Surrender to a Stranger (18 page)

“Aye, Captain, clear as day,” replied Sidney, obviously amused by the intensity with which the order had been given.

“Thank you,” whispered Jacqueline.

Her eyes were shimmering with what might have been a mixture of sadness and gratitude. The pain in her gaze unsettled him. “Do not give Sidney any trouble,” he ordered firmly, “or I will see to it that you cannot sit down for a month.”

The pain in her eyes clouded over with irritation. “What is it you think I am going to do?” she demanded bitterly. “I can assure you I am not about to hurl myself from the ropes, since I do not know how to swim.”

He was relieved to see some of the fire back in her manner. “I am glad to hear it, Mademoiselle,” he told her pleasantly, “but since your tendency is to act first and think later, I would not put it past you to simply jump in and be forced to figure out the business of swimming while gagging and thrashing about in the water.”

Her eyes flashed with indignation. “Has anyone ever told you how insufferably rude you are?” she asked haughtily, not caring if all the crew, who was staring at them, heard.

He restrained the urge to laugh. “Four minutes, Mademoiselle,” he reminded her firmly. “After that, you had better be below in my cabin.” He looked around impatiently. “Where the hell is that blanket?”

“Right here, Captain,” called out a youth, who came rushing up to them and timidly offered Citizen Julien a blanket.

“About time,” he grumbled as he took it from the nervous boy.

He opened the woolen cloth and carefully wrapped it around Jacqueline, arranging it so that only her face was left exposed. She held her breath as he performed this service, once again disconcerted by the closeness of him, by the touch of his powerful hands through the soft cloth, by the heat that seemed to emanate constantly from his massive frame when he was close to her. She shivered and took a step away from him.

“If you take a chill,” he began, his voice oddly strained, “I will be bloody furious.” He turned abruptly and walked away.

She clutched the blanket to her and focused her gaze on the black slice of land that was slowly receding as
The Angélique
got under way. The coast was dark except for an occasional faint spark of light—a house that was stirring early or a lantern left burning for someone who had not yet returned home. A feathery covering of trees stretched up into the night sky, becoming smaller and smaller as the ship slowly took her away from the place she loved.

“Farewell for now, my country, my home, my family, my life,” she whispered softly into the cold, salt air. “I am not deserting you. You bleed, and so do I. But do not fear that I will forget. No matter what happens, I shall return. And Nicolas will be punished. I swear it.”

“Captain said you were to go below now, Mademoiselle,” said Sidney, interrupting her thoughts.

She sighed and followed him down to the captain’s cabin.

It felt good to get out of the icy spray of the deck. The cabin was dry and warm, having been heated by a small black stove that stood in one corner. The room was quite small, to her way of thinking, especially considering it was the captain’s room, but then she had never been on a ship before and really had nothing to compare it with. Its paneling was dark and richly oiled, its furnishings spare and clean-lined, including only a bed, a desk, a table with two chairs, a chest, and a cabinet. All the pieces were carved of glossy mahogany, and although elegant and gracefully executed, they were totally void of any fancy detail or gilt, and quite unlike the highly decorative furniture that had filled the rooms at the Château de Lambert. The effect was simple and masculine, giving the room a clean, airy feeling despite its relative lack of space.

Sidney invited her to make herself at home, telling her the clothes laid out on the bed were for her and her bath would be arriving directly. He informed her that the captain had said she could search his chest for soap and towels. Moments after Sidney left, there was a knock on the door, and two men entered carrying a heavy copper tub. They moved the table and chairs aside and positioned the tub in the center of the room. Then a procession of sailors marched into the cabin and emptied steaming buckets of hot water into the tub until it was full.

The minute the door was shut, Jacqueline raced over to the chest and carelessly rifled through its contents to find the precious soap and towels. That done, she stripped off her coarse, filthy peasant costume and pillow and abandoned the offending garments in a heap on the floor. With a sigh of utter pleasure she stepped into the tub and slid down until she felt the water close over her head.

Never in her life had a bath been so unbelievably wonderful. She lathered every inch of her skin with the fragrant bar of soap, and the moment she was rinsed off, she soaped herself up all over again. She washed her hair thoroughly, rinsing out every trace of the foul substance Citizen Julien had combed through it to make it dark. She scrubbed at her face with a cloth until her cheeks were stinging and pink, determined to remove the cosmetics Citizen Julien had used to make her appear ugly and old. Then, when the water began to cool and her fingers and toes were pale and wrinkled, she reluctantly stood and doused herself with the remaining bucket of clean water one of the sailors had thoughtfully left for her beside the tub.

She quickly dressed herself in the fine white linen nightgown and wrapper laid out for her on the bed, idly wondering who they belonged to. If this woman Angélique was Citizen Julien’s mistress, it was probable that she occasionally traveled with him on this ship that bore her name, and that they shared this cabin together. A hot blush crept into her cheeks as she stared at the bed and considered this. That is not my concern, she told herself firmly. She went over to the chest to look for a comb.

The fabrics she had so hastily cast aside in her search for a bar of soap were Citizen Julien’s shirts, and as she set about straightening them and refolding them, she was surprised by their fine quality. The fabrics were costly and the workmanship impressive. Below his shirts lay several pairs of carefully tailored breeches and a splendidly cut charcoal jacket, simple of line and unadorned but, like the furniture he had chosen for his cabin, superbly crafted and elegant in its simplicity. It was obvious that despite his lack of aristocratic breeding, Citizen Julien was a man of taste, and his work obviously paid him enough to indulge in a high level of quality, if not flamboyance. She continued to casually explore the contents of the trunk, telling herself she was not really prying, but innocently looking for a comb or brush, and after all, Citizen Julien had sent her the message that she could search the trunk for whatever she needed. And so she felt only the least bit guilty when, long after she had found both a brush and comb, she discovered a small lacquer box nestled at the very bottom of the chest. Unable to control her curiosity, she picked up the box and lifted its lid to see what sort of treasures a man like Citizen Julien would keep hidden inside.

A small wreath of satiny ribbons, pink and cream and pale blue, lay coiled atop a snowy-white square of linen edged with lace. Jacqueline reached in and removed the tiny square. It was a ladies’ handkerchief, with the initials
ASJ
intricately stitched in silver thread in one corner. Slowly she turned the delicate piece over in her hands, examining it as if it would reveal some of the secrets of Citizen Julien if she but gave it enough time. She surmised that the first initial stood for Angélique, and that the lacy square was given to him as a small memento of the woman’s affections. She lifted the piece to her nose and inhaled, wondering if any trace of perfume clung to the fabric, but all she could smell was the spicy wood scent of the box. It seemed strange that a man like Citizen Julien would keep such a sentimental token, but then, there was much about him she did not know.

Not that there was anything about him she wanted to know, she reminded herself firmly as she carefully placed the handkerchief back in the box and nestled the ribbons on top of it. She laid everything back into the chest and closed the lid, then sat on the chair at the desk and proceeded to work at the tangles in her hair. Now that her hair was finally clean again, she experienced another stab of regret over its loss. All of her life her hair had been long, and now it barely brushed her shoulders. It could have been your head, she reminded herself impatiently. Sacrificing your hair was a small price to pay for the chance to go back and kill Nicolas. As she ran the comb through she noticed the loss of the extra weight was allowing her hair to spring into soft waves, and she took heart that while the look was short, it was perhaps not totally unattractive.

The sound of water sloshing over the sides of the tub interrupted her thoughts. For the first time she became aware that the cabin seemed to be moving up and down in a slow, rocking motion, making everything feel like it was all at once falling, and then just as suddenly swooping back up again. While the furniture in the cabin seemed to be well anchored to the floor and quite undisturbed by all this reeling to and fro, Jacqueline unfortunately found that she was not accustomed to such violent fluctuations. She tried to stand and the motion of the ship literally threw her back into the chair. Gritting her teeth, she stood again and headed for the door, determined to have a word with Citizen Julien and demand that he sail his ship in a more orderly manner. She had only taken a few steps when the floundering of the cabin made her dizzy and her knees gave way.

Slowly pulling herself up from the floor, she decided perhaps she was not quite up to having words with Citizen Julien at this particular moment. She thought she should sit down, but given her current state the bed looked much more inviting, and so she stumbled toward it, certain that after a few moments of quiet rest she would be fully recovered.

Within seconds she was overcome with the most violent nausea she had ever experienced, and she moaned in agony as the sensation flooded from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes.

“She’s all settled in, nice and comfy, just like you ordered,” said Sidney in English as he joined the captain on the deck.

“Good,” he remarked absently. He stared out into the darkness, evaluating the wind and the rough churning of the sea against the speed the ship was moving. “I had hoped we would have a calmer crossing than this.”

Sidney looked at him in confusion. “We’ve sailed waters ten times worse than this,” he scoffed with amusement. “So what if it takes us a little longer to cross?”

Armand scowled. “The faster we reach England, the faster I can be rid of her.”

Sidney laughed and stroked his beard. “Gave you a bit of trouble, did she?”

“She was a thorn in my side from the moment I laid eyes on her,” Armand grumbled irritably.

He clasped his hands behind his back and drank in a hearty draft of moist, salt-laden air. It felt good to be back on his ship, dressed in his own clothes, called by his own name and speaking English again. After giving the order to sail, he had gone below to remove the cosmetics and trappings of the farmer Jean Poitier. He had washed and shaved before dressing in a clean white shirt, fawn breeches, and a heavy black overcoat. He was tired, not having slept for more than two days, but the need to stand on the deck of
The Angélique
and absorb the reality that he had succeeded, that once again he had torn someone out from under the blade of the new Republic and not been killed in the process, superseded his need for sleep.

He had heard the rumors circulating about him when he was in Paris. The Black Prince, as he was now called, was considered a dangerous enemy to the Republic. Although he was clever, it was said, he was not clever enough to evade the justice of the guillotine forever. The theories about him were many and conflicting. It was said that he worked alone, and it was said that he worked with a whole network of counterrevolutionaries. It was rumored that he was a noble, and probably related to the royal family, and it was just as fiercely argued that he was nothing more than a greedy bourgeois whose only concern was money. It was generally agreed upon that he was French, for his speech reportedly never held the slightest trace of an accent, although he did have a definite ability with dialects, enabling him to speak equally well as a rough peasant from the north or a Paris-educated government official. Indeed, the only viewpoint never in dispute was that whoever this man was, he was exceptionally lucky, for no one but a man leading a charmed life could take the incredible risks the Black Prince took and not get caught. Luck, he thought to himself bitterly. I am an extremely lucky man.

“Why don’t you go below and get some sleep, boy?” demanded Sidney, interrupting his thoughts. “There’s nothing happening up here we can’t handle. The crossing is going to take a few hours longer at the very least if this weather continues. You might as well get some rest.”

He pulled his gaze from the sea and looked at his friend. Sidney had known him since he was a boy, when Sidney first signed on to work for his father’s shipping line. Sidney had always been a first-rate sailor, and he knew he could trust him with his ship and his life. Despite the fact that he was now a grown man and the captain of
The Angélique,
Sidney still acted as if he was a boy who needed to be told what was best for him, although he was careful not to show this side of their friendship in front of the crew.

“Perhaps you are right,” he agreed wearily. “I think I will lie down for a while.”

He made his way below, thinking he would look in on her for a moment, just to make sure she had everything she needed and was finding his cabin comfortable. Not that anything could be considered uncomfortable after those weeks she spent locked in that hell hole of a cell in the Conciergerie, he reminded himself furiously. When he had first walked in under the guise of Citizen Julien and saw her there, brutally shoved against the wall with her skirts up to her waist and that animal in the process of raping her, he had very nearly lost his control and killed the bastard then and there. It would have meant the end of his charade and certain death, but in that moment of rage he had thought it would be worth it. The only thing that made him clench his jaw and force himself to continue with his masquerade was the sight of her, far more beautiful than her portrait had shown her to be, and achingly out of place among the filth and stench and corruption that surrounded her. But it was not her beauty that caused him to sheathe his overwhelming need to draw blood and continue with his performance, for he had been witness to that beauty earlier in the courtroom. No, it was something else, something in her manner, that made his desire to avenge her honor pale beside his sudden need to save her at any cost, to get her out of there and away from this country where madness reigned and everyone had become her enemy. And so he sputtered and apologized and coughed and wheezed, playing the role exactly as he had planned, but his watchful eye did not miss the fierce dignity with which she stepped away from her attacker and pulled together the shredded remnants of her torn bodice, or the icy contempt with which she treated all those around her, including himself. They had arrested her and terrorized her, they had killed her father and brother and taken away her home and all her belongings, and now they were going to take her life, yet they still had not been able to break her. She was strong. He admired that.