The Tide Watchers (43 page)

She shrugged and grinned. “A little too extreme, you think? But Mama wrote to Papa, asking him to come home.”

He felt no urge to laugh. “But he didn't.” He knew, because the Sunderland men had all been with him in Paris until summer.

Another shrug. “They wrote to me, telling me to stop being such a hoyden.”

“And your mother—?”

“Cried for weeks while I was laid up in bed.”

Another wave lapped the ship; a log crackled in the fire as the cabin grew into darkness, hand into glove. “Did you have friends in your childhood?”

She smiled. “Grand-mère, who taught me all the French accents.”

Again, he couldn't smile with her. “No girls your age?”

“During my Season, I became quite friendly with Lady Georgiana Gordon, until her almost-fiancé died, and the duchess took them home. Then a month later I ran off with Alain, and that was that.”

“No friends at all, until you were seventeen?” he asked, stifling the incredulity. “No wonder you thought you loved Delacorte.”

“And the dancing master. Never forget poor Ludwig,” she giggled, and for the first time since they met, she looked and sounded like the girl she still was. “I probably would have loved the local blacksmith's son if he hadn't been married. I spent some of the happiest hours of my childhood at the smithy's forge.”

Moved by the sadness she didn't see in her life, Duncan took her hands in his. “I am not your father,” he said again, and for the first time, he meant it. “If circumstances ever force me to go on a mission, just write if either you or Edmond needs me. I'll be home within days.”

The smile faded from her face. She turned to the fire, her hands limp in his. In the silence, the disbelief and a hundred fears screamed all the louder.

“Do you want me to stop trying to convince you?” he asked softly. “If that's what you want—if Fulton will make you more secure . . .”

The fire crackled; a log popped, sparks danced like fireflies, lighting her sadness and confusion. “He kissed me. Robert kissed me.”

“Is that why you came to me?” he asked, when she said no more. Her head shook and her shoulders shrugged before she frowned and
nodded at last, the distress plain to read in her eyes. An eloquent silence indeed, and he read a three-volume novel into them.

She'd come to him.

In the warm firelight, whispered echoes of the night they met returned, and he knew why she was here. “I was shot because I refused to leave you to Delacorte and the Jacobins. I broke the first rule of a team leader: leave injured members to die if it endangers the mission. I should have let you die then. I should have left you alone with Fulton. Instead I slept in a tent in the bushes, close enough to hear you scream if you needed me.” After a few moments, he went on. “If my duty came first, I would have let you have your say today and leave. I've been fighting it for months, but since you were hurt I factor what you would think, what you'd want me to do, in every decision I make. I'm asking you to marry me because I like the man I am when you're in my life. You make me more than I was, better than I ever thought I could be.”

He thought he saw a faint glimmer of her lopsided smile, but it faded. “No more missions for me. I will never
charm
another man, no matter what Britain's need may be.”

He closed his eyes. Behind his lids he saw the man he'd been taught to be through her eyes. “After you ran off with Delacorte, I was convinced you'd never want me. When I found you, I believed I couldn't fulfill my desires at the risk of others. I thought I was making the sacrifice. I told myself Fulton would propose when he knew your father's name, and you'd be safe and happy in America. I refused to look at what damage could be done to you because I'd have to see what I'd become.”

“The man my father taught you to be.” Soft, bitter words.

“He protested against this mission, Lizzy,” he said, hoping to soften the pain.

“But he never came for me. He never wrote to tell me Mama was ill—and don't tell me he didn't know my location. You told him, didn't you? He's known for months where I've been, and I've heard nothing from him.”

He sighed. Eddie was a King's Man to the end. In his devotion to king, country, and, yes, his own glory he'd betrayed them all, none more than Caroline and Lisbeth. In refusing to influence the mission, Eddie had abandoned Lisbeth and left his only grandchild with Delacorte despite knowing what kind of man he was.

And he'd left Duncan to judge whether he could risk an entire nation on an untrained girl's brilliance.

The more Duncan had come to care for Lisbeth, the more he'd despised the choices he'd made. But with a government in denial and a bare dozen ships patrolling the entire Channel, even since her illness, Lisbeth was still their only hope of stopping the invasion. He couldn't send her to her mother in case she refused to return to France. Even if Caroline was dying, he couldn't risk it. There was no time to train anyone else.

“I came for you.” Floundering words of reassurance, inadequate because he hadn't rehearsed any others.

“You did. You always have.” Her lopsided smile, so damned trusting, almost hurt him. “I'll teach you to be the kind of husband and father I want.”

Thank you, God.
“You saw the special license. It means we don't have to post banns for three weeks, and the double agent need not know anything. We'll marry here in Jersey, tomorrow if possible, with Alec and West as witnesses, and keep it discreet. We can fill in Edmond's birth details at both our parish churches when we return to England, naming me as the father. All anyone need know is we toured the Continent on our honeymoon, and Edmond was born abroad.”

When she lifted her head, her eyes glowed. “You're saving my reputation, and making Edmond legitimate. I can go home. Duncan, you don't know what that means . . .”

When he moved to kiss her, she pulled her hands from his, with an apologetic smile. “Not until I've spoken to R—Mr. Fulton. It's only right.”

A painful kind of wonder filled him. How a woman like her, a lady
to the fingertips, wanted a man like him he'd never understand. “You make me a better man.” He meant every word. Her promise was made, and she'd keep it. He released her hands, tucked her arm through his, and escorted her to the ladder.

A half hour was all the mole had needed for months, but he'd had no chance. Now, his fear at desperation point, he'd take any time he could get to get a message to a ship.

Miss Sunderland's belligerent demand to see the commander had made Stewart careless enough to hand him that time. Why so many men rushed to do the woman's bidding he'd never know. Right now the commander was probably hearing she was leaving the mission to wed the American.

He had to move fast. The message must be received.

Standing outside one of the two Martello towers near St. Aubin's township, he flicked his knife. A swift gurgling sound, and poor old ship's master Jones was on the ground, the sharp point at the base of his throat leaving the blood pumping from his neck. “I'm sorry, Jonesy,” he whispered, taking the knife back. He hated that he was forced to betray people he liked and respected. When Jones was dead, he slipped past the body, inside and up to the parapet. He killed the Jerseyman on the watch before fixing the semaphore paddles to the poles, winding the torches around and fixing them well before lighting them. Dozens of French ships patrolled this area from sunset. One was bound to intercept his message and pass it on.

He moved the semaphore's arms with practiced ease, careful to be exact. Using the torches was a big risk, especially with the township on the alert and Flynn or the commander able to see everything he signed, but he had no choice.

English spy in Boulogne. Jersey militarized. Compromised here. Do not approach.

Two minutes later, a winking light in the distance told him
Message received.

The mole looked across the land. Someone had arrived, was watching; he could feel it. People were moving from the west. They'd seen the message.

He slipped down the stairs and out. Back to the whore he'd paid to keep making noises until he returned.

St. Aubin's Bay, Jersey (English Channel)

February 10, 1803

I
PERFORMED MY PART.
I made your drills and the modified brace,” Fulton said stiffly. “I want the promised passage with all my things to Amsterdam.”

Standing in the commander's cabin, Fulton looked only at the windows behind, his color high but eyes flat. Duncan didn't need an explanation.

“My ship cannot be spared right now. I'll arrange passage for you on a smaller ship passing by Jersey as soon as
Papillon
is complete. If you prefer, I'll hire a room at a different inn for you until that time, and hire another smith to help you repair
Nautilus
. But first I need you to strengthen the pump and lengthen the air hose.”

“I'd appreciate somewhere new to stay.” Spoken like a substandard actor reading unfamiliar lines. Duncan would have done the same if he'd known Fulton was to spend this night in Lisbeth's bed. “Order the pump and hose to be brought here. I'll do it at the forge here aboard ship with nobody watching me. It should take no more than a week.”

“Thank you for all you've done,” Duncan said, low. “Please remember, none of this discussion can be spoken outside this ship.”

If anything, Fulton became more somber. “I have no wish to die, Commander. Nor do I wish anyone else to die. Now may I leave?”

Duncan nodded. “I'll organize a ship—and your payment—as soon as may be.”

All he got in reply was a bitter look from over Fulton's shoulder as he left the cabin.

Duncan had won—won it all, at the expense of a good man's innocence.

The long-familiar price of saving Britain. Under his tutelage Lisbeth had spied on Fulton, captivated him, taken his boat and his skills, allowed him to nurse her to health, let him believe she'd accept his hand, only to reject him in favor of the man he hated. All that was left was the bitter aftertaste of betrayal in the name of duty and loyalty.

Rule Britannia, the life of a King's Man . . . or woman. No wonder Lisbeth wanted no more of it. Watching Fulton go on this, his wedding day, Duncan wasn't certain he did either.

The plump, middle-aged rector, brought in haste from St. Helier, looked resentful as he pronounced them man and wife. Without time to heat with the day, the church was half frozen; its high stone walls and ceiling seemed to bounce the cold from outside onto them. The minister kept his cloak on over his vestments, and his traveling hat, but still he shivered. Torches in their sconces lit the ancient walls, but they gave no warmth. On a heavily clouded day, the saints in the stained-glass window behind stared down at them in sorrow.

The wedding party shivered along with the minister. West and Alec were their witnesses, while Flynn manned the semaphore on ship, and two midshipmen cleared of suspicion followed the suspects. Three months, and still no results. Whoever the mole was, he was damned good.

As weddings went, it was a quick, joyless affair. Lisbeth wore a dark winter dress, pelisse, cloak, and bonnet, her hair in a chignon. She felt positively plain beside Duncan, who wore his best commander's uniform. There was none of her family or friends, no party planned for later. Lisbeth saw in this day the warped mirror of her first wedding, and infidelity to all her younger self's dreams. Somehow, after all her defiance, she'd married the baron's heir.

She stifled a giggle.

“What?” he murmured so only she could hear.

Her eyes twinkling, she whispered, “If Papa could see us now, how he'd crow over me.”

Duncan chuckled and squeezed her hands. “He'll have his opportunity, soon enough.” Then they turned to accept the hurried congratulations of the rector, and the heartier handshakes of Alec and West. Hardly had they spoken when the rector guided them to the register, rushing them through the necessities before pushing them out the church door and climbing onto his pony and trap, disappearing into the cold misery of the day.

It amazed her still that they could wed so soon. That Duncan had never burned the special license, that it was still in force and he'd had the proof of it with him—he was saving her, saving Edmond, and giving her a life in England. It hardly mattered that they had to return to work, and her only wedding trip would be inside the cramped confines of
Papillon
. No hidden kisses, no pretty ball gowns, no flicked looks across a room—no family apart from an almost unknown half brother and a bluff old Welsh sailor; even squashing inside the carriage with West and Alec as they rode back to the task at hand didn't disturb her tranquility.

“I am a strange woman,” she whispered aloud, shaking her head.

“If you were not, you wouldn't be my wife,” Duncan murmured into her ear.

She smiled at him.

Catching her whisper across the carriage, Alec grinned. “You're a Stewart woman, Lisbeth, a strong woman of the clan. You may not fit in with the English simpering misses, but in Scotland you'll meet many such women as yourself.”

She felt Duncan's reserve, saw it in his frown, but Alec seemed unmoved. It seemed Alec also knew Duncan needed time to adjust to new relationships.

Before the horses had even stopped at the inn, the door was yanked open. “Commander, Commander, sir, ship's master and the
Jersey guard at the Martello tower are missing. There's blood at the door, and on the parapet. The semaphore paddles are gone.”

Alec and West left the carriage and ran, taking the young midshipman with them. Left alone, Duncan took her hands in his. “It's a rotten wedding day for you. I'm sorry, my dear.”

“Go,” she urged him when he hesitated. “You must.”

“Thank you, my dear.” He handed her from the carriage. “Tell no one about the marriage until we know Edmond's safe.”

She didn't know whether she felt disturbed or reassured by that.

He saw her inside the inn, bowed, and ran out. And Lisbeth broke the first promise she'd ever made herself, to never be her mother's daughter, for she was watching through the window as her husband left her.