Laura Kinsale (18 page)

She just had time to scoop up one of the gowns and clutch it to her as the door flung open. She sat down on the berth, hard, because her legs refused to hold her up.
She stared at his feet, unable to look him in the face for fear of what she would see.

Silence. Her pulse was so erratic that she thought she might faint. She noticed with absurd attention that the hem of his trousers needed mending. A thick strand of her hair fell free of its loose knot; she ducked her head, and brushed it quickly back off her bare shoulder.

Slowly, when he did not speak, she lifted her eyes. For so long she had imagined this moment, for so many lonely, dark hours tried to call up his face in her mind. To see him now, real and solid before her, but without a glimmer of welcome, even of recognition on his familiar, sunburned features…

To her utter dismay, she began to cry.

Her tears were the key that released Gryf from paralysis. From the moment when Stark had made his crazy assertion, Gryf had half-known, half-guessed; but until seeing her, sitting there with her pale shoulders huddled as if she expected him to strike her, he had not let the awareness surface in his conscious mind.

Now, it seemed to him impossible that he had not known. How could he have not seen it? The ruse was so simple, so damnably obvious—even Stark had recognized it. Gryf hated her, for looking so slight and frightened, for calling up with callous ease the feelings he had locked away behind doors of solid iron. He did not want her to cry, or to tell him why she was here; he did not want to know what Stephen Eliot had done that had set her to flight. She had made that bed for herself—if she could no longer lie in it, then she’d have to look elsewhere for sympathy. She could go anywhere to escape her husband, for all Gryf cared. Anywhere but to him.

He focused on the gown laid out on the berth next to her, so that he did not have to look at the soft curve of her neck, or the white, slender fingers pressed to her
mouth. “I wouldn’t unpack,” he said harshly. “We’ll be running into Tenerife tomorrow. I expect you can find another ship there.”

She made a little noise, barely audible, and he found himself looking at her again. She seemed smaller than he remembered; softer, more vulnerable. Why did she have to cry, damn her? Why did she have to sit there with her damned sea-green eyes and her damned bare shoulders and her damned soft hair all loose and half-tumbled down? Stephen Eliot’s wife—Gryf took a step back and slammed the door and stood, staring at it.

After a long moment, Sydney said calmly, “You seem a little put out, dear boy.”

Gryf spun around and glared at the botanist. “What did you expect? That I’d enjoy being made to look like a cawker in front of a bloody green hand who hasn’t got the hayseed out of his hair?”

“Oh, well, no, we hadn’t any notion of that in particular. We hoped that you would be pleasantly surprised.”

“Lord,” Gryf muttered. “Surprised.”

The disgust in his voice carried well through the closed door and Tess paused in her hurry to dress. She choked back another sob, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She struggled into the blue gown and twisted her hair into a tight knot, wincing at the prick of a pin as she shoved it into the unruly mass. With another ungentle swipe at her eyes, she took a deep breath and opened the door.

They looked toward her, one face placid, the other grim. Mr. Sydney smiled congenially, and then said, “Did I understand, Captain, that you intend to put Her Ladyship ashore at Tenerife?”

“Both of you,” Gryf said. “The deal is off.”

Tess could not quite bring herself to look straight at
him. She looked instead at Mr. Sydney, who sat imperturbably at the cabin table, where he had spread his notebooks. The little man frowned and rubbed the side of his nose. “Oh dear. I believe that will present a problem,” he said thoughtfully.

“Whatever problems it presents are yours. I’ve got my own, thanks.”

“I’m afraid this
will
be one of your problems, Captain,” Mr. Sydney said mildly. “You see, if we must find another ship for our expedition, then there is the matter of Her Ladyship’s ten thousand pounds.”

Tess had to glance at Gryf then. His expression did not change, but she saw the dull red flush of blood rise in his face.

He turned away, went into the captain’s suite, and re-emerged a minute later with two canvas bags that clattered with a metallic thump when he tossed them on the table. “Two thousand,” he said. “You’ll have a voucher for the rest.”

There was a silence. Tess stared at the floor.

“I don’t know that a voucher will get us around the Horn,” Mr. Sydney said quietly.

“Two thousand will.”

“Yes…quite true. I always have thought that we were paying you a fraction too much, Captain.”

“What do you want?” There was just the trace of unevenness in Gryf’s voice. “Thank you?” He looked suddenly at Tess, and his mouth twisted. “My humble gratitude, Your Ladyship. You’ll get your money back.”

“Will she?” Mr. Sydney put on an apologetic frown. “I’m afraid I’d have to advise Her Ladyship that you haven’t a good reputation for paying on tick, Captain. I’d think she would have to look on it as a loan, and consider the collateral. Do you have some equity to cover that large a sum?”

Tess knew she should stop Mr. Sydney. The eight thousand pounds was long gone, in repairing the ship. She didn’t begrudge the money; she had given it gladly—would have given a hundred thousand without a second thought if Gryf had needed it. But he was going to put them ashore. He was going to leave her and go away and she’d never see him again in her entire, long, miserable life.

He was still looking at her, not at Mr. Sydney. “I haven’t got any equity,” he said in a low voice.

Except my ship, was the rest of that sentence, and it hung in the air, unsaid.

“My lady,” Mr. Sydney said, “are you content to take his word then?”

She swallowed. She tried to be noble. She tried to envision leaving the ship, absolving the meaningless debt. It would set Gryf free of her forever, as he so clearly wanted to be. She tried to imagine that parting…and found the limits of her courage.

“No,” she whispered. “I’m not.”

His face lost its sullen color, going white beneath the tan. Tess almost withered under his look of blazing hatred. It was more than she had bargained for: far more. His mouth worked, as if he could not find words foul enough to express his loathing for her. After a moment of savage silence, he turned on his heel and pounded up the stairs.

Tess felt her shoulders sag. She had her way, but she had lost. He would never forgive her for holding him by force.

Never.

She began to dream of Stephen after that. Not every night, but often. They sailed within view of the Canary Islands, of Tenerife, and passed on. No one said any
thing about it. She came out of her cabin now; there seemed no reason to isolate herself any longer, although she often wished there were when she crossed paths with Gryf and had to endure his stony indifference. She should have tried to avoid him, she knew, as he tried to avoid her, but seeing him was a need, like food and drink. She could not help herself. To watch him on deck was her bittersweet pleasure, for there he was in his element, equally at ease whether plotting course and giving orders, or at work mending chafing gear in the rigging like any common seaman.

The
Arcanum
was different from the ship Tess remembered. The reduction in crew was glaringly obvious, as was Gryf’s functioning as a working part of it. There were signs of surface wear, weathered paint and green tarnish where before there had been bright white trim and shining brass. Tess slowly came to realize that this was how the ship had always run, for the crew—most of them familiar to her from that other time—were well-versed in their shorthanded functioning.

Only the dreams marred the routine into which Tess fell as the weeks passed and the ship ran before the steady trade winds down the coast of Africa. After a time, the first shock of Gryf’s brutal rejection wore into a duller pain. In spite of it, she found moments of pleasure in the voyage. She had Mr. Sydney for company, and though Gryf would not speak to or even look at her, he was nearby, and she found that strangely comforting. She could observe him all she pleased.

One morning six weeks out, Tess followed an unsuspecting Mr. Sydney on deck into the hot equatorial sunlight. She had secreted a bar of soap in her skirts, ready to participate in the fun. Even forewarned, she let out a cry of laughing surprise at the monstrous Neptune awaiting them, a huge, seaweed-covered figure with a
makeshift trident. Mr. Mahzu gave an impressive roar from beneath his oakum beard, showing his sharp teeth and gesturing to his cohorts, who grabbed the hapless Mr. Sydney and started to work. The ship was hove to, stopped almost dead in the water, dipping and prancing as if she, too, anticipated the ceremony. Mr. Sydney was stripped of his coat and shirt, although he was allowed to keep his trousers on Tess’s account, and thoroughly soaped down.

Before his dunking, the victim was presented with a huge tin mug of some awful-looking concoction which smelled of rum and bilge water. Mr. Sydney declared himself game to become a true Son of Neptune, but just as he lifted the vessel to his trembling lips, there was a flip and a splash within the cup. He jumped, tossing the mug away with a yell, and green bilge water and a large, unhappy crab sailed out over Tess’s skirt. She shrieked, leaping back, and the crab dashed wildly away, fastening with determination on Neptune’s bare black toe and waving its other claw in defiance.

The ensuing commotion left Tess holding her head between her hands, collapsed in gales of laughter. She leaned against the companionway hatch, too weak with mirth to stand, as the chase ranged over the entire quarterdeck, even involving Gryf, who had been standing aloof at the helm. On being unceremoniously flung from Neptune’s toe, the crab made a mad dash for the steering box and Gryf’s equally vulnerable feet. He abandoned his dignity, heaving himself on top of the sturdy, four-legged box, where his feet dangled just out of crab-reach. Neptune’s trident worried the harassed crustacean from beneath the steering gear, and Tess squealed and gathered her skirts, retreating partway down the hatch. The crab was surrounded, threatened by an assortment of belaying pins and buckets, but it
made a last, desperate bid for freedom, skittering crazily between dancing feet until it found a hawsehole and disappeared into the sea.

Tess looked up from the scene of triumphant exit, her face still flushed with breathless merriment. She had expected to confront the bedraggled figure of Mr. Sydney, but instead, it was Gryf who stood behind her. His face had a strange expression—there was laughter fading from his eyes, but just for a moment the shared glance held something else: an unguarded emotion, a hunger, as if the laughter were more pain than pleasure.

Tess parted her lips. Before words could form he was turning away, the armor reassumed, his shield in place. As if she did not exist he strode off, taking the quarterdeck steps in one bound, and disappeared beyond the lifeboats and the deckhouse.

She dreamed that night, again, this one more vivid than all the rest. It began in the gallery, as they all did, in that dark place she hated, and the essence of it was waiting: a formless, endless dread of what might come. She could see the door, hear footsteps; she pressed herself whimpering against the wall, as if she could make herself smaller and smaller and disappear. The door opened with a long, low groan, and she looked toward the sound, trying to see through the blackness. Her eyes seemed glued shut; her limbs twitched with the need to flee. Then she dreamed she was running, but her legs moved so slowly, like molasses. What slipped through the door, what stalked her when she could not see, came ever closer; faceless, cold, reaching out to touch her.

She screamed, and the sound of her own voice almost woke her. Someone—something—touched her still, pressed chilly, suffocating fingers down over her mouth and nose and then was gone as she struggled awake and
screamed again. All around was a blackness as dark as the dream. She knew he was there, was sure of it, even as her mind tried to tell her she was awake. Something moved in the dark, and she cried out. She shrank back, sobbing in fear and confusion, struggling to escape—and then he spoke her name, a familiar voice, not Stephen’s, but another far more welcome and beloved…

Gryf took her in his arms, held her close, stilling her trembling. Tess drew in a shaking breath and clung to him, hardly believing yet that this was the reality and that other place had been the dream. “Oh, God, I thought he was here—” Her voice squeaked on a sob. “I thought—”

His grip tightened. “Shhh,” he hushed her. “Don’t think of it. There’s no one here.”

Tess turned her face into his solid shoulder, her tears wetting his skin. “But I felt him. He touched me. It seemed so real…”

“It was a dream.” He brushed her hair with his lips, stroked his hand down her arm. “A bad dream.”

The thump of bare feet on the stairs outside the open cabin door made her stiffen and clutch at his arm.

“Captain?” asked a worried voice out of the darkness. “In the name of God, what—”

“All’s well, Mahzu,” Gryf said quietly. “Carry on, mister, full and by.”

There was the slightest hesitation, and then, “Aye, aye, sir,” as the mate retreated. Through her tears, Tess slowly became aware that the heat of Gryf’s embrace came from the contact of bare skin: her own light, sleeveless gown made but a thin barrier between them. She knew she should pull away, but she did not. The dream-fear faded beneath the soft, rhythmic stroke of his hand.

After a moment, he said, “Do you smell smoke?”

She lifted her head, instinctively grasping his arm again. “Smoke?” A fire aboard ship would be a holocaust.

“Tobacco,” he said, in immediate reassurance. She felt his head turn, and he took in a deep breath.

Tess sniffed. “I smell tar…”

He cleared his throat self-consciously. “That’s probably me. Sorry.”

“It’s all right.” She bit her lip, and then said timidly, “I rather like it.”