While Cerise was distracted by Justin’s remark, Gabriel noticed the familiar traveling art case that Lowenna was holding in her arms. It pleased him to know that Isabella intended to sit and sketch, or perhaps even paint, during their outing today. Catching her eye, he nodded toward the case and smiled, but she glanced away.
As Baptiste opened the massive front door and they all filed into the courtyard, Gabriel touched the small of Isabella’s back and bent closer.
“I’m sorry to leave you with my mother,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll try to join you later.”
“It’s fine.” She turned shining green eyes up to him. There was something forced in her expression that gave him pause. “I don’t mind in the least. I look forward to seeing this fascinating city, and to returning to my art.”
Justin was beside them then. “Come on, my dear brother. Surcouf is waiting for us. It’s a splendid morning and near enough that we can walk.” He took Gabriel’s arm and drew him a few feet away from Isabella. “Au revoir, mademoiselle. Enjoy your outing!”
* * *
Although Gabriel found the town of Saint-Malo to be charming, with its fairytale fortifications and the sea on three sides, he also felt closed in by the towering curtain walls. He and Justin were wending their way through the crowds on Rue des Cordiers, named for the many rope makers whose shops were set up near the port. Due to the limited space, the ancient stone buildings that rose up all around them were as tall as possible, blocking out a fair amount of daylight.
“Surcouf will be pleased to see you,” Justin said as they turned a corner next to the bustling covered market.
Above them, a buxom young woman leaned out a window and called, “Bonjour, messieurs!”
Justin paused to sweep off his hat and give an exaggerated bow. “It is a good day indeed, now that we have seen you, Nanette.”
“I see that the rumors are true,” she called. “Your handsome brother has returned to Saint-Malo! Welcome back, m’sieur!”
Gabriel waved and Nanette blew him a kiss. As they wound their way through the noisy crush of merchants, sailors, donkeys, and horse-drawn wagons, he looked over at his brother. “Must you trifle with every woman we meet?” Both of his brows arched. “No, don’t answer that. Of course you must. As for Surcouf, I am pleased that he happens to be in Saint-Malo when I am. I know he’s been very busy, tormenting the British in the Indian Ocean…”
“Ha! Of course, Napoleon tried to give him a commission and two frigates to raid British ships, but our Surcouf was determined to do it his way. He fitted out several privateers, including his own Revenant, and off they went to the Bay of Bengal and Île de France last year.”
“I have heard about a few of his more outrageous adventures,” said Gabriel, nodding. “Surcouf’s brazen ability to overpower larger ships is the stuff of legend. He is shrewd enough to singlehandedly defeat the British Navy, I suspect.”
The brothers passed under the arched gates of Port St.-Vincent, near the massive Château that had guarded the port for five hundred years. As they emerged on the other side of the ramparts, the sea air immediately restored Gabriel’s spirits. The sky was a vivid cerulean blue and whitecaps danced across the edges of the sea.
The waterfront was a hive of activity. Breton seamen in bright caps and loose trousers were unloading cargo, furling sails, and rolling barrels across the beach. A boy selling oysters was haggling with an old woman in a tall lace coiffe.
Revenant, the newest ship captained by the corsair Robert Surcouf, was anchored out past Fort National. Justin pointed it out to Gabriel and passed him a spyglass to have a look.
“Truly impressive,” Gabriel agreed. The rakish ship was relatively small but built for speed. “Didn’t I hear that your Revenant took nineteen prizes?”
“Yes, with some help from Piemontaise, a frigate. And most of the captured ships were East Indiamen. I heard that the insured losses last autumn totaled nearly £300,000.” Glancing over, Justin arched a brow. “Your comment about Surcouf’s ability to defeat the British Navy was closer to the truth than you knew!”
A long boat was surging toward the beach, rowed by Breton sailors. Moments later, a powerful dark-haired man with a barrel chest climbed out and Gabriel recognized Robert Surcouf. He was only thirty-five years of age, but after nearly twenty years of hard living at sea, he seemed older.
“Your timing is impeccable,” said Justin, smiling as they met on the sand and shook hands. “We just came through the Porte St-Vincent.”
“I couldn’t wait another minute to come ashore. I’ve been longing to spend a few days with my family,” Surcouf replied. “When I persuaded my sweet wife to marry me during the Peace of Amiens, neither of us expected the war to resume so quickly. Waving farewell as I sailed away was not what she bargained for.” He sighed and shook his head, but Gabriel suspected that Surcouf was secretly overjoyed to be back doing what he loved. It was hard to imagine him living the settled existence of a family man here in Saint-Malo.
“Marriage and fatherhood didn’t dull your taste for adventure, though,” Justin said lightly, patting him on the back. “You’ve been cutting quite a swath through the Bay of Bengal.”
“Well, I do my best,” Surcouf allowed before turning to Gabriel and clasping his hand. “How good it is to see you, mon ami. You are looking very well. Much better than your decadent brother!”
The three men began to walk together toward the old castle. They chatted amiably about some of Surcouf’s more sensational exploits, but Gabriel sensed something of importance hanging in the air, unspoken.
As soon as there was a slight pause in the conversation, he interjected, “As riveting as it is to listen to your tales of battle, Robert, I was under the impression that there was a reason Justin brought me to meet with you today. Are you interested in proposing a business venture to us? Perhaps you need something smuggled to a friend in England?”
Surcouf stopped, clearly surprised. “You don’t know then?”
“Know what?” Gabriel’s brows flew up as he looked toward his brother, who gave a mild shrug. “What the devil is this about?”
“It’s true, there was a reason I asked you to come with me today, and it’s much better than anything you might imagine.” Justin flicked open the agate lid of his snuffbox. “You may as well enlighten him, Surcouf.”
The stocky corsair captain beamed. “I have built and outfitted two splendid new privateers to join my Revenant when we sail back to Île de France. Justin has already agreed to command one of them, and I am determined that you shall have the other.” Surcouf gripped Gabriel’s arm. There was fire in his eyes as he exclaimed, “The St. Briac brothers were born to be real corsairs. Together we shall rule the Indian Ocean and drive out the British once and for all!”
Chapter 17
Eustache led Izzie, Lowenna, and Cerise through the crowded maze of streets that comprised the ancient city of Saint-Malo, pointing this way and that as they walked. It was good for Izzie to have something else to do besides interact with Cerise, who continued to watch her with evident curiosity. At length, however, Eustache stopped to converse with a woman selling knitted caps, and Izzie found herself alone with Gabriel’s mother.
“You are an artist?” the older woman inquired, gesturing toward the case that Lowenna carried.
“I aspire to become one,” Izzie replied carefully. “I have studied in London, and I was fortunate enough to have Madame Élisabeth Vigée LeBrun as my teacher while she was living there.”
“Indeed? I knew Louise quite well when we were younger, living in Paris before the Terror. She is only a little younger than I am.” Cerise touched the cluster of feathers on the corner of her bonnet and glanced at her own reflection in a shop window. “I confess that I was rather envious of her great friendship with the Queen. She led a favored existence with the royal court, but of course all that went horribly wrong. Poor Louise had to virtually run from France to save her own life.”
“It mu
st have been a truly terrifying time to be French,” Izzie said softly, sensing that the woman was lowering her guard.
“Oui. Many of my friends went to the guillotine. It was horror beyond imagining.” Cerise blinked rapidly. “All my life, I had always dreamed of being an aristocrat, but in the end, I was grateful that my husband’s branch of the St. Briac family tree was misbegotten. It was a twist of fate. If he had been lord of Château du Soleil, the ancestral St. Briac home, no doubt we both would have met Madame Guillotine.”
“And your sons as well…?”
“Peut-être.” Cerise’s dark eyes were keen. “Perhaps. Justin had passed his twentieth year during the Terror, so he certainly could have been taken if we had been St. Briac nobility.”
Sensing that Cerise continued to chafe against being regarded as a commoner, even if it had been the reason they’d escaped death during the French Revolution, Izzie said kindly, “As the daughter of a marquess, I can assure you that nobility is only a word. I’m just like everyone else.”
“Do you mean to patronize me?” Gabriel’s mother stepped backward, eyes wide.
“Of course not. Why do you say that?”
“Because you don’t really believe what you are saying, Lady Isabella. You’ve never known anything else.”
Izzie wanted to tell her that she had suffered the same sorts of losses, disappointments, and loneliness as everyone else—maybe more so, because her parents had separated her from many friends, like Mouette Raveneau, who were allowed to enjoy their lives without the burden of being born into the aristocracy.
However, before she could say another word, Eustache rejoined them, holding the newly purchased blue knitted cap in his hand. “I’ve been wanting one of these, ever since I departed Saint-Malo for Roscoff. Reminds me of my dear departed papa.”
They set off again, winding through the twisting lanes until they emerged from Rue de Dinan into a spill of sunlight across from the ramparts. Ahead of them, Izzie saw stone steps that led up to a crenellated walkway along the wall.
“Could we walk on the ramparts?” she asked Eustache. “I should love to sit and sketch for a little while.”
“That is why we came this way, my lady,” he replied, smiling. “And as we pass here, may I point out that this corner house belongs to the legendary corsair, Robert Surcouf.” Eustache stopped and they all turned to look. “Its chimney stack is decorated with a distinctive sundial. Do you see it?”
Just then the door opened and a young woman emerged, holding the hand of a child, and Eustache hurried their little group toward the ramparts.
“It’s Madame Surcouf,” he whispered. “The poor woman has been left behind here in Saint-Malo while her husband sails the Indian Ocean in service to Napoleon.”
“Hmmph!” exclaimed Cerise as they climbed the stairs. “Surcouf was a slave trader before he became a hero for taking British ships. I’ve known him since he was a child and I do not intend to gawk at his fancy chimney, not today or ever! Besides, Justin’s house is grander.” She turned her black eyes on Izzie. “Don’t you agree?”
“Of course, Madame.”
Eustache quickly suggested that they walk for a bit along the ramparts. “The best place for you to sketch, my lady, is near the Château, with Fort National in the distance.”
Seeing Saint-Malo from this vantage point only intensified its fairy tale mystique. On one side, the intensely blue sea came madly rushing at the ramparts and sent up frothy white plumes on impact. Inside the stone walls, Izzie thought that the picturesque city resembled one of the painted paper mazes her brother George had painstakingly constructed for her when she was a child. He had given her the first one on Christmas when she was just five years old. Izzie could still see it in her mind’s eye, and she vividly recalled the joy of that moment and the way she’d thrown herself into his arms. George had laughed, swinging her into the air until their father barked, “Sir, kindly comport yourself as a gentleman!”
The sudden memory of George was jarring. So much had happened since she had seen him on the footpath in Cornwall—and since he had stolen Gabriel’s da Vinci masterpiece from the smuggler’s hole at Lanwyllow. Sometimes, Izzie felt so lost in her adventure with Gabriel here in France that she conveniently forgot the real reason she had come…and the secrets she was keeping for her brother’s sake.
George. A wave of suffocating anxiety swept over her and, for a moment, she felt sick to her stomach. If he should appear again, right now, it would mean disaster. And yet, it was folly to try to pretend he didn’t exist! Her brother was very much alive, probably right here in France, and in possession of Gabriel’s portrait of King Francois.
The painting that meant everything to the man she adored.
“I was just saying,” Eustache murmured, touching her elbow, “that we have reached Holland Bastion.” He swept one arm out in front of them and Izzie saw that they were standing on an extension of the ramparts, a sandy, fortified promontory lined with at least two dozen cannon. The snouts of the massive black weapons were all pointed over the battlements, aimed at invisible enemy ships.
“Very impressive,” she said, trying to push thoughts of George back out of her mind.
“Holland Bastion was constructed more than a century ago, to protect Saint-Malo from Dutch attack. No doubt Napoleon is planning to use it now.”
“I be more interested in the dogs,” Lowenna piped up suddenly. “Baptiste does claim there’s a great kennel under Holland Bastion where they keep a pack of starving watch dogs, the giant sort that kill bulls! A curfew bell rings every night, and that’s when they do release the ravening hounds!”
Eustache bit his lip. “I suspect Baptiste intended to entertain you with that story, mam’selle. It’s true enough that a kennel of fearsome watchdogs existed for six centuries. My own parents knew a young nobleman who was killed by the mastiffs. He had gone outside the walls to visit his fiancée in nearby Saint-Servan, and he missed the curfew. The remains of his disfigured body were discovered the next morning on Bon Secours beach…”
“How terrible!” exclaimed Izzie.
“Yes, it was a gruesome sight, and perhaps because he was a nobleman, the dogs were condemned to die. Their keepers were forced to poison them. Now, when you hear the bell toll each night at ten o’clock,” Eustache said to Lowenna, clearly relishing the drama, “it is only in memory of the days when everyone feared being caught out past curfew and being devoured by the watchdogs!”
As he spun his tales for them, the little group continued to stroll along the ramparts that soared above the city. Izzie was dazzled by each new view, and when the ancient Château came into sight, she felt again as if it were all too wondrous to be real.
“Look, there is the perfect spot for me to sketch,” she said, pointing to a niche carved in the battlements.
“Fortunately, I asked Eustache to bring some little cakes for us to eat,” said Cerise, “while we wait for you.”
Nothing Cerise said could disturb Izzie’s deep pleasure as she took her art case from Lowenna, set it on the stone ledge, and opened the latch. Part of her was already noticing the wisps of clouds dancing across a cerulean blue sky, the perfect smidgeon of red on the flag above island-bound Fort National, and the bristling masts of ships near the castle.
Absently, she unknotted the blue scarf and handed it to Lowenna, then picked up her first crayon.
* * *
Gabriel stood on the beach amid the bustling activity of the port and stared, first at his brother and then at Robert Surcouf. He couldn’t believe he’d heard right.
“You want the three of us to be pirates together in the Indian Ocean?” he said, and then, slowly, the corners of his mouth flickered. “This is a jest, is it not? You’re both having me on.”
“What do you find amusing?” Surcouf’s brow darkened. “And I should remind you that we won’t be lawless pirates, but rather honorable French corsairs, in service to the Emperor.”
“Vraiment!” Justin exc
laimed. He patted Surcouf’s back in solidarity and continued, “Any other man would be deeply honored to receive such a proposal from this hero of France.”
“But we have a business requiring a great deal of attention. Warehouses and cellars filled with goods to be dispersed to their proper owners—”
His brother shook his head. “Those matters are trifling compared to the magnificent adventure Surcouf offers us. Gabriel, listen to me! You and I have dreamed of this since we were little boys. We have already achieved a great deal as the grandest of smugglers, but now we can be real corsairs, sailing and fighting alongside the most magnificent French corsair who has ever lived—Surcouf!”
Mon Dieu! Of course, Justin was absolutely right. Why had he hesitated? It was an opportunity to experience the adventure of a lifetime.
But, in the moment before Gabriel could say this aloud, a flutter of dark blue caught his eye from the ramparts beyond the Château. He saw a young woman perched there, unraveling a scarf from round her shoulders. As she did so, she slowly gazed in every direction, spellbound. It was then that he noticed the glint of her golden spectacles and the artist’s pencil she held in one hand.
Isabella.
Something powerful squeezed Gabriel’s heart and he found it hard to breathe. Suddenly the yearning to be a corsair shrank into a youthful fantasy.
“What do you say?” Justin was asking. He put his hand over Surcouf’s outstretched fist and nudged Gabriel to follow suit. “Are you with us?”
With an effort, Gabriel brought himself back to the moment. “It’s tempting, of course, but I simply cannot.”
“What do you mean, you cannot?” his brother demanded. “Are you mad?”
“I am not.” He glared back at him. “Are you?”
Surcouf withdrew his hand and stepped backward. “I should leave the pair of you to work this out between you—”
The Secret of Love (Rakes & Rebels: The Raveneau Family Book 3) Page 15