Nathaniel had made all the arrangements for her journey and given her the details calmly and efficiently, as if he weren't describing the way she would walk out of his life forever. Gabrielle had responded in the same fashion. They were pleasant and polite to each other; they made love, but the spark was missing. Gabrielle supposed it eased the prospect of parting. One withdrew from addiction by slow steps. But it also felt soulless, almost as if they were determined now to negate the strength of what they'd shared.
They dined early on the Thursday evening and Gabrielle went up to say good-bye to Jake. The little boy was sitting up in bed, unusually pale, but his brown eyes had an almost febrile glitter to them. Gabrielle felt his forehead as she kissed him. He was warm but not feverish. Most unusually, he didn't seem to want her to stay. Instead of prolonging the visit in his customary fashion with questions, requests for another story, or endless narratives with neither beginning nor end, he docilely accepted her good-bye kiss and said good night, snuggling down almost before she'd left the nursery.
It was a relief, of course. She'd been dreading tears and recriminations. But it was still a little hurtful to think how quickly one could be dismissed by both father and son.
"Are you ready?" Nathaniel came into her apartments just before nine o'clock. "The tide's full at eleven o'clock and you have to catch it."
"Yes, I'm ready." She looked up from the jewel casket she was closing and blinked in surprise. Nathaniel was wearing boots and britches, a plain white linen shirt open at the neck with a scarf knotted carelessly at his throat. He had a cloak slung over one arm and leather gauntlets held in one hand.
"That's a very serviceable dress," she commented. "Are you intending to travel all night?"
"It might be necessary," he replied in the tone that she'd learned prohibited further inquiry. "Has Bartram taken your traps to the chaise?"
"Yes, and I've said good-bye to Ellie and Mrs. Bailey."
"Then let's go."
There was a lump in Gabrielle's throat as she followed him downstairs. She couldn't understand why she wasn't excited, triumphant at the success of her plan. She had the spymaster where she wanted him. But she was aware only of a bleak depression and a deep and irrational hurt. She wanted Nathaniel to be as regretful at their parting as she was, and he patently wasn't.
Nathaniel handed her into the chaise waiting at the door and climbed in after her, first checking that the luggage was properly stowed on the roof. He knocked on the panel, the coachman clicked his whip, and the carriage moved down the long drive.
At the bottom of the drive they stopped while the gatekeeper opened the gate for them. A small figure crept out of the bushes and clambered onto the narrow ledge, standing on tiptoe to seize the leather strap, pressing his slight body against the back of the coach as it rattled through the gate and down the lane. The gatekeeper closed the gate after them, muttering to himself as his rheumaticky hands fumbled with the heavy iron bar. He was shortsighted and it was a dark night. If he discerned a darker shadow against the rear panels of the coach as it swayed down the road, he thought nothing of it.
Gabrielle tried to think of some topic of conversation, something to break the silence. But there'd only ever been one acceptable topic of conversation, and it was hardly appropriate at this juncture. Although the last time they'd traveled in the coach, on the way from Vanbrugh Court, it had been more than appropriate…
Nathaniel sat back against the squabs, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes hooded as he watched her face in the shifting shadows of the coach. She wasn't happy about this mission; in fact, if asked, he would have said she was downright depressed. As indeed he would be if he believed they were about to part ways. Not even her treachery, it seemed, could destroy his passion for her. There was some level on which they were totally compatible, and in his more detached moments it struck him as the most damnable twist of fate that they should find themselves on opposite sides in the dirty war they fought. They would have made the most amazing partners if they shared the same goals and the same loyalties.
Instead, they were bitterest enemies, each out to manipulate and betray the other. And in his heart he knew that even if he won, as he intended to, they would still both be losers.
In half an hour the chaise clattered across the cobbles at the Lymington quay. Lamplight poured out from the Black Swan Inn as inebriated fishermen staggered out, yelling, cursing, and singing. Most made their way to the fleet of boats tied up at the quay, leaping on decks with a dexterity that belied the effects of carousing. But time and tide made no concessions when a man's livelihood came from the sea.
Jake slipped to the cobbles and darted behind a coil of tarred rope. In the general melee no one noticed a small boy in nankeen britches and a knitted blue jersey. He watched as the coachman snapped his fingers at one of the inn's ostlers lounging against the timbered wall of the inn with a pipe in his hand. The man shook out the pipe and sauntered across. Money changed hands, and between them the ostler and coachman unloaded the bags from the roof of the chaise. They took them to a relatively large fishing boat at the far end of the quay. A man standing in the stern greeted them with a hail and gestured that they should come aboard.
Jake slipped from his hiding place and darted forward. His father and Gabby were still standing by the coach, talking to each other. No one was looking in his direction. Around him people were running, shouting, leaping from the quay to the boat decks and back again. Ropes were being untied, sheets loosened, and sails unfurled. Lymington estuary was in full flood, the tide flowing strongly toward the Solent at its mouth, and there was a night of fishing and crabbing to be done. Some would trawl their nets in the deep waters off the Brittany coast, on the lookout for hostile French shipping, and one craft at least, like the Curlew, would ferry and offload those who sailed by night about clandestine business.
The three men had their backs turned to the gangway. Jake leaped across it in four steps and dived behind a roll of canvas sailcloth in the bow of the boat. He crouched there, his heart beating fast, but too excited for fear. In a minute Gabby would come aboard and his father would drive off and the boat would sail out of the river. He wouldn't tell anyone he was there until they got to France. How long did it take to sail to France? Perhaps all night?
"Let's get you aboard," Nathaniel said, putting an arm lightly around Gabrielle's shoulders, shepherding her toward the craft riding easily on the swelling tide. "I'll give you your detailed instructions in the cabin."
He went ahead of her across the gangplank, jumped down to the deck, and, turning, held out his hand to her. He was smiling, and there was something raffish about him, Gabrielle realized as he stood there in the torchlit night, the carelessly knotted kerchief at his throat, one booted foot on the gangplank, his other hand resting on his knee, the cloak falling back from his shoulders revealing the slender, tensile frame.
She didn't think she'd ever seen him like this, radiating some secret pleasure… just like Jake, she thought, recognizing one of those flashes of similarity between parent and child.
Nathaniel was obviously relishing the prospect of whatever adventure awaited him once she'd left. Not to be outdone, Gabrielle forced a smile of her own and sprang lightly across the gangplank, disdaining his helping hand with an airy wave.
"There's a cabin of sorts below," Nathaniel said, ushering her toward the hatchway. "Primitive, I'm afraid, but hopefully not too fishy." His voice was bright and his eyes had the wicked gleam in their depths that Gabrielle associated with their most imaginative playtimes.
Obviously the prospect of a dangerous piece of espionage, or whatever he was about to engage upon, gave him as much of a sexual thrill as lovemaking, she decided morosely, following him down the narrow companionway.