The ship heeled, the movement more noticeable than anything that had gone before. Her stomach heeled with it, threatening all manner of dire consequences if the motion continued unabated. Helpless to prevent it, she tottered sideways before fetching up against the bunk and regaining her balance, then swallowed twice in quick succession in an attempt to quell her increasingly rebellious stomach. Except for the rising nausea that she was determined to ignore, she could not help but regard the sudden sharp rocking as a possibly hopeful sign. Was her ruse working? Was the ship indeed turning around?
"How will we know if your orders are being carried out?"
It occurred to her that, sealed off from the sight of the sky and the sea and all natural signs as they were, it was impossible to be sure which way the ship was heading.
"Your orders, you mean?" There was a slightly ironic note to his voice.
"All right, my orders. How will we know if the ship is turning back to England?"
"Doubtless we'll find out when we disembark."
Claire made an irritated sound under her breath. He was being deliberately unhelpful, she knew.
"Before that."
He shrugged a little. "When James returns— and he will return— you are certainly welcome to ask him."
Claire glowered at him— of course, with his back turned, he couldn't see— then gave it up. Whether they were turning around or whether they weren't, there was nothing more she could do about it at present. She might as well concentrate on getting herself warm and dry.
Ironically enough, now that she was free of her soaked dress she was suddenly freezing. Goose bumps raced up and down her bare arms and shivers once again shook her. If she had been forced to wear the drenched garments much longer, she might have found herself victim to an inflammation of the lungs or some other such serious ailment, she reflected. Which, of course, would be a problem only if she got out of this nightmare alive.
"You know, I've been thinking: Perhaps we can strike a bargain, you and I," Hugh said out of nowhere, causing her to jump. Her gaze flew to him. Thank goodness, he didn't appear to have moved. Wearing nothing but her corset and thin shift topped by a single sodden muslin petticoat, she was next door to naked. She'd been struggling with the strings of her corset, which, wet, had worked themselves into a maddening knot, and in her consternation at the unexpected interruption she had lost the end she'd been tugging at.
"What are you talking about?" she asked crossly, keeping her gaze fixed on him this time as she returned to her battle with the recalcitrant corset strings.
"I'm assuming you're being paid for the letters. Instead of betraying your country— you are aware that's what you're doing, aren't you?— why not let me buy them from you? I'm prepared to match any offer that's been made to you."
Having finally gotten the knot untangled, Claire was wriggling out of the corset when exactly what he was accusing her of struck her.
"You think I'm a traitor?" she gasped, as the corset joined her gown at her feet. "That's a horrible thing to say!"
"It's a horrible thing to do." His voice was matter-of-fact. She couldn't read his expression, but she realized from his tone that he truly believed what he was saying. Brows snapping together, she glared at the back of his head.
"You're as thick as a plank, aren't you?" she said with disgust. "Will nothing convince you that I'm not who you think I am? Let me explain the situation to you one more time: You have made a mistake. A mistake, understand? If you had the sense God granted a flea, you'd let me go and start looking for the real Miss Towbridge. She has your letters, you lummox, and I am not she!"
"Suppose I offered to double what you're being paid?"
Claire stared disbelievingly at him. The thought of hurling something at his thick-skulled head occurred to her, but there was nothing except the pistol and the knife to hurl and she wasn't about to put either of those within his reach if she could help it. The idea of possibly knocking some sense into him held a great deal of appeal, but then, she thought as she yanked the tapes of her petticoat loose, it probably wouldn't work. Knocking sense into a block of wood was impossible. The only thing clobbering him would do was, possibly, make her feel better.
"Well?" he asked impatiently when she didn't respond.
She gave him a fulminating look, which was once again wasted as he couldn't see it— good thing, too, because she was down to her chemise, and the wet lawn was clinging to her breasts in an almost obscene fashion and was the next thing to transparent everywhere else— and took a deep breath.
"What on earth is in those letters, anyway?" she asked, exasperated. After making sure that he was showing no tendency to look around, she pulled the chemise over her head and dropped it to the floor. Naked and shivering, she cast him another wary look and reached for the towel. If she didn't get warm soon, she suddenly thought, she might freeze to death.
"Is it possible you don't know?" His voice was huskier than before, and again she glanced at him suspiciously. His gaze was still fixed on the wall, his back faced her foursquare and solid, and his right arm and hand, curled around the empty glass, rested on the table, just as it had the last time she had checked. Remembering the hot flare of desire she had seen in his eyes when he had looked at her earlier, she wondered with an unexpected little quickening of her own if the mere idea that she was disrobing behind him was enough to deepen his voice like that.
But entertaining such a thought served no purpose, and allowing herself to feel the least degree of attraction for the fellow was pure folly, and worse. In any case, a more probable explanation could be found in the bottle at his elbow, she told herself. Like the glass, it was empty. He had downed the lot. She could still taste the stuff, and, while it had wet her dry mouth and throat as she had intended, it had left an unpleasant burning sensation in its wake. He had consumed much more than she. Perhaps the searing after effect of so much brandy going down his throat in such a brief period of time accounted for his sudden gruffness.
If there should be another explanation, she was better off not knowing it.
"Those letters contain information that could severely compromise England's effort to win the war," Hugh continued, then stopped and cleared his throat. Pausing in the act of briskly rubbing life back into her frozen thighs with the towel, Claire glanced up at him again, her gaze sharp with suspicion. He hadn't moved. Nothing had moved. She was being ridiculous, of course. Doggedly she lowered her eyes again and concentrated on thoroughly drying her calves and feet.
"If the French get hold of them, many innocent lives will be lost. Innocent English lives. You don't want that, do you? Allow me to buy the letters from you, and give me truthful answers to my questions, and you can enrich yourself handsomely and yet go to sleep at night knowing that, in the end, you remained loyal to your country."
Any thoughts of him as an attracted and attractive male were swamped by a fresh tide of indignation at this new avowal that he thought her a traitor, and for that small mercy Claire was grateful. What he was, was a stubborn, stupid swine who might well murder her by mistake. That was all she needed to know of him. For a moment, as she straightened with the towel in hand, she considered repeating what had come to feel almost like her mantra: You've got the wrong person, wantwit.
But it was useless, she knew. He wasn't going to believe her no matter how many times she said it. It was bad enough that he thought her a lightskirt and a lying one at that, but now to realize that he believed her to be capable of betraying her country as well— it was too much. Blotting her hair with the towel, she eyed him thoughtfully.
As long as she had possession of the pistol, he could do her no harm, however angry she might make him. And with that thought in mind, she decided that perhaps she could make him pay, a little, for all he had put her through.
"As you say, I might very well wish to remain a loyal Englishwoman," she said, moving down to the end of the bunk and draping the damp towel over the board that served as its foot. Naked, still shivering, but deliciously dry now, she reached for the white linen shirt she had found in the saddlebags and pulled it over her head. It was truly enormous, she discovered as she freed her hair from the collar and settled the shirt into position, long enough to reach nearly to her knees and ample enough to wrap around her half a dozen times over. The sleeves were far longer than her arms, and she began rolling them up as she continued. "And, just supposing that I do, mind, you might indeed persuade me to listen to your bargain. But first you must answer my questions: What do you want with the letters? If they are so dangerous to England, who are you that I should give them to you?"
Eyeing his back, she thought she saw a barely perceptible easing in the set of his shoulders, as if his muscles, having been tensed, were now beginning to relax.
"You admit to having them, do you?" If his muscles had relaxed, his voice had not: it was decidedly grimmer than before.
She laughed, a jeering little sound, and sat down on the side of the bunk to pull on the stockings. Like the shirt, they were huge and white, of a thick weave that had her poor frozen toes wiggling in anticipation, and perfectly plain.
"I admit to nothing. But I would know what you intend to do with the letters." Poking one foot into the soft woolen well she had created, she pulled the first stocking on. It reached past her knee, and was so immediately warming that she gave a little sigh of pleasure. "Are you an agent of the British government, perhaps, sent to retrieve them and bring whoever stole them to justice? Or are you a rogue and a thief yourself, who somehow got wind of them and means to sell them to the highest bidder, should you succeed in laying your hands on them?"
"I am prepared to offer you a great deal of money for them. Say, ten thousand pounds."
Taken aback by the truly enormous amount, it took Claire a moment to realize that he hadn't told her anything at all.
"Impressive," she said, tying a clumsy knot in the stocking just below her knee to hold it in place.
"You would be wise to accept my offer, my girl." His voice had an ominous note to it now.
She raised her brows at him in exaggerated concern, then grimaced as she realized that she had forgotten once again that he couldn't see her.
"Why, if I were not the one in possession of the pistol, I might be frightened into revealing all," she said.
She was almost beginning to enjoy herself, she realized as she pulled on the second stocking. Under the circumstances, baiting him was a pleasure— certainly the most pleasure she'd had on this straight-out-of-hell day.
"Would a greater sum tempt you? Within reason, you may name your own price."
There was an undertone of contempt to that offer, faint but unmistakable. It reminded her of exactly what he thought her, and it made Claire's hackles rise.
Glaring at his back, she fumed silently for a moment. Then, in a deliberately provocative tone, she said, "Thank you, but, after all, I think I must decline."
He slewed around then, so suddenly that she jumped. The chair legs made a harsh grating noise as they scraped over the floor.
With a surprised gasp, Claire dropped the breeches she had just picked up and snatched at the pistol instead, sliding off the bed and leveling the pistol at him in a quick, if slightly less than graceful, series of motions. If, as she suspected, she looked both ridiculous and indecent in the hugely oversized shirt that covered her to her knees and the warm wool stockings knotted below, she cared not. All she cared about was that a weapon stood between them.
"Don't move," she ordered in a voice that she was chagrined to hear had turned slightly squeaky.
He was still seated, though the chair was now turned almost all the way around so that he was facing her. One hand was braced against the tabletop and his feet were planted firmly apart in front of him. He looked like he was prepared to leap across the cabin at any second and wrest the pistol from her. His expression reinforced that impression. He was glaring at her, his jaw hard and his mouth compressed into an angry line.
He looked, in a word, menacing. Was this really the man who, moments before, she had decided wouldn't actually harm her? Now he looked ready, willing, and able to wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze the life out of her, she thought, even as her pulse began to race. Though she was warm now— well, relatively warm— her hands, both of which were wrapped around the pistol grip, started to shake. She controlled the quiver just as, she hoped, she controlled the look of alarm that her face had instantly assumed: by a tremendous effort of will.
"If money was not your reason for undertaking this folly, then what was? Someone obviously put you up to it. Who? A lover? Someone besides Archer— someone you were seeing on the side? Someone younger, no doubt. An émigré, perhaps? Are you doing it for him? Who is he?"
Claire glared at him. The man's single-mindedness was maddening.
"You really cannot expect me to tell you all my secrets," she said airily.
His eyes flashed. Claire barely prevented herself from stepping back a pace. Thank goodness for the pistol, she thought, tightening her grip on it. It felt reassuringly heavy and solid in her hands.
"Whoever he is, he's using you." His voice was grim. His eyes never left her face. "Think, Sophy: If he cared anything for you, would he expose you to such danger? I tell you right now, no man would let a woman he loved risk what you are risking. But you may still save yourself: Tell me where you've hidden the letters."
It was time to have done with the whole idiotic farce, Claire realized, before she provoked him into springing at her, which he looked on the verge of doing. Despite everything, she would really prefer not to have to shoot him. Not that telling him— again!— that he had made a mistake would do any good, of course. He was clearly determined not to believe her, no matter what.
"I have not hidden your letters anywhere," she said tiredly. "I have never even set eyes on them. As I've told you more times than I can count, you've made a mistake: I am Lady Claire Lynes, not Miss Towbridge, and not Sophy."