SCARBOROUGH FAIR
Boson Books by Chris Scott Wilson
Double Mountain Crossing
The Fight At Hueco Tanks
The Quantro Story
The Copper City
Desperadoes
Scarborough Fair
From Reviewers
A staccato fast pace and the building tension of war make this audio hard to forget. G.D.W.—AudioFile web magazine
Scarborough Fair is a terrific story. You have a beautiful way with words. Of course, you English always had a better command of the language than we colonists. The Serapis and Bonhomme Richard battle was always a great adventure tale and you did it proud.—Clive Cussler
Chris’s extremely clever way of descriptive writing takes the reader right into the place where the characters live…During the battle at sea in 1779 off the coast of Yorkshire one can smell the smoke from the canons and hear the tortured voices of frightened sailors in battle, and feel the tension of warfare at sea. A good read.—Mike Eastwood
What Chris has done in this novel is slowly take the reader to a time where historical fact is skillfully woven with the author’s own brand of fiction. I was hooked after the first page, and read the whole book over three nights, just did not want to put it down!! Would love to see this book transcribed to the big screen.—John Barchan
SCARBOROUGH FAIR
by
Chris Scott Wilson
Boson Books
Raleigh
Published by Boson Books
An imprint of C&M Online Media Inc.
© 2011 C.J.S. Wilson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information and storage retrieval system, without the express written consent of the copyright holder.
ISBN 978-0-917990-75-5
This is a work of fiction. Names, with the exception of historical figures, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
For information contact
C&M Online Media Inc.
3905 Meadow Field Lane
Raleigh, NC 27606
Tel: (919) 233-8164
email: [email protected]
http://www.bosonbooks.com
cover design by the author
Contents
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
EPILOGUE
When America needed a hero…
Courage…
Grit…
Determination…
One man had them all.
His name was John Paul Jones.
Born plain John Paul on July 6, 1747 at Arbigland in Galloway, Scotland, he was the son of an estate gardener. At sea by the age of 13, by 21 he was master of John, trading between Scotland and the West Indies. With the aim of becoming a Virginia plantation owner, he formed a partnership in Tobago. After killing a mutineer in self-defense and fearing a kangaroo court, he fled the island. He enlarged his name to John Paul Jones to escape detection; then in 1775 on the outbreak of the War of Independence, he volunteered for America’s infant navy.
Off Flamborough Head, just south of Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast four years later, John Paul Jones became a legend.
“…as in the words of the traditional folk song Scarborough Fair, the word fair was not the name of a market, but had been used as an adjective placed after the noun, rather the same as saying fair Scarborough, meaning beautiful.” Allinson’s English Usage, Stockton 1953.
BOOK ONE
1778
La Belle France
CHAPTER 1
JULY 15, 1778
She probably has the most delightful derrière in all France, John Paul Jones thought, watching the pale orbs of Therese de Chaumont’s bottom rotate as she walked naked to the side chamber off her boudoir. Therese’s ash blonde wig curled erotically almost halfway down her back, the ridge of her spine melting into flesh above a voluptuous posterior. She was surprisingly long-legged, slender calves enhanced as she tiptoed, half turning to beam a languid smile, dewy eyed with the aftermath of lovemaking.
“I will not be long, Cheri,” she whispered, lips once again sliding into that smile of promise. And it will not be long before I am ready again, John Paul Jones thought as he stretched lazily among the crumpled sheets of the four-poster bed. He wiggled his toes and raked his fingernails gently across his bare chest, remembering her own talons when she screamed her delight at the fusing of their bodies. She knew all the tricks too. Enough to sate a man’s hunger but still leave a handful of embers glowing in the pit of his stomach which she could fan back into desire with the merest gesture; a smile, a glance, any time she wished. Any time at all.
John Paul Jones let his eyes range around the opulence of Therese’s boudoir; expensive Chinese hand-woven carpets brought by ship from the Orient, silk drapes, row upon row of bottles containing rare scents and essences that cluttered the surface of the dressing table. Oil paintings adorned the flock papered walls and each item of carefully selected furniture bore an embossed C surrounded by a gold wreath of oak leaves as though dismissing any dispute over the room’s ownership. Although appreciative of luxury, John Paul Jones found the unashamed declaration of wealth overbearing, used as he was to the more spartan furnishings of a captain’s cabin aboard ship.
Had he come across half the oceans of the world, he thought, to become nothing more than a woman’s toy? To come wagging his tail and panting like a puppy every time she crooked a finger, offering solace with a shrug of her tanned shoulders, or promising the heat of her loins with a smoldering glance?
But perhaps a lap dog was the best thing to be right at that moment. His mistress could possibly hold the only solution to his dilemma. Their affaire had begun seven months earlier, when he had first been presented at court in Paris. He had thought her stunning and he wondered how he had known at that first meeting he could be forging an alliance to prove fruitful in months to come. In retrospect, it was almost as if the gods had planned it. How could he have chosen her from the numerous and enticing ladies he had encountered in those early months in Paris, she whose husband had the ear of King Louis XV, serving on the Privy Council, a hand in every pie whose recipe contained the French Navy?
Which was one of the reasons John Paul Jones thought her a bitch. It was a paradox, he admitted reluctantly, considering her a bitch for cuckolding a husband that he respected. Perhaps it alleviated his own guilt.
Sieur de Chaumont had not always been her husband’s name. Born Jacques Donatien le Ray, he had gambled heavily in the East India trade and made his fortune. Now, while serving on the Privy Council and holding other honorary appointments, he owned a fleet of merchant ships and procured vast numbers of supplies for the French Navy. With his current status had come his title and ownership of the mansion where John Paul Jones now lay in bed, the Hotel Valentinois in the western Paris suburb of Passy. Benjamin Franklin also lived at the hotel, a strong link with America during these years of the War of Independence, as America struggled to throw off the stifling yoke England was determined to keep fastened on her fast expanding colonies. Like a mother reluctant to admit her children can fend for
themselves, England refused to untie the apron strings.
Right now, without a ship, Therese’s friendship could be the most worthwhile he pursued. She was younger than her husband and had a way of getting what she wanted. If protocol and the power of the infant American Congress could not obtain John Paul Jones a ship, then perhaps Therese tickling her husband’s ear, and through him the ear of King Louis…
He grimaced at the elaborate woven canopy of the four-poster. What if she wanted to keep him in her bed so much she did nothing to procure him a berth, only whispered empty promises as she held him to her soft breasts and clasped him in the warmth of her thighs? It had been two months now since Ranger was taken from him, and now she lay at anchor being refitted and supplied for a voyage back to America. A ship he could have done so much with, and already had done.
Ranger had been only two months old when Paul Jones took command. 318 tons, built at Portsmouth in New Hampshire, she lay 100 feet long overall. Square rigged on her three masts with her black topsides slashed by a yellow stripe, Jones had admired her rakish bows and undercut stern. Although he’d had to modify her masts, the original sail plan more suitable for a sixty-four gunner than the 18 nine-pounders she carried, Jones had been pleased with her. An American ship with which to fight the stubborn English, and she had served him well.
He had set sail from America in November 1777 and shortly after his arrival in France, the affaire with Therese had begun. By April the following year he had sailed out of Camaret and Ranger had shown her mettle. After only four days at sea, the brigantine Dolphin had fallen to Ranger’s hooded charm. Jones had scuttled Dolphin, reckoning her valueless as a prize, but if his men grumbled, their disappointment was erased two days later with the capture of Lord Chatham, a 250-ton ship. His exploits did not end there. After a brush with a king’s revenue cutter, Ranger sank a Scots coasting schooner off the Mull of Galloway. Later the same day he sank a Dublin sloop to prevent the Admiralty in London learning his whereabouts, anxious as they were for their men-o’-war to find and destroy Ranger before Paul Jones could cause any more havoc in England’s shipping lanes. After two abortive land raids and a hard won victory over HMS Drake, he had taken another brigantine, Patience, before a victorious return to France.
And then the news he was to lose command of Ranger. His orders on leaving America had been to take command of a new frigate, which would be bought in France by the American Commissioners in Paris and then operate under their instructions. That he should use France as a base was an openhanded gesture of support by King Louis to the youthful nation, although it well suited his purpose that the Americans were snapping at English throats. But when Paul Jones arrived on French soil, the Commissioners sidestepped and paper shuffled, muffling the possible acquisition of L’Indien, a ship at Amsterdam on the Zuider Zee that Jones thought a capable vessel. While he was at sea in Ranger, a political wrangle broke out between the Dutch, French, and Americans. On his return he relinquished command of Ranger to Lt. Simpson who received orders to make ready and sail home, then Jones found out L’Indien was not to be his.
And now he had no ship at all. Jones squirmed under the caress of the satin sheets at the indignity of it all. If the war was left to soldiers and sailors they would damn well get on with it. Politicians would waggle silver tongues forever. Meanwhile the English were sinking American ships, and with them the hopes of a young and free country.
Angry, he swung his bare feet to the floor, his soles settling into the luxury of the Chinese carpet. He would go and see them again. Franklin would help him. God knows, he had promised often enough. Jones trusted him, which was more than he could say for Monsieur Sartine, the French Minister of Marine. That man could sidestep with all the speed and grace of a thoroughbred mare threatened by a puff adder. He stood up abruptly and strode to the chair where he had hung his uniform coat. His breeches, underwear, and white shirt lay neatly folded on the seat.
“Where do you go Cheri?”
He turned at Therese’s throaty purr. She stood in the doorway, one hand playing idly on the wooden doorjamb. Her powder and lip rouge had been repaired and her body glistened with a light coating of oil. She wore only a gold neck chain he had given her, booty from Ranger’s voyage. He gazed at the links hanging low over her perfect breasts, then across the gentle swell of her stomach to the lush triangle nestling at the junction of her thighs. Still angry, he jerked his eyes back to her face, trying to hide his approval.
“I go to find a ship.”
She smiled, teasing. “Put your trust in me, my Captain. Sail in me and I will find you a ship.”
“A voyage of delight?” he asked, thinking only a French woman could say something like that and not sound ridiculous.
Her smile tipped the corners of her mouth. “As the Greeks said, we will ride the wine dark sea together.” She shifted her balance onto one foot, accentuating the swell of her hips. The ash blonde wig coupled with the painted-in beauty spot on her left cheek declared her breeding, but her eyes and sensual mouth together with her stance provoked heady images of gutter lust.
Paul Jones felt the heat rising as he toyed with his shirt. Slowly, he slid one arm into the soft cotton sleeve, tearing his eyes away from the threat of imprisonment. “I must have a ship. That is why I came to France.”
She soft footed over the carpet to him, standing so close he was forced to look at her. She brushed a hand across his shoulder, stroking his chest as though he was a wild animal that could savage her at any moment. Her fingertips sent delicious shivers through his skin. As she gauged her effect on him, Therese’s nimble fingers feathered across to his other shoulder, edging the single shirtsleeve down his arm. It crumpled unnoticed to the floor. His eyes were again captive.
“My ship?”
“You shall have your ship, Captain. I promise it.”
He did not believe her, but at that moment he had other, more urgent needs. He raised a hand to cushion a rounded breast, weighing it for the precious thing it was. The rosebud of a nipple sprang alive at his touch. His nostrils flared with the fragrance of her oiled body and his hands involuntarily began to brush and stroke her sculptured back as she molded against him. When she turned up her face he silenced the pout of her lips with a kiss that reached long and deep into the moist cavern of her mouth. Her hands slid to his waist, talons gently raking, hungry. He broke free of her greedy lips and flung his head back, laughter bubbling in his throat.
“Therese, you have the way, my lady.”
She squinted a little, her dark eyes sparkling at the victory within her grasp. “Do you yield, Captain?”
“Yield?” His laughter was a joyous ring. He scooped her into his arms, took three steps, and then lowered her onto the rumpled sheets of the bed. Playfully, she pulled the satin across her hips, gripping the material tightly. He hung over her, plumbing the mysterious depths of her eyes for long seconds. “One day, Therese, your husband will come home at the wrong time, then I will never get a ship. And you will no longer have a husband.”
She smiled knowingly. “But not today. Today he is at the ministry, fighting for you.”
“And I am here, fighting for you?”
She tilted her head back arrogantly, clinging to the protection of the sheet. “I repeat. Do you yield, Captain?”
His eyes glinted mischievously then he took his weight on one hand while the other ripped away the sheet to expose her.
“Yield?” he grinned. “I have not yet begun to fight!”
***
The knocking at the door was low but insistent.
John Paul Jones was instantly alert. He freed himself from the tangle of Therese’s sleepy arms to sit bolt upright. “Who in God’s name is that?” he demanded in a whisper.
Therese made a face. “My chambermaid, I think.”
“And if it is not?”
She came awake then, aware of their compromising position, but still sure of the caller. She curled an arm about his neck and pulled him down to
her face, eyes wide. “My gallant Captain! Caught in flagrante delicto with the lady of the house!” She covered her mouth with a hand. “Oh the shame! We shall be the scandal of Paris.”
He shrugged her away angrily, springing from the bed to pluck his shirt from the floor where it had fallen an hour earlier.
“If we are caught, my Captain, I shall tell them it was worth it,” she smiled, amused.
“Enough of your jokes,” he replied in a fierce whisper.
The knocking resumed, louder than before. Therese’s smile faded. She waved to the side chamber that served as a bathroom. “In there quickly, and do not forget your shoes.”
Paul Jones had already begun moving before she finished speaking. He stopped in mid stride, arms full of clothes as he looked back at his buckled shoes still resting beneath the chair. With a muttered curse he shifted his bundle under one arm before scampering back to grab the offending shoes. He was aware of how ludicrous he must look while she lay serenely composed in bed. As he squeezed into the bathroom he heard her call, then came the sound of the door opening.
“Excuse me, Madame,” the chambermaid apologized, “but an important dispatch has been delivered for Captain Jones.”
“From whence? And why do you come to tell me?” Therese demanded in the haughty voice she reserved for the servants.
“From the Minister of Marine, Madame. The captain is not to be found in either the hotel or the grounds. I thought perhaps Madame might know his whereabouts.” The implication was plain enough as she paused, and Paul Jones thought he detected a hint of conspiratorial amusement in the girl’s voice as she continued. “But of course, Madame, I did not know you were in be…resting. Excuse my interruption. I will look elsewhere.” She turned to leave but halted at a wave of Therese’s hand.
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