The Tide Watchers (23 page)

Ambleteuse, France (Channel Coast)

September 16, 1802

S
EE THIS?” FULTON HEAVED
an iron cylinder into his arms. “This is the propulsion chamber for the, um, barrels.”

In the small A-shaped attic by the roaring fire, in a wing chair covered in blankets, Lisbeth smiled. He'd stopped saying “corpses” the first time he'd seen her shudder, but he couldn't bring himself to say “bombs.” The reality of what he'd created seemed to offend him.

“Releasing a barrel by lighting it, attaching it to a screw outside the submersible, and releasing it by turning the screw gave us too little time to get away. These new barrels are lit once in position in the chamber. They have longer wicks inside the barrel, double dipped in tallow to make them burn slower and remain water resistant. And by using spring propulsion—”

Lisbeth repressed a yawn, but she doubted Fulton noticed. He did his best work at night. His mind, always spinning like a top, required only a few hours of rest before taking off again with the latest idea. She pushed off one of the blankets and wiggled her feet out from under the blankets to cool them. “I don't understand what spring propulsion is, m'sieur.”

She'd learned not to ask veiled questions. Fulton's mind was literal. If she didn't tell him she was confused, he'd assume she understood, and move on with his explanation.

Something had changed since that moment in the rain . . . or since the episode in her room. The commander had been right. Compassion was the key to Fulton's trust—or maybe they'd underestimated his loneliness.

He'd come into her room the next morning after knocking. “You've been sleeping in that dress, madame, and cannot yet fix your hair. I assure you, I can do this. For a time my mother was very ill, and I stayed home to care for her. I shall be to you as I was to her.”

Why his blank eyes and wooden demeanor reassured her, she didn't know. Perhaps it was because he looked so—so like a servant. Or was it the reference to his mother?

This was a golden opportunity. “I am sorry if I look disheveled, m'sieur. I cannot use my left arm to reach the buttons at the back, nor can I lift it yet to braid my hair.” And she wondered if the commander had bought all her dresses with back buttons for this purpose.
Rouse his pity.

But the necessity of involving Fulton's emotions left Lisbeth not liking herself very much. His kindness made it hard for her to maintain distance, but her conscience dimmed as the weight of missing her baby grew. Day and night, she ached for Edmond, prayed for him, cried for his loss, and imagined him with the greed of unending grief. He was four months old now. Did he have his first tooth yet? Had she missed that first smile with a little tooth peeping like gleaming ivory?

“I will show you the same respect I have for my mother, madame,” he'd vowed—and Lisbeth shoved aside the tearing sorrow and accepted his help. Edmond needed his mother, and Fulton was a man grown. If he was hurt, she'd be sorry, but it was his lookout.

From that morning Fulton helped her dress and undress, brought hot water for her morning wash, lifted anything, and made their meals. She taught him to braid her hair, as she'd taught the commander. But there were still too many hours in the day to worry about her. So the lonely master took on a pupil. It didn't matter if she understood or not; he had an audience, and he didn't have to worry that she'd hurt herself. That seemed to be enough.

He showed her one end of the chamber. “See the coiled steel?”

Tilting her head, she nodded. He didn't like unnecessary interjections like
yes
and
I see.

“That's a spring,” he told her. Squelching an urge to smile, she
nodded again. She knew that, thanks to her childhood pestering of the local blacksmith. On board ship, Carlsberg had taught her the history of spring coils: first known use on the wheels of a pharaoh's chariot thousands of years ago, and still in use for anything from carriages to spring-lock rifles.

Lisbeth didn't know whether she'd gained Fulton's trust or had become his captive audience. He wouldn't let her leave the attic except for intimate necessity, or to sleep. He brought her up here as soon as she left her room in the morning, put heavy woolen socks on her feet, and covered her with blankets. He fed her through the day with cheese sandwiches toasted over the fire on forks, and the pots of strong tea he made for her. And he'd talk, and talk.

“A spring?” she encouraged, when it seemed he'd become lost in checking its tension.

“Oh.” He started in comical guilt. “I'm experimenting with high-tensile steel. Iron rusts far too quickly and loses recoil. It also needs constant oiling, especially if it gets wet.”

She kept her tongue between her teeth. He wasn't ready for intelligent questions, didn't want to know her cover story, or about her tomboy years in the smithy and stables. He'd painted his own portrait of her as a delicate lady who'd roused his chivalry, who needed her mind instructed as she healed. She wouldn't shatter his illusions. The less he thought she understood, the more he told her.

“We put the barrel in the chamber, light it and seal the cork with tallow, hold it for a few moments to increase the power through tension, then let go. So far the farthest it has gone is twenty-seven feet. I'm hoping this better steel that the—that I procured will go farther . . .”

So Fulton isn't above little fibs
. She quashed a smile, knowing well who'd procured the high-quality German steel with so few impurities.

“One day I believe a better method will come through steam-engine propulsion. If I can find the correctly shaped chamber and modify the barrels so they can travel through the water for at least sixty feet—”

“Through steam what, m'sieur?” She knew about steam engines,
but how it could propel a bomb through a chamber and shoot it through sixty feet of water was a mystery.

Fulton's face blazed like the fire he'd built to bend the thin lengths of steel he'd smelted on his small forge. “Steam-engine propulsion is the way of the future, both for propelling ships in a dead calm, and for any machine . . .”

At last she'd stumbled on the right question to unlock the eloquence she most needed to learn about. She bit into her tenth cheese sandwich in two days, sipped the tea he kept hot in a cast-iron pot by the fire, pinned a bright smile of interest on her face, and prepared to settle in for the lecture. The more she learned, the more went into her journal that night, complete with detailed sketches, as close to the correct proportions as she could do.

When she could leave the house, she'd throw out the musty cheese and procure chocolate, apples, potatoes, carrots, onions, cabbage, and meat at the store. But the secrets she'd learned during the past few days had made her stomach's sacrifice worthwhile.

Símon arrived at the latest road dressed as a farmer's lad, hair and brows dyed reddish brown, a ruin of a hat crammed on his head. “Your business?” a soldier barked.

He waved at the donkey and cart he'd hired this morning. “Carrots and beans for the Friday farmers' market, m'sieur.”

The soldier frowned. “Surely you've heard that only those on military business are now permitted to pass?”

Símon held in the frown. Had they been warned about him? Was his costume not good enough? “M'sieur, how are we to survive? Never mind,” he blurted as the man lifted his musket. “I'll go house to house, for my father will beat me if I return with a full cart.”

He turned his donkey around and walked away with slumped shoulders. It seemed the commander must procure a military uniform
from somewhere. In the meantime, he'd have to report his latest failure.

The commander's orders were clear. Símon must find a way inside Boulogne, to find out if the first man the commander had sent inside, Peebles, was alive or dead. Either way, as a bona fide Frenchman, Símon was to take his place. If Peebles had sold out, he had to die.

“You are Argenteuil, and one sacrifice can save thousands,” he whispered to himself, wishing he could feel a sense of higher purpose, instead of feeling so young, so vulnerable—or so sick.

Ambleteuse

September 21, 1802

E
VEN AT MIDDAY THE
world was enfolded in white twilight. The sea mist shrouded the shore, in a rare day without wind. Huddled in a gray cloak and dress, mist enveloped Lisbeth until she was lost in it. With every step, her feet either sunk into the squelching wetness of sandy soil or she almost turned her ankle over on the stones littering the beach. Rain fell like tiny darts, its icy sharpness proclaiming an early winter. She was a fool to be out, but every time Fulton dressed her or touched her hair, she felt smothered by his tender domination. After enduring day after day of his excuses to keep her at home and with him, today she'd slipped out the door when he used the water closet.

A red rag was caught in a gorse bush just out of sight of the house. She undid it and rushed on in case Fulton came to find her.

The note was damp, more than a few days old by the deep creases.

Meet me at the river bend past the fort.

He had included a rough map of the area.

How many days had he been waiting at the river bend for her?

Fifteen minutes later she passed the looming shadow of Fort Vauban, a dark phantom in the curling mist as she headed toward the river mouth. Waves broke at the base of Henry VIII's fortress, slapping against heavy stone. Soft whooshing sounds followed as loose beach stones skimmed over each other. She felt a hidden presence on the parapet, watching her.

“
Bonjour,
madame.”

Startled, she realized she'd reached the river bend already, three hundred feet past the fort. The commander sat on the sandy hillock above the rock-edged river, wearing a gray cloak. In the thick curls of mist, all he need do was turn into the tussocks and he'd disappear. His face, dark and strong in its rawboned fashion, was just as obscure.

How did he seem a thousand miles away even though he was right here with her? She hated that he controlled this game, that he knew her secrets, had seen her body, and she didn't know anything about him.

“May I assist you, m'sieur?” During her training on the ship he'd made it clear she must never slip out of character, but it was easier than she'd expected to speak in her haughtiest voice.

She'd picked up a handful of stones on the way. She dropped them in the direction she'd just come, using a simple code they'd worked out on the ship.
Someone is watching.

“I beg your pardon.” He stood, bowed, and vanished. He would find her.

Gathering her skirts and cloak, she forded the river at its shallowest point and headed toward a small promontory around the bend, where the cliff and rocky beach beneath it were lost in the mist. Soon, so was she. Fulton had told her the rocky part of the shore was favored by local mussel collectors, but only at sunrise or sunset. It should be deserted now, but she wasn't sure.

She fought the urge to look up the cliff. She didn't know if the specter of someone watching was real, or a well-founded paranoia after the past few weeks. Could it be Alain?

A crunch of pebbles heralded the commander's arrival. The sight of his gray cloak reassured her now. “Who was it?”

“There are soldiers stationed at Fort Vauban, I think. I didn't see anyone else, apart from a farmer with a cart.”

“I've seen the soldiers too—too many. It was supposed to be only minimal manning there under the terms of the treaty.” He sat at a careful distance from her. “Thank you for coming, madame. How are you feeling?”

“I didn't escape Fulton's constant concern only to run the gauntlet of your anxiety,” she snapped. “I'm fine.”

He didn't answer. An apology for asking after her health would be absurd and would only vex her more. But the intimacy of the things he'd done for her from the first night had created some kind of abyss inside her.

Annoyed for taking her confusion out on him, and more upset that he allowed her to do it, she watched foamy waves racing over the rocks, mussel shells clinging to them. Crabs scuttled in and out of the foam as she struggled to gain control. “The bruises are gone. Fulton says my arm can come out of the sling in another day or two. I've been taking it off to perform light tasks, such as cooking something besides his one cooking talent, toasted cheese sandwiches.”

As she'd hoped, he chuckled. “So Fulton is concerned for your health?”

She nodded, stiffening in anticipation.

“He's good to you?”

“I'm not sharing his bed.” Sharper words than she'd intended.

“Of course not, madame.” He glanced at her sling, the slow-healing scar on her face. “He's a gentleman.”

The ill-hidden pity felt like a whip lashing at her. “Fulton's brilliance and his vocation make him lonely. Few people can understand him. He needs an audience, a sounding board for his new ideas. My injuries gave him the excuse he needed to let me into his world.” He made a small movement, but she went on as if she hadn't seen it. “I'm learning about spring propulsion and the shape of the bombs. I'm asking ingénue questions and making notes when I retire.” She handed him a small oilskin pouch. “I pretended not to understand spring propulsion after a few lectures, so he gave me a practical demonstration of it, taking me to see
Nautilus
. The shell's still damaged, but he's repaired most of the inner workings. He was delighted in my interest and allowed me to sit inside and test things. I've made drawings of it all, as you see.”

He opened the packet and scanned the notes. “This is excellent,
madame, precisely what we need from you. Has he shown you the craft tethered in Audresselles harbor?”

She shook her head, the feeling of failure returning. “Has Bonaparte arrived yet?”

“He's not due for five weeks,” he replied, voice hard. “But they can't hide the increased security, both on land and at sea.”

She had five weeks to charm Fulton into giving her the boat hiding off Audresselles Beach. Splashback from a wave hitting another rock half drenched her. She sighed; more tussling with the hated washboard tomorrow. “Here is a letter for my mother.”

He pocketed it without comment.

She began to wonder why she'd come. “Are we . . . um, are we still being sought over LeClerc's murder?”

“I've heard nothing about you, which probably means Delacorte's still laid up, or on another mission.”

She relaxed for a moment, then realized what he hadn't said. “What of you?”

He shrugged. “When we were still on the ship, I learned the French want to question Gaston Borchonne regarding LeClerc's murder, and the murder of several gendarmes.”

The curtness in his tone sounded almost like shame. “Did you kill them?”

A tight glance. “I would have if it hadn't been done by Delacorte first.”

She didn't know why he sounded reproachful. “Should you be here? What about your brother?”

He shrugged. “Don't fear for Cal. He was in Abbeville for months before I arrived, infiltrating the Jacobins. He knows how to hide.”

There's something else he's not saying. Again.
She repressed a sigh.

“I suppose Cal's as good a target for Alain as any, seeing as I escaped with a man who resembles him,” she remarked, to see if it would rile him.

He nodded, tension running deep, and she felt small and mean. “Take care, monsieur. Would Bonaparte's spies ask for your name before killing you?”

His eyes glinted. “I'm safe enough, but the hunt for Borchonne means I'm limited in what I can do in public. So I send my men on the dangerous missions and remain in hiding here.”

The slight smile was different from any he'd shown her before. His eyes were warm as they rested on her—but it made her want to run. “I . . . I see. I will let you know when I have more to tell.” With difficulty, she rose to her feet, but she swayed.

He took her hands in his, drawing her against him. “You're still unwell.”

“Stop it,” she tried to snap, but she sounded weak, feminine. “You're injured, but you're here. If I was a man, you wouldn't say it.”

He hesitated, then nodded. “You're right.” After a moment, he said, “If the situation with Fulton becomes uncomfortable, I'll see that you return to your family with full honors.”

Suddenly he felt too close. She liked to breathe without feeling as if she'd just run a race. “I'm not a soldier.” Still too sharp. She struggled against another apology.

“No, you're something far more difficult,” he said with respect in his voice she couldn't doubt. “War is ugly, but soldiers see their battlefield and their enemy. They receive public honor and often a fair fight. In this game we play to prevent war, and women endure the same dangers as men, and many others harder to bear.”

She turned her head, her frowning gaze staring out to sea. “Wars have never been fair on women.” Last night, she'd come to a realization. No matter what happened now, she'd lived with Fulton. In the eyes of the world, she was ruined by inference. She could save Edmond, but he couldn't live with her if she wanted him to be a gentleman.

He lifted her hands and pressed them to his lips, shocking her. “My men await the right opportunity to take your son without risk either to him or his grandmother.” He too looked out to sea. “Your mission is harsh and murky with blurred lines, yet you fulfill your duty with more honor and less complaint than any woman I've ever known.”

The earnestness in his voice shook her; his touch, meant as reassurance, left her unsettled, almost fearful. She jerked her hands from
his. “I must go. The mist is thinning.” She turned to head back toward the estuary, knowing he was waiting to catch her should she fall again; but she refused to look back as she started off. She'd never allow a man to carry her again, if she could help it—

Then she slipped on a bit of moss and began wobbling, falling back—and then she was cradled against his chest, his arms holding her with tender care. “You foolish girl,” he chided, in a tone she'd never heard from him. “Why did you come when you're still not well enough?”

It was foolish to struggle. “Why do you wait for me every day in the cold and wet, when your leg must still be in pain?” She felt the give in his leg with each step he took. “Why do you carry me when your wounds might reopen? I'm no lightweight.”

He chuckled. “I doubt you've looked in the mirror lately. You're a bundle of feathers.”

Typical of the man that he didn't answer anything about himself. “Ten days of cheese sandwiches and stewed tea. I must visit the store soon. The cheese has become musty, but Fulton doesn't even notice. If I eat another cheese sandwich in my lifetime, it'll be too soon.”

He laughed again. He didn't speak until they were around the point and on sandy ground. “We're a pair, unwell and carrying on, denying what's obvious to everyone else.”

This gentle banter was just what she needed to recover from feeling so off-kilter. She didn't stop to wonder why her serious stranger could make her smile even in the worst situations, or why she felt so safe whenever she was with him. “You can put me down. I can walk now.”

He shook his head. “You're too pale.”

“I'm tired of men carrying me hither and yon. I'm not a weakling,” she complained, but without real rancor. She felt
secure,
even knowing the world around her was disintegrating.

“You wouldn't know how to be weak,” he murmured in a fierce undertone, heading up the river path back to the house. “If I've carried you before, if I carry you now, I'm attempting to make up for other men's failures to
be
men.”

Lisbeth shivered, but didn't answer. Wrong, it was wrong to feel safe with him. Wrong to trust him, but she couldn't stop it.

At the final bend before the house, while they were still out of sight, he let her down. “If you come out again before you're truly ready, I'll do something dire next time.”

She shrugged. “I'm sure most other underlings obey your commands without question when you threaten them with these unknown dire consequences.”

“Yes—but you have no intention of following their excellent example, have you? You've gone your own way from the night we met.” He mock-sighed. “I suppose I'll have to think of something drastic enough to enforce your instant obedience from now on.”

The gentle teasing made the quick laughter wither on her tongue unborn. She stared at him, her breathing uneven, feeling as if she'd just woken from a deep sleep. They stood in a gray mist curling around them like a cat, an illusion of privacy.

“Go in now,” he said in a cool tone, turning aside. “Take care in this mist, you might slip. When I saw you leave the house, I left a bag of fresh food and a jug of milk at the kitchen door as your alibi. No cheese in sight, I promise you.”

Crushed, she turned away, slow and careful in case she began to feel weak again.

“Elise? Is that you?” Fulton's anxious voice came as soon as she entered the house.

“Yes, m'sieur. I have supplies. I'll be up soon with fresh tea,” she called.

But even when she was installed on her chair in the attic, drinking tea with Fulton, and eating the seedcake that tasted like ambrosia, her breaths still came in fits, like a wind changing direction. Her body was warm, and her fingers trembled.

Must she always go by reverses? Her husband couldn't arouse her, and the man she was supposed to seduce felt like her best friend; but Duncan, a man she still didn't know, had stolen something precious from her with a touch. But she doubted he even realized he had it, and probably wouldn't want it if he knew.