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Elena passed across most of what she had. She kept back only a few notes against the next part of the journey. Now she must think of immediate survival and escape from the militia closing in on them.
The captain looked at Aiden curiously. “What’s to stop me taking this,” he held up the money, “and then handing you over to this woman’s husband?”
Aiden smiled. “I could say that you’re an honest man, but you and I know that has yet to be proved.” His smile widened. “On the other hand, I could tell the authorities that I paid you to take contraband for me and it’s already in the hold. They could search it and see.” He raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure that they won’t find anything? I’ll wager there’s something there, and they’ll search until long after the tide has turned…and it’s too late.” He shrugged. “And that’s, of course, if they don’t take the interesting things in your hold and the money as well.”
The captain moved his weight from one foot to the other. A very slow smile grew on his face, which made visible a scar on his upper lip. “You’re right, my friend, one course is bad for you and bad for me, good only for the police. I have no friends in the police and I want to catch this evening’s tide.”
“South,” Aiden said, with barely a change of expression.
The captain held out his hand and Aiden took it and grasped it hard.
Elena knew that Italy lay to the west, Austria to
the north, and Serbia to the east, so there was no other way to go but south.
They were shown to the cabin kept for the occasional passenger whose need the captain and his crew profited from. The first officer was willing enough to sacrifice it and take a smaller one. It was greatly to his financial advantage.
Aiden and Elena stayed below deck as the ship loosed its moorings and pulled away, riding the tide from shore and picking up speed in the dark.
Aiden appeared relaxed; they were almost free.
Elena looked around the cabin. It was small, cramped, with barely enough room for the double bed. A small chest of drawers stood in one corner. There were no chairs and only the barest facilities to wash, but they were at sea, moving down the Italian coast and away from Austria and the politics of Germany and the Fatherland Front. They hadn’t enough money left to get to the British embassy in Rome, or even Venice, if that should be closer. Elena felt panic rising in her chest, then pushed it away. What mattered was that they were moving away from danger.
She turned to face him. He was watching her unusually closely. What for? To see if she would accept sharing a bed again? Of course she would. Her life might hang on it for successfully getting him out of Italy. Almost certainly the question was only how well she did it, how graciously, how much she behaved like the fugitive lover she claimed to be.
She did not know what was ahead of them each hour, each minute. Even one mistake would cost them everything. What she actually felt was immaterial; it counted for nothing at all. She could do it easily, because there was a part of her that wanted the passion and the intimacy as much as she ever had. It was not the wide-eyed infatuation she had had before, when she had been so naïve, so terribly young. This would be more like a love of equals. She knew and understood what he did; she was even getting fairly good at it herself. There was only the tiniest doubt, shadows, there and then gone again. She pushed them away.
“Can you make them believe it?” he asked very quietly. He did not need to whisper because the wood of the cabin creaked loudly with the movement of the ship. The whole thing shuddered as if it were alive, breathing, aware of the passion always in its body, the incessant flow of the current deep below the surface and above it; tides in and out of the vast curved coastline of Italy and Serbia, waves constantly changing with the wind.
She smiled at him. “Of course. My life depends on it, and yours. And more important still, getting the list back where it can be of use.”
“Did I do this to you?” he asked curiously.
“This?” she questioned.
“I know they gave you a hard time,” he went on. “I’m sorry.” He touched her cheek, his fingers unusually gentle.
She drew in breath to tell him she had succeeded very well. She had beaten the devouring self-doubt and regained faith that she was intelligent, brave, or valuable at all. But it was unnecessary to say; he already knew it.
He was waiting, the anticipation fading from his eyes, the edge of his smile.
“Everyone else seemed rather boring after you,” she said, and she knew there was enough truth in that for him to see it in her face.
“Dear Elena,” he murmured. “So safe in your own way, so…comfortable.”
She would have liked to slap him, but she couldn’t afford to. And what angered her most was that it was not true, not now. And he had not even noticed! Or had he? And he was pushing her to see if she would deny it.
“Do you suppose meals are included in that exorbitant fee?” she asked instead. “It seems like days since we ate.”
“It’s been a long time,” he agreed, changing the subject as easily as she did. “The food may be pretty vile, but we should eat anyway.” He offered his arm. “Shall we dine?”
They ate with the captain and some of the crew. There was no space for passengers to dine alone. It was a tramp steamer that took in the extra cargo of desperate passengers, or anything that stretched out the crew’s meager financial reward for a hard and often dangerous life. The captain and five of the crew sat with Aiden and Elena around a wooden table that was fixed to the floor. It took up most of the floor space, and they were forced to sit elbow to elbow. Oil lanterns hung so they could see each other’s faces and the surface of the table. Everything swayed very slightly with the movement of the sea, and there was a faint creaking of timbers all the time. It was a comforting sound. Elena found herself relaxing and enjoying the food, a stew of meat she could not identify and various root vegetables augmented with savory dumplings.
At the table they said they were fugitive lovers, and they had to keep up that story. It seemed to satisfy the crew, even amuse them, which was good since they had nothing else believable to offer.
They went to bed early. Aiden had been invited to take a drink with the captain but had declined with a wink and a smile. It made Elena uncomfortable, but not as much as the leers and sly remarks she had to contend with.
“Sorry,” Aiden said when they were alone, the cabin door closed and the clothes chest pulled across it. “But if I leave you alone, one of the crew might take a chance or—”
