Almost a Lady by Jane Feather Page A

family, Cosimo. A father and a mother . . . as well as Bella and Jack, who will be frantic at my disappearance. Do you not understand how I feel? . . . How they must be feeling?” She stared at him and for a moment he saw revulsion in the green gaze, and a sheen of tears.
    He drew a deep breath. “I can do nothing about it until we make landfall. You must see that.” He gestured at the sea, the sky, the empty vista.
    “Not at this moment, certainly,” she said, the tears gone. “But you could have done when first you realized your mistake, and you can rectify the situation as soon as we reach Sark. There must be someone . . . some fishing boat, who will take me back.”
    He hadn’t ignored Meg’s situation, Cosimo reflected, but he had put it to the back of his mind. He had been concentrating on plans that didn’t involve sending her back to England and so he hadn’t allowed such a possibility to interfere with his greater purpose. An error, clearly. He needed her confidence.
    “As I said, that’s always a possibility, but . . .” He held up his hand as she began to protest. “But what is a
certainty
is that once we land I can ensure that a message reaches someone you choose in England within thirty-six hours.”
    Her eyes widened, lost some of their scornful anger. “How?”
    “A pigeon courier.” It was a piece of information that gave little away. She had already surmised that he was in some way connected to the navy. It would come as no surprise that he should have access to some of its resources.
    Meg absorbed this in silence. It made perfect sense and it would bring relief to her loved ones much more quickly than an uncooperative wind and a fishing boat could. Presumably the pigeon went to its home in England and a human being took the message to its destination. There was something rather cloak-and-dagger about the idea of homing pigeons, however. Questions hovered on her tongue and were quickly swallowed. Cosimo was niggardly with information and she was fairly certain he wouldn’t satisfy her curiosity too easily. “Thank you,” she said simply. “That relieves my mind.”
    “Good.” He turned to the rail beside her and took the telescope. The distant land was suddenly sharper. He looked up at the pennant flying from the topmast. It stirred faintly.
    “Wind, Captain,” a voice called, from nowhere as far as Meg was concerned. But the sloop came instantly alive. Men lazing on deck were on their feet, others spilled upwards from the companionways, a broad-shouldered man appeared at the helm, rapidly unlashing it.
    “Make sail,” Cosimo called between cupped hands and sailors leaped into the rigging. Meg watched with fascination as the sails were unfurled and snapped by a sudden gust before Cosimo, his eyes on the sails, again called an order and the helmsman adjusted the wheel. The
Mary Rose
came on course for Sark, her sails filling slowly as the wind increased.
    “In time?” Meg asked.
    “No,” Cosimo answered. “It’ll take us till dark to come within two miles of the harbor. We’ll stand to there and go in at first light. Excuse me . . .” He left her, loping across the quarterdeck, down the steps, and towards the companionway.
    Meg stayed where she was until she began to feel superfluous. She didn’t think she was in the way but it was hard to be the only spectator in the midst of such activity. She looked around for Gus. He was nowhere to be seen and she guessed that he too preferred the undisturbed peace of the cabin. She picked her way through the hive and climbed down the companionway. The cabin door was closed.
    She looked at it for a minute and then, adapting the assumption that sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, knocked vigorously. Gus invited her in at the same time that Cosimo called, “Enter.”
    She did so. Cosimo didn’t look up from the charts. He was using compasses, making swift pencil notations as he did so. They reminded her of the odd notations in