Almost a Lady (5 page)

Meg got up and went to open the door. The macaw hopped over the lintel and towards a flight of steps at the end of a corridor. Sunlight poured down from an opening above and Meg could smell the sea and the sun. Behind her were the stale confines of a space where she’d already spent far too much time. She pulled the door behind her and followed Gus up into the sunlight.

The scene on deck was a mixture of activity and inertia. Men, some shirtless, were sitting around mending sails or splicing rope while a sailor in a loose red smock strummed a guitar. Others washed clothes in big wooden tubs, singing as they did so, while their companions lay stretched asleep in the various patches of sunlight on the decks. The ship rocked lazily on the smooth blue water, while gulls screamed and whirled overhead.

Meg stood taking in the scene, aware of glances that were openly curious, appraising even, but in no way offensive. She smiled tentatively and one or two touched a fingertip to their foreheads in a half salute. She looked around for Cosimo and saw him up on the quarterdeck, sitting on the deck, leaning back against the railing, face tilted towards the sun, his eyes closed. A picture of relaxation.

She made her way across the mid-deck, the smooth, well-honed boards warm against her bare feet. She passed a pair of sailors fishing over the side, and climbed the short flight of steps to the quarterdeck. No one stood at the lashed helm, but a couple of young men dressed rather more formally, if shirt and britches could be called formal, than the sailors below, sat playing cards on the opposite side of the deck from the captain. They jumped to their feet as Meg appeared.

She waved them down again and ducked beneath the boom with its tightly furled sail, making her way to where Cosimo still sat, comfortably ensconced on a coil of rope and seemingly oblivious to her arrival. However, he opened his eyes as her shadow fell across him.

“Ah, Miss Meg,” he said with a lazy smile. “You decided to take the air after all.”

“Gus wished to come on deck,” she said.

He laughed. “And we all know that Gus is incapable of going anywhere unescorted.”

She gave him a rueful smile. “I admit it. I was suffering from acute cabin fever.”

“Well, sit beside me.” He shifted a little on the coil of rope to make room for her. “In the absence of chairs, we make do. But you’ll find this quite comfortable.”

“I’m sure I shall,” she said, lowering herself to the rope. It was surprisingly comfortable, warmed by the sun and oddly supportive, like an overstuffed cushion. The deck rail made a natural backrest.

“A little wine?” he offered, gesturing to the glass and decanter on the deck beside him.

“There’s only one glass.”

He shrugged indolently. “If you wish for another, call one of my officers over.” He gestured across the quarterdeck to the card players.

Meg hesitated. Ordinarily she wouldn’t think twice about sharing a glass with an acquaintance, but in these far from ordinary circumstances it seemed to smack of dangerous intimacy. But she had the impression that Captain Cosimo would be amused if she made something of the issue. Instead she said casually, “I don’t like to disturb their game.”

He nodded and reached sideways to refill the glass, handing it to her, observing, “Wine and sunshine. Two of the greatest aphrodisiacs in the world.”

Meg nearly choked on her first sip.
What was he playing at?
Did he view flirtation as an automatic reaction to the presence of a member of the opposite sex, however inappropriate the setting? Was he some kind of lecher? A Casanova rather than a Cosimo. Non-response once again seemed the most dignified response. She ignored the comment.

Cosimo smiled as he tipped his head back to the sun again. He was enjoying himself. Miss Meg had bested him verbally all too often in their short acquaintance and pressing the attack seemed like a viable tactic. It had certainly caught her off balance and that gave him a little advantage. If she was discomposed by his pointed flirtation, all the better. Even if she did accuse him of clumsiness, he reflected with a slightly caustic edge to his smile.

He realized that his present enjoyment was enhanced by the proximity of her slight frame. Ana’s gown was a little big for her, giving her an appearance of frailty that he was confident was merely an illusion. He liked the fact that she’d come shoeless on deck, a lack of interest in the propriety of her appearance that was in keeping with the outspokenness of her personality, as he’d encountered it so far. And a quality that boded well for the use he would like to make of her. She seemed unconcerned by the hopeless tangle of tight red curls that flew every which way around her angular face. The previous day’s rain had given her an unruly and distinctly frizzy halo.

As if aware of his reflective assessment of her charms, Meg sat up and adjusted the loose bodice of her gown, retying the sash rather vigorously beneath her small breasts. She glanced sideways at him and didn’t know whether to be reassured or not when he didn’t even open his eyes.

Gus flew down from the railing, creating a welcome diversion. He hopped onto Cosimo’s knee and regarded him with head cocked. “G’morning . . . g’morning,” he declared with what Meg would have sworn was a questioning note.

Cosimo opened one eye. “Surely a man can take a nap on a sunny afternoon, Gus.”

“G’morning,” the macaw repeated with rather more insistence.

“He is the most extraordinary bird,” Meg said. “He makes everyone do exactly what he wants.”

“He has us all well trained,” Cosimo agreed, opening both eyes and hitching himself farther up against the railing. “Pass me the glass, will you?”

Meg handed him the wineglass. He filled it and drank with a little sigh of pleasure. She remembered something he had said when first they’d met. “This mission of yours,” she said rather musingly. “I understood you to say it was a matter of some urgency . . . so much so that you couldn’t possibly take the time to turn around and take me back to Folkestone.”

His eyes sharpened a little and he turned to look at her. “Yes, I did,” he agreed. “What of it?”

“For a man with a sense of such urgency, you seem remarkably untroubled by being becalmed,” she pointed out. “A whole day has been wasted, it seems to me. And if you can’t make harbor tonight, then a whole night too.”

He smiled again and shrugged lightly. “I’m a sailor, Miss Meg. I know I can do nothing about the wind. It will serve me when it chooses and only then. I await its pleasure with patience.”

Once again she had the sense of that deep core of the man existing beneath this carefree, amused façade. A stillness ran there with the hardness that she’d already seen. What else? Power and resolution, she was convinced. Cosimo was no idle dilettante sailor.

“Why do you sail a sloop-of-war?” she asked abruptly. “You don’t belong to the navy.”

“No,” he agreed. “Not in so many words.”

“Ah.” Meg sat up fully, curling her legs beneath her. “A denial that’s not a denial. I’ve always found those most interesting.”

He nodded. “Yes, I can see why.”

“But you’re not going to say anything else?”

He shook his head this time. “No.”

Meg absorbed this, continuing to look at him with interest. Whatever his mission it had something to do with the war. “Did those men-of-war leave Folkestone with you?”

The gleam in his eye intensified. “So you noticed them?”

“They were hard to miss.” She turned to look out between the rails and then pulled herself to her feet and scanned the horizon. “They’re not in evidence now.”

“They too are at the mercy of the same mistress,” he said, standing up with her. “The wind plays no favorites.” He walked across to the helm and picked up a telescope. “Here, take a good look at your surroundings, Miss Meg.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” she said tartly as she took the telescope. “It makes me feel like a governess.”

At that he laughed. “Oh, no, not you, Meg. No governess ever had such ungovernable red hair and such an asp’s tongue.”

“I wouldn’t know, I never had one,” she said, raising the telescope. “At least not beyond the age of five.”

“So you attended an establishment . . . a school for young ladies,” Cosimo said.

Meg lowered the telescope. “Drawing, study of the globe, a little pianoforte, a little Italian, a smattering of French?”

She shook her head. “No, sir. I didn’t have a governess beyond the age of five and I was never educated in some establishment to be one.”

Cosimo was puzzled. He knew little about the education of girls, but women of Meg Barratt’s position, or at least what he assumed from her manner was her social position, usually had some kind of formal learning. “You had no education beyond the age of five?”

“We had tutors,” she said impatiently, scanning the horizon. “Of course we were educated.”

“We?”

“My friend, Arabella. We grew up as sisters.” She lowered the telescope and turned slowly to look at him. “I have family, Cosimo. A father and a mother . . . as well as Bella and Jack, who will be frantic at my disappearance. Do you not understand how I feel? . . . How they must be feeling?” She stared at him and for a moment he saw revulsion in the green gaze, and a sheen of tears.

He drew a deep breath. “I can do nothing about it until we make landfall. You must see that.” He gestured at the sea, the sky, the empty vista.

“Not at this moment, certainly,” she said, the tears gone. “But you could have done when first you realized your mistake, and you can rectify the situation as soon as we reach Sark. There must be someone . . . some fishing boat, who will take me back.”

He hadn’t ignored Meg’s situation, Cosimo reflected, but he had put it to the back of his mind. He had been concentrating on plans that didn’t involve sending her back to England and so he hadn’t allowed such a possibility to interfere with his greater purpose. An error, clearly. He needed her confidence.

“As I said, that’s always a possibility, but . . .” He held up his hand as she began to protest. “But what is a
certainty
is that once we land I can ensure that a message reaches someone you choose in England within thirty-six hours.”

Her eyes widened, lost some of their scornful anger. “How?”

“A pigeon courier.” It was a piece of information that gave little away. She had already surmised that he was in some way connected to the navy. It would come as no surprise that he should have access to some of its resources.

Meg absorbed this in silence. It made perfect sense and it would bring relief to her loved ones much more quickly than an uncooperative wind and a fishing boat could. Presumably the pigeon went to its home in England and a human being took the message to its destination. There was something rather cloak-and-dagger about the idea of homing pigeons, however. Questions hovered on her tongue and were quickly swallowed. Cosimo was niggardly with information and she was fairly certain he wouldn’t satisfy her curiosity too easily. “Thank you,” she said simply. “That relieves my mind.”

“Good.” He turned to the rail beside her and took the telescope. The distant land was suddenly sharper. He looked up at the pennant flying from the topmast. It stirred faintly.

“Wind, Captain,” a voice called, from nowhere as far as Meg was concerned. But the sloop came instantly alive. Men lazing on deck were on their feet, others spilled upwards from the companionways, a broad-shouldered man appeared at the helm, rapidly unlashing it.

“Make sail,” Cosimo called between cupped hands and sailors leaped into the rigging. Meg watched with fascination as the sails were unfurled and snapped by a sudden gust before Cosimo, his eyes on the sails, again called an order and the helmsman adjusted the wheel. The
Mary Rose
came on course for Sark, her sails filling slowly as the wind increased.

“In time?” Meg asked.

“No,” Cosimo answered. “It’ll take us till dark to come within two miles of the harbor. We’ll stand to there and go in at first light. Excuse me . . .” He left her, loping across the quarterdeck, down the steps, and towards the companionway.

Meg stayed where she was until she began to feel superfluous. She didn’t think she was in the way but it was hard to be the only spectator in the midst of such activity. She looked around for Gus. He was nowhere to be seen and she guessed that he too preferred the undisturbed peace of the cabin. She picked her way through the hive and climbed down the companionway. The cabin door was closed.

She looked at it for a minute and then, adapting the assumption that sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, knocked vigorously. Gus invited her in at the same time that Cosimo called, “Enter.”

She did so. Cosimo didn’t look up from the charts. He was using compasses, making swift pencil notations as he did so. They reminded her of the odd notations in the margins of the dictionaries. He said over his shoulder, “Ring for Biggins. He’ll fill the bath for you with the hot water they have to jettison now we’re under way. There’s nothing for you to do on deck and I’ll be out of here in less than five minutes.”

Meg realized that a hot bath had become the most unlooked for and therefore most wonderful indulgence imaginable. “Thank you.” She let the door close behind her.

“You’ll have to endure Gus’s company. He doesn’t come on deck when we’re sailing in a stiff breeze,” Cosimo said, still bent over the charts. “You can put him in his cage and cover it, if you like.”

Meg glanced at Gus, who was sitting on his perch quietly picking at his wing feathers. “I’ll trust him to keep his eyes shut.”

Cosimo straightened. “Good.” He went to the door.

Meg had the sense that he had almost forgotten who she was and why she was there as he left. She rang the bell for Biggins.

He came within minutes. “Captain says you’d like enough water for a bath, ma’am?”

So he hadn’t forgotten. “Yes, thank you, Biggins.” She lifted her hair away from her scalp. It would be good to wash it. Perhaps she could dry it in the air on deck. With the wind that she could now feel beneath her feet as the
Mary Rose
lifted to the swell, her hair would dry in no time. She went back to the cupboard with the clothes meant for Ana and looked for something suitable for a woman who wanted to be unobtrusive on a nighttime deck.