9. Chapter 9
Chapter nine
This time, Marguerite arrived at the ship with the full honors of a diplomat. Or at least with the full honors of a woman whom the Duke of Stormhaven did not wish to see dangling from a rope ladder while half his crew learned new categories of aquatic tragedy.
A proper accommodation ladder had been lowered from the frigate's side, broad enough for skirts, dry enough for dignity, and attended at the foot by two officers in blue coats who stood so straight they seemed to have been ironed by the Admiralty.
One saluted. The other bowed. Neither looked at her ankles.
Progress indeed.
Elsie, who had endured the boat ride with one hand locked around Marguerite's arm and the other clutching her reticule as if it contained the crown jewels, leaned nearer and whispered, "Well, this is grand."
Marguerite lifted her chin. "The Royal Navy has many faults, but it appears capable of learning from catastrophe."
Elsie eyed the ladder. "I like a man who learns."
Marguerite refused to think of men. Or of one man in particular. Or of one man in particular wearing naval blue, standing somewhere above her on a ship that was now to become her entire country until Naples.
Naples. Yes, she must think of sunny Naples and a court where a woman could succeed.
She placed one gloved hand on the rail.
The wood was dry beneath her palm. Firm.
The steps did not swing, slap the hull, or attempt to murder her.
Still, the memory of the rope ladder flickered through her body.
Her stomach tightened. The sea moved below, green-black and gleaming, making the sort of small, wet sounds one heard from creatures pretending innocence.
“Not today,” she muttered, and climbed.
At the entry port, a young lieutenant offered his hand. Marguerite took it because her knees, though improved by recent experience, had not yet become citizens of a reliable republic. The lieutenant helped her through with impeccable care and immediately released her.
The deck opened before her.
Men moved everywhere in apparent order. Sailors crossed the deck with coils over their shoulders. A marine stood near the rail in scarlet. Above them, ropes climbed in disciplined lines into the masts, where sails hung furled, waiting for command.
And there, near the quarterdeck, stood Tristan Blackmere, Duke of Stormhaven.
He was very handsome. This was unfortunate but not new information.
He wore his uniform with such severe correctness that it seemed less clothing than declaration. Dark blue coat. Gold epaulets. White breeches. Black boots. His long black hair was tied neatly at his nape, his sun-browned face clean-shaven.
Where was the pirate? The man who had grinned in moonlight, stolen her bracelet, and told her to damn the consequences… He seemed much less imposing than this Captain Duke.
She was aboard his frigate, surrounded by his officers, his sailors, his guns, even his ropes. For weeks, her world would be reduced to Tristan Blackmere's authority. The thought tightened her fingers around her reticule.
He bowed. “Miss d’Ailes.”
"Your Grace."
There. Two civilized people could cross a deck, enter a ship, and speak as if one had not once held the other by the waist above the sea.
He did not reach for her. His gaze passed once over her face, paused nowhere, claimed nothing, then moved to Elsie and the small pile of trunks being brought aboard behind them.
Marguerite should have been grateful. She was grateful. Very grateful. A woman crossing the deck of a warship under the eyes of officers and sailors required respect far more than she required green eyes lingering upon her.
And yet.
Her pulse kept reaching for his attention like an idiot's hand in the dark.
Look at me, tell me who you are.
"Your passage is prepared," he said.
"Thank you."
"My officers have been instructed regarding your comfort and privacy."
Privacy.
The word landed with more force than she expected.
"Very considerate."
A second officer came striding toward them with a cheerfulness that appeared entirely unauthorized by the Royal Navy.
He was younger than the duke, though not very young, and handsome in a brighter, less dangerous way.
His blue eyes were openly laughing, and he wore his uniform as if it were a costume he admired but did not entirely trust to keep him respectable.
"Miss d'Ailes,” the duke said, “allow me to present Don Lorenzo della Rocca, Count of Brianza. My youngest brother."
The new gentleman swept into a bow so magnificent it required music.
“Incantato, signorina. I am just the penniless brother with the faultless pedigree."
Marguerite looked more closely at Lorenzo. There had been della Roccas around Milan, Monza, perhaps Como, old enough to matter and complicated enough to survive by marrying well and reappearing whenever Europe rearranged itself. She had never heard of a penniless della Rocca.
"What branch of the della Rocca family?" she asked.
Lorenzo's gaze flicked, quick as a pickpocket, toward Tristan.
"The poor one," he said at once.
Tristan's expression did not change. Marguerite had the sudden sense of having stepped near a covered hatch.
"How precise," she murmured.
"Poverty makes a man direct." Lorenzo offered his arm with a flourish. "Now, allow me to escort our passenger to her cabin before she decides we have terrible manners. We are working very hard against our natural gifts. Right, Captain?"
"Yes," the duke said. "Escort Miss d'Ailes below."
The word should not have sounded ominous.
Ships had lower decks. Houses had upstairs.
Coaches had interiors. Everything possessed a where-one-must-go-next.
Still, the thought of descending into the frigate, into narrow passages and enclosed cabins and a voyage from which she could not simply walk away, drew a cold thread through her excitement.
It slipped beneath her stays, fine as wire, and tightened around her ribs.
Her fingers had begun to chill inside her gloves.
Do not shiver, she told herself sternly.
One did not negotiate passage to Naples and then tremble because a staircase had appeared.
And now she was entirely on the duke's ship, under his command, at his mercy. She did not really know him. She knew he could be arrogant, reckless, startlingly gentle, and far too adept at making her body forget its alliances.
But what did he do with power when no one watched? Her shoulders drew in despite herself. The deck seemed suddenly too wide behind her and the hatch too narrow ahead, as if the ship had become a throat preparing to swallow her whole.
Before she could follow Lorenzo, the duke pressed something into her gloved hand. "The key to your cabin, Miss d'Ailes."
It was plain brass, warm from his hand. The key to her door. A door she could lock. Against him. Marguerite stared at it. Her fingers closed around it, and the cold wire around her ribs loosened by one notch, then another.
He had given her the choice.
Her shoulders lowered, and she took the first real breath inside the frigate. The key rested in her palm like a little coal wrapped in cloth. Not safety, perhaps. Not yet. But the beginning of it.
She had almost kissed the pirate in a moonlit garden. She had negotiated with the duke. And now, she felt she knew the captain.
"Thank you," she whispered.