Ramage's Prize (34 page)

“Come on,” he said hurriedly, grabbing her hand and pulling her to the door. “My men could get killed because of this!”

The Ambassador had been as affable as he was efficient. By the time Ramage and Gianna had arrived in his office one messenger had already been despatched with orders to the frigate Captain cancelling his earlier instructions, a second messenger was on his way to the Post Office Agent demanding to know why the Ambassador had not been informed immediately the ransom arrangements had been concluded. And Frere had commented sourly that the Agent could be thankful the attendant in the Embassy hall had reported Ramage's arrival.

After politely refusing Frere's invitation to stay at the Embassy for a few days or, failing that dine with him, Ramage had explained that he planned to sail for England with the
Arabella
in a few hours, and there was much to be done before then. Frere had nodded sympathetically and shot a questioning glance at Gianna.

Much to Ramage's surprise she had formally thanked Frere for his hospitality and told him she would be leaving the Embassy within the hour. Ramage had been about to suggest she would be more comfortable at the Embassy than waiting in a hotel for the next Falmouth packet to sail in ten days or so, but he decided against it. Gianna must have her reasons.

They walked back to the first-floor room. Gianna chattered cheerfully, giving him fond messages from his father and mother. She was so excited she did not notice Ramage's silence. Why, he wondered, isn't she going to stay here? He did not like the idea of her staying in one of the hotels without a chaperone. Without a guard, for that matter: the French had made one desperate attempt to capture her in Italy, and the moment they discovered she was alone in Lisbon they might try to kidnap her.

Ramage shut the door and pointed to a chair. “Sit down for a moment; I've some questions!”

“They can wait,” she pouted. “So
serioso,
Nico! I came all this way … Did you forget me in the West Indies? Don't you love—”

“I love you!” he said almost savagely. “That's why I'm worried. Love and war don't mix!”

“If that Bonaparte hadn't driven me out of Volterra, you'd never have met me,” she reminded him. “So you're wrong,
caro mio
…”

“
Accidente!
Tell me, what made you take the packet from Falmouth?”

“Nico! Shall I say I have a lover waiting in Lisbon, and I thought I'd see you at the same time?”

That smile, Ramage thought to himself; and that body, and as always he remembered Ghiberti's beautiful carving of “The Creation of Eve” on the east door of the Baptistry in Florence. Eve's bold and slim body with the small, jutting breasts; the small, finely chiselled face (Gianna's was fuller, more sensuous). He glanced at the body hidden by the white dress: the flat belly and rounded thighs, the long, slim legs.

“I know what you are thinking,” she said.

“Indeed you don't,” he said, flushing.

“I do!” she said furiously. “You are thinking this Gianna is a nuisance, and why didn't she stay at St Kew, out of the way, and—and—”

Ramage stood helplessly as she searched for words: they'd been together ten minutes and were already quarrelling. Why the devil couldn't she understand what he meant?

“Listen,” he said, “let's get it over with—”

“There you are! You
don't
love me!”

“No—oh darling—”

“So you don't love me, you just said so!”

“No—I mean I was saying ‘No' because you said that I said I …”

They both burst out laughing. She stood up, pushed him to a chair, and as soon as he sat she curled up on the floor at his feet, her head resting on his knee.

“Ask all the questions you want, sir!”

“Very well,
signorina:
tell me how you got here. From the beginning. From breakfast the day you had the idea!”

“Not breakfast,” she said promptly, “Your father always complains I don't eat enough breakfast. That porridge—ough! I'd get fat like a fishwife. Well, Lord Spencair wrote—”

“Spencer,” he corrected.

She sniffed. “—'Spencair,' then. He wrote to your father describing all the trouble out here, and a silly new Act of Parliament they had to pass. Your father laughed,” she added as an afterthought. “He thought it very funny that you were the cause of a special Act of Parliament. He made me cross.”

“Why? I hadn't thought of it like that, but it is amusing.”

“Amusing? But supposing those cretins in Parliament hadn't passed it? What then, eh?”

Ramage laughed: the “eh?” and the upraised palms was so typically Italian.

“You laugh,” she protested, “but if you get put in a French prison for years it is me—it is I,” she corrected herself, “who has to wait at home and grow old and wrinkled and when you come back I am too ugly for you and you—oh, don't think a quick kiss on the head will silence me,” she said furiously. “A shrivelled old walnut, that's how I'll look; all my youth wasted waiting for you and you are faithless—”

“Steady on,” Ramage interrupted mildly, “the French haven't caught me yet and you're a long way from your twentieth birthday!”

“Now you mock me,” she snapped. “If it wasn't for your father I'd forget all about you.”

“My father's already married.”

“Oh,
cretino!
” she pummelled him with her fists, her eyes blazing with anger, and he gripped her wrists and twisted her arms until she was facing him, and then he kissed her.

“Stop shaking with indignation,” he said, “it makes our teeth click together.”

She jerked away from him. “I don't love you. I inform you officially.” She frowned, her lips pressed into a thin line.

“I'll make a note of it in the log,” he said. “Anyway, what happened after Lord ‘Spencair' wrote?”

“I told your parents that if the Act was not passed, I would go to Lisbon with the money and pay for the ship myself, and—”

“But—”

“But nothing: the law says no
British
subject can pay money to a Frenchman. It doesn't say anything about foreigners paying. Anyway,” she said arrogantly, “it would be my own money, and am I not the Marchesa di Volterra?”

He nodded numbly, overwhelmed by both her logic and her generosity. “What … what did Father say?”

“At first he was very angry—he has a worse temper than you,” she said reproachfully. “Then your mother said it was a silly law anyway because obviously it was supposed to stop traitors paying spies and things like that, but Parliament was so stupid it didn't word it properly. That made your father change his mind. He finally agreed with her that it was the intention of the law, not the wording, that should concern us.”

“And then?”

“Well, I made him angry again because I said I didn't care about intention, wording or law; that I was going to stop you being put in a French prison.”

“What did he do?”

“At that moment? Well, I walked out and your mother got angry with
him,
but by the time I came back he'd found out when the next packet sailed for Lisbon and was arranging a guard for me.”

“Guard?” Ramage exclaimed.

“Yes—one of the men on the estate. He came out as a passenger in the
Princess Louise
with me.”

“Where is he now?”

Gianna shrugged her shoulders. “On board the ship. I do not need him in Lisbon—it was in case of trouble on board the packet.”

Ramage froze for a moment. “But the
Princess Louise
sails at noon. It's”—he pulled out his watch—”hell, it's past noon! There's not another packet for two weeks!”

“Why are you worrying? The guard went back in the packet. He stayed on board.”

“But I'm sailing tomorrow. You'll be on your own. Look, you'd better stay on here at the Embassy.”

She looked puzzled. “But we both sail tomorrow. I come with you. The packet has plenty of room for passengers. A whole week with you,” she said excitedly. “It'll be like the old days in the Mediterranean!”

“You can't,” he said firmly. “I'm sorry. It would be wonderful, but—”

“Why not?” she interrupted angrily.

“Because the
Arabella
is no longer a packet. Once the French have handed her over, she comes under Admiralty orders and I'm in command.”

“
Alora,
then all is well.”

“It's not; far from it. The ship is in a dangerous state—most of the wood in the stern is rotten. She's not safe.”

“Then you mustn't sail with her,” Gianna said promptly. “Tell the Admiralty and wait for the next packet.”

“But I
can't
wait that long! Anyway, I have my orders. Besides, half the crew are likely to mutiny.”

“Mutiny?” She almost screamed the word. “Supposing they seize the ship and sail to France? You'll be a prisoner—
Madonna!
After all the trouble so far!”

“Don't worry,” he said comfortingly. “I have Southwick and Jackson with me. And Stafford and Rossi—you remember them. We can hold down a mutiny.”

“Well, if there's nothing to worry about, then I can come with you.”

“But a King's ship can't carry passengers,” he said lamely, and then remembered the phrase in his orders, written in specially by Nepean to cover people like Yorke who were passengers from Jamaica.

She sensed he was only making excuses and stood up. “I'm going to see Mr Frere. I shall tell him to
order
you to take me. Ah—you didn't know I knew about that, did you. But when he decided to tell that frigate to get ready, he explained to me that an ambassador can give orders to the Captain of a ship. He says the task of the Navy and the Army is to carry out the policies of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Is he correct, Lieutenant?”

He was, and Ramage knew he would be wise to agree now, rather than force an issue she was bound to win.

“Darling—it will be dangerous.”

She shrugged and pointed to her left shoulder. “The French shot me once—remember?”

“Of course I remember. I'll never forget the night in that damned boat. I thought you were going to die.”

“Did you?” She sounded surprised. “Oh, Nico, you shouldn't have worried. Anyway, you hadn't fallen in love with me then,” she said matter-of-factly.

“How do you know? I nearly went crazy. Why I—”

“When did you fall in love with me, then?” she asked curiously. “It was still dark. You saw me for the first time—oh, about midnight, and I was shot soon after.”

“What does it matter?” Ramage snapped, thoroughly exasperated.

“Oh! You say you love me and grumble because you worried about me one night—one night,” she repeated, her voice rising, “when I worry about you
every
night of the year. How can you love me when you can't even remember when it happened?”

“I'll look it up in the ship's log,” Ramage said angrily. “Now, get packed and let's go on board, otherwise you can wait for the next packet.”

“Ha, listen to him,” she said furiously. “You bully—oh, to think I wanted to rescue you! I wish they hadn't passed the Act. I'd have stayed in England and you'd have rotted in a French prison for years and years—”

He put his arms round her and kissed her. “And you'd have slowly turned into an old walnut …”

The two burly boatmen groaned and swore as they lowered Gianna's trunk so that it rested on the centre thwarts. “You told me you had very little luggage,” Ramage said mildly. “I don't think these two fellows would believe you.”

“It's only
one
trunk,” Gianna protested crossly. “I'd have had more if your mother hadn't interfered.”

Knowing that his mother did not believe in travelling with the minimum of luggage, Ramage shuddered at the thought of what Gianna had intended to bring.

Finally the trunk was lashed down and the boatmen looked at each other in bewilderment. There was now little room left for two passengers in the small boat, which made up with brightly coloured paintwork what it now lacked in stability.

Ramage pointed to the forward thwart, and when the men protested that Gianna would get splashed by spray he held up his boat-cloak.

Five minutes later, with the two of them wrapped in the cloak, the lugsail hoisted and drawing, and the two men aft, one handling the sheet and the other at the tiller, the boat was heading for the
Arabella.

The French mate is going to be puzzled, Ramage thought: instead of Kerguelen and the two Britons returning, there's only one Briton with a strange lady and an enormous trunk …

As the boat tacked for the last board that would bring her down to the
Arabella,
Ramage noticed that the packet's boat was secured astern by its painter. Perhaps Kerguelen had sent it back, with orders to the crew to return later when he and Yorke had sampled enough of what Lisbon had to offer.

Ramage pictured Southwick's face when he looked down into the boat … The Master's attitude towards Gianna was a curious mixture of awe, respect and affection: Ramage had the feeling the old man had never quite reconciled the ruler of Volterra with the tomboy of the voyage from Corsica to Gibraltar, the occasionally cold and imperious Marchesa with the laughing girl he hoped his Captain would marry. The attitude of Jackson, Rossi, Stafford and the other Tritons who had helped rescue her a couple of years ago was both simple and straightforward: they worshipped her. Every letter Ramage had ever received from her always mentioned their names, and when he told them that the Marchesa was inquiring about them their delight was both spontaneous and genuine.

The privateersmen weren't keeping a very good lookout: not a man in sight on deck. Well, once the boatmen hooked on he would be able to rouse out a couple of seamen to help with the trunk.