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

“Monsieur Meunier!” she called. “I am Mademoiselle Cecilie Noire, and I have come with my friend to speak with you. Do not dare to fire at us again, or I shall tell everything to your friend Claude Boulanger!”

“As if Boulanger would give a shake about what I do!” Miller had come out onto his porch, the musket still in his hands. Cowering behind him was a very young black woman with her apron pressed to her mouth in fear and two small mulatto children shrinking behind her skirts. “Who’s the man what came with you, Miss Cecilie?”

From the man’s voice Josh guessed he was not only English but from New England, as well, and he wondered again how he’d come to serve under Deveaux. But English or not, Miller kept the musket raised to his eye, and obscuring his face, and with a prayer that his next step wouldn’t be his last, Joshua stepped from behind the palm’s shelter to stand beside Ceci.

“I’m Captain Joshua Sparhawk of the sloop Tiger, Newport, Rhode Island,” he called, “and I’ve come here to ask for your help.”

“Damn your eyes!” the man shouted back. “Why the hell would the son of Gabriel Sparhawk need help from me?”

“If you know my father, then you know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need it.” He’d also know better than to keep a Sparhawk waiting, thought Joshua as his temper simmered. “But I’m not going to say another blasted word until you put down that gun and stop roaring at us like some penny-poor bosun’s mate!”

With an oath, Miller set the butt of the musket down on the porch with a thump. “Then come aboard, Cap’n, and we’ll talk.”

Ten minutes later they were seated in reed chairs on the porch as Cyrillia, Miller’s wife, served them mabiyage, white rum mixed with root beer. Josh’s guess had been right: Miller had been born on the Kennebec River some sixty years before, and patiently Josh first answered all his questions about politics in Boston and Portsmouth before he finally told him why he and Ceci had come.

“Took your sister, did they?” said Miller, shaking his head. He was nearly bald, compensating with a gray-streaked beard that hung nearly to his waist. “That’s bad, Cap’n, very bad indeed. But I don’t think it’s the work of Deveaux’s people.”

He draped his beard over his left shoulder and pulled up his shirt to point to a faded black fleur de lis branded into his chest.

“Look close at that, Cap’n, for it’s the only one you’ll see in this life,” he said proudly. “I’m the last of the Chasseur’s crew, and that’s a cold, hard fact. Them that didn’t drown when the Chasseur went down was strung up at Bridgetown. Your pa saw to that, Cap’n, swore his word against every last man.”

He winked broadly. “Well, now, not quite every last man, or I wouldn’t be here now, would I?”

“You were not guilty, monsieur?” asked Ceci innocently, bouncing one of the little boys on her knee.

“Nay, lass, let’s just say I found another berth before the trial,” he said, and winked again before he turned back to Josh. “But this business about your sister, Cap’n. I can’t find the sense to it. You know I’m not behind it. There’s a score of fellows in St-Pierre who’ll swear I haven’t left this island in twenty years.”

Josh sighed, believing him. Whatever wickedness Miller had done in his youth, he clearly wasn’t inclined that way now. “Can you think of anyone else who might have worked for Deveaux? On his lands or in his house?”

Miller thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Nay, you’ll find nothing there. Cap’n Deveaux liked slaves on account of not having to pay them wages. He weren’t particular. Africans or white folks he’d captured, ‘twas all the same to him. But you won’t find none of them now, leastways not coming clear up to Newport to steal your sister.”

Josh sighed again, his frustration growing. The last thing he wanted was to return to his father empty-handed. Miller was his last hope. But where the devil could Rusa be?

“Is there no one else, Miller?” he asked. “A sister or brother, a widow or mistress?”

From the corner of his eye he saw how Ceci stiffened, and he promised himself to apologize to her later. He wouldn’t have asked the question before her if he hadn’t been so desperate.

“Mistresses? Cap’n Deveaux?” Miller laughed uneasily, glancing at Ceci and his wife. “Ah, Cap’n, surely you’ve heard about him and the women. He was as fine a sailor as any afloat, and the coolest man you’ve ever seen in a fight, but with women things were never right, if you con my meaning.”

But Josh wasn’t sure he did. “There were that many?”

“Nay, Cap’n, it weren’t the numbers of ladies, though there were a sight more’n I ever had in my bed, to be sure. It was how he treated them that wasn’t decent. He had strange ways of taking his pleasure, Cap’n, and—well, there were plenty of stories that don’t bear repeating now. But there weren’t no love in it, and no kindness, neither. I wouldn’t guess there’s any of them ladies now who’d think too kind of that Frenchman’s memory.”

“But that could be reason enough for them to act in his name,” said Josh slowly. “Can you recall any of their names, and if they still live on the island?”

Miller chuckled nervously. “Oh, Cap’n, it’s been almost thirty years now, and most of them ladies never was with him long enough for us to learn their names. I expect most of them are dead now, too, or wish they were. One of the last was like that, a pretty little thing when he first brung her to the house, but mad as a hare by the time he’d tired of her, right before the end.”

Josh saw how Ceci was sitting on the very edge of her chair, her hand twisting anxiously in her lap and her eyes enormous, and he wished now he’d spoken to Miller alone.

“S’il vous plaît, monsieur,” she said in a tiny, nervous voice. “If you please, do you recall that lady’s name?”

“Oh, aye, that one I do, on account of having her pointed out to me in her carriage. We thought she’d died in the fire, but up she popped years later, living grand in a house her son bought her. Still mad as they come, she is, and the son’s too much like his pa for comfort, but then, there’s all sorts in this world and likely the next, as well.”

“Her name, monsieur?” begged Ceci again. “The lady’s name?”

“Antoinette Géricault,” Miller said promptly. “Lives in a house in the Rue Roseau.”

Ceci leapt to her feet, her eyes shining. “Merci, monsieur, a thousand thanks!” she cried as she turned to Josh. “Is this not wonderful news, mon cher? My aunt still lives, and I have a cousin, too!”

“It may be more wonderful still, if you can wait a moment longer.” Lightly he rested a restraining hand across her shoulders. “You said the lady’s son is too much like the father. Do you know the man?”

“I thought I’d made that clear enough.” Miller looked sheepish. “He’s Deveaux’s bastard, of course. Michel Géricault. You’ve only to look him in the face to see it, and to hear the gossip, too.”

Michel Géricault. Josh nodded, certain this was one name he wouldn’t forget. He’d stake his life that Géricault was the man who had his sister. No, more than that: he was staking Jerusa’s life, too.

And he’d pray to God he was right.

“Such wonderful news!” sighed Ceci happily yet again as they left the boat at the wharf. “Such wonderful news for us both, Josh!”

More realistic, Josh merely patted her hand. As useful as it was, learning Géricault’s name was only the beginning of what he and his father must still do to find Jerusa.