Mary Blayney (17 page)

20

C
LAIRE WAS SOUND ASLEEP,
as was Pierre, though he was a little more restless than his sister.

Gabriel followed Charlotte into the smaller cabin. “I thought it was you who needed an excuse to be near me.” He came to her, but did not take her in his arms. “Charlotte, I have put my life in your hands. You have put your life in mine. If that is not trust, then I do not know what is. If we are both looking for a reason to be together, then we need only take that trust a step further and be honest and admit what we both want.”

She waited for him to be honest first.

“Did you notice, Charlotte, that your bed is big enough for two?”

She knew it was too late to argue herself out of it. She wanted him. Wanted sex with him. Only once more so that she had no time to find that his failings far outweighed his virtues.

Reaching up, she unhooked the hammock and let it trail to the floor. “Come,” she said. “You see, I will admit it. You told me our first time that you would make me beg. But I will not beg. Not ever.” She pressed her lips together and then smiled a little as she held out her hand. “Come to bed with me.”

“You told me then that the sex we had was out of pity,” he said, closing the distance between them. “Not this time.”

She laughed, and was surprised to hear the genuine humor when what she was thinking was not amusing at all. “Are there any more comments we need to leave here with our clothes?”

He shrugged out of his loose-fitting jacket, letting it fall to the floor. “There will be no pity this time, Charlotte.”

Closing the distance between them, she undid his shirt and helped pull it off. Then she trailed her hands down his chest. He was too thin but still felt strong. “No pity.” She closed her eyes and pressed her face to his heart. “It was not entirely out of pity the first time.”

He was undressed before she was, and after helping her with the laces on her dress, he stretched out on the bunk and let her entertain him with her disrobing. She had done it a hundred times at least. It was a dance she had perfected and often enjoyed. This time her clothes were an obstacle. Why stand here when she could be beside him? She wanted to hurry with the undressing, and she did.

Only to herself would she admit that she wanted Gabriel Pennistan for the sheer pleasure of it. How long had it been since she had wanted a touch more than she wanted to see arousal as proof of her power?

With a shiver, she decided to leave her shift on and slid beside him under the blanket. He didn’t complain and helped her remove the shift, pulling it over her head, remembering, bless him, not to trap her hands as he kissed her stomach, breasts, neck. When the shift was tossed aside, he captured her lips with his own. Gentle, thorough, invitation and demand, accepted and returned.

He raised his head, his bright eyes speaking passion as his lips had. She felt his heartbeat under her hands and with her lips felt it quicken. His cool supple body grew heated and tense as she pulled him close and held him. The roll of the ship, the sound of the water set the pace for them as they explored each other with a thoroughness that belied the intensity of her yearning and his need.

“I want you more than I have ever wanted any woman. I want your body, your hands, your mouth and even your mind. Your heart. Well, I know I can never have that.”

How many men were honest, even in bed? In all her experience, only this one. She stopped trying to understand, to be in control, and let her mind flood with feeling. She did not so much hear his words as feel them.

“My best hope is that for a moment I will touch your heart and you will feel mine.”

He matched his speech with kisses, each leaving a stream of warmth that settled in her belly and made her want more. He used his hands as he had his lips, caressing, finding new places to touch so that want was a power all its own. He cupped her with his hand and teased her with his fingers as if she were a virgin who needed to be shown each step, all the possibilities.

She moved beneath him, wanting him inside her even if it meant an end to this bit of paradise. With a laugh of purely male satisfaction he touched her, just so, and she arched against him, taking all that he could give, ready to beg. He was more generous than that, and with a kiss he plunged into her and together they left the world behind and soared through the stars.

She felt as though her heart and soul were stripped as bare as her body. He moved to lie beside her and smoothed the damp strands of hair from her face and smiled at her, then closed his eyes. “Even blind I would know you. I would recognize the feel of you, the scent of you. I could feel your heart, your pulse, and know you by any name, in any place.”

He fell asleep first and she watched him until she too drifted off, comforted by the rhythm of the ship, the sounds of the night, the warmth of his body next to her.

The ship’s bell woke them both though it was still night, or at least not yet dawn.

They made love again, more heated and urgent than before. The smell of land was in the air. Soon, too soon, they would be in Portsmouth.

Perhaps he slept again after; she did not. He was as honest as any man she had ever met. As true in moments of anger and passion as he was when he was considering the bits of science he had discussed with her. She made to move from the bed, before his honesty bled into her. He reached out a hand and took hers. “One more kiss.” He pushed himself up in the bunk and pulled her across him so that she was cradled in his arms.

When his lips touched hers, she realized that in a different time and place they could have meant something to each other. She rested her head on his chest and listened to his heart. “Gabriel, we are nothing more than two strangers brought together by the absurdity of war.”

“Hmmm” was all he said.

He had his eyes closed and she thought he might still be half-asleep. Then he said, “We will not always be at war.”

She smiled, and she felt him laugh a little. “We are changed forever.”

“For the good, if we allow it.”

“Oh,” she said, “you are an unbearable optimist. How can what happened in our past make us better?”

“I don’t know your past, Charlotte, but I know you now and see the generosity and courage beneath the hardness. Where did that come from if not your past? My father was never the same man after my mother died, my brother much less arrogant after he married.”

“I can give you a dozen examples of the absurdity of that but will settle for one.” She moved to lie beside him, putting as much distance between them as the small bed would allow.

“I met Charles Strauss at the beginning of my first London Season and married him before summer.”

Gabriel reached for the blanket and drew it over them.

“He was handsome in a rugged way and one of the most charming men I had ever met. It was all in his eyes, the way he would lean in as you spoke, the sympathy, the amusement. He was born to be a diplomat. That is what he called himself and how society accepted him.” She stopped, not at all sure how much to tell him. Suddenly not wanting to tell him anything.

“Charles Strauss?” he asked, and was quiet a minute. “I have a good memory for names and I’ve never heard of him.”

“We did not travel in your social circles, my lord.” She looked up at him and, when he only nodded, turned to stare at the ceiling again. “If we had a titled gentleman or lady at one of our soirees, it was because they considered themselves artists or egalitarians. My parents were wellborn but not wealthy, and socialized with a more artistic circle than the
ton
welcomed. It was the perfect place for a diplomat from a small European country to find a wife. He was from Gradsbourg. Do you know it?”

“A little.”

“I learned later that the only interests Strauss represented were his own. I did not find that out until it was much too late to escape.

“My mother thought it a perfect match. He was older; to her that was a sign he would be careful with me. He planned to return to Europe; she thought that would give me a chance to bloom in a society not as constrained as England’s. He was experienced; she thought that would be exciting.” She stopped there. “Let me up, Gabriel. I need to dress.”

He allowed her up from the bed with no hesitation, but would not be distracted from the story. “Will you tell me more?”

Once she had her shift on she felt less vulnerable. As she put her stays on over the shift, she concentrated on the ties. It was easier if she did not look at him. “In time I understood that his diplomacy was a sham, that he made his living by helping people when they had no other recourse. Mind you, only if they had the money to pay him.”

“You could not leave.” It was more statement than question. “Of course you could not,” he went on. “You were young, without resources, married.”

She stopped dressing for a moment. “I did try to leave once. Only once.” After that it was easier to hide in her art and convince herself that she was as much a victim as the ones he helped.

Before Gabriel could do more than close his eyes and shake his head, she hurried on.

“His most elaborate charade was his last. It was 1810, Napoleon was doing well and so was Charles. There were a group of English families living in Le Havre, they had been held there since the end of the Peace of Amiens.”

“They had been there for seven years? Since 1803?”

“Yes. Not in prison, but not allowed to leave either. Charles was able to arrange for them to be taken to Portsmouth. It was an expensive operation. Since the revolution and Napoleon’s rise to power, Le Havre had become more of a naval port and most of the ships that were not naval had to go elsewhere to unload their goods. It was a challenge finding a captain willing to take them, much less able.”

She sat down beside him so that he could do up the laces of her dress. “The French authorities were bribed to ensure their cooperation, and he told me to flirt with them when money was not enough. The families paid him; some gave him all they had.”

Charlotte stood and faced him. “I was the one who collected the money. I had to see and list each member of the party. Claire was not yet a year. And not at all happy at being made to stay awake so much past her usual bedtime.”

She had taken the money to Charles and he had unknowingly thanked her by leaving to visit his current mistress instead of celebrating with her. “I had almost convinced myself that Strauss was doing something good. Then, the night of their departure, he sent me to distract a group of port guards. He took the families out into the harbor and aboard a ship. It was then that the captain refused to take children younger than five years old.”

That made Gabriel sit up straight. “Why would he do that? I’ve heard that women aboard ship are considered to be bad luck, but not children.”

“I am sure that if enough money was sent his way he could be convinced to reconsider, and indeed two or three of the children were allowed to go. The rest were sent ashore and the ship set sail without them. To this day I do not know if the parents accepted the decision or tried to leave. In the end, they had no choice.”

She stood up and began to smooth her hair, reached for her scarf and tied it all back as neatly as she could without a comb or mirror.

“Gabriel,” she said, turning to face him. “I
never
knew about the children left behind. Yes, I was a party to the effort, for a number of reasons, none of them admirable, but I did not find out about the children until later, after Strauss died.”

“I believe you.”

His words were calm, reassuring, as if he would never doubt her.

“Charles died a week later, killed by someone who did not care for his sort of blackmail or extortion or moneylending or peacemaking. I do not know and do not care. I think it one of my greatest weaknesses that I did not kill him myself.”

She stood looking down, wondering how much honesty one man could take.

“How long ago was that?”

“A little over four years ago,” she said, amazed that it had not been longer. “I felt as though I had been released from a prison. I buried him with no other mourners and went back to England.”

“Did you still have family there?” he asked.

“My mother,” she admitted grudgingly. “I railed and cursed her for selling me so cheaply. I went to London, swore never to use the name Strauss again, and set about making my own life there. I had some money from the sale of our things in France. I thought I would become some man’s mistress if I needed to. But before the money ran out, Georges found me.” She explained about the papers he had found and the list of children and what Charles had done with them. “For the last three years, Georges and I have been looking for the children, doing our best to reunite them with their parents.”

“An amazing way of doing good with your life. You have found all of them?”

“Yes, and rescued all but one. The oldest boy was sold to a blacksmith,” she said, remembering how the man was as cold as the metal he put in the forge. “He was to take him on as an apprentice once he was old enough. Another went to a chimney sweep. The oldest girl was sold to a bordello. I bought her back before she began to earn her keep. The rest were sent to various orphanages.” Did he know that at least half of those girls would have wound up on the streets, selling themselves?