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Her arrival at the Graziani’s villa late next morning had been full of noisy, tearful welcomes. Exhaustion dominated her sore muscles after having worked heavily all night. But the crossing itself had happened uneventful. She’d left the ship surreptitiously and walked up the hills to the villa. Seeing Adriana’s and Mrs Croft’s dear faces had convinced her she’d done the right thing.
Then she’d gone up for a bath and a well-deserved sleep. Presently, at tea time, she’d come down to join everybody.
Having to wear one of her French-fashioned dresses made her annoyed. Those tight layers of cloth seemed utterly inappropriate now, squeezing her flesh into stiffness and submission. She longed to wear one of her tunic sets, and sleep in a lattice-windowed room, in a silk-curtained bed with…
Stop it, Lucinda! Stop it! You made your choice. Live with it!
In the end, she sat in the drawing room without a corset, a china-cup elegantly held. Mrs Croft, Adriana and Pietro around her curious to hear her story. She’d tell everything, except the very personal events.
“I was abducted by mistake, in Adriana’s stead.” She revealed to a gaped audience. “Mr Tariq Al-Fadih said you, Mr Graziani, had a kind of…debt with him.” She’d considered having this conversation with Adriana’s father in private. But decided her friend had the right to learn the facts, since she’d been the real target.
A regretful look passed over Pietro’s expression, soon wiped away.
Lucinda perceived it and remembered what Tariq had told her. What if Adriana’s father decided to retaliate? “Nothing happened to me, though.” She assured them, wishing to even things out. “I was treated with courtesy from the first to the last day.” Not a lie, of course, but she blushed when her memory took
her to the molten-lava nights with him.
Adriana’s father seemed less angry as Lucinda proceeded to tell what happened; the desert crossing, the villages, Tunis and her escape. She tried to erase any emotion from her voice, appearing balanced and unaffected, but each remembrance tugged on her insides. As if she hadn’t come back yet.
The Italian girl snatched Lucinda’s hands in that dramatic way of hers. “Oh, Lucinda. I wish I had gone in your stead!” A frown in her beautiful Latin face. “I would have done anything to spare you from this.
“Never mind, Adriana.” She consoled her dear friend. “I only regret not having the opportunity to visit the ruins of Cartage, which lies not far from Tunis.” She tried to lighten the mood with a faint smile. Which her friend reciprocated, fully aware of Lucinda’s taste for travel.
Mrs Croft came into a state of anxiety to hear her story, but Lucinda assured her all ended well.
“I’m going to my room to write a letter to my parents explaining that I am back and fine.” She excused herself, with a wrenching need for solitude. “Let’s find out when the next ship to England sails, shall we, Mrs Croft? So we can buy passages for it.” The three of them told her of Mr Graziani’s attempt to find her and the letter sent to her parents.
“Certainly, Lady Lucinda!” The older woman acquiesced somewhat queerly, amazed at Lady Lucinda. Little more than a girl, she’d been abducted, crossed the desert, learned the rudiments of a foreign, not to say barbarian, language, worked her way into escape. And she was here, level-headed, down to earth, telling her tale and planning her return. Harriet had never seen such resilience in a daughter of the ton before this lady.
Lucinda leaned on the rail watching as the ship knifed the foamy water. They’d be disembarking in one of London’s wharves in a few hours. After a week in the ship, her usual routine awaited her. She’d return to her old life, she acknowledged, as her longing eyes sought south time and again. As they had done the whole trip. Grey, passionless, frivolous life she came back to in her country. The desert vastness, the crowded market, the spicy smells would linger in the past. As would a certain pair of cognac-against-fire eyes. She looked the other way, so Mrs Croft, at her side, wouldn’t see her watered eyes. Every time she thought of him, this sadness dominated her heart. And the sodden mas popped a lot in her mind. The farther she got from the Mediterranean, the sadder she became. The time for frivolous reality approached fast. Travelling carried its enchantments, but it had to finish one way or the other.
When London came into view, she filled her lungs and lifted her chin, tamping down the sobs which threatened to find freedom from her throat.
When she finally found a breach to call it a day, Lucinda lay in her bed propped on fluffy pillows in Lancefield London House. Her family would stay in town until summer, when they’d retire to Lancefield Manor. Her father, mother and siblings received her cheerfully. She’d retold the tale of her adventures, leaving aside the thieves episode and her personal memories. Everyone was agape with her story and she assured everybody all ended well.
A soft knock on the door, she invited the knocker in her room. Her mother, Alice, the Countess of Lancefield, put her head through the door. “May I come in, Lucinda?”
“Sure, mama.” Lucinda sat on the bed. She craved privacy and solitude, but she couldn’t possibly turn her mother away,
Alice sat on the bed, facing Lucinda. “My dear, your travels were positively an unheard-of adventure.” She smoothed an unseen wrinkle on the coverlet.
“Yes, mama, but I’m finally back.” Her eyes fell to her hands folded on her lap. She knew this conversation was coming.
“Lucinda,” Alice started, “as your mother, I became very worried when I received Mrs Croft letter. We all were.” Her mother’s equally green eyes searched hers. “Are you certain you came home as…unharmed as you left?”
It fell to a mother to verify such things, Lucinda understood it. For a moment, she was in great doubt whether she should tell her mother about how…different she’d returned. Not because she’d given herself to…well to him. But because the crossing had unravelled a vaster horizon in her experience. In every possible sense. It revealed new ways of life, new options, other than the restricted ones offered to her in England. It provoked a feeling of limitation she did not perceive before departing.
In case she decided to open up to her mother, she’d undertake full responsibility for her choices. Together, they could find a way around the circumstances. But Lucinda regretted worrying her mother so much. When the time came, she would tell everything and explain. Right now, she wasn’t ready for that.
“I’m perfectly fine, mama.” The reaffirmation brought a glint of relief to her mother’s mien.
“Naturally, we paid Mrs Croft handsomely for her discretion.”
“I see.” This way, the ton wouldn’t be abuzz with suspicions.
Lady Lancefield patted her arm and made to leave.
“Mama,” Lucinda stopped her, “I miss Lancefield Manor. I wonder if I could go and spend a few weeks in it before Easter.” Lucinda needed desperately to be on her own for a while, at least.
