Lady Merry's Dashing Champion (30 page)

"Who speaks, sir?" the captain asked from his high stern deck.

"The Earl of Warborough."

"Captain Millett, m'lord, at your service. Eveiy English seaman honors your name."

Giles nodded and rushed on. "I saw the walls at Sheer-ness Fort breeched, and above eight hundred Dutch soldiers landing on English soil."

"What would you have me do, your lordship? I have few ships and have turned them broadside to the chain to gain maximum firepower. I have but two fireships loaded with pitch to send against them and some small pinnaces with oars. I have forwarded urgent messages to Commissioner Pett and the Admiralty for reinforcements, but money is scarce and seamen deserting for want of pay." The captain leaned lower over the port rail. "You sail into chaos, your lordship. Some capital ships lie near empty at Chatham. And in London ... a run on the banks and men burying their gold guineas and silver plate in their gardens."

"But the Lord Chancellor Hyde—"

"Thinks the tortuous channels of the Thames will stop the Dutch."

"They have English pilots, sir, and a great fleet under de Ruyter's command."

"So many? But, m'lord earl, the chancellor busies himself fending off a London mob at his great new mansion in Piccadilly. They have torn down his gate, chopped down his trees and raised a gibbet. Think you he is concerned for us when he hopes to save his own neck?"

Giles waved away further shouted speeches. "Hold the chain, sir!"

"On my honor, I will do all I can with what I have. But I ask you to beg Commissioner Pett to send me more ships and men!"

Meriel spoke to Giles in low, urgent tones. "He cannot hold, Giles. We must get to London to report the Hollander's plans. Chiffinch and the Admiralty do not know the full threat to the city."

"Cock's life! We but waste precious time here."

"No, Giles, you do what is right, in proper order."

He commanded the drag anchor be raised, then laughed heartily, throwing back his head so that she saw the laugh travel up his throat to his mouth and into the fine dark eyes he turned on her. "You are a strategist, mistress, and will yet make a fine admiral."

Meriel curtsied at his extravagant praise and found her deep court curtsy just a trifle wobbly. She repeated it and this time accomplished it perfectly, though she had to pretend all the graceful sweeping moves of a gown and its train in cutoff sailor's breeches. She smiled up at him. "Sir, I would need a petticoat navy, because men would never consent to be ruled by a woman."

"Would we not, mistress? I think many a man would allow your rule, especially in such revealing breeches."

"I see only one man with the sense to both look and listen well." She was teasing, but so was he. Meriel knew that Giles was the last man who would be led by any man or woman. That he accepted her as full partner in this venture was almost past understanding. For an earl to join with a serving girl was more than any peer of the realm would think of, and she loved him all the more for it.

By this time, the port railing of the
Matthias
was lined with sailors, who stood silent as the
No Name
hauled anchor and headed toward London.

"How long?" Meriel asked.

"It could take two days without a pilot."

"We don't have so long. I will be your eyes. Can I not lie out along the bowsprit again?"

He clasped her about the waist, and his voice shook in his constricted throat. "Aye, my admiral," he said softly, with not a hint of sarcasm. "But we'll dock at Chatham and take a swift horse to Whitehall. The tide will not always run in our favor, and we have no time to wait for the turning."

Meriel watched his every move. To her, Giles seemed master of the wind, tacking expertly to keep his sails full, taking risks with his beloved little ship that spoke of his greater love of country. "I have found my true calling, m'lord," she said lightly, seeking to relieve his grim mood.

"Not as spy or servant or even countess, all of which I have mastered. A sailor, sir. That is what I would be, perhaps what I have always been. One day I hope ..."

He looked away, his lips in a rigid line. He could not answer the question behind her words, though he knew she awaited his answer. How could she be part of his life? Would he see Felice every time he looked on this woman's face? The question nagged him, but the answer was missing. In this, he could not be ruled by his heart.

Giles swung the wheel to miss a large piece of driftwood and didn't see that Meriel understood his inability to define her future, or the pain of understanding, pass across her face, although she banished it at once.

They sailed the rest of that day and into the evening hours, watching the banks as farmers and bands of villagers gathered in hastily formed militia units with powder, shot and muskets to repel the Hollanders from pillaging inland.

"We depended too much on the Thames to stop invasion," Giles told Meriel when Tom Barnes replaced her at the bowsprit. "We English did not count on de Ruyter's daring," he admitted.

"Well, my lord, I daresay he did not count on us!"

"Dam'me, mistress! I would more wish to have you by my side than a three-decker under my feet."

Meriel was too flushed with pride at the praise to point out that he could have his wish if he would but acknowledge her and trust her.

Giles drew his face a little closer to hers. "Although I'd take the warship, too. Think, Meriel, what we could do with a seventy-gun three-decker."

"Rule the Channel!" She thought again, and as usual the words came from her mouth before she could stop herself. "But I think me this little ketch is the best of all ships in the world." She bit down on her lip, knowing she had intruded too far into his heart with her own dreams, though every word was deeply felt.

Giles gripped the wheel until his knuckles whitened, and looked ahead. He dared not turn his gaze to her lest the mist in his eyes be taken for weakness. He could not think into the future, indeed had been holding it off with all his strength. This turmoil clouded his mind. Would Meriel be there beside him like this, or a memory less real with each new day and each new mistress? Would he forever search the faces of serving maids in the streets of London and around every corner, his heart quickening at the sight of every raven-haired miss in mop cap and smock, hoping to see her again?

Meriel saw bis struggle and left him to it. She knew what she wanted. He had to decide on his own desire.

She went back to the bowsprit, and was again relieved by Tom Barnes when she thought herself unable to cling another minute.

He approached her gently. "My lady, ye be at yer post for better'n two turns of the glass. I be taking yer place now. There's small ale and a little bread aft. His lordship be sleeping."

"Thank you, Tom. It's shoaling now at low tide. Keep close watch." Stiff and thinking to never remove the imprint of the bowsprit from her body where it fit neatly between her legs and breasts, Meriel staggered aft. She was thirsty and hungry with an even greater need to see Giles, to discover if what she'd seen in his face earlier was still there, or had been a mere passing thought.

She found him sitting on the deck near the wheel, sleeping on his arms. She had scarce downed some ale and taken a bite of bread that had turned to near stone in her stomach when the helmsman shouted, "Chatham ahead. I be seeing the topsails of the great
Royal Charles
at anchor."

Thirty minutes later, Giles was hailing the ship, as it loomed above them under a clear, starry sky. "Your captain," he shouted up at the darkened decks.

A sleepy head appeared at the stern. "Cap'n be ashore, sir. Lord Arlington tells us we be ordered higher up river. Then First Commissioner Pett tells us we be ordered to stay at anchor. Eighty guns we have, sir, and no cannoneers. Pett even takes ships and men to carry away his own household goods to safety. All be in disorder at Chatham dockyard, sir. Too many lordships running things, begging yer pardon since I hear yer quality!"

Giles put the wheel hard alee past other capital ships, the
Royal James
and the
Royal Oake,
and made for the docks. "Can you ride, mistress?"

"Aye, sir." Had he forgotten her ride with Buckingham and Rochester through St. James Park?
Do we remember only as we wish?
The thought gave her hope that she could weather any future. "Should we talk with the master of the dockyard?"

"No, we need the highest authority. Not Pett, who seems easily swayed this way and that, or he would have removed the
Royal Charles
upriver to safety before now. Any fool can see the ship is a target. We will away to Whitehall by the swiftest horse." He gripped her arm and shouted to Tom. "Rest here, and I will return as soon as ever I can. There may be work for the
No Name
later."

They put a plank over to the dock, and Giles helped Meriel ashore on unsteady legs that near rolled out from under her.
Hey, well, I've been at sea for days!

"I know a stable nearby," Giles said, and ready or not, her legs followed him. The hostler, spurred by the gold guinea glinting in Giles's palm, soon had a spirited horse saddled, and Meriel felt herself lifted up to sit within his arms against his broad, comforting chest, and they were away down the cobbled streets toward Whitehall.

Without a linkboy carrying a torch before them, the streets were dark and peopled by groups of men looting shops and shouting angrily after them. "We have been sold to the French Papists! Their armies gather at Dunkirk to invade us. All is lost!"

Only a sharp kick from Giles kept one man from grabbing their horse's reins. "Order has been broken," Giles said in her ear, and she nodded, lest her answering words be swept away behind them.

They made a detour around the worst burnt-over parts of old London until they clattered into the royal mews near Westminster. Leaving the horse, blowing and snorting in the care of boys dicing for coppers amongst the stalls, they hurried toward Whitehall Palace, past the red-coated guard who recognized and saluted Giles, thence up the private back stairs to Chiffinch's apartment, for only he could admit them to the king's privy closet.

Giles pounded on his door twice and put his shoulder to it before Chiffinch opened to them bursting through at the same moment, near to knocking him over. In his linen sleeping cap and gown, but minus a periwig, the spymaster looked like a rather large sleepy jester.

"My lord earl," Chiffinch began, unable to keep surprise from the grimly sardonic face he immediately assumed. He went no further when Meriel appeared from behind Giles, who towered above him. "Ah!

"The king," Giles shouted. "We must reach the king!"

"Your pardon, mistress Meriel... it is Meriel, isn't it, and not Lady Felice? Yes, I see it is, for Felice would not appear at the palace in sailor's clothing, somewhat the worse for several soakings,"

"My wife, sir, is dead by an English cannonball, as you probably know, so jests at her expense are unwelcome, if not dangerous to your health. You are but delaying us. Why? Is the king abed? Is the king not alone?"

"What news do you bring? As the king's spymaster, I will take it to His Majesty, as is my privilege and duty." He retreated into his office and began to pull on a pair of breeches.

Giles followed. "You waste time, spymaster, when there is no time to waste."

Chiffinch bowed. "Allow me, m'lord earl, since you are suffering from loss.

Accept my deepest sympathy, Lord Warborough," he said in a faked mourning voice. "I had some slight communication from Sheemess Fort after it fell that a woman's body was brought ashore and buried by the Hollanders.... With all honors. I did not know until this minute whether t'was her ladyship or your present lovely companion." He smirked, obviously pleased with himself, and pleased to stop the earl's agitated advance. "I rather enjoyed the thought that they might still be confused between your wife and this young miss, perhaps believing neither."

Meriel could no longer contain the rage sweeping through her. "You
knew
that Felice had escaped to them, and you did not warn me."

"When we could no longer fool the Dutch with a counterfeit, we needed to confuse them as to who was the real countess," he said in a placid voice, as if he spoke such cruel, betraying words every day. "And I thought you might be persuaded with gold to give up your true identity to—"

"I gave up nothing to the Hollanders."

"Most admirable, mistress," he said in a mocking tone.

Giles stepped close to Chiffinch, and the spymaster drew back, though Meriel doubted he knew the real danger he faced, for she felt the tension in Giles's body, like a lion readying its muscles to leap on prey.

"De Witt needed nothing from this woman," Giles growled. "He got everything from Felice, who gave him all willingly. But if you delay us longer from the king ..."

Giles's support did not quell Meriel's rage. "Spymaster, you allowed me to walk into a trap. I say foul, sir!" And then she added words that no lady, whether counterfeit or real, should utter to her superior: "You take me for a dupe! Damn you for a whoreson bastard—" She could have gone on to apoplectic heights, but Giles looked her way in some dismay, and that was enough. "My pardon, Giles," she said, almost choking on the rage she had to swallow. "An English spy should not have to endure betrayal from her own."

Chiffinch looked bored. "We have grown mighty high in our ways, I see, from the servant you were a bare month ago. Do you not know her origins by now, my lord earl?"

"She told me, but I think even she does not know everything."

Chiffinch shrugged, though it was an answer he had not expected, honesty not being part of his repertoire. "Then you should also know that I would use the king's subjects as befits the need of the realm. Mistress, it seems you escaped any real harm"—he looked pointedly at her belly—"unless you now carry an earl's bastard. Yet, enough! You are a good spy, m'girl. I may use you again unless you are with—"

Meriel gasped. Chiffinch, in his uncanny way, had spoken aloud what she had thought possible since her first night at Harringdon Hall. And from the look on Giles's face, the thought was not new to him either, but also not welcome from Chiffinch's mouth. Giles reached for his sword, and not finding it at his side, brought up his fist.