'I'd not been long at Portsmouth myself and not much time to spare for gossip while I was there. It was Lady Hester brought me up to date with all the news. She was quite on your side, by the by. Swore that Cranmere had got no more than he deserved and it was a wicked shame ever to have married you to the fellow. But there, I dare swear your poor aunt thought she was doing all for the best, remembering her own youth.'
'I made no objection,' Marianne admitted. 'I was in love with Francis Cranmere – or I thought I was.'
'It's understandable. He's a handsome shaver, by all accounts. D'ye happen to know what's become of him? There's a rumour abroad of his having been taken up for a spy in France and put in prison and heaven knows what else.'
Marianne felt the colour drain from her face as she saw again the red-painted instrument erected in the snowy ditch at Vincennes, and the chained man twitching with the fear of death in his sleep.
Once again, the terrible cold of that winter's night seemed to creep into her bones and she shivered.
'N-no,' she managed to say at last. 'No, I've no idea. If you please, Sir James, I'm dreadfully tired. We, my companion and I, that is, have been through a terrible experience.'
'Why, of course, my dear. You must forgive me. I was so happy to see you again that I've kept you standing here in all this bustle. You shall come and rest. We'll talk later. This Greek of yours, by the by – who is he?'
'My servant,' Marianne replied, without hesitation. 'And quite devoted to me. Is it possible for him to be lodged near me? He will be lost otherwise.'
The fact of the matter was that she was not entirely easy in her mind about Theodoros' possible reactions to this total change of plan, and she was anxious to confer with him as soon as possible.
She had drawn no very cheerful conclusions from the heavy frown and general air of mistrust with which he had been following, without understanding, this evidently very friendly exchange between the noble French lady and an officer of His Britannic Majesty's Navy. Foreseeing trouble, she preferred to face it quickly.
In fact they were no sooner alone in the quarters assigned to them – a cabin with a kind of lobby provided with a hammock adjoining it – than Theodoros opened the subject on a note of suppressed violence.
'You lied!' he said furiously. 'Your tongue is false, like those of all women! These English are your friends—'
'I did not lie,' Marianne interrupted brusquely, it being no part of her plan to encourage him to dwell on his grievances. 'It's true that this particular officer is an old friend but he would become my implacable enemy if he ever found out who I am.'
'How so? He is your friend, you say, and yet he does not know who you are? Do you think I am a fool? You have brought me into a trap!'
'You know quite well that's not true,' Marianne said wearily. 'How could I? I didn't ask Kouloughis to capture us, or bring this ship to this spot. And when I tell you I'm not lying it's the truth. I am French but I was born during the Revolution. My parents died by the guillotine and I was brought up in England. It was there I came to know Captain King and his family. But then something dreadful happened and I fled to France to try and find what was left of my family. Then I met the Emperor and he – that is, we became friends. Soon afterwards, I married the Prince Sant'Anna but the captain does not know that. It's a long time since he saw me. There, you see, it's all perfectly simple…'
'Your husband? Where is he?'
'The Prince? Dead. I am a widow and therefore free, which is why the Emperor chose to avail himself of my services.'
The anger had been dying out of the giant's face as she spoke, but suspicion remained.
'What did you tell the Englishman about me?' he asked.
'I said you were my servant and that I had engaged you at Santorini. Then I said I was very tired and would rather talk later. That will give us some time to think, because this meeting has rather taken me by surprise.'
Then, recalling Sir James's first words to her, she added: 'Besides, the most important thing, surely, is that this vessel is on its way to Constantinople? Soon we shall be ashore. What will it matter then how we came there? More than that: aren't we safer on board an English ship of the line than on any Greek vessel?'
Theodoros became lost in thought. So long did he stand there thinking that in the end Marianne went and sat down exhaustedly on her cot to await the outcome of his cogitations. His arms were folded, his head sunk on his chest and his eyes fixed: he must have been weighing every word that she had said. At last he looked up, and held her in a gaze heavy with menace.
'You swore on the holy icons,' he reminded her. 'If you betray me, you are damned to all eternity – and I'll strangle you with my bare hands!'
'Are you there again?' she asked sadly. 'Have you forgotten that I killed a man to set you free? Is that the friendship you promised me so short a time ago? If this had been a Greek ship, or even a Turkish one, we would still be comrades. But because it happens to be English, is all that over?
'Yet I need you so badly, Theodoros! You are the only strength I have left in a world of perils. You have it in your power to ruin me. You have only to tell the truth to that man in the white suit who speaks your language. Perhaps if you saw me kept a prisoner it would change your mind – but by that time it would be too late for my mission and for yours.'
She spoke quite slowly but with a kind of resignation which gradually had its effect on the Greek's stormy temperament. Looking at her, he saw her as both fragile and pathetic in her torn, dirty dress that still clung wetly to her body – that body which even at the height of the storm had still shone radiantly at the back of his mind.
She was looking at him, too, with the great green eyes that fear and exhaustion had now underlined with oddly touching shadows. Never in all his life had he encountered a woman so desirable. He was beset, at one and the same time, by three different and wholly incompatible emotions: he wanted to protect her, and to slake the violence of his desire on her, and then again to kill her to rid himself of his obsession.
He opted for a fourth course. Flight. Without another word, he flung himself out of the tiny cabin, slamming the door behind him, and, deprived of his gigantic form, the room seemed to grow in size.
Marianne beheld his departure speechlessly. Why had he gone without saying anything? Was he going to take her at her word? Had he gone to find the man in white, to tell him the truth about his so-called mistress? She had to know…
She made a move as though to rise but she was horribly tired and, spartan as it was, the cot they had given her, with its white sheets, looked softer than a feather bed after the bare boards of the between-decks. All the same, she managed to resist the temptation and forced herself to walk as far as the door and open it. She closed it again at once. Theodoros had not gone far. Like the devoted servant she had called him, he had curled up on the floor outside her door and, overcome with fatigue, was already asleep.
Reassured, Marianne made her own way back to her cot and fell across it, without even taking the trouble to turn back the sheets or snuff the lantern. It was time she had a little untroubled sleep.
Outside, the hubbub was dying down. The British seamen had succeeded with the aid of gaffs in fending off the polacca, which was now sinking slowly, with Kouloughis' men crammed into the vessel's three longboats preparing to make a bid for more hospitable waters.
Captain King's voice, relayed by an interpreter, had warned them to get out of range with all speed unless they wanted to be sent to the bottom, and none of them had shown any great inclination to imitate Theodoros' feat and scale the sides of the floating fortress.