Read Online Playing with Fire by Sandra Heath - Free Book Online

use the opportunity. Without your cousin’s false smiles to blind him, maybe he will judge for himself which pretty face is more worthy.”
    Tansy felt embarrassment rush into her cheeks. Had she been that obvious?
    “I am very observant, lady, and consider myself a just man. It would not be right for the lieutenant to fall prey to such as your cousin. So take the help I offer you. Go to him. Make him see the worthiness in your eyes.”
    Before she could say anything more, he stepped lightly away toward Hermione and Amanda, who were standing nervously together forward of the cabins. After glancing back toward the still-silent riverbank, he ushered them inside. Tansy hesitated about going to help Martin, but then thought again. It would be craven indeed to draw back and not only do nothing to help her own cause, but at the same time allow heartless Amanda to toy with him for the sheer spite of it. Even Church Mouse could fight. So she made her way to the stern.
    Martin smiled as she approached. “This is almost too smooth a getaway, is it not?” he breathed, following Tusun’s example by glancing warily over his shoulder at the shore, where all remained miraculously calm.
    “May it stay that way,” she whispered back. “Lieutenant, I’m here because Tusun said you needed help. Two sets of eyes being better than one, or some such thing?”
    “He’s right. You keep a watch astern.”
    She did as he instructed. The temple mound rose darkly against the predawn sky, but the statue of Bastet now caught the first rays of the rising sun. As the canja slid slowly downstream she saw some of the campfires for the first time, but just as the escape seemed to have succeeded without detection, someone raised the alarm. Suddenly there was pandemonium as French soldiers poured toward the riverbank, firing at random so that shots whined all around. Martin shoved Tansy down on the deck so roughly that for a moment she lost her grip on the figurine. As she grabbed it, she became aware of the frightened tabby pressing against her.
    Further along the deck Tusun took aim with his rifle and began to return the fire. Martin bent low at the tiller, trying to present as small a target as possible as he guided the canja. The current seemed so slow that he could almost have sworn the Nile had ceased to flow, but gradually, oh, so gradually, the vessel glided on. The French ran along the bank, still firing. Frightened birds rose from the reeds and palms, their cries vying with the gunfire, and throughout it all Tansy pressed so flat against the deck that she almost became part of it. Only once did she dare to raise her head, to see that the canja was moving toward an area of wild marshland, with reeds and dense bushes. On the far shore, away from the French, there were a number of small channels that offered hiding for even a large vessel.
    Martin swung the tiller toward a narrow neck of water that disappeared beyond clumps of date palms and sycamore figs. The furious French fired indiscriminately after the canja, and some of the shots struck the timbers, sending splinters flying. There was a rustle of foliage as the vessel nosed into the channel. Tansy stared behind, watching the rifle flashes through the dawn gloom; then reeds and branches closed like curtains, and the stolen vessel vanished into the oblivion of the marsh.
     

Chapter 10
     
    As the canja slid further from the French, Tansy got to her feet again. She shook out her robes and tried to compose herself, only too aware of having just been shot at. The tabby was aware too, and it ran back to its hiding place among the crates.
    Martin straightened and reached out impulsively to pull Tansy close. “It’s all right now; we’re safe.” It was a natural action on his part, a desire to console her after a harsh experience, and she knew no more than that could be read into it. But she wanted to rest her head against his shoulders and close her eyes, wanted to slip her arms around him