A Desperate Fortune (34 page)

She glanced up at the Scotsman as his long and easy strides brought him beside her, and she asked, “Did you just pay his ransom?”

He didn’t answer, only gave a nod at Frisque within her arms and said, “Take care he doesn’t get a ducking.”

She held Frisque as firmly as she could while they were boarding, and more firmly still when they were standing on the deck and all the ropes were being cast away, for she had never been aboard a proper ship and was not used to how it rolled and subtly played against her balance as the sails were set to catch the early afternoon’s fair wind and take advantage of the tide to draw it surely out to sea.

Frisque wagged his tail and pushed his forelegs on her arm to thrust his nose into the wind that blew more strongly once they’d come clear of the harbor. Mary had to fight the urge to do the same, for it in truth was an exhilarating feeling, but she had a sense that it would look undignified to all the crewmen standing within sight of them, some staring as if they’d not carried passengers before.

When they had rounded the great rock that stood guard at the harbor’s entrance, the brown-coated man who’d helped them all on board before instructing them to wait there while the ship got under sail, returned and showed them all a cheery smile.

“Now,” he said, and looked from Thomson to MacPherson brightly, “which of you is Mr. Symonds?”

Something—some small inner instinct—stabbed at Mary then. It must have stabbed MacPherson too, for his reply cut over Thomson’s. “I am.”

“Right then, Mr. Symonds.” Without altering his tone or smile the man drew out a pistol. “I’ll be taking both those swords, sir, if you please.”

But, now, the night is round thee: and the winds have deceived thy sails.

—Macpherson, “Fingal,” Book Three

Marseilles

March 31, 1732

He stood his ground, as she had known he would, and did not yield.

“Perhaps, sir, you misunderstand the situation,” said the man in the brown coat. His heavy face gave him a jolly and benevolent appearance that was strikingly at odds with what was happening. Behind him, other men had now begun to shift position so they formed an almost ordered rank, and Mary saw that other weapons had been drawn. “’Tis Captain’s orders that none other than his crewmen carry weapons on this ship, so I will have them even if I have to shoot you for them, sir. But if I shoot you, what will happen to these ladies?”

From behind him, someone made a crude remark in rustic French that would have told him to the letter what would happen to the ladies, had he understood that language. Mary knew her face had whitened, but she would not show her fear to men like these. She pressed her back against the railing of the ship and held Frisque tightly.

She could see MacPherson thinking. That was good, she told herself, because he’d always found a way to get them out of trouble in the past. He’d always taken care of them. He’d always—

Once again the rude French sailor made a lewd insulting comment, this time aimed with specificity at Mary, and she held her head up higher, though her knees began to tremble slightly underneath her skirts.

MacPherson moved his head a fraction till his gaze was leveled on the man who’d spoken. “If you wish to lose your tongue, together with that useless part you think to violate my wife with, I suggest you speak again.” He said it quietly and calmly. And in perfect French.

She nearly did fall, then, from sheer surprise, but he’d already switched back into English and was saying to the man in brown, “I’ll let ye have my swords if ye will let me have your word my wife and servants won’t be harmed.”

The man replied, “And I will let
you
live, sir, if you let me have your swords.”

They were at an impasse.

Mary watched MacPherson weigh the varied outcomes, then he took both sword hilts in his hands and drew them out and held them, harmless, for the men to take from him. Her heart sank very slightly but she knew from having seen him kill the man who’d been with Stevens at Valence that he had blades where none would find them, and that even when he seemed unarmed to most, he was yet deadly.

“And those pistols,” came the next instruction.

Mary hadn’t known he carried pistols, and she hadn’t ever seen them. How the man in brown had spotted them she didn’t know, but there they were, a pair of them, with silver inlaid handles, being turned and handed over.

“And the long gun on your back.”

He slipped the gun case off as well, without resistance.

“And the dagger.”

There was movement in the ranks of men behind the man in brown who held the pistol, and a pleasantly inflected male voice with a Spanish accent said, “That is no ordinary dagger.”

Mary watched the men part like a river when it meets a rock, and saw their captain—since from how they had reacted, he could be no other—casually approach. He cut a daring, gallant figure, in a coat of forest green with gold braid trim, and more gold on his waistcoat and the brim of his black hat, with falls of lace at cuffs and collar. He was very handsome, and the sharply trimmed dark beard that matched the long curls of his hair lent him an air that was not totally respectable.

He told them all, “
That
, to the men of the mountains of Scotland, is one of their weapons most sacred. A weapon of honor.” He stopped at the side of the man with the pistol, not blocking the other man’s aim but not hiding behind it. He challenged MacPherson, “Do you have this honor?” His tone was a gauntlet thrown down by a man who, beneath all his charm, was yet dangerous. “Or are you a…how do you call them in your country? Broken men, isn’t it? One of those broken men, who live beyond the law.”

Coldly, MacPherson said, “I am no broken man.”

“Then you may keep all your weapons, if you swear an oath on your dagger that they’ll not be used against me or my men.”

“I’d first have your word ye’ll harm neither my wife nor our servants.”

This seemed to amuse him. “And what shall I swear by?”

“Your word as a Spaniard will do.”

Thomson made an incredulous sound like a snort. “Come now.”

“Given,” the Spaniard replied, as with interest and something approaching respect he looked on while MacPherson drew the sharp dirk from his belt and raised it level to his lips to kiss the blade and seal the oath. And then the captain gave a nod and turning told his men, “Stand down. And give him back his weapons.”

Coming forward with a swagger in his step that nearly matched MacPherson’s, he said, “May I see your papers?” With the papers in his hand he sorted through them. Glanced at Thomson. “So then you are Mr. Jarvis, yes? And this is Mrs. Grant.” He showed some sympathy for Effie, who between the motion of the ship and this upsetting incident was looking ill. “Oh, Mrs. Grant, you are not well. I’ll send Emiliana to look after you. She is good at looking after people.” He studied MacPherson’s hard features, and in a dry tone said, “Your name is not Symonds, I think, Mr. Symonds.”

“It is while I’m on board your ship.”

“Fair enough. And your wife, this is truly your wife? She is lovely. And look, she has brought me some dinner.” He grinned both at Frisque and at Mary’s expression. “I’m not being serious. See how she looks at me now? You and your dog are both safe, Mrs. Symonds, I promise.” Returning the papers to Mr. MacPherson, he swept off his hat. “I am Marcos María del Rio Cuerda,” he said, “at your service.”

He bowed, Mary thought, with the grace of a gentleman. But in his eyes shone the devil’s own mischief.

“Now,” he said, clapping a hand on MacPherson’s back as though they’d long been friends, “let’s get your wife and your servants below, and we’ll go have a drink.”

* * *

Mary wasn’t convinced that the captain, del Rio, was someone to trust.

He had kept his word, taking them safely below where he’d shown Mr. Thomson and Effie to two little cabins tucked into the prow of the ship, which while cramped were at least clean and private; and as he had promised, he’d called a young woman to come sit with Effie and make her more comfortable. Then he had given MacPherson and Mary a much larger cabin beneath his own, set in the stern down a half flight of steps.

She’d barely had time to adjust to the fact that she would now be sharing this room with MacPherson, alone, without Effie, when Captain del Rio had ordered MacPherson again to come drink with him. Mary had not been sure which prospect she’d dreaded most—being left with MacPherson, or left on her own. But before he had left her, the Scotsman had taken one silver-edged pistol and folded her hand round it, telling her low, “Keep that aimed at the door and if anyone enters but me, shoot them.”

Not the most comforting manner, thought Mary, in which to be left.

But she’d known from his tone and his words he was doing the best that he could to protect her, and so she had nodded and made no complaint when he’d gone with the captain.

That had seemed like a lifetime ago.

She’d been left with three candles, all cheerily burning; a narrow berth set in the wall, with a curtain to close out the rest of the room, and a table with two chairs nailed fast to the floor. For a while she had sat in one chair holding Frisque, till he’d fallen asleep and she’d shifted him onto the berth where he would be more comfortable. Then she’d been free to move restlessly round the confining space, hearing the tramping of feet and the voices of men while she listened as hard as she could for MacPherson’s. It struck her she might not be able to pick his voice out from the others so easily if he were speaking in Spanish. Or French.

He spoke French.

That discovery rushed back on her with its full weight of embarrassments and implications, and Mary could feel her cheeks flushing although there was nobody else in the cabin. She cast her mind miserably back to the times she had spoken when she had been sure he would not understand her. She thought of the things she had said. And she tried to feel angry with him for deceiving her, only he hadn’t—he’d never once actually told her he didn’t speak French. She’d assumed it, and if he had then played along with it she could not fault him for that, since had
she
been a man sent to guard a collection of strangers, she might have, like him, sought to keep that advantage. It was in many ways like her own choice to not reveal it when she’d had carte blanche while playing cards at Fontainebleau—because it would have laid her own hand bare to her opponent. Mary, too, had kept her secrets. But she wished she had not told the frilly sisters, in her teasing way, that he was sentimental and wrote poetry. And that, like Madame d’Aulnoy’s Russian prince, he’d suffered through a tragic romance.

It was at least a credit to her storytelling that she had made anyone believe such things about him, for to take a man as hard and stern-faced as MacPherson and convincingly portray him as the hero of a love story was something that took more than an inspired imagination.

Or at least, she thought as much until she heard the steps of two men coming down the stairs, and then the cabin door swung open and MacPherson ducked beneath the lintel while Captain del Rio leaned a shoulder on the door frame for support and said, “I still do not believe you.”

And MacPherson
laughed
. A sound she’d never heard before. A deep and rich and rolling sound that woke the sleeping dog and made Frisque answer with a happy woof.

For Mary’s part, she could do little more than stand and gape, because the Scotsman looked so different in this mood that she could scarce believe it was the same man she had so long traveled with. Had she looked closely at his eyes she might have seen the quiet warning in them, but she only noticed that his smile had carved creases at their outer corners in a way that really was attractive, so she wasn’t in the least prepared when he advanced without a hint of hesitation and embraced her with the sureness of a man who need not fear rejection. Low, and for her ears alone, he murmured, “Do not strike me.”

And he kissed her.

At the first touch of his mouth on hers she inhaled quickly in surprise and then stopped breathing altogether, having for some idiotic reason lost all knowledge of the way that it was done.

She had read books. In Madame d’Aulnoy’s stories, lovers met in secret, shared languishing looks and sighs, and then the hero kissed his lady’s hands, always with tenderness and passion.

There was tenderness and passion in MacPherson’s kiss as well, but it was nothing like the books. No room for languishing. His hold was firm and solid, and she felt as though she’d suddenly been wrapped within a blanket of sensations. She felt his hand warm on the curve of her jaw, felt the hard calloused strength of his fingers at rest on the side of her neck where her pulse beat. She felt when those fingers slid into her hair, and continued to slide till his whole hand was cupping the back of her head and supporting her, while her own hand, having lifted in reflex, encountered the sleeve of his coat and could do nothing more than to cling to it or be caught tightly between them as his other arm settled possessively into the curve of her back, a secure weight she felt through the bones of her stays. And she felt…oh, she
felt—
only that, and the other words all fell away from her.

Mary heard Captain del Rio say something she didn’t quite catch and the cabin door creaked and MacPherson released her, a movement she felt but did not see because she discovered her eyes had closed. It took a great deal of focus to open them. And a great effort and one more deep breath to look up.

He stood close, and the gaze angled down to her own was as difficult to fathom as the reason he had kissed her. Yet she knew there must have been a reason. He would never have done such a thing at random.

Mary guessed the answer lay in what del Rio had remarked when he came in, and as the Spaniard’s steps retreated to the upper deck she asked, “Was that designed to help convince the captain we are married?” It heartened her to find she had a voice, although it seemed to lack the force or will to rise above a whisper.

“Aye.”

As someone accustomed to playing a part, Mary had to admit he’d been very convincing. The taste of the wine he had drunk lingered still on her lips, and she had to resist the irrational impulse to touch them, as if to revisit the feel of his kiss. Since that would only embarrass them both, Mary tried instead to show him she had taken it in stride, and lightly asked, “And does he plan to sell me in the marketplace at Tunis, or to keep me for himself?”

MacPherson promised, “He’ll do neither.”

“But he only gave his word he would protect your servants and your wife,” she added, with a nod of understanding. “So if I am not your wife, he’ll not be bound to give me his protection, nor to keep me safe.”

He stood a moment longer, silently assessing her with eyes that shielded all his thoughts. And then he said, “I’ll keep ye safe.” He sounded very sure.

And she believed him.

Mary was not sure when she’d stopped fearing him. She thought it might have started when he’d shot the wolf to save her, though she owned it might have started even earlier. In Valence, when he’d cared to intercede to save the honor of a woman other men would not have valued. Or in Lyon, when she’d watched him reading Madame d’Aulnoy’s books. Or perhaps earlier than that, in Mâcon, when he’d fixed the broken watch.

She pondered this in silence later, while they shared the supper that was brought to them, and after, while MacPherson stood outside the cabin door to give her privacy to undress to her white chemise and shake the dust and wrinkles from her gown and slip into the berth and draw the curtains closed. She went on thinking, after he’d stepped back into the cabin and she’d heard him getting ready for his own “bed” on the floor against the far wall, and the candles had been snuffed to leave the cabin in a darkness so complete she could see nothing but the images that rose within her mind.