by Regan Walker
“All the same,” put in Donet, “I recognize it from Shakespeare’s Loves Labour’s Lost.” He began to quote, “… when blood is nipp’d and ways be foul, then nightly sings the staring owl, tu-who; tu-whit, tu-who a merry note…”
Freddie was tempted to roll his eyes. “Very impressive.”
“One has much time to read at sea, Mr. West.”
Freddie gave up the fight to stifle a laugh. “Ah, yes. How could I forget? By the bye, I need to speak with you about a matter.” He darted a look at Jack, hinting the subject was not for little ears.
“Papa,” said Jack, tugging on his father’s cuff. “Don’t forget you promised me a cup of chocolate at Le Brun’s.”
“So I did. Here,” Donet said, taking a coin from his coat pocket and handing it to the boy. “You run ahead. Freddie and I will join you.”
Jack grabbed the coin from Donet’s palm and scampered off toward the bakery looking out over the harbor.
Freddie watched the boy for a moment and then began to walk toward the shops. “It concerns Zoé.”
Donet paused in his step, his forehead furrowed above his dark brows. “Is she in some trouble?”
“No. At least no more than usual, but I’m concerned she may be if you do not intercede.” Freddie took a deep breath, preparing for a conversation he would rather avoid. “Have you heard of the Chouans in Brittany?”
“I have heard of them, oui, and not a few times I have sought to aid them.”
“D’Auvergne tells me London is committed to helping them and the Vendéens who have joined them. He wants me to make contact with them to gather intelligence on their needs.”
Donet made a sound much like a snort. “A bit late, non? Where were your English friends when the Vendéens needed their help in Granville? They waited for the English as long as they could, until they had no choice but to flee south, where they faced Turreau’s muskets.”
Freddie let his attention fall to the pebbles beneath his feet, all too aware of the promised help that had never arrived. “A regrettable chapter, I agree.” He looked up, meeting Donet’s disquieting dark eyes. “Still, ’tis better the help comes late than it never arrives at all, n’êtes-vous pas d’accord?”
Donet gazed toward the bakery they were fast approaching. “I suppose I must agree, but what has my niece to do with that?”
Freddie hoped he could be convincing. “D’Auvergne has ordered me to take Zoé with me. He believes she is essential to the effort, respected as she is by the Vendéens, whereas I, an Englishman, might garner only distrust.”
Donet paused, deep in thought. “He is right to think that of Zoé. Her loyalty to the Vendéens is well known. And the Chouans are their brothers-in-arms.”
“Notwithstanding her affinity for the Vendéens, I would not put her at risk and was hoping you could help.”
Donet’s brows lifted in surprise. “You want me to order her not to go?”
“It would help matters greatly if you did.”
Donet quietly laughed. “I could, but you know as well as I she is not one to be ordered about and I have not done so since she was a youth. Many times, she has faced danger for the good of others. It was not for nothing I taught her to use a knife. Why, one night in Lorient, she did not hesitate to save a child from a brute who would have killed the boy. With much practice, she has become very good at throwing a blade and does not hesitate to plunge it into warm flesh. Zoé can be fierce, yet she is not stupid when it comes to danger. Her instincts are good.”
“Yes, I know, but this will be different. She will be going into the wooded countryside fought over by both revolutionaries and royalists. And ’tis not close to the coast and your ships.”
Donet gave Freddie a sympathetic look. “Once she hears she is needed by her friends, she will insist on going. These may be treacherous times but you know Zoé will not be left behind. How can I praise the cause and hold her back from serving where her presence is required? She is well aware women fight with the royalists. It will be safer for her if you plan for her to go with you. Your mission, as I understand it, is to obtain information, not engage in battle. I can send Gabe along to guard her. He has known my niece as long as you have. He is now twenty-two, the same age as most of the Chouans from what I hear. More importantly, he would die to protect her.”
Freddie met Donet’s dark gaze but the words on his lips he spoke only to himself. So would I.
Chapter 4
Aboard la Reine Noire in the English Channel, sailing to England, March 1794
“Sail ho!” cried the lookout from the foredeck.
Standing on the quarterdeck where he could judge how well the sails were drawing wind, Freddie turned from Donet, with whom he’d been conversing, and gazed toward the bow.
The sun glistened off the Channel as la Reine Noire cut through the choppy waters, throwing up a fine white bow wave. Until now, he’d been enjoying the crossing but the lookout’s cry sent a ripple of foreboding through him. French warships monitored the Channel as well as the coast.
Donet shouted, “Where away?”
“Two points off the starboard bow!” came the reply on the wind.
Freddie shifted his gaze to starboard. In the distance, he glimpsed the top of a mast and a small white cloud he assumed was a sail. Not far from where he stood, Émile Bequel passed a spyglass to Gabe Chastain. The seaman wore the typical blue jacket and loose breeches, or slops, the sailors wore. “Run aloft, lad,” said the quartermaster, “and take a look.”
Freddie found it amusing that although Gabe was a young man, respected by both captain and crew, Bequel still thought of him as the cabin boy he’d once been. In all the years he’d served Donet, Gabe was still slim enough to climb the rigging faster than an organ grinder’s monkey.
Reaching for the spyglass, Gabe stuffed it into his belt and clambered into the rigging. Freddie watched as he reached the yard high above the deck where he perched and extended the brass cylinder to its full length. Clinging to the mast with one arm, he peered through the lens, the wind blowing his curly brown hair around his ruddy-cheeked face.
A moment later, he shouted down, “’Tis a warship, Capitaine, a two-decker flying no colors!”
La Reine Noire, disguised as the English merchantman Gulliver, likewise flew no flag. ’Twas a stalling tactic considered fair, at least until a ship began firing. But two decks meant many guns, more than the sixteen carried by Donet’s brig-sloop.
With the skill of a circus acrobat, Gabe slid down the backstay and landed on the deck with a thump, returning the spyglass to the quartermaster, who promptly delivered it to Donet. “Best take a look, Capitaine.”
Donet stared into the spyglass.
Freddie asked, “Can you tell if she’s French?”
“Oui, she is most definitely French. I recognize her. She is the Trajan out of Lorient and carries seventy-four guns.”
Bequel gave a grunt. “Merde!”
Donet lowered the spyglass. “My last report had her patrolling Brittany’s coast to prevent the British from aiding the Vendéens. Her captain, Villaret de Joyeuse, is one of the junior officers promoted in the wake of the National Convention’s purge of the French Navy last year. Stupid plan,” he spat, “to kill off your experienced officers while declaring war.”
Extending the spyglass once again, he swept the horizon, then paused, his dark brows drawing together. “Aha! There’s Trajan’s prey—a little schooner. She flies the British colors… an aviso carrying dispatches, peut-être?” He collapsed the glass and handed it to Bequel.
“There is a new packet running mail from Weymouth to Jersey,” Freddie offered.
Donet muttered a curse. “We must intervene. A fine time to be without a master gunner!”
With an arched brow, the quartermaster regarded Donet. “Capitaine, a man must be present for the arrival of his first-born babe, non?”
“Can I be of assistance?” Freddie inquired. “With my arm in a sling, I won’t be able to se
rve the guns, but I can coordinate your fire while you two concentrate on maneuvers.”
Donet’s deep frown vanished and his white teeth flashed in a grateful smile. “Très bien, that will work.” Raising his voice to a roar that carried across the ship, Donet yelled, “Run out the guns!”
Preparing for the inevitable clash, Freddie left the quarterdeck to give his attention to the gun crews. Once he was assured the guns were loaded, pricked and primed, ready for the coming action, he rejoined Donet. To Gabe, standing nearby, he said, “M’sieur Chastain, please escort the ladies and children to the orlop deck and tell them to expect action.”
The lowest part of the ship, the orlop would be dark, wet and given to ill smells. Zoé would hate it but it was below the water line and the safest place in a battle.
Precisely where he wanted her at the moment.
As Gabe hurried down the aft hatch, Freddie turned to Donet. “Sir, we still have the American colors aboard. Might we raise them as we close on the Trajan and only hoist His Majesty’s flag as we fire our first round?”
“An excellent idea,” said Donet. He gave the orders to Freddie and Bequel. “We will come up to windward of the Trajan and rake her port side, then cut around her stern and fire into her as we pass. We may be smaller with fewer guns, but we’re faster. Once we pass the Trajan’s stern, we’ll bear away bound for Chichester.”
“That should allow the packet time to escape,” put in Bequel. “I’ll have Lucien see the colors are ready.” Facing the crew, he yelled, “Hands to the braces! Stand by to tack.”
Freddie strode to his gun crews and, speaking in French, said, “Double-shot the guns. We’ll fire the port side, rolling fire as we pass. Save the last gun, treble-shotted, for the stern as we round up. Then reload on port as fast as you can so we’re ready for whatever comes next.”
With shouts of “Oui!” the crews went to work.
The Trajan bore down on the schooner and la Reine Noire followed, hoisting her American colors. The French ship hesitated. Perhaps Villaret believed his American ally was coming to assist. Or he might just be confused. But whatever his thinking, the ruse gained them time as Freddie had hoped.
As the gunners poised their linstocks to light the fuses, the French warship hesitated no longer. Hoisting the newly adopted tricolor flag of the Republic, she fired a shot, her gun belching smoke.
A ripping sound pierced the air. Freddie looked up as the shot flew through la Reine Noire’s main topsail.
Before the smoke cleared, Donet ordered the British red ensign hoisted and raised his arm meeting Freddie’s expectant gaze from amidships.
At the signal, Freddie shouted, “Fire!”
La Reine Noire’s guns blazed away, raking the port side of the larger ship. To the French crew, it might have appeared like a cat hissing at a mastiff. But the strategy worked. The rolling broadside passed up through the sides and decks sending pieces of wood from the decks and hull shooting into the smoke-filled air.
Freddie smiled, satisfied. At least some of the Trajan’s guns would not be firing again.
Bequel gave the command to bear around the Trajan’s stern and the helmsman responded, turning the wheel. The sails luffed, then billowed, as the crew tacked to bring them into position.
La Reine Noire passed in front of the warship’s stern and the many windows that gave light to Villaret’s cabin. With a shout, Freddie ordered his crews to fire the treble-shotted gun he’d held in reserve.
The shot exploded from the gun, sending glass and pieces of wood flying out in all directions. Doubtless, Villaret was glad he’d been on deck and not in his cabin.
With orders from Donet for a new tack, la Reine Noire left the slower warship licking its wounds. Freddie gazed off the port side beyond the Trajan to see the small mail packet slip away.
The Harrows, near Chichester, West Sussex, England
Zoé pressed her fingers to her temples, still hearing the guns exploding in her head, still smelling the dank putrid stench in the belly of the ship where the women and children had been confined. The carriage that had brought them from Chichester Harbor dipped into a rut and she lurched sideways, her head throbbing.
“Really, Freddie, was it absolutely necessary to consign us to such a wretched part of the ship? After all, la Reine Noire sustained little damage.”
“The Gulliver,” he corrected, “took a ball in the main topsail. Had the Trajan’s hull not been so high or the Gulliver not so close, their guns could have hit our deck. ’Twas not safe.”
“At least I have Franklin, the ship’s cat, to thank for removing any rats. We saw none in the dim light afforded by our one lantern.” Zoé hated rats.
The carriage slowed as they neared Freddie’s family’s estate, the home of his brother, Richard, Earl of Torrington, and then stopped in front of the main house behind the two other conveyances.
“The orlop deck is the safest place for precious cargo, Pigeon,” Freddie teased, his brandy-colored eyes twinkling with mirth as he handed her down to the gravel drive. “You must recall I had to protect not only you, but my sister and your uncle’s heir, along with the princesse d’Hénin and her children.”
Zoé found his failure to mention the pretty maid Éloise oddly comforting. “I suppose you are right but, still, ’twas a bleak place even with Jack’s wild imaginings to entertain us as to what was happening on deck.”
Freddie laughed. “That must have been some tale. Jack hangs on his father’s every word when he recounts his adventures as a privateer. Did the boy provide gruesome details?”
“Many, much to the chagrin of Tante Joanna and Madame de Montconseil.”
Jack had regaled them with vivid descriptions of “the sea battle that was raging on the Channel”, as he called it, which had delighted the princesse’s children, Cécile and Étienne.
Zoé remembered well the earl’s home. It was the place where she’d first met Freddie. She looked up at the rectangular brick edifice, rising three stories into the air. Graced with more than twenty windows, including five dormers set into the roof, it was impressive. Nestled against a forest of beech trees, the architecture was decidedly more English than French and, thus, to Zoé’s thinking, more masculine.
The house faced a large round pond, its water a placid green, marking the center of the estate.
Surrounding all was the bucolic countryside of West Sussex. The calm she experienced stood in stark contrast to the war raging across the Channel.
“Come,” urged Freddie, offering his arm, “if you hurry, you’ll have time for a bath before dinner.”
Zoé glanced down at the stained edge of her gown, a souvenir of the orlop deck. She was glad she had not worn one of her new ones for the crossing. The unmistakable odor rising to her nose made her grimace. “I shall try and not be offended by your implication.”
Freddie chuckled. “And I shall try not to notice you smell like bilge water.”
She glared at him beneath her furrowed brows. Only Freddie could accuse her of that and live. After all, he’d been the cause of the awful smell.
They followed the others up the steps to the entrance where Richard greeted them, his coloring a close rendition of his siblings’. Noble titles might have ended in France, but they were very much in use in England. To the world he was “Lord Torrington”, to his colleagues in Parliament, “Torrington”, but to his siblings, he remained “Richard”, the only member of the West family without a nickname, owing to his rather formal demeanor.
Standing at his side, his attractive wife, Anne, welcomed them with a warm smile and gracious words. “We’re so glad you are here. Do come in!”
Owing to her cheerful disposition, everyone called her “Annie”. Well, everyone save Richard, who called her “Anne”. She was, in all ways, the perfect complement to his staid and serious bearing.
When Zoé’s uncle introduced the princesse and her children, Annie’s kind face lit up. “Welcome to The Harrows,” she said. “We are delighted
to have you as our guests. How relieved you must be to be here.”
“We are surely that,” said Madame de Montconseil with a sigh. “Not just to be out of France, mind you, but off the Channel and off the ship.”
“’Twas a bit of a rough crossing,” admitted Donet to Richard. “We were forced to deal with one of France’s warships.”
“What Oncle Jean means, dear cousin,” said Zoé, “is that while the guns were firing above decks, the women and children were relegated to the belly of the ship. I daresay ’tis not the place the princesse would have wanted to be.”
Without mentioning their soiled gowns, Annie turned to her husband. “Richard, I expect the ladies will want to change.”
Collecting himself, Richard said, “Yes, well—”
“Nora can show you to your chambers,” Annie said to the princesse. Nora, Tante Joanna’s former lady’s maid had, in the past ten years, become the housekeeper for The Harrows.
His impeccable attire undisturbed, The Harrows’ ever-proper butler, Carter, bowed. “Very well, my lady. I shall call her.” Hearing the respect in his voice, Zoé was reminded that Carter approved of his mistress, happy to have her in exchange for the more rebellious Lady Joanna West who he’d once served. Until she had married Zoé’s uncle, Joanna had acted as Richard’s hostess.
Freddie leaned in to Zoé. “I shall see you at dinner.” Then he traipsed off with her uncle and the earl toward the parlor. She could see no evidence that his shoulder pained him, but his being on deck during the battle had been a source of worry. What was he doing in the middle of guns blazing with one arm in a sling?
“The Prime Minister is coming here?” Freddie sputtered, nearly choking on his brandy.
“Tomorrow,” said Richard. “Fortuitous, no?” With a glance in Donet’s direction, he added, “I suspect he will be very interested to hear of your skirmish with the French warship.”
“I will be happy to oblige him,” said Donet cordially. “We French who fight a revolution run amok are happy to align with an England that provides shelter and aid to our émigrés. I will tell the Prime Minister whatever he wants to know. As for the Trajan, I was surprised myself to see her so far from France’s northwestern coast. Her home port is Lorient.”