Miranda Jarrett - Regency High Society Vol 4 - The Sparhawk Bride / The Rogue's Seduction / Sparhawk's Angel / The Proper Wife

He had left his father in Bridgetown on Barbados while he had come here to Martinique. Eager to begin his search for Jerusa, he’d left the Tiger at dawn on Monday, only to discover that St-Pierre’s citizens prided themselves on being as late to rise as Parisians, and it had been close to noon before he’d been able to meet with any of the port officials. But no matter how many coins he left on those official desks, to be discreetly slipped into official pockets, there still had been no English ships seen in the Martinique port within the last month, and certainly no tall, fair English ladies. The officials were quite sure of that.

He’d made even less headway with the letters of introduction his father had written for him. Here the Sparhawk name meant nothing. The royal governor his father had known had been recalled to France, and the man who had replaced him had been too busy to receive an English sea captain. Perhaps, suggested his officious secretary, there might be an appointment open in September, or surely in October, if Captain Sparhawk chose to remain in St-Pierre that long. As the secretary had shrugged and sighed and shaken his fashionably powdered head, Josh in frustration had silently wished the secretary and all his kind to the devil.

His father had warned him it would be difficult, but Josh hadn’t wanted to believe him. English ships and English sailors—even those from New England—were unusual in Martinique’s waters, nor particularly welcome when they did appear. Though Josh had sailed in the Caribbean for years, he’d been here only once before, with his family while he was still a boy, and his single, hazy memory of the place was his oldest brother scuffling in the street with two Pierrotin boys who’d mocked his English clothes.

Not that things seemed to have changed much in the years since. As Josh had walked through the cobblestone streets, even the port’s Creole prostitutes had scornfully flicked their skirts away from him. The sooner he found Jerusa and they could head back for home together, the better.

But where exactly was Jerusa? Wearily Josh sighed again. Now that he’d exhausted the official channels, he’d have to explore other, more risky possibilities. After supper he’d begin with the rum shops near the water, and pray he’d be more successful than his brother had been at keeping clear of fights with Pierrotins.

Through the tall, open windows of the tavern the sun hung low over the bay, and from the street came the sounds of the city rousing itself from the sleepy heat of late afternoon for the enticing promise of the evening to come: men laughing now that their day’s work was done, a slave woman singing for her own pleasure, a pair of street fiddlers sawing through the latest jig. The last time Josh had heard fiddlers had been the ones hired for Jerusa’s wedding….

“Monsieur? Pardon?” said the serving girl. “S’il vous plaît, monsieur?”

“Forgive me, lass, my thoughts were elsewhere.” But the girl only stared blankly, and Josh groped for the foreign words to say the same thing. These last days his limited sailor’s French had been sorely tried, and having the girl waiting before him with a tray tucked beneath her arm wasn’t helping him concentrate. “Ah, plaît-il, mademoiselle?”

“Oui, monsieur, avec plaisir.” Like most of the women on the island, she was small and dark, her skin dusted gold and her cheeks full and blushed like peaches. But unlike all the other women, she didn’t scorn him but smiled instead, and enchanted, Josh grinned in return.

“What’s your na—oh, hang it, lass, I’ve forgotten myself again,” he said, but the girl only giggled behind her fingers, her black eyes sparkling with merriment. Though her striped bodice and skirts beneath her apron were cut modestly enough, there was still something charmingly, innocently flirtatious about her that no English serving girl could ever hope to copy.

“You’re anglais, aren’t you, monsieur?” she asked, cocking her head to one side like a small, bright-eyed bird.

“And you speak English,” said Josh with both delight and relief.

She raised one arched brow impishly. “It’s good for business. Papa has taught me English, Spanish and Dutch so I can sell his rum to any sailor who stumbles through his door.”

“So that’s how I seem to you?” asked Josh with a great show of forlorn self-pity. “One more stumbling, blind-drunk sailor?”

“Peut-être.” The girl tossed her black curls as she smacked his arm with her tray. “But how much rum would you buy from me if I told you that, eh?”

“Not a blessed drop,” he agreed. “But I might buy a whole cask if you told me your name.”

“Cecilie Marie-Rose Noire. You may call me Ceci. Most everyone else does, so I will not charge you for the cask of rum.”

“Generous and beautiful!” She couldn’t guess how much her teasing, good-natured banter meant to him after the disappointment of these last days. “My name is Joshua Sparhawk, captain of the sloop Tiger of Newport, Rhode Island, and you, Miss Ceci, may call me whatever you choose. Josh would suit me just fine.”

“A captain!” Her eyes widened. “But you are so young!”

Flattered, he considered briefly pretending he’d earned his place on the Tiger entirely on his own merit. Lord knows he’d let other pretty girls believe it before this. But somehow, with Ceci, he didn’t want to.

“I’m the captain, aye, and the Tiger ’s been mine since I was nineteen.” He smiled sheepishly. “I’ve had the good fortune, y’see, to have my father as her owner.”

“Then you should be doubly proud, monsieur!” declared Ceci warmly. “Who expects more than a father? If you proved yourself worthy to him, then you must be a grand, fine sailor!”

“I do well enough.” He shifted his shoulders self-consciously, torn between relishing her praise and being shamed by it. He was proud of his skills as a sailor, but in his family such accomplishments were taken for granted, even expected. He knew that no matter what he did, he’d never come close to equaling his father or older brothers. But for little Ceci, he was the only Sparhawk that mattered. No, better than that: he was the only Sparhawk.

Swiftly he glanced around the room. It was still early for supper, and earlier still for the serious drinkers who would later fill every chair and bench and the spaces in between. For now, at least, he was the only patron.

“Could you join me, Ceci?” he asked. He rose to his feet to bow toward her, and saw how her eyes widened at his size. Well, so be it; beside these Frenchmen, the Sparhawks might be the lost race of giants. “I’d be honored by your company, and you’re the first soul I’ve met on this island I’d say that to.”

“Oh, monsieur, what you ask!” she demurred. “I’m a good girl, monsieur, a respectable girl. Papa would never allow such a thing.”

Yet from the way she blushed again and fidgeted with her apron as she peeked up at him from beneath her lashes, Josh was sure the invitation pleased her.

“What harm could come from it?” he asked, warming her with a smile made to break hearts. “There’s not another person in the place. Please, Ceci. Please.”

She shook her head, her black curls bobbing above the tiny silver rings in her ears.

“I swear I’m a good boy, too, Ceci. Respectable enough for any papa.”

Though she tried not to laugh, her dimples betrayed her, twitching in her cheeks as her mouth curled. “Handsome, green-eyed boys are never respectable,” she scolded, “especially les Anglais. But if you dine from our kitchen, I will come back. Tonight there is a fine fricassé of chicken and red crayfish with onions, and our blancmanger —you would call it a pudding, no?—is fresh coconut with nutmeg, and—”