by Jane Ashford
“Will you just untie me?”
“I am trying to do so!” Laura looked at the knot. She put a knee on the edge of the bunk, but that position was quite precarious. She knelt there, and her skirts hampered her every movement. Finally, she hiked them up and pushed them out of the way, then bent over Gavin and grasped the knot.
It was complicated and tied very tight. She tugged at the coils with no effect. The ship heeled, and Laura fell onto Gavin’s hips and legs again, her bare knee braced against his thigh. He made a sound. “I’m sorry,” said Laura. “The boat keeps—”
“Just get the ropes off,” he snapped. He sounded as if he might be choking.
Laura braced herself more securely and went to work again. The movement of the ship kept interfering, and she couldn’t keep her breasts and torso from brushing Gavin at intervals. The cabin began to seem very warm. Laura was flushed and flustered. “It is a very difficult knot,” she said, to excuse her slowness and to break the silence, which was beginning to feel uncomfortable.
“Undoubtedly,” answered Gavin, his voice thick.
“I don’t think it was tied by a sailor,” she added to keep the conversation going. She didn’t add that she was finding it almost impossible to concentrate on the rope in such close proximity to him. “I have read that sailors chiefly use—”
The ship gave a particularly violent lurch. Laura grabbed the ropes to keep from falling off the bunk. Momentum pressed her hard against Gavin, the fine wool of his coat rasping her cheek, the contours of his body impressed upon hers. The scent of him evoked the memory of his arms around her and his lips on hers. Her flush deepened painfully as she scrambled up. She felt dizzy, and her mouth was dry. She told herself it was the motion of the waves.
Gathering her scattered wits, Laura attacked the knot. At last, she worked one finger under the widest loop. Feeling it give a little, she yanked and managed to get another of her fingers into the gap. When she pulled again, there was a definite movement. “I think I’m getting it,” she said. She shifted position to gain more leverage; her elbow brushed Gavin in an extremely awkward place, and he let out an almost inaudible groan. “Sorry,” stammered Laura.
The cabin had become unbearably hot, she thought, focusing her scattered attention on the coils of rope. It was hard to breathe. She tugged at the knot again. “It is definitely coming loose,” she told Gavin.
“Splendid,” he said, sounding as if his teeth were clenched.
Laura worked at the knot. The ship continued to toss and force their bodies together and apart in an irresistible dance that made her fingers fumble and her cheeks burn. At last, when she was about to give up in frustration and embarrassment, the coils gave and fell away. “There!” she cried and sprang up out of her awkward position.
Gavin pushed against the rope. It didn’t give. “Are you sure?” he said.
“It is untied.”
He flexed his shoulders. “It doesn’t move. There are too many windings. You will have to pull it off.”
Laura swallowed, wishing her pulse would slow down. She bent over him once again to pick up the end of the rope, and then she began to unwind it, pulling it across his body and through the narrow gap behind the bunk over and over again.
It seemed to take forever. Gavin was holding himself rigid as the coils slid over him. His face looked like stone in the flickering candlelight. Laura tried to hurry, but that only tangled the rope and forced her to lean across him to free it. His breath touched her cheek and seemed almost to burn it.
At last, with only a few coils left, Gavin burst up out of them. He pushed the rope off himself and onto the floor, then sat up against the wall. He was breathing as if he had stayed under water too long, and his eyes seemed hot. “Damnation,” he said.
Laura hung on to an exposed timber as the ship lurched yet again.
“I suppose we are locked in?” said Gavin.
She nodded.
“How the devil did you get here?”
The deck heeled in the other direction. Laura swayed with the movement.
Gavin drew his feet closer to him. “Sit,” he commanded.
Gingerly, she settled on the opposite end of the narrow bunk. They faced each other warily in the dim light.
“What are you doing here?” he repeated.
“I was abducted as well.”
“From Vienna?” he asked incredulously.
“No.” Laura tried to order her scattered thoughts. The past half hour had wreaked havoc on her logical faculties. “I came to Venice with the Pryors,” she began. “They are going home because of the general’s illness. I was out walking, and I saw you and…” She trailed off, uncertain whether she wanted to mention the countess just now.
“And someone saw you.”
“I suppose so.” Was he going to mention Sophie? she wondered.
Gavin groaned. “Of all the ill luck.”
“What?”
“Of course they decided we were involved in some sort of conspiracy,” he told her. “And they decided to eliminate both of us. You’ve ruined everything.”
“I?”
“If you had not interfered, I would have gotten the information I need by now.”
“Interfered? I did no such thing!” Laura paused, remembering that she had followed him through the streets of Venice.
“And now I am burdened with your presence—”
“Burdened! If it were not for me, you would still be tied up and—”
“I would not be here at all.”
“You would be at the inn with Sophie Krelov!” Laura accused.
“Precisely.”
This left Laura speechless for a moment. He said it without any discernible emotion. Did he mean he longed to be with Sophie? Or only that he wanted to get information from her? “Sophie ordered the kidnapping,” she said. “I heard some sailors talking.”
“Once you were seen,” he responded. He put a hand to his head as if it hurt. “And now I must look after you. I am perfectly capable of looking after myself, but I do not—”
“Oh, perfectly capable,” she interrupted. “That is why you were drugged and shanghaied onto a ship for Marseilles.”
“We are headed for Marseilles?” he interjected.
She nodded.
“Marseilles,” he repeated, diverted from their dispute. “Why Marseilles?”
Laura bit her lower lip to keep from shrieking. He was so completely exasperating.
Gavin took a deep breath and rubbed his face with his hands. “Have their drugs completely addled my wits?” he asked himself. Raising his head, he added, “Did you hear anything else?”
She shook her head.
He sighed. “With you here to hamper my movements, I cannot—”
“Hamper? I untied you!”
Gavin met her eyes. After a long moment, they both looked away.
“I have been in worse situations,” he said. “And gotten out of them. But then I was alone. I work alone. The necessity of protecting you will—”
“I can look out for myself!”
“You got yourself imprisoned on this ship,” he pointed out.
“So did you!”
“Because you spoiled my plan,” he countered. Something seemed to occur to him. “You didn’t see another captive?”
Surprised, Laura shook her head.
“Hasan got away then. Good.”
“He looked as if he could get out of anything. Did he give you my note?”
He frowned at her. “I had no time for social calls.”
“Social?” She glared at him, outraged. “I went to your lodgings after I heard Michael and the others plotting. To tell you.”
“Plotting,” he repeated, as if unfamiliar with the word. “What the devil are you talking about?”
“I found Micha
el. If you had just waited until I…”
Gavin put two hands to his head and pressed his fingers into his temples. “Stop, or I will go stark mad.”
Laura bit her tongue to keep from protesting. She hoped he had a horrible headache.
“Tell me the whole tale, from the beginning,” he commanded.
“Well, I am not sure what is the beginning…”
He made a sound that caused her to rush on.
“I had an idea about Sophie’s maid.”
Even in the dimness, she could see his surprised expression.
“I saw her when I visited, and she didn’t seem at all like a maid, you see.”
“No,” he answered. “I don’t.”
Laura took a breath. It was hard to reason clearly when he was staring at her. “I thought she might be more than a maid, perhaps involved in Sophie’s spying.”
“Ah.”
“So I spoke to the girl who was watching me—”
“What girl?”
“Oh.” She had almost betrayed Annalise. “Never mind that.”
“On the contrary—”
“We kept watch on the maid and eventually followed her to a house where Michael and his friends were staying.”
“A fact you neglected to tell me,” he said in a dangerous voice.
“I wasn’t sure at first. And then when I was, you were gone. If you had honored our agreement to be equal partners, you would have—”
Gavin’s teeth ground together. “What else?”
“I took a room at that house, to find out more, and one night at dinner…”
She stopped as Gavin let his head fall onto his hands.
“Are you all right?”
“I thought you said that you had eaten dinner with Michael and his gang.”
“Yes. Well, I didn’t know whether he was Michael until then. It seemed the only way to find out.”
“Aside from telling me of his existence,” he snapped.
“Well, I would have if you had not—”
“Have you no conception of the danger—?”
“Of course I did. But I have spent years avoiding notice, and I thought I could do so again. I suppose spies are different,” she added.
“Years… What are you talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“This is not some parlor game we are playing at.” Gavin leaned his head against the ship’s timbers. “I have to think,” he muttered. “Please be quiet.”
Part of Laura wanted to object. But the grim set of his mouth made her decide to save her complaints for later.
* * *
“She must be given a cabin of her own,” Gavin told the crewman who had escorted him to the sanitary facilities. “Tell the captain I said—”
“Ain’t none,” was the reply. “She can come along to the fo’castle,” he added with a gap-toothed grin. “We’ll give her a warm welcome, we will.”
This silenced Gavin as he realized that if Laura was taken from the cabin they now shared, he wouldn’t know what was happening to her and would have no way to guarantee her safety. He cursed under his breath.
“What’s yer beef?” asked the crewman. “Ya got a female in your cabin. Ya don’t have to do no work, and they’re feedin’ ya anyhow. Ye’re on a pleasure cruise, mate.”
More like a penance, Gavin thought. It was driving him mad being so close to Laura. He was very much afraid his control would break down before he got them out of this.
They reached the cabin, guarded by another sailor of daunting proportions. The crewman opened the door and pushed Gavin inside. The lock clicked behind him.
Laura was sitting on the end of the bunk looking alert and inquiring—not at all as if she had spent a day cramped in a small space aboard ship. Tendrils of dark hair curled at her temples and along her cheeks. Her legs were tucked under the froth of her skirts. She was the loveliest thing he had ever seen, Gavin thought. He edged over to the other end of the bunk and sat. He had to avoid touching her, he thought. It set him afire. But the motion of the ship continually threw them together. Simply trying to move in the cabin was likely to cause a collision. And then he would find himself holding her, and every part of him would be united in one desire, and it took all of his considerable will to step back politely and deny the need that drove him. This was intolerable, he thought for the hundredth time. He couldn’t bear it.
“Did you see him?” asked Laura.
His thoughts were scattered to the winds. “Who?”
“Michael.”
“Oh. No. But from your description I am sure it is the same man I knew in Persia. He was one of Boney’s best agents.”
“He is not French,” Laura declared.
Gavin looked curious. “How do you know that?”
“The way he speaks. He is very good, but there is still a small accent.”
“I had noticed that…”
“But you are astonished I did. Why can you not admit that I possess a fair degree of intelligence?”
“Experience is needed here, not simply intelligence.”
She glared at him.
She would addle the brains of a saint, Gavin thought. He had to concentrate on the task at hand—defeat the plot they had disturbed. This was his work and he took great pride in his abilities. He was not subject to distractions, even those held out by beautiful women. Yes, Gavin thought. Sophie Krelov was clear evidence of that. Most men would have judged her far more alluring than Laura Devane, and yet all he wanted from the devious countess was answers. He had not lost his edge—or his mind.
“What do you think they’re up to?” Laura asked, having apparently conquered her temper.
“Bonaparte is exiled on a small island off the west coast of Italy,” Gavin said. “We are sailing down the coast of Italy—the east coast, I admit. But if we are headed toward Marseilles…”
“We will go up the west coast,” Laura finished. “You think we might be going to Napoleon?”
“I believe there is a strong chance.”
“But why?”
Gavin shook his head, remembering the long years of war with Napoleon’s armies, the huge costs in money and lives. “Escape? They should have sent him farther from Europe. Many of the French still support him, you know.”
Laura rose. “But this is terrible. We must get word to someone. We must stop him.”
“I shall endeavor to do so.”
Laura turned and fumbled in the pocket of her gown. “I brought my pistol,” she said, holding it out to him.
Gavin took it, feeling suddenly much better with the smooth grip in his hand. “They didn’t find it?”
“They didn’t think to look.”
Gavin hefted the gun. He could use it to overcome the guard the next time he brought them food. But then what? There was nowhere for them to go and a ship full of opponents. “Keep it for now,” he told Laura, reluctantly returning it. “We will hold it in reserve for the right opportunity.”
She put the gun away again. As she straightened, the ship heeled over, and Laura staggered, putting out a hand to restore her balance. It landed on Gavin’s thigh, sending a jolt of desire through him that drove all other thoughts from his mind.
“Sorry,” she said, snatching her hand back and flushing that luscious rose red.
He very nearly reached for her. He wanted her more, in that moment, than he had ever wanted anything. But even if she felt the same, he thought, even if she fell gratefully into his arms, what could they do with a guard outside and the chance that their captors might open the door at any time? How was he going to endure this voyage? he wondered. It was going to be the most difficult mission he had ever undertaken.
* * *
The cabin door was opened without warning later that day, revealing a group of armed crewm
en. They bound Gavin’s hands tightly behind him and then took both of them along a narrow gangway to the captain’s more spacious quarters. It was not the captain who awaited them there, however, but Michael and his companions.
The former smiled when his two captives were pushed into the room. He was seated at a round table bolted to the deck in the center, while the others lounged about the edges of the chamber, which occupied the bow of the ship.
“Graham,” said Michael silkily. “Come in.”
The crewmen pushed them until they stood before him.
“A little different from the last time we met, eh?” he continued in French. “I told you then that I would make you pay for cheating me.”
“You were the one cheating the hill tribes,” Gavin answered. “How did you convince them not to kill you?”
He spoke as if he were inquiring about some commonplace, Laura thought. His manner appeared completely unconcerned. She tried to emulate it.
Michael’s face reddened alarmingly. “Bastard!” he spat. “You left me there to be spitted like a roast pig.”
“As you had attempted to do to me,” Gavin responded.
Michael started to speak, then stopped himself. Laura watched him struggle for control. “That doesn’t matter now,” he said finally. “I have you, and you will not escape me. Nor will your little friend.” He eyed Laura.
“She has nothing to do with this.”
“No? You sent her to spy on us in Vienna. Something new for you, eh, Graham? You always boasted of working alone.”
“I didn’t send her. You have made a mistake.”
“I don’t think so.” He looked Laura up and down again. “She is rather good at disguise. I might not have recognized her if it weren’t for those green eyes. Like a cat, eh? Does she show you her claws in the bedroom?”
“Perhaps we should see,” suggested one of the other men.
Michael waved him aside with disdain. “We are on an imperial mission.”
“Imperial?” said Gavin. “Those days are over. There is a Bourbon king in France again.”
“Pah.” He made a rude gesture. “King Louis the coward. He is nothing.”