Nathaniel took over at his son's bedside. The child's agony was wrenching as the spasms racked his small frame. His face had a waxen, greenish pallor to it, and in no time at all his eyes had sunk into their sockets, lusterless brown smudges surrounded by black shadows that looked like bruises.
After an hour Nathaniel felt the first stirrings of alarm. He'd never taken seasickness particularly seriously; it was something some people suffered from and others didn't. He was feeling mildly queasy himself, but nothing he couldn't control. The child, however, seemed to be losing muscle and sinew before his eyes. He no longer had the strength to sit upright without support, but if Nathaniel laid him down on the cot, he instantly began to retch where he lay.
The vivid image of Helen rose in haunting memory as he stared around at the dancing specters on the bulwark. He'd watched her fade away too, and as quickly. But she'd bled to death. Jake was just sick.
He told himself this, but he knew Jake was suffering no ordinary sickness. Somehow he had to stop it, give the child some rest. Why the hell hadn't they brought water? Something to replace what Jake was losing-at the very least something for him to be sick with-to ease the convulsive heaving of the slight body.
He thought of Gabrielle enduring alone on deck. Savage anger flooded him as he held his son, helpless to relieve his agony, an agony that for the moment seemed to be entirely Gabrielle's responsibility.
His eye fell on the picnic bag and he remembered the brandy. It was a known palliative for seasickness.
What was good for adults might work for children. At least it couldn't make things worse. With grim determination he reached for his bag and took out the brandy bottle. He lifted the child in his arms and felt the fragility of his bones, the clamminess of his skin as he held him against his shoulder.
Gently he coaxed a few drops of liquid into his mouth. Jake protested feebly, choked, retched. With a patience he hadn't known he possessed, Nathaniel persevered. He spoke softly to the child as he held him tightly, holding the bottle to his lips, refusing to allow him to turn his head aside.
Insensibly, Jake's body began to relax. His eyes fluttered open once or twice, but to Nathaniel's alarm there seemed no recognition in them. But the violent spasms decreased in frequency, and after what seemed an eternity Jake seemed to fall asleep in his arms.
Nathaniel held him, unwilling to put him back on the cot in case he woke him and the terrible business began anew. He didn't know how long he sat there with his child, looking down at the small white face, listening in a kind of suspended terror to the shallow breaths coming from the parted lips. He wanted to wipe his face with the kerchief again, but was afraid to wake him.
He thought again of Gabrielle on the windswept, seaswept deck, locked in her own wretchedness, and he knew that Jake's predicament was not her fault. The child had been running as much away from his father as toward Gabrielle. He could lay much at her door, but not this.
It was a bleak reflection, but honesty obliged him to accept it.
After a long while he felt confident enough to lay the child on the cot again and pull up the blanket. Jake lay on his back, unmoving, but his breathing had deepened and slowed, almost as if he were unconscious. Exhaustion, Nathaniel told himself, but a cold chill of terror lifted his scalp as he felt for the pulse in the fragile wrist. To his relief, it was fast but strong.
Taking the brandy, he crept on tiptoe to the companionway. At first he couldn't see Gabrielle on deck. The wind seemed to have lessened and the pitch and roll was not so pronounced. The light was graying with the approach of the winter dawn, and he discerned the dark, huddled shape by the leeside railing.
"Gabrielle?" He trod over to her.
A groan was her only response.
He squatted beside her, uncorked the brandy, took her shoulders gently, and turned her toward him. "Drink some of this. It'll help."
She gulped and gasped as the fiery liquid scorched her sore throat and warmed her aching belly. "Oh, God," she croaked. "Why are you all right?"
"I'm not feeling wonderful, if it's any comfort," he said, half smiling despite everything at this very typical Gabrielle comment even in the face of misery. "Drink some more."
She did so, and a little color returned to her cheeks. "How's Jake?"
"Sleeping, poor little tyke. I've never been so terrified, Gabrielle. Once or twice I thought he was going to give up on me," Nathaniel said, his voice grim. "There's nothing to him at the moment. He's like a husk."
"He's too small to be sick like that," Gabrielle said. "He needs water."
"We don't have any… remember? I gave him brandy instead. I don't know if it was wise, but at least it sent him to sleep."
"Then it was wise," Gabrielle reassured him. She ran her hands through her tangled hair and grimaced. "I think it's over now. The pitch isn't nearly so pronounced, but I'm so cold and wet."
"Come below and change your clothes." Nathaniel stood up, reaching down his hands to help her up. She staggered and fell against him.
"My legs are like jelly. I knew there was a reason why I prefer the Dover to Calais crossing. At least one's misery is short. I should never have let you persuade me into this."
She had amazing powers of recuperation, Nathaniel reflected as he held her against him for a minute. She'd been heaving up her guts for over three hours in the rain and the wind over a violent sea and could still come up with her half-amused, truculent challenges.
Jake stirred and moaned as they reached the cabin, and Nathaniel drew a sharp, anxious breath, crossing swiftly to the cot. The child's eyes fluttered open in the deathly white face.
"Want to go home," he whispered, his voice a fretful thread. "I want to get off this boat. My tummy hurts." Tears slid out of his eyes.
"Hush, now," Nathaniel said gently, kneeling down beside him, smoothing his hair off his damp brow. "Go back to sleep."
"I want Neddy… where's Neddy?" Jake's voice began to rise and he tried to sit up. "Iwant Neddy." He pushed at his father's restraining hands, his voice becoming a sob.
"What's Neddy?" Nathaniel asked softly over his shoulder as Gabrielle came up behind him.
"A knitted donkey," she told him. "He always sleeps with it."
He should have known that, Nathaniel thought with a stab of guilt. He couldn't remember when he'd last visited the nursery.
Jake's feeble protest died and his eyes closed again as exhaustion reclaimed him.
Gabrielle stripped off her wet clothes.
Nathaniel watched her rummaging through one of the portmanteaux in search of dry clothes. She was wearing only her drawers and chemise and, despite his preoccupation, his body stirred. How could she have this effect on him, even in these grim circumstances? Even in this cramped, fetid cabin? How could this heedless and all-consuming passion exist side by side with his savage anger, with his need for vengeance?
If it weren't for that passion, Gabrielle would now be screaming beneath the persuasive hands of the specialists and Jake would be waking up in the nursery at Burley Manor. Instead, driven by lust and pride, he needed to exact his own revenge. And he knew that need was as irrational as the passion, but he couldn't control either.
"I'm going on deck to see what progress we're making," he said abruptly, and left the cabin.
Gabrielle fastened her skirt, frowning in thought. She'd be staying in Talleyrand's house on rue d'Anjou. She didn't know whether her godfather was back from Prussia as yet, but his house was her home in France whether he was there or not. She hoped he would be, since she needed his counsel. Somehow she'd have to ensure that Fouche didn't get wind of the English spymaster's presence in Paris.
Talleyrand wouldn't betray Nathaniel, since he was vital to his own plans, but the brutal police chief would see only the opportunity to break a master spy. He wouldn't hesitate to use an innocent, either, to trap or blackmail. Jake would be in grave danger if Fouche learned the child was with his father. Fouche would certainly interrogate Gabrielle-civilly, of course, or as civilly as that profoundly uncivilized man could manage. He was clever and she'd need all her wits about her if she was to keep to herself those things that she must.