“Geoff is the heir. John is a churchman, and Charles is married to an heiress. I, however, prefer the sea as a wife. She’s less troublesome, and asks little of a man.”
“Heh! Heh!” came the snicker from beneath the veils. “Then you are like your grandmother, who, I am told, was a pirate.”
“A base canard, madame.” Captain Southwood was smiling. “Now, my steward will show you to your cabin.” He bowed.
“What was all that chatter?” Adrian Leigh asked nervously when they were alone again. “You will give us away before we have even escaped.”
“I am supposed to be a garrulous old lady, and as such it is highly possible that I would know his family. It has put him off guard, Adrian. He doesn’t imagine for one moment that I’m not the old lady I am supposed to be.”
The Royal Charles moved out into the Pool precisely on schedule, and made its way majestically down the Thames with the outgoing tide toward the sea. India remained in her cabin once she entered it. She stood by the small porthole that looked out on the deck, and beyond it, the river. They passed by Greenwich, and the shipyards at Tilbury. The mid-February day was gray, although not stormy. India had thought when they had left Greenwood that she detected the faintest hint of spring in the air. How long would it be before she enjoyed another English spring and summer again? She felt the deep roll of their vessel as the Thames entered the Channel, realizing with singular clarity of mind that her course was set. She could not go back, and for the first time in her life India Lindley wondered if she had really done the right thing. Shivering, she drew her fur-lined cloak about her tightly.
Chapter 5
The Royal Charles was a serious cargo vessel. It had left England with a load of wool and Cornish tinware in its deep holes. The ship made its way down the English Channel past Land’s End, and plotted a course across the Bay of Biscay. At Bordeaux it took on a consignment of red wine. It then sailed around Cape Finsterre, putting in at Lisbon, where it took on a cargo of hides. Hugging the coast for a time, it moved around Cape St. Vincent and into the Gulf of Cadiz, stopping at the city of Cadiz to take on baskets of oranges and lemons. They sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar, docking at Málaga to onload barrels of sherry. It was here that the other passengers, two Spanish wine merchants, debarked. They would next put into Marseilles to offload the wine and take on salted fish, and then sail on to Naples, Adrian informed India, having obtained his information from the captain.
India had not come out of her cabin since they had left London, except for short walks on the deck at night, well muffled in her veils. She was in deepest mourning, Adrian had explained to Captain Southwood, and preferred her solitude. She found the sea soothing.
Tom Southwood laughed. “We are fortunate to have had fine weather so far, Signore di Carlo, or Lady Monypenny would find the sea not quite so salubrious. I am sorry, however, that she will not take her meals with us. I found her a rather amusing old lady, outspoken and much like my late grandmother, Lady de Marisco.”
“Alas,” Adrian replied, “while my aunt’s spirit is soothed by the sea, her stomach is a bit more delicate, I fear.”
The weather had grown quite warm. They were in the narrowest part of the Mediterranean, Adrian told India. She was skittish, and would not allow him much time in her cabin or her company these days. He worried that she was regretting her actions, but India said nothing to that effect and so he believed her just nervous of travel. They would return overland when the day came, he decided, but for a quick cruise across the Channel.
They were several days out of Marseilles when the passenger steward sought out Tom Southwood. “Captain, may I speak with ye a moment?” The steward stood in the door of the main cabin.
“Come in, Knox. What is the problem?”
“Well, Captain, ’tis the lady . . . the one who is getting off in Naples. Ain’t she supposed to be an old lady, sir?”
“Aye.” Now, what was this all about? Tom Southwood thought.
“Well, Captain, she ain’t an old lady. She’s a young lady.” Knox looked very uncomfortable. “I was going by her cabin this afternoon, and I seen her sitting on her bunk, brushing her hair. I stopped because I was so surprised that an old lady would have such fine tresses. Then she turned her head slightly . . . she didn’t see me, sir . . . and it weren’t an old lady’s face. It was a beautiful young girl, Captain!”
“Damnation!” Tom Southwood swore, irritated. What the hell was going on? And he would certainly have to find out before they put into another port. A young lady. A Signore di Carlo who spoke accentless English. He had said he was schooled in England. An elopement! It was the only, and the logical, answer. Signore di Carlo was running off with someone’s daughter. But whose? And what was Captain Tom Southwood to do about it? “Come with me,” he said to Knox, and, leaving his cabin, made for the passenger deck. Knocking on the faux Lady Monypenny’s cabin door, he entered without waiting for her permission to do so. A young girl jumped up from the bunk where she had been reading and gave a startled gasp. “Jesus Christ!” Tom Southwood swore again. “India Lindley!”
“I’m sorry, Captain, but you have mistaken me for someone else,” India said in her plumiest tones.
“India, you are somewhat grown since the last time I saw you,” Tom Southwood said grimly, “but you have your mother’s look about you, and that fetching little mole she sports between your nostril and your upper lip, and you are wearing the Lindley signet ring your mother gave you. Now, what is this all about, and why are you masquerading as an old lady? Although I believe I know the answer to my own question.”
“Then you need nothing from me, Tom,” India said angrily.
“Is he your Italian tutor, this Signore di Carlo?” the captain demanded of her. “You’re eloping, aren’t you, and you chose my ship to do it on? I had heard you had grown into a little hellion, but I never thought you would cause a scandal like this! If anyone finds out what you have done, you will be ruined. No decent man will have you.”
“But Adrian is a decent man!” India cried out, defending her love. “He isn’t my Italian tutor, Cousin Tom. He is Viscount Twyford, the earl of Oxton’s heir. We were eloping to his uncle’s house in Naples to be married because Papa would not be reasonable. I love him, and he loves me! I chose your ship because I knew we would be safe, and I came aboard in disguise for obvious reasons.”
“Knox, move Lady Lindley’s things to my cabin, and see that her gentleman is confined to his quarters for the duration of the trip,” Captain Southwood said.
“Tom! You cannot be so cruel,” India sobbed.
“Cousin,” he told her sternly, “if we are fortunate, there will be one of our company’s vessels in Marseilles going west to England. If there is, I intend putting you on it, and seeing that you are returned home to your parents. If there is not, you will remain aboard my ship and return home with me. As for your swain, he has paid his passage to Naples, and he shall disembark there, but without you!”
“Noooo!” she wailed. “No!”
Grasping her lightly by the arm, Tom Southwood literally dragged his young cousin from her cabin to his. As they passed the cabin housing Adrian Leigh, they could hear him pounding on the door in furious frustration. Shoving India into the day room of the great stern quarters that were his, Tom Southwood said, “I will speak with your viscount, and explain to him that things have changed, India. You are going home,
