Sanguinet's Crown

by Patricia Veryan

  Hour after hour crept past, and still the stately ship climbed the soaring waves, hung breathlessly at the peak, then dropped sickeningly into the next deep trough. The rending crash of a snapping mast sent Charity to her knees beside the bunk, fearing that this was the end indeed, but despite the chaos that raged beyond her small cabin, they contrived to remain afloat.

  She was sitting braced in a corner of the heaving floor, a blanket wrapped around her and Little Patches trembling in her lap, when the door flew open and Lion swayed in the aperture, then came in with a rush, fighting to keep a tray of crockery from tumbling.

  “Hey, here’s a proper turn-up, eh, missus?” he cried cheerily. “So you ain’t sick! Good fer you. Most of the other passengers is so green as grass, and a lot o’ the crew as well. I brung some tea and cakes, but you’ll have to go careful or you’ll get it over you, ’stead of in. And here’s some fish fer you, fleabait!”

  He plunked the tray on the floor, then stayed to help Charity enjoy the small meal. His efforts to tempt Little Patches with the fish failed; the kitten refused to eat, although she did lap at a little dish of milk.

  “Shall we be blown miles off our course, do you think?” Charity asked hopefully.

  “Should’ve landed hours back,” Lion said rather indistinctly, his mouth full of currant cake. “Captain says we can’t put in to the Channel in this weather. Have to stand off, he says, and from the look of the glass,” he added importantly, “it’ll be several days.”

  He was right. Although the fury of the storm abated somewhat, the seas ran too high for the Captain to dare take his ship into harbour. And the rain was so heavy and so constant that, peer as she would, Charity could catch no glimpse of the island whereon Claude Sanguinet was no doubt waiting impatiently.

  For three days they rode out the weather, while the Captain raged, the crew grumbled, the cook swore, and even Charity, dreading the next phase of her captivity, began to long for this waiting to end. Her friendship with Lion deepened during this time. Despite his lack of education, the boy had a quick intelligence and a mind hungry for knowledge. He had taught himself to read and write, and when Charity exclaimed over these accomplishments he was rather pathetically grateful and told her shyly that it was his dream to become a physician. “Much chance I got,” he added, reddening in anticipation of ridicule. Inwardly astounded, she would not dream of belittling his hopes and said all she might to encourage him, writing down the titles of several books for him to read and urging that he work hard at improving his vocabulary. Instead of thanking her, he stared in silence at the list she handed him. When he did look up, his eyes held abject misery, and he left her without another word.

  That night, Charity awoke to a sense of strangeness. It was quiet. The room was no longer heaving erratically. She lay in her bunk listening to the officers shouting orders, to the creaking of winches and the flapping of sail, and very soon the motion of the ship changed. They were under way again. She slipped from her blankets and ran to the port, but it was too dark to see anything, and she went back to bed, falling at last into a troubled sleep.

  Ella brought her breakfast next morning. The woman looked drawn and wan, but vindictiveness glistened in her dark eyes as she demanded that Mrs. Leith get up at once. The motion of the great ship had gentled to a lazy rocking and Charity’s apprehensive enquiries were met by the grim confirmation that they were tied up to the dock, that Monseigneur was waiting, and that Mrs. Leith better look sharp.

  The moment of truth had come. Involuntarily, Charity shrank. The immediate satisfaction in Ella’s eyes stiffened her spine. Whatever else, she was an English lady. Her bones might be jelly and her heart thumping a tattoo, but no one must see those weaknesses. She told Ella her services were not required, waited until the sour-faced woman went grumbling off, and then ran to the port.

  Had she not known this was an island, she would have thought them docked along the Thames, or the Clyde, or some such great inland waterway. Certainly not at a small island, for peer as she would, she could see only land. Directly before her eyes was a scene of frenzied activity. Cranes were swinging loads of bales and barrels onto the dock, and brawny labourers swarmed like industrious ants around the small mountains of supplies thus created, swiftly transferring the goods into waiting wagons and wains. Sailors, their meagre belongings carried in rolls over their shoulders, struggled down the gangplank, vying for space with the passengers Charity had glimpsed from time to time on the lower deck. A motley lot she had thought them, but she noticed now that they were uniformly tall, sturdily built, and aggressive, shoving the sailors aside as they disembarked, quick to raise voice or fist against any who impeded their progress. Once on land they milled about uncertainly, but a tall individual, soberly clad in black, relayed orders through an aide and soon the new arrivals were lined up neatly enough. Charity watched the dark figure of authority with sombre dread. He turned and glanced up at the ship, and she spun away from the porthole and pressed against the side, a cold perspiration bathing her whitening features.

  So Gerard was here! Gerard, Claude’s icily remorseless lieutenant who had lusted after Rachel when she arrived at Dinan as Claude’s affianced bride, and who had never forgiven her for the rebuff she’d handed him. Gerard who had suffered a broken jaw when Tristram and Devenish had battled with such invincible courage to get them all safely away from that nightmarish chateau.… She closed her eyes, sick and shaking with fear for what was to come.

  Because she was so terribly afraid, she took great care with her toilette, for Claude must not fancy her so disheartened she had given up all hope. She was sitting on the bunk when the knock came, and she nerved herself to meet Gerard’s soulless black eyes. She had seldom been more relieved than when Lion’s bright head came around the door, and she could not restrain an involuntary cry of relief.

  The boy came quickly inside and closed the door behind him. To her surprise, he ignored Little Patches, who frisked about his boots, marched straight to her side, took her hands, and drew her to her feet.

  “I ’spect you know what I am,” he said in a low, hurried fashion. “I ain’t never been nothin’ but gallows bait. Never had no mum or dad. I was a foundling—a love child.” His lip curled. He muttered bitterly, “Some kind of love! I was sold to a sweep when I was five—a sight of love I got from him, I can tell yer! So I hopped the twig—runned orf, and got slammed in a flash house. More love—cor! They put me on the padding lay—and the dubbing lay! Thieving, ma’am. Pickpocket. And I was flogged if I did and whipped if I didn’t. No one never give me nothing but a stripe or a box aside the ears. Then I tried ter prig orf a gentry cove, and he caught me. Broke me arm, but then he see I was just a nipper. He took me to a ’pothecary, and when I was better, he let me work fer him.”

  Her kind heart touched, Charity whispered, “Oh, poor little boy.”

  “A ugly customer he is,” Lion went on grimly. “Got his-self all mixed up with this Frenchy. And made me—” He broke off, eyeing her uneasily. “You don’t want to hear all that. Thing is, he don’t beat me much and I gets fed reg’lar. So I puts up with the rest. Only…” He took up the kitten and stroked her soft fur absently. “I thought as they was going to keep yer to stop the Colonel from sticking his nose in. I thought they didn’t mean you no harm, account o’ you being in the family way. But that Frenchy on the dock”—he glanced broodingly at the porthole—“he talked to me like I was a slug. I told him I been looking arter you. And he said…” He put the kitten down and grabbed Charity’s arms. “Don’t you be scared, now. Lion ain’t good fer much, but I’ll see they don’t hurt you. I promise. I ain’t sunk so low I’d let no lady be hurt. ’Specially you.” He was scarlet, and his eyes fell away bashfully. But he looked up and reiterated, “Don’t be scared, mind.”

  The door latch was lifting. Lion snatched up Charity’s bandbox. “I’ll take this, ma’am,” he said as Jean-Paul stuck his head inside. “You bring fleabait.”

  Blinking away tears,
her knees shaking, Charity followed him through the door, prepared to meet her fate.

  Chapter 10

  Outside, the air was bitterly cold, and Charity drew her cloak tighter about her shoulders. Clem and Jean-Paul walked along the deck on each side of her, Lion following. She saw now that the ship was tied up in a landlocked harbour, a place teeming with activity, a large yawl moored next to them, and two other vessels standing off in the channel, waiting a chance to dock. The island was quite large, as she had gathered, and looked a harsh, bleak place. Far off to the east a long range of hills lifted bare and jagged teeth against the cold sky. Northwards rose another hill, solitary and surmounted by a frowning old castle that appeared to Charity tto crouch there as though gloatingly awaiting her arrival.

  Jean-Paul assisted her down the gangplank, from which all other passengers had been cleared. When they reached the ground, it seemed to Charity to sway as though she were still aboard ship. A closed chaise was waiting, a groom holding the door. To her relief, it was empty. Jean-Paul handed her up, and he and Clem occupied the seat opposite. The coachman cracked his whip, and they began to edge through the noisy, bustling confusion of the dock area, coming at last to a well-kept road that wound inland.

  Despite her terrible apprehensions, Charity tried to notice as much as she could of this strange place. The area they had left appeared to contain most of the major buildings, and there were many of them; large sheds and warehouses, crude houses and huts and long low buildings that, as they climbed higher, she could see were erected around a parade ground where men were drilling and where she fancied to glimpse Gerard’s dark figure.

  The road curved around the hill, and rows of dense, high-growing trees shut out the view of the docks. The ocean was visible now, slate-grey and frigid-looking with lines of whitecaps stretching to the misty horizon. A schooner was approaching the island, her sails being reefed in as she neared the channel. The sight of the vessel, so much smaller and sleeker than the ship that had transported her, put Charity in mind of the Silvering Sails. Only last year, Justin had worked so hard to refurbish the yacht.… Her brother’s kind, loved face drifted before her mind’s eye, and tears blurred her vision.

  Clem said, “Well, ’ere’s your new ’ome. Ain’t it a fine cottage? Proper cosy like, eh?” He laughed. Jean-Paul chuckled. Charity’s gaze shot to the right.

  From this elevation the castle was even larger than it had appeared earlier; a great threatening bulk against the gloomy sky. Even had she not known who dwelt there, Charity must have thought it a brooding pile, its massive walls spreading out over the brow of the hill in a low sprawl, rather than soaring up in lofty splendour like the castles she had known.

  She asked in a shaking voice, “What … is it called?”

  “It’s Tordarroch Island, yer ladyship,” Clem said. “And the little hovel up yonder”—he jerked his bullet head to the castle—“that there’s Tor Keep. And that’s what they’re a-going ter do, lady, keep you there. At least till yer brat’s born.”

  Jean-Paul gave him a contemptuous look, but was silent. Charity stared at Clem and wondered in a remote fashion how a tiny, innocent babe could grow up to become so bestial, so without feeling as this coarse, ignorant man. And she remembered what Lion had said of his own early years. “He could be the same,” she thought sadly. “If no one rescues him from his hopeless servitude he might eventually become like this creature, lacking all compassion and humanity.” She sighed and asked, “Where is my kitten, please?”

  “Lion has her,” said Jean-Paul. “He is upon the box, madame.”

  They were rattling across cobblestones. A dark shadow slid over them and with it a chill that seemed to pierce Charity’s heart. They jerked to a stop. The door was swung open and the steps let down. A liveried footman bowed and handed Charity down. The bitter wind blew her skirts about. The great dark walls loomed over her. Wide steps, worn by the elements and the tread of countless feet, led up to an enormous door embellished with bands of black iron and great iron studs. To Charity it seemed the door of doom, beyond which could lie only horror, and she faltered, her wide eyes fixed upon that fateful entry.

  A familiar voice grunted impatiently, “Hurry up, do, ma’am. This worthless mog’s clawing me!”

  Her terrified gaze flashed to meet Lion’s. He was scowling ferociously, but the eye that was farthest from Clem twitched into a faint wink. Immeasurably heartened, Charity tried to stop trembling. The door opened slowly, and somehow she managed to walk across the chill yard and into the ancient frowning keep that was Claude Sanguinet’s stronghold.

  She entered a great hall. A fire blazed on an enormous hearth to her right, and lofty walls were beautified by fine tapestries. Several gleaming suits of armour were placed here and there, and the furnishings were antique and massive.

  The footman who had admitted them passed them on to the butler, a dapper gentleman who ushered them to a broad stone staircase and thence to an upper floor and a wide hall hung with weapons and banners, the shining floors strewn with thick rugs. Tall lackeys stood about, their eyes following the little procession curiously. The butler paused outside a carven door. “You will wait, s’il vous plaît,” he murmured, and slipped inside, closing the door behind him.

  Clem muttered a profane imitation of the Frenchman, and Jean-Paul grinned. “I hear as his royalty’s generous when he’s pleased,” Clem hissed. “We’ll likely rate a fat bonus fer this job of work, mate.”

  Knowing Claude, Charity thought they would be far more likely to rate a thrashing, at the very least.

  The butler reappeared. “Madame Leith and you”—he gestured to Jean-Paul—“are to be received. You two may go.”

  Clem growled resentfully, but shambled off. Still carrying the kitten, Lion followed, backing away, his gaze fixed on Charity in undisguised apprehension.

  Jean-Paul took Charity’s elbow. “En avant, madame.”

  He led her into a magnificent apartment, all red and gold and for the most part appointed in the same semi-feudal fashion as the lower areas. Rich red velvet hung at the window embrasures; deep chairs were set about before the fire; fine tapestries and paintings softened the mighty walls. All this, Charity saw only dimly. Her attention was fixed upon the two occupants of the room. Claude Sanguinet, slender and very dark, was seated at a large, ornately carven desk near the fire, looking up at his brother. Guy, a man at least ten years his junior, with brown hair, a sturdier frame and a lighter complexion, stood beside Claude’s chair, leaning back against the desk and speaking in a low, intent manner. Neither man glanced up as the newcomers entered, but the very sight of them caused Charity to feel as though the blood had frozen in her veins, and she leaned giddily upon Jean-Paul’s arm.

  Guy glanced at them idly. With an expression of horrified astonishment replacing his gravity, he sprang up. “Sacré nom de Dieu!” he gasped.

  Delighted by such a violent reaction, Claude chuckled and swung his chair around. His eyes fell on Charity. He checked, as though turned to stone.

  Pale with shock, Guy stammered, “Ch-Charity…?” He spun to face his brother. “For the love of God! Now what have you done?”

  Claude came to his feet and stalked around the desk. For a man of such enormous wealth and power, he presented a disappointing appearance. He was elegantly clad, but, despite the care with which his nearly black hair had been brushed into youthful curls, it was obvious that he would not see forty again. His figure was slender, but he was neither tall nor muscular; his features were regular but lacked distinction; his complexion was inclined to be sallow; and only his eyes were noteworthy, being wide and of an unusual brilliance, although the colour, somewhere between brown and hazel, was not admired, some maintaining that Claude Sanguinet’s eyes glowed red when he was angered. He was angered now, and those hot eyes deepened the terror in Charity’s heart.

  “You!” The word was a hissing whisper. His hands crooked into claws as he advanced on her. “You!” It was a howl this time, his fac
e contorting with frustrated rage as he sprang forward.

  Guy leapt between them. “Are you gone entirely mad?” he cried in French. “Why in heaven’s name have you brought her here?”

  Claude gave vent to a muffled sound somewhere between a snarl and a sob. His arm flailed out, and Guy was sent staggering. Crouching, looking up from under his brows, Claude turned on Jean-Paul. “Peasant!” he cried shrilly. “How could you mistake this insipid girl for a glorious creature like Rachel Strand? Idiot! Animal!” He advanced on Jean-Paul, his expression so twisted, so maniacal, that Charity retreated, trembling.

  Backing away also, one hand flung out protectively, Jean-Paul whimpered, “We do as we are told, monseigneur. Your spy tell us to take the lady wearing the cloak. We take the lady wearing the cloak. Monseigneur! Name of a name! The lady say nothing. I beseech you—how are we to know?”

  “You … were … paid … to know!” screeched Claude, his tight clenched fists raised and quivering with passion. “Moronic dolt of a canaille! You were paid to know!”

  He flung around to face Charity, but Guy again came between them.