Kissed by Shadows (36 page)

There came a low whistle from way up in the crow's nest and Longton nodded. “They've spotted 'em. Unless 'tis someone we don't want.”

Pippa clutched Lionel's hand, her heart jumping erratically. She thought she could see a gray triangular shape in the blackness. A sail . . . surely a sail. A seagull mewed, and was answered by another, and then another. But she was certain no bird made those calls.

“Is it them?”

“I believe so.” He had shown not a hint of his own anxiety but now he moved swiftly, following Longton to the main deck. Pippa waited where she was, where she could see the gray triangle grow more distinct as it came closer.

Men scurried soundlessly on the deck below. The small sailing dinghy was now clearly revealed and Pippa could see three figures. One at the helm, one on the prow, taking down the jib, and one huddled in the bottom of the boat.

Robin.
Her heart lifted, its beat though still fast became rhythmic again. He rolled the jib deftly as it came down. The little boat knocked against the side of
Sea Dream
and was made fast.

Luisa came up the rope ladder first, tumbling over the rail. Lionel lifted her up and held her for a minute. And then Robin jumped to the deck and Pippa was there, hugging him, silent tears pouring down her face.

Dawn broke soon after they rounded the Needle Rocks and
Sea Dream
danced over the lively waters of the English Channel. Pippa lay in the crook of Lionel's arm on the captain's strange suspended bed looking out through the porthole at the rosy tinged waves swelling and slapping against the side of the ship.

Their loins were still joined as they had been when they fell into a deep sleep an hour or so before. She moved her hips against him and felt him stirring within her.

“I love you,” she whispered as he opened his eyes to look into her face on the pillow beside him.

“I love you. I have always loved you. Even before I knew you, I loved you,” he said.

She smiled and gave herself to a gentle loving that seemed almost as much a part of her as her own breathing.

But even through the joy of this declared love, the delight she took in his body, there ran a current of sadness, a premonition of loss.

Twenty-eight

Pippa stood at the deck rail watching the forbidding Breton coast slide past in the early evening of their third day on the
Sea Dream.
They had left pink-walled Cherbourg behind in the sun and once they had rounded the point at Brest the waters of the Bay of Biscay became choppy and the coastline was a series of rocky indentations in towering cliffs.

“These waves make me feel sick,” Luisa said. “Do they not you?”

“Surprisingly not,” Pippa responded, regarding her companion at the rail with some concern. Luisa's pale complexion had a greenish tinge.

“I think we are to go ashore soon,” Luisa said with a valiant smile. “But I cannot imagine how we could land in those rocks.”

Pippa had been wondering the same thing. As the green waves swelled towards the shore they crashed upon great jagged reefs of rock, sending plumes of angry white-tipped water high into the sky.

She turned to look up at the quarterdeck as the captain began to call out orders. Feet pounded on the deck, voices called from the rigging as men swarmed up the lines. The rattle of the anchor chain drowned out the insistent cries of the seabirds.

Lionel was standing beside Longton watching the maneuver with a critical frown. It had come as no surprise to Pippa that he counted seamanship among his survival skills. As the only son of a large merchant shipping house he had spent much of his youth learning the craft.

She turned back to the rail, afraid her expression would give her thoughts away. For three days they had barely left the captain's cabin. They had made love in every possible way, sometimes gentle, sometimes gloriously wild and rough. Every inch of her body felt satiated, used to the full, its most intimate secrets revealed. And throughout they had spoken not one word of the future and not one word of the past, lest such a word should diminish the wonder of their union.

But the time had come now. She knew without asking him that Lionel would not be staying with her in the safe house. He could not simply drop out of his world; he had obligations to his colleagues, who could be endangered by ignorance of his new situation. He had information to disseminate.

Pippa still could not shape her own future even in her mind. She was still a married woman in the eyes of the church and the law. Her child would bear Stuart's name. But it would grow up in exile. She must live shut away from the world until it was safe. But would it ever be safe for her to emerge from the shadows?

She heard Lionel's step behind her and forced a smile to her lips as she turned to greet him. But she could not force her eyes to smile and he read the bleakness of her thoughts in their depths. He knew she was thinking of their separation, of the lonely months that lay ahead for her. In truth, he could barely endure to think of it himself. But it must be endured. It would not last forever, and she would be safe.

He would not talk of it now. Time enough tonight when they were alone. “We go ashore here,” he said, bending to kiss her upturned face.

“But how will you get through the rocks?”

He laughed as if the question was absurd. “Oh ye of little faith. I've done it many times, my love. But the way is open only for half an hour at this point of the tide, so we must go at once.”

Robin came up to them. His expression was grave and Pippa wondered if he too had some doubts about their success at this landing. “The boat's in the water. Should I take Luisa down first?”

“Aye. Have her sit on the bottom of the boat close to the mast. We need to keep the prow high.”

He put an arm at Pippa's waist and eased her towards the rope ladder that hung over the rail.

She peered down at the small sailboat that rocked violently with the rough swell. It looked as tiny and fragile as an eggshell.

Robin went first and stood holding the ladder steady as Luisa, tight-lipped, climbed down. She huddled on the bottom of the little boat where Robin indicated.

“You now,” Lionel said. “Sit with Luisa.”

Pippa climbed over the side; her feet found the first rung and she climbed down quickly, refusing to think of the green and unfriendly water churning below. Robin held the ladder steady and gave her his hand as she reached the bottom.

It was cold and the light was fading in the gray sky. The sides of
Sea Dream
stretched like a mountain above her and she felt she was abandoning a safe refuge for the uncertainty of this threatening sea.

Lionel jumped down and unfastened the line that tethered the dinghy to its mother. He sat in the stern, his hand on the tiller, as the boat began to drift. Robin needed no instruction and was hoisting the small mainsail, which was all the boat carried.

Lionel swung the tiller and the dinghy came up into the wind, then swung on the port tack and her sail filled. She rode the waves easily and Lionel hummed to himself with the insouciance that never failed to reassure Pippa even as it sometimes annoyed her. He was incapable of carrying a tune, that much she had learned.

He glanced at her as she sat with her knees drawn up, her back against the mast, and he winked. “Not your idea of entertainment?”

“No,” she agreed.

“Do you see that handle in the bottom of the boat, by your right hand?”

“Yes.”

“When I give the order I want you to pull on it hard to bring up the center board. 'Tis vital that you do it instantly, otherwise we'll go aground on the rocks.”

Pippa nodded. Somehow the knowledge of having a task to perform lessened her anxiety. She had a part to play and was no longer a helpless bundle of nerves. She waited, alert, watching the rocky reef as it grew closer. It looked impermeable. And then she saw it. A tiny opening. Through the opening she caught a glimpse of quiet water, a sliver of sandy beach.

Lionel brought the boat into the wind. Her sail flapped. “On my command, Robin.”

“Aye.” Robin was standing ready to lower the sail. Lionel watched the water, waiting for the moment when a wave would carry them towards the opening. He swung onto the starboard tack and aimed straight for it. “Now!” Robin hauled on the sheet.

“Pippa!”

She yanked up the handle and the shaft of wood came up with it. The little boat sailed smoothly through the vent in the reef and they were bobbing quietly on the smooth waters of a tiny cove.

Lionel smiled his satisfaction and steered the boat on the carrying wave to beach gently on the small strip of sand. “Welcome to Finistere.”

“Miraculous,” Pippa breathed, looking back. It seemed as if the reef had closed behind them.

Lionel had jumped out and with Robin's help was hauling the dinghy farther up the beach. He held out his arms for Pippa. “I don't think you'll get your feet wet.”

She allowed him to lift her clear and set her down on the damp sand. Robin brought Luisa to join her and the three of them stood looking up at the cliff towering over them.

Lionel had dropped the mast of the little dinghy and hauled it high up the beach out of the reach of the tide.

“Will you leave it there?” Pippa asked.

“I'll need it tomorrow afternoon to return to
Sea Dream.
”

It had been said at last. He would be leaving her tomorrow. But that was so soon. She had not thought it would be so soon.

“Of course,” she said. “How do we get up this cliff?”

Lionel wanted to take her in his arms, kiss that dull neutral acceptance from her eyes and lips. But he could not do that here. They had deliberately chosen not to talk of the future during the last idyllic days. The discussion would be all the more significant for its postponement but it had to take place in private.

He replied in his usual dispassionate tones, “There's a path. Not much of one, I grant you, but it serves.” He set off along the beach and they followed him up a steep and narrow trail that twisted its way up the cliff to a wide stretch of wild wind-torn clifftop.

Pippa looked out over the churning waters to where
Sea Dream
still sat at anchor, an almost indistinguishable shape in the near-dark. A riding light showed from her masthead, but otherwise she was in darkness.

“Come.” Lionel took her hand and walked away from the sea. Within five minutes they came to a tiny fishing village. Just a group of cottages clustered around a church. Nets hung to dry on racks between the cottages and the smell of fish mingled with the sharp salt smell and taste of the sea.

Lionel led them to a cottage set a little way back from the others behind the church. A candle shone in a window where a large ginger cat blinked bright green eyes at the night.

Lionel knocked and the door was opened immediately. A tall white-haired man, strong-featured with pale blue eyes that had the distanced look of one who has spent a lifetime earning his living from the sea, stood framed in the doorway. He glanced once at the little party and then back at Lionel.

“Monsieur Ashton, we were not expecting you for another four months.”

“Plans change, Gilles.”

The man nodded. “You are all welcome at my hearth.” He threw the door wide and stepped back.

The cottage was warmed by a fire of kelp and driftwood, pungent oil lamps threw small circles of light. A pair of sheepdogs rose from the hearth and came over to greet the visitors, sniffing suspiciously. At a word from their master they returned to the hearth.

A woman came through a door leading to a rear chamber. She was thin, white-haired beneath a starched muslin headdress of curious design, her eyes a darker blue than her husband's, and her faded complexion showed signs of an earlier beauty. She looked at each one of her visitors as if committing their features to memory.

She came over to Pippa and took her hands. “You are the woman with child.”

“I didn't think it was obvious yet,” Pippa said, surprised. The woman had a strange accent that made her French difficult to understand.

“I am Berthe. You are perhaps a little over three months now?”

“As best I can calculate.”

“Good.” The woman nodded. “We shall ensure you bring forth a healthy child. You are too thin. It is good you have come to us sooner than we expected.”

Pippa glanced at Lionel for some hint as to how she was to react but he was talking with the man, Gilles, using a strange tongue that bore little relation to French. The woman joined in, and Robin, Luisa, and Pippa stood awkwardly in the middle of the sparsely furnished yet scrupulously clean room.

At last Lionel came over to them. “We will all stay here tonight. Robin and I must go out now with Gilles to talk with someone. We will be back very soon.”

“What language are they speaking?” Pippa asked.

“Breton. 'Tis like the Cornish tongue. But Gilles and Berthe also speak French, although their accent will be unfamiliar. But you will become accustomed soon enough.”

“I suppose I will.” Pippa sat down on the window seat beside the cat, who blinked at her and allowed her to stroke his neck. So this was the safe house where she was to spend at least the next six months. She felt neither pleasure nor dismay at the prospect.

“I don't speak French,” Luisa said. “Not any kind of French.”

“I'll translate for you.” Pippa rose from the window seat as Berthe began to take spoons and bowls from a dresser and place them upon the long rough-hewn table that looked as if it had been made from the trunk of an oak tree.

“May I help you?”

Berthe seemed to hesitate, then she offered a half smile that gave Pippa the impression that her hostess dispensed her smiles thriftily. Berthe said only, “I will stir the soup. You will find bread in the oven.”

She left Pippa to set out the cutlery and bowls and find the bread oven set into the brickwork at the side of the fireplace.

The men returned within a very short time and Pippa thought Robin had an air of suppressed excitement as if he was holding some secret, but he ignored her questioning look.

“What have you been doing?” she demanded of Lionel. “'Tis most discourteous to abandon us like that.”

“Ah.” He smiled at her and bent his head close to her ear. “We have been arranging a marriage, but Robin wishes to keep it a secret from Luisa until the morning.”

“Oh.” She forgot her annoyance at once in the pleasure of this prospect. “'Tis wise I think to waste no time.” Her eyes gleamed with amusement. She was well aware that Luisa had been pressing Robin without success to anticipate their wedding night on board
Sea Dream.

“My thoughts exactly,” he said with a dry smile.

They ate potato soup and some strange spiny shellfish like small lobsters. A jug of cider was passed around and Pippa with a pleasantly full belly felt her eyes grow heavy in the lamplit warmth.

Berthe leaned across the table and spoke to Lionel in her strange tongue. He replied in a few short sentences. She rose from the table and went to a large wooden chest from which she took out an armful of colorful quilts and gave them to Lionel.

“Come, Pippa. Let's to bed.” He took her under the arms and lifted her bodily off the bench. “We're going up that ladder.” He gestured to a narrow ladder that rose from a corner of the room and disappeared through a hole in the ceiling.