12. A Ship’s Captain Provides Hope

CHAPTER 12

A SHIP’S CAPTAIN PROVIDES HOPE

A week later, on board The Fairweather, Port of Tangier, Morocco

Donald thought never to share his tale of woe with anyone but his father. The captain of The Fairweather pried it out of him, though, when the ship passed through the Strait of Gibraltar and docked in Tangier to take on cargo.

“You’re going ashore, are you not?” Captain St. John asked Donald after most of his crew had set off from the sailing vessel. Warned they would need to be back on board by the time the cook served supper, the sailors had hastened their departure.

Leaning against the ship’s railing, Donald regarded the captain with a dubious expression. “Is it safe?”

The captain guffawed. “You’ve just spent two years traveling all over Greece and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and you’re asking me that?” he chided. Sobering, he said, “Safe enough if you keep your purse well hidden. Don’t engage in gambling. Go on. It will give you an opportunity to get your land legs back.”

“What about the language?”

“Know any Spanish or Portuguese?”

Donald gave a start. “Some,” he admitted.

“French?”

Scoffing as if the captain had offended him, he said, “Of course.”

“Then you’ll do fine,” St. John said. “Come. I’ll point the way to the Medina. There’s a souk?—”

“Souk?”

“Shops. A marketplace. In the event you haven’t bought your mother anything whilst on your trip.”

His eyes widening at being reminded he would soon be seeing his mother, Donald rushed to the ramp. “Any suggestion on what I should get for her?” he asked, ignoring the captain’s laughter.

“You can’t go wrong with fine fabric,” St. John said. “You’ll find some exceptional wool and cottons. Silks. Thread. Jewelry, too.”

The two set out up a narrow lane, the climb reminding Donald he hadn’t walked much in the past week. His melancholy had him spending most of the days in his cabin writing notes about Catania while trying hard to forget the reason he had stayed as long as he had.

Nicoletta.

With every thought of her, he was reminded she would soon be married to the Marchese Montblanc.

If she wasn’t already.

“See that gate?” St. John asked as he pointed to an arched opening in a wall. They were standing in an open square where a few costermongers were selling their wares. “Go through there. Careful in the alleys. Stay to the main streets, and if you think you’re lost, just look for the water.” He pointed north, where the Atlantic was close to meeting the Mediterranean.

“The view is spectacular from up here,” Donald breathed.

“Be back at the ship by five o’clock.”

“I will,” Donald replied. “Aren’t you coming?”

St. John gave him a quelling glance and hurried off the way they had come, leaving Donald displaying a reddened face. He should have guessed the captain would have a woman in Tangier. He probably had one in Valencia, too, for they had stopped there two days ago with the excuse of taking on cargo.

Donald set off, passing through the gate and into a world as foreign as the others he had visited during his Grand Tour. Doing his best not to be distracted by iron workers, butchers, and the stalls featuring brightly colored fruits, vegetables, olives, and dates, he soon found a crowded shop with roll upon roll of fabrics, the spools nearly as tall as he was. Off to one side, a woman worked a huge loom, passing a shuttle between parallel threads so quickly, the wooden device was almost invisible. Entranced, he would have stood watching the display for several minutes but for the tap on his sleeve.

He turned to discover a kaftan-garbed man regarding him with curiosity. When he spoke, he did so in a language Donald didn’t understand.

He shook his head, just then noticing a particular bright spool of fabric. The pink was a deep shade, and the sheen suggested it was silk. Even if his mother rarely attended a ball, she would look stunning in such a color. Pointing to it, he asked, “How much?”

“Anglais?”

Donald nodded and then sighed. He had forgotten to ask Captain St. John about currency. “I have a variety of coins,” he said, reaching for his purse.

“You have come from England?”

“Going back to England, actually,” he replied, surprised at hearing the man’s command of English. From his mode of dress and the fez he wore on his head, he was most certainly a Moroccan.

“To London?”

Donald hesitated to reply. St. John had insisted he stay on board The Fairweather until they reached Wapping rather than get off at Southampton. The trip to Oxfordshire was certainly shorter from London. “Yes,” he finally said.

“You go soon?”

“Tonight,” Donald said. “On The Fairweather. ”

The man’s weathered face lit up in delight. “With Captain St. John?”

Donald couldn’t hide his surprise. “Yes. Do you... do you have a message for him?”

“I have fabric that must go to London,” he said. He gripped Donald’s sleeve and pulled him toward the opposite corner of the shop. “These,” he said, waving to four bolts of colorful silk that stood separate from the rest of his wares. “Already paid for, but no one to take them.”

Thinking it rather odd someone would buy something but not arrange for its delivery, Donald asked, “Who are they for?”

The shopkeeper leaned over and lifted a tag that had been stitched to one corner of the fabric. His eyes rounded at seeing the words written in bold, block letters.

Ladyship A. Carlington

Marchioness of Morganfield

Park Lane

Mayfair, London, England

Donald chuckled. “That should say, ‘The Most Honorablethe Marchioness ofMorganfield,’” he commented, pointing to the first line of the address. “And then ‘Adeline Carlington’.”

“You know this woman?” the man asked, his eyes round in wonder.

“I know of her,” he replied. He had actually met the marchioness once, when he attended her garden party along with his grandparents and his parents during one of their rare visits to London. “My aunt is best friends with her daughter.” Nicoletta was the marchioness’ niece, but he wasn’t about to mention her.

“You take this to her, and I give you this,” the man said, pointing to the pink silk.

Scoffing, Donald wondered if the man was joking. “You would give me an entire bolt of silk just for delivering those four bolts to Lady Morganfield?”

The man nodded. “Is a good deal.”

“How...? How did you even receive the order from her ladyship?” Donald asked.

“It is a gift.”

“What?”

Shrugging, the shopkeeper said, “A lady was here...” He held up two fingers. “Weeks ago. Bought it and said to send it to her, but...” He held out his hands. “I have her money but no means.”

Donald regarded the spools of fabric and experimentally lifted one. “They’re heavy,” he remarked.

“I will have my man carry them to your ship,” he offered, waving an arm for a young boy to join him. He said something in Arabic and the boy ran off. “Are you in need of anything else?”

Glancing around, Donald asked about thread.

When the man returned to his side, he held a fabric bag. Inside was a spool of pink thread and yards and yards of gold soutache braiding. “For decoration,” the shopkeeper said.

Donald offered the man some coins, mostly liras, but the man declined. “You do me a great service.”

Thanking the shopkeeper, Donald turned to discover an old man standing at the front of the shop with a small donkey. The boy was already helping to load the bolts of fabric onto the sides of the beast, attaching them to the saddle. They had been wrapped in Dutch cloth for protection.

He was chuckling as they made their way out of the Medina and back to the port. He shrugged when Captain St. John watched the boy help to carry the bolts onto the ship and stow them in his cabin.

“Currying favor with your mother, I see,” St. John said as the boy and the man with the donkey headed back toward town.

“Only one of those bolts is for my mother.”

“Oh?” His look of confusion no doubt matched the one Donald had displayed when the shopkeeper had made his offer.

“The rest are for Lady Morganfield. I agreed to deliver them on her behalf,” Donald explained.

“In exchange for...?”

Donald held open the bag he carried. “And the bolt of pink silk,” he said, arching a brow.

The captain chuckled. “So now you’re a courier,” he commented.

“Was it a fair trade?”

Shrugging, St. John said, “More than fair, I should think, considering how much I would have charged him to put those in my hold.”

Donald sniffed when he detected an unusual odor in the air. “Is that dinner?” he asked, his stomach growling.

“Indeed. Cook likes it here. Buys spices and such. We’ll be enjoying one of his favorite meals before long,” St. John said. He nodded in his passenger’s direction. “Your mood is certainly improved.”

Donald inhaled softly. “I have been a bit of a wet blanket,” he admitted.

“You can tell me about it over dinner,” St. John said, as several crew members returned to the ship. Some bore parcels while others came aboard wearing new tunics or leather shoes. “We’re about to set out for Portugal.”

A fter a particularly flavorful Moroccan meal of lamb, couscous, and vegetables accompanied by several pints of ale , Donald explained why his mood had been so blue since their departure from Catania.

The captain sat back in his chair and regarded his passenger with a rueful grin. “I’d bet a guinea your girl will give birth to an heir far sooner than she should,” he said, crossing his muscled arms over his chest.

“What do you mean?” Donald asked, confusion evident on his face.

Chuckling softly, John St. John leaned forward and rested his elbows on the edge of the table. “You said you were sure her father must have known you two were lovers,” he reminded him in a quiet voice. “He wanted you to be.”

Donald stared at the older man for several moments before realization dawned. “You... you think he wanted her... with... with child?” He scoffed. “Before she married the marchese?”

St. John nodded. “Exactly. If the marchese is truly as old as you’re claiming he is, he probably can’t do what he needs to do to get a child on her. D’Avalos knew you could, so...” He let the sentence trail off as he shrugged a beefy shoulder.

Donald stared at the captain for a long time before he asked, “What if she’s not, though? With child, I mean?”

Shrugging again, St. John asked, “Did she ever have her monthly courses while you were with her?”

Sure his face was bright red, Donald shook his head. “Not that I... I know of,” he stammered.

“Did you use a French letter when you were doing the deed?”

Donald swallowed. “No.”

“Were you often intimate with her?”

His face still flaming with his embarrassment, Donald nodded. “Every other day or so,” he finally admitted, not adding that it had been every day whilst they had been in Taormina.

St. John let out a guffaw. “Oh, to be a young buck again,” he murmured, chuckling some more. He took a long draught from his mug of ale and set it on the worn wooden tabletop. “Congratulations, Slater. If all goes well, you could very well be a father in seven or eight months.”

Donald stared at the captain for some time, finally blinking when the words penetrated his alcohol-addled brain. “The babe won’t be recognized as mine, though,” he said sadly.

“It sounds as if the marchese isn’t long for this earth, though,” Captain St. John reminded him. “What’s his name?”

“Uh, Ricardo Malgeri, Marchese?—”

“ Montblanc ?” the captain interrupted in shock. He scoffed. “He’s rich as Croesus,” he claimed. “If her ladyship does indeed give birth to an heir, the boy will have a title and a good deal of wealth. Properties. Even a castle, I think,” he went on. “Not a bad way to start life, especially for one from Catania. As for how he lives it after the marchese dies...” He shrugged once more. “That could be up to you.”

Donald remembered what he had told Nicoletta.

Ten years. He would wait for her ten years.

“From your mouth to God’s ears,” Donald said, finally grinning at the thought of becoming a father.

His mood was considerably better for the rest of the trip to England—as long as he didn’t think of Nicoletta sharing a bed with the Marchese Montblanc.