Читать книгу Regency High Society Vol 4: The Sparhawk Bride / The Rogue's Seduction / Sparhawk's Angel / The Proper Wife - Miranda Jarrett - Страница 25

Gabriel thumped the empty tumbler down on the table and rose to his feet. Angry as he was, he seemed to fill the small captain’s cabin of the Tiger, the way, thought Josh glumly, his father did every space he’d ever entered.

“Do you mean to tell me that after a week in this place, all you have done is dawdled with some barmaid?” demanded Gabriel furiously. “Your sister’s life is in danger, and you’re chasing after some Creole baggage?”

“It’s not like that, Father,” said Josh, wishing his father wouldn’t immediately thrust whatever he did or said into the worst possible light. And it wasn’t as if Gabriel had had such great success himself on Barbados. He’d found no trace of Jerusa, and though he’d dined with the rear admiral from the fleet stationed there, no promises had been made and nothing accomplished. “I told you before. I might as well have been shouting at the moon for all the good the governor and his lot have done for me.”

“But damnation, Josh, didn’t you give them the letters of introduction?”

“I did, and they could scarce be bothered to break the seals.” He stood with his hands clasped behind his back so his father couldn’t see how he clenched and unclenched his fingers through the conversation. “None of the men you knew, or who knew you, are still here. The old governor was recalled to Paris five years ago, and the new one doesn’t know a Sparhawk from a sea gull.”

“More’s the pity for him,” grumbled Gabriel, but at least he’d sat back down into his chair.

Josh stepped forward to refill his father’s tumbler. All the stern windows across the cabin’s length were open to whatever breeze might rise from the water, but at midday the cabin was still stifling, and both men had shed their coats and waistcoats.

“When the officials turned their backs on me, I went to the rum shops and taverns. If any of Deveaux’s men were still alive, I figured they’d be there, not on their knees telling their beads in the churches.”

“True enough.” Gabriel took the tumbler, holding it critically up to the sunlight to see the pale gold color of the rum. At least he couldn’t question that; Josh had been careful to ship rum from the family’s firm in Newport, even though Martinique must have a score of distilleries of her own. “Though if there’s any justice in this life, the rogues that sailed with Deveaux have all gone to the devil with their master by now.”

“That’s what Ceci believed, too, until—”

“Ceci?” Gabriel frowned. “Who’s Ceci?”

“Mademoiselle Cecilie Marie-Rose Noire. Ceci. Her father owns the tavern where we met.”

“Ah, the barkeep’s daughter.” With a cynical sigh, Gabriel tapped his fingers on the edge of the table. “So, is she all the things a woman should be, Josh? Fair, charming, willing?”

Josh bit back his retort, but warmth still crept into his words. “She is both fair and charming, Father, but though she is the barkeep’s daughter, she’s not the slattern you seem determined to believe she is.”

“Then my sympathies to you, lad,” said Gabriel dryly. “If you’ve wasted your days with this girl instead of finding Jerusa, then at least you should have had her warming your bed during the night.”

And at last Josh’s temper spilled over. “Damn and blast, Father!” he exploded. “Is that all you can say about a woman? Will she warm my bed?”

But to Josh’s surprise, his father merely leaned back in his chair, rocking the tumbler gently in his hand.

“I haven’t thought that way about a woman since I met your mother,” he said slowly. “But you, lad. I’ve never heard otherwise from you. Not that at your age there’s anything wrong with seeing what the ladies have to offer, but this French girl—Ceci, was it?—must be a rare little bird to have clipped your wings so soon.”

Josh’s face went expressionless. Were his feelings that obvious, then, that even his father could read them? “She hasn’t ‘clipped’ my wings, Father,” he said stiffly. “I’ve known her but a week.”

Gabriel looked up at him from beneath his brows. “I didn’t say I was posting the banns yet, Josh.”

“A good thing, too.” Self-consciously Josh toyed with the cork from the bottle of rum. “That is, I like Ceci. I like her just fine. She’s clever and amusing and pretty and all that, but she was also the only person on this blessed island worth talking to.”

“Then I’d say in a week she’s made more headway than poor Polly Redmond has been able to make with you in Newport in the last two years.”

“Oh, hang Polly Redmond, Father!” Impatiently Josh jammed the cork back into the neck of the bottle. “Ceci’s special, aye, I won’t deny it. But what’s most important now is that she and her father are using all their connections in St-Pierre and beyond to help find any of Deveaux’s men, and Rusa with them.”

Eagerly Gabriel leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with the excitement of a hunt finally begun. “So you have found something, eh, Josh? Are we any closer to bringing my Rusa back home? What kind of news did your barkeep and his daughter bring you?”

“The best in the world,” said Josh. “Monsieur Noire isn’t just any barkeep, Father. He lays the blame for his sister-in-law’s ruin and death at Deveaux’s door. And because of that, tomorrow, through him, I’m meeting the one man on this island who still admits to having sailed for Christian Deveaux. If anyone can make heads or tails of your black fleur de lis, then he can.”

“And we’ll be that much closer to the bastards that took your sister.” Gabriel’s green eyes were bright with ruthless anticipation. “You’ve done well, lad. And you tell that lady of yours from me that she’s a rare bird indeed.”

“We must be almost there, Josh,” called Ceci as she leaned over the side of the boat to see beyond the sweep of their single sail. “Papa said to look for a little house with red tiles on the roof that was nearly hidden by palms on the far side of Anse Couleuvre.”

“Anse means cove, doesn’t it?” said Josh, his arm resting lightly on the tiller as he squinted into the sun. It had been a long time since he’d sailed a boat this small, and he was enjoying responding to the feel of the wind and sea in a way he seldom could on a vessel as large as the Tiger. He was glad Ceci had trusted him enough to sail the boat alone, much preferring to have her company to himself than to share it with some gloomy Creole fisherman as a chaperon.

Unlike so many women, she was fearless in the little boat, hopping back and forth from one side to the other until he finally had to tell her to sit still or risk capsizing them. Not that he’d put any damper on her eagerness; still she leaned over the side to point out landmarks to him or jumped to her feet to help him set the sail on another tack. She’d looped the sides of her skirts up through her pockets so they didn’t flap in the wind, and she didn’t particularly seem to care that the makeshift style offered him frequent views of her charmingly plump knees as she clambered about the boat.

They’d been fortunate in their weather, too, after two days of storms that had closed the port. But this was a cloudless day that made the water so translucent and smooth that the little boat flew like the wind itself. The bright, lush green of the tropical trees and plants flowed down the hills almost to the water, and today even the misty clouds that always hung about the crest of Montagne Pelée, the tall, barren mountain that dominated Martinique’s skyline, were a light pink haze.

“So if the anse in Anse Couleuvre stands for cove, what’s the couleuvre?” he asked as she came to sit beside him. He had yet to kiss her, and he wondered what she’d do if he leaned across the tiller right now. Strange to think that he’d known her less than a fortnight. It seemed more like a lifetime. “Covered? Colorful?”

“Non, non, Josh! It means snake, of course!” She laughed merrily and clapped her hands so that he didn’t mind in the slightest that she’d corrected him. “Snake Cove. For the fer de lance.”

Josh sighed pitifully. “I’m afraid I don’t know that one, either, sweetheart.”

“Oh, but you would if one bit you!” Ceci’s eyes widened dramatically beneath the yellow-striped scarf she’d used to tie back her hair. “The fer de lance is a most evil snake—as long as your arm, mon cher!—who lies in the forest and waits to pounce on poor travelers, who die within hours from its bite if the panseur does not arrive in time to cut away the poison. And only on this island, only on Martinique. These snakes are to be found nowhere else.”

She cupped her fingers like the head of a snake with her thumb as the jaw as she moved them together. “Snap, snap, snap, and goodbye to you, my poor Josh!”

“Well, pleasant sailing and goodbye to you, too, Ceci,” he said, laughing. “I do believe I’ll keep to the beach.”

“That is wisest, true,” said Ceci, letting her snake become demurely clasped hands in her lap once again. “Though I would be surprised if this Jean Meunier will be any more gracious to us than the fer de lance himself. Papa had to give three kegs of rum to Claude Boulanger simply to learn where the man keeps himself, but if any man on Martinique can help you find your sister, it is he.”

“Jean Meunier,” repeated Josh carefully, practicing the name. Thanks to Ceci, his French was much improved, but still he didn’t want to take chances with mangling the man’s name. Too much depended on it.

“Oui, c’est bon.” She leaned back against the stern to trail her fingers in the wake. “But I suppose since you are English, you could call him by his English name, too—John Miller.”

Josh looked at her sharply. “How can he be English? The man sailed with Deveaux during two wars against the English. How could he fight against his own countrymen?”

“I’m only telling you what I know, mon cher, not why it is. Papa says Deveaux chose his men for their wickedness and greed, not for their loyalties. They fought for him, and for gold.”

Josh thought of his own father and suspected the same could have been said of Gabriel’s crews during the same wars. Why, he wondered, had this John Miller decided to sail for one captain and his flag over another? Though his father had told him a few more of his privateering stories on the voyage south, Josh sensed that Gabriel wanted to keep the past as firmly behind him as he could, and that having Christian Deveaux so tangled in Jerusa’s disappearance had made it doubly painful to him. Did her kidnappers know that about him, as well?

Ceci was the first to spot the red-roofed house, and Josh pulled their boat up onto the black sand beach beside another boat that must belong to Miller. The place hardly had the look of a pirate’s stronghold. In addition to the cheerful red roof tiles, a vine with crimson flowers had been trained to grow over the wall in front of the house, and someone had carefully outlined the walk of black sand with white shells.

But as soon as Ceci began up the path, a single musket’s blast rang out across the water. Josh grabbed her, shielding her with his body as he pulled her to the ground, while scores of parrots and other birds raced shrieking into the sky from the gunshot.

“What are you doing, Josh?” Ceci demanded indignantly as she wriggled free. “What will this man think, to see you treat me like this on his walk?”

She tried to stand and Josh jerked her back down, pulling her along with him behind the trunk of a short, fat palm.

“What the hell do you think I’m doing?” he said. “Some fool just emptied his musket at us, and I’d rather not give him another chance to improve his aim.”

“C’est ridicule!” she huffed. “This man has had word that we would come.”

Josh sighed with exasperation. “I’d say he has.”

“You are being too foolish.” Before he could stop her she darted forward to stand squarely in the path, her arms folded defiantly across her chest and her yellow scarf bobbing with impatience.

“Monsieur Meunier!” she called. “I am Mademoiselle Cecilie Noire, and I have come with my friend to speak with you. Do not dare to fire at us again, or I shall tell everything to your friend Claude Boulanger!”

“As if Boulanger would give a shake about what I do!” Miller had come out onto his porch, the musket still in his hands. Cowering behind him was a very young black woman with her apron pressed to her mouth in fear and two small mulatto children shrinking behind her skirts. “Who’s the man what came with you, Miss Cecilie?”

From the man’s voice Josh guessed he was not only English but from New England, as well, and he wondered again how he’d come to serve under Deveaux. But English or not, Miller kept the musket raised to his eye, and obscuring his face, and with a prayer that his next step wouldn’t be his last, Joshua stepped from behind the palm’s shelter to stand beside Ceci.

“I’m Captain Joshua Sparhawk of the sloop Tiger, Newport, Rhode Island,” he called, “and I’ve come here to ask for your help.”

“Damn your eyes!” the man shouted back. “Why the hell would the son of Gabriel Sparhawk need help from me?”

“If you know my father, then you know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need it.” He’d also know better than to keep a Sparhawk waiting, thought Joshua as his temper simmered. “But I’m not going to say another blasted word until you put down that gun and stop roaring at us like some penny-poor bosun’s mate!”

With an oath, Miller set the butt of the musket down on the porch with a thump. “Then come aboard, Cap’n, and we’ll talk.”

Ten minutes later they were seated in reed chairs on the porch as Cyrillia, Miller’s wife, served them mabiyage, white rum mixed with root beer. Josh’s guess had been right: Miller had been born on the Kennebec River some sixty years before, and patiently Josh first answered all his questions about politics in Boston and Portsmouth before he finally told him why he and Ceci had come.

“Took your sister, did they?” said Miller, shaking his head. He was nearly bald, compensating with a gray-streaked beard that hung nearly to his waist. “That’s bad, Cap’n, very bad indeed. But I don’t think it’s the work of Deveaux’s people.”

He draped his beard over his left shoulder and pulled up his shirt to point to a faded black fleur de lis branded into his chest.

“Look close at that, Cap’n, for it’s the only one you’ll see in this life,” he said proudly. “I’m the last of the Chasseur’s crew, and that’s a cold, hard fact. Them that didn’t drown when the Chasseur went down was strung up at Bridgetown. Your pa saw to that, Cap’n, swore his word against every last man.”

He winked broadly. “Well, now, not quite every last man, or I wouldn’t be here now, would I?”

“You were not guilty, monsieur?” asked Ceci innocently, bouncing one of the little boys on her knee.

“Nay, lass, let’s just say I found another berth before the trial,” he said, and winked again before he turned back to Josh. “But this business about your sister, Cap’n. I can’t find the sense to it. You know I’m not behind it. There’s a score of fellows in St-Pierre who’ll swear I haven’t left this island in twenty years.”

Josh sighed, believing him. Whatever wickedness Miller had done in his youth, he clearly wasn’t inclined that way now. “Can you think of anyone else who might have worked for Deveaux? On his lands or in his house?”

Miller thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Nay, you’ll find nothing there. Cap’n Deveaux liked slaves on account of not having to pay them wages. He weren’t particular. Africans or white folks he’d captured, ‘twas all the same to him. But you won’t find none of them now, leastways not coming clear up to Newport to steal your sister.”

Josh sighed again, his frustration growing. The last thing he wanted was to return to his father empty-handed. Miller was his last hope. But where the devil could Rusa be?

“Is there no one else, Miller?” he asked. “A sister or brother, a widow or mistress?”

From the corner of his eye he saw how Ceci stiffened, and he promised himself to apologize to her later. He wouldn’t have asked the question before her if he hadn’t been so desperate.

“Mistresses? Cap’n Deveaux?” Miller laughed uneasily, glancing at Ceci and his wife. “Ah, Cap’n, surely you’ve heard about him and the women. He was as fine a sailor as any afloat, and the coolest man you’ve ever seen in a fight, but with women things were never right, if you con my meaning.”

But Josh wasn’t sure he did. “There were that many?”

“Nay, Cap’n, it weren’t the numbers of ladies, though there were a sight more’n I ever had in my bed, to be sure. It was how he treated them that wasn’t decent. He had strange ways of taking his pleasure, Cap’n, and—well, there were plenty of stories that don’t bear repeating now. But there weren’t no love in it, and no kindness, neither. I wouldn’t guess there’s any of them ladies now who’d think too kind of that Frenchman’s memory.”

“But that could be reason enough for them to act in his name,” said Josh slowly. “Can you recall any of their names, and if they still live on the island?”

Miller chuckled nervously. “Oh, Cap’n, it’s been almost thirty years now, and most of them ladies never was with him long enough for us to learn their names. I expect most of them are dead now, too, or wish they were. One of the last was like that, a pretty little thing when he first brung her to the house, but mad as a hare by the time he’d tired of her, right before the end.”

Josh saw how Ceci was sitting on the very edge of her chair, her hand twisting anxiously in her lap and her eyes enormous, and he wished now he’d spoken to Miller alone.

“S’il vous plaît, monsieur,” she said in a tiny, nervous voice. “If you please, do you recall that lady’s name?”

“Oh, aye, that one I do, on account of having her pointed out to me in her carriage. We thought she’d died in the fire, but up she popped years later, living grand in a house her son bought her. Still mad as they come, she is, and the son’s too much like his pa for comfort, but then, there’s all sorts in this world and likely the next, as well.”

“Her name, monsieur?” begged Ceci again. “The lady’s name?”

“Antoinette Géricault,” Miller said promptly. “Lives in a house in the Rue Roseau.”

Ceci leapt to her feet, her eyes shining. “Merci, monsieur, a thousand thanks!” she cried as she turned to Josh. “Is this not wonderful news, mon cher? My aunt still lives, and I have a cousin, too!”

“It may be more wonderful still, if you can wait a moment longer.” Lightly he rested a restraining hand across her shoulders. “You said the lady’s son is too much like the father. Do you know the man?”

“I thought I’d made that clear enough.” Miller looked sheepish. “He’s Deveaux’s bastard, of course. Michel Géricault. You’ve only to look him in the face to see it, and to hear the gossip, too.”

Michel Géricault. Josh nodded, certain this was one name he wouldn’t forget. He’d stake his life that Géricault was the man who had his sister. No, more than that: he was staking Jerusa’s life, too.

And he’d pray to God he was right.

“Such wonderful news!” sighed Ceci happily yet again as they left the boat at the wharf. “Such wonderful news for us both, Josh!”

More realistic, Josh merely patted her hand. As useful as it was, learning Géricault’s name was only the beginning of what he and his father must still do to find Jerusa.

“And consider, Josh, how proud your father will be of you!” She sighed blissfully, looping her arm through his, and he thought of how impossibly dear her little face had become to him.

“Then will you come with me when I tell him?” he asked, and as soon as he’d said it the idea seemed perfect. “Come with me now, Ceci, back to the Tiger. Father wants to meet you, and this would be as good a time as any.”

Her eyes widened and she stopped walking. “To meet your father?” she squeaked. “Now? Oh, Josh, I am not ready for that! Look at me, my clothes, my hair—”

“You look beautiful,” he said warmly, and he meant it. Gently he guided her into an arched doorway, out of the street. “Come with me now, Ceci. Please.”

“Oh, Josh,” she murmured as she searched his face. “I do not know.”

But when he kissed her, he knew everything. He knew that he loved her, and that somehow, miraculously, she loved him in return, and that when he sailed from St-Pierre, she would be with him in the captain’s cabin of the Tiger, and that Newport would never be quite the same dull place once she was there with him.

“I love you, Ceci,” he said softly, his voice rough with emotion as he cradled her face in his hands. “I love you, mon chère.”

Her cheeks were pink and her eyes now were wide with wonder and joy. “It’s ma chère, Josh, not mon,” she whispered. “But, oh, I did not dare to dream!”

“Then don’t.” Gently he pulled away her scarf so he could tangle his fingers in her soft curls. “Just say you love me.”

“Oh, Josh, I do, oh, so much!” She reached up to slip her arms around his neck and pulled him lower to kiss him herself.

“Then say you’ll come back to Newport with me, Ceci. Say you’ll marry me.”

She gasped, stunned. “But this is so rapid, Josh, I do not know what to say!”

“Say yes.” He chuckled, delighted that he’d surprised her this way. Hell, he’d surprised himself.

“But that a man like you should wish to marry Ceci Noire, la! You are an English shipmaster, a fine gentleman, and so very handsome and clever!”

And not a word about being a Sparhawk, he thought happily. Lord, she loved him for who he was, not his father’s name, and he loved her all the more for it.

“It doesn’t matter who or what I am, Ceci,” he said softly, “except that I’m someone who loves you dearly and will do his best to make you happy.”

“Oh, Josh, how could you not?” With a little sigh of contentment, she wriggled closer into his arms.

“Then you’ll say yes?”

She tipped her head, suddenly prim. “My answer’s in my heart, and you know it already. But before I can tell you, you must speak to Papa.”

“Hang it all, Ceci, I’ll speak to a hundred papas—a thousand!—if it means I’ll have you!”

“One is quite enough,” she said mischievously. “I don’t want to wait the time it would take you to ask all those others.”

“Then you will come with me to meet my father?”

“I cannot, Josh, not now,” she said sadly. “Oh, I know your news is most grand, but mine is very wonderful, too. Think what my father will say when I tell him my aunt still lives!”

“She lives, true enough, but you heard what Miller said,” he cautioned gently. “She’s a madwoman, Ceci, kept by her son in a house away from town. Surely they know where you and your father live. If they had wished to find you, don’t you think they would have done so before this?”

Ceci hesitated, reluctant to abandon her dream. “If my aunt is unwell, she may have forgotten. Or she may have believed my parents would not forgive her shame.”

“She may still feel that way.”

She shook her head fiercely. “But you don’t understand, Josh! Antoinette is my dear maman’s only sister. Whether she is ill or not, that does not change. Maman loved her, I know, and now I will, too.”

“But, Ceci—”

“Non, Josh, you shall see that I’m right!” She kissed him again, and slipped free of his embrace, dancing away from him in the street. “I will come meet your papa tomorrow, I swear to it! And I love you, Josh Sparhawk! I love you!”

Antoinette sat in the chair by the window, laying out the silk threads she would need this day for her embroidery. At first the doctor had forbidden it. The needles were a danger, he said, and because of him they had taken away her beautiful colored threads and her hoops and her needles, and she had wept with frustration and shame.

But Michel had made them give them back, because Michel remembered. In all the years when she had worked for the dressmakers, those years when they had been so poor after Christian was murdered and her family, her sister and her husband, had refused to help her from the shame she’d brought to them. In all those years, she had never once pricked her finger and spoiled a length of silk or linen.

Never once, never once… Mother of God, where did the words go? She pressed her hands to her forehead, scrubbing away at the skin, as if she could wash away the blackness, too.

A length of silk or linen. She took a deep, shuddering breath before she opened her eyes. For now the blackness had receded like the tide, and the words were hers again.

Her fingers still trembled as she held the needle up to the light to thread it. Danger, fah! How could a woman be dangerous with only a needle for a weapon?

But then, she had Michel.

Her handsome son was her weapon, and she thought with grim satisfaction of how the doctors and the others grew pale whenever Michel came to see her. He terrified them all, her gold-haired hero of a son who was so much like his father. A word from him, and they had taken away the chains from her bed. A frown, another word, and she was freed from the dark attic room they’d tried to make her prison. He made certain that she was treated with respect, as both a lady and the mistress of this house.

Her gaze drifted to the little portrait over the bed. Her Christian would have done the same for her; he would have done anything she wished, for he’d loved her that much. Hadn’t he even sworn it to her, his fingers on the jeweled cross of his sword? He’d been so certain of it that he would punish her if she forgot herself and did something, anything, that he claimed a true lover wouldn’t.

Her needle paused over the linen as she remembered. She had not liked Christian’s punishments. She carried the scars still, on her back and her legs and breasts. But his reasons had been as pure as his love, noble and fine, like the gentleman he was. He had done what he had because he loved her, and she bowed before his punishments because she loved him so much and wished to be worthy of him.

No more, oh, please, no more!

She gasped as her fingers flew to her forehead again, the needlework in her hand falling to the carpet. She would fight back. She would not let the blackness take her again.

Dear holy Mother, if only Christian had lived, spared to become her husband and with his love guide her through the perils of life! The time they’d had together had been so short, and then he had been torn away from her and murdered. God rest his precious soul, he had not even been able to say farewell to her. The Englishman had come, and then it was too late.

The Englishman, the Englishman! She jabbed her needle furiously through the linen, remembering all that the man had stolen from her. Her darling Christian, her life, her love, all destroyed by his cruelty. She had seen Gabriel Sparhawk only twice—once when he’d been Christian’s prisoner, and years later, with his little whore of a wife and their litter of brats—but she’d never forgotten his arrogance and his bragging self-confidence, the marks of a man who thought he was invincible.

But soon that would change. She would never forgive what he had done to her, and soon he would never forget the pain she would bring to him in return. Soon he would meet her Michel, and justice, at last, would be served.

“Excuse me, ma’am, there is a lady to see you. She said it was most urgent.”

Antoinette frowned. This serving girl was the stupid one. Ladies did not receive at this hour. Christian had always been most strict about that.

“The lady, ma’am? Should I show her in or send her away?”

Antoinette nodded and set aside the neat piles of silk threads. Even Christian would forgive her if the matter were truly urgent.

“Oh, madame,” cried the girl as she rushed into the room. “I have waited so long for this moment!”

She was no one that Antoinette recognized. She was small and young and pretty and there were gold hoops in her ears and tears on her cheeks, and when she held her hands out to Antoinette, Antoinette took them. What else could she do?