Lessons of Desire

by Madeline Hunter

  She gave the rope a little yank. “Let us not be hasty. And let us keep our sense of humor.”

  The basket resisted for one irritating moment, then he released his hold. She pulled the rope hand over hand until she could grab the basket handle.

  She examined its contents, and threw the rope back down. “This is quite a feast. Wine and ham and bread and figs.”

  “I hope you enjoy it. If the townsmen have their way you will eat only pasta with lard for the next ten years, assuming they do not hang you at once.” He grabbed the rope’s end and began on the other basket. “A blanket and other necessities are in here.”

  A roar sounded from the other side of the tower. He looked up. “What is happening?”

  She hurried to her other window, then returned to report. “If I am going to enjoy my feast, I fear I will have to eat quickly. Signore Tarpetta is ordering the priest to stand aside.”

  “Pull this up quickly, then send the rope back down.”

  The noise pouring in the other window made her raise the basket as quickly as possible. As soon as she had it free she sent the rope down and ran once more to the eastern window.

  The priest was gone. The front line of the men stood nose to nose with that of the women. The flanks of the women’s army already had frayed. It would be a rout.

  She returned to the sea window. Greenwood gestured to the coast. “We will put in right there and get to the battle lines in minutes,” he said to Elliot.

  “Matters are becoming dire on the promontory,” she called down.

  “Keep heart, dear lady,” Whitmarsh called back. “Greenwood has some influence in the town, and Rothwell is armed. You will be safe.”

  If they planned to enter the melee about to break, she could not count on their victory. She doubted her English buccaneers would shoot and slash to save her, and they would be outnumbered otherwise.

  Elliot surveyed the tower wall. He eyed the tiny strip of sand beneath his boots at its base and the large boulders positioned to discourage boats. “It is a good forty feet. I cannot risk your falling if I have you climb down. If the water were deeper…” Still calculating and muttering, he raised his hands, grasped the rope, and began climbing.

  “What ho, Rothwell. Be sure you are not the one who falls,” Greenwood said.

  Screams flew up from the promontory, chilling her. She did not go to see what had happened. She could not take her eyes off Elliot hanging above the sea, growing larger as he inched his way up the rope, his body and face tense from his exertions.

  She could tell the battle on the promontory was not going well for the women, which meant it was not going well for her. She stuck her head out the window and told Lord Elliot what was happening.

  He cursed and found new strength. An odd sound came up the stairs. It sounded like a metal pan landing on something soft. Carmelita’s voice called on the saints to help her and the sound repeated. A man howled.

  “They have breached the tower, Lord Elliot.” Phaedra pawed through the baskets. “I don’t suppose you included a weapon with the food or blankets so I could make a last stand?”

  “Do you know how to use weapons?” his close, strangled voice asked. She looked up to see him at the window. His arms hung over the deep sill and his fingers clutched its inner edge.

  She grabbed for him. “I could use one if I had to.” She pulled at shoulders and breeches. He grabbed any part of her body that felt secure.

  He finally fell into the tower. He sprang to his feet with the grace of a cat that had tumbled. Outside Greenwood called for his servants to row hard around the promontory’s tip.

  Elliot withdrew a pistol from under his battered coat. “Whitmarsh regaled me on the way here with tales of rough justice in the hill towns of this country. It would be foolish for us to make light of your danger. Stay here. Do not follow me. If it sounds to be going badly, take your chances with that rope and the sea.”

  Elliot did not descend the stairs quietly. He allowed all of his annoyance to sound in his heavy step. His approach silenced the men below.

  He rounded the final angle to find Carmelita Messina on the bottom step, iron pan at the ready. Four men menaced her but their attention now focused on him, not her.

  Carmelita looked over her shoulder and noticed his pistol. He could not tell if she was relieved or annoyed.

  An equally heavy but uneven step sounded outside the portal. Signore Tarpetta appeared beneath its curve. He too saw the pistol. He drew himself into military erectness.

  “You interfere,” he said.

  “Miss Blair is under my authority and also my protection.”

  He looked down his nose with disdain. “You do not authority your women well.”

  Elliot could not argue with that, no matter how awkward the syntax of the criticism. “I do the protecting part much better.” He aimed the pistol directly at Tarpetta. “Tell everyone to go home.”

  “She has broken our laws.”

  “She has broken no laws,” Carmelita said. “She has only offended the private laws of a man who thinks himself a little king.”

  “See the trouble she has caused? She has bewitched the women and performed pagan rites. We do not permit such crimes in Positano.”

  “Hear him!” Carmelita said with a harsh laugh. “He even speaks like a king. The ‘we’ is him alone.”

  Elliot was in no mood to argue. He waved the pistol. “Everyone out of this tower. Signorina Messina, please translate what I say.”

  Tarpetta backed out of the tower. The men and Carmelita followed. Elliot brought up the rear. As he stepped out, a sound on the stairs made him glance back. One strand of red hair hung along the turn of the staircase wall.

  The women were gone. He faced the remnants of the battle, twenty men who had not had enough.

  His pistol impressed them. As he spoke and Carmelita translated, Greenwood’s boat reached the back of the promontory and Greenwood climbed up the bank.

  “I am Lord Elliot Rothwell, brother of the Marquess of Easterbrook,” he said. “I was given responsibility for Miss Blair by officials in your king’s court. If any of you harm her, you will answer to me. She is neither sorcerer nor heretic nor whore. There is no evidence to support those accusations and you have my word as a gentleman that your suspicions are false.”

  Carmelita rattled off a very long translation. From the gist he picked up and from the expressions on the men’s faces, he suspected she emphasized the lord, marquess, and court parts.

  Matthias arrived as she finished. Tarpetta, recognizing his forces had lost most of their resolve, limped toward him. The two men held a private conversation.

  Tarpetta walked away. The other men decided that retreating with their leader would be a good idea.

  Greenwood came to the tower.

  “You have my gratitude, Greenwood, for whatever you said to him.”

  “You misunderstand. We are not victorious,” Greenwood said. “They are going to send some men to Naples to get advice and also to request aid from the army.”

  Carmelita threw up her arms in exasperation. “Imbeciles.”

  Tarpetta was returning to the town, but ten of his men had stopped at the end of the promontory.

  “What are they doing?” Elliot asked.

  “Posting a guard,” Greenwood said. “With your pistol at the ready they will not try to enter that tower, but they will not let her leave until they get word from Naples. I expect there will be a boat or two keeping an eye on the tower from the sea tonight as well.”

  Elliot bit back a curse. Phaedra’s sanctuary had just become a prison.

  “We will watch them while they watch her, to make sure there is no violation of this truce,” Carmelita said.

  “Do not martyr the women in your zeal to defeat that man,” Elliot said to her. “I thank you for your help, but I fear the cost to your friends will be high enough already. Leave this to me now.”

  Carmelita Messina paid him as much heed as Phaedra Blair did.
“We will watch. There are some of us, widows and such, who do not live with a hand strangling us. I will depend on your pistol keeping the peace, and on Signore Greenwood using all his influence with that man to end this nonsense before dawn.”

  She walked away, gathering her hair into a knot as she did.

  “She speaks as if you can resolve this if you choose,” Elliot said to Matthias.

  “She is mistaken in my influence here. However, I will try to reason with Tarpetta once he has becalmed himself, although I barely know the man.”

  “See if he can be bribed.”

  Matthias grinned. “How much is she worth to you?”

  Elliot tucked his pistol away and walked to the portal. “At the moment, I’m tempted to pay him to take her off my hands.”

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  Phaedra watched from the window while Elliot and Matthias spoke. She could not hear them but their serious faces indicated they were laying plans.

  A small group of men formed a circle at the end of the promontory. Another four approached a fishing boat at the docks, boarded, and launched it.

  Matthias walked away. The tower resonated with the sound of boots coming up the stone steps.

  Elliot entered the chamber. The activity below still occupied her attention but she snuck a glance at him. His expression revealed concern and annoyance. She found the worry charming, even flattering. She hoped the anger would pass quickly.

  “You are safe for now.” He set the pistol on the floor in a corner so there could be no accident with it. He plucked a wineskin from a basket and held it high. A stream of water flowed into his open mouth.

  Her eyes locked on the pure flow. Her throat tightened. She had not drunk anything since before dawn.

  He noticed her interest. He strolled over. “Tip your head back.”

  She obeyed and opened her mouth. A cool, slow stream relieved her thirst.

  She wiped water from her lips with her hand. “I was afraid those skins only held wine.”

  “The other one does. If we are careful with it, this should hold us long enough.”

  Long enough? She looked out the window again. She realized the implication of those men stationed at the end of the promontory. “I cannot leave, can I? What has happened?”

  He explained about the men going to Naples. Memories of the odious Sansoni loomed in her head. In the silence that followed his explanation, the air grew heavy with the possible danger waiting and the full weight of that already experienced.

  He looked over her head to the town below. A profound distraction appeared to claim him, as if his mind worked hard at something remote.

  “You disobeyed me,” he said, proving that his thoughts had everything to do with her. “You came down the stairs.”

  “I was not seen by them. With you between me and the danger…it was a small disobedience.”

  “You disobeyed even coming to this tower. I told you to remain at the villa.”

  “I did not expect to be seen at this tower.”

  “Except you were. A pagan ritual, no less. In this land of all lands.”

  “There was no ritual. No prayers to the sun god. Tarpetta simply saw me at the window as the sun rose. I was not raising my arms in prayer. I was shielding my eyes from the bright light so I could assess the sun’s exact position.”

  “I do not care what you were doing. You were careless with your safety and reputation. The result was a battle between the men and women of this town and your current imprisonment in this tower.” His temper stretched more taut with every word. “Do not even think of speaking now about your holy independence either. I just scaled a tower wall and threatened to kill men with whom I have no argument. I may yet have to kill some, all because of your damned willfulness.”

  “I merely made a dawn visit to a tower. Are you suggesting I should have anticipated all of this?” She gestured to the promontory below and to the drama that had unfolded. “If I had thought anyone would know or care, I would not have done it. I admit it appears very stupid now, but at the time it did not.”

  It was not much of an apology but it seemed to take the darkest edge off his anger. His attention and gaze lowered to her so sharply that it underlined how close he stood. “Did you accomplish what you came for?”

  He would have to ask. “Yes, if proving a negative can be called an accomplishment.” She pointed to the high hill. “Matthias was correct. The sun does not rise directly over that peak when you watch from this window, or in direct line with where we now stand. It first shows to the right, the south, a bit.”

  She braced herself for mockery, or more anger that her little experiment had caused so much trouble and not even proven her theory.

  Instead he ruminated over the evidence. “These things are not exact. The precise day of the solstice floats, and we are still charting how subtle changes accumulate over time in astronomy. Five centuries ago the sun may well have crested that peak on midsummer’s morn.”

  She thought it very kind of him to make excuses and not call her a fool. A more explicit apology was in order. “I did not seek to create all this trouble, and am sorry that I did. I am not surprised that you are a little angry.”

  “I am plenty angry, Phaedra. However, I am more concerned for your safety. Until I have secured that, you are to do as I say, especially if I have further cause to pick up that pistol.”

  He strode to the western window. He frowned at what he saw. She walked over and peeked out. A boat with the three men sat at anchor fifty yards away from the tower. The sun had begun its decline into the sea, but hours remained until dark.

  “Your prison is complete,” Elliot said. “We must wait, and trust in Matthias to negotiate your release before more trouble arrives from Naples. Unfortunately, Tarpetta appears to be the power at hand and Matthias barely knows him.”

  Phaedra knelt by the baskets and removed their contents. She lined the wineskins and fruit and packages of food against the wall. “Carmelita thinks they know each other better than they admit.”

  Elliot rested his shoulder against the wall and watched her deal with the baskets. “It would be useful if you are correct, but Matthias has no reason to lie to me.”

  She was glad to find a crockery cup below the food. She did not want to drink from a streaming wineskin all day, colorful though the experience had been.

  “How well do you know Matthias?” she asked. Greenwood might hold her fate in his hands, but that was not all that provoked the question.

  Elliot moved away from the sun streaking through the window, into the cool shadows where she arranged their provisions. He sat on the floor with his back against the stones and reached for one of the figs.

  “I revered him while at university. He is a respected scholar with two volumes to his credit. He encouraged my studies and guided me in the research methods used to chart new paths. His interest flattered me, especially since he harbored no predatory motivations like some other tutors.” He bit into the fig, then gestured to the rest of the food. “You should eat something. If three days hence we must swim for our lives, you do not want to be too weak.”

  She chose some bread and cheese. “You do not appear to revere him now, and there is none of the tutor in his manner toward you.”

  “Well, I am no longer a student, and I have a volume of my own now.”

  “It appears more than a friendship built on those old roles, is what I meant.”

  He did not appear inclined to satisfy her curiosity. He took his time eating the fig. She retreated into her own meal.

  “My father was not a warm man.” He spoke casually, as if fifteen minutes had not passed since her last comment. “Imagine a man like my brother Hayden, but with none of the qualities that compromise Hayden’s sternness. I felt fortunate as a boy that his attention was absorbed by my brothers and he ignored me. Matthias Greenwood, in turn, chose to focus his attention on me. He valued what I valued, was quick with praise and slow with expressions of disappoin
tment. There was something of the father in his interest, I suppose.”

  She did not miss his expression when he described his father. She knew all about the last Marquess of Easterbrook’s reputation. He had no doubt been the sort of parent it was impossible to please, and perhaps as hard with his sons as he was said to have been in other areas of life.

  It was not Elliot’s studied blandness that had arrested her attention, however. Rather another emotion flickered in his eyes.

  He had insisted that Richard Drury’s memoirs insinuated lies about the last marquess, but he could not be positive that they were lies. Sitting here with him, watching him, she just knew that he wondered if his father might have had that officer killed. Would that small suspicion become more real, take on substance and be unavoidable, if that insinuation appeared in print?

  Some scientists believed that criminal behavior was inherited, much like some diseases could be. To learn that one’s legacy included the capacity to ruthlessly plan a murder could be as bad as discovering one’s blood was tainted by insanity.

  “Matthias Greenwood has no children,” she said. “You are his intellectual heir and part of his professional legacy. If there was something of the father in him, perhaps there was something of the son in you.”

  He shrugged. “You may be correct. He may see me that way, even within the friendship we have now.”

  She suspected Greenwood did see it that way, but she thought Elliot did as well. Their manners toward each other reminded her of the comfortable friendship and masculine love revealed by fathers and their grown sons when a close relationship has matured.

  If so, Matthias Greenwood was an important person to Elliot.

  Of course he was. Elliot was here, wasn’t he? He had come to Positano to discuss his new research even though the student had surpassed the teacher as a historian.

  Eating this humble meal on this stone floor removed them from the world. His frank description of his father had nudged open a door to an intimacy more appealing than that created by physical pleasure. This reminded her of the mood she enjoyed with her friends.