Surrender
A Desperate Widow
Once a penniless orphan, Evelyn D’Orsay became a countess and a bride at the tender age of sixteen. But the flames of revolution forced her to flee France, with the aid of a notorious smuggler. Recently widowed and without any means, Evelyn knows she must retrieve the family fortune from France for her daughter’s sake—but only one man can help her…the smuggler she cannot forget.
A Dangerous Spy
Jack Greystone has been smuggling since he was a small boy—and he has been spying since the wars began. An outlaw with a bounty on his head, he is in hiding when he becomes aware of the Countess’s inquiries about him. He is reluctant to come to her aid yet again, for he has never been able to forget her. But he soon realizes he’ll surrender anything to be with the woman he loves….
Praise for the novels of
New York Times
bestselling author
Brenda Joyce
“Merging depth of history with romance
is nothing new for the multitalented author,
but here she also brings in an intensity of political history
that is both fascinating and detailed.”
—
RT Book Reviews
on
Seduction
“Joyce excels at creating twists and turns
in her characters’ personal lives.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“Another first-rate Regency, featuring multidimensional protagonists and sweeping drama…Joyce’s tight plot and
vivid cast combine for a romance that’s just about perfect.”
—
Publishers Weekly
on
The Perfect Bride
(starred review)
“Truly a stirring story with wonderfully etched characters, Joyce’s latest is Regency romance at its best.”
—
Booklist
on
The Perfect Bride
“Romance veteran Joyce brings her keen sense of humor
and storytelling prowess to bear on her witty,
fully formed characters.”
—
Publishers Weekly
on
A Lady at Last
“Joyce’s characters carry considerable emotional weight, which keeps this hefty entry absorbing,
and her fast-paced story keeps the pages turning.”
—
Publishers Weekly
on
The Stolen Bride
Also available from Brenda Joyce
and Harlequin
HQN
The Spymaster’s Men Series
Persuasion
Seduction
The Deadly Series
Deadly Vows
Deadly Kisses
Deadly
Illusions
The de Warenne Dynasty
An Impossible Attraction
A Dangerous
Love
The Perfect Bride
A Lady at Last
The Stolen Bride
The
Masquerade
The Prize
The Masters of Time®
Dark Lover
Dark Victory
Dark
Embrace
Dark Rival
Dark Seduction
And watch for
A Rose in the Storm
Coming
soon
Surrender
This one’s for Tracer and Tricia Gilson—
thanks for making my world of horses such a great place!
PROLOGUE
Brest,
France
August 5, 1791
H
ER
DAUGHTER
WOULD
not stop crying.
Evelyn held her, silently begging her to be quiet, as their carriage raced
through the darkness. The road was rough, especially at their frantic pace, and
the constant lurching and jostling did not help. If only Aimee would sleep!
Evelyn feared they had been followed; she was also afraid that her daughter’s
cries would cause suspicion and bring undue attention to them even if they had
successfully escaped Paris.
But Aimee was frightened—because her mother was frightened.
Children could sense such things. But Evelyn was afraid because Aimee was the
most important thing in her life, and she would die to keep her safe.
And what if Henri died?
Evelyn D’Orsay hugged her daughter, who had recently turned
four, harder. She was seated in the front of the carriage with the driver,
Laurent, her husband’s valet, now turned jack-of-all-trades. Her husband was
slumped in the backseat, unconscious, seated between Laurent’s wife, Adelaide,
and her own ladies’ maid, Bette. She glanced back now, her heart lurching with
alarm. Henri remained deathly white.
His health had begun to fail him sometime after Aimee had been
born. He had also become consumptive. Was his heart failing him now? Could he
survive this mad, frightening dash through the night? Would he survive the
Channel crossing? Evelyn knew he needed a doctor, desperately, just as she knew
this wild carriage ride could not be helpful to him.
But if they could make it out of France, if they could make it
to Britain, they would be safe.
“How far are we?” she whispered. Luckily Aimee had stopped
crying; in fact, she had fallen asleep.
“I think we are almost there,” Laurent said. They were speaking
French. Evelyn was an Englishwoman, but she had been fluent in French even
before she had met the Count D’Orsay, becoming his child bride almost
overnight.
The horses were lathered and blowing hard. Fortunately, they
did not have much farther to go—or so Laurent thought. And it would soon be
dawn. At dawn, they were to disembark with a Belgian smuggler, who was awaiting
them even now.
“Will we be late?” she asked, keeping her tone low, which was a
bit absurd, as the coach rattled and groaned with the horses’ every stride.
“I think we will have an hour to spare,” Laurent said, “but not
much more than that.” He glanced briefly at her, his look a significant one.
She knew what he was thinking now—they were all thinking it. It
had been so hard to escape Paris. There would be no going back, not even to
their country home in the Loire Valley. They must leave France if they were to
survive. Their lives were at stake.
Aimee was sound asleep. Evelyn stroked her soft, dark hair and
fought her own need to weep with fear and desperation.
She glanced back at her elderly husband again. Since meeting
and marrying Henri, her life had felt so much like a fairy tale. She had been a
penniless orphan, subsisting on the charity of her aunt and uncle; now, she was
the Countess D’Orsay. He was her dearest friend, and the father of her daughter.
She was so grateful to him for all that he had done for her, and all he meant to
do for Aimee.
She was so afraid for him now. His chest had been bothering him
all day. But he had survived their flight from Paris, and Henri had insisted
that they must not delay. Their neighbor had been imprisoned last month for
crimes against the state. The Vicomte LeClerc had not committed any crimes—she
was sure of it. But he was an aristocrat....
Their usual residence was Henri’s family estate in the Loire
Valley. But every spring Henri would pack up the family and they would go to
Paris for a few months of theater, shopping and dining. Evelyn had fallen in
love with Paris the very first time she had set foot in the city, before the
revolution. But the city she had once loved no longer existed, and had they
realized how dangerous Paris had become, they wouldn’t have gone for another
visit.
In spite of the revolution, Paris remained flooded with
unemployed workers, laborers and farmers, who roamed the streets seeking revenge
upon anyone who had anything, unless they were striking or rioting. Taking a
stroll down the Champs-Élysées was no longer pleasant, nor was riding in the
park. There were no more interesting supper parties, no more scintillating
operas. Shops catering to the nobility had long since closed their doors.
The fact that her husband, the comte, was a relation of the
queen had never been a secret. But the moment a hatmaker had realized the
connection, their lives had suddenly and truly changed. Shopkeepers, bakers,
prostitutes, sansculottes and even National Guardsmen had kept watch upon her
and her family at their townhome. Every time her door was opened, sentinels
could be seen standing outside. Every time she left the flat she had been
followed. It had become too frightening to venture outside of the apartment. It
was as if they were suspected of crimes against the state. And then LeClerc had
been arrested.
“Your time will come.” A passerby had leered at her the day
their neighbor was taken away in shackles.
And Evelyn had become afraid to go out. She had ceased doing
so. From that moment, they had become actual prisoners of the people. She had
begun to believe that they would not be allowed to leave the city, if they
tried. And then a pair of French officers had called on Henri. Evelyn had been
terrified that they were about to arrest him. Instead, they had warned him that
he must not leave the city until given permission to do so and that Aimee must
remain in Paris with them. And the fact that they had said so—that they even
knew about Aimee—had triggered them as nothing else could. They had immediately
begun planning their escape.
And it was Henri who had suggested they follow in the wake of
the thousands of émigrés now fleeing France for Great Britain. Evelyn had been
born and raised in Cornwall, and once she had realized that they were going
home, she had been thrilled. She had missed the rocky beaches of Cornwall, the
desolate moors, the winter storms, the blunt, outspoken women and the
hardworking men. She missed taking tea at the nearby village inn, and the wild
celebrations that ensued when a smuggler arrived with his precious cargo. Life
in Cornwall could be difficult and harsh, but it had its softer moments. Of
course, they would probably reside in London, but she also loved the city. She
couldn’t imagine a better—safer—country in which to raise her daughter.
Aimee deserved so much more. And she did not deserve to become
another innocent victim of this terrible revolution!
But first they had to get from Brest to the smuggler’s ship,
and then they had to get across the Channel. And Henri had to survive.
She felt the surge of panic and she trembled. Henri needed a
doctor, and she was tempted to delay their flight to attend him. She could not
imagine what she would do if he died. But she also knew he wanted her and Aimee
safely out of the country. In the end, she would put her daughter first.
“Has he shown any signs of reviving?” she cried, glancing over
her shoulder.
“
Non,
Comtesse,” Adelaide
whispered. “
Le comte
needs a physician soon!”
If they delayed, in order to attend Henri, they would remain in
Brest for another day or perhaps even more. Within hours, or at least by this
evening, their disappearance would be noticed. Would they be pursued? It was
impossible to know, except that the officials had warned them not to leave the
city and they had defied that edict. If there was pursuit, there were two
obvious ports to search—Brest and Le Havre were the most frequently used ports
of departure.
There was no choice to make. Evelyn clenched her fists, filled
with determination. She was not accustomed to making decisions, and especially
not important ones, but in another hour they would be safely at sea, and out of
reach of their French pursuers, if they did not delay.
They had reached the outskirts of Brest, and were passing many
small houses now. She and Laurent exchanged dark, determined looks.
A few moments later, salt tinged the air. Laurent drove the
team into the graveled courtyard of an inn that was just three blocks from the
docks. The night was now filled with scudding clouds, at times in darkness, at
other times, brightened by the moon. As Evelyn handed her daughter down to
Bette, her tension intensified. The inn seemed busy—loud voices could be heard
coming from the public room. Perhaps that was better—it was so crowded, no one
would pay attention to them now.
Or perhaps they would.
Evelyn waited with Aimee, asleep in her arms, while Laurent
went inside to get help for her husband. She was clothed in one of Bette’s
dresses and a dark, hooded mantle that had been worn by another servant. Henri
was also dressed as a commoner.
And finally Laurent and the innkeeper appeared. Evelyn slipped
up her hood as he approached—her looks were too remarkable to go unnoticed—and
cast her eyes down. The two men lifted Henri from the carriage and carried him
inside, using a side entrance. Holding Aimee Evelyn followed with Adelaide and
Bette. They quickly went upstairs.
Evelyn closed the door behind her two women servants, daring to
breathe with some relief, but not yet daring to remove her hood. She signaled
Adelaide with her eyes, not wanting her to light more than one candle.
If their disappearance had been noted, the French authorities
might have put out warrants for their arrests. Descriptions would accompany
those warrants and their pursuers would be looking for a little girl of four
with dark hair and blue eyes, a sickly and frail older nobleman of medium height
with gray hair and a young woman of twenty-one, dark-haired, blue-eyed and
fair-skinned, one remarkably beautiful in appearance.
Evelyn feared that she was too distinct in her appearance. She
was too recognizable, and not just because she was so much younger than her
husband. When she had first come to Paris, as a bride of sixteen, she had been
acclaimed the city’s most beautiful woman. She hardly thought that, but she knew
her looks were striking and hard to miss.
Henri had been made comfortable in one bed, and Aimee in
another. Laurent and the innkeeper had stepped aside, and were speaking in
hushed tones. Evelyn thought that they were both grim, but there was urgency in
the situation. She smiled at Bette, who was tearful and so clearly frightened.
Bette had been given the choice of going home to her family in Le Loire. She had
chosen instead to come with them, fearing being hunted down and interrogated if
she did not.
“It will be all right,” Evelyn said softly, hoping to reassure
her. They were the same age, but suddenly Evelyn felt years older. “In a matter
of moments, we will be on a ship, bound for England.”
“Thank you, my lady,” Bette whispered, sitting down beside
Aimee.
Evelyn smiled again, then walked over to Henri. She took his
hand and kissed his temple. He remained terrifyingly pale. She would not be able
to bear it if he died. She could not imagine losing such a dear friend. And she
knew just how dependent she was on him.
She was not certain that her aunt and uncle would welcome her
back into their home, if need be. But that would be a last recourse, anyway.
The innkeeper left and Evelyn quickly hurried over to Laurent,
who seemed stricken. “What has happened?” she asked, with another curdling
sensation.
“Captain Holstatter has left Brest.”
“What?” she cried, aghast. “You must be mistaken. It is August
the fifth. We are on time. It is almost dawn. In another hour, he is taking us
to Falmouth—he has been paid half of his fee in advance!”
Laurent was starkly white. “He happened upon a very valuable
cargo, and he left.”
She was in shock. They had no means of crossing the Channel!
And they could not linger in Brest—it was too dangerous!
“There are three British smugglers in the harbor,” Laurent
said, interrupting her thoughts.
There was a reason they had chosen a Belgian to take them to
England. “British smugglers are usually French spies,” she cried.
“If we are going to leave immediately, the only choice is to
seek out one of them, or wait here, until we can make other arrangements.”
Her head ached again. How was it that she was making the most
important decision of their lives? Henri always made all of the decisions! And
the way Laurent was looking at her, she knew he was thinking the same thing she
was—that remaining in town was not safe. She turned and glanced at Aimee. Her
heart lurched. “We will leave at dawn, as planned,” she decided abruptly, her
heart slamming. “I will make certain of it!”
Trembling, she turned and went to a valise that was beside the
bed. They had fled the city with a great number of valuables. She took a pile of
assignats from it, the currency of the revolution, and then, instinctively, took
out a magnificent ruby-and-diamond necklace. It had been in her husband’s family
for years. She tucked both within the bodice of her corset.
Laurent said, “If you will use one of the Englishmen, Monsieur
Gigot, the innkeeper, said to look for a ship named the
Sea
Wolf.
”
She choked on hysterical laughter, turning. Was she
really going alone to meet a dangerous smuggler—at dawn and in the dark,
in a strange city, with her husband near death—to beg for his help?
“His ship is the swiftest, and they say he can outrun both
navies at once. It is fifty tons, black sails—the largest of the smuggling
vessels in the harbor.”
She shuddered, nodding grimly. The
Sea
Wolf…
black sails… “How do I get to the docks?”
“They are three blocks from the inn,” Laurent told her. “I
think I should come with you.”