Ramage & the Renegades (34 page)

“I assure you, madam, that the privateer Captain would not jib at the sight of a dozen of his men dangling by their necks from nooses: privateers are desperate men, and if only a few survive the action, it means their share of the spoils is bigger.”

“Don't you believe it, Mr Ramage—”

“
Lord
Ramage,” Sarah corrected, ignoring Ramage's request in her exasperation.

“Oh, indeed? One of the Blazeys, then? How interesting. St Kew, in Cornwall, isn't it? You must be the Earl of Blazey's son—”

“If that boat does not return safely to the
Lynx,
madam,” Ramage interrupted her, “the privateer captain will give a signal which will result in all the passengers in the
Friesland
and
Heliotrope
being killed by the guards. Four men and four women in the Dutch ship, two men, two women and two children in the French.”

“Oh dear me, what will happen? You must
do
something, young man; do something at once!”

“He is trying to decide now, and he doesn't need
your
help,” one of the women said. “Come on, leave the Captain to his business.” With that the woman walked aft, followed by several of the others. Mrs Donaldson, however, stood where she was, twirling her parasol and tapping a foot.

“Young man, I
demand
to know what you intend doing!”

Ramage nodded to Rossi, who politely but firmly took Mrs Donaldson's arm. “
Signora,
is down to your cabin now, the sun is too strong.”

“But I don't wish—”

“This way,” Rossi said, “is dangerous, too much sun.” He took Mrs Donaldson's parasol and held it so low she could hardly see and, with her protesting that she
liked
the sun, the Italian had her almost trotting along the deck.

“I'm sorry,” Sarah murmured, “I continually underestimate you.”

“Not now you don't; I've no idea what we do if that boat comes here. Kill or capture them to save ourselves, and kill the passengers in both the remaining ships—or surrender ourselves and save the others.”

“How many passengers in the
Heliotrope
and
Friesland?
”

“Fourteen.”

“Compared with sixteen here and how many in the
Amethyst?
”

“You have to balance twenty-six freed with fourteen still held hostage.”

“So you've already considered it from that point of view,” she said. “Like a butcher weighing up meat.”

He sighed and lifted the telescope. “I happened to know the figures; I've been living with them for the last few days. You were the first hostages to be released only because you were the nearest to the
Calypso,
” he added brutally, “and the
Amethyst
was the next nearest.”

“I should have thought you would have considered it your duty to rescue the largest British ship first anyway,” she said, a cold flatness in her voice.

“I'm not rescuing any particular ship. My men and I are saving lives of innocent people—or trying to.”

“Don't say that to my father—he was the Governor General of Bengal.”

“I know—I remembered that at breakfast.”

“So that had no bearing on your rescuing us first?” Obviously she found it hard to believe.

He snapped the telescope shut with a vicious movement. “You are at liberty to question my officers when you have the chance. We knew nothing of the identity of any of the hostages.”

“You mean the privateersmen said nothing to you?”

“Do they know?”

“Well, I'm sure they do. Someone must have told them!”

“I doubt it. I believe that they don't know for the simple reason that they could get almost a king's ransom for your father. A Governor General's ransom, anyway. How much would the British government pay to free him? Or the directors of the East India Company? They'd pay whatever was demanded.”

“Well, you've saved them the expense,” she said. “It has cost you what must be a very irritating encounter with me. And if that boat comes here, I suppose everything is wasted anyway.”

“The boat isn't coming here.”

“How do you know?”

Ramage stared at her and then gave her the telescope. “Give it to Mrs Donaldson when you've finished. The rectangular boxes they are lifting from the water are lobster pots.” He bowed and went down the companion-way, knowing that his hands were shaking with anger but both surprised and pleased with himself for not showing it. Mrs Donaldson—thank goodness Rossi had understood that unspoken order. But Sarah—there was no way of lowering a parasol over her. He wondered what she looked like, lying naked on a bed. Well, he would never know, but one thing was certain: she could be damned annoying fully dressed on the upper deck.

He could just make out the first stars in Orion's Belt as they rose over the hills, and he glanced across at the black shape which was the
Heliotrope.
It was going to be a long swim tonight: the
Heliotrope
was much farther from the
Earl of Dodsworth
than the East Indiaman was from the
Calypso,
and his own job was going to be a lot more difficult because he would be warning French passengers. Still, he spoke good enough French to deal with that. Much worse was the problem facing Aitken, who had to board the
Friesland
and warn a number of Dutch men and women.

It was so peaceful—and so improbable that Captain Ramage, commanding the
Calypso
frigate, should be sitting here on number four gun, starboard side, in a John Company ship anchored off an Atlantic island so small few had heard of it. And thinking so many random thoughts his head seemed to be a mill stream in flood.

His fingers traced the “GR II” cast into the gun between the trunnions. Not a new gun, by any means, but not used enough times to make a gun from the previous reign less useful. Well cared for, of course; he could feel the smoothness revealing many coats of gun lacquer, and in daylight he had seen that the ropes of the breeching, side and train tackles were in good condition: one could tell that without twisting the rope to see if the heart was still a golden brown, even though the outside had weathered grey.

It was a still night. The current kept the ships heading west of north as though they were half a dozen compass needles, but each one's heading was slightly different, so it was easy to see how the current came round the northern headland and curved into the bay with a scouring movement before meeting the southern headland and running out again.

That faint scent, crushed nettles and yet containing the muskiness he associated with the East he had never seen, and then the rustle of silk and the voice he knew he would never forget. “You sit there with head bent like Atlas carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders,” she murmured.

He reached out and took her hand in a movement which seemed quite natural. “The weight of
my
world, and that's quite enough!”

“We haven't made it any lighter—people like Mrs Donaldson and me. ‘You must do something at once.'” She mimicked Mrs Donaldson. “I shudder every time I think about this morning.” She gave a curious start, like a suppressed hiccough.

“You've been crying, too. Not about that, surely?”

He felt her fingers let go of his hand but he held on. “Answer me, ‘Miss for now.'”

“Yes, I've been weeping like a silly young woman, but not over that.”

Ramage suddenly remembered the military uniform he was wearing. Had the sight of someone about the same size as its owner provoked sad memories? Of a distant husband, a dead lover—or what? Was she a widow mourning her husband or had she gone to India with her parents to marry a fiancé who had died of one of the East's many diseases?

He twisted round on the breech of the gun so that he could look at the dark shadow which was Sarah, and he held her hand in both of his. In a few hours he would say goodbye and probably never see her again, but he needed to know.

“Over what then? It's not vulgar curiosity that makes me ask.”

She gave a muted, unhappy laugh. “Captain Ramage,” she said, with almost mocking formality, “I met you only eighteen hours ago. We have not even been formally introduced. My mother would have a fit if she knew I was up here alone with you …”

“Would your father?”

“I … well, I doubt it. He has a wider understanding of … problems.”

“We have known each other eighteen hours; in three more we shall say goodbye—if you stay up that long. So you can answer my question without worrying about blushing when you meet me at breakfast tomorrow, because for us there is no tomorrow.”

She lowered her head and gave another dry sob which she tried to disguise with a laugh. “It was a silly reason and of no possible interest to you.”

“You could say possibly no concern of mine, but certainly I am interested, or I wouldn't have asked.”

“Please, Captain Ramage, forget it.”

“My name is Nicholas.”

“I've been thinking of you as Nicholas; I suppose because you finally called me Sarah.”

“Finally … it took long enough. We wasted so many of those eighteen hours, ‘Miss for now.' But tell me the reason.” He could not prevent himself from returning to the question but she shook her head.

He let her hand go and said, without trying to hide the sudden bitterness he felt: “It must be important if you wish to keep it secret. Anyway, I can guess it, I think.”

She looked up suddenly and he thought he had shocked her.

“What have you guessed?”

“This uniform you lent me—it belongs to someone of whom you are fond and it brought back memories.”

“It brought back memories,” she said, “but the trunks are in my cabin only because the purser was afraid that if they were stowed below the rats might damage the clothing.”

He thought for a moment.
Had
she answered his question? He shook his head, as much to try to make his brain work more clearly as a sign of disbelief, but she said in a small voice: “The uniform has no significance; I would never have given it to you if it had.”

“We met under unusual circumstances …”

“Yes, I was naked and we were not formally introduced,” she said unexpectedly. “And for that matter you were almost naked, too.”

“I've thought about it many times since.”

“You are trying to embarrass me.”

“It was dark. I didn't see your face for hours. Anyway, why were you crying?”

“Oh, don't keep harping on that. I was unhappy. Now I am going to say goodbye and leave you here thinking of the beautiful Marchesa. My father has already thanked you again for having saved us. I can only repeat his words. Thank you, Nicholas.”

With that she was gone: she was barefooted, he realized, and in a moment she was hidden in the shadows cast by the masts and rigging.

So she thought he was sitting here alone in the dark “thinking of the beautiful Marchesa.” He began to feel guilty when it came to him that in the last hour he had not thought of Gianna at all. He cursed the boastings of Jackson, Rossi and Stafford. They had told a romantic story of a young naval officer rescuing the beautiful Marchesa from under the feet of Bonaparte's cavalry, but they had not mentioned—because they did not realize, or never knew—the other side of it. A man and a woman could fall in love—no one could stop that. But there was much that could prevent them from even thinking of living happily ever after.

At some point in the voyage to Trinidade, Ramage now saw as he sat on the gun, hoping that Sarah would return as quickly and silently as she had vanished, he had finally made up his mind about Gianna and the future. Without thinking about it openly, he had made the decision that mattered: he was not prepared to do something which made the twelfth Earl of Blazey, his son, as yet unborn, into a Roman Catholic, and forcing all the subsequent earls into a dual loyalty, to the British monarch and the Vatican.

His own father, the tenth Earl, had never mentioned the question of religion to him, even though he knew that at one time there was a question of marriage. The old Earl was very fond of Gianna: for the past few years, while Gianna was living with his parents, they had considered her more as a daughter than a refugee.

Unknown to himself, he had reached his decision. In her own way, Gianna had made a definite choice in deciding to return to Volterra. Did those two facts combined mean that the courtship, if that was the word, was over? In returning to Volterra, Gianna had obeyed the dictate of
noblesse oblige.
In turn, that meant that for reasons of state she would marry an Italian, a Tuscan whose family would be powerful enough to be a strong reinforcement for her own.

What about Paolo? For months Ramage had had the feeling that, perhaps without realizing it, Paolo was building his life round England and the Royal Navy. Yet he was Gianna's heir, and Ramage forced himself to think about it: if she was murdered by Bonaparte's agents, or even traitors among her own people, he would be the new ruler of Volterra. Paolo might be the ruler already, he told himself with a shiver.

Traitors and treason … there would be enough of both round the court in Volterra: the pro-French group would hardly welcome Gianna back. But had he been disloyal to her? Somewhere on the way from Chatham to Trinidade he had fallen out of love with her. His feelings in recent weeks, he realized, when he had worried about her safety, pictured her in a French jail, imagined her threatened by a Tuscan assassin, had been the anxiety a man would have for a much-loved sister; it was not the freezing fear for the safety of a future wife.

Had Gianna undergone this same change? It was not so much a change of heart as a change of direction. Had she begun to change while she was in England, so that this made it easier for her to return to Volterra? The more he thought about it the more it seemed he was using that as an excuse for himself. Gianna had returned because it was—as she saw it—her duty. He had tried to persuade her not to because—as he saw it—the war was not over, despite the Treaty, and it was her duty to remain in England until she could return to rule her people in safety, knowing that her work for them could yield results.