He allowed her up from the bed with no hesitation, but would not be distracted from the story. “Will you tell me more?”
Once she had her shift on she felt less vulnerable. As she put her stays on over the shift, she concentrated on the ties. It was easier if she did not look at him. “In time I understood that his diplomacy was a sham, that he made his living by helping people when they had no other recourse. Mind you, only if they had the money to pay him.”
“You could not leave.” It was more statement than question. “Of course you could not,” he went on. “You were young, without resources, married.”
She stopped dressing for a moment. “I did try to leave once. Only once.” After that it was easier to hide in her art and convince herself that she was as much a victim as the ones he helped.
Before Gabriel could do more than close his eyes and shake his head, she hurried on.
“His most elaborate charade was his last. It was 1810, Napoleon was doing well and so was Charles. There were a group of English families living in Le Havre, they had been held there since the end of the Peace of Amiens.”
“They had been there for seven years? Since 1803?”
“Yes. Not in prison, but not allowed to leave either. Charles was able to arrange for them to be taken to Portsmouth. It was an expensive operation. Since the revolution and Napoleon’s rise to power, Le Havre had become more of a naval port and most of the ships that were not naval had to go elsewhere to unload their goods. It was a challenge finding a captain willing to take them, much less able.”
She sat down beside him so that he could do up the laces of her dress. “The French authorities were bribed to ensure their cooperation, and he told me to flirt with them when money was not enough. The families paid him; some gave him all they had.”
Charlotte stood and faced him. “I was the one who collected the money. I had to see and list each member of the party. Claire was not yet a year. And not at all happy at being made to stay awake so much past her usual bedtime.”
She had taken the money to Charles and he had unknowingly thanked her by leaving to visit his current mistress instead of celebrating with her. “I had almost convinced myself that Strauss was doing something good. Then, the night of their departure, he sent me to distract a group of port guards. He took the families out into the harbor and aboard a ship. It was then that the captain refused to take children younger than five years old.”
That made Gabriel sit up straight. “Why would he do that? I’ve heard that women aboard ship are considered to be bad luck, but not children.”
“I am sure that if enough money was sent his way he could be convinced to reconsider, and indeed two or three of the children were allowed to go. The rest were sent ashore and the ship set sail without them. To this day I do not know if the parents accepted the decision or tried to leave. In the end, they had no choice.”
She stood up and began to smooth her hair, reached for her scarf and tied it all back as neatly as she could without a comb or mirror.
“Gabriel,” she said, turning to face him. “I never knew about the children left behind. Yes, I was a party to the effort, for a number of reasons, none of them admirable, but I did not find out about the children until later, after Strauss died.”
“I believe you.”
His words were calm, reassuring, as if he would never doubt her.
“Charles died a week later, killed by someone who did not care for his sort of blackmail or extortion or moneylending or peacemaking. I do not know and do not care. I think it one of my greatest weaknesses that I did not kill him myself.”
She stood looking down, wondering how much honesty one man could take.
“How long ago was that?”
“A little over four years ago,” she said, amazed that it had not been longer. “I felt as though I had been released from a prison. I buried him with no other mourners and went back to England.”
“Did you still have family there?” he asked.
“My mother,” she admitted grudgingly. “I railed and cursed her for selling me so cheaply. I went to London, swore never to use the name Strauss again, and set about making my own life there. I had some money from the sale of our things in France. I thought I would become some man’s mistress if I needed to. But before the money ran out, Georges found me.” She explained about the papers he had found and the list of children and what Charles had done with them. “For the last three years, Georges and I have been looking for the children, doing our best to reunite them with their parents.”
“An amazing way of doing good with your life. You have found all of them?”
“Yes, and rescued all but one. The oldest boy was sold to a blacksmith,” she said, remembering how the man was as cold as the metal he put in the forge. “He was to take him on as an apprentice once he was old enough. Another went to a chimney sweep. The oldest girl was sold to a bordello. I bought her back before she began to earn her keep. The rest were sent to various orphanages.” Did he know that at least half of those girls would have wound up on the streets, selling themselves?
“In various guises Georges and I have ‘adopted’ four of them and reunited them with their families. Two did not survive long in the orphanage.”
“Yes, I can imagine that. They are not the best place for the weak.”
“My mother and I found ourselves with a family when we discovered that we could not locate all the parents. Claire and Pierre will join the three we already have.”
Gabriel rose from the bed and began to dress.
“Nothing is more important to me than the children. I would sacrifice the money your brother has promised as well as my life and yours for them.”
What could he say to that? She did not wait for an answer but reset the hammock on its hook, doing her best not to watch him as he thought about the story she had told him. It was more than she’d meant to say. But once she had started she could not stop.
She wished she could tell what he was thinking. This morning his eyes betrayed nothing. Did that mean she meant so little to him? Or was he trying to think of words worse than whore? Finally the wait was unbearable. “You have no questions at all?” Stop judging me, she wanted to shout. I did the best I could. When he was dressed except for his jacket, he came to stand in front of her.
“Charlotte,” he said, “I do have one question.”
He hesitated, and she nodded encouragement.
“Who is Georges?”
“Who is Georges? I tell you a story only a few people know and you ask me who Georges is?”
“I have waited three days to hear that story. And now that I have heard it I think what you want from me is understanding, not questions. Georges, however, is a mystery. If it is asking too much, you do not need to tell me.”
“Georges was my husband’s valet.”
“Valet.” He considered the word as though it could have more than one meaning. “Is it not odd that he would stay loyal to you after Strauss’s death?”
“Yes, it is odd. But we shared a similar hell when Charles was alive. Both of us were innocent of the worst of it. He was loyal to Charles and kind to me. He is the only true friend I have in France.”
“Then may I be the truest friend you have in England, Charlotte.” He bowed to her.
She nodded, curtsying back. Let him believe it. They both could for a while. What would it be like to have someone to lean on and talk to, someone who did not worry the way a mother did, who understood the longing to right the wrong?
It would be wonderful, which was the very reason it could be no more than a fantasy.
21
THE PORT IS FULL UP,” the lieutenant shouted over the din of the crew moving up the ropes to adjust the sails.
Gabriel nodded, amazed at the Diplomat’s ability to maneuver in the tight space, to find a spot—or was it assigned?—to drop anchor.
“It will be a while before we can take you ashore, sir. Captain must send word we have passengers and wa
it for instructions. Excuse me.” The lieutenant moved off to call instructions to someone aloft.
“Do not even think about making a trip to shore on your own, Pennistan.” Charlotte might give the appearance of a mouse of a woman, but her voice was that of his jailer.
The children had ended Gabriel and Charlotte’s morning together: Claire insisting that she wanted to go on deck. Pierre refusing to unlatch the door “until Mama and Papa allow it.” Charlotte hurried to act as mediator while Gabriel put his shoes on. By the time he joined them she was playing her role again. She had tucked away that part of herself, the essence of her, that she had given him the night before and again this morning.
He’d thought about that, trying to determine what they had had through the night that was missing now. Her jailer demand that he not consider escape brought the answer to him as clearly as the ship’s bell ringing. She had trusted him. In the dark, curled together, warmed by lovemaking, she had opened her heart to him.
Now she seemed to be doing her best to recover her authority, reminding him that he was her prize and not her lover. “Escape? Charlotte, why would you think that?”
“I saw the way you eyed the shore. It wasn’t hard to know what went through your mind.”
“I was not thinking of escape, only the challenge that is waiting when we land. The time has come to plead my case. I am home again, and instead of feeling relieved I am,” he paused and then decided to be honest, “I am all but frozen with fear.”
“Papa!” Pierre called to him, waving to him from a sickening distance up the ratlines. The boy must have found his sea legs. Today he was playing the part of powder monkey, obeying commands as if he had been at sea all his short life.
“I will face what is coming, Charlotte. I want to see my family again even if it means no more than pity and disgust.” Underneath it all would be love. He was sure of that. Not quite sure enough to say it aloud, though.
He watched Pierre as he spoke, seeing the child in a different light. The boy might not have had the mother or father he once knew, but he seemed to believe that all would be well. Would he trade places with the boy if he could?
“And, as you have reminded me more than once, madame, you will be paid a bonus if I am returned whole. Now that I know why the money is so important to you, I would never betray you or these children for my own ends.”
The rest of the morning was entertaining enough as long as he repressed the idea that a hangman might be in his future. The prospect seemed no more real than it had all those months in a cell. Less actually. Here the wind meant action and the open sea freedom. It was another prison nonetheless. Someday he would make a list. Could it be that a sense of honor was the greatest prison of all?
By the time the captain came on deck and gave orders for the boat to be lowered, he had been asked at least a dozen times to “step aside, please, sir.” Charlotte had retreated to the cabin with Claire after the third such request. When he declined her suggestion that he join them, she simply nodded.
Captain Wilton came to him. “Come to the quarterdeck. You will be out of the way there.”
Gabriel followed him to a place in front of the wheel and stayed where Wilton pointed. The captain stood with his arms folded. A critical eye was all the command he gave. It was enough. The crew moved sharply. The Diplomats behaved as the team they were trained to be.
Gabriel had seen enough of the ship’s maneuverings. He concentrated his attention on the man who was his brother. He looked like a Pennistan. He had that same inclination to command. It was compounded in him as well as in the duke by the roles life bequeathed them.
He wondered what parts of his father they both shared. Temper? He supposed if Wilton had one, he had learned to curb it early in his naval career.
Stubbornness. Not that Gabriel considered himself obstinate. Even if Jess had called him implacable often enough. He preferred to think of it as single-minded.
The captain turned to him, watched him for a long minute and then spoke. “Lord Gabriel, there is something I want to make clear to you.” He waited until Gabriel finally encouraged him with a “Yes, sir?”
“The Pennistans left my mother to live in poverty. She died before her time because she had the misfortune to catch your father’s eye and succumb to his seduction.”
“Our father did that, Captain Wilton. Lynford was twelve when your mother died. You were ten. There was nothing either one of you could do. My mother? Well, she was his wife. She had no power of her own no matter how hard she would try.”
“I do not care, my lord. I have a wife and a family and a career that has served me well. I have no need of the support of the Pennistans; as a matter of fact, I reject it totally and completely.”
Before Gabriel could reply, the captain turned and walked to the railing to call something to his first lieutenant.
The day dragged on as had the day before. This time they were in more company than yesterday’s trip from Le Havre and with less tension for everyone. Except him. He was vastly relieved when Charlotte came back on deck.
“How much longer, do you think?” he asked her.
“The captain is in charge. And he is awaiting word from shore. I think that is called the chain of command. I am at the end of the chain and you are not on it at all.”
Anxiety chilled his blood so that he was not sure he would ever be warm again. It also served to keep him alert. “You are at the head of my chain of command. When we reach land, what will we do?”
“It depends on who is waiting for you.”
He strongly suspected that she was not telling the whole truth. She who planned her moves to the smallest detail would hardly leave this last to chance. What if he lost her? What if he never saw her again?
He did not ask, simply did his best to memorize everything about her. How often she used her hand to smooth her dress, or Claire’s hair, or a wrinkle from a table cover. A sensual gesture that he imagined she was not even aware of. How short and neat her fingernails were. How hairs slipped from her cap and curled on her neck. He kept up the mental catalog until she looked at him.
“My lord,” she said with some irritation. “You said yourself that I would not leave before I have the money from your brother.”
“Not unless it would endanger the children,” he agreed.
“Precisely.”
“So you will wait in Portsmouth until he comes? I can hardly imagine he will be waiting there for us.”
She gave him her Gallic shrug, which was explained this time. “Someone will be there. Your brother Lord Jessup, perhaps.”
“Yes, I suppose that could be.”
“Is the story now scripted to your satisfaction?”
“Yes, thank you, madame,” he said with a bow.
The gig was back. It nudged the side of the ship and the second lieutenant scrambled aboard. He did his best not to acknowledge them and headed directly for the captain.
Not a minute later they were being prepared for departure. Wilton called Charlotte over and discussed something with her. To the crew it would appear that he was reassuring her about the short trip to shore. Gabriel knew better. He stood with Claire and Pierre and tried to decipher what Wilton and Charlotte were saying. Their brief exchange and nods were not much to interpret.
They boarded as they had left the fishing boat. He watched Charlotte. She concentrated on nothing more than soothing Claire’s fears.
The water was calmer here. Still, Pierre began to groan the moment they were in the jolly boat. “Shall we count the number of boats in the harbor?” Gabriel asked.
“Please be quiet, Papa,” Pierre said with pained disinterest. “I am going to watch the dock we are headed for and think of nothing but arriving there. If I am sick on the way, then I can tell myself we will be on land soon.”
Better for the boy to worry about this trip than what was coming next. Where would they go until she could take them home? Or was her home in Portsmouth? How long would the money from Lynfor
d support them? He knew Charlotte would have a plan. Two thousand pounds could last a very long time. As much as he wanted to help them, there was nothing he could do until he had helped himself.
As the boat made its way through the maze of larger vessels, Portsmouth came into view, and with it the smells and activity of a busy port city. So unlike home, but one step closer.
When the boat came alongside the dock the seamen shipped the oars. One jumped out ahead of them and extended a hand for the lady and children. The tide was low and Charlotte had to make a great and rather unladylike step up to the wharf.
Gabriel helped from his end, lifting the children to waiting hands. As he was about to join them, one of the seamen called down, “Beg pardon, sir; would you toss me the dispatch bag at your feet there?”
He would never know if that request for help was plan or accident. He reached for the bag, handed it to the seaman. When he took his giant step up onto the dock he saw that Charlotte was almost to the street, the children in hand.
“Wait,” he called. Where was she going? Damnation. She had lied to him. No one was here to meet him.
There were not many women in the crowd, but she would be easy enough to lose. He was about to run after her when a man—no, two men—came up on either side of him.
“Lord Gabriel Pennistan?”
“Yes,” he said with some distraction, craning his head to keep her in sight. She too had been stopped. He could see a lively discussion ensuing and began to walk toward them, followed by the two men who had approached him. There was still no sign of his family.
“You are to come with us. There are some gentlemen from London who want to speak with you.” They had not taken his arms when he began to move away, but the one who had not spoken held up a stick to block his progress.
“First I would see if the lady I traveled with needs help.” He pushed the cane aside and continued walking toward her. Not running. He avoided movement that would be construed as an attempt to escape.
“There is no need to go to her. She will be coming with us.”
Mary Blayney Page 16
