Royal Renegade (12 page)

Of course, he would know about the princess's visits.

An effective captain always knew all that transpired on his ship. But he should know Devlyn too. "I am not neglecting my duty to you. I keep watch just as well."

John nodded in palpable relief that this spot of unpleasantness was done, and Devlyn realized there was some other motive for this visit. "Oh, I'm not worried about that. I have every confidence in your concentration. You'd never let yourself be distracted by mademoiselle, however distracting she is. And I gather you haven't much choice in the matter. An imperious little chit, isn't she? Who is she, by the way?"

The sudden question made Devlyn withdraw for a moment, wondering whether to trust John. But the captain's lean face showed only concern and curiosity. "Come on, Devlyn. They wouldn't have sent you if she wasn't some important personage. And she looks important. Those elegant little gowns she wears must run three hundred guineas each."

Devlyn shrugged. "She's a Russian princess. She's meant for Cumberland."

"The duke? The murderer?" John made the same gesture the princess had, dragging his finger across his throat. "They're marrying that girl to a murderer?"

Devlyn felt something—shame?—twist in his chest. "No indictment was returned."

"Catch a British jury indicting the king's son," John scoffed. "He's a fiend, that's what I hear. Incest, rape—"

Devlyn cut him off. "I've heard the rumors, too."

"More than rumors. I've a colleague who sold him a firecracker from the Spanish Inquisition. Do you know how the bishops got conversions to the one true faith with that little device?" Curious in spite of his disgust, Devlyn shook his head, and John flushed. "Well, you can guess. Paid a packet, Cumberland did. And I don't think he's founding a museum of implements of torture."

"Now that's a little wild, don't you think?" Devlyn returned in reasonable tone. But his fingers tightened spasmodically into claws. "He won't turn her on the
rack. Besides, I think she means to scarper once she gets to England. She's not as naive as she looks. She finagled twenty thousand pounds out of the tsar before she left, and even a princess won't starve on that."

"Good for her," John remarked with palpable relief. "I've carried my share of illicit cargo, but I haven't ever engaged in the slave trade. And she's pretty pleasant, for a princess, though she carries herself like she owns the world. So now you can stop worrying about her, can't you?"

"Was I worrying about her?" Devlyn asked idly, looking down at his clenched fist, wondering what good it would do him.

"You tell me. You've been doing something about her, that's clear enough." When Devlyn didn't answer, John went on awkwardly, "Come on, Mike. She's beyond your touch, you know. And what do you think would happen if you did what you're contemplating?"

"What am I contemplating?"

Devlyn managed a bland, inquisitive expression, but perhaps his old friend knew him better than he thought. For John ignored that question to answer his own. "There goes your career. And everything else. I'd hire you, I suppose, but you'd would make a lamentable smuggler—too damned honorable."

This last bit of raillery was meant to drag them away from the dangerous subject of Devlyn's contemplations. He appreciated that, as he appreciated his friend's concern. But he only pulled off his boots and leaned back against the wall, angry that he had become so transparent under the princess's influence.

So he gave into a malicious urge for turnabout, in the process changing the subject. "I hear your father finally gave up on you and handed the store over to Dennis the Dullard."

Dennis the Dullard was what they always called John's honest, hardworking younger brother. He was just right to run an apothecary shop, and it was a testament to Mr. Manning's belief in primogeniture that he had waited so long to appoint the boy heir. John was the elder son, at least as far as Mr. Manning knew, and John should take over the shop. Unfortunately, John preferred smuggling Greek statuary and Etruscan pottery and impressing the dons at the Royal Academy with his knowledge of classical art. "Yes, Father has finally given up hope that I'll see the error of my ways and come home and mess about in gingerroot and spider eggs and whatever other concoctions he sells. Poor Dennis. All he's ever wanted is the shop, and it's a grudging legacy at best. Father won't give over, you see. He still mans the counter and orders Denny about like a shopboy." John flexed his arms back to stretch his shoulders out, as if the memory of the little shop made him stiff. "Do you remember when you hit me?" he asked suddenly.

Violence between them had been so rare that the fact Devlyn did remember said something about their friendship. They had never been rivals, runabouts, more like, or just partners. And they seldom talked enough to argue. But one afternoon when they were thirteen or so, John had come sullen after another fight with his father. "I wish I were an orphan, too," he declared, and Devlyn had hit him. Just once in the jaw, just enough to knock him dizzy. John had gotten up and gone away and stayed away for a week. When he finally returned to the forester's cottage with a towel full of teacakes, they said nothing about the fight. Never had, in fact, until now.

John's gray eyes were inward-focused, almost opaque. "I told you I wanted to be an orphan. I didn't want all that burden of love and responsibility and expectations. Still don't. But you really were an orphan and would have given your right arm for someone to feel responsible for. And you still would, wouldn't you?"

"You have, I hope, a point to make here," Devlyn broke in coldly.

"We always want what we can't have." John gave a sigh for the injustice of fate, then, observing his friend's scowl, rose from his chair and headed for the door. "Just keep it in mind, will you? And that's all the philosophizing you're likely to hear from me this voyage. Southhampton in nine days—and what a treat it will be to dock legally for once. In daylight, no less. I hope it doesn't spoil my crew for our more specialized work."

Chapter Eight

At sea

A few days later, Tatiana came up the hatchway and scanned the deck, wary of meeting her companion. Buntin believed that a future royal duchess should do naught but read etiquette books and practice condescending nods. Fortunately Buntin spent most of her time in their small cabin, huddled in her bunk and dreaming of landfall.

Tatiana was a more accomplished sailor; indeed, she loved watching the crew at duty. When she was sure she was unobserved, she clambered into a launch boat hung on divots off the deck. With the tarpaulin making a tent over her head, she was sheltered from the wind and from view, while still able to see most of the deck.

She drew her feet up, tucking her plum wool skirt under her slippers, and surveyed her small kingdom. The sailors worked around her in the pale afternoon sunlight. A disciplined crew, they kept to a routine, and the middle of the afternoon was left for minor maintenance tasks. So one young lad desultorily polished up the oaken rail, while Bookie, the grizzled bos'n, mended a sail with a needle as thick as a pencil lead.

The Coronale was gliding past the coast of France, a dangerous stage that required the constant supervision of the captain. Tatiana could see Captain Dryden now on the other side of the bridge, where he stood in conversation with Michael. They both leaned over the rail, the breeze ruffling Michael's curls as he pointed north toward England. Tatiana's heart gave an odd lurch. Lately, her body was given to extravagant responses to the sight of the major. This warning signal was unnecessary, for she was in no danger with a cautious man like Michael. He was her protector, after all; he would not let her come to harm.

If only she could be so sure he was in no danger with her.

But she recalled poor Peter Korsakov's exile, and imagined how much this friendship could cost Michael. She had to be more careful with him than she had ever been, because she sensed he was taking less care. As he relaxed with her, laughed, gave way, she knew Michael was letting down the guard of a lifetime. Once she had had to coax a smile out of him as she might coax wet kindling into flame. Now it was the work of a moment. She had only to speak in cant, or refer to some empress ancestor, or ask him a simple question, and that slow, reluctant smile would lighten his cool features and bring a glint to his cloudy eyes.

It was hard to believe, when he smiled like that, that any ill could come of their camaraderie. But they both knew how limited this friendship must be, which was why they spoke of the future only in the most oblique terms. Lately Michael had been coaching her on military strategy, explaining why Napoleon's rumored plans to invade Russia must fail. General Wellington would never act so impulsively, Michael had told her last night. "The General never makes a move without calculating the cost. He asks what can go wrong, what's the worst that can happen. He's realized that Russia is a fiercesome place to wage war, to move and shelter and feed four, five hundred thousand troops. But Napoleon wants it all right now, just like a child with a new toy, no matter what it costs. Which is why," he had concluded, his eyes narrowed as if he could see the armies clashing already, "we will win the war, and your little Corsican admirer will lose everything he has conquered."

There was a message there for her, she thought, nervously unknotting a bit of rope hanging from the side of the boat. Don't do anything rash, he meant. Consider your options. Think about the consequences. Choose well. Grim thoughts, but cleansing in their cold realism.

Michael had disappeared below, taking the sun with him, and even Tatiana, weaned on Russian snowmelt, began to shiver. She looked in dismay at the ruin her fingers had made of the rope and dropped it into the bottom of the launch. W hen she was sure she was unobserved, she clambered down to the deck. It would not do to have the Captain Dryden discover her refuge, for he would have some good nautical reason why she should be barred from it.

General Wellington's stern questions echoed in her mind as she stood on the deck watching the storm clouds mass above the eastern horizon. What could go wrong? Napoleon could indeed invade Russia, making a new alliance a necessity and a royal marriage more than just a gesture. What was the worst that could happen? Cumberland could be just as awful as she feared, and she would have to marry him anyway. And she could want to marry someone else.

Bookie lumbered past her toward the helm, breaking into her reverie. All around her, the crew was coming to life as the glowering clouds rolled toward the sloop. Even as the first drops of rain splattered against her face and the deck, the wind whipped up the sea and the mist tasted salty on her lips. She looked back to see Captain Dryden near the helm, his booted feet planted securely, his shouted orders ripped away by the wind. When he saw her, he crossed the deck in a few strides. "You'll have to go belowdecks, mademoiselle. We're in for a bit of a gale. Nothing to worry about," he hastened to assure her, misunderstanding the excited flash in her eyes. "We'll just be blown a bit off course, I think. These gales come up sudden, but they die away pretty soon, too."

He grinned at her as he took her arm, and in his gray eyes she saw a wildness at odds with his usual unruffled demeanor. Why, he likes this, she realized, and thought the better of him for it. A storm at sea—what could be more exciting? Just the thing to take her mind off the Cumberland coil. But Captain Dryden didn't undertstand her need for diversion; in fact, he left her at the door to the lower deck with a firm command to secure herself in her cabin. She instinctively rebelled against his peremptory tone, but not wanting to distract him from his duties, she descended without complaint.

Buntin was still huddled in her bunk, and Tatiana's exuberance only made her moan the more. Considerately, Tatiana took herself off to the small galley, where she found Michael sitting in the leather booth, his booted feet braced against the wall. Her heart jumped again, but that might only, have been the result of a great wave tipping the ship up.

As the ship rolled again, Tatiana stumbled into a seat across from him and took a firm grip on the table bolted to the floor. Michael was, she thought admiringly, unconcerned with the storm. His attention was concentrated instead on a nearly empty tin of macaroons. He hesitated only an instant before politely offering her the last sweet. The macaroon looked very good, but the prospect of Michael's pleasure in the treat was more tempting. So she declined, watching tenderly as he polished off the biscuit in two bites.

To ward off the gloom of the storm, the galley was lighted with oil lamps protected by glass cylinders, so for once she could see Michael clearly. She leaned against the cushioned back of the booth, oddly content just to watch him brush the last of the crumbs into his hand, then, like a boy, pop them into his mouth.

"Have you been exiled also?" she asked, no longer sorry to be out of the storm.

He seemed a little displeased, but managed to smile as he replaced the lid on the tin and stowed it away in a latched cabinet next to his booth. "Yes. I'm afraid Captain Dryden questions the extent of my sailing skills. He told me he'd be easier if I was out of the way."

"How insulting!" she cried, letting go of the table and crossing her arms militantly. "I'm sure you are a wonderful sailor."

"You are too kind, Princess," Michael replied with a laugh that told her he was just a bit flattered by her defense. "Dryden knows the contrary. We used to sail every summer when we were boys, and I can't count the times he had to pull me out of this channel." His face returned to its more familiar stern lines as he said, "Now hold on to the table unless you want to go crashing against the wall."

Automatically Tatiana grasped the edge of the table as she digested this bit of information. "You knew Captain Dryden before this voyage?"