Charmed and Dangerous (21 page)

“A great deal of my work is like this, or worse. It isn't all exotic scenery and sheep's eyes.”

“You sound as if you don't really like it.”

“I would be a strange creature indeed if I liked being soaked to the skin and hungry, while being hunted through impassable mountains by hostile tribesmen.”

“Then why do you do it?”

He smiled. “Perhaps I am somewhat strange.”

She laughed again. “I wouldn't mind hardships on such journeys. It would be worth it to do something important.”

“A woman could never venture into those regions.” He sounded shocked.

“Why?”

“For a thousand reasons. It's unthinkable.” He filled two cups from the bucket of water. “Dinner, my lady,” he added.

Laura took the plate he handed her without meeting his eyes. It could hardly be clearer, she thought. There was no place for her in his life. He couldn't even imagine such a thing. She ate a bite of cheese and found she wasn't at all hungry.

Awkwardness descended with full night. Gavin seemed restless, abrupt. He moved around the room without lighting anywhere. Laura longed to feel his arms around her, but she was reluctant to make any demands. From the way he paced and the curtness of his remarks, it seemed that he wished to be far away from this ramshackle house, and her.

Finally, they fell into strained silence. The fire sputtered and crackled. The wind rushed over the cliffs outside. The sea murmured below. Laura sat in the chair, her hands folded tight.

She grew positively afraid to speak, afraid that if she did, she would blurt out all her feelings, the depths of her love, and then have to face the rejection in his eyes.

When she could stand it no longer, she rose, pretending normalcy. “I'm tired. I believe I'll go to bed.”

Gavin turned as if she'd thrown something. “I'm going to check outside,” he answered.

Check what? she wondered. The goats? She waited a few minutes, but he didn't return. Laura undressed and got under their blanket. It was a long time before she heard the door creak open. Gavin didn't join her.

* * *

The day dawned bright and clear. Gavin wasn't in the house when Laura woke, but he came in a bit later, flushed by the wind and looking very handsome. Had he slept? she wondered. Where?

“I've taken more wood up to the headland,” he said. “The sky is clear, ready for our experiment.”

So they were concentrating on the signal project, Laura thought. Not on anything so trivial as what had gone on between them. Gavin wanted to get off this island and run.

They lit their fire at midmorning, building a good blaze and then piling on green branches to maximize the smoke. When a broad column was rising above the headland, Gavin cast the blanket over it, then removed it again. Waiting for a brief interval, he repeated his actions, producing an obvious, satisfying interruption in the flow. He did it again.

“Someone must notice that,” said Laura, gazing up at the intermittent pattern of smoke rising into the sky.

Gavin merely kept at his task. After an hour, there was a trail of smoke shapes fading off to the horizon—some very short, others quite long. Gavin was sleek with sweat from the heat of the flames, the bare column of his throat gleaming. He had rolled his shirtsleeves to the elbow, and his forearms had streaks of soot. He looked rather magnificent, Laura thought, his hair glinting in the sun.

“That should do it,” he said, throwing down the blanket. “If anyone is going to notice, they will notice that.” He wiped his forehead with one hand.

Laura nodded. She thought some ship would come to investigate the signal, but she found the prospect didn't fill her with unalloyed happiness.

“You can go back to the house if you like,” Gavin said. “I'll watch up here.”

Without answering, she went. This was what everyone expected her to do, she thought as she negotiated the twisting trail down the cliff—wait in the house while great deeds were done elsewhere. Efface herself, attract no attention. She had come out of the shadows, and now she would go back in, one brief emergence in what might seem a very long life. She suddenly remembered something she had read in the earl's library. A poem spoke of a bird that flew from the night sky into a brightly lit banqueting hall, where torches burned and people celebrated, and then out again; an ephemeral flight from darkness to darkness. She felt a sharp kinship with that bird.

Reaching the house, Laura went in and sat in the chair before the fire. Low spirits threatened to overwhelm her. She had battled such feelings many times during her years at Leith House, but they seemed even worse now. Back then, she had had so little to lose.

Impatient with herself, she rose and began to pace the uneven wooden floor. Was she just going to give up? Was she going to trot meekly back to a life she didn't want and wasn't sure she could bear any longer? Was she going to accept others' definitions of what she could, or could not, do?

She wanted to say no. But she knew it wasn't so simple. She had made it clear to Gavin that she wasn't a whimpering miss ruled by convention. When they returned to civilized land, however, she would be bound by certain constraints. If she wasn't to earn her living as a governess, what would she be? There were few other choices, and none of them appealed.

She paced some more. If Gavin loved her, she thought; then stopped herself. He didn't. On the contrary, he saw her as a potential entanglement and a threat to his happiness. She mustn't include him in her calculations. He wished only to leave her.

Catching her breath on a twinge of pain, Laura turned and paced in the opposite direction. She was facing reality here, she insisted to that part of herself that wanted to weep. There was no time for mourning. And regrets were useless. There must be something she could do.

An idea struck her. She stopped in the middle of the floor and contemplated it. Arguments emerged before her mind's eye in orderly rows. Points of persuasion presented themselves. It seemed to her a compelling case. Would it to others?

She started to pace again, taking the idea apart and putting it together piece by piece, testing for weaknesses. Her energy returned as she found very few. It might very well work, she thought, and the future opened out in a whole new way.

* * *

It was hours before a sail appeared. But when it did, it was obvious that the vessel was heading for the island. They tossed more branches on the fire and began to send their signals once again. With excruciating slowness, the ship drew nearer. It seemed eons before they could make out figures on the deck. “It looks like a local fisherman,” said Gavin. “The boat is small, and there's no flag.”

“Will they take us to shore, do you think?”

“For a price.”

She nodded. “Do you have any money? I have a little.”

“Enough. It's fortunate Michael thought himself above thievery.”

She nodded again.

Gavin gave her a sidelong glance. There was something different about her, had been ever since she came back to the headland. Her step was lighter, her gaze more sprightly. It was puzzling. She had changed before there was any sign of rescue, and he hadn't been able to elicit any reason for it. “It's better, actually, that we didn't attract a merchantman or a navy ship. They would be much less likely to alter their course, and any navy commander would have a great many questions.”

“Unless it was a British ship,” she replied.

Even her voice was different—more carefree. Gavin felt inordinately irritated by the mystery of it. “They might have more questions than anyone else. We can't waste time on explanations. We need to move fast.”

She raised her eyebrows, looking quizzically amused. And what, Gavin wondered, had he said that was amusing? This new, enigmatic Laura was beginning to be annoying. “I'm going down to the dock,” he said. “You stay here and wave them in that direction, so they can find the landing.”

“All right.”

He started toward the path, then was struck by a thought. “I'll tell them our boat was wrecked. And…it will be easier if I say you are my wife.”

“Whatever you think,” she answered airily, keeping her eyes on the now rapidly approaching fishing boat.

Gavin frowned at her back briefly, then dismissed his questions from his mind. The critical thing now was to convince the sailors to take them off the island. Deciphering Laura's odd behavior would have to wait.

* * *

Laura stayed on the headland until the fishing boat hove out of sight around the cliffs below. Then she returned to the house, where she soon heard voices approaching. They were lively and punctuated by laughter. As they came closer, she took in that they were speaking Italian.

Gavin entered first. “Laura, Luigi and his crew have agreed to take us to the mainland.”

He was followed by three dark-haired men in rough work clothes—one barely more than a boy. All of them eyed her with great appreciation.

Since Gavin had addressed her in Italian, she expressed her gratification in the same language.

“This is Luigi, his son Roberto, and Gianni.”

She acknowledged the introductions. Roberto made as if to kiss her hand, but his father pulled him back.

Gavin indicated the boxes of food stores, and the men went to pick them up. “I told them they could have this, since we won't be needing it any longer.”

“Of course.” Did that mean that he hadn't had to pay them? Laura wondered.

“Are you ready?”

She nodded. Gavin came and took her arm, which surprised Laura until she noticed the approving looks of the Italian men. She remembered what George Tompkins had said about Gavin—that he fitted himself to any group he encountered. Listening to him banter with their rescuers on the way down to the dock, she understood what he had meant. Gavin seemed almost one of them. He made them laugh, but he also spoke to them as if they had all known each other a long time. And his manner was different—more animated and open. It didn't seem like an act, she thought; it seemed as if he had absorbed their ways just by being near them.

The fishing boat was tied up at the old dock. Laura was surprised to see a large dog standing alertly on the deck, watching the path with close attention.

“Alto,” called Luigi. “It is all right. We are back.”

The dog gave one sharp bark and leaped onto the dock, jumping amazingly high. He ran to the little cavalcade and capered excitedly around them, especially Roberto, who was carrying the box with the bacon.

“We call him Alto because he jumps so high,” the young man told Laura. “He guards the boat when we are on shore.”

The dog, whose short brown coat and pointed ears belonged to no particular breed, looked up at Laura as if he knew he was being described. His tongue lolled out in a kind of grin. “Hello, Alto,” she said.

His ears swiveled, but he didn't approach her.

Luigi put his box down on the dock and turned. “Alto,” he said. The dog trotted over to him immediately. “This is Signor and Signora Graham,” he told the dog. Looking up at them, he added, “Would you give him your hands?”

First Gavin, then Laura extended a hand to be sniffed.

“They are friends,” Luigi said. “They are coming with us.”

As if he understood, Alto now came over to Laura and offered his head to be patted.

Gavin helped Laura step over the rail and onto the small boat's deck. She didn't really require help, but she knew her part now and played it. A blanket was thrown over a large coil of rope, and she was seated as if she were breakable. Only then were the lines untied and the boat cast off from the dock. The fishermen turned the hull with poles and then raised the sail to catch the wind. The boat drew away, picking up speed when it left the lee of the tall headland.

Laura watched the landing, and then the island, recede across the water. She would never forget this place, she thought. It held far more memories than seemed possible for the short time they had spent. But the memories were such an intense mixture of good and bad that she wasn't sure how she felt leaving it behind.

The day was clear and cool and the waves calm. They encountered no difficulties, and as sunset approached, they sighted the long line of the Italian mainland ahead. Laura was aware of Gavin's voice, discussing with the fishermen where they would be set ashore, but it receded into the background of her thoughts. The sky was washed with crimson in the west. Lights glimmered here and there on the coast. The wind, picking up a bit, brought scents of salt and pine. It felt as if they were moving from one world into another, she thought. Soon, they would be back to the one where she was a governess in need of a post, and Gavin wished only to be free of her. Laura's sigh joined the currents of the wind floating out over the sea.

Darkness fell, and they had only the stars to guide them. This didn't seem to cause any concern, however, and after a while Laura found she was getting drowsy. Her head was nodding when Gavin came over and knelt next to her. “They have agreed to take us back to Venice,” he said. “Once there, I can find out where Sophie went and follow her.”

This was an unexpected blow, and it was a moment before Laura could answer. “You wish to follow Sophie.” She was wide awake now and a little breathless.

“I thought of going to Marseilles,” he replied, as if she were arguing with him. “But we can't be sure when the ship will arrive, or even if they will really land there. No, Sophie is the key.”

But to what? wondered Laura. However, she said only, “We can tell the English authorities in Venice what we have learned about Bonaparte.”

“Umm,” was his noncommittal response. “I wouldn't mention that name again until we are safely ashore. Loyalties are complicated in this part of the world.”

Stung, she didn't answer. Let him go chasing after Sophie, she thought. Let him do whatever he pleased!