Echo in the Wind Read online

  What had begun with Joanna’s baskets of food for the village poor had blossomed into a full-fledged venture in ill-gotten gain. Dangerous though it may be, she was at the center of it all. The need to help the people she cared for compelled her to accept the risks.

  She urged her mare to a canter, mindful of the tasks awaiting her. Tomorrow, Richard would host a reception for the Prime Minister and she must be ready. William Pitt’s Tories had won the general election, a cause for great celebration. Many in London’s nobility would attend. Her brother, the Earl of Torrington, would not be pleased if his hostess were ill prepared.

  “Make ready to sail!” Jean Donet shouted, giving Émile a look that spoke of the need for haste. Jean would not linger offshore of Bognor with revenue cutters prowling the waters of the Channel.

  “To Chichester Harbor, Capitaine?” asked Émile, raising a thick russet brow.

  At Jean’s curt nod, Émile bellowed over the heads of the crew, “Cross the headsails! On the fore, wear ’round and brace sharp!”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the lines surged and the sails flew to their new positions on the port side. Billowing and snapping taut, they emerged into the perfect white curves of a well-trimmed rig.

  Jean shared a pleased look with his quartermaster as la Reine Noire turned her head and swiftly gathered way, white foam flowing out from under the carved queen on her bow. There was nothing Jean liked so much as being free of the land.

  Now that they were under way, he turned to his second mate, Lucien Ricard. The tall sailor was easily identified by his red knit cap and the stray white hairs trying to be free of it. “M’sieur Ricard, take the helm, s’il vous plaît, and set a course to Chichester Harbor.”

  “Oui, Capitaine.” Lucien acknowledged the order in a clipped tone as he headed to the quarterdeck. “South around Selsey Bill, then due west till we fetch Hayling Light.”

  Jean turned to Émile. “Join me for a drink? Our English friends did not get all the brandy we carry. I’ve a cask of cognac held in reserve.”

  Émile grinned and followed Jean down the aft companionway to his cabin, his home when he was at sea. He had named his ship the Black Queen for Marie Antoinette’s spendthrift ways. But no matter her name, Jean loved his brig and knew well every creak emanating from her timbered decks, every sound whispered from the shrouds. Lorient might claim the place as his home, but his ship had his heart.

  The captain’s cabin was not so elegantly appointed as his hillside home in Lorient or his townhouse in Paris, but it contained all he needed: his charts, his nautical instruments, his books, his weapons and a fine mahogany shelf bed with a velvet cover the same blue as the French royal flag.

  Jean stepped over the threshold, his eyes alighting on his cabin boy, Gabriel Chastain, who was busy freshening the finery Jean would don tomorrow. Then he must appear the nobleman he had been forced to become.

  “Gabe, two glasses of cognac.”

  The lad dipped his head. “Oui, Capitaine.” Brushing dark curls from his plump cheeks, Gabe darted to where the glasses and a flat-bottomed flagon of cognac rested on a fenced tray in the center of the pedestal table.

  Gabe had joined the ship during the years Jean had been a privateer in the American War. To his great pleasure, the lad had the instincts of a gentleman’s valet de chambre and catered to Jean’s standards.

  Along with the rest of his crew, Gabe had stayed on after the end of the war. A little smuggling on the side in defiance of the English authorities allowed the ship’s company the excitement they once knew, and the extra coin kept them content.

  When they were not on the ship, many of them lived in Lorient, la Reine Noire’s home port in Brittany.

  Jean pulled his pistol from his waist and took off his sword. Setting both on the table, he accepted the glass Gabe handed him.

  The cat that had been lounging on Jean’s bed jumped to the deck, sauntered to Jean’s chair and leapt into his lap. He idly stroked the animal’s black fur. Franklin began to purr.

  Émile dropped into the chair beside him. “Ye’ve a way with cats, Capitaine.”

  Jean gazed down at the cat whose golden eyes were now closed. “Why, I cannot imagine. I do nothing to encourage them.” The feline’s purr became loud and rhythmic, ebbing and flowing like the tide.

  “I remember the day he followed ye through the streets of Lorient and back to the ship as if ye had summoned him.” Émile’s mouth twitched up on one side. “Are ye sure ye do not carry a magical pipe?”

  Jean chuckled. “The Pied Piper called rats, mon ami, not cats.”

  “Eventually he called children, non?”

  “So he did. But only for revenge on those who refused to pay him his due. I can hardly blame him. In Franklin’s case, I am certain it was cream he wanted when he followed me. He manipulates Cook to get his daily ration as surely as Benjamin Franklin manipulated France into giving him millions. The cat is clever, which is why I gave him the name. Even the most ruthless of my men save the animal bits of fish. He’s well on his way to becoming as rotund as his namesake.”

  The cat pressed his ear into Jean’s hand. He obliged the animal by giving it a scratch.

  Émile took a draw on his brandy. “Yer mention of Dr. Franklin reminds me. I heard the American has become a champion of that huge air balloon we saw floating over the Tuileries.”

  Jean remembered the giant balloon from the last time he was in Paris. It was all anyone talked about.

  “M’sieur Charles manned that one himself. ’Twas a courageous act. Now that America has her freedom, Dr. Franklin will be looking for things to occupy his mind. I can understand why the inventor would have great interest in M’sieur Montgolfier’s curious balloons.”

  The faint moonlight coming through the stern windows drew Jean’s attention as it often did. He tossed the cat from his lap and crossed the cabin, barely noticing the rolling of the ship beneath his feet.

  For a moment, he stared out the windows at the moonlight dancing on the waters in the ship’s wake. Then looking to the shore they’d just left, his thoughts wandered back to the English smugglers. Something niggled at the back of his mind.

  “What did you think of the English smuggler who insisted on seeing our goods?”

  “Young and mebbe a trifle arrogant,” came Émile’s reply, “but I respect him for his caution. Ye would have done the same.”

  “Probably…” In his mind, Jean pictured the slender form, the well-turned calves and the smooth skin of the young man’s cheek revealed beneath the brim of his hat. The voice had been low enough to be a young man, but the more Jean considered what he had seen, the more he became certain this “he” was a “she”.

  Women sometimes participated in smuggling. Perhaps she was one of the village women aiding her husband, most likely the tall Englishman with the scarred face. But her speech, though terse, sounded genteel. Moreover, English countrywomen did not usually do the talking in smuggling transactions. A mystery he might solve if he decided to make another run on his way to France. He still had a wealth of goods in his warehouse on Guernsey Island to unload.

  Gabe came to stand beside him at the window. “Sir, your clothes are ready for the reception. With your leave, I would see Cook about your supper.”

  “Good lad. Some food would be most welcome.” Jean watched the boy as he made his way to the cabin door. Gabe was about the same height as the young English smuggler, but he had a masculine swagger unlike the leader of the smugglers. The difference made him think his suspicion had been correct.

  “After Chichester, we sail to London?” inquired Émile from where he sat at the table.

  Jean turned from the window, his half-filled glass in hand. “That is still my plan. It has been over a year since my daughter wed the English captain. There have been letters, of course, but tomorrow’s reception for their Prime Minister will be the first time I will have the chance to see for myself if Claire is happy.”

  “Does she
know of yer elevation to the title?”

  “I sent her a message as soon as I received word.”

  Émile’s smile softened his harsh countenance. “I would like to see the little one.” Jean’s daughter, whom Émile fondly called “little one”, always brought a smile to the quartermaster’s craggy face.

  Jean took a sip of his cognac. “I thought to accept her invitation to travel with her and her husband to London while you sail la Reine Noire to meet me there. You should arrive in time to attend the christening for my namesake.”

  “Oui, I remember the promise her husband made ye.”

  “The very one.” Jean was inwardly pleased the son his daughter had given her English husband would bear Jean’s name. Though he had reached the age of forty, he would hardly be a doddering grand-père and could teach the lad much about the sea. “The crew might enjoy some time in London.”

  Émile nodded. “As long as they can eat on the ship, the crew will not complain. Ye do not serve ordinary seamen’s fare, Capitaine. They have grown used to brioche for breakfast and French cooking for dinner. The English eat very little bread and call themselves economical because they have no soup or dessert.”

  “The English dinner is like eternity,” Jean remarked. “It has no beginning and no end. And nowhere save England do people drink worse coffee. How they endure such a prodigious quantity of brown water, I shall never know. But we need have no concern when we dine at Claire’s table. She wrote to tell me she has finally hired a French cook.”

  Émile laughed. “I shall look forward to that. And after London, what then?”

  Jean patted the pocket of his coat, reminded of the letter from his father’s lawyer that had arrived just as they sailed from Lorient. J’ai le regret de vous informer…

  He let out a breath. “I must return to Saintonge. The funeral for my father and brother will have occurred by then, which is just as well. My father would not have wanted me to attend.”

  He thought for a moment. “If the maître du château is still the same one, he is a capable estate manager. And the servants under him will see all is done as it should be.” He smiled to himself. “I wonder how they will react to the disowned younger son becoming the master.”

  Jean twisted his glass in his hand, brooding over the other matter.

  “Something troubles ye?”

  His gaze met the deep-set brown eyes of his quartermaster, the man to whom he owed a life debt and his friend for many years. “You know me too well, Émile. Oui, there is more. It seems my brother left a child and named me her guardian.”

  “A child?” Émile asked incredulous. “Was there no wife?”

  “There was, but she died some years ago. There is only the young daughter, Zoé. Given our strained relationship and my rather dangerous pursuits these last years, I am surprised Henri would place her in my hands.”

  Émile shook his head. “Likely he did not expect to die as young as he did. A carriage accident is a bad way to go. Struck down in the road like a stray dog—no valor, no honor, not even a chance to confess.”

  “But to charge me with seeing to his daughter…”

  “Ye have been a good father to Claire, Capitaine. He might have remembered that. And now the estate, the vineyards and the wealth of the Saintonges are yers.” Émile pursed his lips and lifted his heavy shoulders in a shrug. “Not that ye need ’em.”

  “I do not even want them,” Jean said dismissively. With the richesse he had built in the decades since his father had cast him out, he no longer resented the loss of his heritage. “But I cannot refuse to care for my own flesh and blood.”

  He attributed Claire’s good upbringing to her early years with her mother and, after Ariane’s death, the teaching of the Ursuline Sisters of Saint-Denis, not to anything he had done.

  “There must be something more behind Henri’s bequest. My father ordered Henri to break contact with me and he complied, though not happily. A decade ago, he sent me a letter expressing his regret for the family lost to me and telling me his wife had finally conceived.” He paused, reflecting. “Still, entrusting me with his only child is more than I could have foreseen.”

  Émile raised a brow. “So, now that he has, ye’re to be a father once again.”

  Jean gave his quartermaster a sharp glance. “We will see.”

  Chapter 2

  The Harrows, near Chichester, West Sussex

  At the bottom of the stairs, the sound of a flute caused Joanna to veer from her intended destination and strike out for the music room.

  Her grandfather, the first Earl of Torrington, had built The Harrows as a grand estate for his family. The three-story rectangular house, outbuildings and stables were his creation, but Joanna’s parents had changed a charming room in one corner of the house with south-facing windows into a music room for the family. Each of their children had been encouraged to become proficient with an instrument. Joanna could play a fair cello but nothing like the talent her mother had displayed.

  “You are late!” Freddie scolded, setting down his flute as she entered. The light from the branched candlestick on the table where he’d propped up his music score set his face aglow.

  His auburn hair, darker than hers, was tied back in a queue. It made him appear years older, and his light brown coat made his brown eyes seem darker. Underneath the coat, a thin slice of his moss green waistcoat revealed elaborate gold brocade trim. She smiled to herself thinking of the pains Freddie had taken with his attire.

  “At least I am ready,” she told him. “What about Tillie?” Her younger sister, Lady Matilda West, nineteen and relishing the idea of her first Season, would be anxious for the evening’s celebration. It marked not just the Prime Minister’s Tories having swept the general election, but one of the first social events since Tillie’s come out. Unlike Joanna, her sister looked forward to balls, house parties and… marriage.

  “Tillie popped her head in a few minutes ago but left to look for you. Richard, too, has been asking for you.”

  “It takes a lady so much longer to dress than a gentleman, Freddie. I’ll not bore you with the details, but stays and petticoats are a nuisance, and that does not begin to describe what I must endure to have fashionable hair. Piles of curls must be added to produce this coiffure. Without Nora’s skill, I’d not be standing here now.”

  Joanna smiled at the thought of her maid’s fussing, a whole hour of chatter that was as much a part of her toilette as the pulling and poking of hairpins to secure her curls. Nora was Zack’s sister, as small and talkative as he was big and taciturn. As if the same litter had produced both a lap spaniel and a mastiff, no two siblings were ever so little alike. Both had brown hair, but Nora’s eyes were green, while Zack’s were hazel. And Nora was more attractive than her scarred brother would ever be handsome.

  Freddie gave her an admiring glance. “Well, you look beautiful, so I suppose your maid deserves your praise.” He picked up his flute and gave her a smirk. “’Tis quite a change from last evening.”

  She curtsied deeply and mirrored his smirk. “Why, thank you, kind sir. And you, little brother, are quite dignified this night.”

  Freddie smiled, the mouthpiece of his flute paused in front of his lips. “By the bye, where have you been all day?”

  “In the village. I had to assure the brandy was properly diluted and doused with burnt sugar. And there were deliveries to arrange.” It was only after Joanna’s eyes had been opened to the plight of the poor in Chichester that she realized the tea and brandy her family consumed were made reasonable in cost because they were unaccustomed, which is to say smuggled, goods. And some who looked the other way, like the vicar, received his tea at no cost. After a run, there were many to satisfy so that their trade could proceed unhindered.

  “The vicar?”

  Joanna nodded. “Aye. And the proprietor of the White Horse Inn was running low on his supply of brandy.”

  “I could have helped.” Her brother looked disappointed that she had
not included him.

  “There was no need. Zack did much of the mixing. Besides, I wanted to look in on the Ackermans. The whole family is ill with the ague; the mother is only now recovering. Nora and I took them some broth, bread and tea, then stayed to see to the children.” The worried faces of the younger ones, concerned about their mother since their father had died a year ago, lingered in Joanna’s mind. “I will go again tomorrow.”

  “Be prepared for Richard to expect you in London.”

  Joanna sighed. “Oh, dear. I was hoping to escape this Season.”

  “Not likely, but I can keep things going with Zack and the others till you return.”

  “I will try and avoid London if I can.” The back of Joanna’s throat began to itch and, with a sudden intake of breath, she sneezed. “Ah choo!”

  “Over there,” said Freddie in a quieter voice, pointing to a chair in the far corner of the room.

  Asleep with her cat, Aloysius, curled up in her lap, Aunt Hetty reclined in a blue-gray gown the color of her eyes, currently hidden beneath closed lids. A swath of white lace graced her bodice and cascaded from her elbows. Her unpowdered silver hair was simply dressed. “You might have told me. What if she’d heard us?”

  “No chance of that. She’s not likely to be hearing anything.”

  Casting a glance at her aunt, she noted the steady rise and fall of her chest, satisfied she was truly asleep. “Your flute playing put the old girl to sleep?”

  Freddie fought a smile. “I’m sure it helped.”

  Aunt Hetty had joined their household after their mother’s death and brought Aloysius with her. To Joanna’s thinking, the white cat seemed an odd-looking creature. One large black splotch covered most of its left side and a black ring circled the base of one ear. Its eyes were a stark gray.

  Unlike the cats that frequented the stables, this one made its home inside The Harrows proper where he caused Joanna to sneeze and her eyes to water. “That cat!” She drew a handkerchief from the fold of her gown and dabbed at her eyes. “Before I turn into a puddle of tears and my eyes start burning, I’d best go find Richard and Tillie.”