Ramage shook his head. "Of course not! But we sail for England tomorrow night." Suddenly he recalled her reference to the Ambassador. "What did you say Mr Frere was doing?"
"Oh, telling one of the frigates to rescue you all, or some such thing."
Ramage recognized the imperious ruler of the little state of Volterra: the wilful young Marchesa for ever hiding behind the golden-skinned Gianna.
"Quick," Ramage snapped, "I must see him at once! My God! This could wreck everything."
"In a moment, Nico," she protested.
"Come on," he said hurriedly, grabbing her hand and pulling her to the door. "My men could get killed because of this!"
The Ambassador had been as affable as he was efficient. By the time Ramage and Gianna had arrived in his office one messenger had already been dispatched with orders to the frigate captain cancelling his earlier instructions; a second messenger was on his way to the Post Office Agent demanding to know why the Ambassador had not been informed immediately the ransom arrangements had been concluded. And Frere had commented sourly that the Agent could be thankful the attendant in the Embassy hall had reported Ramage's arrival.
After politely refusing Frere's invitation to stay at the Embassy for a few days or, failing that, dine with him, Ramage had explained that he planned to sail for England with the Arabella in a few hours, and there was much to be done before then. Frere had nodded sympathetically and shot a questioning glance at Gianna.
Much to Ramage's surprise she had formally thanked Frere for his hospitality and told him she would be leaving the Embassy within the hour. Ramage had been about to suggest she would be more comfortable at the Embassy than waiting in a hotel for the next Falmouth packet to sail in ten days or so, but he decided against it. Gianna must have her reasons.
They walked back to the first-floor room. Gianna chattered cheerfully, giving him fond messages from his father and mother. She was so excited she did not notice Ramage's silence. Why, he wondered, isn't she going to stay here? He did not like the idea of her staying in one of the hotels without a chaperone. Without a guard, for that matter: the French had made one desperate attempt to capture her in Italy, and the moment they discovered she was alone in Lisbon they might try to kidnap her.
Ramage shut the door and pointed to a chair. "Sit down for a moment; I've some questions!"
"They can wait," she pouted. "So serioso, Nico! I came all this way ... Did you forget me in the West Indies? Don't you love-"
"I love you!" he said almost savagely. "That's why I'm worried. Love and war don't mix!"
"If that Bonaparte hadn't driven me out of Volterra, you'd never have met me," she reminded him. "So you're wrong, caro mio ..."
"Accidente! Tell me, what made you take the packet from Falmouth?"
"Nico! Shall I say I have a lover waiting in Lisbon, and I thought I'd see you at the same time?"
That smile, Ramage thought to himself; and that body, and as always he remembered Ghiberti's beautiful carving of "The Creation of Eve" on the east door of the Baptistry in Florence. Eve's bold and slim body with the small, jutting breasts; the small, finely chiselled face (Gianna's was fuller, more sensuous). He glanced at the body hidden by the white dress: the flat belly and rounded thighs, the long, slim legs.
"I know what you are thinking," she said.
"Indeed you don't," he said, flushing.
"I do!" she said furiously. "You are thinking this Gianna is a nuisance, and why didn't she stay at St Kew, out of the way, and - and -"
Ramage stood helplessly as she searched for words: they'd been together ten minutes and were already quarrelling. Why the devil couldn't she understand what he meant?
"Listen," he said, "let's get it over with-"
"There you are! You don't love me!"
"No - oh darling-"
"So you don't love me, you just said so!"
"No - I mean I was saying 'No' because you said that I said I..."
They both burst out laughing. She stood up, pushed him to a chair, and as soon as he sat she curled up on the floor at his feet, her head resting on his knee.
"Ask all the questions you want, sir!"
"Very well, signorina: tell me how you got here. From the beginning. From breakfast the day you had the idea!"
"Not breakfast," she said promptly, "Your father always complains I don't eat enough breakfast. That porridge - ough! I'd get fat like a fishwife. Well, Lord Spencair wrote-"
"Spencer," he corrected.
She sniffed. "- 'Spencair', then. He wrote to your father describing all the trouble out here, and a silly new Act of Parliament they had to pass. Your father laughed," she added as an afterthought. "He thought it very funny that you were the cause of a special Act of Parliament. He made me cross."
"Why? I hadn't thought of it like that, but it is amusing."
"Amusing? But supposing those cretins in Parliament hadn't passed it? What then, eh?"
Ramage laughed: the "eh?" and the upraised palms was so typically Italian.
"You laugh," she protested, "but if you get put in a French prison for years it is me - it is I," she corrected herself, "who has to wait at home and grow old and wrinkled and when you come back I am too ugly for you and you - oh, don't think a quick kiss on the head will silence me," she said furiously. "A shrivelled old walnut, that's how I'll look; all my youth wasted waiting for you and you are faithless -"
"Steady on," Ramage interrupted mildly, "the French haven't caught me yet and you're a long way from your twentieth birthday!"
"Now you mock me," she snapped. "If it wasn't for your father I'd forget all about you."
"My father's already married."
"Oh, cretino!" she pummelled him with her fists, her eyes blazing with anger, and he gripped her wrists and twisted her arms until she was facing him, and then he kissed her.
"Stop shaking with indignation," he said, "it makes our teeth click together."
She jerked away from him. "I don't love you. I inform you officially." She frowned, her lips pressed into a thin line.
"I'll make a note of it in the log," he said. "Anyway, what happened after Lord 'Spencair' wrote?"
"I told your father and mother that if the Act was not passed, I would go to Lisbon with the money and pay for the ship myself, and-"
"But-"
"But nothing: the law says no British subject can pay money to a Frenchman. It doesn't say anything about foreigners paying. Anyway," she said arrogantly, "it would be my own money, and am I not the Marchesa di Volterra?"
He nodded numbly, overwhelmed by both her logic and her generosity. "What ... what did Father say?"
"At first he was very angry - he has a worse temper than you," she said reproachfully. "Then your mother said it was a silly law anyway because obviously it was supposed to stop traitors paying spies and things like that, but Parliament was so stupid it didn't word it properly. That made your father change his mind. He finally agreed with her that it was the intention of the law, not the wording, that should concern us."
"And then?"
"Well, I made him angry again because I said I didn't care about intention, wording or law; that I was going to stop you being put in a French prison."
"What did he do?"
"At that moment? Well, I walked out and your mother got angry with him, but by the time I came back he'd found out when the next packet sailed for Lisbon and was arranging a guard for me."