Much to Ramage's surprise she had formally thanked Frere for his hospitality and told him she would be leaving the Embassy within the hour. Ramage had been about to suggest she would be more comfortable at the Embassy than waiting in a hotel for the next Falmouth packet to sail in ten days or so, but he decided against it. Gianna must have her reasons.

They walked back to the first-floor room. Gianna chattered cheerfully, giving him fond messages from his father and mother. She was so excited she did not notice Ramage's silence. Why, he wondered, isn't she going to stay here? He did not like the idea of her staying in one of the hotels without a chaperone. Without a guard, for that matter: the French had made one desperate attempt to capture her in Italy, and the moment they discovered she was alone in Lisbon they might try to kidnap her.

Ramage shut the door and pointed to a chair. "Sit down for a moment; I've some questions!"

"They can wait," she pouted. "So serioso, Nico! I came all this way ... Did you forget me in the West Indies? Don't you love-"

"I love you!" he said almost savagely. "That's why I'm worried. Love and war don't mix!"

"If that Bonaparte hadn't driven me out of Volterra, you'd never have met me," she reminded him. "So you're wrong, caro mio ..."

"Accidente! Tell me, what made you take the packet from Falmouth?"

"Nico! Shall I say I have a lover waiting in Lisbon, and I thought I'd see you at the same time?"

That smile, Ramage thought to himself; and that body, and as always he remembered Ghiberti's beautiful carving of "The Creation of Eve" on the east door of the Baptistry in Florence. Eve's bold and slim body with the small, jutting breasts; the small, finely chiselled face (Gianna's was fuller, more sensuous). He glanced at the body hidden by the white dress: the flat belly and rounded thighs, the long, slim legs.

"I know what you are thinking," she said.

"Indeed you don't," he said, flushing.

"I do!" she said furiously. "You are thinking this Gianna is a nuisance, and why didn't she stay at St Kew, out of the way, and - and -"

Ramage stood helplessly as she searched for words: they'd been together ten minutes and were already quarrelling. Why the devil couldn't she understand what he meant?

"Listen," he said, "let's get it over with-"

"There you are! You don't love me!"

"No - oh darling-"

"So you don't love me, you just said so!"

"No - I mean I was saying 'No' because you said that I said I..."

They both burst out laughing. She stood up, pushed him to a chair, and as soon as he sat she curled up on the floor at his feet, her head resting on his knee.

"Ask all the questions you want, sir!"

"Very well, signorina: tell me how you got here. From the beginning. From breakfast the day you had the idea!"

"Not breakfast," she said promptly, "Your father always complains I don't eat enough breakfast. That porridge - ough! I'd get fat like a fishwife. Well, Lord Spencair wrote-"

"Spencer," he corrected.

She sniffed. "- 'Spencair', then. He wrote to your father describing all the trouble out here, and a silly new Act of Parliament they had to pass. Your father laughed," she added as an afterthought. "He thought it very funny that you were the cause of a special Act of Parliament. He made me cross."

"Why? I hadn't thought of it like that, but it is amusing."

"Amusing? But supposing those cretins in Parliament hadn't passed it? What then, eh?"

Ramage laughed: the "eh?" and the upraised palms was so typically Italian.

"You laugh," she protested, "but if you get put in a French prison for years it is me - it is I," she corrected herself, "who has to wait at home and grow old and wrinkled and when you come back I am too ugly for you and you - oh, don't think a quick kiss on the head will silence me," she said furiously. "A shrivelled old walnut, that's how I'll look; all my youth wasted waiting for you and you are faithless -"

"Steady on," Ramage interrupted mildly, "the French haven't caught me yet and you're a long way from your twentieth birthday!"

"Now you mock me," she snapped. "If it wasn't for your father I'd forget all about you."

"My father's already married."

"Oh, cretino!" she pummelled him with her fists, her eyes blazing with anger, and he gripped her wrists and twisted her arms until she was facing him, and then he kissed her.

"Stop shaking with indignation," he said, "it makes our teeth click together."

She jerked away from him. "I don't love you. I inform you officially." She frowned, her lips pressed into a thin line.

"I'll make a note of it in the log," he said. "Anyway, what happened after Lord 'Spencair' wrote?"

"I told your father and mother that if the Act was not passed, I would go to Lisbon with the money and pay for the ship myself, and-"

"But-"

"But nothing: the law says no British subject can pay money to a Frenchman. It doesn't say anything about foreigners paying. Anyway," she said arrogantly, "it would be my own money, and am I not the Marchesa di Volterra?"

He nodded numbly, overwhelmed by both her logic and her generosity. "What ... what did Father say?"

"At first he was very angry - he has a worse temper than you," she said reproachfully. "Then your mother said it was a silly law anyway because obviously it was supposed to stop traitors paying spies and things like that, but Parliament was so stupid it didn't word it properly. That made your father change his mind. He finally agreed with her that it was the intention of the law, not the wording, that should concern us."

"And then?"

"Well, I made him angry again because I said I didn't care about intention, wording or law; that I was going to stop you being put in a French prison."

"What did he do?"

"At that moment? Well, I walked out and your mother got angry with him, but by the time I came back he'd found out when the next packet sailed for Lisbon and was arranging a guard for me."

"Guard?" Ramage exclaimed.

"Yes - one of the men on the estate. He came out as a passenger in the Princess Louise with me."

"Where is he now?"

Gianna shrugged her shoulders. "On board the ship. I do not need him in Lisbon - it was in case of trouble on board the packet."

Ramage froze for a moment. "But the Princess Louise sails at noon. It's" - he pulled out his watch - "hell, it's past noon! There's not another packet for two weeks!"

"Why are you worrying? The guard went back in the packet. He stayed on board."

"But I'm sailing tomorrow. You'll be on your own. Look, you'd better stay on here at the Embassy."

She looked puzzled. "But we both sail tomorrow. I come with you. The packet has plenty of room for passengers. A whole week with you," she said excitedly. "It'll be like the old days in the Mediterranean!"

"You can't," he said firmly. "I'm sorry. It would be wonderful, but-"

"Why not?" she interrupted angrily.

"Because the Arabella is no longer a packet. Once the French have handed her over, she comes under Admiralty orders and I'm in command."

"Alora, then all is well."

"It's not; far from it. The ship is in a dangerous state – most of the wood in the stern is rotten. She's not safe."

"Then you mustn't sail with her," Gianna said promptly. "Tell the Admiralty and wait for the next packet."

"But I can't wait that long! Anyway, I have my orders. Besides, half the crew are likely to mutiny."

"Mutiny?" She almost screamed the word. "Supposing they seize the ship and sail to France? You'll be a prisoner - Madonna! After all the trouble so far!"

"Don't worry," he said comfortingly. "I have Southwick and Jackson with me. And Stafford and Rossi - you remember them. We can hold down a mutiny."