Once Tempted (26 page)

Colin frowned as first one bullet, then another pinged through their sails and chipped at the masts. Olivia ducked behind the railing and crawled behind a large rain barrel lashed to the deck.

“Dammit, keep your heads. We aren’t free yet,” Colin shouted at his men. He kept directing new headings and minding the sails to ensure they got every bit of the available wind.

And when the dawn started to peek over the horizon, they discovered they had lost the other ship. It was then that Robert came and joined her on the deck.

“We have unfinished business, you and I,” he said.

She nodded and reached to her bodice, catching the silver chain there and tugging it until the ring sprang free from where it nestled beneath her breasts. “Do you know this?”

His brow furrowed, but he refused to answer.

“You knew him, didn’t you? Who was he, Robert? Who is this Hobbe he spoke of?”

“Do not speak of him to me. Not ever,” he said. “Nor will I answer your questions. Not as long as you wear
that
around your neck like some prize.”

Olivia bristled. A prize? Some ill-fated memento from her past? Is that what he thought it was?

“How can you think so little of me, sir? After . . .  after . . .” She faltered over the words, her hurt and anger holding any further declarations fast in her throat. Instead, she shook the ring at him, hoping to anger him enough to reveal what he knew. “I’ll not take this off until I have my answers.”

But she’d met her stubborn match in Robert Danvers. “Then, Miss Sutton,” he said, his voice just as stiff and formal as hers, “we have a stalemate.”

“If it is a game we play, sir, then it is one you will lose,” she said, her tone as icy as the cold chill closing over her heart.

At dusk Olivia learned they would be sailing not into Lisbon but into a cove some miles to the north of the city, where Captain Danvers was scheduled to meet a business associate later that night.

She didn’t bother asking why this meeting had to take place under the cover of darkness and some distance from prying eyes. Olivia realized that like his brother, Colin offered more questions than answers about his life.

Standing at the rail, her valise clutched in her hand, she looked out into the inky, moonless night around them and could barely discern the shore in the distance. Robert, Jemmy, Aquiles and Livett had already taken their places in the bobbing longboat beside the
Sybaris,
and now it was her turn.

Captain Danvers held out his hand to her. “Thank you, Miss Sutton, for saving his life.” He nodded for Gavin to take her valise down to the boat.

She nodded, feeling a little choked up. While she still suspected Captain Danvers’s activities bordered more on piracy than legitimacy, he had been nothing but generous and kind to her during her stay. “Some day I would like to meet your wife. Repay her for the clothes I’ve borrowed.” She held out the hem of the cloak Colin had insisted she take along with the sprigged muslin tucked in her valise.

She had almost refused the muslin, for it brought back too many memories of Robert’s passion, but Colin had been adamant she take the gown.

He’d left her to her packing, muttering something about the “demmed thing being nothing but trouble.” He had that right.

“You’ve been most kind,” she said. “Considering the inconvenience Mr. Pymm and Robert added to your journey.”

The man glanced over the rail down at his brother and then back at her. “I was glad to have met
you.
I have learned that Pymm’s inconveniences are often lessons in happenstance.” He glanced over the railing at Robert, who sat staring moodily into the water. “Give him time,” he told her.

With that, he bowed low over her hand and then helped her over the rail. As they rowed out of the shadow of the
Sybaris,
her last image of Captain Danvers was of the man climbing back onto the fo’c’sle, his face turned toward the now very distant shores of England.

She puzzled over his words, hoping to find some reassurance in them that one day she and Robert would find a way to give each other the answers they so needed. To once again find the fragile trust and intimacy they had so briefly discovered on board the
Sybaris.

The journey to shore went off without incident, leaving Olivia almost disappointed. With all their whispered plans and this dark departure, she had thought at the very least they were going to run into a French picquet or some hotheaded Portuguese nationalist bent on saving his country from another invading force.

Instead they rowed the short distance to land, where the beach met the waves in a gentle slope and the low surf gently deposited the longboat onto the pebbled shore. Aquiles, unwilling to wait his turn, bolted out of the back of the longboat and splashed to shore, going down on his knees and kissing the sand.

“Jamás abandonaré mi tierra otra vez,”
the giant man muttered. I’ll never leave land again.

Robert hoisted Olivia up and out of the boat, carrying her in his arms to dry land, but his touch was nothing more than that of a man carrying an unremarkable burden ashore.

The heat of his hands was there, but they conveyed none of the passion and flame she’d felt the night before. It was as if the cold water splashing up from his boots had invaded his heart. And when she tipped back her hood and looked into his eyes, all that greeted her was a cold, bitter reception.

He set her down as if he were dropping hot coals and just as quickly set her valise next to her feet.

“Thank you,” she muttered.

Once they were all gathered ashore, she said a quick good-bye to Livett and Gavin as Robert started marching up the beach. Apparently he knew where they were going, and it was up to the rest of them to keep up.

At first Olivia caught up her valise, but always the gentleman, Jemmy took it from her and lugged it along.

They climbed a short hill and then found themselves walking down a dark, rutted road. A grinning Aquiles brought up the rear.

“Seems rather irregular,” Jemmy commented, as he stumbled for the third time. “Hey there, Danvers, where are we going?”

“An inn. Not far,” Robert said, without even glancing back at them or slowing his pace.

“Chatty fellow tonight,” Jemmy said to Olivia, shifting her valise from one hand to the other. “Hope this inn has clean beds and a bath. I’d love a good bath.”

“I wouldn’t hold too much hope of that,” Olivia said as they rounded a bend and a poorly lit building appeared in the distance. From it came none of the noise one usually associated with an inn—the chatter of patrons, a bit of singing, the impatient stamp and whinny of horses—but this wasn’t your usual hostelry, Olivia soon discovered.

Nor was it the type of place she expected a member of Wellington’s personal staff to be familiar with.

Then perhaps Major Danvers was no more an ordinary officer in His Majesty’s Army than his brother was a regular captain in the Royal Navy.

When they got to the door, Robert finally stopped. “Wait here. I’m going inside to engage rooms for the both of you. You are to speak to no one, tell them nothing of how you came here.”

“Well, of all the high—” Jemmy started to complain, until a rough-hewn patron, taller than Aquiles and if possible twice as fierce, for he was missing part of his nose and several of his teeth, came lumbering out the door.

He cocked a dark glance at them, and for a moment Olivia gave them all up for lost, until the fierce giant spied Robert.

“Roberto!” he said, hauling him into a bear hug of an embrace.

“Samsão,” Robert replied with equal enthusiasm. “How the hell are you, my friend?”

“Oh, so right,” he said, a shrug of his shoulder punctuating his words. “There is much afoot. We have missed your help. But it is glad and surprised I am to see you back here.” This was followed by another hug. When he released Robert, he tipped his head at the inn’s door. “There is someone inside who will be as surprised as I am to see you. I was just asking Rafe—”

“That will have to wait, Samsão,” Robert told him. “I must see my friends settled for the night. Does Bathasar still keep rooms available for special visitors?”

Samsão gave Jemmy and Olivia a more thoughtful perusal and then nodded. “When you get your friends tucked in, come and we will share a flagon.” He opened his coat to show a bulging goatskin pouch hanging inside. “Those French
bastardos
haven’t stolen all the good wine in this country.” He laughed loudly, slapping first his chest, then Robert’s back with resounding thwacks.

Before they entered, Robert reached over and
pulled Olivia’s cloak further over her face and around her body, concealing her like a duenna would her young charge. “Not one word,” he cautioned them.

The inside of the inn was no more promising than the outside had been. The smells were entirely foreign to Olivia—none of the familiar odors of smoke, roasted mutton and beer washing over one, but instead, the sweet bouquet of wine, the tangy, sharp scent of grilled fish and the sad, low strains of a guitar.

The low conversation of the trio of men in the room stopped as they entered. Olivia felt a tide of speculation encircle her, and she pulled her cloak tighter around her as if to ward off their whispered suspicions.

Then recognition lit the face of one of the men. His low-slung hat tipped back, his guarded expression opening into a wide grin.

A warm welcome of “Roberto” sang out, and the other two patrons grinned as well before surging forward to greet him.

“I didn’t recognize you without your uniform.”

“Long time, my friend.”

“Drink with us,” came their friendly salutations.

Olivia watched Robert acknowledge them. Though his expression and words were filled with lively warmth, she wondered if they saw the wall he placed between himself and them.

She knew every brick and stone that Robert Danvers could toss up so easily to keep the world out . . .  and his heart and soul locked within.

Soon the establishment’s patrons were joined by the innkeeper, Bathasar, whose ample girth and white apron marked him as the proprietor. He hailed Robert with equal warmth, and after a short whispered conversation and a few nods in her direction, the transaction was completed.

“He has a room that ought to work,” Robert told them. “Come along.”

Olivia and Jemmy started to follow, but she paused for a moment when she saw a cloaked figure step out of the shadows of a private room at one end of the common area. The man was tall, a good head above most of the Portuguese in the room. And there was something in his bearing that told Olivia he wasn’t one of the regular patrons. While she couldn’t make out his features, it was obvious the man was staring directly at Robert.

When she glanced over at Robert, he appeared to have also spied the mysterious stranger and sent the fellow a slight, curt nod.

The man responded in kind and melted back into the shadows. And for a brief flash, Olivia thought she saw his face, a countenance so familiar it nearly took her breath away.

But it couldn’t be.
He was dead.

Chills ran down her arms. She knew she couldn’t have seen what she just thought she had, but then again none of this was right.

Why hadn’t they gone directly to Wellington? If her information about
El Rescate del Rey
was so essential to the progress of the war, why would Robert insist on hiding her away in this forgotten and forsaken inn? The place was no better than a Cornish smugglers’ haunt.

And why didn’t Robert want anyone to see her or know of their arrival in Portugal?

Before she could come to any logical conclusions, they arrived at their room. From the rough-hewn benches and dilapidated condition of the outside Olivia did not expect much in the way of comfort, but the accommodations Bathasar provided pleasantly surprised her.

They entered a large sitting room, which Olivia noted, with some relief, was clean and cozy. There was a table and chairs for dining, two more comfortable chairs near the windows and a desk with all the necessary implements for sending correspondence. As she moved further into the room, she spied that either end of the large room featured a small, separate sleeping chamber.

Jemmy immediately took possession of the largest chair and pronounced it “capital.”

The maid bustled in, chattering in Portuguese, two large pitchers in one hand, and balancing a stack of towels in the other. She settled these near the washstand and then went about directing a young boy who arrived moments behind her with a tray laden with food and drink.

“Obrigada,”
Olivia told them when they finished their tasks. Thank you.

The girl turned a suspicious eye on her, then said in her native tongue, “You don’t look Portuguese.”

“Sou Inglesa,”
Olivia answered in kind. I am English.

“Bah! Not like any English I’ve met,” she said. She sidled past Olivia and out of the room. “Except perhaps
Roberto.”
She fluttered her lashes at Robert, who stood in the doorway.

Jealousy hit Olivia hard in the gut at the way the woman smiled with familiar ease at him. And it doubled its hold on her tormented soul when he smiled back at the girl and flipped her a gold coin.

The money was far more than what Olivia guessed was needed to pay for the room . . .  or other services. And from the greedy and hungry flash in the girl’s eyes, Olivia didn’t want to know just what those other services might encompass.

When she was gone, Robert turned on Olivia. “I said not one word out of you. Not in English and especially not in Portuguese.”

“I was just being polite,” she shot back. It occurred to her to ask Robert who the stranger in the shadows was, but she knew he would only deny the encounter.

Especially when she told him who she thought the man looked like.

Instead she said, “There is nothing wrong with being well mannered.” She hoped the broader hint of her words would fall somewhere between his ears.

“Well, don’t be. English women who speak fluent Portuguese get noticed and remembered.” He raked his hand through his hair and let out an exasperated sigh. Then he turned his sharp gaze on Jemmy. “Stay in here,” he told the young man. “And don’t let
her
out.”