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

“You choose, Ceci,” he said softly. “Whatever brings you back here the quickest.”

She made a dismissive sound deep in her throat and tossed her head one last time as she headed to the kitchen, but it seemed to Josh that she was back again before he’d scarce begun to miss her.

“Papa has seen your sloop in the harbor,” she said as she carefully set a steaming bowl of pumpkin soup before him on the worn, bare table. “He says it is a very fine ship, and he wishes to know if you will be regularly trading in St-Pierre.”

Josh smiled wryly. Whether in Newport or St-Pierre, fathers with marriageable daughters all asked the same questions.

“I’m not in St-Pierre to trade, lass,” he said softly. “I’m here to find my sister.”

Briefly he told her how Jerusa had disappeared, and that he hoped to find her here on Martinique. While he spoke, Ceci slipped into the chair beside him, her little hands clasped on the table before her and her lips parted as she listened.

“That is so terrible!” she cried when he was done. “For your family, your sister, for you, monsieur! Whoever would steal a lady on her wedding night is a monster!”

“You’ll find no quarrel from me there.” He dipped his spoon into the soup, hot and spicy with flavors he couldn’t quite identify. Until he’d begun to eat, he hadn’t realized how hungry he was. “My father believes it is the work of Frenchmen connected to a long-dead pirate from this island named Christian Deveaux.”

From his pocket he pulled out a copy of the black fleur de lis found with Jerusa’s jewelry and smoothed the sheet on the table. “Though it’s been nearly thirty years since Deveaux sailed from Martinique, Father believes that some of his men must still be alive and acting in his name against our family.”

“I understand, monsieur.” Ceci nodded solemnly. “I do not know how it is among the men of your country, but here in mine, thirty years would be as nothing when a gentleman’s honor must be avenged.”

“For God’s sake, Ceci, we’re talking about pirates, not gentlemen!”

“Even the worst rogues have honor, monsieur.” She frowned, touching the paper on the table between them. “I thought that I knew every name on our island, but this Deveaux—why, I wonder, have I not heard of him?”

Josh sighed and pushed the empty soup bowl away from him, resting his chin in his hand as he leaned his elbow on the table. “It was long before either of us were born, lass.”

“But not before my father’s time.” She stood and leaned forward to take the empty bowl, and Josh caught the scent of her skin, spicy with the same fragrance as the soup. “He could remember pirates back to Captain Morgan! I’ll go ask him, and return with your fricassé.”

Josh watched her hurry across the room, her small, slim figure weaving gracefully between the tables. There were other patrons in the tavern now, calling her by name as they ordered their wine or rum, and with regret Josh realized he’d no longer have her company to himself. But maybe later, when she was done working for the night and he’d made the first round of the rum shops, he could return.

Smiling to himself, he looked back out the window to where the sun had dropped below the horizon and the first stars were beginning to glimmer in the evening sky. Jerusa would like Ceci; they were two of a kind, both beautiful and outspoken, and Josh suspected that somehow Ceci, for all her claims to being a good girl, was every bit as accustomed as his sister was to getting her own way.

“You, monsieur?” demanded the heavyset Frenchman with a barkeep’s canvas apron. “You are the English sea captain, non?”

“Aye,” said Josh warily. Ceci’s father: the man could be no one else. But why should the Frenchman be so all-fired angry with him? All he’d done was talk to the girl. “Is there a problem, Mr.—uh, Monsieur Noire?”

“Oui, oui, there is a problem, Sparhawk, and mordieu, it is you!” Noire grabbed the tankard from Josh’s fingers, slammed it on the table and pointed dramatically at the door. “This is a decent house, and I won’t have your kind here! You go, now, and do not come back ever again!”

Conscious of every face in the room turned toward him, Josh rose slowly to his feet. He knew he didn’t have much choice but to leave as the tavern keeper requested, but he hated the feeling of slinking away for something he hadn’t done. It had a low, cowardly feel to it, and Sparhawks were never cowards.

“Of course, monsieur, I’d ask your forgiveness if I’d offended your daughter,” he said, intensely aware of being the one Englishman among so many French. “But by my lights, I’ve done nothing to shame or dishonor her. You can ask her yourself.”

“Nothing, eh?” The Frenchman smacked his palm down hard on the table. “I’ll give you your nothing! For twenty-seven years no one has dared defile this house by speaking the name of Christian Deveaux, and now you come in here and speak of him to my daughter, my sweet little Cecilie, and then claim you’ve done nothing!”

“You know of the man, then?” asked Josh excitedly. “You remember him and—”

“I can never forget the black-hearted bastard of the devil, and for that reason alone you will never be welcome again in this house.” Noire spat contemptuously on the floor beside Josh. “Now get out, before my friends here toss you into the gutter where you belong.”

Instinctively Josh’s hands tightened to fists at his sides as his gaze shifted from Noire to the men who had come to stand behind him, fishermen and other mariners, some already with long-bladed knives in their hands and all of them spoiling for a fight.

Young though he was, Josh knew well enough that the line between being a hero and a fool could often be as fine as a hair. To walk away now went against every fiber of his being, but what good could he do for Jerusa if he let himself be carved to bits by a pack of ravening Frenchmen for the sake of his pride?

But if he had to leave, he could at least do it on his terms, not theirs. Measuring his motions so as not to startle them, Josh reached for the tankard and emptied it. Slowly, he reached into his pocket for a handful of sous to pay for what little he’d had the chance to drink and eat, and dropped the coins rattling onto the table. With all the bravado he could muster, he then walked directly through the little crowd of Frenchmen to the door. His head high, he did not deign to watch his own back, nor did he threaten or scowl at the men who were driving him away, and when he finally stepped out into the street unharmed, he managed to keep his sigh of relief to himself.

But when on an impulse Josh couldn’t explain he turned at the corner of the street to look back at the tavern, it was Ceci he saw in the second-floor window, her face small and sorrowful as she peeked from behind the louvered blue shutter.

And despite her father’s threats, he knew he would return.

“Shove off, Dayton,” roared the Tiger’s bosun. “Shove off now! That is if ye still bloody well can without topplin’ on yer pickled arse!”

Sitting in the boat’s stern sheets, Josh bit back his own reprimand and tried instead to look grimly above such tomfoolery, the way a captain should. No matter how many insults were bellowed at Dayton, the man was still so blissfully drunk on cheap Martinique rum that it was a wonder he could stand at all, let alone push the boat free of the shallows and into the deeper water.

And Dayton had supposedly been with the boat the whole evening; God only knew in what condition Josh would find the men he’d granted shore leave. He’d chosen his crew for this voyage carefully, looking for men with a reputation for sobriety, but St-Pierre was the kind of overripe, indolent place that could tempt a Quaker, let alone an idle seaman. Josh shook his head and felt in his coat pocket for his pipe and tobacco. One more reason to find his sister as soon as he could, before every last man became a hopeless sot.