pierce into her, Emily’s heart seemed to stall. Peter touched her arm as if he were offering his silent support and brought her back to her senses.
“We’re just here to fetch the kittens for Elizabeth.” Her own words rang stupidly in her ears. Did all those with broken love affaires and engagements feel this awkwardness?
Aimee looked directly at Emily. “Miss Eliot, I am taking the white and orange one with me when we go to Montreal.” Her English was surprisingly good and her eyes were sharp and intelligent. So different from the dark-eyed, placid expressions of her adoptive parents. Emily understood Alex’s panic to get Aimee on her ship to Canada. Anyone who saw the two of them together would know this was his child.
Under the gaze of those clear, blue-grey eyes, Emily felt her chest go tight and her lips shook as she smiled back. It was too strange to look into eyes so like Alex’s and to know she was his. The thought that her own child, should she have been married to Alex, might have looked the same wiped all ability to think from Emily’s mind.
“We should take two with us when we go,” François said in French.
“Maman said I could only take one,” Aimee said while stroking an orange and white head with her fingertip.
“I will speak with your maman. We must take two so they have each other for company. It will be very cold in Canada.”
A frown creased Aimee’s beautiful face. “Yes, but will they not be living in the house and sleeping near the hearth?”
“Yes, it is so, but they will need company for the long voyage. It is hard to travel without some of one’s own kin present.”
Aimee laughed, turning a smiling face up to François. The man the world knew as her father ruffled Aimee’s hair and the girl’s face suffused with complete love.
Emily’s gaze darted to Alex. His eyes were focused on Aimee and François and there was such pain etched into his face that it stabbed Emily through the heart. In that moment she knew both what Alex had lost and what he sought to retain for the child he had willingly given up for her sake years before. She wanted to go to him and offer him comfort. The need was like a pain in itself. She felt cold and cruel for not being able to truly understand until this moment.
As if he sensed her gaze, Alex looked at her. His jaw tightened and he turned away, focusing on the fire. His gesture cut into her heart and she caught her breath to smother a gasp.
Peter’s hand tightened on her arm. “Let’s get the kittens and go. If I know Elizabeth, she won’t sleep a wink until she knows we’ve brought them home.” He laughed softly, smoothing the moment over.
Emily tore her gaze away from Alex. He didn’t want her understanding or anything else from her. He only wanted her silence.
* * * *
“Peter.”
At Alex’s voice, Emily caught her breath even as Peter’s arm muscles tightened under her hand. They were in the servants’ mudroom, where the work boots were lined up and the cloaks hung on hooks, on the way to the back door.
“Go on home, Peter. I want to speak with Emily. I’ll bring her around in an hour or so.”
Peter turned. “It is awfully late for private conversations, Alex, don’t you think?”
“I’ll bring her home within an hour or two.” Alex’s voice was hard and refused denial.
She slipped her hand from Peter’s. “If he wants to talk, I should hear him.”
Peter chuckled cynically. “You can’t be that naïve. He doesn’t want to talk, Emily.”
“I trust him.”
“You shouldn’t.” Peter sighed and shook his head. “He just wants to seduce you into his bed.”
Likely he did. Nevertheless, she would stay if Alex finally wanted to talk. “I am a big girl, Peter, I can look out for myself.”
Peter’s jaw tightened. “Emily, we should go now.”
She pulled away from him. “I am my own mistress. I shall likely always be.” She placed strong emphasis on each word.
Peter’s eyes widened. “I see,” he said.
The kittens mewed. She glanced down at the basket he held. “You’d best be getting them home. You know Betsy won’t sleep a wink until she sees them.”
“I think she’d rather you tucked them in with her.”
Emily smiled, a little sadly, and shook her head. “I can’t do that. It would be wrong for me to allow her to attach herself to me.”
His eyebrows lowered and his nostrils flared slightly. Then he released her hand. “I shall bid you goodnight, then.”
She nodded. He turned away. Moments later the door closed behind him as he left. She stared at it for a few moments. God, had she done the right thing or had she thrown away her best chance for family and happiness?
At a touch on her arm, she jumped. She looked up into Alex’s piercing eyes.
“Come, let’s go to my study,” he said.
* * * *
Alex watched Emily settle herself on the settee, her ivory skin glowing against the coloured satin. Her modish, high-waisted pale yellow gown with its dark green satin sash and puffed sleeves accentuated her slender figure. Her hair was tied back with a bright green ribbon and fell in curls to her shoulders, glinting like rubies in the firelight. Christ, she looked so fragile, so vulnerable. So damned young. Telling her was going to be the single most selfish thing he’d ever done. She was really too innocent even yet to imagine the things he’d known in Turkey. What kind of gentleman subjected a gently raised young woman to such a tale?
But he had no choice. His heart gave him no choice. The whole week he’d thought of nothing but her censuring tone and expression on the night she’d first seen Aimee. She thought he’d put his own child aside out of a young man’s sense of not wanting to be tied. He’d given her no other choice. It had seemed the only way. But now he couldn’t bear for her to have such an opinion of him. It was funny the things that could drive a man to do what he swore he’d never do.
Yet, in telling her, he would still lose her respect. Forever. However, he’d rather her think he’d failed out of weakness rather than believe that he’d turned his child away out of callousness. It had been a surprise to learn this about himself. He would have been sure he would have rathered her image of him to remain one of a callous man, not a failure of a man.
Her sherry-brown eyes focused on him intently, as if she were holding her breath to hear what he had to tell her. She’d long wanted to know, she’d made that pla
in. Well, now she would hear and then she’d understand why he’d never told her before. And her contempt for him would increase—or it would turn to pity.
Neither choice was one he could live with in a wife. But, hell, it was too late now to think about any of that.
He took a deep breath and plunged in. “Green and I met while serving on the Pollyanna, a privateer in the war. After the war, we sailed and traded in the Caribbean.” He paused, trying to draw the will to revisit the memories.
“Yes, I know. Nancy and Peter told me.”
“Ah, and did he tell you about the wreck?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we didn’t really wreck. Our ship was blown apart by what we thought was a British Navy frigate bent on pressing some Order of Council we hadn’t heard of. But they were flying false colours; they were not British. They weren’t even Barbary pirates. These were renegades—the lowest of the low that no land would claim.”
She paled and he paused.
“Oh, Alex.” Her voice was a hoarse whisper.
“Do you want me to stop?” He held his breath with the hope that she would say yes. Then he wouldn’t have to continue.
She shook her head. “Go on.”
“I awoke on land. I do not remember how I got there. I have dreams of it, vague snatches, but nothing solid to recall. It was just Green and I. There were no other survivors. We knew they’d come looking for us. We made a shelter to hide ourselves with underbrush and tree limbs and things like that. It was very crude.” He could taste again the bitter, metallic fear. “I was burning with fever and they were upon us. I collapsed with exhaustion and lost track of time. We could hear them, getting closer and closer. I could hardly think clearly and my body was weak, racked with shivers. Green reassured me that the voices I heard were simply a manifestation of the fever. Then I fell asleep and he left me. They found me and took me.”
“But he was a grown man and you were—why, you were just a boy!” She put her hand to her collarbone.
“Aye. I never forgave him. But now I wonder what he could have done for me. He could not have prevented what happened. Maybe I was too harsh on him.”
What if he could have reached Green sooner? What if he could have prevented Green from falling into despair and taking his own life? Christ, he had failed Green.
He met her eyes. “I could have reached him sooner. I could have chosen to forgive him.”
“Do you think he would have been able to accept your forgiveness? He couldn’t forgive himself.”
“I suppose.” He wasn’t convinced. Green’s death continued to feel like just another situation where he had failed. Just like Alice McConnell. Just like Catarina…
“What happened after that, Alex?”
It was hard to go on. He took a deep, ragged breath. “They took me and forced me to work on their ship. For months I planned to run from them. However, they watched me like a hawk at every port, sometimes even placing me in chains. They made their way around, eventually docking in Constantinople, and I soon found out my true value to them. They listed my nationality as Circassian and sold me to a slave merchant.
“It doesn’t do much for a young man’s sense of masculinity to find he’s basically been sold for the beauty of his face with the expectation that he’ll soon be gelded like a horse and resold naked on the block. But there I was, just turned eighteen and for sale.
“When I met the Danish merchant, I thought I’d been saved. He made it quite clear he wanted me intact. I had no idea what he wanted from me. He was a madman who lived in a beautiful palace and he had dark needs. He’d been captured himself at a young age and castrated. He was intelligent and cunning. He had won his elderly master’s deepest gratitude and regard and had earned his freedom in the old man’s will. He became a merchant himself, dealing in slaves. But he couldn’t be totally happy for he wasn’t a whole man.”
Alex considered the parts he would not tell her. That the merchant had not taken the castration well as a child. He’d got an infection that had resulted in losing his cock as well as his balls. But there were remnants of his flesh at the base that remained. With the use of herbs he could attain pleasure from stimulating these parts but it wasn’t like a man performing with a woman.
Emily cleared her throat delicately. “Please tell me everything.” Her voice still sounded hoarse. “I want to understand.”
He continued, “He needed surrogates for himself to perform with his slave women for his amusement. Alternately, or perhaps as a result of the frustrations of the first case, he also enjoyed inflicting punishment on young men who looked like himself at a younger age. I was purchased for both needs.”
A small whimper at his side pulled him out of the vividness of his memory. Emily looked a little ill.
He reached and took her hand. “Shall I stop?”
“No, no, I want to hear. I want to know all your history. If you could bear to live it, I can bear to hear it.”
He wasn’t so sure of that, but he continued nonetheless. “I hated the devil so much, allowed my fear of it to control me so much I ceased to be a man.”
“But you were still just a boy.”
“You don’t understand how it was. He represented pain, punishment, deliverance to me, a protective father, a sympathetic brother. All at once. Even though he was a devil, in the darkness his voice telling me I was not to be beaten that hour, that day was the sweetest thing I’d ever known. Alternating with the punishments, he allowed me certain pleasures. They have something called hashish they put in gelled candies. It’s better than being drunk.
“And in this state of inebriation I would be offered women…soft, willing, affectionate, lovely women with the caveat that he might remain and watch. But I had my Christian beliefs. I had expected to know no other woman but a legal wife—yes, I really did. I was very young and idealistic. And the things he wished me to do with these women seemed sinful and devilish. I refused and I was beaten. I did not hold out against the pain. And I was eighteen years old with a young man’s lusty nature.
“It was a decision between pain and pleasure. Eventually I was so debauched, I didn’t give a damn if he were there or not. I took my comfort from their sympathetic arms… God, but many times I cried in their arms from the simple pleasure of holding another human being close who would not hurt me. Never did the same woman return more than two or three times. I never came inside any of them but I shudder to think of that time and what may have ultimately happened to these nameless slave women.”
“It would be very hard for a young man to resist such temptations.”
“That’s not an excuse, Emily.” She flinched and he realised he had spoken far too sharply. He softened his voice and continued, “A man should stand strong against temptations. But I’ve said enough and I don’t want to ever mention this part again. I mean never.”
“Of course,” she replied, her voice very small.
“He wanted something else from me. Something even more sinful and devastating to my beliefs. He had a wife, an exceptionally beautiful Venetian of twenty, the daughter of a minor merchant who had been captured on her way to her wedding in Greece. I looked very much as he did and he wanted me to impregnate this young woman. It went against everything I believed in, making a child like that. She was a pure, devout Catholic, a virgin. It destroyed her to think of having to give herself in this way. I refused to do it.
“At first he beat me—I mean, he had me beaten—given the bastinado, that is, having the soles of my feet beaten almost ceaselessly. It is exquisitely painful torture but I resisted.”
She threw her hand up to her lips. “Dear God…”
“Then he decided to have her beaten and forced me to watch. It didn’t take long. She was so frail, like she was spun from glass. She could never hold up to such torture and—and I gave in. I gave in to what that bastard wanted and I fucked her soundly by that evening’s fall. Both of us with bandaged, bleeding feet and I was so wrung out I couldn’t keep anything
but wine down. But I fucked her twice so he would have no doubts as to my compliance. Thank God for youth. Within two months she was pregnant. I promised her I would find a way to get us out of there then I would bring her back to America and marry her and we would raise our child in respectability and none of it would ever matter again.
“She believed me, so deeply that when I failed her and the child came, born into this world illegitimate, she fell into a despair so deep that she lost her mind. Others had to care for the child. One morning…” His breath began to come very fast. Images rose in his mind.
Steam rising, the moist, warm air penetrating his nostrils along with the sickly sweet scent of blood. Water trickling down the yellow and blue tiles, draining down into the bath that was tinged red. A touch on his arm startled him. But it was her gasp that pulled him out of the memory. He looked down. He was grasping her arm. Too tightly. He let her go. The white marks of his hand on her flesh turned to red. He stared at it dumbly, speaking automatically as if, once started, the flow of words must have their way. “One morning I found her dead in her private bath. She had cut her wrists with the sharp edge on a piece of her own jewellery.”
Emily pressed herself to his side, hugging his arm.
He tightened all over at the touch. “I knew the devil planned to sell our child off since she was not the wished-for son. He’d told me. I knew of no way to stop him. I had lost all respect for myself as a man. I had nothing more to live for. So I went and found that devil, soaking carelessly in his own baths, and I slit his throat.”
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