"All's well, sir," Dan called out, his face breaking into a smile as the tension left him, and his crew laughed and cracked a ribald joke. Dan produced a bottle of brandy, offering it to Nathaniel with unaffected camaraderie.

Nathaniel took a swig and handed back the bottle, offering a jest of his own, flexing his shoulders. They were through once again. One could never be certain, and each time there was the same surge of relief. And this crossing even more so. He had his son-a hostage to fortune-this time.

Gabrielle came up on deck and stood, feet braced on the gently moving deck, the wind whipping back her dark red hair, her face lifted to the sun. In the midday sunlight the lines of fatigue were etched clearly on the white face, but the charcoal eyes were as vibrant as ever and that little crooked smile curved the wide generous mouth. The warm wanting that he was so accustomed to feeling whenever he was with her seeped through his own fatigue.

God damn the woman! Why? Of all the women in the world, why did Gabrielle de Beaucaire have to be treacherous?

Chapter 16

"I don't want this. It's all crust." Jake pushed a piece of bread to the farthest extremity of his plate, his lower lip trembling.

"It'll give you strong teeth," Gabrielle said with determined cheerfulness. "Shall I put some more apricot jam on it?"

"I don't want it!" The child flung out a wild hand to ward her off. "I hate crusts."

"It's French bread, Jake," Gabrielle said, still patient. "French bread has a lot of crust."

"I don't like French bread!" Jake picked up the despised bread and hurled it to the floor, tears spilling from his eyes. "I want an egg. I always have an egg for tea… with soldiers."

"Soldiers?" Nathaniel exclaimed, pushing himself away from the door where he'd been leaning in ever-visible irritation.

"Strips of bread and butter," Gabrielle told him. "To dip in the egg. Surely you had soldiers with boiled eggs as a boy."

"I'm very sure I didn't," Nathaniel declared with disgusted vigor. "I've never heard such whimsy!" He came over to the table and hacked another chunk off the baguette. "I've had enough of this, Jake." He plonked the chunk on the child's plate. "Now eat that, at once."

Jake sniffed, but seemed to sense that he'd pushed to the limits of his caretakers' indulgence. "I want some jam."

"Please," his father demanded.

Jake snuffled again and produced the required courtesy in a barely audible whisper.

Gabrielle spread jam lavishly on the bread and glanced at Nathaniel's grim features. She jerked her head toward the window at the back of the room, and he nodded and accompanied her away from the table and its disconsolate occupant.

"He's dead tired, Nathaniel," Gabrielle said quietly. "He can't help being like this. Can't we stay overnight here? We could leave at dawn."

Nathaniel scowled, staring through the window down at the inn's stableyard. Since landing at noon, they'd bought an ill-sprung gig and undernourished nag from a local farmer who'd been only too happy to exchange these pathetic commodities for an excessive sum of silver. Any questions he might have asked were stillborn when Gabrielle flashed her laissez passer with aristocratic hauteur. The gig had carried them uncomfortably for twenty miles with Jake whimpering in Gabrielle's lap and Nathaniel cursing the scrawny nag along the mud-ridged lanes.

Early evening had brought them into the village of Quineville and Le Lion d'Or, where Nathaniel intended they should dine and exchange the gig for a postchaise that would double the speed of their journey to Paris.

He turned from the window and directed his scowling gaze at the child drooping over his plate at the table. "He can sleep in the chaise, surely."

"He needs a proper bed for a few hours," Gabrielle said, softly insistent. "He's still dreadfully weak after the crossing."

"The longer we hang around on the roads, the greater the danger." Nathaniel slammed one fist in the palm of his other hand and turned back to the window.

"I don't want this milk," Jake wailed. "It tastes horrid."

"For Christ's sake!" his father muttered.

"It's French milk, love," Gabrielle said, going over to the child, struggling to smile through her own weariness. "It will' taste different. The cows eat different grass."

"I hate French milk!" Jake burst into noisy sobs. "I want to go home. I want Nurse an' Primmy."

Gabrielle scooped him off the stool and held him, casting Nathaniel a speaking glance over the curly head.

Nathaniel ran his hands through his hair, disturbing the neat swatches of silver at his temples. "Very well. But we leave at dawn. I'll go and bespeak a bedchamber for you and Jake."

"No, you'd better let me do that. Since I'm here, you might as well spare yourself and take advantage of my native fluency." Her eyebrows rose in a semblance of her old mocking challenge.

Nathaniel failed to respond to this attempt at raillery. "Go and do it, then." He took Jake from her and waved her brusquely to the door.

Gabrielle shrugged and returned to somber reality. "See if you can persuade him to drink some milk. He needs something to line his stomach." The door closed behind her.

"Don't want any milk," Jake whimpered. "It's horrid milk."

"It's perfectly good milk, and you're going to have to get used to it, my friend." His father sat him down at the table and handed him the cup. "I want you to drink half of it."

The child ignored the cup, and his mouth took a stubborn turn that Nathaniel had never seen before. He'd never met with any resistance from his son, only passive compliance, and he'd assumed that was the child's nature. Now he wasn't so sure. There was something about the boy's expression that was uncomfortably reminiscent of himself on occasion.

He held Jake's gaze steadily, exerting his will in silence. If he couldn't win a battle of wills with an exhausted six-year-old, then the world was going to hell in a handcart. To his relief, Jake finally took the cup, and, his nose wrinkled, carried it to his lips. Between chokes and disgusted sips the level in the cup went down to half.

"That's all arranged." Gabrielle spoke as she entered the parlor, clear relief in her voice at the prospect of a few hours of civilized rest and refreshment. "Madame has given me a bedchamber across the passage. There's a truckle bed for Jake, so I'll put him to bed now. Then she's going to bring me dinner." She rubbed her hands with glee. "Saddle of hare with junipers, and a sea bream in parsley sauce. Oh, and a bottle of St. Estephe."

"You certainly seem to have seen to your own comforts," Nathaniel observed with asperity.

This unmerited grumpiness merely kindled Gabrielle's somewhat perverse sense of mischief. She'd invented a perfectly reasonable explanation for the innkeeper of why mistress and servant would be dining together in the parlor, but now she looked at him in wide-eyed innocence.

"I assumed you would eat with the servants. They're having tete de veau, I believe… or was it pig's cheek? And Madame said there's a spare pallet in the loft for you. I'm sure they don't have bedbugs; the inn seems very clean and well managed."

"You relieve me," Nathaniel said. "Your consideration is overwhelming."

Gabrielle hid her grin. "Oh, and also I sold the gig and nag for three livres and ten sous and hired a postchaise for the morning. There are plenty of changing posts between here and Paris, so we should make good time tomorrow."

"Such efficiency, countess. I'm in your debt." Nathaniel strode to the door.

"I'm only trying to help," Gabrielle declared, her eyes now flashing with irritation. If Nathaniel wasn't prepared to be joked out of his irritability, then she was fatigued enough to indulge her own.