Chapter Twenty-six

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Daphne slept fitfully. She dreamt of spies, and smugglers, and torture, and murderers. She dreamt of being swallowed up by a giant sea creature. And then, after all the bad dreams fell away, she dreamt of being tangled in the hammock with Rafe, and that was perhaps the most disturbing dream of all. She was wrapped up as if in a cocoon in the captain’s bunk, tossing and turning, sweating in the breezeless room while Rafe appeared to be contentedly sleeping, swinging with the sway of the ship, hoisted up in his hammock between the two wooden posts in the cabin.

He was completely unaffected by her presence, she thought with some chagrin as she pushed at her flat pillow in an attempt to make it more comfortable. She’d forgotten about the awful little pillows on ships. Rafe had explained to her last time that most of the crew didn’t even have a pillow and she should stop behaving like a princess if the pillow wasn’t good enough for her. She frowned into the darkness. She wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Nothing. Nothing would be too uncomfortable that would make her complain. Not even her bound breasts that were far from comfortable. The moonlight that shone through the small window at the far end of the room provided the only light. It fell across Rafe’s high cheekbone. The man was beautiful. It was really too unfair. His dark eyelashes brushed his cheeks as he calmly swung to and fro. He was snoring slightly but even that wasn’t annoying. Donald used to snore so loudly he’d nearly wake the entire house, but Rafe’s snores were barely discernible. That was what was annoying. The man was nearly perfect, like an angel come to life.

She stared up at the dark wooden ceiling. She needed to stop having such petty thoughts. Their mission was much more important than all of that. Even what had transpired between them last time. Even the blond doxy.

Daphne rolled onto her side and closed her eyes. What would tomorrow bring? Would they find the smugglers? Get the letters? Eventually avenge Donald’s death? That was the most difficult part. Not knowing. But she would try. She would do whatever she must. Even if it involved torture. Or death. She gulped and counted three. Yes, even death.

***

The sun rose bright and shining the next morning and Rafe was up with it. Daphne remained huddled in her bed. He left her but not before pulling out the chamber pot from under the bunk so she’d have access to it when she woke. She’d had quite an experience of it last time, adapting to the ways of the ship, but after Rafe had explained to her that it was usually the job of a cabin boy to dispose of such refuse, she seemed relieved and did that duty for herself quite happily. He spared her his own chamber pot of course, but it still made him chuckle to think of her taking on such a task even for herself. But she’d done it gamely and with no complaints, if only a slight blush on her cheeks.

Rafe had slept fitfully. He’d drifted to sleep with the sound of the waves slapping along the side of the ship and the moonlight streaming through the widow. He hadn’t been on a ship in months. Normally, the sea was like home to him. But the vision of Daphne’s tight little arse scurrying up the ladder to the deck in front of him would not remove itself from his mind. It was as if it was burned there. Indefinitely. Last time they’d been together on this ship, he’d thought her pretty, certainly. But there was something about her now, her attitude, her poise, her bravery. The memory of their scorching hot kiss in Swifdon’s library. It had been a complete surprise to him. Not to mention that alluring little smudge of dirt on her cheek. He’d had to stop himself twice from reaching out and wiping it off.

Rafe scrubbed his hands viciously across his face as if he could scrub away the memory lurking in his mind. This type of thinking would merely serve to drive him mad. It didn’t matter how alluring she was or that her engagement to Lord Fitzwell hadn’t happened. Daphne Swift was off limits for a dozen other reasons and Rafe would do well to remember it.

By the time he returned to the cabin an hour later, Daphne was up and the chamber pot was securely tucked underneath the bunk once more.

“Care for some breakfast?” he asked, handing her a small plate with a biscuit and some jam.

“Jam?” She arched a brow.

“We’re close to shore. You may even get tea with milk if you ask Cook nicely.”

She made an adorable little squealing noise in the back of her throat.

She sat at the small desk that was attached to the corner of the room and took delicate bites of her biscuit. “When will we go ashore and meet the smugglers?”

Rafe grinned at her. “First of all, you need to remember to prune your vocabulary of words like ‘smugglers’ and ‘spies.’ No one around here uses those words except the authorities.”

She nodded. “Understood.”

“And second we’ll leave in due time. You seem eager.”

“I am.” She glanced out the window where a seagull looped overhead. “I’ve hated these men for months, years really.”

Rafe crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against one of the wooden posts that held up his hammock. “Remember what your brother said. You must not allow your hatred for them to get the best of you.”

She set her jaw and picked up her biscuit. “I understand.”

“And the men we’re meeting today aren’t the men who killed Donald.”

The biscuit dropped to the plate. “But you told me—”

Rafe lifted a hand, palm first. “Hear me out. They are the men who work for the men who killed Donald. To get to the others, we must first get through these men.”

“I see.” Daphne calmly picked up her biscuit again. “Will you explain it to me?”

Rafe nodded. That was something else he liked about Daphne. She could be reasoned with. That’s why he’d known he could take her on this mission and not have to worry about whether she was angry with him. He liked how she’d calmly asked for an explanation. She deserved one.

He sat on the bunk. “Of course this is highly confidential information,” he began.

Daphne nodded. “You have my word that I won’t tell anyone.”

He nodded back. “The men who killed Donald are a group of spies in France. The men here are a small group of Russians who have been working for the French. Frankly, these particular men will work for anyone who gives them enough coin. They have no loyalties. Though Russia has no great love for France, these men were playing both sides of the war. Making money and connections wherever it was convenient for them. Simply put, they led the French to us in exchange for coin and now we intend to get them to lead us to the French in exchange for goods that they want.”

Daphne finished swallowing the bit of biscuit that she’d taken. “No loyalty. Those bastards.”

“Yes, but it’s not uncommon. Once Napoleon had been sent to Elba many of the French attempted to get back into the good graces of the English. Of course when the emperor returned, they were only too happy to pretend they had never left his employ. These Russians are the same. There are always men who can be bought… for a price.”

“Go on,” Daphne said, taking another bite.

“After Adam Hunt was captured in France, his brother, Collin, returned to find him. But Donald and I had already set out on the same mission. It’s true that we were asked to find Adam if we were able, but our real mission was to find these men who were traitors to both England and France.”

Daphne nodded. Adam and Collin Hunt were Derek, the Duke of Claringdon’s, younger brothers. “Julian always believed Adam’s disappearance in France had been the reason for Donald’s mission.”

“So it was, but I also needed the use of his knowledge of Russian to find the men who had Adam. I’d spent months here at the docks trying to infiltrate the group of men in France. The leaders never came here. They only had their Russian lackeys working for them. They believed Russians would be less suspicious than Frenchmen.”

“The smugglers we’re going to meet are the Russians? The ones we met last time I was with you here?”

“Yes. Exactly. They work for the men in France.”

“But how do you intend to find the men in France if they never come here?”

“That’s just it. If we can trade for the letters they’ve sent, we can trace their last known whereabouts in France.”

“Why can’t you follow them when they go to France to meet their French allies?”

“Donald’s death put an end to their meetings with the Frenchmen. They know they’re being watched. At least they suspect it. They limit their interactions now to closely guarded letters. The Russians believe we’re trading secrets to the English government for money and goods. They don’t know we work for the government. If we can make these men trust us enough to give us the letters, we can go to France and find the men they work for.”

Daphne’s voice trembled. “The men who tortured you and… killed Donald?”

“Yes.” Rafe clenched his jaw. “I never forget a face. Or a voice. I’ll know them immediately. In the meantime, I need you to interpret if their allies say anything important in Russian.”

“I’m ready, Captain,” she said solemnly. “Let’s go.”