One Night of Passion (29 page)

Georgie put her finger to her lips. “Hmm. I fear it has been at least two months. I’ve begged and begged him to ransom us or set us free in a decent port, but he has refused, instead sailing from one wretched place to another, taking on the poorest of cargoes.”

“Any passengers?” Mandeville asked ever-so-casually as he took a bite of meat. “A man perhaps, in the last few days. He would have been taken on very late at night. An Englishman.”

Something about the way he spoke niggled at Georgie’s ear. He spoke perfect French. Too perfect. Not with the languid, natural inflection of a native, but like someone who had been taught the language. Mrs. Taft had done her best to make sure both her and Kit’s French sounded as if they had been born at Louis’s court.

This Mandeville spoke it like a well-educated Englishman.

Her gaze sprung up.
A traitor.
A spy for the French. Mr. Pymm had accused her of being one, but Georgie saw now that whomever Colin was looking for, she’d wager this was the man. Now all she had to do was find a way to tell Colin that his enemy was close at hand.

“Anyone unusual come aboard?” he prompted further.

“Passengers?” she managed to stutter, then shook her head. “
Non.
None. I would have remembered a new face, for it would have been a welcome sight. Even an English one,” she said, not daring to glance in his direction, for now she understood only too well the dangerous game Mandeville played.

He was looking for Mr. Pymm and his papers. She suddenly realized that whatever business Colin was in, the stakes were far higher than even she had suspected. For Mr. Pymm’s papers must be far more valuable than she’d first thought if the French would go to such great lengths to retrieve them, and Colin would risk so much to see them taken to London.

Now the task of seeing them safe rested on her shoulders.

“A stranger amongst the crew, perhaps?” Mandeville was asking.

“Did you say a stranger?” she replied, coming out of her musings. His question gave Georgie an idea. “I can’t say for certain, but if you would like me to view the men you have in the hold, I would happily point out anyone whom I don’t recognize.”

“An excellent suggestion, madame,” Bertrand said.

“Anything for France,
mon capitaine,”
she murmured. “Anything at all.”

After dinner, Bertrand ordered the prisoners mustered, and the entire crew of the
Sybaris
was brought up from the hold.

To her chagrin, Mandeville slipped back into the shadows, so he was well concealed but still able to observe the proceedings. She had hoped that Colin or Pymm would be able to see the man for himself, recognize him, and give her some idea how to stop him.

Yet as she watched the crew file up, some of them bandaged, others being prodded along by their French captors, her fears shifted.

There was no sign of Mr. Pymm or Colin.

Could Colin have died? It was a thought that nearly wrenched her heart in two. No, it couldn’t be so. He’d been beaten, yes, but Colin was strong; his formidable will would keep him alive. It had to.

Georgie knew one thing for certain in those horrible moments waiting to catch a glimpse of Colin, whatever he’d done or had failed to do as her guardian, she no longer cared. It was only Colin who mattered. The man who had rescued her, the man who had claimed his daughter with such devoted strength.

The man she’d fallen in love with that passionate night in London.

Then as the last of the men were being brought up, Georgie spotted him at the end of the line. Her heart started to beat anew, while at the same time she found herself fighting back tears. She did her best to hide her alarm by picking at the leftovers on her plate and ignoring the sight that struck her with horror.

Colin struggled along, held up by his ship’s master, Mr. Livett, and on the other side by Mr. Pymm.

Pymm still had Kit’s petticoat bandage around his head, and thankfully appeared no worse for his injuries. Georgie might not care for the man, but she hardly wished him ill.

As for Colin, she shuddered inwardly. She wondered how he was even able to stand upright, so pale and battered did he appear.

“Do you see anyone who might have been brought aboard recently, madame?” Capitaine Bertrand asked. “Someone you don’t recall being here during your capture?”

She made a great show of walking along the line of men, examining each one, until she got down to Colin, Pymm, and Mr. Livett, where she paused. She couldn’t help herself, for when Colin looked up at her with the one eye that would open, the anger and hatred shining there made her falter.

Bertrand spotted her hesitancy and waddled his way up to the trio. He reached out with the baton he carried and prodded Livett in the gut. “Who are you?”

“Livett, the ship’s master,” he answered, shifting his weight to keep Colin upright.

The
capitaine
turned to her, seeking confirmation.

Georgie nodded.

He stepped past Colin’s wilting form and studied Mr. Pymm. “And you?” he demanded, prodding him in the same manner.

“Phillips, monsieur,” he said. “The ship’s surgeon.”

Colin glared at Georgie, daring her to contradict their story.

When Bertrand turned his gaze back to her, she nodded once again. “
Oui.
Monsieur Phillips has been most kind. He helped me when my son took a fever a few weeks ago.”

This time she stared at Colin, where all she saw was a flicker of suspicion. That, she hoped, was a good sign. That he had his doubt about her supposed guilt.

“And I would be most willing to help madame at any time,” Pymm said, with a short bow.

She turned to Bertrand. “I am sorry, but there is no one here who hasn’t been aboard since my ship was captured.”

Bertrand shrugged and ordered the guards to return the prisoners to the hold. He lumbered over to the table and picked up the decanter that the serving lad had brought up, and sniffed it.

“Well, this will have to do,” he said, holding out his glass for the boy to pour a measure. “It is my greatest hope that our new First Consul will be able to see the better vineyards put back into production. Good cognac is impossible to find.”

When the decks had been cleared, Mandeville stepped from his hiding place. “Madame, you never did say, what ship were you on? And what happened to it?”

Bertrand offered Mandeville a glass.

The man shook his head, his attention focused on Georgie.

The intensity of his gaze frightened her, and she knew that she was being tested. So she made her response as glib as possible. “The
Médée,”
she told him. “Her captain was a man by the name of Dubois.” It was a common enough surname that perhaps it would satisfy Mandeville.

“I’ve met him,” the pompously idiotic Bertrand claimed, as he reached for the decanter and refilled his glass. “Never thought much of him, though. Too inclined to panic.”

“And what happened to the ship?” Mandeville asked.

“The poor
Médée
?” Georgie said, also shaking her head at Bertrand’s offer of cognac. “After Captain Danvers and his crew pillaged the cargo and whatever wasn’t nailed down, they set the crew adrift and sank the ship.” She shook her head and sighed. “I believe that man enjoys sinking ships.”

At this Bertrand coughed and wheezed over his glass.

To her relief, Mandeville seemed satisfied with her answers.

A midshipman stepped forward and whispered to Capitaine Bertrand.

“Harrumph,” the man snorted. “They’ve finished with Danvers’s cabin. There isn’t anything there.”

Mandeville muttered a curse under his breath, before he turned to Georgie. “Which cabins belonged to the ship’s master and the surgeon?”

She told him, and the young officer was dispatched accordingly.

Mandeville paced a few steps about the deck, then he stopped. Staring out into the black, moonless night, he asked, “Madame Saint- Antoine, would you mind if we searched your cabin?”

His tone was casual, but Georgie felt the probing test behind his request.

Damn the man, did he trust no one?

“Is that necessary?” she asked, deciding to take a different approach rather than one of complete and utter compliance. “I don’t see how anything could have been hidden in my cabin without my knowledge.”

“Your maid perhaps?”

Georgie laughed. “My maid? She wouldn’t help the English. She has been absolutely terrified the entire time we’ve been aboard.” She shook her head. “The ignorant girl believes all Englishmen have tails—like the devil.”

Bertrand laughed, but she noted that Mandeville didn’t share in their humor.

“What are you searching for?” she asked. “Perhaps I can help.”

“That is none of your concern,” Mandeville said.

“If your men are going to be pilfering through my small clothes and personal items, I believe that gives me the right.”

“Ha, ha,” Bertrand laughed. “The lady has you there, Mandeville.”

“We won’t bother your personal garments,” the aloof man said. “We’re looking for a secret compartment, an empty spot in the walls where papers or a logbook could have been concealed.”

“How very unscrupulous this all sounds.” Georgie sighed. “If you think there is something to find, please do search my room, though I doubt you will discover much. With the possible exception of dirty nappies,” she said with a laugh.

“Rafe?” Kit whispered when she came up on deck. “Rafe? Where are you?” She snuggled Chloe in her arms and did her best to play her role of nursemaid, all the while wondering where the devil Rafe Danvers had gotten himself off to. She’d checked the brandy hold first thing, but he wasn’t there.

When Georgie, the French captain, and the stranger in the black cloak had returned to their cabin, Georgie had handed her Chloe and suggested she go on deck to get some air while the gentlemen searched their cabin.

She knew what Georgie meant—that if the papers Georgie had stolen where discovered, she, Rafe, and Chloe were to take a longboat and attempt to flee. But she could hardly leave without Rafe. Oh, where the devil was he?

“Rafe?” she whispered again, wandering along the line of boats secured to the deck.

“Kit?” came the response. “Is it safe to come out?”

Glancing around the sparsely manned ship, she said, “Yes. Just stay in the shadows.”

She sat down on a barrel and settled Chloe into a coil of rope. Making a great show of opening up her sketch pad, she acted as if she were doing nothing more than finishing a drawing in the light of the lamp hanging nearby. “Is the boat ready?” she whispered.

He nodded. “I cut all the lines down to the last threads. We can drop this one into the water at a moment’s notice,” he said, patting the boat beside him.

Kit glanced over toward the hatch that led down to the cabins. “We may need to.”

“Why? What’s happening?” he asked.

“They’re searching our cabin.”

There was a long sigh from the darkness. “Will they find Colin’s papers?”

Kit shook her head, making a few touches of her charcoal to the paper. “I doubt it.” Then she leaned forward. “You should have stayed in the locker where you were stowed. If Georgie found out you were lurking about and likely to get caught, she’d be vexed beyond words.”

Rafe edged out of his hiding spot. “I’m not about to leave the business of rescuing this ship to a pair of women.”

She suppressed a smile at his masculine outburst. She and Georgie were quite capable of taking on the French, but it was nice to have a would-be hero about.

Especially such a handsome one.

He was pacing back and forth in the tiny space that concealed him from sight. “I should be doing something.”

“You are,” Kit told him. “Posing for me.” She held up her pad for him to see the likeness she’d drawn.

“Hey, that’s quite fine,” he said. “You’re talented.”

Kit shrugged, but inside she warmed to his compliment. “I have others,” she told him, flipping through the pad and holding up some of her favorite ones.

Rate came even closer, edging out of his hiding spot, near enough that Kit could feel his breath on the back of her neck.

For all her recent adventures and travels, as well as growing up rather wild in Penzance, Kit felt her life had missed only one thing—romance. Now Rafe Danvers offered a dangerous glimpse into that world.

His hand reached over her shoulder to point at a drawing she’d done recently of Georgie. “That looks exactly like your sister. Why, with that drawing, I’d have known her right off.” His hand dropped to her shoulder, and he gave her a gentle squeeze.

Kit smiled. She’d thought it a fine likeness as well, but it was nice to hear him say so. But far better than his praise, though, was the fact that he was touching her, and her heart hammered with a secret joy.

Oh, if only she had the courage to look over her shoulder, she knew she would be face-to-face with him, close enough, perhaps, to gain a kiss . . .

As if she dared! Of course she did. Her head turned and she found him gazing down at her, a heated warmth burning in his dark eyes. He must have seen the acquiescence she knew shone in her eyes, for it took him only a second to place his lips on hers. Tenderly, tentatively, and slowly.

Kit thought she was being carried to heaven.

But her first kiss turned out to be far too brief. Across the deck, voices caught their attention and broke them apart. Rafe dove for the shadows and Kit scrambled to right herself, dropping her sketchbook in the process.

“Kathleen?” Georgie called out. “Kathleen? Where are you?” Beside Georgie stood the French captain and the mysterious stranger.

Kit caught up Chloe and scrambled forward, leaving Rafe in his hiding spot. “Here, madame.” Her precious sketchbook forgotten, she raced across the deck to her sister’s side.

“Ah, there she is,” Georgie said to the
capitaine.
“Now if you gentlemen will excuse me, I am going to retire. It has been a long day for all of us.” She curtsied. “And again my deepest thanks for rescuing us from that English dog.” She swept regally toward the ladder that led below. “Come, Kathleen.”

And as Kit came past the man Georgie had called Mandeville, she stumbled. He reached out and caught her, his grip deadly firm.