The English Witch (6 page)

Dear heavens!
Whatever had led her into that train of thought? What unworthy spouse could she possibly be thinking of?

Randolph was still making apologetic murmurs. Alexandra collected her wandering thoughts and made him a soothing reply—exactly the sort of thing his wife would have to say every now and then when some bit of stone puzzled him or when he lost one of his sketches. Well, he was kind and sincere, but there were other men in the world. Nothing on earth—except perhaps her stubborn father—obliged her to choose between these two alone.
Not that they were,
she chided herself,
willing to be chosen from.
Had not one of them made that very clear the first night she met him?

Saranda now bore few traces of its origins as the ancient, thriving seaport of Onchesmus. It was a port, still, but a very minor one, and so a boat must be hired to take the group on to Prevesa. With luck—ill luck, as Alexandra saw it—they might speedily obtain places on one of the British vessels that regularly stopped there.

There was news in Saranda of Napoleon and contradictory tales of a great battle in France or Belgium. The outcome of that battle, unfortunately, was a matter of violent debate.

Basil was standing with Miss Ashmore, waiting for the dragomen to finish bullying the townsfolk as they loaded their belongings into the tiny boat.

"I suppose," he said, "we must wait until we get to Prevesa—or even Malta—to learn for certain. I should like to know, in the first place, how the Corsican eluded the British cruisers guarding his island. Then I should be curious to find out why he didn't attack Wellington in Brussels. He was still in Paris, last I heard—though it was all rumour and everyone contradicting everyone else, just as they do now. I couldn't stop to wait for news." He glanced at his companion.

Miss Ashmore seemed lost in reverie. She was gazing out across the narrow neck of the Ionian Sea towards the gloomy mass of Corfu's mountains.

"What do
you
think will be the outcome?" he asked.

She brought herself back, but her green eyes were still rather dreamy. "How difficult it is to contemplate war when one gazes upon such peaceful beauty. Yet this has never been a peaceful place. Ali Pasha and his soldiers have conquered,
town by town, towns which had been conquered by others before. In time, someone will wrest his dominions from Ali. And he is so much more clever and efficient a manager than Buonaparte," she added, her eyes gleaming now with mischief.

"More Machiavellian, you mean?"

"Certainly that. Ali, I think, would never have been so careless as to alienate Talleyrand. Or if he had, he would have known enough to have the man killed, instead of leaving him to lick his wounds and plot revenge for five long years."

He wondered once again, looking into that heartbreakingly beautiful face, how she came by her opinions. As the daughter of Sir Charles Ashmore, she could hardly be expected to escape without some smattering of historical knowledge. But the baronet knew nothing of current events—beyond the dim awareness that there had been a war going on which occasionally interfered with his travel plans—and she seemed to know everything.

Much of Miss Ashmore's information, Basil had learned, came from divers diplomats the Ashmores had encountered in their travels, especially the many foreigners who paid court to Ali Pasha hoping to lure the sly Albanian to their side. Nonetheless, what Alexandra made of the facts and rumours she heard was her own and always interesting. Eager to egg her on, he asked ingenuously what she meant about Buonaparte. After all Buonaparte couldn't help but alienate somebody and could hardly trouble himself about whose feelings he might hurt.

She shot him a look of incredulity. "To call the man a stockingful of excrement—and that before the whole court? He could not have helped that? And he reputed a brilliant strategist?"

Basil suppressed a grin. "Called him what?"

But she was already caught up in the drama of the moment she pictured. "Before the whole court," she repeated, shaking her head. "Talleyrand stood and bore the abuse, never saying a word. Yet, one suspects, from that day forth he must have plotted his revenge. Plotted, planned, biding his time for years." She shivered. "Such patience is frightening. I should not care to have such a one about. I imagined him like Cassius, with his 'lean and hungry look.'”

Basil gave his own theatrical shudder. "That sounds exactly like Rogers, my valet. Left to his devices in Prevesa, heaven knows what he might be plotting. I hope, at least, he's guarding my trunks."

"If he's a proper British valet, Mr. Trevelyan, he'll be obliged to shoot himself as soon as he claps eyes on you."

Basil glanced down ruefully at his raffish attire: Turkish-style trousers, limp cotton shirt the Albanians called a
kam-isha,
and travel-stained cloak. "Well, you see, my costume doesn't look like anything in particular, and so I can't be categorised, which makes men careful how they treat me. I may, you know, be mad."

Miss Ashmore assured him, with a little grin, of her certainty that he
was.

"But sane enough to hope Rogers has kept my baggage safe from these rogues. I don't know why he shouldn't, as he's a worse rogue than any of them. At any rate, he'll not deign to notice my disgraceful appearance. He'll take me immediately in hand, and the next time you see me you won't recognise me."

"Ah, then I shan't be obliged to speak to you."

"In which case, I shall travel as I am," was the prompt retort. "But here we are, speaking of my sartorial tragedies, when I am on pins and needles to hear about this Cassius-Talleyrand of yours. And of Napoleon's Fatal Flaw. Is he a tragic figure, do you think?"

It wanted very little to coax her to talk. She led Basil on back through history, from Buonaparte and Talleyrand to Caesar to Alexander to Alexander's father, Philip of Macedon. Basil was content to go where she led, though he teased and questioned and tried to undermine her theories. He liked to listen to her, liked exploring with her the characters of those who'd made history, and those who'd made art and literature of history.

What had Dhimitri's relatives called her? The English witch. She wove spells, they claimed, entrapping young men with her beauty, but to Basil she was Scheherazade. He could have listened to her forever...and oh, how he wished she could keep him company through his long, restless nights.

They reached Prevesa by late afternoon—too soon—and he was jolted out of his trance as they prepared to disembark. Deaf to her protests and oblivious to Dhimitri's congratulatory smile, Basil lifted her out of the boat and waded to shore with her in his arms.
No,
he thought,
he was under no spell.
He only liked to hear her talk because he wanted her, and he wanted her because he'd been lonely too many months. There was no spell. Only Desire, and that must fade once they were home.

Lefka, Gjergi, and Stefan had stayed behind in Saranda, but Gregor and Dhimitri refused to part from their charges until those fragile English creatures were safely aboard their ship. A British merchant vessel lay in the harbour, awaiting the escort of a brig of war which was scheduled to arrive the next day and depart the day following.

While Mr. Trevelyan made arrangements for passage, Dhimitri saw to accommodations. The young Albanian had distant relatives in the town who were very well-to-do. Their spacious and well-furnished home was, he insisted, infinitely preferable to the Spartan lodgings of the English vice-consul. Too tired to argue, the travellers agreed to accept the hospitality.

After dinner, their hosts proposed that the Englishmen take a stroll through the town. Alexandra helped the womenfolk wash the simple dinner utensils and then decided to take her own quiet walk through the garden. She had, after all, a great deal to think about.

This make-believe betrothal to Mr. Trevelyan was not a satisfactory solution to her problems. They could not continue the charade after they reached England, which meant she was only postponing the inevitable. Her rakish co-conspirator would no doubt wish to recommence his raking immediately, thereby leaving no more stumbling blocks in Papa's—or rather, the Burnhams'—way. Mr. Trevelyan had turned out to be hardly any help at all, and he unsettled her. She was not used to being unsettled, and she didn't like it.

Well, actually, she
did
like it—and that, considering the man's character, was not a desirable state of mind.

Shrugging to shake off her thoughts of him she turned into the pathway leading to the terraced garden, lush with flowers. The air was sweet, but not cloyingly so. The sea breezes stirred and freshened, making it as deliriously fragrant, she thought, as the Garden of Eden must have been. From the distance came strains of the music she'd gradually come to appreciate, though it had sounded so odd and discordant at first. A tenor voice sang in a familiar, aching minor key accompanied by the wail of what sounded like an Eastern version of a clarinet. She couldn't make out the words, but imagined what they were: a tribute to native warriors and patriots or to the rugged beauty of the country. Sometimes there was a mournful song of love—but then, they all sounded rather mournful, even the triumphant tale of Ali Pasha's conquest of Prevesa. As she stopped to listen, she realised she wasn't alone.

Basil stepped away from the garden wall he'd been lounging against, and approached her. He was dressed now, as he'd promised, like a proper English gentleman, though he still seemed somehow a creature of her imagination. In the moonlight his sun-bleached hair was shot through with silver. Even his amber cat eyes seemed to glow as they settled on her in that watchful way.

"I was right," he said, in a low voice. "I was thinking this was almost—but not quite heaven. Now you are come to make it complete."

The words made her heart flutter, as they doubtless were intended
to
do, but she was determined not to blush. Nor would she be alarmed in the least at the way he so self-assuredly offered his arm. She'd stroll with him for a minute or two and then go back indoors.

"It is beautiful," she answered, deciding the honeyed words were best ignored. "For the six years we've been here, I find myself in one place after another, each time thinking it must be the loveliest scene in the world."

"I suppose then, you'll be sorry to leave?"

"Yes, of course. What other sea is as blue as the Ionian?"

"None. But I shall be deliriously happy to go home, nonetheless."

"You'd have been gone all the sooner if it hadn't been for me," she found herself saying, though that wasn't what she'd meant to say at all.

"Yes, but I wouldn't have been returning
with
you—and that, I think, more than makes up for the delay."

Naturally he'd say something like that. He probably thought she was fishing for compliments.

When she didn't answer, he went on. "Now, of course, all the advantage is with the later departure. Not only do I return with you, but I have managed by sheer perseverance to find you alone at last. It did take some doing, and I was wretchedly deceitful. However, I have my reward, and that's all that matters."

She stopped and looked at him. "What are you doing here, Mr. Trevelyan? I thought you'd gone with my father and Mr. Burnham and the others."

"Why do you never call me Basil? Is the name so disagreeable?"

"That wasn't what I asked, Mr. Trevelyan."

"But it was what
I
asked, Miss Ashmore, and I wish you would stop calling me Mr. Trevelyan. It puts such a monstrous distance between us and makes Dhimitri pity me, which is quite unbearable."

"You keep turning the subject, and yet you were the one to start it."

"Of course I did, and for nothing but the sheer delight of watching your green eyes flash at me. They are indeed flashing, Miss Ashmore, as they always do when I provoke you, and that should make me feel ashamed of myself if anything could. But nothing does, you know."

That was easy enough to believe. "In which case, sir, I think it best to take my leave of you.''

She disengaged her arm from his and started to turn back to the house, but he stepped in front of her, blocking the way. He stood only a few inches from her. He was only teasing, of course. He was trying to make her nervous. He was succeeding.

"You stand in my path, Mr. Trevelyan, which is very inconsiderate, because now I'll be obliged to trample on that lovely flowerbed."

"I only wanted to kiss you," was the outrageous reply. "Here we are alone in paradise—the perfect moment—and you talk only of murdering these innocent plants."

She was alarmed now, though something pleasantly anticipatory about that alarm brought warmth to her cheeks. He hadn't budged, and the glitter in those strange eyes forced her to look away.

She took a step backward. "I don't know what you're thinking of. What point is there in kissing me when there's no one nearby who needs to be convinced of our undying devotion?" She took another step away from him. He stayed where he was, looking thoughtful.

"How logical you are. I think it's from spending too much time with Mr. Burnham. Randolph. You do call him Randolph. I've heard you. No use denying it."

That was better. His tone was lighter now, and so hers became. "I've known him for years. But if it troubles you so much, then I'll call you Randolph, too."