Page 147 of Dark Tides
He took her arm and led her down the stairs, thinking she was too shocked by the news to speak sense. “You’re upset,” he said. “But this is the truth. I’ve withdrawn my evidence but they won’t change the sentence. There’s nothing we can do for Rob, now he’s been sent there. No one escapes. And if he gets the plague”—he correctedhimself—“when he gets it, or cholera, or yellow fever, or whatever the sailors happen to have, they will send him to the Lazzaretto Vecchio—the old death island—and he will die there.”
“I can’t believe it,” she repeated.
He guided her out of the gate and nodded to Captain Shore, who followed them back down the quay to his ship, walking a few paces behind them as if he was indifferent to the Italian’s scowl and the girl’s tranced blankness. The three halted on the quayside under the prow of the ship, sheltering from the icy wind that was ripping down the Grand Canal.
“Not good news, I take it?” Captain Shore asked, his eyes on the ashen-faced girl.
“He’s been appointed doctor at the Lazzaretto Nuovo,” Felipe said quietly.
“Ah, God bless him and take him to His own,” Captain Shore said. “Well, he’s lost to you, maid. I’m sorry for it. You can’t go there, and he can’t get away.”
Sarah nodded.
“You’ve taken it hard,” the Captain said quietly to Sarah. “Bound to. Will you come on board?”
“I’ll take her back to my house,” Felipe said. “She’ll come back tomorrow and we’ll load her goods in plenty of time.”
“The Nobildonna’s furniture?” Captain Shore inquired. “That’s still to go ahead?”
“Of course. It’s business,” Felipe said. “Nothing to do with this… this…”
“This what?” Captain Shore asked him. “This little play you have put on for her? For reasons of your own? For what reason of your own, exactly?”
“This tragedy,” Felipe corrected him. “A niece has lost an uncle. A mother has lost her son. It’s very sad.”
“But business is still business,” the Captain said, looking at the handsome Italian from under his sandy eyebrows.
Felipe bowed, and tucked Sarah’s hand in his arm. “Business is still business,” he repeated. “Will you take another passenger? I wish to travel with the Nobildonna’s antiquities to London?”
“You?” the Captain was surprised. “Small beer for you, I should have thought?”
“Small beer?” the Italian repeated.
“Nothing compared to the shipments… the other shipments you’ve made.”
“Ah, I see. No, it is beer of an appropriate size. I wish to accompany the young lady, and the Nobildonna’s goods are my concern. I wish to visit the Nobildonna and see how she is in London.” He paused. “Bearing up under her grief,” he said with a smile.
DECEMBER 1670, LONDON
Sir James and Lady Eliot struggled to make conversation over dinner. Livia’s laughter tinkled out, but nothing seemed to amuse her companions. More than once, Lady Eliot looked puzzled at her vivacity, and James made a little embarrassed grimace. The ladies withdrew after dinner to the parlor and sat there for only a few minutes before Sir James joined them. It was as if he did not dare to leave them alone.
“Have the ladies from the warehouse moved into their new home?” Sir James asked his fiancée.
She shrugged. “Not yet, I am looking for them.”
“They’re still in that cramped cold warehouse! Through this weather?”
“I am still there,” she pointed out. “Nobody feels the cold worse than me.”
“You won’t like Yorkshire then.” Lady Eliot smiled.
“And Sarah is still away?” James pursued.
Livia spread her hands in a pretty gesture of bafflement. “ApparentlyEnglish girls may go away from home with whoever they like and return when they wish. No Italian girl would dare. It’s hardly respectable. I have spoken to her mother, but she says nothing more than that Sarah can be trusted.”
“Where is she?” Sir James asked.
“Staying with a friend in the country. She said she would be a few days but she has stayed on, and on. I think there must be a young man in the question. Don’t you? But her mamma does not order her home. I cannot understand it.”
