The English Witch by Loretta Chase Read Free Book Online Page A

Four
    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