You Only Love Once (30 page)

“And thank the good Lord above that it's over and done.” He pulled hard on the oars again, sending the little boat scudding across the water.

“It has not been a pleasant fortnight for me, either.” She hesitated, steadying her voice. “I am sorry for what Melanie will have to go through.”

“Write to her. There is no reason for her not to know.” Nate shrugged as she stared at him in surprise. “Write to her as yourself, though, not as Angelique Martand.”

“How did you know?” she asked when she had recovered her voice.

“You said something once, that Melanie was afraid to call you by your real name…But it stands to reason. You were never completely Stafford's. Why would you reveal to him what Melanie risked both your lives to conceal?”

She shook her head, then laughed under her breath. “I should have known you would guess. But truly, I have not thought of myself as anything but Angelique in so long…” She paused. He was just watching her with that understanding little smile
on his lips. Rowing the boat, even weighed down with her trunk, didn't seem to have winded him. “Marie-Louise Genevieve du Marchais d'Orvelon,” she said impulsively. “My parents were the Comte and Comtesse d'Orvelon. My mother was named Marie also, so I was always called Genevieve. One of the smugglers who took us out of France misheard, and Melanie kept it. Only on my birthday would she call me by my true name.”

“Do you prefer it?” He pulled on the oars again. When Angelique glanced up, the bulk of a ship loomed over them in the darkness, speckled with pinpricks of lantern light high above them. “I should know what name to tell the captain,” Nate added. “For the marriage record.”

“Marriage?” She raised her chin and gave him a frown. “What of marriage?”

“Ours,” said Nate, stowing the oars. They had reached the ship, drifting past the anchor chain to the tangle of ropes waiting to haul them and the boat back aboard. “You'd better not think of jilting me now,” he said. “It's a long voyage ahead of us. Weeks at sea with little to do, unless we are newlyweds with the private cabin.”

“You already have the private cabin!”

He shrugged and got to his feet. “Yes, but I won't share it with you if you won't marry me.” Even though the boat rocked alarmingly from side to side, he didn't seem bothered or unbalanced as he reached for a rope trailing in the water along the hull and gave it a few hard tugs.

“That is coercion,” she protested. “You did not even ask properly.”

He laughed. “Marie-Louise Genevieve du Mar
chais d'Orvelon, will you do me the very great honor of becoming my wife, to live a very dull but happy life with me, far away from the frontier and spymasters, with only the excitement of building a family together?”

“I am sure we will find other excitements, in addition to that one,” she told him, “but yes. I will.”

Nate laughed again. “Somehow I don't think life with you could ever be dull. And that's why I can't live without you.” He swept her into one arm, pulling her close for a deep kiss so passionate, she almost toppled out of the boat when he released her.

The crew of the ship had lowered a sort of sling from the deck, and now Nate reached out and grabbed it. Together they hefted her trunk into it, adjusting the ropes until it was secure. Nate called up to the crew, and slowly it was winched up, the ropes creaking above them. With a quiet splash, Prince pulled his boat alongside them, and when the sling came back down, he and Nate sent up one trunk, then the other from his boat. When Lisette climbed into the sling, Prince attached some trailing ropes to his boat, then winked at Angelique before grabbing another rope and climbing it right up to the deck.

Then it was just the two of them, sitting in the small punt and waiting for the sling to come back down to take her up. “Last chance,” Nate told her. “Once you're on my ship, you're not getting off until Boston Harbor.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Once I board the ship, you will never be rid of me. Perhaps it is
your
last chance.”

He pulled her to him, resting his cheek against
her temple. “Angelique, my darling…I was lost weeks ago. I never had a chance at all. And I've never been happier.”

She smiled at him as someone on the ship deck above them hooted and whistled. “Then we are equal. As always.”