Natalya by Cynthia Wright Page B

and old man's breeches. Her face had a warm, winsome appeal accentuated by her unexpected, incandescent smiles. Her honey-gold hair was a disheveled mass that framed her delicate face and tumbled riotously down her back. Obviously Natalya's beauty was even more apparent in the absence of artifice. Grey decided that it was fortunate for him she was so advanced in years. An unmarried woman of twenty-six could only be a spinster or a worldly mistress. He might find her attractive, but nothing could come of it.
    Still... it was difficult not to think about the other, more intimate discoveries he had made about Natalya when he had cuddled her in his arms in sleep. In spite of all she'd been through, she smelled as if she'd just had a bath scented with meadowsweet. And there had been the warm, firm pressure of her breasts against his chest... Upon awakening, he had had to suppress an unconscious urge to open her shirt and nestle between the pale, warm curves—
    "I'm utterly famished!" she announced suddenly, scrambling off the bunk to pace across the cabin. "What time is it? How long will it be until we arrive in England? And where will we land?"
    Rather disgusted with himself for his mental lapse into lechery, Grey sat up and reached for his boots. "I'll go above and see what we might eat." Pulling on the second boot, he stood up. "And I would guess that it's about sunset, which means that we ought to be nearing the English coast. I'll have to ask Captain Bumblethorpe where he intends to put us off the Essex ."
    Natalya watched Grey reach the passageway. In the soft glow of twilight, he was looking handsome and rested. When he glanced back over one broad shoulder and gave her an unexpected smile before exiting, she was shocked to feel herself shiver all over.
    * * *
    "What are you reading?" Natalya asked as she took another bite of tangy cheddar cheese and tore off a fifth generous chunk of baguette.
    "Didn't your mother teach you not to speak with your mouth full?" Grey had finished his plate of bread, cheese, apples, and smoked salmon. Now he sipped a glass of fine Grenache wine and perused the booklet Oiseau had pressed into his hands when they'd said farewell on the fishing boat.
    "Didn't your mother teach you that it's criminally rude to read when sharing a meal with someone else?" Natalya countered.
    "Touché." He held up the pamphlet for her to see. "It's quite extraordinary. Chateaubriand has just published this review of Napoleon's offenses, called Des Buonaparte et des Bourbons."'
    "I'm not surprised," she replied, with studied nonchalance. "Today is the fifth anniversary of the execution of Rene Chateaubriand's brother, Armand. Do you know the story?"
    "Vaguely. Refresh my memory." Each time he was reminded of her intellect, Grey felt a twinge of surprise.
    "In 1809, Armand was arrested for sending dispatches from the emigre Bourbon princes to their agents in France. Rene wrote to Napoleon and asked for mercy for his brother, to no avail."
    Grey began to nod. "Yes, I remember. Armand Chateaubriand was tried, found guilty, and then shot, wasn't he?"
    "Yes! Rene recounted the episode to us when he visited Chateau du Soleil last year, and the memory of his face, his voice, will never leave me. He said that Armand was killed on Good Friday, and that he himself arrived just a few moments after the shots were fired. He found his brother lying dead, his skull shattered, and... as he put it, 'a butcher's dog licking up his blood and his brains.' "
    "I heard from prison that Chateaubriand had been in seclusion these past five years, writing quietly, but by no means forgetting what Bonaparte did—not only to his brother, but to France," said Grey.
    "All along, Rene has been incensed by Napoleon's limits on freedom of the press. He's been aching to speak out, but waiting for the right moment." Brushing crumbs from her fingers, Natalya reached for her wineglass. "He told Uncle Nicky that when the end of Napoleon's empire was at