Gabrielle kept her expression haughtily impassive, and Nathaniel stared out to sea, apparently stone deaf.
The master shrugged. "Not that it's any of my business. You pay your passage and I ask no questions." He held out his hand. "Forty livres, I believe was agreed upon."
Nathaniel's breath whistled through his teeth, but Gabrielle calmly withdrew the pouch from inside her shirt and shook out the required sum into the master's open hand. "I believe you'll find that to be correct. Be careful with my horse."
The master solemnly counted the coins, then turned and shouted orders to his seamen. Within half an hour Gabrielle's terrified horse had been hoisted aboard in a canvas sling and securely tethered in the stern of the boat.
Only then did Nathaniel speak. "Come below." It was a sharp command.
Gabrielle followed him down the companionway and into a small, sparsely furnished but clean cabin with a small porthole and two bunks set into the bulwark.
Nathaniel closed the door with a controlled slam and stood with his shoulders against it, regarding Gabrielle in fulminating silence. "Dear God," he exclaimed at last, "you ought to be beaten, Gabrielle!"
"Well, that's a fine thing to say, when I've just saved your skin," she retorted. "And for the second time too."
"I wonder why it is that my skin needs saving only when you're around," he declared dourly.
"Oh, that is so unjust," she protested. "It has nothing to do with me, and you know it."
He did, but was not yet ready to admit to anything. "I forbade you absolutely to come with me."
"Did you?" She glanced around the cabin with an air of interest. "Which bunk do you want?"
He ignored this. "Just what story did you spin to explain leaving your godfather?"
"The truth," she said, smiling blandly.
"What!"
"My godfather has infinite tolerance for the weaknesses of the flesh," she told him in perfect truth. "I told him I wished to pursue a liaison with Benedict Lubienski. I told him we were intending to spend some private time in Danzig, and I would decide where I would go next when we had satisfied each other."
Nathaniel stared at her. It was so damnably reasonable. She was no ingenue. She was a widow who'd had lovers in the past. Talleyrand was a man of the world. Napoleon had his Marie Walewska. Josephine wrote to him daily with endless protestations of jealousy. Talleyrand had innumerable liaisons. There was absolutely no reason why such a story shouldn't be believed… particularly when it bore the mark of truth.
"So I rode out ahead of you," she continued into his stupefied silence. "And arranged passage to Copenhagen on this ship. And then I assume we'll be able to get passage on an English commercial vessel to London, don't you think?"
She had simply put his own plan into operation. Simply and most efficiently.
"Come here and let me take a proper look at that gash on your arm," he said.
"Oh, it's all right… it's just a flesh wound," she responded cheerfully, recognizing his tacit acceptance and agreement in this oblique change of subject and perfectly prepared to settle for just that.
"I said come here!" Nathaniel bellowed, his temper finally loosened from the reins.
Gabrielle crossed the small space in two hasty steps. "There's no need to shout at me like that."
"I don't seem to have any other way of expressing my frustration," he gritted, unwrapping the cravat from her arm.
"I love you," Gabrielle said calmly. "And I've made my choice, and I'm afraid you're stuck with me. I'm quite happy to wait while you become accustomed to the idea, but I'm afraid you'll have to get used to it in my company. Because where you go, I go."
Nathaniel observed judiciously, “This may be a flesh wound, but it needs washing."
"Does it?" she responded, regarding him with her head on one side. "Have you become accustomed to the idea yet?"
Nathaniel dropped her arm and took her head between his hands, his fingers twisting in her hair. "Yes," he said savagely. "I know when I'm defeated. I accept the fact that I'm stuck with you. We'll see if that Danish robber on deck has the authority to perform a marriage service."
"Is that a proposal, sir?"
"No, it's not a proposal. It's a damn statement. It's past time I took the initiative around here."
"Oh, well, be my guest," Gabrielle said. "Imust say I'm getting a little tired of making all the decisions."
His fingers tightened in her hair, holding her head in a viselike grip. His eyes burned with a passionate intensity. "You are sure, Gabrielle? Sure you love me… sure you embrace all Istand for? Sure you're willing to trust me with your love?"
"Yes," she affirmed. "I'm certain of all those things. Are you also certain?"
Nathaniel nodded. "I'm still terrified, but Iknow that Ilove you and Iwill do everything Ican to make you happy."
He brought his mouth to hers, and Gabrielle thought, the instant before she was lost in the hard assertion of his kiss, that it was only the smallest white lie, the most technical of deceptions on which their future rested.
Chapter 25
An ant was crawling up the hack of Mr. Jeffrys's rusty black gown. In a minute it would reach his shoulder and then crawl onto his neck. He had a scrawny neck, like a chicken's, and it was dirty too. His white collar always had a dark ring around it.
Jake dreamily watched the ant's progress, wondering what the schoolmaster would do when it touched his skin. Perhaps he wouldn't notice and it would crawl down inside his shirt and bite him.
Jake grinned to himself, hugging this pleasurable thought. Perhaps it was a poisonous ant and the bite would swell up and Mr. Jeffrys would have a fever and have to go to bed. Perhaps it would be so bad, he'd decide to leave Burley Manor and go back where he came from.
A fly buzzed against the windowpane, and Mr. Jeffrys's chalk squeaked on the blackboard. Jake frowned at the long series of numbers appearing beneath the chalk. In a minute Mr. Jeffrys would tell him to come up and work the sum out for himself and he wouldn't be able to do it because he didn't understand long division. He thought he might have been able to understand it if the schoolmaster didn't drone on and on in that horrible thin, flat voice.
It was warm in the schoolroom. Mr. Jeffrys had a loathing of fresh air-he said it was bad fot his chest or something. Papa and Gabby loved to be outside. Papa had been away for a long time now. Jake wondered where Gabby was. Papa had said she had to stay in Paris and it wasn't anything to do with Jake that she couldn't come back with them. But Jake sometimes thought Papa had been fibbing…
Tears pricked behind his eyes and he blinked them away rapidly. He always felt like crying when he thought of Gabby. She was so warm and she was always laughing and she had such lovely clothes and she smelled of roses…
"Ow!" He sat up with a cry of pain, rubbing his knuckles. Mr. Jeffrys stood glaring at him, tapping his swishy stick on the edge of the desk.
"Master Praed, perhaps you would favor me with your attention," the schoolmaster said with one of his nasty yellow smiles that wasn't a smile at all. He gestured to the blackboard with his stick. "Perhaps you would do me the great honor of completing the sum I've begun."