Bedazzled

three times. She lay quietly for several minutes and then arose carefully, wincing as her feet touched the icy floor boards. Padding across the chamber, India added some coal to the fire, and it soon after sprang to life again. The clock chimed the quarter hour. She dressed slowly in a black velvet gown, a starched white ruff about her neck. On her feet she wore dark walking boots. In the attics she had found a mourning veil she would wear with her dark gloves and long dark cape. While she dressed, the clock in the hall chimed the half hour, and now was chiming three-quarters of the hour. India stuffed her jewelry pouch in her beaver muff and slipped quietly from the room.

She tiptoed down the staircase, moved as silently as she could through the hallway and entered the library. Going to the panel, behind which her father hid the valuables, she opened it and thrust her hand inside. Immediately her fingers made contact with the chamois bag. Pulling it out, she opened it, making certain that it was filled with gold coins. Satisfied, she pushed it into her muff with her jewelry and closed the panel. Now she hurried out into the main hallway of the house again, and, going to the front door, she slowly, and not without some difficulty, drew the bolts securing the entrance aside. She did not have to wait long.

There came a gentle scratching at the door, and India opened it immediately, allowing Viscount Twyford into the house with another man. He immediately picked up one of India's trunks and headed back down to the river.

'Take the other trunk,' India instructed Adrian. 'I want to rebolt the door so no one notices the door unlocked in the morning and raises an alarm too soon. I'll go out the library window, my love, and join you in but a moment.'

The viscount took up the second trunk and India shut the door behind him, sliding the bolts back into place. She then retraced her steps to the library and exited through one of the casement windows, pushing it shut behind her. It was unlikely anyone would notice the window was unlatched if it gave the appearance of being closed tightly. Then, without a backward glance, she hurried down the lawns to the quai where her transport awaited her. As he helped her into the boat, she had only a momentary pang, but then her heart soared. They were free!

'Lift your veil, madame, so I may be certain it's you, and not your papa hiding beneath the gauze,' he teased her.

India raised the silk fabric. ' 'Tis I, my love,' she said.

The werry moved quickly down the river into the Pool, and was rowed directly to a dock at the O'Malley-Small Trading Company. Adrian Leigh climbed from the small vessel and helped India onto the dock. Leading her to a sturdy gangway before a great sailing ship, he helped her to board. India moved slowly and heavily in her guise as an elderly widow. Beneath her veiling she might have been anyone.

'Ahh, Signore di Carlo,' a cultured voice spoke, 'you are right on time, sir. And this will be your aunt? My condolences, madame, on your great loss.'

'Monypenny was old. He lived a good life,' came a gravelly voice from beneath the veils. 'You are one of Lynmouth's lads, aren't you?'

'Aye, madame, I am his fourth son,' Captain Thomas Southwood replied. '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 Malaga 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!