Dawn on a Distant Shore
Page 107

"Captain!" Micah called again, his tone urgent enough to get Stoker's attention. "She's a Tory frigate, and she's comin' this way at speed!"
"Damn!" Stoker swung away, Giselle forgotten. "All hands! Jemmy, rouse Connor, and tell him to bring Granny up on deck!" He trotted away, shouting orders for more sail.
Robbie narrowed his eyes at Giselle. "Giselle, ma sweet. Ye ken weel enough why we're bound for Scotland."
Hawkeye watched Giselle's face and saw there what Stoker would never understand about her: she had a mind ten times sharper than his own, and she would always calculate her own gain first, and that down to a tin penny.
"That is none of my concern," she said. "I made arrangements with Captain Stoker for passage to France. I have no intention of going to Scotland."
She spoke directly to Hawkeye, staring him in the eye like a man who wants a fight. The last time they had had words of any kind he had been a reluctant guest at her table. Party games and sugared fruit, and now she wore a knife on her belt.
He looked away, but he answered her. "France, is it? A bloody place these days for the wellborn. And there's the blockade, I suppose you ain't forgot that."
All around them the sailors jumped to Stoker's commands, but Giselle took no note of any of this; she was still studying Hawkeye, one corner of her mouth turning down while the opposite brow went up. "Still trying to interfere in my affairs, I see."
Hawkeye laughed. "You're a fine one to talk, missy. Or are you going to tell me that you ain't had a part in Moncrieff's scheme, right from the start?"
A plain woman is always well served by a smile, but when Giselle bared her teeth there was nothing pretty about it.
"Of course I had a part in it," she said. "Did you think he could have managed it on his own? It was time to see old debts settled. Moncrieff made sure you three went off to see the captain of the Providence, and then I saw to it that the governor knew where to find Elizabeth while you were gone. The only question was whether he would take her to the château to question her, but luck was with us."
"You're right proud of yourself," Hawkeye said dryly. "But tell me this, what would those old debts be?"
"That is between your son and myself," Giselle snapped.
Robbie swayed as if he would lose his footing.
"Ye canna mean that ye had a hand in this, lass. Wad ye take babes from their mither, tae suit your hurt pride?"
Giselle drew herself up. "If you are looking for some remorse or soft feelings, then you will strain your eyesight to no good end, sir."
Robbie's face fell as if she had spat at him. "I wadna ha' thoucht it."
"Come now," said Giselle, creasing her brow in irritation. "You have seen what Pink George is capable of, after all. Why should you expect anything else from his daughter?"
"Because," said Robbie hoarsely, his whole body shaking. "Because I ken yer mither, too. And it's a shame and a pity that ye're no' mair like her."
Hawkeye wondered if he had heard right. Robbie MacLachlan had not been off the North American continent for some fifty years--how could he know a Frenchwoman who had never been farther south than Montréal? But he saw by the man's expression that he had spoken a truth so long held secret that letting it go had torn a hole in him. Robbie was breathing as though he had just fought a battle and lost.
Giselle had not moved. There was nothing in her expression to show that she had even understood except a tremor at the corner of her mouth.
"You're lying." Her voice was steady. "You cannot know my mother."
Robbie ran a hand over his face. "If that's what ye want tae believe, lass, then it's just as well. I should ha' held ma tongue."
Granny Stoker let out a cry of alarm louder than any war whistle.
"Jack Twist, ye reeky kack-handed gudgeon, you'll bleed for that!" Stoker roared.
"Oh, Christ," muttered Robbie. "He's broke the turnbuckle."
Hawkeye didn't know what a turnbuckle was, but he could see well enough that the line that hoisted the sail had given way. The jib slid down the forestay, snapping wildly and spilling wind. All the aft sails were suffering for it and their speed was falling off fast. From her sling on the middle mast Granny Stoker keened as if noise might fill the faltering sails.
Giselle was pulling on Hawkeye's sleeve. "If you think such sorry lies will change my mind about France, you are wrong. You can swim to Scotland for all I care, Mr. Bonner."
"I wouldn't count on France right now if I was you." Hawkeye had to raise his voice to be heard over Connor's alarm rattle. He turned to Robbie: "What's to be done?"
"They'll take doon the jib tae try and fix the turnbuckle. I'll see if I can help." And he ran off without another glance at Giselle.
She reached out and grabbed Hawkeye's lower arm before he could follow Robbie.
He shrugged his arm out of her grasp. "Christ, woman! Can't you see we're in trouble here?"
"Tell me what he meant. You owe me that much!"
Her expression made him pause. "Old debts again, is it?" Hawkeye studied her pretty face, the fine lines around her mouth and eyes that deepened in anger and something else, something that smelled of fear that lives deep in the gut. "Sometime you'll have to explain to me exactly what it is you think you're owed."