Almost a Lady (3 page)

“We do our best, ma’am,” Biggins declared setting down the jugs. “Will there be anything else, ma’am?”

“No . . . no, thank you,” Meg said swiftly. She’d been uncomfortably aware for the last hour how much she needed the facilities he’d revealed to her. She waited until she heard the cabin door close behind him and then flew to the door in his wake and examined it. There was a keyhole but no key. She didn’t fancy stripping naked let alone using the privy behind an unprotected door. The chairs were both bolted to the floor, so they couldn’t be used to block the door. She was utterly vulnerable to anyone who chose to walk in. So much for the doctor’s assurance that she had nothing to fear on this ship. It wasn’t an assurance she could begin to trust.

But her need was now too pressing for such niceties and at least there was a partial wall separating the head from the rest of the cabin. But it was not a situation that could be allowed to continue. She took care of her most urgent business, washed her face and hands, and then returned to contemplate the cabin door.

There seemed only one thing for it. She fetched the clothes she was going to change into and stood with her back against the door. Swiftly she pulled off the nightgown and scrambled into chemise, petticoat, stockings, before stepping into the bronze muslin. The gown was not quite a perfect fit. The absent Ana had been rather more generously endowed in the bosom than Meg, and a little taller.

Her hands stilled in the process of knotting the sash beneath her breasts, and she stared into the middle distance for a moment or two. Who was she, this Ana? Had she chosen these clothes herself, or had they been put here to await her arrival? If Cosimo’s men had never seen her themselves, it was a fair assumption that she had not been on the
Mary Rose
before. So someone else had installed a wardrobe for her. Someone who presumably knew what would both fit and suit her. That indicated an intimacy beyond the usual. And it was clearly intended that she would share the captain’s cabin . . . was Ana Cosimo’s mistress?

Meg shook her head vigorously and finished tying the sash. It made no difference to her or her situation whether the absent Ana was anyone’s mistress. Her hands dropped to her sides again. But what was this vital enterprise she and Cosimo had been engaged upon? Something so time-sensitive that the ship couldn’t return to Folkestone despite the accidental presence of an unwilling passenger.

Another irrelevancy, she decided. It had nothing whatsoever to do with her. The only thing that concerned her was getting off this ship. And until she could do so, she would stay right here in the cabin, minding her own business. She wanted absolutely nothing to do with the ship’s captain. In the spirit of this resolution, she ignored the boots and discarded the paisley shawl since the cabin was comfortably warm, then she resumed her seat on the cushioned bench beneath the window and opened a slightly water-damaged copy of Mrs. Radcliff’s
The Italian.

Cosimo’s reverie was disturbed by the flapping of wings as Gus landed on his shoulder. Cosimo turned to David Porter. “How is our passenger, David?”

“No ill effects apart from a bump,” David said, leaning beside him against the rail. “She’s a strong woman . . . strong nerves, I’d hazard.”

“What makes you say that?” Cosimo hid his interest under a casual tone but his friend was not fooled.

David smiled. “In general women of her age and breeding would have succumbed to more than a fit of the vapors at finding themselves in this situation. Miss Barratt appears to find it merely an acute inconvenience.”

Cosimo nodded slowly. “I had noticed a degree of resilience . . . of antagonism, certainly.”

“Can you blame her?”

“No,” Cosimo agreed. He leaned back against the railing and looked up at a whirling seagull. “You’ve never met Ana, have you?”

“You know that I haven’t.” David regarded the captain with a slight frown.

“There’s quite a striking resemblance between her and Miss Barratt.” His gaze still followed the bird’s flight.

David’s frown deepened. “I don’t know what the object of our present voyage is, Cosimo, but I assume Ana had something to do with it.” A faint question mark punctuated the statement.

“Correct,” Cosimo responded.

“And there’s some point in the resemblance between her and your accidental passenger?”

“We use what clay comes to hand, David.”

David was silent for a minute. He had traveled with Cosimo on and off for close to five years and counted him a friend. He knew what he was, although they never spoke of it, and Cosimo never confided details of his missions to anyone who sailed with him. But David, while more than happy to be kept in the dark, was under no illusions. His friend, in the service of his country, was a privateer, and when necessary, an assassin. But even knowing that, this glimpse into Cosimo’s cold pragmatism chilled him a little.

He said finally, “You can’t use a complete stranger . . . a woman who accidentally drops into your path, just because it’s convenient, Cosimo.” It was the closest to remonstration either of them would allow.

Cosimo opened his palms in a what-will-you gesture. “If the tool is willing and can be sharpened, give me one good reason why it shouldn’t be employed.”

David shook his head. “You’re a cold bastard, Cosimo.”

“I don’t dispute it.”

“Do you know what happened to Ana?” David asked the question knowing that Cosimo would answer him or not as he considered proper.

Cosimo’s face was shadowed and he turned abruptly back to the sea. “No, I don’t. And I don’t care to guess.” He added so softly David barely heard it, “But I can do nothing to help her now.”

David winced at the implications. He could feel his friend’s distress as an almost palpable current. “Perhaps you’re not such a cold bastard after all,” he murmured.

Cosimo turned sideways and gave him a mocking smile. “Don’t let that little secret out of the bag, my friend.”

“Never,” David averred.

Gus flapped his wings and seemed about to take flight over the motionless sea. Both men watched as he flew a few yards and landed on a halyard, where he sat preening himself.

“Is he as intelligent as he seems, truly aware of which side his bread is buttered, or merely accustomed to captivity?” David mused.

“Something of both,” Cosimo responded. “It comes to the same thing.”

“Yes,” David agreed, pushing himself off the railing. “I wonder how the analogy would apply to Miss Barratt.” He walked off, exchanging a word with the helmsman before climbing down to the main deck.

Cosimo thought for a minute and then followed the same path. Outside his cabin he paused before knocking. In truth he had no idea how to proceed with his passenger. Getting closer to her, making her more comfortable in his presence, was clearly the first step.

He knocked with what he hoped was a discreet, friendly, but nevertheless assertive rap.

Once again Meg’s heart jumped, but she called “Enter” with a creditably steady voice. She didn’t move from her seat beneath the window, merely closed her book over her finger and regarded her visitor with a cool, inquiring stare.

Cosimo returned the scrutiny. “Not too bad a fit,” he remarked. “And the color definitely suits you.” He held the door open for Gus, who hopped delicately over the lintel and flew up to his perch, where, head on one side, he too considered Meg.

Meg decided the comment was far too personal in the circumstances, so she ignored it, merely continuing to regard her visitor in silence.

“It’s a beautiful afternoon.” Cosimo tried again. He closed the door but did not advance into the cabin. There was something forbidding in the green eyes fixed upon him. “It seems a waste to spend it immured in here.”

“I am as content as it’s possible to be in these circumstances, sir,” Meg responded coldly.

He leaned his shoulders against the door and gave her a rueful smile. “Come, Miss Barratt, can we not call a truce? I am truly not responsible for your presence on my ship.”

“Then who is, pray?”

He seemed to consider this for a minute, before saying, “Well, as I see it, you are. You’re the one who slipped beneath the wheels of my carriage, putting your life in considerable danger as I understand. My men actually saved your life.”

Meg snapped her book closed and stood up, dropping the volume to the bench. “That is the most disingenuous piece of spurious reasoning I’ve ever heard, Captain Cosimo.”

He threw up his hands in a laughing gesture of defeat. “Pax, Miss Barratt,” he said. “This is getting us nowhere. Now tell me what I may do for you to ease matters a little between us.”

What a damnably attractive man he was, Meg reflected, angry at the irrelevancy of the reflection but unable to deny it. He had a loose-limbed grace that she’d noticed when he’d climbed aboard the
Mary Rose
in the harbor, and those sea-washed blue eyes were glinting much like the sun-dappled blue water beneath her window. She liked his mouth too. It was wide and full when he smiled, but without the smile it held a calm resolution, an unmistakable authority, that was curiously reassuring. But she wasn’t ready to lower her guard simply because her admittedly unwitting captor could probably charm the hind legs off a donkey if he put his mind to it.

“I need just two things from you at this point, Captain Cosimo—”

He held up an arresting hand. “Oh, please, Meg, my name is simply Cosimo. Since we’re sharing this cabin we can surely do without the formalities.” He frowned suddenly, but she could tell it was an act. “You don’t object to my calling you Meg, I trust.”

“Would it matter if I did?” Challenge flickered in her eyes and her cleft chin lifted with her arched sandy eyebrows. She didn’t like the sound of sharing a cabin.

“Probably not,” he agreed amiably. “Now, what are the two things I can do for you?”

Meg folded her arms. “Firstly I would like to know where we’re sailing to so I can decide how to get home from there.”

“Ah.” Cosimo stroked his chin as he frowned in thought. “Well, at this moment we aren’t sailing anywhere. You may have noticed that we’re becalmed.”

“I doubt the wind will remain uncooperative permanently,” Meg declared with an icy glint in her eyes and a very dangerous edge to her voice.

“So far in my experience that has never happened,” he agreed. “So, when the wind
does
pick up, we will continue our voyage to the island of Sark. Are you perhaps familiar with it?”

“It’s one of the Channel Islands,” Meg responded, some of the anger leaving her eyes and voice. Sark was not so very far from the English coast, and it was a mere spit across the Channel to the French coast. Of course, France would not exactly welcome an English wayfarer at the moment, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to arrange passage back to England from the island.

“Precisely,” he said with a nod. “I have some business to do there.”

“And presumably you have contacts among the fishermen . . . the locals . . . someone who could take me back?”

“It’s not impossible,” he said.

Meg’s anger resurfaced. “Do you have to be so damnably evasive?” she snapped.

“Forgive me . . . was I being? I merely spoke the truth. It’s not impossible.” His mouth curved in a half smile. “So much for your first requirement . . . and the second . . . ?”

“I need a key to this door,” she stated flatly, arms still firmly folded.

He shook his head briskly. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

“What do you mean it’s not possible?” She took a step towards him. “There’s a keyhole, there must be a key.”

“Yes, I imagine there is somewhere. I’ve never had a need of it.”

“Well, I, sir, do have.” She held his steady gaze with all the considerable resolution she could muster. “I need my privacy.”

“Yes, of course, I understand that,” he said readily. “And I can safely promise you that you shall have it. No one will enter here in your presence without your express permission . . . permission I have to add that in my case must not be unreasonably withheld.” He made an apologetic gesture that encompassed the cabin. “All my possessions are in here . . . and, of course, my charts. I can’t sail the ship without access to charts.”

Involuntarily Meg’s gaze followed his to the narrow shelf attached to the bulkhead where she saw the charts and navigation instruments laid out. She said stiffly, “I fail to see what difference it could make to you if I lock the door. I will of course open it at your request.”

“No, I regret that this door must remain unlocked at all times,” he said quietly.

Meg came forward, her eyes all green fire, one finger jabbing towards his chest. “Now you listen to me—”

He grabbed the finger. “No,
you
listen to me, madam. This is my ship and on my ship
my
word is the last word. Keep that in mind and I see no reason why we should not get along perfectly well.”

Meg wrenched her finger free. She didn’t like the look of Cosimo at this moment. His expression had undergone a rather alarming change and her stomach was fluttering like a sparrow’s wings.

“Do we understand each other?” he asked very softly. “No one will enter without your permission, but the door stays unlocked at all times.”

She couldn’t drag her eyes from the now cold blue gaze. She tried but was somehow transfixed. Finally she felt herself nod, a bare acknowledgment but an acknowledgment nevertheless.

And his expression changed. He smiled, his eyes once more resembling a summer sky rather than the blue glint of a glacier. “I was sure we could come to some understanding,” he said. “It’s dangerous to lock doors at sea. If we ran into trouble, a storm perhaps, or even a hostile ship, I’d need access to the cabin and you would need to be able to leave it without delay.”

“A hostile ship?” Meg stared at him.

“My dear Meg, we are at war with France. Had that slipped your mind?” He sounded faintly incredulous and Meg cursed her stupidity. She remembered the two ships of war at anchor outside Folkestone harbor, and most particularly she remembered the line of guns shining on the upper deck of this sloop she was sailing in.