Jennifer Horseman (25 page)

Still staring, she started to shake her head in denial. For having been so long a victim of unkind circumstances, she could hardly trust the idea yet alone the reality, could hardly believe that her luck swung with such maddening capriciousness, much less that her luck could change at all. "Gayle," she whispered still, her hand came to her mouth as if prepared to contain the emotion. "Is it ... oh, did he really—"

A sad smile lifted on his handsome face and he nodded. The emotion greeting the nod was joy, a rapturous kind of exultation bursting through her. She fell into his arms and clung to his neck. His arms came around her to celebrate her new-found happiness, and two things became clear to him: he had just made a horrible mistake and he was happy for it.

"Wait, Juliet, I've still some explaining to do," he pulled back to tell her. "There are conditions you must agree to."

She would agree to carrying a banner through Hades, anything so long as he returned her to Tbmas. "What?"

"You must never discuss it with him—Garrett, I mean. You know how adamant he's been and, well, the subject of your young man is still upsetting to him. Then too, a conversation about .Tomas might make him change his mind, and we wouldn't want that, would we?"

Garrett had already made this perfectly clear to her; he was the last person with whom she'd discuss Tomas. She nodded, sealing the deal.

"Good," he smiled. "Nor my father for that matter. He's the same. It's probably best if we just pretend nothing has really changed until . . . until — "

"Until when, Gayle?" she grabbed his hand as if needing more of his attention. "Oh, when shall he take me back?"

"Not for awhile yet. We have to finish this business with the French, you know. We should reach Tangiers by week's end. Surely you wouldn't want to give Napoleon free rein to charge, just so Garrett could take you back? Not just lives but nations are at stake!"

"Well yes, of course . . . But . . . well, how long do you think it will take?"

"A couple of months, less if we're lucky. Garrett's always lucky, too, you can count on it. Besides, his agents still have to settle this matter of your cousin before he can send you back."

"I keep forgetting about her ... oh, but it doesn't matter so long as it's soon! Soon we will be together again! Tomas should be through with the university then, too, and he can . . . marry—"

Gayle watched the emotion change in her eyes as she confronted this uncertainty about her future. He read her thoughts and knew how to answer. "No, Juliet, don't think of that now. At last you have the chance for everything to work itself out. Know that it will. I promise."

A smile lifted to her eyes and she nodded, praying it was so. At least now Tomas and she had a chance. At least now she was free! At last!

A light wind caught the sails, making travel slow but steady. The day dawned beneath a smooth blanket of low clouds. As the ship sailed southwest through the Mediterranean the clouds scattered, creating holes from which the sun fell in magnificent streams to the grey ocean water. Most of the crew labored arduously in the hold to shift the weight of the cargo, Garrett and Leif included.

They had just set one heavy crate on top of another when Gayle appeared beneath deck. Hanging on the topside stairs, he surveyed the scene. It had taken nearly a half hour to discover why Juliet would not appear on deck, a half hour he might have saved had he realized the obvious: Juliet had a lady's modesty, she could not appear among men wearing a nightdress and robe, even if it managed to cover her head to toe.

"I'm looking for a dress for the Lady Juliet. Who's got one here?" He cast a grin at Garrett and said, "Garrett will be happy to pay a pretty sum for the gift."

"Ah, will you look at that," Samuels grunted as he lifted the next box. "Leif, you raised a clever boy when he's out looking for dresses as we're all sweating like swine

down here."

The men laughed, but Leif groaned, "With four sisters, my son had no choice but to be interested in ... ah, life's more delicate issues."

"I want some credit," Gayle told the group. "I just made the lady happy by telling her I'd get her a dress so she might do something more than pace Garrett's floor."

Garrett looked up with sudden interest.

Gayle pretended not to be nervous. "Now who's got a dress? Heart? Didn't you get a pretty rag for Madeline in London?"

"That I did. But among other appetites, Maddie's got a fondness for pastries, and the dress would look like a sail without wind on Lady Juliet."

Garrett wiped the sweat from his brow with the towel on his neck, approaching the place on the steps where Gayle stood. "You made her happy, Gayle?"

There was no mistaking the ominous tone he put in his question, a question that might have been, just what did you tell her to make her happy? Gayle met his gaze, hesitating but briefly before trying to cast doubt on Garrett's suspicions with a light, breezy reply. "Aye! Don't we want her happy?"

"Desperately, but mind my words, man, not at the expense of a lie."

Garrett's intuition momentarily disarmed Gayle, but it was too late. The ball had already been set rolling, there was no turning back now. "Might I count on your trust, Garrett? You may have ten years on me, and that much more experience, but I am not completely daft when it comes to the fairer sex."

Garrett's gaze held the younger man's, pulling him into the depths of his eyes in the way that he had: a search of his soul. Gayle braced, wondering how he thought to get past Garrett in the first place. Garrett always knew the truth behind a person's words; he knew exactly what Gayle asked of him. Gayle wrote a script, and like Juliet herself, Garrett would only be a player. While normally Garrett was the last man one might expect to surrender responsibility, this offer was tempting indeed.

An interesting situation . . . Garrett almost smiled as he spotted the lie. Aye, one that conveniently absolved him from culpability. No doubt, Gayle had counted on the idea there would never be a reckoning day, that Juliet would be forever changed by her part. Which was extremely possible . . .

"I have a pretty skirt, frock, and blouse," Paul interrupted to make the offer. "I was saving it for Kira, but when I think of the color, dark blue, how 'twill set the girl's eyes off real nice—"

Garrett interrupted to curse, "That's all I need, a little more temptation from those eyes."

Yet Garrett didn't know how bad it would be then. He didn't know until late that evening, after they had finished the task and he was climbing up the rope from a long swim. He first heard the sound, and before he grasped exactly what was happening he felt a quick tension and found himself catching his breath. He turned and saw Juliet standing in a circle with Gayle, Leif, Heart, and Drummer, his quartermaster, shyly receiving their attentions.

The effect of the Dutch costume was . . . well, arresting. She wore a blouse made of white cotton with short puffy sleeves, sleeves that left her thin arms bare. Trimmed in colorful embroidery of red, green, blue, and gold, the full length decorative frock gathered at her small waist and accented her slender form beneath before falling over a dark blue velvet skirt. It was modest and pretty, and with her long plaits she looked like a well-bred young lady of the Dutch countries. Yet it was her laughter as Leif made her spin round and round that caused his breath to catch, for this was, incredibly, the first time he had heard the happy, magical music of it.

Juliet felt his eyes upon her. A not entirely unpleasant tremor ran through her and she stopped, turning back around to see him standing behind her. How could she know he stood there without aid of sight? As if she owned a special sixth sense, a meter of his proximity, a meter she felt intimately connected to her heartbeat, the heat rising in her cheeks, like the lingering remnants of his touch. She could not meet the bemused look in his gaze, fearing that just as she had known how close he stood, he too might know her every thought in the same mysterious way. She lowered her eyes. "You look lovely, Juliet."

Garrett came to stand at her side, less than a half-foot away. She was acutely conscious of this, and folded her arms across her chest in a small measure of protection. A conversation sprang up among the men but she could not listen, stuck as her mind was on his simple compliment. The effect was anything but simple; she felt it trigger a strange warmth inside—a blush—and it made her hand brush the stray wisps of hair from her face. But what was maddening, truly maddening, was how she questioned his sincerity. Questioned it as if it mattered.

Then, against her will, her gaze began a sideways lift to him. He was so tall, more than a foot taller than herself, and she was considered tall for a woman. The lines of his face revealed every ounce of his strength, the length and width of his forehead, his high cheek bones and lean cheeks, the square cut to his chin and the generous curve of his mouth, and especially the intelligence in his eyes. His eyes filled with humor as he gave Leif and Drummer his opinion of the merits of astrological predictions of the weather. He stood with his hands on his hips. Moisture fell unnoticed from his person and no shirt covered the wide expanse of his bare-muscled chest, making her think of his warmth, how that warmth filled her—

She bit her lip, trying to stop the thought. What in God's name was rattling her wits?

She thought instead of Tomas, how he would be waiting for her. She tried to imagine their reunion but found she couldn't, no pictures emerged in her mind. She wondered if it was a protective measure, for while it would be a happy scene for sure, there would also be the conflicting issues of what had happened and his response, whether it would matter or not, if he would still love her in the same way. Why wouldn't he? She would never deny the magnitude of it, indeed, she fought to escape this every minute she was in Garrett's presence, but it had not changed her feelings for him. She still loved him fervently; she always would. . . .

She continued to ponder this as they returned to his quarters for dinner. She sat away from the men on the sofa. Vespa sat on her lap, and as her hand methodically combed the cat's fur she remembered the first time Tomas told her he loved her.

She would never forget that day. She had not seen Tomas for nearly two months and it seemed hardly an hour could go by without thinking of the prearranged day when they planned to meet—the day after her fifteenth birthday. Only Tomas knew it was her birthday. Besides Clarissa's birthday, her uncle forbade all celebrations that were not religious. Yet on the day before her birthday, her uncle had two teeth pulled and, still needing to recover the following day, he decided to stay home.

Her disappointment could not be described. She remembered neglecting her studies to sit and stare at the windowsill, unable to believe it was true, waiting as the sun climbed the meridian for something to happen. And something did. A man rode up on horseback. She watched as he disappeared into the house but thought nothing of it until the grooms came out with her uncle's carriage. An emergency at the shipyard took her uncle away.

Oh, she knew a joy then, a huge burst of joy that fueled her long run to where Tomas waited. She came upon him as he slept. Hiding behind a tree, she tossed tiny acorns at him. One finally woke him, and he looked for her. "Juliet? Juliet?" Excitement betrayed her with laughter. She did not know why but she started running, as if the emotions in her heart found vent through her feet, and Tomas gave chase. They were running and laughing and running, and finally she let him catch her. They fell to the ground, breathless and laughing still, and as he brushed her hair from her face he said what no one since her mother's passing had said to her, "I love you, Juliet, I love you . . ."

"The hell he does!" Garrett swore on top of a mean-sounding chuckle.

Juliet's gaze flew to where he stood, her eyes filling with fear and uncertainty until she saw it was only a coincidence. She let the thought repeat itself over and over in - her mind, even as the panic subsided and supper was finally brought in and served. Willfully replacing the panic with the happy thought that Garrett had at last agreed to return her to Tomas, she joined them at the table.

Did luck change? Wasn't it possible? Didn't she always believe that someday, somehow, everything would be all

right?

"Love," Garrett interrupted the conversation to ask, pointing at her hand with a smile, "why are you crossing your fingers like that?"

She glanced down at her fingers and wanted to laugh when she saw they were crossed like a schoolgirl. The reason was simple, really, for now she at least had a chance to find the place in her dreams at the end of the tunnel. He had given her a chance for happiness, and what more really could she ask for? She looked back up and shrugged, resisting the urge to thank him out loud.

Garrett turned to Gayle, who pretended not to notice, before he resumed the description of savages he once found in that part of the New World where a great river cuts through the thickest jungle on the planet.

"... I've never seen such loosely knit social organization anywhere. Rousseau would have had a field day trying to work these people into his social theories. They had no individual possessions; they did not understand the concept. No one owned anything, for all wealth was communally shared: food, shelter, even things like ba skets, pots, and tools — "

"Not the women?" Leif nearly demanded in a question.

"Aye, women too." Garrett laughed at the idea. "And what a happy lot they were, Leif. Everyone slept in these large huts. Individual fathers of children were not often known. Love," he stopped again to notice, "you're not eating again. Don't you like the stew?"

She glanced at her uneaten food. "Oh . . . yes," she said distractedly, and he resumed the story. At that moment she had been debating if it was dangerous or not to feel anything but animosity for Garrett. She felt both excited and nervous by her changed circumstances, and with the weight of her troubles lifted from her shoulders, she knew a profound lightheartedness.

Tonali took to hitting her braid back and forth as Garrett finished answering Gayle's inquiry into the medicine of these strange people, a shared interest between the two men. "The shaman was an old man, very wise, I think, at least from what I could grasp with the language barrier. He shared my dream, though — "