The Very Daring Duchess Part 16

And somewhere in the middle of it, he decided, he must learn how to say "lioness" in Italian.

"That is your ship ahead of us, Edward?" she asked tentatively, as the boat's c.o.xswain hailed the ship's watch. "We are almost there?"

"Aye, that's my Centaur," he answered as proudly as any doting parent might over a favorite child. "The finest, fairest seventy-four in the entire fleet, and I won't hear anyone say otherwise."

"Santo cialo," she said uneasily, inching closer to him as she stared up at the enormous dark shadow of the ship before them. "It looks a great deal larger from here in the water than it did from the beach."

He smiled. "As well she should, la.s.s. A fighting ship of the line is like a floating fortress, a bit of King George's England wherever she goes."

The Centaur was such a pleasing and familiar sight to him that it took considerable effort to try to imagine it afresh through Francesca's eyes. To be sure, by dark she did look more formidable, her sleek painted sides curving upward from the water like a glistening dark wall thirty feet high. The sails were still furled, the spars and masts like leafless trees rising into the night sky. The only light came from the lanterns at the stern and over the binnacle, and from the wardroom's windows and from Edward's own cabin, the silhouettes of the men on watch faintly visible along the rail.

At least in this ostensibly friendly port, the most obvious signs of the Centaur's bellicose nature were hidden, with the double rows of gun ports closed. Considering Francesca's earlier response to a single measly pistol, this was likely for the best; Edward wasn't sure she'd have agreed to come aboard if she'd had to pa.s.s the muzzles of thirty-seven long guns on the starboard side alone. He'd leave it for her to discover later that even he shared his cabin with a pair of great guns, housed and lashed in their red-painted carriages to the deck until they were needed for battle.

"True, the Centaur's a fighting ship," he continued, "but she's also home to six-hundred and fifty-seven men and boys. And now, with you, to one lady as well."

"Six-hundred and fifty-seven men and boys," she echoed faintly. "And me."

"You will do fine," he said confidently. The closer they came to the ship, the more easily he could picture her on board with him, a graceful new addition to his life. "You'll become the queen of us all in no time."

Deftly the oarsmen maneuvered the boat alongside the ship, tipping their oars up in the air as the c.o.xswain used the boat hook to pull them closer. The sea had grown more choppy, the blowing spray heavier, and the rising swells were lifting the boat up and dropping it down, then smacking it hard back and forth against the ship's side.

"However do you expect me to do this, Edward?" asked Francesca with despair as she stared up at the shallow notches carved into the ship's side for footholds. "I am no monkey, you know, to scurry and scramble from branch to branch! I cannot, I can not! Oh, Edward, if you can teach me to be brave, then do it now, for I am in the worst need of whatever courage you might have to spare!"

"I would never expect you to climb the side like a man," he said, scandalized that she'd even think such a notion even as his imagination supplied the wicked image of her climbing up the narrow footholds with her skirts fluttering high over her knees. "You'll go in the bos'n's chair, same as we've already arranged for the other ladies to follow this night."

As if on cue, the chair was swung down from the deck: Half trapeze, half-sling, a contraption designed to preserve the dignity of ladies while they were hauled from a boat up to the deck. One of the sailors shipped his oar and reached out to steady the chair for her.

"You see, Francesca, it's as safe as can be," said Edward, wishing the sailor's smile wasn't so openly worshipful. "You sit, you're lashed in tight, then up you go, easy and convenient. The Queen of Naples herself won't have any better."

Tentatively she touched the seat, muttering darkly to herself in Italian that for once Edward was thankful he couldn't understand.

"So I am not to be a monkey, but a parrot, sitting on my little perch." Her face beneath the drooping, damp hood was both miserable and determined. "You will go first, Edward? You promise you will be waiting there for me?"

"If that is what you wish, then aye, I will," he said gravely. He touched the front of his hat to her with a quick smile, and as the swell lifted the boat he seized the hanging rope guideline and climbed up the side to wait for her.

So Edward was a monkey, thought Francesca glumly as she watched him clamber to the deck and a shrill welcome of pipes, moving as easily and with as little thought as she climbed into her own bed. It wasn't enough that the wetter and more sodden with seawater he became, the happier he was. Now he'd leaped from a pitching boat to climb the slippery side of his wretched ship simply because she'd asked it, ignoring the obvious danger just to be obliging to her.

"Beggin' pardon, miss," said the sailor steadying the bos'n's chair, "but we can't wait no longer. Orders, miss, orders. You must go, miss, else come back t'sh.o.r.e with us."

She hugged herself beneath her cloak, staring at the narrow seat. To dangle so high in the chilly wind, with only black, icy water below-poor, plump Queen Maria Carolina, if this awaited her, too!

"Beggin' pardon, miss," said the sailor again, more insistently. "But Lord Cap'n's waiting, miss."

She took a deep breath, almost a sigh, then turned around in the rocking boat and let herself be tied into the chair, clutching at the sidelines for dear life.

"There now, miss, all steady an' safe," promised the sailor. "You'll fly up to th' deck like a proper Christmas angel, you will."

She nodded, which he interpreted as saying she was ready, and suddenly she was being hauled up into the air, the wind whipping past her face and her hood blowing back and her feet dangling as awkwardly as a puppet's. But instead of being terrified, she felt oddly exhilarated, as if she truly were flying, and when she gasped, it was with delight, not fear.

With the sky and sea blurring together in the darkness, all she could focus on were the lights of Naples, tiny fairy-bright pinp.r.i.c.ks of candlelight in countless windows, the houses and churches and even the snubbed-off cone of Vesuvius reduced to indistinct shadows. Perhaps this was how she was meant to leave Naples, with this last, magical sight to remember instead of the ugliness and hatred that had haunted her this past fortnight, a memory to hold tight against the uncertainties of London.

"Handsomely now with the lady, handsomely!" barked Edward as two sailors lowered her carefully to the deck, bringing her back to earth as well. "You are unharmed, la.s.s?"

"Oh, Edward, of course I'm perfectly fine," she said breathlessly, twisting around to look back at the sh.o.r.e. "And I would not have missed this sight for all the riches in the world! Bellissimo, bellessimo, like a million stars! Have you ever, ever seen anything so lovely as this night?"

Absently he followed her gaze back to the sh.o.r.e for a moment before concern made him look back at her, rubbing her hands to warm them.

"What I'm seeing is those clouds and the foul weather they'll bring and the wind with it," he said, all practical, unromantic common sense. "If the harbor grows much rougher, your Neapolitan gentry will want to take their chances against the French instead of in an open boat."

"Permit me to welcome you to the Centaur, Your Grace," said another lieutenant, bowing elegantly low over his leg beside Edward. "We are honored to be your sanctuary in your time of trouble."

Edward snorted with exasperation. "Mr. Osborne. This is not the Contessa di San Pietro. She and her party are still ash.o.r.e. This is Miss Robin, a most special personal guest of mine. Francesca, Mr. Osborne, my second lieutenant."

"Buona sera, Mr. Osborne," said Francesca, shoving back her wet hood so he'd see her smile, striving to be as agreeable as possible. "I am most honored to make your acquaintance, sir."

"Your-your servant, Miss Robin," stammered Mr. Osborne, his practiced polish deserting him. "That is, ma'am, I-we-are still honored by your-"

"Mr. Osborne," interupted Edward testily. "Has Mr. Burdumy been summoned to my quarters?"

"Aye, aye, sir," answered Mr. Osborne. "He is, sir."

"Thank you, Mr. Osborne," said Edward. "Francesca, this way, if you please."

Edward took her by the arm, guiding her along the long deck and past more men trying appallingly hard to go about their duties and gawk at her at the same time. If the ship had seemed large from the water, it now seemed enormous, this deck as broad and clear as any avenue on land, albeit an avenue lined with cannons. He'd told her the Centaur was like a floating fortress and those huge guns were the proof, just as they were more proof of how vastly different his life was from hers.

No, from what hers had been. Once she married him, his life would become hers, cannons and all.

"Here now, mind your steps on the companionway," he said as he shepherded her down a steep flight of steps, lit only by a small bra.s.s lantern swinging back and forth on its gimbal mounting. "They're a hazard until you learn your way."

But the steps were not what was worrying her now. "I didn't tell him, Edward," she said urgently. "Your Mr. Osborne, I mean. I did exactly as you wished, and said nothing at all to him about marrying you."

"Better you should have," he said moodily. "Better the whole infernal fleet knows, so all their tongues can start clacking at once."

Abruptly she stopped on the bottom step. "First you scold me for telling Mr. Pye we are to wed," she protested, "and now you are saying you wish the entire fleet already knew of it, and I am confused, Edward, most confused!"

"And why the devil is that, Francesca?" he demanded, turning back toward her, their faces nearly level where she stood on the step. "Why should you be confused by any of this? The admiral was right. You saw Osborne, didn't you? All you did was smile at him and say some sort of meaningless pleasantry, and he was besotted and useless. Pye was, too, and I'll wager every last man on this ship will behave the same."

"But that is scarcely my fault!" she cried indignantly. "I am no strumpet, Edward, no trollop bent on seducing every man I meet! Just now you said yourself that all I'd done was smile!"

"Jesus, Francesca, that was enough-more than enough! Why else do you think you could sell so much rubbish to so many men? How in blazes am I going to keep any order at all among my officers and men with you about?"

She drew back, her mouth pinched tight. "Then you'd do better to put me in chains deep in your hold, where I'll cause no more mischief."

He groaned, and shook his head. "I am not blaming you, la.s.s. Far from it. It's me that's the jealous a.s.s, unable to see how the other men look at you, and it's-it's-oh, h.e.l.l, why can't I explain it better? It's simply how you are, and I would never wish you otherwise."

He'd taken her hand again, and slowly, with great care, he began to work the yellow glove down her wrist and over her fingers.

"Per favore, Edward, whatever are-"