Part 16 (1/2)

And somewhere in the middle of it, he decided, he must learn how to say ”lioness” in Italian.

”That is your s.h.i.+p ahead of us, Edward?” she asked tentatively, as the boat's c.o.xswain hailed the s.h.i.+p's watch. ”We are almost there?”

”Aye, that's my Centaur,” he answered as proudly as any doting parent might over a favorite child. ”The finest, fairest seventy-four in the entire fleet, and I won't hear anyone say otherwise.”

”Santo cialo,” she said uneasily, inching closer to him as she stared up at the enormous dark shadow of the s.h.i.+p before them. ”It looks a great deal larger from here in the water than it did from the beach.”

He smiled. ”As well she should, la.s.s. A fighting s.h.i.+p of the line is like a floating fortress, a bit of King George's England wherever she goes.”

The Centaur was such a pleasing and familiar sight to him that it took considerable effort to try to imagine it afresh through Francesca's eyes. To be sure, by dark she did look more formidable, her sleek painted sides curving upward from the water like a glistening dark wall thirty feet high. The sails were still furled, the spars and masts like leafless trees rising into the night sky. The only light came from the lanterns at the stern and over the binnacle, and from the wardroom's windows and from Edward's own cabin, the silhouettes of the men on watch faintly visible along the rail.

At least in this ostensibly friendly port, the most obvious signs of the Centaur's bellicose nature were hidden, with the double rows of gun ports closed. Considering Francesca's earlier response to a single measly pistol, this was likely for the best; Edward wasn't sure she'd have agreed to come aboard if she'd had to pa.s.s the muzzles of thirty-seven long guns on the starboard side alone. He'd leave it for her to discover later that even he shared his cabin with a pair of great guns, housed and lashed in their red-painted carriages to the deck until they were needed for battle.

”True, the Centaur's a fighting s.h.i.+p,” he continued, ”but she's also home to six-hundred and fifty-seven men and boys. And now, with you, to one lady as well.”

”Six-hundred and fifty-seven men and boys,” she echoed faintly. ”And me.”

”You will do fine,” he said confidently. The closer they came to the s.h.i.+p, the more easily he could picture her on board with him, a graceful new addition to his life. ”You'll become the queen of us all in no time.”

Deftly the oarsmen maneuvered the boat alongside the s.h.i.+p, tipping their oars up in the air as the c.o.xswain used the boat hook to pull them closer. The sea had grown more choppy, the blowing spray heavier, and the rising swells were lifting the boat up and dropping it down, then smacking it hard back and forth against the s.h.i.+p's side.

”However do you expect me to do this, Edward?” asked Francesca with despair as she stared up at the shallow notches carved into the s.h.i.+p's side for footholds. ”I am no monkey, you know, to scurry and scramble from branch to branch! I cannot, I can not! Oh, Edward, if you can teach me to be brave, then do it now, for I am in the worst need of whatever courage you might have to spare!”

”I would never expect you to climb the side like a man,” he said, scandalized that she'd even think such a notion even as his imagination supplied the wicked image of her climbing up the narrow footholds with her skirts fluttering high over her knees. ”You'll go in the bos'n's chair, same as we've already arranged for the other ladies to follow this night.”

As if on cue, the chair was swung down from the deck: Half trapeze, half-sling, a contraption designed to preserve the dignity of ladies while they were hauled from a boat up to the deck. One of the sailors s.h.i.+pped his oar and reached out to steady the chair for her.

”You see, Francesca, it's as safe as can be,” said Edward, wis.h.i.+ng the sailor's smile wasn't so openly wors.h.i.+pful. ”You sit, you're lashed in tight, then up you go, easy and convenient. The Queen of Naples herself won't have any better.”

Tentatively she touched the seat, muttering darkly to herself in Italian that for once Edward was thankful he couldn't understand.

”So I am not to be a monkey, but a parrot, sitting on my little perch.” Her face beneath the drooping, damp hood was both miserable and determined. ”You will go first, Edward? You promise you will be waiting there for me?”

”If that is what you wish, then aye, I will,” he said gravely. He touched the front of his hat to her with a quick smile, and as the swell lifted the boat he seized the hanging rope guideline and climbed up the side to wait for her.

So Edward was a monkey, thought Francesca glumly as she watched him clamber to the deck and a shrill welcome of pipes, moving as easily and with as little thought as she climbed into her own bed. It wasn't enough that the wetter and more sodden with seawater he became, the happier he was. Now he'd leaped from a pitching boat to climb the slippery side of his wretched s.h.i.+p simply because she'd asked it, ignoring the obvious danger just to be obliging to her.

”Beggin' pardon, miss,” said the sailor steadying the bos'n's chair, ”but we can't wait no longer. Orders, miss, orders. You must go, miss, else come back t'sh.o.r.e with us.”

She hugged herself beneath her cloak, staring at the narrow seat. To dangle so high in the chilly wind, with only black, icy water below-poor, plump Queen Maria Carolina, if this awaited her, too!

”Beggin' pardon, miss,” said the sailor again, more insistently. ”But Lord Cap'n's waiting, miss.”

She took a deep breath, almost a sigh, then turned around in the rocking boat and let herself be tied into the chair, clutching at the sidelines for dear life.

”There now, miss, all steady an' safe,” promised the sailor. ”You'll fly up to th' deck like a proper Christmas angel, you will.”

She nodded, which he interpreted as saying she was ready, and suddenly she was being hauled up into the air, the wind whipping past her face and her hood blowing back and her feet dangling as awkwardly as a puppet's. But instead of being terrified, she felt oddly exhilarated, as if she truly were flying, and when she gasped, it was with delight, not fear.

With the sky and sea blurring together in the darkness, all she could focus on were the lights of Naples, tiny fairy-bright pinp.r.i.c.ks of candlelight in countless windows, the houses and churches and even the snubbed-off cone of Vesuvius reduced to indistinct shadows. Perhaps this was how she was meant to leave Naples, with this last, magical sight to remember instead of the ugliness and hatred that had haunted her this past fortnight, a memory to hold tight against the uncertainties of London.