by Regan Walker
Zoé and Isabeau shared a smile. “Petticoats,” she whispered to the girl, “can be such a nuisance.”
By the time they had finished with the modiste, procured the needed underclothes and retrieved the shoes they’d ordered from Mr. Johnson on Queen Street, Zoé had just enough time to visit the jeweler.
“A wide gold band, please,” she told the gray-haired man with spectacles perched on his thin nose.
He nodded and walked to another case a short distance away, saying over his shoulder, “I have just the one!”
Her aunt’s auburn brows rose. “A wide band?”
“Oui. So other women will know Freddie is taken.”
Her aunt rolled her eyes. “Time for tea, I think.”
“Cover your eyes!” Freddie commanded as he slowed the buggy. He had told her he had found a house, one he thought might suit them. Though she was impatient to see it, she dutifully complied, shutting her eyes tight. Knowing his sense of humor, she expected a dilapidated shed or even a cave.
Some distance on, the buggy came to a stop and she heard him open the door. “Here we go,” Freddie said, lifting her from the velvet seat and carrying her a ways to set her feet upon the ground. The cushiony feel of grass beneath her shoes told her she was standing on a lawn. She smelled salty sea air and, somewhere nearby, she could hear waves breaking onshore. The faint scent of jasmine blossoms wafted to her on the breeze, making her even more curious.
“Can I open them now?”
“Not yet.” Zoé felt his arms encircle her waist from behind and he pulled her against his chest, making her snuggle against his warmth. Nuzzling her neck in the sensitive place just below her ear sent a shiver up her spine.
“Freddie, you are teasing me unmercifully.”
“I know, but you like it.”
“I suppose I do,” she admitted. Freddie was wonderfully affectionate and, since they had returned from Paris, he filled her days with kisses and sweet words of love.
“All right, Pigeon, you can open your eyes.”
What she saw robbed her of breath. The house Freddie had wanted her to see, the one about which he had been so secretive, was no ramshackle farmhouse, no dilapidated shed, no cave. It was her dream come true.
“Oh, Freddie. It’s… it’s perfect!”
Her gaze swept across the front of the two-story stone home, painted a pale yellow and trimmed in white to match the white front door. The roof was of a brown tile like the one atop the carriage house she could just glimpse through the trees in the distance. Not as large as her uncle’s home in St Peter Port, it was perfect for the two of them. She could tell by the five large paned windows on the front of the house they would never lack for light. A wide green lawn flanked by star jasmine hedges stretched from the carriage drive to where she stood.
On Freddie’s face was a pleased expression.
“I love it, Freddie, but can we afford it?”
“Oh, yes. Your dowry is more than adequate to pay for the house and the furnishings if we want them. The owner is willing to sell us those, as well. Before you see the inside, take a look at the view.” Freddie turned her around.
“Oh, my.” At the end of the green lawn, a beautiful beach of white sand gave way to turquoise waters that extended to the dark blue sea beyond. She had never been here before but she knew they were on Guernsey. “Where are we?”
“Perelle Bay in St Saviour’s on the west coast of the island. It’s country here, Pigeon, five miles from St Peter Port and very private. And nearby, there is a place where a ship could safely anchor.” Taking her hand he led her toward the house. “Don’t you want to see the inside?”
“You have the key?”
“Of course. A spy forgets no detail of importance. I told the agent we would want to see it by ourselves.”
She laughed, happy for the house, but happier still for the man who would soon be her husband. Her very own English spy.
As she crossed the threshold, she had a sense of being at home, as if she had lived here before. The furnishings in the parlor were of good quality and elegant. The dark blue velvet sofas and wing chairs beckoned her to sit. In the center of the room an oval table would be perfect for tea. Under the furniture rested a large rectangular rug that, like Guernsey itself, was covered in flowers, gold ones woven between blue-gray leaves. In the carpet’s corners were baskets spilling over with flowering bouquets of the same colors.
“That carpet looks like some I once saw in Versailles. Is it from the time of Louis XIV?”
“The agent told me it predates that Louis. They call it a ‘Louis XIII’ carpet because it was made between Louis XII and Louis XIV who succeeded him. Whether it was once in Versailles, the agent couldn’t tell me. You can be sure I asked. Do you like it?”
“Very much,” she said, nodding. “How nice to think some things from the palace might have been saved.”
They went next to the dining room where a long oval table circled by eight chairs sat beneath a beautiful crystal chandelier.
“Large enough for a growing family, no?” Freddie asked.
Zoé felt her cheeks heat. They had yet to discuss children. “Well, and my uncle and your sister might visit, even your brother, Richard, and Annie.”
Beside her, Freddie chuckled. “I was thinking of children, as you likely suspected. What would you say to raising Pax as our own? He’s an orphan like both of us but more alone in the world than we were at his age.” Pax had filled out since Freddie had brought him to Guernsey and no longer had that haunted look in his eyes.
“I would welcome Pax into our home, but what would Isabeau and Jack say? Would Pax want to leave them?”
“Isabeau will stay with my sister for the time being, until her brother comes for her, and if he does not, she can choose where to live. But you are right to ask about Jack. The boys might want to remain together. What say you to our asking Pax where he’d like to live?”
“A good idea,” she said. “When both of us are away at sea, he would have to stay in St Peter Port with your sister anyway.”
“Well, until he has siblings, yes?”
“I suppose.” Freddie wanted children and so did she, but the thought of how one actually brought them into existence was still a bit vague in her mind. She had been raised mostly around men. Except for servants and other men’s wives, Tante Joanna was the only woman in her life.
Freddie led her up the stairs. “There are four bedchambers.”
The master bedchamber was well appointed with a huge oak half-tester bed, its cover in rich red velvet. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bed so large,” she remarked.
“Big enough for you and me and any children who might want to crawl into our bed on a cold morning. What do you think?”
“’Tis huge.” Zoé was nervous staring at the bed knowing it would be here they would most likely consummate their marriage. But then she considered the man who’d be doing the consummating. Her Freddie. Facing him, she lifted her hands to lock her fingers behind his neck. “How is it I never realized I loved you until that kiss in the woods near Rennes?”
“People see what they expect, Pigeon. You expected to see only the friend you had known for years and I was your friend. Now, about that kiss—”
“Don’t apologize for that kiss, Frederick West. Besides,” she said, smiling up at him, “I love your kisses.”
“Then you shall have many more.” He took her waist in his hands and drew her close. When their gazes locked, he leaned down to plant tiny kisses all over her face.
She closed her eyes and smiled. He would be a gentle lover, her Freddie. Perhaps they need not wait to become one. If they had the option to accept the furnishings, then this was their bed. And they were alone with the warm ocean breeze blowing in through the open window.
When Freddie moved his kisses to her lips, she responded with all the love in her heart, opening her mouth to welcome his tongue and relishing the feel of it moving against hers as he slowly seduced her mout
h. Her heart sped in her chest and her breasts became sensitive pressing against the buttons on his frock coat.
Deep in her woman’s center she felt an ache, a need only he could satisfy.
He slid one hand from her waist to her breast, touching a part of her that had never been touched by a man before. With Freddie, it felt good. More, it felt right. “Freddie,” she whispered, as he trailed kisses down her throat to the pulse beating wildly at the base of her neck, “we don’t have to wait. We are betrothed and alone. And if this is to be our bed, you could make love to me now, oui?”
He lifted his lips from her throat and let out a sigh. “You have no idea how I want to, Pigeon. With your kiss-swollen lips and sleepy gray eyes, you are a temptress and I want you.” He sighed again. “But I have not waited years, all the while wanting you more than you could know, to take you prematurely. ’Tis my fault we have come this close to the doing of it. Having waited so long, I can certainly wait a few weeks more.”
“But Freddie—”
“No, mon amour, allow me this one thing, to do you the honor of holding back my desire until you are my bride. It won’t be long.”
She smiled at his determination to do the honorable thing, admiring him for denying his own wants, his own manly needs. “Do you mean you never went to a tavern or sought out a lady who would offer you her favors?”
“Not since you turned sixteen and I twenty-three.”
Pleased his fevered dreams she’d listened to after he’d been wounded in Granville were not about tavern wenches, she smiled up at him. “It shall be as you say, Freddie.” Taking his hand, she pulled him toward the door. “Perhaps we should see the kitchens?”
He laughed. “Aye, a stove and a sink would do much to cool my ardor.”
They spent little time in the kitchens before moving on to the potager, the well-kept vegetable garden, and the small orchard of orange trees behind the house. When they’d seen that, they returned to the front lawn.
As they walked to the buggy, he said, “So, you are pleased with the house and its location?”
“Oui, I am. But Freddie, will you not regret acquiring a ship of your own instead?”
“Oh, do not worry, Pigeon. I shall have a ship.”
She drew her brows together, puzzled. “But how?”
“From the years I worked with your uncle, I have my share of profits saved almost in their entirety. ’Tis enough for the schooner I want. And tomorrow, if you like, once I have acquired the house, I can show you the one I’m looking at in St Peter Port.”
“You amaze me, Frederick West.”
“I have only begun, Pigeon.”
Chapter 16
St Peter Port, July
When Freddie told Zoé he wanted to wait the few weeks until their wedding to bed her, he had no idea he would be waiting more than a month to meet her at the church. It was all due to his brother Richard, who being invited to the wedding had accepted but wrote them, “We must ask for a delay until after Parliament recesses in July.” And then they’d needed time to return to West Sussex and prepare to sail to Guernsey.
While Zoé and her aunt planned the wedding, Freddie made several trips to Jersey to meet with d’Auvergne to arrange for the weapons and supplies needed by the Chouan army. He convinced the captain to have the materiel sent to Jersey where Freddie would assume control and see it arrived safely in Brittany.
Zoé had agreed to their new mission, allowing Erwan to lead the effort to rescue the French émigrés. “What better way to serve those who wear the sacred heart patch than to equip their army?” she had said.
The fourteenth of July came and went without fanfare in St Peter Port. In France, fireworks would have exploded into the night sky above the rivers in celebration of the revolution as they did each anniversary of the attack on the Bastille. Not so on Guernsey, where the day was viewed with disdain.
“The next time I expect to see fireworks,” he told Zoé, “will be the day the war is over. That is, unless you were planning fireworks for our wedding.”
She had laughed. “What? And have people believe we celebrate the Republic of France? Never.” Thus, the subject of fireworks had been dropped.
Zoé stood on the quay, admiring the sleek schooner with the dark gray hull silhouetted against the waters of St Peter Port. Under the watchful eye of their new captain, the crew busied themselves getting ready to set sail.
“What do you think of the ship’s name?” Freddie asked her.
Weeks ago, he had showed her the ship he intended to buy but that was before any name had been painted on the hull.
She walked to the stern and gazed at the transom, then returned to where Freddie waited, a smirk on his face. “The Pigeon?”
His smirk became a smile. “I have always known when the day came to name my own schooner, it would be named after you.”
“That nickname you persist in calling me?”
He slipped his arm around her shoulder and led her toward the gangplank. “Did you never wonder how I arrived at the name?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“The first time I saw you the day you came to my family’s estate, I thought your gray eyes were lovely, the color of a dove’s wing. Even though you were a precocious child, trying my patience, your eyes held me captive. A pigeon, after all, is a dove.”
“Well, I suppose I cannot be angry about that.” She had to admit, if only to herself, that he had always said the name in a charming sort of way.
“’Sides, since pigeon is spelled the same in English and French, the name will not alert the French Navy to a foreign vessel in their waters.”
“Clever,” she said. “And I assume she carries many flags?”
“Of course.”
She followed Freddie aboard the ship just as Émile Bequel, standing at the top of the gangplank, inclined his head, “Capitaine West, mademoiselle.”
“Give the orders to set sail, M’sieur Bequel,” said Freddie.
“M’sieur Bequel is your quartermaster?” she asked, incredulous.
“Only for this trip, Pigeon.” He led her to the wheel, as the ship got under way. “Bequel and Gabe asked to accompany us and your uncle thought that since it’s our first voyage, they might help assess the crew. Though I handpicked the men for the missions we’ll be running, I welcome the opinion of one who has sailed with Jean Donet for so many years. I suspect Gabe is along to help protect you.”
This would be their first delivery of ammunition and muskets to the Chouans and Zoé was anxious to be about the task. Her uncle had suggested they use the port of St Malo instead of Lorient since it was only a few hours’ sail south of Guernsey. More importantly, he had many friends in that port, privateers he called corsairs, who he had alerted to the schooner’s pending arrival. “Protection from friends is to be prized,” her uncle told her.
“How many corsairs have a schooner named the Pigeon, do you suppose?” asked Freddie with a twinkle in his eye. The wind whipped his auburn hair beneath his tricorne. In his captain’s coat, he was very striking.
“Only this one,” she said with certainty. “A privateer would hardly name his ship after a dove.”
“My thought exactly. I am hoping Cadoudal received the message I sent him and will have no trouble spotting us.”
Several hours later, Freddie ordered one of the crew to run up the corsair flag as they neared St Malo.
“’Tis a splendid flag,” she said gazing up at the banner unfurled against the cloudless blue sky.
The sight of the blue flag quartered by a white cross with the upper left quadrant red with a white ermine brought back her uncle’s words. “The corsairs are proud of their Catholic roots and many support the royalists. They also value their independence and fly their own flag, even during the revolution.”
Not long after, they sailed into the ancient harbor with its imposing medieval ramparts. Zoé’s spirits rose when she saw the harbor clogged with sailing vessels. Amid so many ships perhaps they co
uld slip in, leaving the authorities unaware.
As soon as the Pigeon dropped anchor, M’sieur Bequel dispatched a skiff carrying gunpowder, shot and wadding packed in barrels like the ones used to transport cod. Zoé watched from the rail as a few members of the crew rowed Freddie and Gabe the short distance to shore. Before they had even pulled the boat over the sand, a group of four men met them, one very tall, whom she took to be Cadoudal. They did not dress as Chouans but as seamen wearing knit caps.
The barrels were hefted out of the boat and rolled to a waiting wagon over planks laid down as a pathway over the sand. Once that was accomplished, the skiff returned to the ship and Freddie climbed aboard. “Cadoudal sends his regards, Pigeon. Now we bring the muskets.”
The crew stepped lively at Gabe’s direction to lower two boxes of muskets to the skiff. As before, they rowed Freddie and Gabe ashore. “At this speed,” she said under her breath, “it will take all day.”
Just then, she noticed two republican soldiers had turned their attention to the men unloading the long boxes. The soldiers fixed their gazes on the activity at the shore’s edge and headed toward Freddie and Cadoudal overseeing the delivery.
Zoé began to bite her knuckles. “Not again,” she muttered.
M’sieur Bequel joined her at the rail. “Have no worries, little one. Capitaine Donet’s colleagues are dependable. See?” he said, pointing to a group of sailors striding toward Freddie and the Chouans, “The corsairs arrive just on time, n’est-ce pas?”
A group of swarthy seamen placed themselves in front of Freddie, his crew and the Chouans and turned to face the republican soldiers.
The soldiers stopped, shrugged and turned away.