by Jane Feather
“I was eavesdropping,” she confessed. “Just now. I heard you talking. And if the bosun doesn’t think it’s a good idea, I think you should listen to him.”
“Do you, indeed?” He quirked an eyebrow and looked amused.
“It’s not funny,” Meg said, refusing to be deterred. “Where are you going and why must it be tonight?”
Cosimo scratched his forehead, saying patiently, “I’m going ashore to check for messages. And it has to be tonight because we’re just off La Rochelle and that’s where I will find such messages.” He opened one of the cupboards and took out a black oilskin. “Stay snug and dry while I’m gone.”
“And what if you don’t come back?” She regarded him steadily.
“Then the boatswain has instructions to sail you home to Folkestone.”
“So I heard. And that means abandoning you without knowing what’s happened to you. I don’t want to be responsible for that.”
“My dear, I and only I am responsible for the decisions I make.” His tone was crisper now as he dressed in the black oilskin. “My men will follow my instructions without question.”
“Yes, I’m sure they will,” she said impatiently, “but that doesn’t mean I have to. I don’t want to sail back home without knowing what’s happened to you.”
His expression hardened. “Nevertheless, Meg, that’s what you will do.”
She had no idea why she said what she next said. It went against the firm decision she’d made after the debacle at Quiberon that the privateer’s murky business was his own and she wanted no further part of it. But the words spoke themselves. “Why don’t I come with you? I’m sure I could be useful. At the very least, I could get a message back to the ship if there was trouble.”
She paused, watching him closely for some reaction, and when he didn’t immediately answer her, said swiftly, “Ana would have accompanied you, wouldn’t she? You would have trusted her.”
“Ana was trained,” he said. “I could trust her because she knew what she was doing.”
“Then train me,” Meg said simply. “You tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” She came up to him, putting a persuasive hand on his arm. “I’m not afraid, Cosimo. And I would much rather be in trouble with you than waiting and worrying, twiddling my thumbs here.”
It seemed that Meg was writing her own part in this script, Cosimo thought, without any prodding from him. She was offering herself as a partner of her own accord. And maybe it was a good opportunity to observe her courage and resolve. He didn’t expect to run into any trouble on this mission, merely the discomfort and difficulty involved in getting to shore in a gale. If she was willing to put up with that, then why not?
“I’m sure Ana has one of those oilskins hidden around here somewhere,” Meg said, seizing on his clear hesitation.
“In that cupboard.” He gestured with a jerk of his head to the cupboard from which he’d taken his own foul-weather gear. “It’s going to be a very uncomfortable journey, I warn you.”
“I’m well aware of that,” she returned, shaking out the oilskin. “And I won’t melt in a little rain.” She struggled into the stiff garment and fumbled with the buttons. “Are we ready?”
Cosimo moved her hands aside and did up the buttons himself, then lifted the hood and secured it tightly beneath her chin with the drawstring. “Now you are.”
They emerged on deck into the driving rain. The men were all clad in foul-weather gear; Mike was wrestling with the helm as the Mary Rose pitched into the troughs between the heavy swells. “I don’t know how close I can put her in this sea, sir,” Mike shouted, the wind snatching his words.
Cosimo jumped up to the quarterdeck. “Let me have the helm.” He took the wheel and swung the ship onto a port tack, so that she was sailing broadside to the waves. It looked to Meg as if they were now heading straight for the cliff face that loomed out of the darkness. A bell boomed mournfully from somewhere to their right.
Rocks. Meg began to doubt her earlier confident assertion that she was not afraid. Images of shipwrecks crowded her mind, and when she looked down at the churning black sea beating against the sides of the ship, the prospect of being in a small dinghy bobbing on that heaving mass made her feel sick. It wasn’t too late to back out. Her pride could stand it.
The Mary Rose was within a few hundred yards of the cliff face when Cosimo turned her into the wind and gave order to lower sail and drop anchor. He came over to Meg and said, “Now’s the time to change your mind, Meg. It’s quite understandable.”
“But you’re still going?” She was watching them lower the dinghy into the water.
He nodded. “Of course.”
“Then so am I.”
He scrutinized her expression closely, a frown between his brows, and she met his gaze without flinching. Finally he nodded again. “Very well. I’ll go down the ladder first; follow me when I tell you.”
She swallowed hard, thinking of that swaying rope ladder that was now lashing in the wind against the sides of the ship. She must be out of her mind, she reflected. Adventures were all very well, but this one seemed to be getting out of hand. It bore no resemblance at all to her illicit adventure with the gondolier in Venice. There weren’t any waves on the Grand Canal, for a start. She stared down at the little boat as Cosimo went nimbly down the ladder. He jumped into the boat and steadied the ladder with his hand.
“Come on, Meg.”
She sucked in her lower lip, then accepted Miles’s help to climb over the rail. He was holding the ladder steady at the top, and Cosimo was doing the same below, so the descent was much less alarming than she’d expected. She sat down promptly, much more experienced now. The little dinghy rocked on the waves and she looked rather longingly up the towering sides of the Mary Rose to a deck that from this perspective seemed remarkably stable.
Cosimo had the oars and was pulling strongly towards the cliff face, fighting the wind and the sea, the sheer physical effort clear on his rain-drenched face. Meg wished she could help but knew she couldn’t.
“Why wouldn’t you let one of your men help you?” she yelled into the wind.
He didn’t reply and she realized that he probably didn’t have the breath to answer what was, after all, a thoroughly pointless question. The roar of the waves on the rocks at the cliff face drowned out all other sounds and her fingers curled around the edge of the thwart where she sat, her heart thudding with pure terror.
“Meg, grab the painter,” he shouted. “When I beach the boat, I need you to jump out with the rope and pull me farther into the shallows.”
She nodded and took up the painter, turning to face the bow. Having something to do calmed her somewhat. The sea was a little quieter now, the roaring somewhat abated, and she could just make out a faint white band in the darkness. Presumably the beach. The dinghy scraped bottom and at Cosimo’s shouted “Now,” she jumped into the water, shocked at how the cold struck even through her boots. She hauled on the boat and dragged it a few yards until it ground to a complete halt on the sand.
Cosimo jumped out, took the painter from her, and secured it around a rock. “The one advantage with a night like this is that no one will be out and about, and certainly not expecting visitors,” he observed, sounding remarkably satisfied. “Do you want to wait by the boat?”
“Hell, no,” Meg said vigorously. “Where you go, Captain Cosimo, I go. I’m not standing here soaking wet waiting for you.”
“It’s a tough climb,” he said, gesturing to the cliff ahead of them. “The path’s a mere goat track and it’ll be slippery.”
“I’m not waiting here,” she reiterated.
“All right. Get climbing.” He propelled her ahead of him across the tiny expanse of beach. She could just make out a thin ribbon of a path that wound between jutting rocks.
“I’ll be behind you,” he said, giving her bottom an encouraging slap. “If you slip, I’ll try to catch you.”
“Well, thank you, how reassuring,” she said sard
onically, and set off up the trail.
Cosimo smiled. She was doing well. He had sensed her earlier fear and had guessed what it had cost her to overcome it. If he could rely on her courage, all he had to worry about was overcoming her scruples. And that would be no easy task, judging by her reaction when she thought he’d killed the men at Quiberon. But that was a problem that would come up in its own good time; for the moment, he would concentrate on honing the skills she would need to survive an overland journey across enemy territory.
Meg climbed steadily, recovering her balance easily when her foot slipped. The knowledge of Cosimo behind her made her feel safer, and when she reached a particularly tricky bend in the path she was happy to have his guiding hand on her foot, directing her next step up. Finally they reached the cliff head and she hauled herself over onto wet grass and lay gasping for breath as the rain beat down into her face.
Cosimo came up after her. “Catch your breath,” he whispered. “There’s no hurry.”
“If I’d known I had to turn mountain goat, I might have rethought this,” she whispered back, but not seriously. She rolled onto her belly and looked down the path. It was hard to imagine she’d just climbed all that way, and even harder to imagine going back down it.
Cosimo squatted on his haunches beside her until she pulled herself up and stood up. “Where to now?” she asked.
“A cottage, about two miles away,” he said. “Keep close behind me and do everything I do. Is that clear?”
“As a bell.” She was cold but suppressed a shiver and started off after him across the cliff top. Meg didn’t know how long they walked in silence in the teeth of the howling wind. She was fairly certain she had never been so physically miserable before, but took the phlegmatic view that since she’d brought it all upon herself she had no grounds for complaint.
The cottage appeared suddenly in the darkness. A low stone building, a trickle of smoke coming from the chimney, but no lights in the windows. Cosimo stopped in the shelter of the hedge. “Stay here. Don’t move a muscle until I come back. Do you understand?”
“What if you don’t . . . come back, I mean?”
“Go back to the beach. There’s a whistle in the boat. Use it and someone will come from the Mary Rose to fetch you.” He spoke in a terse whisper. “From now on I’m not going to think about you. I have my own work to do and I can’t afford any distractions. You’re on your own. Is that clear?”
“I don’t expect any consideration,” she snapped, stung by his tone. There was nothing remotely loverlike about this Cosimo. She wondered where his knives were concealed. She had no doubt that he had them somewhere about his person.
He slipped away along the hedge, just another black shadow among many, and within minutes was no longer visible to Meg. She shivered, too cold now for alarm, and despite his instructions started off after him. He wasn’t going to think about her, that was fine by her. It freed her to follow her instincts.
The hedge encircled a small garden at the rear of the cottage and Meg heard the soft cooing of pigeons as she crept closer. It reassured her. Cosimo dealt in courier pigeon and dispatches; he was here to pick up messages. Of course there would be pigeons. Also they were alive, unlike the ones at Quiberon, which ought to mean that there would be no nasty surprises.
She wormed her way through the hedge into the garden and then heard the sound of voices. One was Cosimo’s. Swiftly she backed her way through the hedge again, and listened. Another voice spoke in guttural French and then they went into the pigeon shed.
Meg slipped back along the hedge towards the front of the cottage. The wind, it seemed, was dropping, the rain easing. She froze, listening to the sound of galloping hoofbeats along the road that led away from the sea. They were close and coming closer.
She didn’t stop to think any further but flew back to the rear garden. Lamplight came from the shed and she burst in, slamming the door at her back. “Someone’s coming, Cosimo. Horses . . . fast . . .”
Cosimo held a piece of paper in his hand; the man with him was short and stocky and held a pigeon in his palm, caressing its iridescent breast with a fingertip. The two men exchanged one quick glance, then the man extinguished the lamp before opening the pigeon cage to release the birds, shooing them out into the garden with soft encouraging words. Cosimo grabbed Meg’s hand and dragged her outside. “The privy,” he said, and pushed her unceremoniously into the noxious darkness of the outhouse.
Voices sounded, harsh and demanding. Someone banged and kicked at the cottage door. Meg could make out the flicker of torches through the cracks in the privy door, moving now towards the empty pigeon shed.
Cosimo held Meg against him, his hand over her mouth, as if she needed the reminder to keep silent. Not even Cosimo with his armory of knives could deal with these invaders.
An outraged shout came from the cottage, a stream of angry voices. Meg recognized the voice of the man who had been with Cosimo in the shed. He was yelling furiously, clearly giving as good as he was getting. She could make out protestations of innocence, a simple farmer taking care of his own land and minding his own business, demands to know what they thought they were doing, disturbing respectable folk in the middle of a godforsaken night. She peered up at Cosimo in the dim light and saw a faint smile on his lips, which struck her as somewhat inappropriate in the circumstances. At any moment the privy door could burst open and they’d be confronted by a phalanx of armed men while they cowered in these less-than-salubrious surroundings.
Cosimo glanced up over the bench with its three holes and pointed at the small round aperture that offered some kind of ventilation. “Up,” he mouthed, jerking an imperative thumb.
Meg hesitated, wondering how he was going to get through such a small space, but then he gripped her shoulders and gave her a hard shake. He was no longer smiling. She stepped up onto the bench and he seized her around the knees and hoisted her the few inches necessary for her to get her head and shoulders out of the window. She hung there for a second, listening. The noise was still coming from the cottage but from here all she could see was a cabbage patch. She wriggled through with a helping push from behind and dropped to the soft wet earth beneath. But how was Cosimo going to get out?
Knife his way out? No, that was ridiculous. But she reasoned that it would be easier for one person to slip out unnoticed than for two. Particularly if the one person was as skilled at this business as Cosimo . . . she wouldn’t put it past him to make himself invisible.
Before she had time to castigate herself for a misplaced humor that seemed to be catching, Cosimo was suddenly beside her. He didn’t speak, merely took her hand and pulled her after him towards the hedge. She could smell the midden and wondered somewhat hysterically if they were going to bury themselves in dung until the danger had passed. Fortunately they skirted the midden and Cosimo jumped into a deep ditch, pulling her with him.
He lay down, dragging her on top of him, then reached up and tore weeds out of the ground to cover them. Then he held her tight and they lay in immobile silence as the chaos raged above them. Meg could feel his heart beating beneath her own. She could smell the sweat and rain on his skin; the stubble of his nighttime beard was rough against her cheek, but she felt his lips caressing her ear in what she knew was a deliberate kiss, and his hand moved down her back to rest on her bottom, cupping the curve against him. To her astonishment she felt his penis harden beneath her, and she buried her face in his shoulder to stifle her laughter. They were lying covered in weeds in a filthy wet ditch in a gale, the enemy rampaging around them, and Cosimo was capable of arousal.
As was she. Her body, cold and soaked though it was, was alive with lust. She moved slightly against him, lifting her head a little, trying to see his expression, but it was too dark to see anything but the gleam in his eyes. Then his hand tightened on her backside without any lustful intention and his body was still as stone. She could feel that his breathing had almost stopped.
Voices came from above.
Feet trampled along the edge of the ditch. Torchlight flickered through the rain. And Meg, too, held her breath. Then she heard someone say, “Allons-y,” and the feet and the torchlight faded away.
Cosimo began to breathe again, slowly and rhythmically, but he continued to lie still, holding her against him, enjoining her silence and immobility for what seemed an incredibly long time. Finally he stirred, reaching up to push aside the cover of weeds. “Get up carefully,” he whispered against her ear. “Just in case.”
Meg lifted her head above the ditch. The garden was in darkness, the rain still fell, but not as fiercely as before, the cottage was dark, the pigeon shed equally. And she could hear the faint sound of receding hoofbeats. “I think they’ve gone.” She hitched herself out of the ditch and got to her feet, shivering uncontrollably. Whether with simple cold or aftermath, she didn’t know and assumed it didn’t much matter. Either way, lust forgotten, she was miserable as sin.
Cosimo stood beside her, listening. There was no sound but the wind and the rain. He started off along the hedge and Meg followed. She remembered little about the walk back to the cliff head, keeping her head down, watching her boots squelching through the soggy grass as if they belonged to someone else.
At the top of the path, Cosimo said, “This time I’ll go first.” If he was aware of her misery, he offered no comforting concern, which, Meg thought, was exactly as he said it would be. She was in this situation because she had chosen to be so, and the consequences were hers to bear.
She began the trek down the goat track, watching her step, clinging to the scrubby plants that lined the path. Below, the roar of the waves, the crash of the surf, grew louder. She stopped to look for the lights of the Mary Rose, but there was no sign of them. Of course the ship would be in darkness, anchored so close off the enemy coast. It would have been nice though to have seen just a twinkle from the yardarm.
Eventually they reached the beach and she drew a deep breath, her lungs aching, as she turned to look back up the cliff.
“Not an easy climb,” Cosimo said calmly. “You should be proud of yourself.”
