Velvet

by Jane Feather

  “I put him to bed. I’m afraid he’s usurped the cot.”

  “That’s all right. I’m not tired anyway. Is he all right?”

  “Cold and wet and exhausted, I think.”

  “Hardly surprising.” She paused for a minute, then said hesitantly, “Did you punish him?”

  Nathaniel shook his head. “It’d be both superfluous and pointless in the circumstances, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, yes,” she agreed, “I just wasn’t sure how you would feel.”

  “I could wish you hadn’t bewitched my son,” he said, staring moodily over the rail at the dark, heaving mass of the sea.

  “That’s hardly fair,” Gabrielle protested, but without anger. She could well understand Nathaniel’s present dismay.

  “Isn’t it?” He turned to look at her, and that piercing, troubling intensity was in his gaze again.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” She sounded puzzled and uneasy.

  Nathaniel pulled himself up sharply. He shook his head, passing a hand wearily over his eyes. “I don’t mean anything, really. I was just lashing out. Sorry.”

  Gabrielle nodded her comprehension. “What are you going to do with him?”

  “I don’t have much choice,” Nathaniel said flatly. “He’ll have to come with us.”

  “Can’t you simply turn back with him when we reach Cherbourg?”

  Nathaniel shook his head. “The boat’s not going back immediately. Dan, the skipper, is an enterprising fellow. He’ll potter down the Brittany coast and sail back probably from St. Malo in a week or two, laden to the gunwales with barrels of brandy and any other contraband that comes his way.”

  “But won’t it be dangerous for Jake in Paris?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But there’s a particular safe house where he won’t cause any undue remark. On the journey, he can travel with you, protected by your laissez passer. No one’s going to be interested in a child.”

  “Maybe we can make it all a game for him,” Gabrielle said thoughtfully. “It might not be so alarming for him.”

  “I don’t see what you mean.”

  “Well, he’s very imaginative. He plays games in his head all the time. I think it’s common with only children. He creates very elaborate scenarios, too, very detailed and precise. He’s described some of them to me. They’re very impressive. He’s a bright little lad.”

  Nathaniel didn’t look impressed at the thought of his son’s fantasy life. “I don’t see that it makes much difference whether he sees it as a game or not. The sooner we get to Paris, the sooner I can hide him properly, so we’ll be traveling day and night.”

  The assertion of a spymaster rather than a father, Gabrielle reflected. Nathaniel obviously had no conception of what it would be like to travel bumpy roads without respite in the company of a six-year-old. However, she said only, “Let’s go below. The wind’s getting up.”

  There was nothing but the floor to sit on in the bare cabin with its swinging lantern and bolted-down table. Gabrielle noticed with a faint grimace that someone had thoughtfully provided a slop pail in the corner for whatever relief the Curfew’s passengers might need. There was no possibility of privacy. Not for the first time she reflected that the world had been arranged to suit men.

  Nathaniel put his arm around her, and she rested her head on his shoulder as the boat creaked around them and the lantern threw its menacing shadows.

  She had been dozing for half an hour, when the motion of the boat changed dramatically. The pail slid across the floor, crashing against the far bulkhead. Her stomach dipped and she groaned.

  “I’m going to have to go on deck in the fresh air,” she whispered. Jake suddenly wailed, sat up with his eyes still shut, and clutched his stomach.

  Gabrielle grabbed the pail and reached him just in time, almost before Nathaniel had grasped what was happening. The child vomited wretchedly, in between moans and wails, and the atmosphere in the confined space grew even more fetid.

  Gabrielle held his head over the bucket, murmuring soothing words as she tried to control her own roiling insides. “Can you fetch some cool water?” she asked Nathaniel, who was hovering helplessly. “Just to bathe his face.”

  “I don’t know if there’s any fresh on the boat.”

  “Then salt will do. But surely there’s some drinking water?”

  “It’s only a twelve-hour voyage,” he said. It hadn’t occurred to him any more than it had to the fishermen to carry a cask of fresh water on board. Nathaniel had made this journey many times, but never with a woman and a child.

  He returned in a few minutes with a bucket of seawater. His cloak was wet from both rain and spray, and he lurched against the table as the boat pitched violently, water slopping over the rim of the bucket.

  Jake was still vomiting, the violent retching interspersed with his tortured wails and moans of uncomprehending protest at this horrible thing that was happening to him.

  Gabrielle took Nathaniel’s kerchief soaked in seawater and bathed the child’s hot, sweaty face. Her expression grew tense as half an hour passed and Jake continued to vomit, no longer groaning or moaning, just hanging in her arms over the pail.

  “He can’t go on like this, poor little mite,” she said worriedly. “He hasn’t got anything left inside him. Oh, God …”

  She lost the fight with her own nausea and rushed stumbling to the companionway, her hand over her mouth. “You’ll have to look after him,” she managed to gasp before she clambered up onto the drenched deck and the blessed fresh night air. Even the rain was a relief. She made it to the railing and gave herself up to the supreme misery of seasickness, heedless of the gusting wind and soaking spray.

  Nathaniel took over at his son’s bedside. The child’s agony was wrenching as the spasms racked his small frame. His face had a waxen, greenish pallor to it, and in no time at all his eyes had sunk into their sockets, lusterless brown smudges surrounded by black shadows that looked like bruises.

  After an hour Nathaniel felt the first stirrings of alarm. He’d never taken seasickness particularly seriously; it was something some people suffered from and others didn’t. He was feeling mildly queasy himself, but nothing he couldn’t control. The child, however, seemed to be losing muscle and sinew before his eyes. He no longer had the strength to sit upright without support, but if Nathaniel laid him down on the cot, he instantly began to retch where he lay.

  The vivid image of Helen rose in haunting memory as he stared around at the dancing specters on the bulwark. He’d watched her fade away too, and as quickly. But she’d bled to death. Jake was just sick.

  He told himself this, but he knew Jake was suffering no ordinary sickness. Somehow he had to stop it, give the child some rest. Why the hell hadn’t they brought water? Something to replace what Jake was losing—at the very least something for him to be sick with—to ease the convulsive heaving of the slight body.

  He thought of Gabrielle enduring alone on deck. Savage anger flooded him as he held his son, helpless to relieve his agony, an agony that for the moment seemed to be entirely Gabrielle’s responsibility.

  His eye fell on the picnic bag and he remembered the brandy. It was a known palliative for seasickness.

  What was good for adults might work for children. At least it couldn’t make things worse. With grim determination he reached for his bag and took out the brandy bottle. He lifted the child in his arms and felt the fragility of his bones, the clamminess of his skin as he held him against his shoulder.

  Gently he coaxed a few drops of liquid into his mouth. Jake protested feebly, choked, retched. With a patience he hadn’t known he possessed, Nathaniel persevered. He spoke softly to the child as he held him tightly, holding the bottle to his lips, refusing to allow him to turn his head aside.

  Insensibly, Jake’s body began to relax. His eyes fluttered open once or twice, but to Nathaniel’s alarm there seemed no recognition in them. But the violent spasms decreased in frequency, and after what seemed
an eternity Jake seemed to fall asleep in his arms.

  Nathaniel held him, unwilling to put him back on the cot in case he woke him and the terrible business began anew. He didn’t know how long he sat there with his child, looking down at the small white face, listening in a kind of suspended terror to the shallow breaths coming from the parted lips. He wanted to wipe his face with the kerchief again, but was afraid to wake him.

  He thought again of Gabrielle on the windswept, seaswept deck, locked in her own wretchedness, and he knew that Jake’s predicament was not her fault. The child had been running as much away from his father as toward Gabrielle. He could lay much at her door, but not this.

  It was a bleak reflection, but honesty obliged him to accept it.

  After a long while he felt confident enough to lay the child on the cot again and pull up the blanket. Jake lay on his back, unmoving, but his breathing had deepened and slowed, almost as if he were unconscious. Exhaustion, Nathaniel told himself, but a cold chill of terror lifted his scalp as he felt for the pulse in the fragile wrist. To his relief, it was fast but strong.

  Taking the brandy, he crept on tiptoe to the companionway. At first he couldn’t see Gabrielle on deck. The wind seemed to have lessened and the pitch and roll was not so pronounced. The light was graying with the approach of the winter dawn, and he discerned the dark, huddled shape by the leeside railing.

  “Gabrielle?” He trod over to her.

  A groan was her only response.

  He squatted beside her, uncorked the brandy, took her shoulders gently, and turned her toward him. “Drink some of this. It’ll help.”

  She gulped and gasped as the fiery liquid scorched her sore throat and warmed her aching belly. “Oh, God,” she croaked. “Why are you all right?”

  “I’m not feeling wonderful, if it’s any comfort,” he said, half smiling despite everything at this very typical Gabrielle comment even in the face of misery. “Drink some more.”

  She did so, and a little color returned to her cheeks. “How’s Jake?”

  “Sleeping, poor little tyke. I’ve never been so terrified, Gabrielle. Once or twice I thought he was going to give up on me,” Nathaniel said, his voice grim. “There’s nothing to him at the moment. He’s like a husk.”

  “He’s too small to be sick like that,” Gabrielle said. “He needs water.”

  “We don’t have any … remember? I gave him brandy instead. I don’t know if it was wise, but at least it sent him to sleep.”

  “Then it was wise,” Gabrielle reassured him. She ran her hands through her tangled hair and grimaced. “I think it’s over now. The pitch isn’t nearly so pronounced, but I’m so cold and wet.”

  “Come below and change your clothes.” Nathaniel stood up, reaching down his hands to help her up. She staggered and fell against him.

  “My legs are like jelly. I knew there was a reason why I prefer the Dover to Calais crossing. At least one’s misery is short. I should never have let you persuade me into this.”

  She had amazing powers of recuperation, Nathaniel reflected as he held her against him for a minute. She’d been heaving up her guts for over three hours in the rain and the wind over a violent sea and could still come up with her half-amused, truculent challenges.

  Jake stirred and moaned as they reached the cabin, and Nathaniel drew a sharp, anxious breath, crossing swiftly to the cot. The child’s eyes fluttered open in the deathly white face.

  “Want to go home,” he whispered, his voice a fretful thread. “I want to get off this boat. My tummy hurts.” Tears slid out of his eyes.

  “Hush, now,” Nathaniel said gently, kneeling down beside him, smoothing his hair off his damp brow. “Go back to sleep.”

  “I want Neddy … where’s Neddy?” Jake’s voice began to rise and he tried to sit up. “I want Neddy.” He pushed at his father’s restraining hands, his voice becoming a sob.

  “What’s Neddy?” Nathaniel asked softly over his shoulder as Gabrielle came up behind him.

  “A knitted donkey,” she told him. “He always sleeps with it.”

  He should have known that, Nathaniel thought with a stab of guilt. He couldn’t remember when he’d last visited the nursery.

  Jake’s feeble protest died and his eyes closed again as exhaustion reclaimed him.

  Gabrielle stripped off her wet clothes.

  Nathaniel watched her rummaging through one of the portmanteaux in search of dry clothes. She was wearing only her drawers and chemise and, despite his preoccupation, his body stirred. How could she have this effect on him, even in these grim circumstances? Even in this cramped, fetid cabin? How could this heedless and all-consuming passion exist side by side with his savage anger, with his need for vengeance?

  If it weren’t for that passion, Gabrielle would now be screaming beneath the persuasive hands of the specialists and Jake would be waking up in the nursery at Burley Manor. Instead, driven by lust and pride, he needed to exact his own revenge. And he knew that need was as irrational as the passion, but he couldn’t control either.

  “I’m going on deck to see what progress we’re making,” he said abruptly, and left the cabin.

  Gabrielle fastened her skirt, frowning in thought. She’d be staying in Talleyrand’s house on rue d’Anjou. She didn’t know whether her godfather was back from Prussia as yet, but his house was her home in France whether he was there or not. She hoped he would be, since she needed his counsel. Somehow she’d have to ensure that Fouché didn’t get wind of the English spymaster’s presence in Paris.

  Talleyrand wouldn’t betray Nathaniel, since he was vital to his own plans, but the brutal police chief would see only the opportunity to break a master spy. He wouldn’t hesitate to use an innocent, either, to trap or blackmail. Jake would be in grave danger if Fouché learned the child was with his father. Fouché would certainly interrogate Gabrielle—civilly, of course, or as civilly as that profoundly uncivilized man could manage. He was clever and she’d need all her wits about her if she was to keep to herself those things that she must.

  “Well, there are some compensations for your miserable night.” Nathaniel jumped down from the hatchway, breaking into her grim reverie. “The wind was strong enough to save us a good hour or so on the crossing. We should pass the Scilly Isles by nine o’clock. We’ll land by noon with any luck.”

  “In broad daylight?”

  “There’s a secluded cove, protected by a reef that only those who know it can negotiate safely. It’s unpatrolled for that reason. The Curlew flies the French colors from now on, keeping well out to sea until we make the run for shore.”

  “You’ve done this before,” she stated.

  “Of course. Many times. And Dan’s an expert at negotiating the reef.” He went to the bunk, looking down at the still-sleeping Jake. “I suppose I can take comfort in knowing he’s unlikely ever to run away to sea again.”

  “Yes,” Gabrielle agreed with a half-smile.

  “I’ll have to buy him some clothes. These are still wet.” Nathaniel shook out Jake’s discarded britches and jersey.

  “How fluent is your French?” Most educated Englishmen spoke it with a degree of ease, but Gabrielle wondered whether the spymaster could pass for native:

  “Good enough. Not as good as your English, but it passes. I ensure I’m not garrulous.”

  “Even at the best of times,” Gabrielle agreed with a touch of asperity.

  “You’re a trifle acerbic this morning, madame.”

  “I would kill for a cup of coffee,” she said in excuse, licking her dry, salty lips.

  “Try an apple instead.”

  “And some cheese. I think it’s time for another picnic. I’m famished.”

  Nathaniel shook his head with the semblance of a grin, reflecting yet again that Gabrieile’s powers of recuperation were astonishing. But then, she’d been trained in the same school of endurance he had, so it was hardly surprising. His grin disappeared.

  He spread the contents of the b
ag on the table. They would both have preferred to go on deck, but it didn’t occur to either of them to leave Jake alone.

  The child slept until they were approaching the telltale greenish ripple of water crossing the opening to the narrow cove. The high cliffs of the Normandy coastline rose on either side, gray and forbidding despite the weak sunlight of a midday in early spring.

  Gabrielle was on deck breathing fresh air and regarding the rippling line with some apprehension, when Nathaniel emerged from the cabin, carrying Jake, still wrapped in the blanket.

  “He woke up and I thought the air might do him some good.”

  “Good morning, Jake.” Gabrielle greeted the child cheerfully, bending to kiss a cheek that had lost the shiny roundness of health.

  Jake turned his head into his father’s chest. “I’m cold,” he whimpered. “An’ I want a drink.”

  “Have a look at the land.” Nathaniel hitched him up in his arms, turning so he could look over his shoulder at the approaching coastline. “Soon we’ll be in France.”

  “Don’t want to,” Jake said. “I want Nurse an’ Primmy. I’m cold.”

  “I can do something about the cold, but not the rest,” his father declared with a valiant effort at patience that was obvious to Gabrielle if not to the pathetic, miserable child.

  “I want Neddy and the pot.”

  “You can do something about the latter but not the former,” Gabrielle murmured with a smile. “Shall I take him?”

  “If you don’t mind.” Nathaniel handed his burden over with ill-disguised relief. Jake put his arms around Gabrielle’s neck as she carried him back below deck.

  Nathaniel leaned against the railing, gazing at the water and the curve of beach ahead. His son’s intervention dramatically affected his plans. Until he’d returned Jake to the safety of Burley Manor, he’d have to lie low in Paris. He’d intended to pretend to establish Gabrielle within the network, having alerted his own agents to the impostor, and then feed her false information that would lead to the entrapment of Fouché’s agents undercover in London. On this visit he would meet with his own agents in the city and explain the setup to them.