Never Call It Love (29 page)

He
had brought more papers from the strongbox to toss into the flames. She said,
"There is no guarantee, is there, that the English will treat me
kindly?"

He
shot her a haggard look. "I am afraid not. If I had thought you would be
in jeopardy... But I had no idea we would fail. We had planned so well, and
worked for so long..."

Unable
to go on speaking, he fed the last of the papers onto the fire. Again he told
himself bitterly that it must have been Henry Owen who had turned Judas.
Probably he would never know for sure.

Elizabeth
thought of herself in an English prison, questioned hour after hour by
determined men, and perhaps not knowing whether Patrick was free or under
arrest, alive or dead. She said, almost before she knew she was going to,
"Take me with you."

He
stared at her, dumbfounded. "To the West Indies?"

"I
would be better off than in an English prison." She added evenly,
"Surely you owe me that much."

Inwardly
flinching at that last sentence, he forced his harassed mind to consider the
idea. Certainly there was no guarantee that the English, unable to lay their
hands on him, might not vent their frustration upon his wife. And the French
merchant ship would have a good head start. With any luck...

He
said curtly, "Very well, if that is your desire." He turned to his
brother. "You have had no part in all this, Colin. Perhaps you can make
the English believe you did not even know about it. If so, you will be able to
hold onto your own lands, even though mine, of course, will be
confiscated."

Colin
said, in a stubbornly calm voice, "I am going with you."

Patrick
cried, "Good God, man! Why? Out of some kind of brotherly loyalty? If you
come with me, it will be the same as confessing that you were part of the
rebellion. If we are caught, Elizabeth won't hang, no matter what else they
might do to her. She's a gentlewoman, and English. But you'll dangle from a
gallows as surely as I will."

"All
this is true. But I would still rather take my chances aboard that ship.
Besides, I know the West Indies. I might be of help to you down there in making
a living."

God
knows he would need help, Patrick thought. The money he had here at the hall
would not keep them for more than a few months. "Do as you like."

Colin
turned toward the door. "I had better write some letters for Clarence to
deliver after we leave." He would write to Mr. Slattery, his overseer, and
to his mother, and to Catherine Ryan, that calm-faced widow whose bed he might
never share again.

When
the door had closed behind Colin, Patrick said to Elizabeth, "Can you be
ready in an hour? None of us can take much baggage. The fishing boat is
small."

Despite
her shock, her fear of what the next few hours might bring, let alone the
coming days and weeks, Elizabeth forced her mind to practical matters. She
would take one other woolen gown for the voyage, and fill the rest of a small
hand trunk with lightweight clothing.

"Yes,
I will be ready."

Afterward
the events of that night were to Elizabeth an unreal blur. The hurried packing
in her room. The leave-taking of the servants assembled in the downstairs hall,
all of them with stunned faces, and Mrs. Corcoran and Rose actually in tears.
They need not fear, Patrick told them, for either their lives or their freedom.
Only fools—and certainly the English were not that—would believe that he had
involved his household staff in his activities. "Whoever the English
appoint to take charge here probably will continue to employ most of you. As
for the rest, I have given Clarence a sum of money to tide you over until you
find new places."

After
that, there had been the swift carriage ride through the moonless night to the
village, where two silent men, only shapes of deeper dark in the darkness,
handed them into a small, fishy-smelling boat. Patrick guided her to a place in
the stern. She sat huddled deep in her cloak against the chill December night
while the fishermen rowed the boat almost soundlessly down the inlet to the
sea. Here a white mist hovered above the black water. She heard a subdued
rattle as the two villagers hoisted sail. Slowly, with the fishermen taking to
the oars whenever the faint breeze died, the boat moved through the thickening
fog.

Standing
beside her, Patrick spoke only once. "I was to occupy the owner's cabin.
Instead, you will have it. Colin and I will find some other place to bed
down."

Her
voice was cool. "Thank you."

The
white smother had become so thick that she did not know they were near the
French merchantman until one of the fishermen gave a cautious hail. Almost
immediately it was answered from somewhere ahead in the fog. Gradually the ship
took shape, a small three-master with a raised afterdeck. As nearly as she
could tell, its sails were already set. But no lights were showing, not even
the faint glow of a binnacle light.

Patrick
and Colin climbed to the deck. Then Elizabeth, aided by one of the fishermen,
stepped from the swaying boat onto the rope ladder. Hampered by her skirts,
catching her heel in the hem of her heavy cloak and then pulling it free, she
managed to climb a few rungs. Hands reached down and drew her the rest of the
way over the bulwark to the fog-wet deck.

She
found herself part of a cluster of dark figures. One of them was saying in
heavily accented English, "... you would be alone."

"I
am sorry, Captain Marquette. My wife and brother chose not to risk arrest. If
you have no objection, my wife will occupy the cabin you intended to assign to
me."

"Very
well." The captain still sounded upset. Now she could distinguish his
short, burly shape from that of the other men. "You, there," he said
to one of the crewmen, "carry Lady Stanford's trunk. Lady Stanford, please
come with me."

She
followed the two figures to the raised afterdeck. A door opened, letting a
swath of yellow light into the fog. "Please go inside quickly, Lady
Stanford."

In
the cabin the thin young sailor carrying her hand trunk placed it on the floor.
Captain Marquette said, "Don't pull back the curtains at the portholes,
Lady Stanford. Until we are clear of these waters, we must show as little light
as possible."

She
could see his plump face now. It was not
ill-natured, only worried. She could
understand that. In English waters he had three fugitives from English justice,
one of them a woman, aboard his probably unarmed merchant ship. "I will be
careful."

He
bowed, and followed by the young sailor, left the cabin. She looked around her.
Oil lamps hung in gimbals showed her the bunk bed, the washstand against the
opposite bulkhead, the worn dark red carpet, and the heavy brown curtains drawn
across the two portholes.

Seated
on the bed, she heard running footsteps along the deck, and the clanking of the
anchor chain. Slowly at first, the ship began to move. She rose again, turned
back the dark red counterpane and the blankets that covered the coarse but
clean sheets, and undressed. In her night-shift, she extinguished the lamps and
groped her way to the bed.

Silence
now except for the creak of ship's timbers and the faint seethe of water past
the hull. She thought, feeling almost incredulous: Only a little more than a
year ago I lived quietly in the English countryside, looking forward to my
marriage to Donald and the children we would have. And now? Now I'm the
penniless, childless, ignored wife of a man fleeing an English gallows. It's as
if the unspeakable thing my brother did in that empty London house set a whirlwind
in motion, one that soon caught me up. Now it has dropped me aboard this ship,
plowing without lights through waters controlled by a country I no longer have
a right to call my own.

And
yet, in spite of the sorrow for all she had lost, she had this strange sense of
freedom, even exhilaration. It was almost good to be moving farther away from
England and that bedroom Patrick Stanford had brutally invaded. And good to be
moving farther away from Ireland, where she had lost the child conceived that
terrible night. No matter how uncertain the future appeared, it at least held
the promise of a new beginning.

Exhausted,
and lulled by the ship's gentle rolling, she fell asleep.

She
woke, to see dim light filtering through the porthole curtains. Quickly she
crossed the cabin and thrust the curtains aside. No fog now, and no sight of
land, at least not from the ship's starboard side. Just cloudless blue sky
meeting a darker blue sea flecked with whitecaps. Moving to the washstand, she
poured water from a pitcher into the heavy white basin.

She
had just finished washing and dressing when someone knocked. She said, past the
quickened pulse in the hollow of her throat, "Come in."

But
it was only the young sailor of the night before, a breakfast tray in his
hands. Smiling shyly, he placed the tray on a straight chair beside the bed,
let down a folding table from one bulkhead, and transferred the tray to the
table.

Elizabeth
asked, "Am I to take all my meals here?"

"Pardon,
madame?"

Drawing
upon those long-ago lessons from her father, she asked the question in halting
French.

For
the time being, yes, he told her. They were still in English waters. Elizabeth
nodded her understanding. As long as an English frigate might hurl a cannonball
across the decks, it was preferable that she remain in the comparative safety
of her cabin.

She
passed the morning inspecting the few garments she had brought with her. At the
last moment she had remembered to thrust a sewing kit into the hand trunk. Now
she used it to mend a torn lace cuff on a green summer gown, and to resew her
cloak's hem where she had ripped it as she climbed the ship's ladder.

The
young sailor had just taken her luncheon tray away when again someone knocked.
This time it was Patrick, carrying two books bound in dark brown leather.
"Did you sleep well?" His voice was formally polite.

She
managed to match his tone. "Yes, thank you."

He
studied her. How calm she looked, and how lovely in the plain dark blue frock
she had worn the night before, her gray eyes clear, her chestnut hair brushed
to a sheen. Why in hell had she chosen to come with him? If she had stayed, she
would have been in little danger of more than a brief imprisonment. By telling
the English of his treatment of her, surely she could have convinced them that,
far from wanting to help his cause, she had a fervent desire to see him hang.

And
why in hell had he allowed her to come with him? A fugitive with little money,
he would have no easy time on the island of St.-Denis, even if he managed to
get there. She would only add to his problems.

Yet,
she looked so desirable, and so brave. But then, she had always been brave. He
thought of her trying to wrest the pistol from his hand in that lonely house
north of London. He thought of her, body swollen with her unborn child, hurling
her defiance at him in the library at Stanford Hall.

He
said, "Captain Marquette thought you might like some books. Do you read
French?"

She
felt wry amusement. She had been his wife for almost a year, and yet he did not
know whether or not she read French. "A little."

"Then
perhaps you will enjoy these." He placed the books on the chair, and with
a courteous bow, left the cabin.

For
a moment she stared at the closed door. Behind the polite masks they often
assumed, what did they feel for each other, she and this tall man whose name
she bore? So far, the only naked, unmistakable emotions that had flared between
them were hatred and rage and physical lust. And of late, apparently, he had
ceased even to feel lust for her. Yet, she had chosen to flee Ireland with him,
he had allowed her to do so.

Could
it be that in time...? No, better not to dwell on the possibility that someday
theirs might become a real marriage, holding both physical satisfaction and
mutual tenderness and respect. It would be enough if, on that island she had
never seen, she could build a busy and reasonably peaceful life for herself.

Determinedly
she turned her attention to the books he had left. She found that they were the
memoirs of Saint Simon. For the rest of the afternoon she read the vain and
gossipy French duke's account of life at the court of Louis XIV. When the light
began to fade, she looked out a porthole and saw that the day was no longer
fair. The last rays of the sun, low on the horizon, struggled through fog. She
drew the curtains, and taking the box of flints from its metal holder affixed
to the bulkhead beside the door, lit the lamps.

When
the young sailor had taken her supper tray away, she turned back to her book.
She was deep in the account of La Grande Mademoiselle's ludicrous pursuit of
her unwilling young lieutenant when she became aware that something was
happening on deck. She heard sharp, low-voiced commands, running footsteps, and
the rattle of sail. Several moments later she became aware that the ship had
lost most of its forward motion.

Nerves
tightening, she sat rigid. Why were they stopping? And why were there no sounds
at all from the deck now, as if everyone aboard except herself had died? She
knew there could be only one explanation. She pictured the little merchant
ship, fog-enshrouded, rocking in the black sea, pictured the silent men on deck
waiting to hear an English voice call across the water, "What ship?"