Silver Storm (The Raveneau Novels #1) (42 page)

The village was quiet now except for an
occasional sailor or two emerging from the Griswold Inn. Lindsay
guessed they must be from the
Chimera,
still celebrating
their sea triumphs.

Earlier that evening, Able Barker had
repeated a rumor that the
Chimera
would head a fleet of
ships from Pettipauge that would slip into the sound in an effort
to break the British blockade near New London. Able had marveled,
"What an honor for Captain Coleraine! Your father certainly knew
what he was doing when he gave that Irishman command of the
Chimera!"

Able's wife, Cassie, was the family's
housekeeper. Still pretty and buxom at fifty, she never missed an
opportunity to tease her earnest husband. Lindsay sighed now,
remembering how Cassie's eyes had twinkled as she rejoined, "I
think the women of Pettipauge have benefited most! Ah, but it's
pure pleasure to behold Ryan Coleraine! How I hope that Lindsay's
parents invite him to supper when they return from
Philadelphia!"

It was certainly a strong possibility,
Lindsay thought, propping an elbow on the windowsill and resting
her chin on her hand. She was unnerved to realize how much time she
had spent this evening reviewing her meeting with Ryan
Coleraine—and unconsciously spinning fantasies for the visit he
would doubtless pay to her home after her parents returned. She
tried to give herself the same lecture she'd delivered to Elizabeth
Urquhart about the foolishness of mooning over a rake like
Coleraine. Still... when he'd smiled at her with those blue eyes,
female instincts Lindsay hadn't known she possessed had kindled
deep inside of her. The mere thought of him sent a current of
exhilaration through her heart, while her mind shouted, "Danger!
Beware!"

I have to get some sleep, Lindsay thought.
She was just about to turn from the window when she caught sight of
a tall, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped figure silhouetted in
moonlight on the street below. Lindsay didn't need to see the man's
face to know that it was Ryan Coleraine. Perhaps it was the way he
cocked his head ever so slightly to the right before bending to
kiss the woman he held in his arms. Lindsay couldn't identify her
and realized that she didn't want to. The embrace was continuing as
Lindsay drew her curtains closed and turned toward the bed, her
cheeks burning.

In bed, she stared at the canopy and thought,
I was right the first time. The man's a
tomcat.
He'd turn
his charm on for anything that wears skirts. Thank God I came to my
senses and took his measure before I did something incredibly
foolish!

* * *

Yanking off his boots in total darkness, Ryan
Coleraine supposed that the hour of three must be at hand.
Certainly it was the middle of the night and he was a fool to be
awake. Harvey, his literate steward, would be shaking him at dawn,
waving coffee under his nose and urging him to eat the plate of
scones, kippers, and eggs he specially prepared for his master.

With a moan, Ryan threw himself down on his
moonlit bunk. Muscles flexed over his hard, tapering chest as he
crossed both arms over his eyes, too tired even to remove the
ever-present books that poked his side and the sole of his left
foot.

The woman's scent lingered on his skin.
Frowning, Coleraine removed his arms from the vicinity of his face.
He wasn't proud of what he'd done tonight; he wasn't even certain
of the woman's name. Kathryn? Kathleen? They'd just met that
evening. Her husband had been killed at Fort Erie and she'd been
alone ever since. Ryan supposed that Kathryn (Kathleen?) and he had
come together out of mutual need, and the woman was certainly an
adult, but he'd seen the familiar softening in her eyes when she
looked at him, heard the note of joy in her voice, and, as always,
he felt unsettling twinges of guilt. Now it would be necessary to
avoid her, for Ryan certainly had no intention of using the woman
on a regular basis. If his mother were still alive, she'd label him
a sinner, but that wasn't quite true. At least he told himself so
late at night when sleep wouldn't come. Ryan never took a woman who
wasn't willing, and he backed away instantly if he sensed that she
hoped for love. He hadn't been raised to break women's hearts, but
at the same time he had no wish to marry and believed celibacy a
sacrifice for saints. Nights with women like Kathryn (Kathleen?)
were inevitable.

Sighing, Ryan ran long fingers through his
hair and flipped onto his stomach. When he closed his eyes again,
he saw Lindsay Raveneau: a shaft of sunlight on her reddish curls,
color suffusing her fair cheeks, a glint of fire in her rare, smoky
eyes. He wondered what her smile would be like, then decided it was
better that he didn't know. Miss Raveneau would be a female to
avoid even if her father weren't the owner of Ryan's ship.

A sudden instinct caused him to end his
fantasy abruptly, then rise to look through the transom at the far
end of the cabin. Ryan couldn't see anything, but the slight
shifting of the
Chimera
told him that there were boats on
the river.

"Captain!" Harvey burst in, his eyes blazing
in the moonlight. With his usual flair for the dramatic, he cried,
"The British have arrived under the cover of darkness to deal a
fatal blow to all Pettipauge's ships!"

Coleraine pulled on his boots, then followed
his bounding steward up through the hatch onto the gun deck. Not
far in the distance, chill winds whipped whitecaps on the dark
waters around several double-banked, eight-oared boats that were
crowded with red-uniformed soldiers. Obviously, the British had
left their larger ships in the sound and rowed the five miles to
Pettipauge, but Ryan saw that they had come prepared. His sharp
eyes discerned nine-and twelve-pound cannonades, boarding pikes,
bayonets, and other sundry equipment necessary for naval attack.
Even worse, there were torches, already being lit.

"My God, they mean to burn us all out of the
water!" he whispered hoarsely.

"So it would seem, sir," Harvey agreed in
mournful tones.

The rest of the crew was struggling up on
deck, bleary-eyed from the night's celebrations. Coleraine's heart
thudded as he realized how many were absent. It was his own fault.
He'd been hard on them at sea and they'd performed beautifully.
Today, when the officers and crew had come together in the Griswold
Inn's taproom, hoisting frothy mugs of ale, their benevolent
Captain Coleraine had granted a night's leave to anyone who wished
it. It seemed that more than half the crew had accepted the offer,
including his first lieutenant.

Chaos seemed to erupt around the
Chimera.
Men were barreling down Main Street and lining up
along the Point, muskets in hand. Ryan felt as if he were having a
bizarre dream as he watched the villagers load their one viable
weapon, a four-pound cannon.

Meanwhile, flames shot up from the vessel
that was under construction next to the
Chimera.
The British
were returning Pettipauge's attack with their own cannonades, and
British marines lined up along the barges to deliver a volley of
musket fire.

"Captain, what shall we do?" cried Drew, the
Chimera's
first mate.

Ryan leaned against the main mast and smiled
crookedly. "There isn't a thing anyone can do. We're at anchor; we
can't position ourselves to return fire, and you know it. They're
prepared and we aren't." It galled him to admit defeat without a
struggle, but he was a pragmatist. He'd never attacked without
knowing that the odds were in his favor and thus had never lost.
Ryan knew every member of his crew and he wasn't prepared to see
even one killed for a futile point of pride.

The cannon fire had come to a stop on the
Point. The men, realizing that it was hopeless, laid down their
muskets to indicate that they would offer no further resistance.
Even from a distance, Ryan could see the burning frustration in
their eyes.

"Captain, look!" Drew exclaimed at his
shoulder.

Coleraine glanced back, then followed his
first mate's pointing finger to the flames that were spreading over
the deck of the nearly completed ship next to the
Chimera.
It had promised to be Andre Raveneau's finest accomplishment, a
privateer that Ryan had been forced to admit would surpass even his
own sleek and beautiful vessel.

"I know, Drew, it's a damned shame, but you
may as well brace yourself. I fear we're destined to lose the
Chimera
as well—and every other ship at anchor in
Pettipauge."

"That's not what I mean! Look, near the
stern! There's a boy trying to douse the fire!"

Ryan surveyed the neighboring craft through
his brass telescope. Drew was right. A boy was crouching on the
quarterdeck, heaving a wooden bucket of water into the flames on
the gun deck below. He wore a sailor's knit cap pulled low, but
coppery curls escaped from the sides, and there was something about
the profile of the boy's face and the shape of his legs and hips
that made Ryan's insides knot with foreboding.

Turning to the first mate, he said, "I'm
going to remove that boy from the ship. I ought to be all right
alone but stand by to assist me."

There was a momentary lull in other activity
as the British organized for the row to shore. Grimly, Ryan
sprinted down the
Chimera
's gangplank and boarded the
adjoining vessel. Through the billowing smoke and leaping flames,
he discerned the slight figure of the ship's would-be savior coming
toward him.

"Come on! Are you trying to kill
yourself?"

The boy was choking on the smoke and had one
arm over his eyes as he staggered forward with the cumbersome
bucket. "Can't let it burn!" he croaked.

Ryan grasped the thin arm. "You're coming
with me!" His own eyes burned from the smoke and he could barely
make out the boy's face.

"Let
go
!" Fiercely, the boy wrenched
free and, pulling off his coat, began batting the spreading flames.
The coat caught fire, sending orange flames licking toward the
boy's pale, sooty face. Just then a steely arm came around his
midsection, hoisting him into the air. "Let me be!" he
shrieked.

"I have no intention of watching you burn to
death, you little fool," Coleraine ground out, hoisting the slim
form over his shoulder and fighting his way through the flames and
smoke toward the gangplank. His struggle was complicated by the
flailing legs of his captive and the fists that rained ineffectual
blows against his back. "Stop that, you hellion, before I toss you
in the river and let the British fish you out!"

"They couldn't be worse villains than you!"
came the furious reply.

Returning to the
Chimera
was an
ordeal, but finally Ryan was back on his own quarterdeck. Harvey
and Drew stepped forward to relieve him of his burden. The boy
continued to struggle wildly against the restraining grips on each
arm while Ryan rubbed his eyes and sighed. Finally, with slow
deliberation, he reached out and removed the knit cap, freeing
cascades of luxuriant golden-rose curls.

"I feared as much," he murmured, arching a
brow. "Miss Raveneau, do you really think it safe to venture out of
the house so late at night? I doubt that your parents would
approve."

***~~~***

Excerpt from

Silver Sea

(previously published as BARBADOS)

Raveneau Novel #3

by

Cynthia Wright

***~~~***

March 1818

London, England

Holding a candlestick in one hand, Adrienne
Beauvisage eased open the door to the Frakes-Hogg nursery. Little
Ellie and Beth were sleeping peacefully in their beds as their
governess tiptoed over for a closer look. Angelic pink cheeks, long
lashes, and dark curls made them appear unscathed by their mother's
recent death.

Sensing Adrienne's presence, Beth opened her
eyes and whispered, "I wish you could be our mummy now."

How could she say that she despised their
father and had stayed this long only because of the girls? "I
couldn't love you more if I were your mummy."

"Good." Smiling, she went back to sleep.

Adrienne's heart ached as she tucked her in
again, then returned to the corridor. Not a day passed that didn't
find her struggling anew with the problem of the insidious
attentions paid to her by the girls' father, Walter
Frakes-Hogg.

Two years earlier, when Adrienne had
completed her education at age eighteen, her parents had begged her
to come home to the family chateau in France, but she'd insisted
upon seeking employment and fulfilling her ambition to teach. Above
all, Adrienne craved independence. Though bright and beautiful, she
had no desire to pursue a place in London society, which she
considered superficial.

After Walter Frakes-Hogg persuaded her to
become the live-in governess to his tiny daughters, Adrienne had
fallen in love with the girls instantly. Because their mother,
Jane, was bedridden, they needed more than knowledge from Adrienne,
and she had tried to bring some warmth and cheer into the gloomy
house. She was encouraged to feel like a member of the family, and
to call Mr. and Mrs. Frakes-Hogg by their Christian names.

Now, making her way down the arched corridor
lit only by her single candle, she was grateful that Walter was
away tonight, paying a condolence call on his newly widowed
sister-in-law. When had she first begun to have doubts about her
employer? Surely there had been unsettling moments before Jane's
death, but in those days he'd been home so seldom and she had been
too to ponder Walter's odd behavior. At times, she'd had the
sensation that he was staring at her from across the room, but then
he'd smile at her calmly and Adrienne would shake off the
feeling.