One Night of Passion (30 page)

“Easy, mademoiselle,” he told her. “You carry a precious bundle.”

“
Oui,
monsieur,” she murmured as she glanced up at him. In that second she gained all that she needed.

A look at the man’s face. Enough to commit it to memory. And the first chance she got, she’d consign that memory to paper.

Paper . . . Oh no, her sketchbook!

Kit glanced back to the shadows where it most likely lay. She couldn’t go back now without attracting attention to Rafe’s hiding spot, so she knew she’d have to come back for it later or, even worse, wait until morning to retrieve it.

She resigned her fears to the fact that it wasn’t as if anyone would care a whit about her scribblings.

Except perhaps for Rate. And he thought her quite talented. Kit sighed and followed her sister below. She only hoped he thought her kisses were just as extraordinary.

Colin sat propped up near the door to the hold. Though his body ached with a thousand different pains, his greatest problems lay not in his savaged ribs or battered face—but with his errant and lost brother, and one woman.

Georgie.

What was she up to? He’d spent the last few hours trying to decide her guilt and kept coming up with more questions than answers. She could have easily betrayed them in the hours since his surrender, but by all accounts, she hadn’t.

He knew that for a fact; from the pounding and tapping going on about the
Sybaris,
the French were still looking for Pymm’s documents.

Papers no doubt in her possession.

And when asked to lie about Pymm’s position on the ship, she’d even added credence to their story that he was their surgeon by saying he’d treated her child.

None of it made sense. For if Georgie was a French agent, she would have handed over those precious papers and been gone from the wreckage of the
Sybaris
in a heartbeat.

And yet she was still here. Could he be wrong about her?

He shook his aching head.

“Colin? Colin? Are you in there?” a voice whispered through the grating in the door.

He sat up, struggling to gain his feet. “Rafe?” he said softly in return, quietly enough so as not to wake the guard sleeping at his post.

Relief washed over him. That had been his other fear. His brother hadn’t been with the men gathered and brought to the hold, so that could only mean . . . Colin hadn’t even wanted to consider that his youngest brother had been counted amongst the lost. Now his voice cheered Colin to his very bones. “You scamp. Where the devil have you been hiding?”

“In a secret hold, with a bunch of brandy.”

“Brandy?” Livett piped up. “We’ve got a secret stash of brandy? Cap’n, you’ve been holding out on me!”

“Never mind the brandy, Livett,” Colin told him. He peered through the grate. “How did you find this hiding place?”

“Georgie had Kit take me there when the French started boarding—so I wouldn’t be caught.”

“Kit?”

“Georgie’s sister,” Rafe said. “Her real name’s Kathleen, Kathleen Escott. But she goes by Kit. She’s fourteen.” He waggled his brows.

Colin wanted to groan. It was bad enough his brother craved adventure, but now he was also discovering women. “And does she know you’re only twelve?”

Rafe shook his head and grinned. “I told her I was fifteen.”

“When I get out of here, I’ll make sure she finds out the truth,” Colin said. He should have listened to Georgie and nipped this budding romance off earlier.

He should have listened to Georgie.

Now that was irony if ever there was. A few hours earlier he would have wagered the
Sybaris
that she was a French spy, and now she’d risked her life to save his brother.

For the life of him, he didn’t know what to think.

One thing that gave him some comfort was that Georgie had no better luck seeing his brother toe the mark than he did. What the devil was Rafe thinking roaming about the ship with the French in control of it?

“Why aren’t you still hiding?” Colin glanced over at the sleeping guard. “If they catch you now, be assured they won’t be inclined to toss you in here with us. They’ll most likely just shoot you and throw you overboard.”

Rafe frowned. “But they haven’t caught me yet.” He puffed up his chest. “I’d think you’d be glad to have me out here. I’ve come to rescue you.”

Colin was hardly impressed. “How do you propose to do that?”

Rafe looked around.

“The lock on the door is secure,” Colin told him. “Not even Pymm can pick it.”

“I could break the door in with an ax,” Rafe offered.

Colin nodded toward the sleeping guard. “Don’t you think that might wake him up?”

Rafe frowned again, this time more in vexation at having run out of ideas. “I suppose you’re just going to have to wait for Georgie.” He looked altogether defeated at having to leave their rescue to a girl.

Colin offered some consolation. “I doubt Georgie will meet with much more success.”

Rafe shook his head. “Kit says she’ll get you out of here in no time. Just from how well they know their way around the ship, it seems to me that if there’s a chance of driving the French off the
Sybaris,
they’ll see to it.”

“Why do you think they know the
Sybaris
so well?” he asked, having had the same suspicions on several occasions that this wasn’t the sisters’ first time aboard his ship.

“The lady who fostered them was Mrs. Taft, old Captain Taft’s wife. I guess he owned this tub before you did.”

Colin refrained from correcting his landlubber brother that the
Sybaris
was no tub but a fine vessel, for his revelation explained how Georgie had known about the hidden compartment in his cabin.

“Mrs. Taft took the Escotts in after their parents died and—” Rafe was saying.

Pymm pivoted up from the floor where he’d been half asleep. He elbowed past Colin and stuck his nose out the grate. “Escott? Did you say Escott, lad?”

The guard shifted position, and they all froze. Then the man starting snoring again, first ever so softly, then in earnest.

Pymm took a deep breath and repeated his question, this time quietly. “Did you say Escott?”

“Aye. Georgiana and Kathleen Escott.”

Pymm stepped back from the doorway, his face white, his body trembling. “Escott. It cannot be true. It just cannot be.” He staggered back, shaking his head. “Escott! How could I have not known?” He went back to the window and stuck his hand through, catching Rafe by the collar. “Tell me! What has she got planned?”

Before the boy had a chance to answer, Colin grabbed Pymm by the shoulder and shook him free from Rafe. “What, Pymm? Who the devil are they? French agents?”

“French? Bah! They’re
Escotts,”
he said with such reverence that Colin would have thought he was discussing royalty. “I knew there was something about them. I should have recognized them . . . I’m surprised the older one doesn’t remember me. Ah, but it was dark that night and long ago.” Pymm shook his head. “Georgiana and Kathleen Escott! Oh, I almost pity our friends above.”

Georgiana and Kathleen Escott.
Colin repeated the names, something about them tauntingly familiar.

“I’ve heard those names before, but I can’t place them. Who are they?”

“They are the daughters of the best agents the Foreign Office ever had. Your father and Franklin Escott were good friends. I’m surprised you don’t know the name. I believe your father had the guardianship of the girls after their parents’ death.”

Guardianship!
Now Colin knew with certainty where he had heard those names. The betrothal papers he’d signed in London.

Pymm, in the meantime, had sunk back against the wall. “It was all my fault, you know.”

“What was?” Colin asked, still reeling from the revelation that Georgie was his ward. His responsibility. His obviously
failed
responsibility.

“Their deaths. Franklin’s and Brigitte’s. Murders most foul. And at Mandeville’s hands.”

Mandeville.
Colin was growing to hate that name with the same vehemence Pymm held for it.

“Mandeville?” Rafe whispered. “Why, that’s the name of the man who came aboard from one of those sloops a few hours ago.”

Pymm’s eyes bulged. “Mandeville? Here? Aboard this ship?” He turned to Rafe. “Warn the sisters. At once. If he recognizes them he’ll kill them without a second thought.”

“Why would Mandeville want them?” Colin asked.

“Whatever story she’s told them, it obviously isn’t that she’s the daughter of one of the best agents the British Foreign Office ever produced.” Pymm’s eyes narrowed to a dangerous gleam. “Yes, I’d bet my best informant’s gold tooth that if she’s her father’s daughter, or even her mother’s, she’ll have spun a most convincing tale, one credible enough for even Mandeville.” He paused for a second. “But, he’s clever, and he’s thorough. Whether or not he doubts her story, he’s still likely to place her. For though he doesn’t know it, Mandeville’s left only one witness behind in his career. The night he murdered their parents.”

Colin knew exactly who he meant.
Georgie.

And what cut at his honor, buried his heart in grief, was the realization that as her guardian, he, who should be safeguarding her from harm, was helpless to save her.

“Thank you, madame,” Capitaine Bertrand said as he and Mandeville left Georgie at her room. Mandeville stalked down the corridor toward Colin’s cabin, while Bertrand hesitated a moment. He bowed low over her hand and said, “I hope you won’t feel the need to report the inconvenience of our search to the First Consul.”

“Of course not,” she said with a slight nod of understanding. Actually, if she ever got Bonaparte’s ear, she’d probably tell the leader of France what a horse’s ass he had in this ridiculous coxcomb of a captain.

“Bertrand!” Mandeville said impatiently. “We’ve business to finish.”

“I bid you good night,” the
capitaine
said to Georgie before he hurried along.

The pair disappeared into Colin’s cabin and the door closed with a hard thud.

She closed her door as well. “Hen-hearted old lout,” she muttered, wiping off the hand Bertrand had kissed.

Kit was busy putting their meager belongings back in order. “Do you think they’ll return?”

Georgie shook her head and pushed off the door, pacing about the narrow confines of their room, pausing beside the cradle where Chloe slept soundly “No. Though I’d give my best garters to know what they are discussing in there.” She looked longingly in the direction of Colin’s cabin. “But it would be demmed hard to explain what I was doing lurking about the corridor if I were caught eavesdropping.”

At this Kit glanced up, that only too familiar look of mischief on her face. “You know we could do it without getting caught.”

Choosing once again to ignore the impropriety of her sister’s knowledge on the subject, she asked, “How?”

“I can show you,” Kit said, excitement lacing her words.

She shook her head. “Oh no, you don’t. You have to stay here with Chloe.”

Kit folded her hands over her chest. “Fine, I’ll tell you. But I’d like to protest the fact that just because you are older, you get all the exciting tasks.”

Georgie took a glance at her sister’s flushed cheeks and mussed hair and added, “I would venture you’ve had enough excitement for one night.”

Kit stuck her nose in the air. “I know not of what you speak.”

“I just bet you don’t,” Georgie said back as she gathered up her cloak and wrapped it around herself. “Now tell me how this is done.”

Outwardly miffed, Kit still shared her secret. “If you sit in the far corner of the storeroom directly below the captain’s cabin, you can hear just about everything said in there.”

“I won’t ask how you know that,” Georgie said, finishing tying her cloak about her shoulders. “In the meantime, stay in here. And absolutely no visitors.”

Kit blushed deeply, telling Georgie only too plainly that her sister had already considered that possibility.

Outside their cabin, the ship was devoid of activity. With the entire crew locked below and a skeleton crew from the
Gallia
manning her, the
Sybaris
felt uncharacteristically quiet.

It unnerved Georgie to be taking this risk, but she knew the only way she could help Colin, and perhaps even regain his trust, was to learn everything she could about this Mandeville.

She made her way without incident to the storeroom and found the extra key that Captain Taft had kept well hidden hanging on a bent nail in one of the beams overhead. After unlocking the door, Georgie lit her lamp and made her way to the corner Kit had described.

Almost immediately she heard Bertrand and Mandeville deep in conversation above her.

“Verify her story immediately when you get to shore,” Mandeville was saying.

“And if it isn’t true?” Bertrand asked.

“Get rid of her, the maid, and the brat.”

The deadly calm of his statement sent Georgie shivering, wrapping her cloak around her shoulders as if to ward off his evil intent.

“I don’t trust that woman, Bertrand,” Mandeville was saying. “There is something familiar about her, something I cannot place, and that makes me uneasy, for I never leave witnesses. Never.” There was a pause, one meant obviously as a warning for Bertrand and his blundering ways.

“Of course, monsieur. Of course,” the
capitaine
blustered on.

“Yes, see that it is so,” Mandeville replied. “Since the documents have not been found, I must return to London in all haste to finish my business. Do not fail me on this end of the matter, Bertrand. Discover who the lady is, and if she isn’t this surveyor’s widow, as she says she is, eliminate her. The fate of France rests with you.”

“It is in good hands, monsieur,” Bertrand said. “I will not fail you. Anything for France. We both serve the same aims, is it not so?”

Georgie didn’t miss the overly ingratiating tone of the
capitaine
’s words, or the rapidity with which he rushed to assure this mysterious and dangerous man.

“See that we do,” Mandeville said, before his firm booted steps crossed the room.

Georgie heard the door open, then close, and Mandeville was gone, leaving her in silence and the echoes of words that rattled at her memories.