The de Wolfe of Wharf Street by Carter Elizabeth Ellen & Britannia World Pirates of

Author:Carter, Elizabeth Ellen & Britannia World, Pirates of
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Medieval, Romance
Publisher: DragonMedia Publishing, Inc
Published: 2019-04-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

April 1629

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself, and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,

Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Gabriel smiled to himself as the ink dried on the newly transcribed sonnet.

Cassie would be delighted to see his penmanship much improved, and he hoped she appreciated the sentiment.

The letters between them took weeks to arrive when they were in England and months when they were in Europe. At this rate, his latest letter to Cassie might well arrive after he and his brothers returned home.

Home.

To Barnstaple.

They had seen beautiful palaces and cathedrals on their travels – the Notre Dame Cathedral and its sinuous flying buttresses, the work that had begun on the labyrinth of canals in Amsterdam, and his favorite of all, the mesmerizing horologe in Prague’s Old Town Hall.

He and his brothers spent their first week in the city fascinated by the large timepiece. It seemed to be nothing short of a miracle.

Gabriel described it the best he could – the parade of Apostles through the windows above. Not only did it tell the time, but it also showed the phases of the moon, and when the sun would rise and fall. The ominous figure of Death in the form of a skeleton tolled the hours. In that letter he had included a sketch Raphael had made of the clock.

Those memories would be with him forever, but no sight had moved him more than the towering spire of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Their month-long season in England’s capital was the finale of the tour.

The spire pointing heavenward reminded him he was close to home.

As he promised Cassie, he wrote in detail his thoughts and observations of all he had seen and done. Now, with English soil beneath his feet and the same stars in the sky at night, he would soon be returning home to claim his beloved.

Like Odysseus and Penelope. Gabriel smiled to himself. Alongside the Bible that accompanied him on his travels was another book gifted to him by Uriah Makepeace, an abridged version of The Odyssey by Homer.

He would surprise Cassie in person and read it to her.

The sound of his brothers returning from their errands pulled Gabriel from his daydreaming. He signed his letter, sealed it, and called for a messenger. He withdrew a letter from his writing box, one dated two months ago.

He brought it up to his nose and breathed deep. If he concentrated hard, he could detect the lingering traces of lavender.

The contents of the letter he knew by heart.

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