Julia began to wish she had never spoken, but she would not back down. “No.”
“I thought not. I have noticed Jeremy playing at piquet with you on several occasions when he was off duty, so I surmise it is not companionship you require?”
“Apparently not,” she answered, squeezing water from her bath cloth along the turnings of her arm. From the corner of her eye, she watched as Rud sat down on the bunk and began to remove his boots.
“What else could you need?” he mused. “Something only I can supply? Lessons in how to sail a ship, maybe?”
“I think not,” she said with a shake of her head that set the curls piled high on her head to dancing. “I am heartily sick of ships and of sailing.”
“I don’t doubt it, my dear Julia,” he said, “but you have been heartily sick of everything here lately, haven’t you? Tell me, how do you feel now, at this moment?”
“Well enough,” she said with a slight shrug. “My stomach hasn’t refused anything in nearly a week. I can’t answer for it if we have fried fish again.”
Advancing toward her, he knelt beside the tub. He reached out, drawing a line with his fingertip down the deep valley between her breasts. “Has it been so bad?” he asked quietly.
“I have survived,” she answered, trying for a light tone of voice.
“Yes, and grown more beautiful with each passing day, more desirable than I can bear, though I have tried to spare you.”
It was true, he had. His consideration had caused Julia surprise and gratitude, but it had also caused her to wonder if she was losing her attractiveness for him. “I know,” she answered him, and drew in her breath as his hand slid beneath the water, smoothing down over the satin flatness of her abdomen to the indentation of her waist, and then rising upward once more to cup the swelling fullness of her breast.
“This sweet, ripe perfection is more than I can withstand. I need you as I need food and drink. You are my dearest reward and my chief torment, and you will be, I think, my greatest and most dreaded punishment.”
He gave her no chance to question him. He molded his mouth to hers in an aching kiss as his hands gently caressed her in the silken water, moving along the length of her thighs, slipping between them. His kiss deepened, his tongue probing in gentle ravishment.
Julia felt her heartbeat begin to quicken. Deep within, she felt a spreading urge to abandonment. Lifting her arms, she slid them around his neck, drawing his head down to increase the pressure of his lips as she moved her own against his.
He shifted his position, sliding his arms beneath her. With a strong upward surge, he drew her to her feet. Reaching for a towel, he wrapped it around her, and then with slow intimacy, dried each curve and crevice, each slope and turn of her body, before lifting her into the bunk. They moved together in trembling ecstasy, their warm breath mingling as parted lips clung. Her body, soft, cool, and moist with the freshness of lavender soap, came against his hard, sun-warmed maleness tasting slightly of sea salt. They were in no hurry. With tender exploration, they stretched rapture to the breaking point. When their senses could stand no more without spilling into madness, he raised himself and pressed into her, moving deeper with slow insistence. The heat and expanding pressure sent radiating waves of sensuous delight through her. For long moments, he was still. She stirred, and he began an almost imperceptible movement that became an easy, undemanding rhythm. Pleasure coursed over her in a series of tiny shocks that made her clutch at his arms with her breath burning in her throat. Entranced, she let her eyelashes flutter upward. Her dark amber eyes met his gaze of deepest blue in an exchange of wondrous pleasure that was tinged also with a painful emotion, held close in the heart, that neither could nor would admit.
In a measured cadence as ancient as the sea around them, they plumbed the fathomless depth of sensual enchantment. The loving transport went on and on until they were caught in a quickening tide of passion that washed over them, leaving them at last in spent and breathless content.
Her hair had been loosened from its pins. Rud smoothed it back from her face, straightening the shining, wild silk tangles. “Julia,” he whispered, and pressed his lips to the fragile skin of her eyelids. With deep-drawn breath, he held her close, his grip tightening slowly as if afraid that if he let her go she would be torn from him.
“Rud? What is it?” she asked, smoothing her fingers over the muscles of his shoulders.
“Nothing,” he said, but his voice was husky and it was a long time before his hold relaxed.
12
The weather continued hot, one brassy day following another. The sun came up in pink and rose, stood straight overhead at noon, and set in rose and pink. The ship’s crew, citing the old proverb concerning a red sky, battened down for a storm that never came. The deck of the ship shimmered with heat from sunrise to sunset, and the cracks between the planking bubbled with melting pitch. Below decks, the cabins were like ovens. The only bearable place on the entire ship was the canvas shelter Rud had rigged for Julia on the deck.
At night, heat lightning played around the horizon, tantalizing them with thoughts of cooling rain. None fell in their path, though banks of dark clouds loomed up, passing over the ship. Their wake foamed in the dark hours with the yellow-green glow of phosphorescence. The peculiar, ghostly fight gleamed now and then from a leaping fish or in the crest of a wave. Once the entire ship flamed with the eerie orange dancing light of St. Elmo’s fire playing over the masts and spars.
The seamen began to talk in low voices of ominous signs and portents, and of ill-fated voyages they had heard mentioned in waterfront taverns and saloons. A vast unease settled over the ship. Everyone on board began to scan the skies and on the featureless horizon a dozen times a day.
It was a morning like countless others. Julia was breakfasting in the dining saloon with Rud, taking advantage of the comparative coolness of the new dawn. It was the only time of day when hot coffee was actually enjoyable. She was just pouring the last drop from the coffee pot into her cup when Second Mate O’Toole entered the room, stepping over the threshold of the door, which was blocked open for coolness.
“Morning, captain, Madam Julia. Jeremy said I was to tell you, sir, that the barometer has fallen two more points. There’s a whopping great cloud coming up out of the southeast, I might add.”
Rud nodded. “Everything secured in readiness?”
“Aye, sir.”
“Good. Had breakfast? You don’t want to be caught in the middle of a high wind without something under your belt.”
“I’ve eaten in a manner of speaking, sir. Coffee and a biscuit at the railing. I expect I’d better be getting topside now. If I don’t watch that cloud, no telling what it’s liable to do.”
Julia smiled after the departing Irishman before turning to Rud. “You think we are in for a storm?”
“There’s every indication of it,” he answered. “Don’t worry. The Sea Jade can ride it out. If we are hit by it, I want you to go to the cabin and get into the bunk. Less chance of you being hurt that way.”
Julia agreed, warmed by his concern. Taking up her cup, she sipped at her coffee, trying to remember if there was anything important that she needed to put away in her cabin. Her brushes and scent box, possibly. That was all.
Footsteps, the unmistakable tread of the emperor, echoed in the companionway. She looked up in time to see Napoleon pause to see if they were inside, then step into the room. His hair was ruffled, as if he had been on deck, and a frown creased his high forehead.
“Captain,” he said, “I must speak to you concerning a matter of importance.”
“Shall I go?” Julia asked. She was already on her feet, having slipped out of her chair in order to make the expected obeisance to the emperor. Now, she glanced from one man to the other.
“That will not be necessary,” Napoleon replied. “The matter can scarcely be kept a secret.”
“In what way may I be of service, your majesty?” Rud inquired courteously.<
br />
“According to my calculations, the ship changed course as much as four and twenty hours ago. If she keeps her present direction, she will not land at the Canary Islands as is the usual case.”
“No, your majesty.”
“I fail to see the reason in that. You have need of fresh water, fresh food.”
Julia, like the emperor, waited for Rud’s reply. She never doubted for an instant that he had good reason for his decision; still, she wondered at the hard expression that suddenly entered his eyes.
“Shall I tell you?”
The question came from Marcel, lounging in the open door. Without waiting for an answer, he strolled forward with his arms crossed over his chest. He made the emperor an insultingly shallow bow, his lips twisted in a sarcastic smile tinged with triumph.
“Ma foi!” Napoleon exclaimed. “What is the meaning of this sneaking about listening and interrupting private conversations?”
“I mean at the moment to inform you of what you wish to know, what you must surely have guessed. You are not being taken to Malta. This ship is set on a course for the West Indies. There, in the pleasant surroundings of the group of British-held islands called the Bahamas, a new, healthier, and more comfortable prison has been prepared for you.”
“This cannot be true!” the emperor declared, his head thrown back and his lips tight.
“I assure you it is. Public opinion in England, in that land of fair play, is such that a decision was made to make your exile more pleasant. Due to your many sympathizers who were known to be plotting your escape, it was thought unwise to make public the change of location. It might serve to encourage an attack en route during the transfer from St. Helena to the Bahamas. Under such conditions, you could easily be killed, and who would accept the word of the British government that it was not deliberate murder? The British Admiralty is well aware that you hoped to use the conditions you were enduring at Longwood as a lever to prize yourself off your island. To be reincarcerated in yet another tropical paradise was no part of your plans, however. If you knew of the removal, you might resist. Physical force, which could result in your injury, was to be avoided at all costs. This was the state of affairs when correspondence was intercepted from St. Helena which set out your brilliant plan of escape.”
Napoleon turned with slow dignity from Marcel to Rud. “Do you deny the allegation, Captain Thorpe?”
“No, I do not, your majesty.”
Julia clenched her hands into fists, pressing them to her abdomen. With wide, burning eyes, she stared at Rud. His words conceded his guilt, and yet, seeing him standing so calm and straight before them, she could not make herself believe it.
“Our fine Captain Thorpe was ideally placed to be of service. A hero of the battle of Waterloo, a sea captain with American connections, owner of a ship conveniently registered in the United States — who could be a better choice to infiltrate this plot? All he had to do was present himself in the right place at the right time to be invited into the conspiracy, though doubtless he would have taken more drastic steps if they had proved necessary.”
Outside, the wind was rising, the motion of the ship taking on a new rhythm. The lantern above the table swung back and forth with an increasing tempo. They did not notice.
“It is incredible!” the emperor declared, smacking the table with the flat of his hand. “That I should have been betrayed so easily surpasses my belief. How do you know these things?”
“Ah, you would like to see my credentials? I wondered when you would begin to be curious as to my part. I have the honor to be an agent for the Royal House of Bourbon and of Louis XVIII, who is now master of France. His regime and the government of Great Britain, now the coziest of allies, engage in lengthy exchanges of information concerning the man, yourself in fact, who is the greatest threat to them. The English were most frank about their activities. Naturally, the king of France and his ministers did not divulge all their secrets — my own identity and purpose, for example.”
“A Bourbon agent—” Napoleon murmured, then abruptly exploded in rage. “A traitorous, sniveling little dung heap bastard of a Bourbon agent!”
Marcel grew flustered and his eyes burned bright with hatred. Still, he held to his temper. “Traitor? Now, that is too strong a term. My loyalty lies with France, not with its ex-emperor. I am merely doing my duty to my country, just as Captain Thorpe was undoubtedly doing his when he went through the ceremony of marriage with Mademoiselle Julia Dupré. If we both manage to find some modicum of enjoyment in the performance of our obligations, that is our good fortune.”
Julia drew in her breath in an inarticulate sound of distress. That aspect of the situation had not occurred to her. Now, it struck her with a pain so great her mind sought to escape it by the cessation of all feeling, all thought.
“Your duty?” the emperor exclaimed in heavy sarcasm. “I fail to see that you have accomplished anything. You seem to have left it all to Captain Thorpe.”
“Not entirely. There was the matter of M’sieu Dupré. I had to take care of his removal in Havana myself. Unfortunately, for him, he received information there of a Bourbon agent who had been sent to New Orleans. The identity of this man was unknown, but it would not have been long before the old man put two and two together. This I could not allow.”
“You killed my father,” Julia whispered. She accepted the fact without question. There had been two men hovering over his fallen figure that night, however. Who had acted with Marcel? Hastings, the ship’s surgeon, had also gone ashore, she thought.
Before she could voice the accusation, Marcel went on with barely a glance in her direction. “It was necessary for the sake of my mission.”
On the last word, he unfolded his arms. Flicking aside his coat, he drew a pistol from his belt. No ordinary weapon, the pistol had four silver-chased barrels fused together and attached to a stock carrying a single hammer.
Rud made an abortive move, coming up short as Marcel turned the pistol in his direction.
“Careful,” Marcel cautioned. “You are valuable as a sailing master for this ship, but you are by no means indispensable. Perhaps, I should warn you that this pistol was crafted especially for me on the order of King Louis by a Prussian gunsmith. It is capable of firing four shots without reloading, and is equipped with an extremely fragile trigger that responds to the slightest touch.”
“You spoke of a mission,” Napoleon said, drawing Marcel’s attention back to himself. At the sight of the weapon, he had regained the steely control of the soldier he had been for the better part of his life.
“Yes. The king and his court have discovered what an unpleasant thing it is to be forced to flee for the border of France for the sake of their lives. They wish never to be faced with that necessity again.”
“Bah! They are stupid aristocrats who have forgotten nothing and learned nothing! Do they not yet understand that their security depends on the responsiveness of their government to the needs of the people?”
“I think not,” Marcel said tightly. “They are firmly convinced that their safety depends on the certain knowledge that you will never set foot in France again. This can only be assured by your death. And, that is my mission!”
The explosion that followed on his last word sent waves of concussion around the room. Through the acrid blue curtain of gunpowder smoke, Julia saw Napoleon reel backward, clutching his chest. He crashed to the floor and lay still.
“Hold!” Marcel shouted as Julia started toward the fallen man and Rud surged around the end of the table. At the same time, Marcel, with his left hand, twisted the barrel of his unusual pistol, making it ready to discharge once more. “Hold it right there, Captain Thorpe, or I finish the job I started on a foggy night in London. Julia, come here to me. Napoleon Bonaparte has no further need for your services, or those of any woman. I said, come here! Unless you would enjoy seeing me put a period to the life of the good captain?”
Julia dragged her gaze from the great bloody hole
in the center of the emperor’s breast. Could any man sustain such a wound and live? It did not seem possible. A suffocating wave of grief and rage rose into her throat, and she swallowed hard on the hurtful pressure of tears, her hands gripping each other with paralyzing numbness.
“Julia, now!” Marcel rapped, his voice rising.
Julia glanced at Rud, but his gaze was fastened on the pistol in Marcel’s hand, his every nerve strained in anticipation of a chance to disarm him. Slowly, inch by reluctant inch, Julia moved around the long table. Her mind numb with shocked disbelief, she could see no alternative except to do as she was ordered.
As she neared Marcel, he reached out, grasping her wrist. With a jerk, he pulled her against his side, encircling her waist with his arm. “Now,” he said, “the two of us will retire to my cabin. If you, Captain Thorpe, care anything for the safety of this woman, you will set a course for the Canary Islands. Do not try to take her from me or thwart me in any way, or, regardless of my enjoyment of her, I will put a ball between her beautiful eyes. If you do exactly as I say, I may return her to you when I go aboard the ship awaiting me at Tenerife. I cannot, of course, guarantee her condition.”
The ship lurched as though buffeted by a giant’s hand. Even there, below decks, they could hear the whine of the wind in the rigging above them. Lightning flashed, followed by the roll of thunder. Marcel’s arm tightened cruelly about Julia’s ribs as he sought to keep his balance.
“There is no need for this,” Rud said, his voice grim. “Release her, and I will give you my word as a gentleman to set you down wherever you wish to go, and leave you unmolested until you reach your destination.”
Marcel gave a harsh laugh. “Will you indeed? Your offer is generous, but I must decline. You have had the pleasure of our Julia’s company long enough. Now, it is my turn. I have suffered a great deal of pain and humiliation on her account, and it is time she was made to answer for it. I quite look forward to the next few days alone with her. If you want to communicate with me, you may do so by way of Dr. Hastings. Otherwise, I would prefer not to be disturbed!”
Love and Adventure Collection - Part 1 (Love and Adventure Boxed Sets) Page 25