Velvet (53 page)

Her eyes held his in a passionate plea for his understanding, and in the dawn stillness he nodded in simple but complete acknowledgment. Then he said briskly, “See what you can do for Dan and the others. I’m going to put her about and I’ll need a hand with the mainsail.”

She left him at the wheel and approached the three figures of Dan and his crew, tied to the rail, gags in their mouths. Dan was bleeding from a gash in his forehead, one of the others, a youngster of maybe seventeen, slumped unconscious in his bonds, the other had a broken arm, the splintered bone sticking jaggedly through his flesh.

They were unnecessary wounds, the work of Fouché’s men, and a red wave of hatred surged over Gabrielle as she cut them loose.

“Bastards!” Dan exploded in soft ferocity. “They’ve been playing their foul games with young Jamie here for hours.” He gently eased the unconscious lad to the deck. Gabrielle remembered the agonized screams and turned her eyes away from the pattern of knife marks on his chest.

“Nathaniel needs help with the sails,” she said as calmly as she could. “Are you able to do it?”

“Aye.” Dan walked stiffly and painfully toward Nathaniel while Gabrielle went below to see what she could find to bind up the broken arm.

She glanced at the men on the cabin floor and was surprised to find them both breathing. She had thought Nathaniel had killed the one with the garrote. There was livid bruising around his throat, but he was breathing in stertorous gasps.

She went back on deck and did what she could with the broken arm, binding it tightly and fashioning a sling so that at least the pieces of bone wouldn’t scrape together and the arm was supported.

The man smiled wanly, but he was clearly incapable of doing anything.

“Gabrielle!”

“Yes?” She went over to the wheel.

“Come here.” Nathaniel took her shoulders and drew her in front of him. “Hold the wheel. Do you remember anything I taught you on the river that day? What I told you about keeping the wind abaft the mainsail.”

“I think so, but this is so much bigger than the dinghy.”

“The principle’s the same. Look up at the sail. The edge mustn’t flutter. Try to keep the wind on the side of your face—here.” Gently he touched her cheek. Then he bent and brushed his lips over the spot, and she knew he was remembering how he’d struck her earlier.

She reached up and grasped his bandaged wrist. “I’ll manage.”

“Yes, I know you will. Come on, Dan, let’s get these swine off this boat.”

They tied the four unconscious men, lowered the rowboat over the side, and heaved the bodies into it.

“They’ll probably get picked up, more’s the pity,” Nathaniel said, squinting through the morning mist to the rocky cliffs of the French coast. “Let’s hope we get the hell out of here before anyone else comes along.”

“We’ll fly the French colors,” Dan said. “That might give us some leeway.”

Nathaniel looked across at Gabrielle. Her hands were steady on the wheel, her feet braced wide apart, her eyes on the mainsail. She was like no other woman. And she had more courage in her little finger than a regiment of marines.

The courage of her convictions too. It still hurt to think that she’d deceived him, that he’d been duped by Talleyrand. But he thought how it had begun. He knew Gabrieile’s passion. He understood her need for vengeance for her lover’s murder. He would have felt it himself. And he now understood the curious logic that had brought them to this point. Gabrielle
was
loyal. In fact, her fault, if it was one, lay in too much loyalty. By an accident of birth she had a foot in both camps. A tempestuous and passionate nature would not allow her to abandon either one.

And he loved her. He loved her for that courage and that loyalty as much as he did for her passion and her warmth and her generosity.

And she was carrying his child.

He went over to her. “Let Dan take the wheel now.”

She relinquished it with a weary shrug of her shoulders, trying to ease the aching stiffness, the residue of the night’s ordeal. “I’ll make a sailor yet,” she said, smiling.

The smile was such a brave attempt that his heart turned over anew. He reached for her, but suddenly she clutched her throat, murmured, “Oh, no, why now?” and fled to the rail, retching miserably. But she’d eaten
almost nothing in the past twenty-four hours and the spasm eased, although the queasiness didn’t.

“What is it, love?” Nathaniel drew her against him. “The sea’s like glass.”

“I seem to have time to feel sick again,” she said. “I don’t suppose you have a piece of bread on you?”

“Bread? No. Why?”

“It’s the only thing that helps. It’s the most horrid inconvenience, Nathaniel. Was Helen sick?”

“I don’t believe so.” He leaned against the rail, and his expression was both somber and confused. “Just
how
did it happen?”

She gave him another wan smile. “You mean there’s more than one way?”

“You know what I mean.” He rubbed the back of his neck, frowning in frustration. “How could you—”

“Hey,” she interrupted. “It takes two, I’ll have you know.”

“Yes, I know.” He pulled her against him, pushing her hair off her forehead. “But I’m frightened.”

“What of?” She smiled, touching his mouth. “I rode without stopping for ten hours. It’s been a night of trial by ordeal. And I’m still here, aren’t I? Still pregnant? I’m tough, Nathaniel. It may not be a particularly feminine characteristic, but I grew up in a hard school.”

“I know that.” He caught her chin. “Your poor mouth.” Tenderly he kissed her swollen lips.

“And do you understand what … why …” She needed his words although she knew he did understand now.

He laid a finger over her mouth. “It’s over, Gabrielle. We both made mistakes. We didn’t trust each other enough, and maybe with cause,” he added gravely. “Trust comes with knowledge. It’s taken us a long time to know each other.”

“But you know me now?” She leaned into him.

“As I know myself.”

“That’s what I find frightening,” Gabrielle said. “We’re so alike. Can one fight with oneself?”

“All the time,” he said with a wry smile. “And I suspect we’re going to be the living proof.”

Jake stood outside Gabrielle’s closed bedroom door, listening. He could hear voices, people moving around, but nothing to give him an idea of what was going on in there. He couldn’t picture what was happening. He’d asked Primmy and she’d said he wasn’t old enough to understand. He’d asked Mrs. Bailey and she’d blessed him and given him a jam tart and told him to run along. He didn’t think there would be any point asking Nurse. She didn’t know much about anything except keeping things clean and generally fussing.

He slid down the wall at his back until he was sitting on the floor, facing the door and hugging his drawn-up knees. He was scared, but everyone else in the house seemed excited. They went around smiling and whispering in corners, and he’d heard Ellie giggling about a book that Milner was keeping in the stables about whether it would be a boy or a girl. Why would he keep a book about that in the stables?

His eyes fixed on the cream-painted door, willing it to open. Papa was in there. He wished he would come out and tell him what was happening.

Behind the closed bedroom door Nathaniel stood
in the shadows of the bedcurtains, out of Gabrieile’s direct line of sight but close enough to respond if she wanted him. He didn’t know what else to do. If he touched her or spoke to her when she was distracted, she cursed him like a trooper, but when he’d tried to tiptoe from the room, she’d called him back urgently, telling him she needed to know he was there.

There was nothing concrete he could do. The doctor, the midwife, and Ellie were all moving around with unhurried efficiency, talking softly to Gabrielle, ignoring her occasional oaths.

He wasn’t frightened, Nathaniel realized. This was nothing like Helen’s time. The woman on the bed was a tigress, hissing and spitting at the pain of this ghastly ordeal, yielding to her body and yet never losing herself in the violent paroxysms. Her spirit was hovering way above the suffering body on the bed, and despite six hours of this, she didn’t seem to be weakening. If anything, she grew ever more peppery as the contractions increased.

“Goddammit, Nathaniel,” she said with sudden clarity. “If you ever do this to me again, I’ll kill you ….” She gasped, sweat breaking out on her forehead, and then relaxed, turning her face toward him. To his amazement, her crooked smile touched her lips. “That was a piece of rank injustice, wasn’t it?”

“Even for you,” he agreed with an answering smile. He wiped her forehead with a lavender-scented cloth.

“I wish I knew who’d coined the phrase Mother Nature,” she said in another moment of respite. “No female would have inflicted this on women.”

She grabbed his hand suddenly, clinging to it as the pain tightened unmercifully, impossibly, gripped for an eternity, and then slowly receded.

“Jake’s outside the door,” she said, her voice weaker than before. “He needs reassurance.”

“How do you know he’s there?”

“Because he would be.” She was lost again, and
Nathaniel stood helplessly for a minute, and then went to the door.

Where did she get her strength from? It far exceeded his own at the moment. She was keeping up this banter to make him feel better. And she was worrying about Jake, when he hadn’t given the child a thought.

He opened the door and his heart went out to his son, sitting wide-eyed, scared, and uncomprehending, on the floor.

“What are you doing here, Jake?” he asked gently, closing the door behind him.

“I don’t know what’s happening.” Jake stood up. “Is Gabby going to die?”

“No, of course not.” Nathaniel squatted on his heels so that he was on a level with the child. “Everything’s going just as it’s supposed to. Gabrielle is fine, although she’s a little cross because it’s not very comfortable having a baby.”

“My first mother died.” Jake’s eyes were big brown pools of anxiety and confusion. “She died because of me.”

Nathaniel shook his head. “No, not because of you, Jake. You must never think that.” He drew the child against him in a fierce hug. “And I promise you that Gabrielle is not going to die. She’s too busy being rude to me.” He drew back with a teasing smile, pushing the child’s hair off his forehead.

“I want to see her.”

“Not just now.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s not feeling well enough for visitors. But as soon as she is, you’ll be the first one she’ll want to see. You know that.”

Jake did know that. He chewed his lip for a minute. “She’s really not going to die?”

“No. I promise you.” Nathaniel stood up. “Now, I
want you to go back to Primmy and stay in the schoolroom until I send for you.”

“Can’t I stay here?”

“No,” his father said firmly. If Gabrielle lost control, the child would be terrified. And God knows, she was entitled to scream her head off if it would help.

“Off you go.” He turned him with a pat on his rear and watched him walk with dragging step down the corridor.

He returned to the bedroom and was immediately aware of a tension in the atmosphere replacing the calm efficiency of before.

His heart was in his throat, his blood running cold. “Is something wrong?”

“No, my lord,” the doctor said, rolling up his sleeves. “Everything’s quite normal.”

“Nathaniel!” Gabrieile’s voice was urgent.

“I’m here, love.” He took her hand.

She gripped it fiercely, and then her body convulsed and a cry as much of triumph as effort broke from her lips.

Nathaniel watched as his daughter fought her way into the world, a waxy, blue, blood-streaked scrap. There was a thin cry and the scrap turned pink.

“A daughter, my lady,” the midwife said. “A beautiful baby.”

“I don’t think it’s quite over,” Gabrielle said with a gasp, her eyes startled.

“Well, well,” the doctor murmured, turning back to his patient. “It seems she has a sibling.”

“I don’t believe this,” Nathaniel murmured as his daughter’s brother entered the world with a lusty bellow.

Gabrielle fell back against the pillows, her eyes closed. “Give them to me,” she said.

“I’ll wash them first, my lady,” the midwife said, sounding shocked at this unconventional demand.

“No, you won’t,” Gabrielle declared. “You’ll give them to me this minute.”

The midwife looked as if she was going to protest, but Lord Praed moved to take the infants from her, even more of an outrage to proper procedure, as if it wasn’t bad enough that he was in the room at all. With a sniff she hastily laid the babies naked on their mother’s breast.

“You don’t do anything by halves, do you, my love?” Nathaniel said, his eyes wet, a smile of wonderment on his lips as he gently touched the tiny heads.

Gabrielle chuckled weakly. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

“They’ll be even more so, my lady, when they’re washed and dressed.” The midwife reasserted her authority. “Now, come along, we don’t want them to get cold, do we?”

Gabrielle relinquished her babies with a grimace at Nathaniel, who bent to kiss her.