Page 40 of Marry in Secret
“I have... other obligations,” he said.
She narrowed her eyes. “Children?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“And you said there wasn’t another woman.”
“No, of course not.”
She sat down and smoothed her skirts over her knees. “Then what are they, these obligations?”
“Do you recall me telling you about the five other men who were shipwrecked with me?”
She nodded.
He told her then about his men, about Dyson, the oldest, a big bluff northerner, the backbone of the crew; about O’Brien, a wiry little weasel plucked from the stews of London by a press-gang in the last weeks of the war. Bitter and hot-tempered, he’d nevertheless made a surprisingly good seaman and had proved unexpectedly resilient in the ordeals that followed their wrecking.
Then there was Dodds, big, bald, bandy-legged and easygoing. A joke for every occasion, that was Dodds. He left a wife and two children behind.
Jones had no family; he was a good-looking charmer with a woman in every port.
Lastly there was Jemmy Pendell, the youngest, a boy of nineteen on his first voyage, leaving a new wife behind with a baby on the way.
Pendell was the one who broke his heart the most. The others were hardened men who knew the risks. Pendell had been an eager young boy, naïve and enthusiastic, off on his big adventure before settling down to raise his family.
“I want to bring them home,” he finished.
Her face softened. “Of course you do.”
“It’s going to cost money.”
“Naturally. But where are they?”
“The Barbary Coast.”
“And they need money to pay their fare home?” She wrinkled her brow. “Couldn’t they... I mean, if they’re sailors, couldn’t they work their passage home?”
“They could if they were free to leave. They’re not.”
Her eyes widened. “They’re prisoners?”
“Worse.” He didn’t want to tell her, but he forced it out. She had to know. “They’re slaves.”
“Slaves?But how—?”
“It’s how things work along the Barbary Coast. Piracy is rife. Slavery is a way of life and has been for centuries. After we were shipwrecked and the six of us made it to shore, we were captured by local tribesmen.” He paused, remembering how they’d been stripped of all their clothes and made to walk for hours, days across the burning sands, starving, thirsty, burned raw by the sun, their feet raw and blistered.
“They took us to the nearest big town.” A journey that had taken several weeks across the desert. Their captors weren’t deliberately cruel—they were poor, almost as ill-fed as Thomas and his men—but the journey had almost killed the Englishmen with their fair skin and their soft-soled feet.
Thomas had kept them alive by sheer willpower, coaxing, bullying, carrying them at times, and keeping hopes alive with his promise, his absolute, unshakable promise that if they could only make it to civilization, he would get them home.
He’d convinced their captors that his uncle would pay a good ransom, that he was an English lord and would pay.
His captors had believed him. His men had believed him. Thomas had believed it himself, poor fool that he was, because he thought it was the truth. He’d imagined himself loved, valued, wanted.
“They have a system there, where those who believe they can command a ransom are housed by the sultan—he’s the fellow in charge. He takes charge of all incoming slaves and collects a percentage of the profits. It’s a filthy system, the trade in human cattle, but all very businesslike.”
“So, this sultan?” she prompted.
