Almost - Almost A Bride Part 26

Gulls wheeled and mewed, the rigging creaked, a sail cracked as the boat swung onto another tack. Arabella, unprepared for the movement, grabbed the deck rail, ducking instinctively as the boom swung by over her head, casting a black shadow.

She looked up and met the eyes of her husband, who was standing a few feet away in the stern beside a sun-bronzed young man at the wheel. The craft came about and plunged forward again. Arabella didn't move, transfixed by Jack's gray and momentarily uncomprehending gaze.

The man at the wheel raised a hand to his cap and invited, "Ma'am, come and join us. A beautiful afternoon . . . lovely westerly wind." He sounded delighted by both, his face all smiles, his blue eyes all dance and sparkle like the surface of the sea.

Arabella came over to them. "Captain," she said, half in question, half in greeting.

"Cap'n Perry, ma'am." He held out a strong hand, the other firmly fixed to the wheel. "Delighted to have you aboard. We have a fellow pa.s.senger. His grace of St. Jules."

"His grace and I are already acquainted," Arabella said quietly, looking at Jack.

"Very well acquainted, as it happens," Jack said. "Captain Perry, this is my wife, the d.u.c.h.ess of St. Jules."

Tom Perry stared at his two pa.s.sengers. "I beg pardon? I was unaware . . ."

"No, how should you be," Jack broke in. "I also was unaware." He took his wife's elbow and said, "If you'll excuse us for a few minutes, Captain . . ." and moved Arabella back towards the companionway, leaving Tom staring.

"It's too stuffy below," Arabella protested as they reached the steps. "There's no one over there." She gestured towards the prow of the boat.

Jack acquiesced with a faint nod and they made their way to a small spot at the front of the foresail, stepping carefully over coiled rope. She looked out over the curved rail, waiting for him to stand beside her.

"Care to explain?" he asked, his voice deceptively casual as he rested his hands on the rail beside hers. His knuckles were white.

"I would have thought it was obvious."

He gave a sharp crack of laughter and turned to lean his back against the rail. "Nothing is obvious where you are concerned, my dear. I learned that long ago. Now, if you please . . . ?"

She spoke quietly but with unmistakable force. "I am not Frederick. I have Lacey blood, I accept that, but I am not my brother. You married me for your own reasons, I have always understood that, and I always understood on some level that they had something to do with Frederick."

She remained looking out at the water and when he said nothing she continued, "I took the risk, in hindsight a foolish one, that whatever lay between you and Frederick couldn't possibly concern me . . . me," she emphasized. "I took the risk that you would come to understand that."

Silence lay heavy between them. "Have you nothing to say?" she demanded fiercely, turning sideways to look at his profile, the uncompromising jut of his jaw. Her heart dipped. She wasn't making any impression. "I cannot and do not ask forgiveness for Frederick-""Enough!" he interrupted savagely. "I don't want to hear his name on your lips again. You are no longer a Lacey. Your family no longer exists, and you will never speak the name again. Is that understood?"And now he turned to look at her and it was as if he wasn't seeing her.

"I am who I am," she stated. "I am your wife, Jack. I love you. But I wasn't born your wife. I am here to help your sister . . . " She threw up an imperative hand as he opened his mouth. "No, don't interrupt me. Your sister, my sister-in-law. A woman in need. I will not be shut out of this responsibility. And it is my responsibility because she is my husband's sister, and not because my coward of a half brother betrayed her." Her fierce gaze fixed him, refused to let go even when he turned his head away.

"Reflect well, Jack," she continued. "If it hadn't been for me, you would never have known that Charlotte might still live. If it hadn't-"

"Stop," he cried. "Don't you realize that's driving me insane?"

She swallowed, feeling her way. "Yes," she said simply. "I do realize that. How could I not? I am your wife. I love you. Above all else. Your causes are mine. It's very, very simple if you would let yourself see it."

Jack heard her words but they didn't seem to mean anything. Frederick Lacey in the Place de la Bastille had looked directly at him. Had seen his own salvation. If Charlotte had died in the courtyard of La Force, it would have been relatively quick-if she had not . . . he could not bear to think of what she had suffered. His hands gripped the railing as he stared out over the waters of the Channel, oblivious of the still, silent woman at his side.

Desolate, Arabella pushed herself away from the rail and picked her way across the ropes towards the companionway and her cabin belowdecks.

Anger came to her rescue. How could he have so little humanity, so little understanding, so little faith in her? She slammed the door to her tiny cabin. She had laid herself bare for him, exposed her soul, declared her love, and it hadn't moved him. He was still enmired in the bitter choking muck of vengeance hardened like the molten lava of Vesuvius.

She sat on the edge of the bunk and stared out of the porthole as the sun sank and the sea turned pink then pale turquoise then dull gray. The evening star appeared and she could smell cooking. Feet sounded on the decks above. The boat pitched a little as a gust of wind caught the sails.

She didn't know whether she was hungry or nauseated, but still she continued to sit as if in a trance, waiting for something to happen.

There was a knock at the door and hope leaped through her veins. "Yes," she called.

The sailor opened the door. "Beggin' yer pardon, ma'am, but will you be taking supper above with the cap'n? Or down 'ere."

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him she wanted no supper, but wisdom ruled. She hadn't eaten since breakfast. "In here, please."

He backed out and returned in a few minutes with a plate of stew, a hunk of bread, and a jug of ale. "'Ere y'are, ma'am."

"Thank you." She took the tray and sat down with it on the cot. It smelled good and she broke the bread, dipping it into the gravy. For a while she ate with some enjoyment, then she began to feel queasy again and put the tray from her. She wasn't used to the motion of boats. She set the tray outside her door, undressed to her shift, and crept back under the thin sheet and blanket on the cot, where she lay listening to the shifting timbers, the slap of the waves against the bow, and watched the silver spot of starlight shining through the porthole onto the wooden floor.

Jack and the captain shared supper on deck. Neither of them mentioned the absence of the other pa.s.senger and Jack prompted Tom Perry, whose awkward bemus.e.m.e.nt was like a continuing silent shout, to talk about the dangers that still remained running paquets between England and France.

"And some of the folk we pick up, sir . . ." Tom relaxed, waxed expansive as the level in his tankard lowered and the subject touched familiar ground. "Poor b.l.o.o.d.y souls . . . barely escaped with their lives. We get all sorts now. Not just the aristos but the artisans, the professionals, so to speak. There's no place for them in their own country neither, but you'd think folks who earn a decent living would be welcome."

He glanced towards his aristocratic pa.s.senger with a mixture of curiosity and anxiety. Apart from the strange business of a duke and his d.u.c.h.ess taking pa.s.sage like they weren't married, one could never be too sure what a cross-Channel voyager in a paquet going to Europe considered about the turmoil. Easy enough with those fleeing the other way.

Jack dipped bread in his stew. "Indeed," he said.

Tom Perry gave up. He drained his tankard. "You'll excuse me, your grace, but I've a ship to sail. I wish you a good night. Should be a quiet one. Wind's shifted to the southwest. We'll make port by four, I reckon. Be tied up by six."

"Good night, captain." Jack refilled his tankard and stared into the distance, oblivious of the stars, the gentle salt-scented breeze, the cradle rock of the boat. His head would not clear. Until now his fury had been cold, clear, easily directed. He had seen it as the point of his rapier in a duel, his epee in a match with Maitre Albert. It went where he sent it with deadly purpose and it reached its mark. But now there was a hot muddle where purpose and fulfillment tangled.

Charlotte had spent over a year in a Paris prison . . . if indeed the woman in Le Chatelet was Charlotte. But how could she be? The tricoteuse had described her . . . described how she'd been dragged to the bayonets in the courtyard. Described the silver flash running back from her forehead. Chuckling, the ghastly woman had reached up with a grimed finger to touch Jack's own streak, pushing back his red bonnet. And she had winked.

But perhaps Charlotte had escaped the September ma.s.sacre. Perhaps she had evaded the guillotine.

He pressed his hands to his temples against the roar of confusion and denial.

He got up from the makeshift table and went to the companionway. A sailor stood there, clearly waiting rather impatiently for the tardy departure of the captain's supper guest.

"Direct me to Lady Arabella's cabin." The instruction was curt and its recipient responded in kind. He jerked his head towards the companionway. Jack followed him down the stairs and then followed the pointed finger.

Jack opened the cabin door softly and looked into the small s.p.a.ce lit only by a faint gleam from the night sky. The shape on the cot shifted slightly.

"So, Jack?" she said.

He came over and sat beside her, laying his hand on her turned hip beneath the blanket. She moved one hand to cover his, lacing her fingers with his. He bent to kiss her, brushing his lips along the line of her jaw. Slowly she rolled onto her back, looking up at him in the dim starlight. There was a sadness in her smile.

"Forgive me," he whispered. For answer she raised a hand and pressed his lips closed with her fingertips.

Jack kicked off his boots and inched onto the narrow cot beside her, sliding an arm beneath her, drawing her close against him. He caressed her cheek as she nestled her head into the hollow of his shoulder, and he felt her slide into sleep beneath his touch. He held her thus throughout the night, while he stared open-eyed at the wooden rafters of the ceiling, waiting for dawn.

Chapter 21.

Arabella awoke to the sounds of shouting, the rattle of the anchor chain, the judder of the boat as it came to a stop. She was still curled against Jack, his hand still cupping her cheek. He turned his head slowly as she stirred and smiled at her. "You slept well, love. I could feel it."

"And you didn't sleep at all," she stated, running a finger along his unshaven chin. He so rarely looked disheveled, she found the sensation both novel and sensual.

"No," he agreed, edging his arm out from beneath her. His hand and forearm were numb and he shook them vigorously as he stood up with a m.u.f.fled groan. "These bunks are not designed for two."

"No, I'm sorry, you must be so cramped," she said remorsefully, struggling off the cot herself.

He took her head between his hands and kissed her mouth. "A well-deserved penance."

"No, not that," she denied, slipping her arms around him in a fierce hug. "I would not have you made uncomfortable."

It was a little late for that, Jack reflected wryly, and he wasn't thinking of physical discomfort.

"What do we do first?" Arabella asked, shaking out her much-abused riding skirt. It was now so natural to talk of "we." They were united, a couple with a common purpose, and she felt light as air.

"Go to an inn, bespeak breakfast, and then find horses," he said readily. "Get dressed quickly while I fetch my things from my cabin." He left her and she scrambled into her riding habit, giving her hair a perfunctory brush and splashing her face with leftover water from the ewer. She rinsed her mouth out, grimacing at the salty taste of the brackish water. It made her feel queasy.

She went up on deck, carrying her cloak bag, and blinked in the bright sunlight. It was a scene of purposeful chaos, sailors tossing bales onto the dock, where porters loaded them onto carts, men scurrying between the wooden sheds on the quay, other ships entering the red-walled harbor, hauling down sails, shouting voices competing with the scream of swooping gulls.

Jack was talking to Tom Perry by the gangplank that had been lowered, connecting the Sea Horse to the quayside. He beckoned to Arabella, who stepped carefully over ropes and around cartons and bales to join them.

"Captain Perry expects to be in Calais again in ten days' time," Jack told her as she reached them. "If we're here, he'll have pa.s.sage for three of us." He tried to speak with a definitive confidence. It had become all important that Charlotte lived in Le Chatelet. He could no longer countenance the idea that they could be on a wild-goose chase, that Claude Flamand could have been mistaken . . . or worse, that once again he would arrive too late and this time Charlotte would be dead.

Such defeatist thinking would achieve nothing. He was almost febrile with fatigue but knew he couldn't sleep even if there was time.

Arabella heard his fatigue, heard the underlying doubts in the firmly positive tone, but she said nothing. She could only offer her strength to bolster his. "There's an inn on the quay," she said. "We can get breakfast there, and maybe they'll have a livery stable."

"Oh, aye, m'lady. The Lion d'Or has a good stable," Tom Perry told her. "Is it to Paris you're going?"

Jack nodded. "Yes."

"It'll take three days," Tom stated.

"I intend to be there by tomorrow night," Jack returned.

The captain looked doubtfully at Arabella. Maybe a man riding like the devil could do the distance in two days, but not a woman. "You'll need to be there by afternoon, then," he said. "They close the city gates at dusk. And after dusk it's not safe to be on the streets. You'd do best to stay outside the city overnight and enter in the morning."

Jack nodded again, but Arabella knew he had no intention of doing any such thing. They bade the captain farewell and followed a sailor carrying their bags down to the quay and across to the black-timbered inn.

"Get us a parlor and breakfast," Jack instructed Arabella at the door. "Oh, and hot water." He ran his hand over his chin with a grimace. "I'm going to see what they have on offer in the stables."

Arabella laid a hand on his arm. "Why don't I get a bedchamber? You'll be all the better for a couple of hours' sleep."

"No," he said shortly. "I want to be on the road in an hour." He strode away towards the rear of the building and she went inside, resigned to the fact that her only role now was a supporting one.

She had organized a decent breakfast, reasoning that in the absence of sleep, food was even more essential. Jack came into the parlor just as she was pouring coffee. He stood leaning against the door for a moment, then pa.s.sed his hands over his face and went across to the dresser, where soap and water awaited him. Arabella had opened his valise and laid out his razor, and for a few minutes the only sound in the room was the rasp of the razor on stubble. Finally he buried his face in a towel, then turned to the table, where she sat quietly watching him.

He sat down, took a deep draught of ale, and said, "I want you to stay here and wait for me to come back with Charlotte."

Arabella stared at him in shock. "What do you mean? Of course I'm coming with you."

He shook his head. "You can't possibly ride close to two hundred miles in less than two days. I couldn't ask it of you."

"You aren't asking it of me," she retorted, her eyes snapping. "I am demanding it of myself. You have nothing whatsoever to do with it, Jack Fortescu. If I hold you up, I give you leave to abandon me by the side of the road, but I do a.s.sure you I am coming with you."

It was only what he had expected, he reflected. But he was afraid she would delay him.

"Besides," she went on, pressing her point as she sensed that he was wavering. "Charlotte will need a woman with her, Jack. I have brought some things for her . . . clothes, some medicine, just in case . . ."Her voice faded then came back strongly. "She won't be well, Jack. She's bound to be weak. There are things I can do for her that you cannot."

He stared down at his plate, imagining his sister. She had never been really strong, but a powerful will had compensated for physical frailty. That will would have enabled her to survive a good deal of hardship, but how much? Would it have held her together if she were hurt in some way? If she had not been killed in the ma.s.sacre, she had been injured. The tricoteuse had not been mistaken in what she had seen. And the crone had not invented it. Charlotte had been bayoneted. Certainly raped. And perhaps left for dead.

"Jack?" Arabella's voice, high with anxiety, finally pierced his wretched reverie. He looked up. She was gazing at him, her eyes filled with fear. "Stop it," she said. "Whatever you're thinking, Jack, stop it now. It can do no good."

"No," he said, his voice expressionless but his eyes still haunted. "It can do no good."

The securite had been looking for him too. Frederick Lacey had spilled his guts that September afternoon, fingering everyone whose name he knew, English or French, it didn't matter. If they were in Paris working against the revolution, the tribunals wanted them, the guillotine was hungry for them.

Charlotte's arrest had been the first of many, and Jack-with a small group of fellows-had escaped the city bare minutes before the securite had come knocking. And he had gone because Charlotte was dead and he had to live to avenge her.

He looked across the table at Frederick Lacey's sister.

At Arabella, his wife. She returned his gaze steadily, compa.s.sionately. And he felt her strength, the power of a love that had nothing to do with Lacey and everything to do with the woman that she was.

"We must cover close to a hundred miles today," he said. "Ten hours in the saddle."

She merely nodded and sipped her coffee. "Eat, Jack."

He obeyed, eating not because he had any appet.i.te but because he knew he must. Gradually despair faded and he felt the power of purpose return in full measure. His fatigue became a vague background sensation that was easily ignored.

Arabella, toying with a slice of bread and b.u.t.ter, was relieved to sense the return of Jack to himself. She drank another cup of coffee and contemplated a slice of ham, then dismissed the idea. Something about sailing didn't agree with her. Or else this queasy lack of appet.i.te was a physical reaction to the stresses and strains of the last couple of days. She was more than ready to get on the road when Jack declared himself satisfied and went off to settle up with the landlord.

She went in search of the privy at the rear of the inn then made her way to the stable yard. Jack had hired two inelegant but st.u.r.dy-looking animals. "What they lack in speed they'll make up for in stamina," he observed as Arabella entered the yard.

He looked her over. The sadly abused riding habit was utterly suitable for this journey. It was as unremarkable as the horses, only the fine quality of her boots bespoke wealth. He himself wore only coat and britches, a plain linen cravat and a shirt unadorned with lace or ruffles. His hair as usual was confined in a plain black ribbon and his bicorn hat was a simple dark felt. He could be taken for a merchant or a country squire and he didn't think the country folk would give either of them a second glance. They had less of the mob mentality than their city cousins, certainly less bloodl.u.s.t.

He helped Arabella to mount, fastened her cloak bag securely to the back of her saddle, and swung astride his own horse. "Ready?"

She gave him a quick rea.s.suring smile. "Ready."

They changed horses twice that day. At the first stop Arabella bought bread, cheese, garlic sausage, and a leather flagon of wine from a woman in the market square of the little village while Jack exchanged their mounts in the livery stable. They ate in the saddle, saying little as the miles pa.s.sed. The country lanes all became a blur, the little towns and villages all merged into one before Arabella's eyes.

As dusk was falling they pa.s.sed a small inn at a crossroads and Jack drew rein. A scruffy mongrel ran out from the yard and barked furiously.

"This seems sufficiently out of the way to be safe," he observed. "We'll rest here for the night."