“What was the second thing?” asked Saybrook.
“Merriweather is wellborn, and is here by chance.” She explained what he had told her about his background. “He's an interesting fellow. Charming—perhaps a little too much so. But then, younger sons must learn the art of being good company as they have to make their own way in the world without the benefit of the firstborn's title and wealth.”
“I know a great many men like him,” murmured the earl. They fill the army as well as the navy.”
“What about your tête-à-tête with the baroness?” asked Arianna, shifting her gaze to meet his.
“She’s a shameless flirt—but we knew that,” he answered. “Just as we’re aware that she’s far more intelligent than she wishes to let on.”
But why?
Whywhywhy . . .
“I wish Grentham hadn't been so bloody secretive about why they are here,” she muttered. “Not knowing anything about their intentions leaves me with the sense that we're just . . .” A salty gust tugged at the hood of her clock. “Just twisting in the wind.”
Saybrook pulled down the brim of his hat to keep it from flying away. “To give the devil his due, I think he’s not always as certain as he’d like to be about how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together in any given mission. Rather than prejudice our perceptions, he’s letting us sort it out on our own.”
“You’re feeling far more generous than I am.”
“So it would seem.” He paused, his eyes pinching to a pensive stare. “And yet, I was under the impression that of late, the two of you had come to a better understanding.”
A perilous topic. She wasn’t sure how to reply.
He waited several long moments, then seemed to accept her silence as the only answer she would give and returned to the questions of the baroness.
“Lady Plessy-Moritz seems as much in the dark as we are about why we’ve been dispatched together,” he observed, “for she spent our time together pressing me for the details of my botanical research.”
“I trust you convinced her that your scientific credentials are not merely a ruse.”
“For one who claims to have no head for intellectual endeavors, she was quite persistent,” he replied. “However, I believe she now knows a good deal more than she cares to about the local Mediterranean rosemary and calamint that grow on Elba.”
“Enough, I hope, to make her pretty little head ache,” muttered Arianna.
“Meow,” murmured Saybrook. He arched his brows in amusement. “You’re not usually so catty. What’s provoked the show of claws?”
“Simply the sense that I’m scratching around in the dark, I suppose,” she answered. “It feels like I’m chasing naught but my tail.”
He frowned. “We’ve faced other unknown adversaries, ones that were diabolically cunning. And your nerves were never quite so on edge.”
Turning her face to the sea, Arianna forced herself to exhale. “I wish I could it explain it.”
She could feel his searching stare on her profile, prickling like daggerpoints against her wind-chilled skin. It was . . . uncomfortable.
Secrets had a way of festering, turning a tiny nick in one’s flesh into a raw wound.
But now was not the time to reveal her inner guilt over having kept him in the dark over a recent incident. It would do naught but distract him from fitting together the pieces to puzzle of his friend’s disappearance.
“Have you any ideas about what might explain Eduardo’s disappearance?” she asked. Other than death or treason.
Saybrook made a face. “There's damnably little to go on. The letter Grentham showed me said that he left the Mulini Palace, Napoleon's residence in Portoferraio, after an evening of supper and cards, and was seen walking through the gardens. One of the guards saw him take the stone stairs leading down into town.”
The earl drew in a tight breath. “From there, he simply vanished. His fellow officers say he never arrived back at their residence.”
Arianna knew that no sign of a struggle had been found. Nor did it appear any of Eduardo’s possessions were missing. “What do you think happened?”
He didn’t answer right away. A quick scudding of light caught the deep lines etched at the corners of his mouth.
“I can’t help thinking of Henning’s nephew,” murmured Arianna. “Passions can lead idealistic young men to take terrible risks.” She fisted her hands in her cloak, feeling an ache in her heart at how painful this mission was likely going to be for him. “It’s possible we’ll never know Eduardo’s fate for sure.”
“I won’t give up,” said Saybrook grimly. “I will find the truth.
A simple statement. But Arianna knew it was a pledge of honor. And she feared it would cost him dear.
A sudden whoosh of wind and the crack of canvas caused him to look up.
“A squall looks to be blowing in,” he said, eyeing the fast-moving bank of inky clouds darting in from the west. Already the sky was darkening and the temperature dropping, adding an extra sting to the spray flying up from the white-capped waves roiling against the ship’s hull.
The deck gave a shuddering lurch as the seas grew rougher.
“Perhaps we should go below,” suggested Saybrook. “I for one would prefer to brace myself in my bunk and read, rather than be tossed around like skittles up here.”
Arianna nodded, though the prospect of their dark, dank cabin only further depressed her spirits.
Moving slowly from handhold to handhold, they made it to the hatchway leading down to the lower deck.
“You go ahead,” she called as the earl dropped down from the last rung of the ladder and ducked into the hatchway leading to their quarters. “I’m going to see what books the officers have in their wardroom.”
It lay in the opposite direction, and by the time she eased herself through the doorway, her shins were sporting several painful bruises. A quick check of the cabinet revealed no novels with which to while away the tedium of the storm. Still, a book on the new wind scale devised by Francis Beaufort looked mildly diverting.
After tucking it in the pocket of her cloak, Arianna picked her way back to the passageway leading to her cabin and took a moment to regain her balance as the pitching and yawing of the ship became more severe.
A thud, followed by a low oath, suddenly rose above the creaking of the timbers. It had come from the direction of the captain’s cabin.
Peering into the dark-as-Hades shadows, she tried to make out any sign of movement.
Nothing.
She was about to turn away when another thud sounded, its dull echo quickly materializing into a ghostly flutter of skirts.
“Lady Plessy-Moritz!” she exclaimed in surprise.
Startled, the baroness clutched at one of the bulwarks to keep from falling.
“What on earth are you doing in the captain’s corridor?” demanded Arianna.
“I—I . . .” The muddled light seeping in through the hatchway grating was just enough to catch the momentary flare of wariness—or was it fear—in Jelena’s eyes as she drew in a ragged gulp of air. But when she spoke again, her voice was steadier. “I’m simply trying to find my way back to my cabin.”
Which was in the opposite direction.
“La, it’s all so confusing down here,” added the baroness.
Arianna couldn’t help frowning. The ship was small, and its layout wasn’t all that complicated. “I thought you were playing backgammon with the count. Why didn’t he escort you back to your quarters?”
“He tired of trying to teach me his silly game.” Her composure had returned, along with her usual cat-in-the-creampot smile. And yet there was something furtive about her lidded gaze. “I was more interested in chatting with the charming junior officers, so he went to have a smoke on deck.” A fluttery sigh. “Leaving me to fend for myself.”
Your theatrics are wasted on me, thought Arianna.
“So I decided to explore . . . but I lost my way.”
&nb
sp; “Were you looking for something in particular?” pressed Arianna, feeling a sudden shiver of suspicion tease down her spine.
Jelena drew back against the dark wood and averted her eyes. “Simply a breath of air,” she responded with a shudder. “My cabin is as dark and foul as a crypt.”
Not as dark and foul as the misgivings swirling around this shadow-cursed mission.
“Follow me,” she muttered. “I’ll see you safely back to your cabin. But I suggest you stay there until the weather clears.”
* * *
Like a mastiff toying with a tasty bone, the squall seemed to hold the ship in its teeth, shaking and grinding, shaking and grinding . . .
It blew over sometime during the evening hours, but the sea remained uncomfortably choppy. At some point Arianna must have dozed off, for she found herself waking from a fitful sleep, her head muzzy, her limbs feeling heavy as lead.
Darkness blanketed the cabin and it took a long moment to gather her wits. An icy dampness had penetrated the thin bedcoverings. She shifted, aware of missing Saybrook’s warmth beside her and the strong, steady beat of his heart pulsing against her skin.
Overhead, the thump-thump of running feet beat a hurried tattoo across the deck. The groaning of the ship’s timbers had died down and the seas seemed to have calmed.
“Are you awake?” she asked softly.
No answer. Perhaps it was because of his wartime experience, but Saybrook possessed the ability to sleep through any sort of unholy chaos.
She, on the other hand, was always very sensitive to the rumbling of her stomach. It must be almost morning for she felt famished.
More thumping, accompanied by a flurry of shouts. Arianna sat up and cocked an ear to listen. She had become attuned to the regular rhythms of the ship, and something was not quite right.
It felt as if the ship was changing direction.
Untangling her legs from the coverlet, she began to dress in the dark.
Saybrook stirred, alerted, perhaps, by a sixth sense for Trouble. “We’re turning.” He, too, started grabbing up his clothing. “Come, we had better hurry and see what’s happening.
When they reached the main deck, Arianna saw quicksilver tendrils of fog were flitting through the rigging, pale swirls against a gunpowder-dark sky. Given the haze of ambient light, she judged it to be well past dawn, though the thick clouds obscured the exact position of the sun.
Saybrook was several steps ahead of her, his broad shoulders blocking her view of the quarterdeck. Holden’s voice, however, carried loud and clear over the stomp of seaboots and slap of wet rope.
“You, Mr. Jadwin, are a bacon-brained, scurvy-arsed, worthless piece of shite. I swear, I’d have you shot for dereliction of duty if it weren’t a waste of bullets.”
As the earl ducked under a netting, she saw one of the second lieutenants standing at rigid attention while the captain continued with his oath-laced harangue.
“Sir. . .” ventured Merriweather, trying to intervene. “Perhaps if we listen to—”
“Be damned with any more caterwauling,” said Holden. His voice had turned soft, which was somehow more menacing.
The fury in his eyes was frightening to behold.
“Unless you can explain to me how this happened” —The captain raised his other hand, which held a brass sextant— “I’d rather the cook stuff your mouth with seaweed and feed your sorry carcass to the sharks.”
Jadwin flinched. “I-I swear, sir, it was quite undamaged when I put it away in your cabin yesterday. P-Perhaps the storm tore the case loose from lashings and it fell—”
“The case was exactly where it should have been,” snapped Holden. “And what of the rudder cables? Pray tell, how were they damaged?”
“I-I d-d-dunno, sir. I—”
Merriweather stepped in front of the terrified young man to shield him from another flurry of invectives. “Sir, perhaps if you allow me to take Mr. Jadwin below and interrogate him more thoroughly, we can figure out how these accidents happened.”
Holden’s expression darkened, but he waved them away. “It was no bloody accident,” he muttered, turning on his heel as the two ashen-faced midshipmen on duty fled to the far corner of the quarterdeck and busied themselves with polishing the belaying pins.
His eyes narrowed as he spotted Arianna and the earl. “Remind me again, Mr. Diggs,” he called loudly. “What do they say about women aboard ships?”
“B-Bad l-luck, sir,” stammered the boy.
“Bad luck,” repeated Holden with thin-lipped anger.
“Has the ship suffered a misfortune?” inquired Saybrook politely.
The earl’s show of unruffled calm seemed to further enrage the captain. His face turned nearly purple, but after expelling a shuddering breath, he quickly regained control of his emotions.
“Yes,” he answered curtly.
“Will it delay our arrival in Elba?” asked Arianna.
“We’re not going to Elba,” replied Holden. “We’re going to Gibraltar.”
Arianna stared at him in disbelief. She was about to retort when a nudge from Saybrook warned her to silence.
“Might we inquire why?” he asked.
“Because,” said the captain through his teeth, “my sextant has been destroyed. Without it, we can’t determine our exact position in these waters, and given that we’ve just entered a very dangerous part of the Mediterranean, known to be a rat’s nest of pirates and upstart American warships seeking to kowtow to the Dey of Algiers, I’ve no choice but to seek safe harbor.”
“But surely by using dead reckoning—” began Arianna.
Holden cut her off with savage sarcasm. “Why, Lady Saybrook, it seems you not only believe women capable of serving on gun crews but that they are also are qualified to take over command of a British naval vessel.”
It took all her self-control to keep from remarking that any ship captain worth his salt should be able to navigate the relatively short distance to Elba by using the ship’s compass and the previous entries in the logbook to plot a course to the island.
“Alas,” went on Holden, “I don’t share your optimism concerning the skills of the fairer sex in either ballistics or seamanship. So, as I still hold command of this ship, we are heading for Gibraltar.”
“And yet my wife makes a valid point,” countered Saybrook. “Given the accuracy of your Admiralty charts, combined with the information in your logbook on past positions and distance traveled, it shouldn’t be difficult for an experienced sailor such as you to make landfall on Elba.”
He allowed a deliberate pause before adding, “I would imagine that the timely arrival of the government dispatches to the island is a matter of great importance.”
“Thank you for the lecture on basic navigation, milord. I didn’t say I couldn’t find Elba—blindfold me and by the mere feel of the wind on my face and the water under our keel, I could bring you into the bay of Portoferraio,” retorted Holden. “As for my duty—I’m quite aware of the responsibility I bear for the official government dispatches.”
Holden, too, understood how to use a sliver of silence for dramatic effect. “And as the ship’s ability to maneuver has also been compromised, it would be foolhardy in the extreme to spit in Neptune’s eye and continue on to Elba.”
Saybrook frowned. “There’s been a second mishap?”
“The rudder cables have suffered serious damage and in any sort of wind or seas, the strain will cause them to snap,” replied Holden darkly. “But no, it wasn’t a mishap. It was deliberate.”
Arianna felt her breath catch in her lungs.
“They were cut by a knife.”
Chapter 10
A knife. Arianna thought back to yesterday’s breakfast . . . the baroness’s soft, milk-white fingers cradling her mug of coffee . . . smoothing at the ruffles on her bodice . . . wielding a sharp blade to slice through her pork cutlet. She, of all people, had no illusion on whether an outward show of languid femininity could hide a spine
of steel.
Jelena struck her as someone who would calmly cut an adversary’s throat if circumstances demanded it.
As would I.
But whether that meant the baroness was guilty of crippling the ship was a rather large leap of logic. Yes, it appeared she had an interlude of opportunity, but as to motive—
“Sail-ho on the larboard stern!” A sudden shout from the lookout in the crow’s nest wrested her from such musings. “No—two!”
Holden reacted in a flash. With cat-like quickness, he raced to the mainmast, caught hold of the ratlines and climbed up to join the sailor on watch.
The warning stirred an immediate flurry of action down below as well. Arianna turned to see Merriweather and the other officers barking orders at the crew. There was no sign of confusion—the men went about their duties with well-trained precision.
Saybrook moved to the rail and peered into the lingering mist. “There,” he murmured, pointing to a spot on the horizon as she hurried to join them. A speck of pale canvas was barely discernable through the ghostly greys.
“Impossible as of yet to make out what sort of ship it is,” he added.
Arianna squinted. Was it merely her overwrought imagination, or did the sail have a lateen shape?
“Barbary pirates,” she whispered.
His brows rose in momentary amusement. “You’ve been reading too many of Mrs. Radcliffe’s horrid novels, my dear.”
“This whole mission feels stranger than fiction,” she shot back. “It makes me wonder . . .” She quickly explained about finding the baroness wandering around near the captain’s quarters. It hadn’t seemed worth mentioning until now.
The earl’s expression turned pensive. “The rudder ropes are accessible through a hatch in Holden’s cabin. However . . .” His words trailed off as he continued to stare out to sea.
“However that does not mean Lady Plessy-Moritz is guilty of anything other than a bad sense of direction,” said Arianna after the silence had stretched out for several moments.
Smoke & Lies Page 8
