There was a strong smell of fish, and the oil lantern hanging from the low ceiling gave off noxious smoky fumes, its flickering light casting grotesque shadows on the planked bulkhead. A skinny bunk was set into the bulkhead with a coarse blanket over a straw pallet. It was airless and yet dank and chill. However, Gabrielle told herself, the journey shouldn't take more than twelve or thirteen hours, and she could always go up on deck.
She turned to her companion. “So, perhaps you’d better give me my instructions."
Nathaniel leaned back against the stained planking of the bolted-down central table, arms folded, his eyes hooded.
"No, I think I'll wait a bit."
"Wait? But for heaven's sake, Nathaniel, the boat's about to sail."
"I know."
"Just what are you getting at?" Gabrielle glared at him in infuriated bewilderment.
Nathaniel remained unmoved. "Simply that you're not going alone."
Gabrielle felt as if she'd lost touch with her own moorings just as the boat lurched beneath her and a voice yelled an instruction accompanying the squeak of a sail running up the masthead. She grabbed the edge of the table as the boat swung slowly away from the quayside and the wind filled the mainsail.
"You're coming to France?" she asked carefully.
"Just so."
"But why?"
"My dear girl, I never send an agent into the field alone on a first mission," he informed her coolly. "They always have a mentor, someone who knows the area and the setup. I'm going to act as your mentor on this mission, and if all goes well, then I daresay future ones you may conduct alone."
"Well, why didn't you tell me?" she demanded, her eyes blazing.
"I wanted to see how you would behave when faced with the prospect of going alone into danger."
The authoritarian, matter-of-fact statement was the last straw. What the devil did he know about how she faced danger?
"I am sick to death of your damn tests," Gabrielle declared, jabbing at his chest with a forefinger. "Who the hell do you think you are?"
"Your spymaster," he said, catching the jabbing finger and holding it away from him. "And you will submit to any test I decide to set-unless you wish to abandon this plan?"
Gabrielle drew breath deep into her lungs. He was still holding her finger, and there was a sudden intensity in the eyes resting on her face.
Tell meyou'll give it up. Go on, Gabrielle, say it. It's not too late. The fervency of his unspoken thoughts shocked him. He'd believed he was resigned, accepting of her treachery, but he wasn't. He didn't know if he could forgive, if they could make some new start. But perhaps if Gabrielle pulled back now…
Their eyes held for a minute, then Gabrielle laughed and pulled her finger out of his grip. "Don't be silly. Of course I don't want to."
"No, of course not," he said.
Gabrielle sat down on the narrow bunk, frowning. At least it offered a satisfactory explanation for why Nathaniel hadn't appeared unduly depressed at the prospect of their parting. But she wasn't accustomed to having the ground cut from beneath her feet, and just recently Nathaniel had been doing chat with tiresome regularity.
Yet, despite her annoyance, she couldn't deny the little prickles of pleasure and excitement at the prospect of extending their time together despite the complications that were bound to result.
"So you're traveling to Paris?" she said after a minute.
"Yes, under your protection," he informed her without batting an eyelid. "Your laissez passer I assume will cover a servant."
Gabrielle gazed at him, for a moment speechless. Of all the effrontery! But it was still a brilliant strategy, one she would have come up with herself.
"Nathaniel Praed, you are… you are… oh, there isn't a word strong enough to describe you."
Nathaniel reached for her, hauling her to her feet and pulling her between his knees. Her eyes were on a level with his.
"Would you rather travel alone, Gabrielle?"
She shook her head ruefully. "No. You know I wouldn't. I didn't want us to part."
"I know you didn't. And neither did I. We seem to be intertwined, you and I," he said with a dry smile.
"Yes," Gabrielle agreed quietly. A chill ran down her spine as someone walked over her grave. Intertwined enemies. Deadly enemies. She hated Nathaniel for what he had done to Guillaume and to her, and yet she could barely contemplate being away from him.
She looked into his eyes and saw her own reflection in the dark irises. There was something in the brown depths that she couldn't read, something of a most powerful intensity that sent renewed chills over her skin. It was more than simple passion, it was almost menacing. And then he caught her head between his hands and brought his mouth to hers and reason and unease yielded to the familiar heady rush of desire.
On deck, Jake shivered in his hiding place as the fishing boat ran before the wind up the estuary. Papa had gone into the cabin with Gabby and hadn't come out. He was still on the boat, and now they were going to France.
Voices reached him from the other side of his hiding place, the rough male voices of the skipper and his crew. Jake shivered with terror and the tears tracked soundlessly down his cheeks. He inched closer to the deck rail and the surging cold black water beneath. He couldn't swim. If he jumped, he'd drown. But if he stayed, they'd find him. And Papa would find him… and…
He couldn't imagine what his father would do when he found him. He shrank down as far as he could behind the sailcloth and closed his eyes tightly, trying to believe as he had when he was very little that if he couldn't see people, they couldn't see him.
"Oh, that's better." Gabby's voice penetrated his terrified trance. "It's so stuffy in there."
"It'll be very cold once we round the Needles and reach the open sea," Nathaniel replied. "You'll be glad enough of the shelter then."
"Maybe." Gabrielle held the deck rail and threw back her head, looking up into the overcast sky, where the misty shadow of the moon hung over them. The spray stung her face and she breathed deeply of the salt-tanged air. It felt good deep in her lungs. She looked back to the diminishing lights of Lymington quay. "I hope it stays calm. I'm not the world's best sailor."
"Goodness me," Nathaniel said in tones of feigned amazement. "Don't tell me you have a weakness."
"Unkind," she protested with a soft laugh. "I have many weaknesses." Being herewith you is one of them. But for the moment there was nothing to be gained by fighting that weakness.
"I'm hungry," she said. "It seems ages since dinner. It must be the sea air."
"You've been sailing for only half an hour," Nathaniel pointed out. "However, I had the forethought to bring some provisions. Shall we go below?"
"No, let's have a picnic up here."
The voices were so close to Jake, he could almost imagine touching Gabrielle. He wanted to jump up and run to her, bury his head in her skirt, feel her warmth and her arms around him, her lips brushing his cheek when she kissed him, her hand ruffling his hair. But then his father spoke again, and he huddled wretchedly back into his corner.
"So what did you bring?" Gabriel e turned from the rail as Nathaniel reemerged from the companionway. She smiled and the moon broke through a gap in the clouds, throwing her face into silver relief.
Her smile was candid, inviting, as if she had nothing to hide, and despite everything he knew, he couldn't prevent his own lips curving in response.
"You'll see. We'll use this as a table." He kicked forward an upturned crate and squatted down before it, feeling into the bag he carried with the air of a magician about to produce a litter of rabbits.