Chapter 36
Thirty-Six
James had to acquire another horse, so it was close to midnight when he arrived in Dover. He went to one of the public houses abutting the harbor and discovered the next ferry crossing would be in the morning.
“Is there a Mrs. Lovelock staying here or a Miss Cooke or Cooksey? Small, fair-haired woman, traveling alone?”
“No, not here. And it’s a good thing, too. This is a rather rough sort of place. Not good for a woman traveling alone. She should be in one of the inns farther from the harbor.”
“Which are those?”
“Well, there are close to a dozen of them. But those people won’t tell you if she’s there or not. Not at this hour. Is she going to make the crossing? Be at the harbor at dawn. You’ll see her there. Now, do you want a room or no?”
James took the room even though he did not sleep but paced up and down, too afraid of missing the dawn, too afraid of missing Catherine.
Finally, he saw a lightening of the sky in the east, and he left the public house and went to wait at the harbor.
It was cold there, with a brisk offshore wind towards the Channel.
But the sea was not rough, and James thought it likely the Bonny Bess would leave in a timely fashion.
With each woman who approached the harbor, James’ heart set up a tattoo. But they were all too tall, too stout, too old, too young.
The sun was up, and the boat would be leaving within the hour. There were more and more people coming to the harbor, and James had to stand directly next to the wharf where the Bonny Bess berthed to make sure he would not miss Catherine.
Unless, of course, she had arrived at Dover in time to take the last crossing yesterday.
That was unlikely. Or she had hired a private packet boat to take her across.
That was more likely. Catherine could afford it.
James stayed by the wharf but craned his neck, trying to see if a woman of Catherine’s size was heading towards any of the other boats.
And then he saw her red tartan cloak and her golden curls covered by a lace cap, a small figure directing two men carrying her trunks. She was headed directly towards James.
A man bumped into him. A limping, well-dressed man with a tall woman with gray-streaked hair. James recognized the man and grabbed his arm.
“DuBois!”
DuBois tried to wrench his arm away but then looked at James’ face. “Your Grace,” he said and smiled. “Are you making the crossing, too?”
Catherine and her luggage were getting closer.
“Might I ask what you are doing here, Monsieur le marquis?”
“I am going home, Your Grace. To France. There is something I must attend to.”
“Is it possible you have something in your possession that belongs to the British government?”
“I am at a loss. I don’t know of what you speak. But I must insist you let me go so I may make this crossing. As your Chaucer wrote, time and tide, et cetera.”
But James did not let go.
“Two men are dead. Siddons and Ffoulkes. Do you have the plans stolen from the Navy Board? Did you find them in my dressing room?”
“You are mad, Your Grace. I know nothing of this. Release me.”
Catherine was upon them with her stevedores, trying to get past and onto the wharf to board the ship.
James turned towards her. “Catherine.”
“Jamie.” Catherine had no smile for him. To James, she looked very tired.
The tall woman with the gray streaks in her hair pulled at James’ arm to get him to release DuBois, but James held fast.
Catherine had a look of recognition on her face. “Madame Beauchamp?”
Madame Beauchamp gave up tugging on James and instead grabbed Catherine and pinned her arms behind her and started dragging her down the wharf towards the boat. The two stevedores blinked and put the trunks down.
“Release René!” Madame Beauchamp shouted as Catherine struggled against the much larger woman.
“Your Grace, I am not your enemy,” DuBois hissed. “Unhand me and la Veuve Lovelock will be safe. I have read your letters. I know you love her.”
James let go of him.
Of course, he did.
What had he been thinking? There were no possessions of the British state that surpassed the importance of Catherine and Catherine’s safety.
DuBois hastened down the wharf, limping as fast as he could. When he reached Madame Beauchamp, she let go of Catherine.
Catherine had been pulling against Madame Beauchamp’s grasp, so when the woman released her, Catherine lunged forward, tottered on the edge of the wharf, and, as James watched in horror, she fell into the water.
She was immediately lost to view, sucked down by a great force as if Scylla herself had snatched Catherine from the surface.
James dived into the sea.
The water was cold and murky. He should have taken off his boots. But he kicked as hard as he could and swam towards the spot where Catherine had sunk. The harbor was deep. He swam down and touched bottom and couldn’t see her. Surely, he should be able to see her red-tartan cloak.
His lungs burning, he surfaced and gasped and saw he was a good fifteen feet beyond where she had fallen in. He swam back and dived down again.
And there she was, on the bottom, struggling to undo her cloak, a look of panic on her face. James caught her around the waist and kicked. Up, up, up. He issued a prayer of thanks to his brother William who had insisted he learn to swim and dive in the lakes and ponds of the Duchy of Middlewich.
Catherine was limp now. And she was so heavy, far heavier than she should be.
He surfaced with her, and there were arms reaching down from the wharf. With his last bit of strength, he shoved Catherine’s body up and into those arms. Only once he saw she had been laid down safely on the wharf did he accept a hand up out of the water himself.
An old salt was leaning over Catherine and listening to her chest. Catherine started coughing, and the sailor turned her on her side, and she vomited.
James got on his knees next to her and took over holding her.
“I hope Mrs. Lovelock is all right.”
James looked up into the face of Mr. Bulverton. He squatted down next to Catherine and James.
“Be sure to give her some good thumps on the back so she gets all that sea water up. She’ll be right as a trivet in a minute.”
The old salt was hovering nearby and handed James a knife. James cut the cords of Catherine’s cloak, and it fell to the wharf with a thud and a clank.
“Ah, she sewed guineas into the lining of the cloak,” Mr. Bulverton said. “No wonder she sank straight to the bottom.”
James thumped Catherine vigorously on her back several times. After the fifth thump, Catherine said, “Stop, Jamie,” and turned and put her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest.
“Upsidaisy,” he whispered into her wet hair.
James got his arms under her and stood. He carried her back down the wharf, followed by Mr. Bulverton. The Marquis DuBois de Laval and Madame Beauchamp were being forcibly moved away from the shoreline by Mr. Bulverton’s men.
“A rider came after you left Ffoulkes Manor. He brought word the plans were not in your dressing room, but someone had clearly conducted a search in the rooms recently. DuBois left London for Dover yesterday, and suddenly someone high up became very anxious about the, uh, papers. We were dispatched to bring DuBois back to London for questioning.”
James stopped in front of the stevedores who were still standing next to Catherine’s trunks at the end of the wharf. “Go get that cloak on the wharf and bring it and those trunks along to the public house over there.”
Catherine looked up at him, and James looked down at her.
Mr. Bulverton said, “I wager the plans will be inside his wooden leg, mark my words.”
James was still looking at Catherine. “Good luck, Mr. Bulverton.” James strode off, the stevedores following.
“Goodbye, Your Grace,” Mr. Bulverton called after him.
James gripped Catherine tightly. There was so much to say. “You’re very wet, Mrs. Lovelock.”
Her teeth chattered. “As are you, Your Grace.”
“You know,” he said, “this reminds me of a certain walk we once took together across the Kentish countryside.”
“Being carried by a handsome duke sounds very romantic until you realize you have to be injured and soaking wet and cold every time it happens.”
“I will endeavor to make sure,” he said and kissed her forehead, “that the next time I carry you, Kate, you will be dry and warm and unhurt.”
He took her to his room in the public house, which was even more grim in the light of day.
But there was a bed. There was a fireplace.
The stevedores brought the soaked cloak and the trunks to the room, and they must have told the innkeeper that the very wet man with the very wet woman had been called Your Grace by another man at the harbor, because the publican appeared at the door of the bedchamber.
“Does Your Grace need anything else?”
Coal and tea and towels. But, first, some privacy.
After the door closed, James deposited Catherine in a wooden chair by the fire and peeled off her dress, unlaced her stays, removed her petticoat and hose and chemise.
Her cap and her slippers were gone. She wasn’t shivering anymore.
Her skin was pale but not blue with cold.
He saw the roundness of her lower abdomen and wanted to place a hand there and say the word mine, but he restrained himself.
She pointed at one of the trunks, and he opened it.
“I don’t trust the linens at a place like this. Give me my nightdress, there on top,” she said. She took it from him and dried herself all over with it. “Now my dressing gown.” She put it on.
“Now you, Jamie,” she said. He undressed and also took her damp nightdress and dried himself all over.
“The salt water has made pretty much everything except my boots unsalvageable, but Enfield will have packed something, I should think.” He opened his saddle bag and put on the dry shirt and the trousers he found there.
Catherine was spreading the soaked nightdress over the chair.
“This is a truly terrible room,” she said gazing at the stained walls, the coarse sheets on the bed, the dust in the corners.
“Yes.”
The coal bucket and tea and towels were delivered. The publican laid and lit the fire as James poured Catherine a cup of tea.
James pressed a coin into the man’s hand and got him out the door.
Catherine looked at James over the top of the crude pottery cup.
James looked at Catherine.
Catherine put the cup down.
Then they were kneeling in the middle of the bed, both having clambered up on it to meet the other one there.
He held her face in his hands and kissed her.
Hungry, deep kisses. She kissed him back, grabbing at his shirt with her small hands, pulling him into her.
He pushed her dressing gown off her shoulders, and she lifted his shirt over his head.
He got off the bed and removed his trousers.
Now they were just as naked as they had been five minutes before.
“Jamie,” she said.
“Kate,” he said and got back on the bed and put his hands on her waist and pulled her down to the mattress.
He lay next to Catherine on the bed and ran his hands all over her body as he kissed her face over and over again. She tasted salty, like the sea, and he knew he must taste the same. She moved closer to him, and he wanted to cover her with his body, keep her there, under him, safe.
She reached down and took his member in her hand. She stroked, and James groaned. He put his hand between her legs and touched her wet folds. He grazed her pearl, and she shuddered.
“Please, Jamie,” she whispered, and he felt his cock become even harder. He withdrew his hand from between her legs and positioned himself over her. She did not release him but spread her legs wider still and guided him into her.
Sweetness. Wonder. Joy. He was adrift in an ocean of pleasure. She put her heels behind his knees and rocked her hips as he thrust into her, and she sneezed and sneezed again as her body shook. “Jamie!”
He would never tire of hearing her say his name.
“Kate,” he said and used one hand to brush a wet tendril of hair from her face. With very little warning, he reached his own crest and released. Rapture rolled through his body for a long time.
When it was over, he lay on her. They breathed together.
His neck was bent and his face was buried in her wet hair.
She had her head under his chest, her face turned to the side.
He had a flood of emotion, lying on top of her as he had months ago, when they had first coupled.
And this time, even though she shifted slightly under him, he did not get off her.
He stayed on top of her, and he stayed in that wash of feeling.
How grateful he was that she was under him right now, breathing, living. How frightened he had been with her in the water. How sure he was that if she had stayed in that cold, dark place, he would have felt forever alone.
She must have felt him shake or heard the quiver in his breathing because she put her hands to his head and stroked the short hair she found there.
Finally, he rolled off her and summoned words. “Don’t go to France. We must talk. You promised me that. In exchange for the painting. We must talk.”
“Yes,” she said and stared at the cracked ceiling. “But not in this room.”