Velvet (52 page)

“You’re pregnant?”

She nodded, relief washing through her, turning her legs to jelly. She sat on the cot, conscious of the stinging in her cheek and the deep ache in her arms where his fingers had bruised.

“Please, will you listen to me. I have to tell you everything and maybe you’ll understand a little.”

Nathaniel stepped back from her. There was still bitter hostility in his eyes, but he was in control of himself. He said nothing. Gabrielle swallowed. She was about to betray her godfather, but this time she must think only of herself—and Nathaniel, and Jake—and the child she carried.

“It begins with a man you knew as
le liévre mir ….”

Half an hour later the story was told and the silence in the dim, fusty cabin was weighted with the words and emotions of that half hour.

“You used me,” Nathaniel said finally. “You’ve been using me from the first moment we met. Even your gift of love, the allegiance you swore … everything. It was all part of it.”

Gabrielle gazed down at the floor. She had no words of defense. He spoke only the truth. “Yes,” she said in a low voice. “You’re entitled to see it like that.
But there is another way to look at it. I have—had—old loyalties to Talleyrand, to the memory of Guillaume, as well as new ones. I tried to find a way to reconcile them both.”

She looked up, meeting his eye, reading the great hurt and bitterness. “Nathaniel, we’re both spies. It’s a vile business … but necessary. We both know that. I did what I thought best.”

He opened his mouth to speak, and suddenly the quiet was shattered by the sound of a musket, followed by another, and then a volley of shots. The fishing boat lurched violently and there was a cry of pain from the deck.

Nathaniel, his pistol in his hand, was already at the companionway.

“Fouché!” Gabrielle murmured. How long had she been asleep? Were they already out of the protection of the Solent? The horrified realization dawned that despite everything, she’d failed in her mission. If she hadn’t fallen asleep, they wouldn’t have sailed unwarned. And she must have slept for hours, her exhaustion had been so overpowering. Why hadn’t Nathaniel woken her? How long had he sat there, feeding his anger, watching her, while they sailed into danger?

She had her own pistol, as usual, in the pocket of her riding habit and leaped for the companionway on Nathaniel’s heels. The scene on deck was nightmarish. Dan and his crew lay in a heap by the deck rail, and the deck seemed to swarm with black-clad figures, moonlight glittering off their knives and cutlasses.

The French boat stood off their bow, a boarding net covering the short distance between the two vessels. How had it happened so fast? They must have appeared out of the darkness, that volley of musket shot the first warning. The Curfew’s crew must have been overpowered almost without resistance.

Nathaniel sprang forward. His pistol spoke and one of the boarders fell to his knee, clutching his shoulder.
Nathaniel had a knife in his hand now, and was in the midst of the group, slashing, kicking with deadly accuracy, whirling from side to side with the grace of a dancer and the savagery of a warrior.

Gabrielle fired her own pistol into the fray, reducing Nathaniel’s opponents by one. She grabbed a broken spar from the deck and brought it down on the head of one of the men grappling with Nathaniel. But the two of them were vastly outnumbered and unable to reload their pistols.

Gabrielle struggled in the grip of two men, their faces blackened with cork. She kicked sideways, drove her elbows into the belly of the man holding her from behind, but it was futile. Her arms were wrenched behind her, twisted upward, and she screamed in pain.

Nathaniel with a cry of fury spun from his own deadly combat at the sound, and a man behind him brought the barrel of his musket down on his head with skull-shattering force.

Nathaniel dropped to the deck. The man kicked him in the belly, but he lay unmoving.

“Nathaniel!” Gabrielle surged forward against her captors’ hold and screamed again at the agonizing jolt in her arms. She swore at them, calling them every vile name she could think of, heedless of nothing but her terror that Nathaniel, lying so still with a livid swelling on his forehead, was dead.

Someone silenced her with a brutal blow across her mouth, and she tasted blood from a split lip. Then she was being bundled below. They threw Nathaniel down the companionway behind her, and she gave another scream of outrage, struggling with renewed strength. But she could do nothing to save herself from the ropes. They bound her wrists behind her and tied her ankles and dumped her on the floor. She lay watching as they bound Nathaniel in the same way, and she took some comfort in the reflection that if he were dead, they wouldn’t bother to bind him.

She listened to them talk as they completed their work. They were going to leave four men aboard the
Curlew
to bring her with the prisoners into Cherbourg harbor. Their own cutter, the
Sainte Elise
, would continue to sweep the sea along the French coast for any other vessels on their list.

Gabrielle kept very still and silent even when they kicked at Nathaniel’s inert body on their way out of the cabin. Her head was now very clear. If there were only four of them, they’d have a chance to overpower them with the advantage of surprise. How many of Dan’s men were alive? They’d be bound too, of course. But if she could just get free …

She was lying on her back against the table. Nathaniel lay some three feet away from her, on his side, his back to her. She could see the ropes around his wrists. They were thick and tight, tighter, she thought, than the ones at her own wrists. She had enough play to move her wrists against each other, although not a hope of sliding a hand free.

Nathaniel groaned and her heart leaped. He was still alive, but when she called his name softly, there was no response.

She turned her head gingerly on the hard floor and her eye caught a glint under the table. It took her a minute to realize what it was. The glass Nathaniel had swept from the table in his anger. The glass that had broken against the steel bolt of the table.

Her heart began to beat fast, the blood pounding in her temples as she thought what this meant. Broken glass, a jagged edge—a cutting edge. If she could reach it …

She stared at the glinting glass, fixing its position in her mind’s eye; then she rolled awkwardly onto her side, so her back and her hands were toward the glass. The table legs prevented her reaching the glass with her whole body, but she stretched her joined hands as
far as she could, ignoring the renewed pain in her wrenched arms.

She couldn’t reach it. Her fingers scrabbled futilely in the dirt and dust under the table and made contact with nothing. Drawing her knees up tight against her chest, she pushed her curled body backward, edging between the table legs. Her fingers searched, encountered something sharp, and she gave a little cry of pain that turned rapidly into a crow of triumph.

Very, very gently her fingers closed around the jagged chunk of glass. She mustn’t drop it, but she couldn’t hold it too tightly without cutting her hands to ribbons, and she was going to need her hands.

She squirmed out from under the table, stretching her body with a sigh of relief, keeping on her side, holding her arms as far from her body as she could.

Now to reach Nathaniel. But she couldn’t roll on her back without injuring herself with the glass. Drawing her knees up again, she levered herself across the cabin until she was lying beside Nathaniel. Now she would have to roll so that her back was against his.

Closing her eyes tightly, she inched over onto her back, raising her hips as far from the ground as she could, arching the small of her back away from her hands. One jerking heave, and she was over, lying back-to-back with Nathaniel.

Now. She ran a finger over the edge of the glass, finding the sharpest, most jagged point. Then she felt for the rope at Nathaniel’s wrists. Sweat broke out on her forehead despite the dank chill in the cabin, and a wave of sickness broke over her, but it was anxiety rather than pregnancy this time.

An agonized scream came from on deck, and then another. She took a deep breath, trying not to imagine what was happening. She must concentrate.

Gently at first, she began to saw at the rope at Nathaniel’s wrist. But gently took too long. Biting her swollen lip hard, she sawed faster. There was blood on
her hands now; she could feel its stickiness, and her nausea increased. Was it Nathaniel’s or hers? Impossible to tell.

She stopped, her breath rapid and shallow as she tried to master her terror.

“Keep going, Gabrielle.” Nathaniel’s voice was calm and steady but so startling in the intense silence of her own private world that she jumped in fear.

“I didn’t want you to come to until I was finished,” she managed to whisper through dry lips. “I’m afraid I’m hurting you.”

“Keep going,” he repeated steadily. “I’m holding my wrists as far apart as I can.”

“But what if I cut a vein?”

“You won’t.”

He sounded so confident that she was able to continue despite the blood that now seemed to cover her hands.

“All right,” Nathaniel said softly after a long silence when the only sound was the strange rasping of glass on rope. “You’re almost there. I can feel it fraying.”

“Oh, God,” Gabrielle whispered. Her arms were a mass of aching muscle, her wrists cramping with the strain, her fingers so numb, she was afraid she’d drop the glass. She closed her eyes again; it helped her to concentrate, to see nothing but the rope fraying strand by strand beneath the glass.

And then it was done. The rope parted.

“That’s my girl,” Nathaniel said softly. He sat up. His hands were smothered in blood, but he took no notice, inching his way across to the portmanteau against the bulkhead. Gabrielle was too exhausted to roll over to see what he was doing. He withdrew a knife with a wicked rapier blade and sliced through the rope at his ankles in one stroke.

Then he was kneeling beside Gabrielle. “Hold still.” Her wrists were freed and she gave a groan of relief,
bringing her hands round, flexing her fingers, massaging her wrists.

“You’re bleeding like a stuck pig,” she said in horror as he cut the rope at her ankles.

“Bandage them for me,” he said matter-of-factly. “There are cravats in the portmanteau.”

She found the cravats and wrapped them tightly around his slashed wrists. “There are only four men. Here, put your finger on the knot.”

“Only four, you’re sure?”

“That’s what I heard them say—the other one now—there, that’ll do for the moment.” She looked up from her handiwork. “They kicked you when you were unconscious.”

“I can feel it,” he said grimly. He went back to the portmanteau and took out the twin of the knife he still held.

“You’ve been taught to use one of these.” It was more of a statement than a question.

“Yes. And a garrote,” she added as he took out the length of rope weighted at either end. She didn’t say she’d never used any weapons outside a training session.

His nod was matter-of-fact as he handed her the knife. “I’d like to reduce the odds on deck. Lie on the floor as if you’re still tied and start shouting.” He moved into the shadows behind the companionway, the length of rope held lightly between his hands.

Gabrielle curled up, facing the door, her feet tucked under the table so that at first glance her lack of bonds wouldn’t be immediately apparent. Then she began to scream, one high-pitched cry after another, shivering the timbers of the deck above her head.

Feet sounded above and the hatchway thudded open, filling the cabin with the gray light of dawn. They must be dreadfully close to the French coast, she thought as she screamed again.

Cursing, a man pounded down the companionway.
“Stop that racket,
putain.”
He thundered toward her, hand clenched in a fist.

Nathaniel swung the rope, and the man fell back, clutching his throat Nathaniel lowered him to the floor.

“Jacques … what’s going on down there?” A voice yelled down the companionway.

Nathaniel gave her a nod and stepped back.

Gabrielle’s bloodcurdling scream rose again. A figure jumped down the ladder. As his feet touched ground he seemed to realize that something was wrong. He spun around, and the edge of Nathaniel’s right hand chopped against the side of his neck and he dropped to the floor.

Nathaniel swung himself onto the ladder, the knife in his hand. Gabrielle was on his heels. The dawn air, cold and salty, hit her in the face, clearing her head, stinging her swollen lip.

The man at the wheel gave a warning shout as he saw them. Nathaniel had crossed the deck in four bounds, and there was a glint of steel as the Frenchman drew his own knife. His partner lunged from behind the mainsail. He didn’t see Gabrielle, who stuck out a foot, and he went sprawling on the deck.

Now she was supposed to use the knife. To hell with it. This was a dirty business, but there were limits. She grabbed up a marlin spike from a coil of rope and brought it down across his shoulders as he struggled onto all fours.

“Much better!” She permitted herself a grim smile of satisfaction at the prone figure before she raced to the grappling couple at the wheel, the marlin spike raised like some Viking club.

Nathaniel’s opponent had his back to her for an instant and she brought the spike down onto his shoulder. He screamed as the bone cracked, and dropped to his knees.

Nathaniel glanced down at him and then up at Gabrielle. “You got the other one too, I see.”

“Yes, but he’s not dead. At least I don’t think so.” She pushed her hair away from her face, bracing herself unconsciously on the slippery deck as the fishing beat heaved and pitched with no guiding hand on the wheel.

She was bruised and bloody, her eyes black-shadowed, sunken in her white face. And Nathaniel didn’t think he’d ever loved her more than he did at that moment. He knew he’d never understood her as he now did.

He grinned tiredly. “You’re quite a fighter, aren’t you, Gabrielle?”

“I fight for what I believe in,” she said. “I fight for what I love … in whatever way I must.”