Playing with Fire (11 page)

The lights of Rosetta glimmered on the western bank ahead, and high overhead the moon now hung in a canopy of stars. Martin skillfully maneuvered the
canja
to quieter waters, where she would attract the least attention. Cleo ran over to him and rubbed busily around his legs. “Hello, Cleo,” he said, and bent briefly to stroke the little creature. Then he saw Tansy. “I hope I did not cause offense a moment ago?”

Tansy had been hesitating about joining him at the tiller, for fear of appearing obvious, but now she had an excuse. “Offense? In what way?”

“By my presumptuousness in holding your cousin?”

Tansy cleared her throat. “I rather think it was my cousin who ran to you, Lieutenant.”

He smiled. “Well, snakes are to be feared, even when only imagined,” he murmured.

“Yes.” Tansy longed to point out the truth to him, and prevent him from falling further into Amanda’s clutches, but the hand of jealousy would surely be perceived in such a revelation. She picked up Cleo, and the cat settled purring in her arms.

“Have you thought any more about the curious incidents with the retriever cat?” he asked with a sudden change of topic.

“Yes, quite a lot. I really can’t believe a painted cat can simply appear or disappear. I know it’s what we
think
happened, but nevertheless….” She didn’t finish the sentence, knowing full well that she sounded as if she were trying to convince herself. Besides, there was the added mystery of the bronze cat.

Martin nodded. “I know how you feel, for I feel it too. I’ve looked at the papyrus several more times since, and now I can’t see how I ever missed the cat in the first place. It’s brightly illustrated and very prominent indeed, yet I could swear in a court of law that it wasn’t there initially.”

She gave a slightly nervous laugh. “Thoughts of magic keep recurring, do they not? Maybe this is indeed a remnant of sorcery or some other supernatural thing left over from the time of the pharaohs.”

Cleo suddenly growled in Tansy’s arms and stretched her neck alertly to gaze astern, as if she knew there was danger there. They both turned to look back as well, but saw nothing in particular. There were other vessels, including another
canja.
It was following about two hundred yards behind, its lanterns and white sails clear in the darkness.

“Can you see anything?” Martin asked.

Tansy shook her head. “I don’t think so, but then they do say that cats see things we do not.”

“Are we back to the supernatural, perchance?” Martin murmured drolly, and she laughed.

The
canja
moved serenely on downstream, the Nile lapping gently against her sides. The lights of Rosetta were brighter now, reflecting occasionally on the dark water. There was no sign at all of the expected French ambush.
Long may it stay that way,
Tansy thought as she spoke to Martin again. “Have you been in the navy for long, Lieutenant?”

“Ten years. Before that I was employed by a London city merchant, and had charge of the company’s business affairs in St. Petersburg.”

“Really?” Tansy’s eyes were alight with interest. “How did you come to do that?”

“Because I am fluent in a number of languages. I am fortunate that such things come easily to me. Perhaps I should explain that I was brought up in Minorca, where I learned French, Italian, and Arabic almost as well as I learned English. I picked up a little Russian from an old friend of my parents. Obviously I absorbed a great deal more when I went to St. Petersburg.”

“Whatever made you give it all up for the navy?”

“My talent for languages, and, er, intelligence gathering, were recognized at the Admiralty. I agreed to serve for a set period. This is actually my last mission, for I will be discharged when the
Lucina
returns to Portsmouth.”

“What will you do then?”

“It is my intention to go to America.”

So far away? She had to hide her dismay. “How was it that you were brought up in Minorca?” she asked.

“My parents went to live there for my mother’s health. She suffered greatly with infections of the lungs. The Mediterranean air helped for a while, but she died when I was five. My father died when I was sixteen, and I hied myself to London. Then came the city merchant, and the rest you know.”

They were passing Rosetta now, the lights of which now shone brightly on the dark water. They could hear Arab music drifting on the night air from one of the many buildings along the crowded waterfront. The French were still nowhere to be seen as Martin looked at Tansy. “Well, I have answered all your questions, Miss Richardson, so perhaps it is now your turn to answer mine.”

“I cannot imagine what there is to tell about me. I have already explained how I came to be in Constantinople. I am the less fortunate of Sir Julian’s two nieces, and will most probably suffer a future as a lady’s companion, or some such dull thing.”

Cleo growled again, and craned still further to look astern. The other
canja
was closer, having hoisted more sail, but there still seemed nothing that would cause the cat to behave in such a way. Suddenly she leaped from Tansy’s arms and dashed away along the deck to her hiding place between the crates. Tansy watched her uneasily. “How very strange. What do you think is the matter?”

Martin laughed. “Have you ever heard of spooks, Miss Richardson?”

“Of what? No. What are they?”

“They are two things. The first is an undercover agent, which I have to say applies to me. The second is a ghost. So mayhap Cleo has seen both, hmm? First me. then a Nile specter.”

Tansy gave him a look. “I think you are teasing me, Lieutenant. Spook is too silly a word to be either of those things.”

“Silly it may be, but I am telling you the absolute truth.”

Hardly had he spoken than rifles were fired from the following
canja.
Tansy gasped and whirled about. The other vessel was close enough to see in detail now, and she saw French uniforms and recognized the officer from Tel el-Osorkon. Another round of shots rang out. She heard something whine through the air; then Martin gave a grunt of pain as it glanced off his temple.

She screamed as he slumped to the deck.

Onboard the
Lucina a
week later, when it was still not known if Martin would survive his injury, Tansy kept vigil beside him as he lay unconscious in his cabin. He wore a shirt and legwear, his head was bandaged, his face was the color of parchment, and he had only come around for a few seconds since being shot. That had been when he was being transferred from the
canja
to the frigate. He had been lucid enough to make Tansy promise to tell Captain Castleton not to send him ashore at Gibraltar. If he was going to die, he wished it to be in England.

Oblivion had claimed him since then. He felt cold to the touch, yet his entire body was damp with perspiration, and the soft dark hair at the nape of his neck clung to his skin, as did the gold chain and locket Tansy now knew he always wore. The locket was oval and beautifully chased, although whether it was empty or contained a memento of some sort, she did not know.

She recalled the terrible minutes when the French had continued to bear down on the fleeing
canja.
Shots had seemed to fly constantly through the air, but somehow in all the confusion, Tusun managed to sail the
canja
to safety in the darkness where the Nile emptied into the sea. The French hadn’t followed. Maybe they knew the
Lucina
was nearby. The
canja
waited for the dawn light in order to sail around the hazardous sandbar into Aboukir Bay, but then the
Lucina
came, having arranged to rescue the stranded crew of the
Gower.
The frigate had received the message Martin left in the date palm, and over the following hour or so had taken on board the shipwrecked seamen and the passengers and antiquities from the
canja.
She was even stowing the three women’s sea trunks, which had also survived the shipwreck. So at least some fresh clothes were to be had. Thus Tansy was now no longer clad in black robes or a torn mustard merino gown, but in long-sleeved lemon fustian that felt very clean, fresh, and good after the horrors of Egypt.

Tusun had remained on the
canja,
and the last Tansy saw of him, he had been waving from the tiller as he swung the empty vessel back into the mouth of the Nile. As he slid from view, his voice could still be heard wishing them well.
“Ma’as sa-lama.
Go in safety!” Tansy had continued to wave even after he had disappeared, and she hoped with all her heart that one day the Mameluke would regain all that his treacherous uncle had stolen from him.

Martin’s cabin on the
Lucina
was eight feet square, with just over five feet of headroom, and like all cabins allotted to first lieutenants on frigates, it was situated at the stern, on the starboard side of the gun deck. The floor was covered with black-and-white-checked canvas, and the oak-framed bed was narrow and hard, with red cloth curtains tied back with thick string. The only other furniture was Martin’s sea chest, the wooden chair upon which Tansy sat, and a table suspended on ropes from the deck beams. His uniforms, dress and ordinary, were on hooks on the wall, protected by muslin bags. Also on the wall was a gimbal-mounted lamp that was only to be lit when absolutely necessary, because flames of any kind were used with caution onboard ship.

The
Lucina
being a large frigate, the cabin enjoyed—if that was the word—the advantage of a gun port through which fresh air could be admitted, although the disadvantage of this was the presence of the gun, a thirty-two-pound carronade capable of inflicting awesome damage upon an enemy vessel. The cabin also possessed its own washroom and seat-of-ease, which greatly improved it upon the cabins provided for the rest of the ship’s senior officers, excepting Captain Castleton, of course, who had a much grander accommodation on the upper deck.

It was in the captain’s quarters that the three women were taking passage, officially as Captain Castleton’s guests. Makeshift cots had been erected in the light and airy great cabin, which stretched across the entire stern of the vessel. It enjoyed a fine view through a row of handsome glazed windows that also stretched the entire width of the stern. The captain, who was something of a martinet with his crew, but a more than gallant gentleman where the fair sex was concerned, had decided he had little choice but to keep his own private bed cabin for himself.

It was all that he kept for himself, having sacrificed the rest of his quarters to the ladies, but even this left Amanda dissatisfied. She felt
she
ought to have the best bed on the frigate, and created quite a scene about it until Hermione pointed out that Captain Castleton had to have somewhere to sleep. Amanda was on very frosty terms with Hermione and had no intention of forgiving her the things that were said on the
canja,
but the point made about Lord Sanderby’s reaction to his bride’s conduct had not gone unheeded.

It would be wrong to say that Amanda’s behavior had improved considerably, for such a leopard could not possibly change its spots to that extent, but there had indeed been an improvement of sorts. Thus, when the chaperone made it very plain that the alternative to Captain Castleton being permitted his own separate bed, would be for him to use the great cabin with his other two lady passengers, Amanda knew that such an arrangement was out of the question. She did not like having it pointed out to her, however, and remained at daggers drawn with Hermione. So Captain Castleton kept his own bed, but Amanda still managed to make it seem as if he were being far less than a gentleman. There was no doubt that hers was a generally disruptive presence onboard, but—as always—the eyes of all beholders saw only her astonishing beauty, not her meanness of spirit.

That meanness had never been more apparent than at the moment Martin had been shot. Tansy had worked desperately to staunch the flow of blood from his temple, all the time screaming to the others for help. Hermione rushed to assist, while Tusun took the tiller, but Amanda, having a horror of blood, had remained in the cabin. Since then she claimed that as there were already two women fussing over Martin, a third was quite unnecessary, and as for helping Tusun with the
canja,
well, she knew nothing about sailing and would therefore be no use at all. Besides, she had such delicate wrists that all in all it was surely better all around if she remained out of the way.

Tansy glanced around the cabin as she sat, hoping Martin would awaken. She had looked around it a thousand times or more since coming aboard, for she and Hermione shared the task of watching over him. It went without saying that Amanda did not bother with him at all while he was unconscious. Cleo was curled up on the bed, having now firmly established herself as Tansy’s pet, but the cat awoke with a little mew as there came sounds of new activity on the deck overhead. The frigate was lying in Gibraltar’s Rosia Bay, and was on the point of weighing anchor for the two-week voyage to Portsmouth. Whistles blew, orders were shouted, and bare feet ran across the ceiling as preparations quickened toward the moment of departure.

Captain Castleton had received new orders that would take his ship out of the Mediterranean for the first time in over a year, and the crew, strengthened by the men rescued from the
Gower,
had been initially delighted at the prospect of going home again. However, their pleasure had been short-lived when they learned that on arriving in Portsmouth the vessel would take on military supplies for a regiment in Canada, to which dominion she would also convey a minor, unnamed royal personage. There was much resentment among both officers and men, who felt that at time of war, the brave
Lucina
was demeaned by becoming little more than a mixture of army supply vessel and waterborne hackney coach for one of King George’s petty relatives.